THE -*PROPPER CHAPPELL" OF DEBITESD. BnLT IS 1:G.i.

MEMORIALS OF OLD BIRMINGHAM.

Mtn anfc Jiame0;

FOUfVDBRS, P!EE!nOLBBBX, AND IfVDWELLERS,

FROJL THE THIRTEENTH TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

WITH PAXFICULARS AS TO

iest Cjmrrjr 0f % §Ufffrnratbn:

Built mtf (Ktttiofoefc in

FEOB OEIGINAL AND tTHPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS.

IJY

TOULMIN SMITH,OF LINCOLN'S INN, ESQUIRE, BAXRISTER-AT-LAW,

BBLLOTV OF TIIE ROTAL BOCIETT OB NORTHERN ANTIQUARIES (COPENHACIEN).

" Lct thcm be well used j for they nre the abstrnct and brief chronicles of the time."Hamlet.

With Illustrations and Faesimiles.

BIRMINGJ3.AR.I: :W.ALTER J. SACEETT, 11, BULL STREET.

LONDON: JOHN BUSSELL SMITH, 36, SOH0 SQUARE.

1864.

JOHN EDWAKD T4.TL0B, PBINTBB, ,

LITTLE QUEBN STREET, 7XNCOLN'S INN FIELDB.

PREFACE.

TWO of the best books in the English language, on subjectsof general interest, grew up out of notes upon obscurevillages. SELBORNE, whence arose WHITE'S charming ‘‘Nu-tzcral lfistory of SeZ6orne," lies in a corner of Hampshire:AMBROSDEN, whciice arose KENNETT'S learned " Pu~ocJ&lA?zztiqziitks," lies in Osfordshire. The reason why these aregood books, is plain. ’ Each of the authors, instead of‘ deal-ing in speculative generalities, took note of what n7as beforehim, and followed up his observations on these actual thingsof real life as far as he was able. There is a vaguenessabout the consideration of general principles: but ~17hengeneral principles are fwnd applied to instances in life andaction, they remain no longer vague: they become under-stood, as an actual part of the world's living existence, or ofa nation's growth, strength, and well-being.

It is from this point of view that the following pages havebeen written. Birmingham is not a little village, but a largetown. It has grown to be a large town during the course ofmany centuries, and through the influence of that tone ofniind which springs from the character of old English Insti-tutions. What is here put together, arising out of vhat hasbeen done in Birmingham, illustrates equally the action of

i v PREFACE.

old English Institutions throughout all England. Thoughits ininiediate subject is local, therefore, its interest and all-plication are general. The facts here collected touchingtransactions in Wyclif‘s time, add to the general interest ofthe subject.

The same is true of the illustrations given of the growth ofEnglish Surnames. Real men and women are here grouped,instead of speculative theories on the origin of names.

Let it not be supposed that this work pretends to be aHistory of Birmingham, even for the times it touches on.In " Traditions of The Old Crown House " and in this work,I have illustrated some important events in the early historyof the Town, not before examined. But a " History of Bir-mingham" remains to be written. I have been requcsted toundertake that task; and, if Health and Time permit, I shall,in all lilrelihoocl, essay it. Renewing now my aclmo.vvledg-nients for the assistance cordially given me by all (save one)with x7h0131 I ha~7e had occasion to communicate while pre-paying this vork, I hope that, should I proceed with the" History of Birmingham," I may invoke the help, for that~ork, which so many representatives of old families in thetown are able to give.

The Facsimiles at the end of this ~ork are done in photo-Zitlqruphy, and have been executed by Messrs. Day andSon.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGR

Tlie Pedigree of Places, and of Persons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

The " Mark " of Birmingham (!

The Spirit of English Institutions ........................................... 9:

TheRecords of England ........................... ................._............. 110

" Proper " nameE .................................................................. 11

Sources of Suraames .......................................................... ............ 12

Changes in spelling, e tc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . r , j 4 lv],

" Biriningliam," as a Surname... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . r 7

Endowment of the Priory, A.D. 1285 ........................................... L9

Ownership of Land, and its obligations ..................................... 20

Meaning of " Mortmain " ” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Licence in M o r t m a i n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2%

The Writ " ad quod damnui n ”.......................................... 2&

The Prior's Paidon, A.D. 1 3 1 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Birmingham benefactors, A.D. 1285-1310 2ft

What is the King's Power 29'

Thc feudal system, and En f r e e h o l d e r s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Classes of old Birmingham freeholders ............................... 32;

Founders of Chauntrics, CLD. 1330, 134 .7...................... 35,

The Deyseer, of Birmingham ...................................................... 31

Patronymics ............................................................... 39

Foundation in the "Free Chapel," A.D. 1350 40

Piers Plowman and John Wyclif 43

The first Church of the Eeformation 47

Choice of the site ...................................................................$9, 49

VI TABLE OF CONTENTS.

r.vc.n

The new Church begun, A.D. 1375 ................................... 51

Appointing a Chaplain .................................................................... 53

Agreement between the men of Deritend a id the i\Ionlts of Tylceford,

A.D. 1381 53

The Original Agreement, with Translation .......................... 54

Robert 0' the Grene ..,..,............................................ 61

Licence in Mortmain for the endowment of the Chaplain of Deritend,

A.D. 1383 64

es in names GO

The Deer-gate-enc l ”............................................ 70

A new endowment 72

Modern " Faculties " 73

Old free seats and modern pev r e n t s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

The Borough of Birmingham, and the Gild of the Holy Cross, A.D. 1392 ... 76

Affray of Beauchamp against Burdet, A.D. 1431 SO

Illustrations from old Charters, A.D. 1401 to 1569 ......... 82

Lease from Edward Birmingham to John Prety, A.D. 1532 89

Fate of the W e e Chapel" 90

Nusical Birmingham in A.D. 155‘2 91

Tenants and tenancies of the Lord of Birmingham, A.D. 1636-15 15 (32

Tenants and tenancies of the Gild of Deritend, A.D. 1547 ..*. 95

Tenants and tenancies of the " Pree Chapel," A.D. 1547 9G

Tenants of the two Chauntries, A.D. 1547 .................................... 97

Tenants and tenancies of the Gild of the H Cross, A.D. 1547 ........... 97

Old Streets and their i n d w e l l e r s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

The Gild Hall, and its Officers ....................................................... 100

Birmingham past, present, and futurc .............................................. 101

LYDEX OF NAMES ] 03

MEN AND NAMESOB

OLD BIRMINGHAM.

THE ancestry of a PLACE is a very different thing from theancestry of a PERSON. TO parade the latter before theworld in long pedigrees and particulars, is but vanity: tounravel the former, or make it better understood, is a workof general usefulness. The number of truly great menthat have lived in the world, is not very large; but thegrowth and greatness of nations are marked in, and be-come best understood by tracing, the growth of the separategroups of men who have lived and flourished there fromtime to time.

The quaintly-gabled houses and narrow streets that clusterround the Cathedral of an old but now unenterprising City,have a story of their own to tell; and the rambling rows ofdwellings that, near the crumbling malls of what m7as once aStronghold, formed, not long ago, the " burgage tenures " ofa decaying Borough, have also their own story to tell. Eachstory will be interesting and instructive, though the one willbe very different from the other. But there are towns thathave neither Cathedral nor Strong-hold, and haye never had

B

6 BIRhIINGHARI AN ANCIENT "RIARIL”

either of these, but which yet have a story to tell that is notless interesting and not less instructive than either of theothers. There are towns whose beginnings are hoary withage; which have not been lifted, by factitious accident, intoa sudden greatness that has remained stationary, or has de-cayed avay; but which have gone on, from solid beginnings,steadily growing and prospering, and are now aniong thebest-lmom centres of intelligence, industry, and indepen-dence, in the country ; and therefore are the best safeguardsto the State.

Such a town is Birmingham. The history of its great an-tiquity, and of the people who founded it, is told in its veryname.* It inay not have sent forth any man of such indi-vidual great.ness that his name dazzles the inquirer, and is

* " 'Hiim' is the most sacred, tlie most intimately felt, of all the words by whichthe dwellings of men are distingnished. I t is of such antiquity as to have becomeanomalous in some of its grammatical relations; and it is the word peculiarlydevoted in the heathen mythology of the North to denote the earth inhabitedby men." (6Codex diplorntcticics Bv)i Xaxoaici,' tom. iii., Preface, p ixxviii.)" This word [hfim], as well as the feeling of which it is the symbol, was broughtacross the ocean by the [North] Teutonic colonists, and it is the most precious ofall the gifts for which we thank them." (Taylor's ' Words and Places,' p. 131.)'' The people who believe in Heroes, originally gods and always god-born, pre-serve a remembrance of their ancient deities in the gentile names by which them-selves are distinguished, long after the rites they once paid to their divinitieshave fallen into disuse; and it is this record of beings once hallowed, and a cultonce offered, vhich they have bequeathed to us in many of the now unintelligiblenames of the MARES :"—" great family unions, comprising households of variousdegrees of realth, rank, and authority: some, in direct descent from the com-mon ancestors, or from the hero of the particular tribe; others, niore distantlyconnected, through the natural result of increasing population, which multipliesindeed the members of the family, but removes them at every step further fromthe original stock ; aome, admitted into communion by marriage, others byadoption, others even by emancipation: but all recognizing a brotherhood, akinsmanship or sibsceaft; all standing together as one unit in respect of othersimilar conimunities ; all governed by the same judges, and led by the same cap-tains ; all sharing in the same religious rites; and all known to themselvesand to their neighbours by one general name." " The following patronymicalnames I believe to be those of ancient Marks, . . . [among otAeys] Beor-mingas:— Birmingham, Ta~.zu." (Xemble's ' S’ci’((.roizs in Zngtand,' Vol. I . pp. 66,&l, 449, 457.)

THE PRESENT, BORN OF THE PAST. 7

likely to divert him from looking at the story of the placeinto wandering among the pedigrees of a person. But thePlace has a pedigree which it concerns all wlio are now partof it to know. Whatever Birmingham man pretends to de-spise this pedigree, is little likely to do any honour to thetown.

The science of to-day is founded on the science of yester-day, and that of yesterday rests on earlier steps, each troddenin its day. dnd the science of to-day cannot be truly under-stood escept by tracing those earlier steps. Only the char-latan pretends to a sudden revelation of new science. -4ndit is the same with human society, in the complex forms ofit that come before the eye in such an abode of activity asBirmingham. Peoples and towns have grown to what theynre from what they ltaue been: they ome to the teinper andspirit and energy, or the lack of these, moving the indwellerswho have gone before them, the opportunity, or the lack ofopportunity, that there now is, to show the temper and spiritand energy that live within themselves. There has beena past; there has been a growth; there is yet more grovth,or else decay, to come. What manner of men they werewho lived in that past, what their habits mere, and whatmere the institutions that they grew up among and toolstheir part in, it concerns all to know 117ho would hope thatthe " to come " shall be one of " growth " and not one of" decay." He who would speak shame-facedly of his owntown, or would seek to disavow what he and his fathers haveowed to it, as a Place haviizg a Pedigree, shows the absence ofthat nioral sense and that tone of mind from which alonePATXIOTISM springs.

The use of antiquarian studies is, to make the past liveagain before the eye, and thus to re-animate the links ofhuman life. The mere collecting of scraps and cataloguingof curiosities, without such an aim, is but time wasted in

B 2

8 NAMES AND PLACES.

the heaping up of dust and rubbish. What I now proposeis, to put together a few links in the chain of the Pedigreeof Birmingham. I take links that have a natural connectionwith one another, and which throw light upon what, whileit is of general interest to all the town, mill be found to havealso a special personal interest to many.

Men whose names we know not, can have but a hazy ex-istence in the most vivid imagination. There were bra17emen before Agamemnon ; but we lmow Agamemnon, whilethe others have, for us, no existence. I propose to re-peoplethe Birmingham of the olden time ; and to make some of themen and women who lived in it known to the men and women.of to-clay, very many of whom are the lineal offspring ofthose old worthies whom I shall now recall. For I am notabout to fill Birmingham with imaginary people. The menand the names that I shall bring up were, every one of them,once aIive in and a part of Birmingham. They are, all ofthem, among those recorded either in the ancient documentsthat have come to me from my own forefathers, Birminghammen, or in what I have myself found while searching amongthe national Records of England.

There is an intimate connection between Men and theirNames, in reference to the Places where the same Names are,through generation after generation, often found; while thecircumstances under which the Names have come to be re-corded, and the changes which those Names have oftenundergone, bring before us a picture of the manners and in.stitutions that prevailed in the days when, from time to time,those Men lived and bore those Names.

The means of knowing the men and the names thatflourished in past times, are to be found much more fully inEngland than in any other country; and the reason why thisis so, is itself very significant. It arises out of the essentialcharacteristics of true English Institutions.

" RESPECTABLE " MEN. 9

The universal spirit and the living breath of all the Insti-tutions lmown and cherished from the earliest times by theCommon Law of England, before empirical Acts of Parlia-ment became the ever-changing fashion, were the principles,that every man is an item in the State ; finds his place in itas a member of the community wherein he dwells; and haspositive duties to fulfil towards it, in that community, as hiscontribution to that common good of which, as an item in theState, he enjoys the benefits. The practical basis on whichthose active Institutions rested was, that the men of a neigh-bourhood must know their own business better than any oneelse can know it; and that they will themselves more honestlytry to do, and will assuredly in the end more successfully do,their own business, than any one else can do it. But the con-dition, rightly and rigorously enforced so long as constitutionalprinciples were duly respected, was, that the business must bedone; it must not be shirked. Selfishness and slothfulnesshad no prerogatives allowed them, and no worshipful placewas .found for them, under such Institutions. The display ofthese characteristics had to wait for the modern costly devicesof governing by centralized Bureaus, Commissioners, and In-spectors, before it could get even covered with a conventional

varnish of " respectability." While those Institutions wereactive, every man lived with the habit, as a regular and es-sential part of his life, of taking his share in the business ofhis neighbourhood. He grew up with a daily growing how-ledge of his duties and responsibilities; and passed throughlife in the practice of these as a part of his business which heneither sought to shirk, nor would it have been "respectable "for him to shirk. It was not necessary, then, for any Jacob towrite ‘‘Letters to respectable men;"* for true respectability

* " Punch " is a periodical that has been able to last through many years inLondon, because it struck the vein, not of low joking, but of genuine humour.Several imitations of " Punch. " have been started, but none of them have ay-

1 0 RECORDS OP ENGLAND.

—Zczc-zuo?$hi?zess, to use the good old word—can only consistin the fulfilment, by every man, of his duties to his neighbour,his neighbourhood, and his country. The education of menwas thus true and constant, and not merely superficial anddelusive. They learned what they themselves would have todo, as real items in the State and responsible members oftheir own neighbourhood, from the habitual practice whichwas seen before their eyes throughout their childhood andyouth and till their o m time came.

Happily, it was an incident to this thoroughly practicalsystem of true education, life, and citizenship, t .ht not onlyv7as the business of each neighbourhood done, and well done,but that, in every place where it was done, what was donewas carefully recorded. In many cases, the names of thosewho were the doers were also always recorded. The eiior-mous mass of these Records that have been kept safely clownto ow own day, cannot be conceived of by those who have paidno attention to the subject. It was truly said, more thantwo hundred years ago, that these Records are " the iichestPearls, Treasures, and Jewels of the Nation."

These Records reach from long before the time of Domes-day Book; Domesday Book is one, and a highly interestingone, among them; but their variety is very great, and their

proached their original. The " Torn Crier " of Birmingham is not an imitationof " Punch; " and it has thorouglily deserved the success which it has achieved.It often displays a true humour ant1 an ability surpassing even those of " Punch"in its best days. I have no Imorledge whatever who may be the writer of a seriesof Pupcra that have appeared in the " Town Crier," under the title of " Jacob'sLetters to ' ?*e.yectuhZe men';" but those papers are equally excellent in purpose andin tone. Under the growing and most pave evil in Englalid, of indifference tothe duties that every man owes to his neighbourhood, and so to the State, theseletters can hardly fail to arrest the attention of those Birmingham men and fu-then whose indifference is the result, rather of that spread and increase of uncon-s cious ignorance which have followed upon the mischievous course of much modernlegislation, than of the criminal omission, quite equal in piI t to criminal comniis-&on, which is the quality and only true description of any man's conscious ancldeliborate indifference to public duties.

"PROPER" NAMES. 1 1

special subjects are innumerable. A few have been printed;an incomparably greater mass remains in manuscript. Avery large and invaluable quantity of them is collected inthe Public Record Office; but great quantities still remainin other Public and also in many Private collections. TheRolls of Shires, of Hundreds, of Cities and Boroughs, ofCourts of Law, of‘ Manor Courts, of Parishes, of Tasation,of Inquiries made on special occasions :—all these, and manyothers that it would be tedious to enumerate, tell us the menand the names that have lived in England, and have kept theinheritance safe for us, through many centuries. In additionto these, a very rich mass of Records, giving the like infor-mation in other ways, lies hidden in the older class of Deedsor " Charters; " which, being done in the sight of the openand regular assembly of those who had come together tofulfil their duties to their neighbourhood, have always severalnames recorded at the foot of the Deed or Charter itself, orof the indorsed record of the actual delivery of the property,as witnesses to the transaction. This class of Records re-mains chiefly in private hands.

In order that the Men of whom I am about to speak maynot be hidden, instead of being identified, by the Names re-corded, it is necessary to say a few words as to horn Englishsurnames have arisen, and horn they may be traced.

The fore-name, christened, or " Christian " name, is the" proper" name of a man or woman. Surnames are ofmuch later introduction; and, being liable to be changedat will, are of inferior authenticity. " It is requisite thatspecial heed be taken to the name of baptism; for that aman cannot have two names of baptism, as he may havediTrers surnames. . . . A man may have divers names [i. e.surnames] at divers times, but not divers Christian names."*

* Coke upon Littleton, 3 (a). Bee also Lord Coke's Pourth Institute, p. 5.A very ridiculous attempt was made in 186$ by a certain Lord Lieutenant of a

1 2 SOURCES OF SUR;NARIEG.

Szwnmzes, adopted at first merely for the sake of furtherdistinguishing individual men, only become PanziZy nameswhen they have been used as " names of continuance " in thesame family through more than one generhon.

Surnames became originally added on to men's " proper "names,—

(1) From the place whence they came, or where theylived: and of this class there are two distinct kinds; the one(a) being the names of towns or other territoiial lsnownplaces; the other (6) being names taken from the particularspot or thing in or near to which the person dwelt,—as ahomestead, a wood, a river, a well, a church, a moor, a green,a tree, etc. etc.

(2) From an office held, or trade or occupation engaged in.(3) From the name of the father, either whole or short-

ened, and with some addition or change marking the sur-name as a patronymic. This sort of surname is much morenumerous than might, at first sight, be suspected.*

County, to prevent a gentleman from using his right to change his surname.Of course the attempt failed. The subject was treated of by me, with manyillustrations, in the ' ParZiammtary Rememhrancer,' vol. vi. pp. 48-50.

* So many names, not commonly suspected to have such an origin, spring fromthis source, that it will be instructive to quote the following from Verstegan's" Restitution of decayed intelligence " (1634, p. 307), though the list thus givenis by no means complete." Of the proper name of Alexander, commeth the sirnames of Saunders, and

Elaultderson.Of Anchew, commeth Androws, and Anderson.Of Bartholomew, commeth Bat, Bats, and Batson.Of Christopher, commeth Xit, Xiis, and Eitson.Of David, commeth Dauis, Davison, Dawes, and Dawson.Of Edmusd, commeth Ehuns, and Edmunson.Of GiZbert, commeth Gibson and Gibbons.Of Henry, commeth Burris, Hurison, and as it seemeth Hawkins.Of John, commeth Johnwn, Jmkson, and Jenkinaon.Of Lawrence, commeth Larkin, and Lazcson.Of Nicholas, commeth Nicols, Nicolson, and Nicson.Of Peter, commeth Piers, Pierson, Peterson, Perkins, and Perkinsolt.Of Richard, commeth Richaidson, DDicks,Dicson, Dicl’cins, and Diclcinson.

NAMZS AM> "ADDITIONS." 1 3

(4) From some personal characteristic, either of body,mind, or habits.

(5) From a mere whimsical nickname, the humour ofwhich made it become attached to the man and his family.

Instances of all these sorts of surnames will be foundamong the men and names with which I shall re-people oldBirmingham.

In describing men in formal writings, now, it is usual toput after the name what is called the " addition ";—that is,.a statement of the place of dwelling, together with profession,trade, or position in life. It will have been seen that sur-names themselves were originally, in most cases, nothing elsethan such " additions;" and we shall be able to follow manysurnames from the time when they thus began, down tothe time when, the surnames having become fixed in fami-lies, a new " addition," in the modern sense, began to beused.

Some people imagine that the insertion of the little par-ticle " de " in a name is rather a fine thing, and sounds aris-tocratic. There cannot be a greater mistake. In point offact, such an insertion, if it had now any meaning, wouldshow that the family is of such mushroom origin that it hasnot yet even acquired any true surname. The " de " is merelythe Latin for " of," and was, naturally enough, often. used inold Latin documents, instead of the English word, in order totranslate the descriptive addition which had not yet becomea true surname. In many cases, however, the English par-

Of Rob&, commeth Roberts, Robins, Robinson, Hobkins, otherwise written Hop-7&s, and Hobson.

Of Royw, commeth Ho@es, Hodyeson, Hodyeskim, and Hodyekinson.Of Simon, commeth Simmes, Siqnpson, Simkins, and Simcocks.Of Thomas, commeth Tomson, Tomkins, and Tombinson.Of William, commeth Williams, WZiamson, Wizson, Wilkes, Wilkins, mZkin-

son, Wilcochs, and Zsilson.Of Walter, commeth Vats, Watsoit, Watkins, and Watkinsox, and like it is

that hereof also commeth Atkins and Atkinson."

14 DESCSIPTIVE PARTICLES.

ticle had become in such common use that a translation of itinto Latin was not thought of; and sometimes me find thata man of marked character would not allow his good Englishname to be thus distorted into Latin.

Intelligent readers would be rather astonished to find themere translated form " de " substituted for " of " by modernwriters mentioning such names as Florence of Worcester,TVilliam of Malmesbury, Gervase of Tilbury, Geoffry of Mori-mouth. And the boldest amender of the test of Shalcspearewould pause before putting "cle," in place of the Englishword, in the mouth of Sir William Lucy when he asks—

" Where is the great Blcides of the field,Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrenrsbury PCreated, for his rare success of arms,Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence,Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdua of Alton,Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,The thrice victorious Lord of Falconbridge P "*

The truth is, that the modern use of " de," in any Englishsurname, is a piece of very ridiculous and unmeaning affec-tation, and betokens only ignorance. No name can havebecome a true ,fumily surname till the mere descriptivepcwticle, whether English or translated into Latin, has beendropped. The particle marks it as a personal surname.

It; is necessary to bear in mind the changes of shape, aswell as those of spelling, that names have often undergone,while passing from a mere means of descriptive distinguish-ment into family surnames. These changes have been verycapricious, and have been going on through all times, evenup till our own day.

For example, there have been two families well lmovn inBirmingham and its neighbourhood in modern times, thcone called ‘‘Holte," the other ‘‘Attwood." Both names

* Henry VI., Part I., Act 4, Scene 7.

CHANGES OF SHAPE AND SPELLING, 1 5

sprang from local residence; the former being descriptive ofa man who liired near a small wood (and we have also theequivalent names " Littlewood " and " Smallwood"), and whowas therefore called " atte holte;" the latter being descrip-tive of a mm who lived near a. larger wood, and who wastherefore called " atte mood." In the one case, the particlewas by-and-by dropped, and the family surname became" Holte;" in the other case, the particle was run into onewith the latter word of the description, and the family sur-name became " Attwood."

There was, not long ago, a name of old standing in Bir-mingham, as " Eustin " or " Euston."* In the fourteenthyear of Icing Henry the Sixth (AD. 1436), an appeal ofmurder was brought, at Coventry, by Thomas Smyth, as bro-ther and heir of Richard Smyth, against Eichard Ruston andanother man. Ruston tried to get off, by pleading that hisname was Ruxton, and not Rzistoiz; to which Thomas Smythreplied, that he was as well liiiown by the name of Rziston asby that of Ruxton.

No name ought to be better Icno.crtn or more respected inEngland than that of the great Lawyer and Patriot, Sir Ecl-ward Colre, as the name is always now spelled (and whois generally called " Lord Coke"). Yet his name was com-moiily spelled by his contemporaries c‘Cook," and it appearsso spelled in Rushworth.+ On the other hand, the old War-

* See " Traditions of The Old Crown House," p. 28.t See, for example, the very memorable debate on the Petition of Right, record-

ed in Rushwortli, I . p. SGS ; in which the brave old man Coke, who had himselfbeen Speaker of the Honse of Commons, Lord Chief Justice of .England, andLord of the Treasury, besides being incomparably the greatest Lawyer that Eng-land ever produced, gave utterance, in words of dignity and firmness never sur-pmed, and it may be safely said neves equalled, within the walls of Parliament,to the noble declaration that,—-" SOVEREIUN POWER is no Pasliamentary word.In my opinion it weakens Nagna Ciiarta and all our Statutes: for they are ab-solute, without any saving of Sovereign Power; and, shall we now add it, we shallwealren the foundation of Law, and then the building must needs fall. Take weheed what we yield unto, Mqaa Cha?*ta is such a fellow that be will have no

1G FULLER ON NARIE-CHANGES.

wickshire name of "Broke," though still lingering in thatshape in one or two rare instances, has settled down into‘‘Brooke."*

But much greater changes than these have taken place,both in the whole shape of some surnames, and in the spell-ing of what is meant to stand for the same name. Thiscannot be better illustrated than by quoting the words of oldFuller :f—

" It is necessary to observe, that Sirnames of families have beenfrequently altered, some families deposing their old, and assumingnezc names, on several occasions; But chiefly for,

" 1. Concealment in time of Civil Wars. A name is a kind of facewhereby one is known; wherefore taking a false name is a%ad where-by men disguise themselves; and that lawfully enough, when not frau-dulently done to deceive others, but discreetly in danger, to securethemselves. Thus, during the contest 'twixt York and Lancaster,Cu&tgtoiz of Warwickshire took the name of Xndth; La Blimt thename of Qroke in Buckinghamshirej with many others.

" 2. For arivu,iacelrtent when adopted into an estatej as Newpovt thename of Huttoie in Northamptonshire; ThroclmortoG the name ofCclrew at Beddington in Surrey; as, long before, Westcoat the nameof Littleton in Staffordshire.

‘‘Besides, the same sirname, continued, hath been variously alteredin writing. E&, because time teacheth new orthography, alteringspelling as well as speakiizg. Secondly, the best Gewtlenzciz. ancientlymere not the best Scho7ars, and (minding matters of more moment)were somewhat too incurious in their names. Besides, writers in-grossing Deeds, mere not over-critical in spelling of names, knowingwell, where the person’ appeared the same, the simplicity of that agewould not fall out about ~r~is?aomsr.

"Lastly, ancient families have been often removed into several Coun-ties, where several writings follow the several pronunciations. . . .

Sovereign. If we grant this, by implication we give a, Sovereign Power aboveall these Laws. We must not admit of i t ; and to qualify it is impossible. Letus hold our privileges according to the Law." This Kas spoken in the House ofCommons on 17th May, 1628. See, further on, the Note f to p. 29.

* See " Traditions of The Old Crown House," p. 83.t " Worthies," p. 61 (ed. 1662).

"B1R.MINGHAM ’’ AS A SURNAME. 1 5

" Hence it is that the same name hath been so often disguised, untothe staggering of many, who have mistook them for different. , . .The name of Roper in Darbyshire, changed from ilfuswd to Rzcbm-sputhu, Rospeu~, Rouspee, Rooper, Roper. . . . However such diver-sity appeareth in the eye of others, I dare profess that I am delightedwith the prospect thereof."

Other changes in names took place through the habit, socommon some centuries ago, of writing with contracted marksin place of syllables. The places of the letters, too, haveoften got transposed; just as has been done in such familiarinstances of morcls in common use as "bird," instead of" brid;" " ask," instead of " acs."

The first men ancl names that will naturally be glanced atin connection with Birmingham, are those of the family thatwas, for many centuries, identified with the place, as residentmanorial Lords of the Borough of Birmingham and Deritend.And the history of the surname of this family, itself sup-plies us with several interesting lessons as to the identifi-cation of surnames, and gives strong caution against comingtoo hastily to conclusions, even from actual and undoubtedRecords.

I t would, at first sight, be naturally concluded that a namerecorded with prominence as " William " or " Walter" deBirminy?$am, in an old Latin record, certainly treats of amember of this family. But the conclusion would be over-hasty. In the " Patent Roll" of 6 Edward IT. (A.D. 1313),there is a statement of facts as to an outrage done " at [apud]Birmingham," against "TValter of [del Birmingham." NoCounty is named, and it would seem beyond doubt that theplace meant is Birmingham in Warwickshire. Should ithappen, however, to the industrious inquirer to turn overthe "Fine Roll" of two years earlier, he will, if he iscareful enough, alight upon the record of a grant to " TValter

1 8 ccLITTLE BII:BIINGHABI."

of Eirmingham " of the Hiinclreds of North ancl South Er-pyngham in the County of Norfolk. And if, his attentionthus roused, he painfully prosecutes his search, he will find, incertain other Rolls, called " Coram rege Rolls," a completerecord of the outrage above named, and will learn that it wascommitted at " Litfle Bi~wiinyhnm" [L‘ apud parvam Bir-niingliani, ad mauerium domini Walteri cie Birmingham"],in the County of JTorfolX’.

On the other hand, the name " de Birmingham " may befouncl given to a man in the old Latin Records, and theplace meant may be Birmingham in Wnrviclrshire, and yetthe person have been no sort of relation to the family of themanorial Lords. Thus, I have found a record of a pardongranted, on the 10th Alarch, 1337, to " Roger the barber ofBirmingham" [Rorjero le barber de Birmynghani], as oneamong other prcloiis granted after thc political disturbancesof that time.

Again, no one would dream that the name " Peter Dapifcr "disguises a distinguished nicinber of the family of the Bir-mingham manorial Lords. Yet such is the case. In Ed-ward I.'s time, William of Birmingham, then manorial Lord,in a very important question then raised as to his rightswithin the Manor, himself described an ancestor of his bythis name of " Peter Dapife‘er : " the surname thus given beingmerely descriptive of an office held by Peter of Birmingham,who flourished in the twelfth century.

The game family illustrates the early use, ancl the gradualdropping, of the merely descriptive particle " of " (" cle " inthe Latin Recorcls), and the adoption of the place of abodeas a true " surname of coiitinuance." To test the estimationin which the family that made Birmingham its chief seatwas held, I have searched the " Patent Rolls " for the earliestCommissions that were ever made out in England, after thetime when two fresh " Conservators of the Peace " hacl becn

FOUNDERS, IN A.D. 1255. 19

added, by Act of Parliament, to the ancient Officers who ful-filled the duties of Conservators of the Peace. I find thatthe first Commission thus issued was dated Sth March, 1327 ;and iii that Commission the oiily two Conservators namedfor the County of TVar~ick are " T’illiam of Birmingham "and <‘John Murdak." This very plainly shows the positioiithen held by this family in the County. A few years later,when a fresh Act of Parliament had increased the numberof these Conservators (then first called " Justices of Peace ")to five, at the outside, of the " most worthy," I find, again,that, in the first Commission issued under the new Act, anddated 20th March, 1361, among the five names for TVarwick-shire, one is ‘‘Fulco of Birmingham." Twenty-one yearslater I find, in a Commission appointing the Justices of Peacefor the County of Warwick, dated 20th December, 1382, thetwo names " Thomas Birmingham " and " John Birmingham."So that, while the position of the family 1~”s thus plainlymaintainccl in the County, the descriptive particle " of"(" de " in the Latin) was now at length dropped, and " Bir-mingham " became, henceforth, the true family surname.

By what strange chance it befell that the surname of somebranches of the ‘‘Birmingham" family became distorted,through a process like what is described by Fuller, intoL‘Brindejone," I have elsewhere shown.”

In 1285, three persons gave lands for the endowment ofthe Hospital of St. Thomas [the Apostle] in Birmingham.These were, T€LOALAS OF MAIDENI-IACCHE, who gave ten acresof brushwood in Astoii; T’ILLIAW OF BIRIUINGHAAR, who alsopave ten acres of brushwood in Astoii; aid RANULPH OF

RUGBY, who gave three acres of land in Saltley. These factsare learned from a document that is found on the PatentRoll of the 14th year of Edward the First. It will be seenthat the surnames of all these three men are merely descrip-

* See " Traditions of The Old Crown House," pp. 53, 54.

2 0 OTTrNERSHIP OB LAND,

tive; the first of them being taken from a homestead ; the lasttwo being taken from the well-lcnomn Warwickshire toms.

The record thus reniaining on this Patent Roll, is the lastof a set of three documents that once existed, of which thetwo earlier ones have been lost. Nor is the loss surprising,for they were both written on small pieces of parchment, ofwhich the biggest was not larger than one of these pages.There was a third one, also separate, which had the greatseal of England attached to i t ; and it is of this third one thatthe document above quoted from the Patent Roll is a copy,preserved there as a permanent record of a matter that con-cerned the State.

In many cases, the first two in similar sets of triple recordsremain still in existence. Instances of this will presentlybe given. And in order that these, as well as the documentwhich will be next quoted, may be understood, it will bewell to explain, at once, the origin and meaning of such triplerecords. They give striking illustrations of the strengthand working of those Institutions of England the characterof which has already been stated.

The Common Law of England attached certain condiitiu?zsas inseparable from the holding of Land. Such a thing asirresponsible owfiership is absolutely unknown to the CommonLaw of England. Not only this:—it is entirely repugnantto the whole spirit of that Lan7. Those who sometimes talkof the " burdens on land " show, by the use of such a phrase,a strange want of knowledge of the history of English Insti-tutions and of English Law. Those Institutions and thatLaw, before modern empirical legislation began, never re-cognized a " right" or a " property " without the accompani-ment of a corresponding msponsi6ibiZity and obliyatioiz. To alllanded property was inseparably attached what was called,from the importance to the whole State of the matters in-cluded within it, the trinoda necessitas, a triple obligation

AND ITS OBLIGATIONS. 2 1

without which our fathers were unable to conceive of therightness of any pretence to the possession of land. Thistriple obligation was, Military Service, works for the Defenceof the realm, and the maintenance of I-Iighways and Bridge.,.But, besides these, which concern the State as a whole, otherobligations and services were attached to the possession ofland, which were of first-rate importance towards the working of the Institutions of the country. Among these were,the obligation to attend the Courts or assemblies where thebusiness of the neighbourhood was done, and to take part inthe business done there; to serve on juries; to make the pay-ments that became due at certain times and in certain events;and other things, some of which will be afterwards named.

The land itself was the security that all these obligationsand services should be faithfully discharged. Fines, andsometimes even forfeiture, followed in case of nonfulfilment.The original possessor of a large estate often granted part ofit to another man, able to discharge a proportionable shareof the obligations and services; sad the latter sometimesagain granted part of his thus acquired estate to a third man,with a proportionable share, again, of the obligations andservices. So far as the State m7as concerned, the fulfilmentof the obligations and services was looked for at the handsof the original possessor, or his representative, who wasdeemed to hold from the Crown (as representing the State).The others held from those, or their representatives, whomade grants to them, in as many several steps as there hadbeen several grants of parts of the original estate; eachgrantor, or his representative, being called, in the old Latinrecords, a "medius," or link in the chain of responsibility.+

* As my object, here, is simply to niake the origin of n~ortmain understood, Iput the above statement in the simplest way, without complicating it witheither the 33nd Chapter of the Magna Charta of Henry III . , the Statute of QuiuEmptore,s (18 Edaard I.), or any other. None of these affect the practical prin-ciple here touched on, or the conseyueiices thaL followed from its application.

U

22 THE "DEAD HAND."

I t will be seen at a glance, that this very simple but com-plete system for ensuing the fulfilment of men's obligationsand maintaining the institutions of the land in action, wouldbe broken in upon if any man were let grant away his land,or part of it, to a person or body which, from the nature of itsexistence, could not discharge all or some of the above-namedinseparable obligations and services ;—unless, indeed, it couldbe clearly shorn, that land enough remained to the grantorto guarantee the full discharge of the original obligationsand services by himself. Wow Corporate Bodies,* whetherlay or clerical, and all priests in their corporate capacity asholders of particular cure of souls, are, from the nature oftheir existence, unable to fulfil some of these obligations andservices. Consequently, the Common Law always held thatgrants made to either of these were absolutely void; becausethey were attempts to grant away land, mhich caii only beheld on the condition that well-known obligations and ser-vices shall be discharged by the Ziuiny haiad of a man, to acorporate Body or person which, being unable to dischargethese obligations, was, in so far as they were concerned, nobetter than a mere &ad hund (naort muin).

In some times of national strife, the Law had becomeevaded, and grants had been secretly made " in morf;-main,"that is, to some of these " dead hands." Early therefore inthe reign of Edward the First (A.D. 1279), the Law was for-mally and emphatically set forth again, in a declaratoryStatute.? After reciting that such grants had been tvrong-fully made, " without Licence of the Chief Lord of whomsuch FEES [i. e. lands held with the attached corndiitions] beholden immediately," and that " iherehy the #ervices that are

* Corporations may consist of one person or of many. In the former case, snclias the Crown, the Rector of a Parish, etc., it is called a L‘Corporation Sole;" inthe latter, it is more commonly distinguished a6 a U Corporate Body."

f I have fully shown the meaning and importance of " declaratory statutes "in my work on " Local Self Government," pp. 156, 254, 266.

LICENCE IN MORT-MAIN. 2 3

due of such fees, and which from the beginfiifig were providedfor ihe clt$eelxce of the Raalm, we wrongfidly withd~nw~i," thisstatute declares that, " if any person, religious or other," holdssuch aliened lands [that is, lands thus granted away], the im-mediate lord, whoever he be, may " enter into the land soaliened, within a year from the time of the alienation, andhold it in fee as an inheritance;" that, if this immediate lorddoes not thus enter into and take possession of the land, thenest immediate lord may enter into and take possession of it,within half a year after the yeay's close; and that the lightof thus entering and taking possession shall pass on andbelong to each " medius," one after the other, until, if no" medius " enters, the Crown may enter and take possession ;not to keep the land in the Icing's hands, however; for it isdeclared that he " shall infeoff others therein [i. e. dispose ofthe land as fees again], on the condition of certain services tobe done for us for the defence of our kingdom." Thus theoriginal purpose of making these " fees," as held " from thebeginning," would be restored and still kept alive.

It has been said that, if it could be shown that enoughland remained to the grantor to insure the discharge of hisobligations, the grant in mort-nzccin would not be against Law.But it was clearly necessary to guard this avenue to 1120~t-172ui1very carefully. The only w7ay in which legal proof could begiwn that such a state of things truly existed, was by theproduction of a formal express Licence from the chief lordof the " fee," who was the one most directly interested, per-sonally or in his representative capacity, in the due dischargeof those obligat.ions. The Crown, as representing the State,having, it has been seen, the ultimate power of entry uponlands so granted, no thorough security could be had unlesssuch a License had been obtained from the Crown. Andall Licenses so obtained mere recorded on the Patent Rolls,being matters that concerned the whole State. These Licenses

c 2

2 4 THE WRIT "AD QUOD DAMNUM,"

almost invariably begin, as might be expected, by referringto the general Law forbidding mortniain. The documentof 1285, which has led to these remarks, is such a " Licencein &lortmain."s

Such a Licence in Mortmain could not, hovever, be grantedat pleasure, or upon caprice. Fixed and regular preliminarysteps had to be taken; and what these were, deserves themost careful attention from all who value free institutions, orwish to understand them.

The first of these preliminary steps was, the issue of a Writto the Escheator?. of the County wherein the land lay,requiring him to summon a jury of twelve good and lam-worth 5 men of the neighbourhood, to inquire whether itmill be to any one's injury, and, if so, to whose injury, andhow, if the proposed grant be made.

This is the Writ called the Writ " ad pod dammim;"and whosoever thoroughly uiiderstands the nature of thiswrit, its meaning, working, and effect, will understand thefull spirit of the English Constitution, and will know moreof what the active motion of that spirit is than he willlearn from any number of formal treatises thereon.

Besides the simple inquiry shortly stated above, this juryhad to inquire in detail, ancl to record under their seals, what

* The first words of this License contain the clause referring to the generallaw, as above named. It may be interesting to quote the words, which are a8follows:—" Licet de communi consilio regni nostri providerimus quod non liceatviris religiosis seu aliis ingredi feodum alicujus ita quod ad mortuam manum de-venia-t sine licencia nostra et capitalis domini de quo res illa immediate tenetur." .

t The Escheator was a County Officer, appoinled chiefly for the purpose ofdoing what was necessary towards making Inquiries as to the descent and holdingof land.

$ " Legales." This is commonly translated " lawful," whicli is nonsense.The real meaning of the word is, the opposite of " outlaw; " that is, men in thefull enjoyment of all the rights of freemen which are guaranteed by lam. I t is Emost expressive word, thus truly translated. The phrase itself is found, in theseexact terms, in the ancient Anglo-Saxon charter of the City of London, ah tmit stands thus:—" eallra bma laga meor&?," i. e. "wad all tAc Z~WS."

A CONSTITUTIONAL SAFEGUARD. 2 5

" medius," or, if more than one, how many, existed between theintending grantors and the Crown; and, furthermore, whetherthe lands that would remain to the intending grantors, afterthe grant had been made, would be enough to secure the dis-charge of all the services, charges, and obligations of all kinds,the discharge of which was the condition under which theyheld their lands. If any of these services or obligations shouldbe escaped from, through the granting of any of the landin mortnzain, a heavier burden than before would of coursefall on other persons, and so the country would snffer. Theclosing words of the writ ad pod clamnum, put this witha very striking clearness. The inquiry was to be made intoall the particulars enumerated, " So that, by the grmt mdassignment aforesaid, tJwougJi dejatdt of [the grantors], ~JMCOTJNTRY mq. not be churyed or burdened more fhan has beeiawont."*

* I t will be useful to those who wish to understand this subject, to have anauthentic enumeration of some of the usual conditions under which every (‘fee"was held. I give, therefore, the esact words of ao much of one of these originalwrits ad puod damnum as marks out what inquiries were to be made; quotingfrom a writ that wiis issued for an inquiry in Birmingham in 1350.—" Dili-genter inquiratis si sit ad dampnum vel prejudicium nostrum aut aliorum siconcedamus [licenciam); et, si sit ad dampnum vel prejudioium nostrum autaliorum, tunc ad quod dampnum et quod prcjudicium nostrum et ad quoddampnum et ad quod prejudicium aliorum, et quorum, et qualiter, et quo mod0 ;et de quo vel de quibus teneantur [term, etc.], et per quod serviciam, et quai

liter, et quo modo, et quantum valeant per annum in omnibus exitibus juxtaverum valorem eorundem : et qui et qnot sunt medii inter nos et prefatos Pul.conem et Ricardum de messuagio et term predictis; et quae term et qumtenementa eisdem Fulconi et Eicardo remuneant ultra donacionem et assign&-cionem predictas, et ubi, et de quo vel de quibus teneantur, et per puod ser-vicium, et qualiter, et quo modo, et quantum valeant pc~ annum in omnibusexitibus; et si term et tenementa eisdem. F. et R. remanencia ultru donacionemet assignacionem predictas sqflciant ad consuetudines et servicia, tarn de pro-dictis mcssuagiis et twra sic datis, puam de aliis terris et tenementis si6i retmz-tis, debita, facienclum, et ad omnia alia oneru pue sustinuerunt et sustinere COl7-sueverunt—ut in sectis, visibus franci plegii, auxiliis, tallagiis, vigiliis, finibus,redempcionibus, amerciamentis, contribucionibus, et aliis quibuscunque oneribusemergentibus—sustinendunz, et quad iidem F. et B. in assisis, juratis, et aliisrecognicionibus quibuscunque, poni possint, prout ante donacionem et essigna-cionem predictas poni consueverunt: Ita pod PATAI.T, per duriacionein et assigna-

2 6 INQUIRY ESSENTIAL.

Upon this writ there followed the Inquiry. The result ofthat inquiry was embodied in a document wherein were alwaysrecorded the Ncimes of the good and law-worth Men by whomthe inquiry had been made. It is much to be regrettedthat the record of the inquiry held before the issue of theLicence in Mortmain of 1285 has been lost; for it wouldhave given us twelve more names of early Birmingham free-holders.

If this Inquiry showed that the grant would not be toany one's injury, and would not cause the evasion of anyobligations or services, nor the chxrging and burdening ofthe country more than had been wont, the " Licence in Mort-main " was issued. In some rare cases, explained by spe-cial circumstances, a conditional License was granted in thefirst instance; the condition being, that an Inquiry should beafterwards duly made, and that the case should be found onein which the Licence could be lawfully granted. But suchcases are so unusual that it would not have been necessaryto mention them here but that, in a memorable instancethat will presently be named, this form of Licence happensto have been what was asked for and obtained.

It follows from all this, that, if any land had been givenaway in mortnauzb to a corporate body or person, and hadbeen appropriated by that body or person, without the issueof the writ ad quod clumwcni and due inquiry made there-upon, there was a clistinct breach of the Law, and the landwas liable to be seized by the Crown at any time. The onlyway to get rid of this danger was, for those who held theland to obtain from the Crown a " Pardon."

Now it happened in Birmingham that, at the end of thethirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries, theexample that had been set by THOMAS OF MAIDENHACCHE,

cionempredictas, in ipsorum Futconis et Ricardi dflectum,magis solito non oneretwserc gravetur."

A PRIOR'S "PARDON." 2 7

WILLIAM OF BIRMINGHAM, and RANULPH OF RUGBY, was fol-

lowed by several neighbours, who added their contributionstowards the endowment of the Priory of St. Thomas theApostle. Most of these endowments were, individually, notlarge; and it was this fact, doubtless, that led to the over-sight of the Writ ad pod damnum, in each of the separatecases. But, put altogether, the amount of these endowmentswas large, and the risk of forfeiture became dangerous tothe Priory. So, just twenty-five years after the Licence inMortmain which has been already quoted, a " Pardon " wasobtained by the Prior of Birmingham, which is recorded onthe Patent Roll of the year 1310, and which enumeratesboth the givers and the gifts.

From this Pardon I now take the names of those Birming-ham men and women who thus, nearly six hundred yearsago, gave houses and lands and income out of their own sub-stance, towards the founding and endowing of the Priory ofBirmingham. At the same time, I state what it was thateach gave, in order that the sort of property then held in thetown may be better understood. The reader must, through-out, keep in mind the enormous difference in the valueof the same nominal amounts of money between that dayand this.

In this and the other cases that will follow, I give thespellings of the surnames, whether merely descriptive orhaving become true " surnames of continuance," as T findthem, inserting the modern form of the word betweenbrackets where any doubt seems likely to arise. The meredescriptive pa&kles I give in their English forms, where theyhave been translated into Latin in the original.* Whensuch a particle appears in its English form in the original

* The Latin tongue not possessing what we now mean by the grammatical" article," the degraded forms of ille, illa, are used to express the masculineand feminine of " the." Thus we find " le," " la," " de le," " de I&."

2 8 GIVERS AXD GIFTS.

record, I put [sic] after the surname. The description of thegifts made I translate in each case, and use the modern spelling.

GIVEXS, AND GIFTS MADE, TO THE PEIORPOF ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE, IN BIRMINGHA&!t,

BETWEEN A.D. 1255 AXD A.D. 1310.

JOHN OF SONERY, seven acres and one rood of land, in BordesIey.WILLIAN OF BURNINGEHAII, twenty-two acres of land and half an

acre of meadow, in Birmingham.ROGER THE NOUL, four acres of land in the same tom.GEOFFRY OF COFTON, one acro of la,nd in the same tom.WILLIAN CORBYN, half an acre of land in the same town.NICHOLAS IN TEE DALE, one acre of land in the same tmm.ROGER OF MAKYNTON, twelve-pence of rent in the same town.ROGER ATTE GATE, five-pence of rent in the same town.WILLIAII AYGNELET, six-pence of rent in the same town.WILLIAN JORI, six-pence of rent in the same tom.ALEXANDER THE MZRCER, six-pence of rent in the same town.WILLIAM OF DODESTON, six-pence of rent in the same town.ROGER THE NOUL, aforesaid, one acre of land and six-pence of rent

in Duddeston and Birmingham.HANON CISSOR [? CARVER], two shillings of rent in Birmingham.JOHN OF PAKYNTON, four-pence of rent in the same town.ROGER PREUST, two-pence of rent in the same town.RICHARD LUNBARD, two-pence of rent in the same town.EDITH, who was the wife of WARIN JORI, one penny of rent in the

same town.RALPH EOKDYN, six-pence of rent in the same town.ALEXANDER THE KENE, two-pence of rent in the same town.JOAN BAWE, a cottage in tho same town.WILLLAX TYCITO, a cottage in the same tom.RICHARD ATTE NASSHE [sic], a cottage in the same town.JOHN OF CLODESHALE, a cottage in the same town,XICHARD FOKERAN, a cottage in the same town.

LARRICE THE DAYE, a cottage in the same town.JOHN TEE CARPENTER, a cottage in the same town.WILLUM AYGNELET, a cottage in the same town.CRISTIANA TEE RAGGEDI, a cottage in the same town.

THE LAV AND THE IKlSG. 29

" NICHOLAS IN THE DALE, one acre and i half of land in Duddeston.WILLIAN OF THE SHAWE, one messuage and half a " virgate*" of

land in the same town.RALPH WONBESTRONG, four acres and one rood of land in Saltley.ROGER OP LITTLE BARRE, two acres and one rood of land in the

same town.SIXION OF ROKEBY [Rugby], half an acre of l a d in the same town.PETER ATTE BROKE [sic], four-peace of rent in Erdington.THONAS OX M~YDENHACHE, ten acres of land in Aston.

This " Pardon " bears the date of Berviclr-upon-Tweed, onthe 26th day of December, in the fourth year of Edward theSecond (1310). With that carefulness to keep within thelaw which so strikingly marks the proceedings found statedin our early records, before any one had dreamed of using thephrase " the King can do no vrong " in the preposterouslyinverted and unmeaning sense in which it is now often used,the operation of this Pardon is limited, by its own expressterms, to so far only as the King's power in the matteractually reached (" panturn in nobis est"). No pretence of" Prerogative Power " is set up.?

Two things will strike the reader upon looking at thesenames and gifts;—-mt, the great number of freeholders thatthis list, even taken alone, shows that there then were in Bir-mingham ; second, how few of the surnames had yet becometrue family surnames, or are other than merely descriptive.

* The "virgate" is the same as what is often found under the name of U yard-land." It is a variable quantity, ranging, in different places, from fifteen acresup to even forty. I have esplained the word in " The Parish," p. 612, note(second edition). What is meant in this case seems to be, the garden and pad-dock adjoining the messuage.• t See the Note5 b’efore, P. 16, for Lord Coke's own language. On a subject

that is of so much constitutional importance, it is well to give some further quo-tations, the spirit of which cannot be mistaken. " Though no manner of personor cause be unsubject unto the JLing'8 Power, yet so is the power of the King.over all, and in all limited, that unto all his proceedings the Law itself is a rde.The axioms of our regal government are these, Lexfacit regem—the King's grantof any favour made contrary to the Law is void: Rexnihil potest nisi pod &repotest, . . What power the Eing hath, he hath it by Law; the bounds and

30 THE FEUDAL SYSTERI,

As to the first point, it is so common a thing for political andsocial writers and talkers to assume a wholly imaginary stateof things, as having existed under what they call by the hazyname of " the feudal system," that when a reader comes, forthe first time, across a true picture of the past, such as hasnow been quoted, and others that m7ill presently follow, hemill naturally be puzzled. Writers of some pretensions eventell their readers that the Laws relating to land in Englandhave been framed, and are upheld "for the express pur-pose of keeping the land in the hands of a few proprietors;of depriving the peasants and small shop-keepers of any partof it, and of the influence which its possession confers; andof supporting a great proprietor class."* Such statements arebest answered by looking at the facts themselves, as foundby the actual records of the times, and as incidentally illus-trated by earlier writers, spealdng of their own times.

Sir John Fortescue was Lord Chief Justice of England, inthe time of Henry the Sixth. His celebrated work on the

limits of it are known. The entire community giveth general order, by Law, howall things publicly are to be done: and the Eing, as the Head thereof, thehighest in authority over all, causeth, according to the same Law, every particu-lar to be framed and ordered thereby. The whole Body Politic maketh Laws,which Laws gave power unto the Eing." (Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity,"pp. 446, 465 : ed. 1705). " He can do no wrong, saith the old maxim : that is,he can do nothing against the Lam; nor is anything to be judged for his benefitthat is not warranted by Law." (Lord Somers's " Security of Englishmen's Lives,"p. 66, ed. 1681). And Bracton, centuries earlier, had written, "Rex habet su-periorem, Deum: itemLegem, per quam factus estRex. . . Potestas itaque suajuris est, et non injuris;" and much more to the same effect. There is in Mat-thew Paris (p. 355, ed. l684), a picturesque account of the marriage of Henry

In., and of the carrying before him of the sword " Curtana," as a symbol of theconstitutional limits to the power of the Crown.

It is very necessary to c d attention to these things, at a time when books pre-tending to teach what the constitution of England is, actually lay it down that theCrown is above the Law, and when Members of Parliament listen in subservientsilence to Ministers who are continually sheltering their own misdoings underthe pretence of the " Prerogative of the Crown."

* This passage actually OCCUPS in Mr. Eay's work on " The Social Conditionof Europe," published in 1850. The same sort of thing is being constantlyassumed as a real statement of the present fitate of facts.

AND ENGLISH PREEHOLDERS. 3 1

Laws of England, is written in the form of a dialogue betweenhimself and the young Prince, which is represented to havebeen carried on during the exile of both in France. Ex-plaining to the Prince how it is that, in England, indepen-dent Juries are able to be put in action in whatever casearises in any part of the country, Fortescue says:-—" Thesame country [England] is so filled and replenished withlanded men, that therein so small a little hunalet cannot befound wherein dwelleth not a knight, an esquire, or sucha householder as is there commonly called a Franklin, en-riched with great possessions; and also other freeholdem, andmcmy yeomen having sufficient estate to nialre a jury in formaforementioned. . . . After this manner, oh! mighty prince,are none other realms of the world disposed and inhabited.For, though there be in them men of great power, of greatriches and possessions, yet they dwell not one nigh to another,as such great men do in England; neitlier so many inheritorsad possessors of land ure elsewhere us in England."*

It cannot be necessary to do more than refer to what issaid on the same subject by Lord Bacon, in his Essay " Ofthe true greatness of Kingdoms and Estates."

As to the Names of these old Birmingham freeholders,out of the thirty-three that are found in this " Pardon," notmore than eleven, at the outside, had then become true SUPnames, the rest remaining merely descriptive. Those elevenare, Corbyn, Aygnelet, Jori,? Cissor(?), Preust, Lumbard,Kokeyn,t Bawe, Tycito,? Folreram, and Wombestrong.

It is not my present purpose to go into the origin of everyname that is given. Space will not allow me to do morethan call attention to the manner in which different names

* I adopt here the translatiop published in 1672, except where the sense ofthe Latin original does not seem fully given.

t These names certainly, and probably others in this list, are found elsewherewith different spellings, but representing much the same sounds. See the extraatfrom Fuller, before, p. 16.

3 3 HOW TO IIESCRIBE A MAN.

illustrate the growth of surnames in England, and to the 17a-riety of forms in which some of these have come domn to us.

Of the above eleven names, Corbyiz remains to this dayin that shape : Ayyidet seems preserved to us under theseveral shapes of the place fiikleys, and the names Ingley,lizyull, Aybt, and dult, all lriiown in Birmingham: Joii seemsknown to us under thr disguise of JoZZy : Cissor, Pwzist, andLzcmbard, had probably not long lost their descriptive par-ticle ; the first being in fact the Latin w70rd for " Carver "(Scissor); and perhaps it ought to have been thus set downin the list; but, having no particle before it in the original,I have left it in the dignity of a true surname.* Preustis clearly " the Priest," and Lzcnzburd as clearly the " manfrom Lombardy." Bawe not improbably remains among usunder the varying forms Burrow and Barr.

Of the descriptive names that seem taken from territorialplaces, there are those fiom 8omey, Binninyhui~ Cofton,Zukyaton, Bzcddeston, Pukington, Ckodeslmle, Little Burr, andRugby. Of those taken from particular spots or things, thereare, Nichokcs in the dule, Roger utte gute, Richa~d aft8 nasshe,Willium oftheshuzue, peter utte broke, and Tl~omus n zuydelz-kucke. Of those taken from offices, trades, or occupations,there are, Alexulzder the mercer, John the curpenter, and pro-bably, as before said, .Hamon Cissor. There is not, amongthe number, one patronymic. But of names taken frompersonal characteristics, there are, Alemnder the Icefie, Clmicethe duye, and Cnk%xna the ruggede. Roger the mod (mole)is a nickname.

Some of these names deserve closer remark.The name Nicholas i.n the dub recalls the time when

" Every shepherd told his taleUnder the hawthorn, in the dale."

It is long since the hawthorn tree spread its green

* It stands on the same footing with " Dapifer:" see bcfore, p. 18.

DALES, WOODS, AND BROOKS. 3 3

boughs, ancl scented the air with its sweet May-flowers, inthe place whence this man took his name, and since theshepherd gathered his flock around him there, at sunrise,and told their number over, that he might be surely able toreport, at even-song, that the tale was right.* But the oldname by which the spot was known more than five hundredand fifty years ago in Birmingham, still lingers in " DaleEnd," and I shall show that there formerly stood there a"Dale Hall." The surname "Dale," the descriptive particlebeing dropped, remains a Birmingham surname.

The name Roger atfe gate is, in the Latin, " Eogerus adportam." He perhaps lived near to the gate whence " Der-gat-end " got its name.+ The names " Gates " and " Yates "still flourish, while " atte gate " has, in some parts of Eng-land, though I think not in Birmingham, drifted into thesurname " Agate." Richurd atte nasshe gives ,an instructiveillustration of how surnames get shape. This man or hisfather lived near an a& tree. The letter " n " was slippedin after U atte " and before " ash," for mere ease in soundingthe words, just as we use " an " instead of " a " before wordsbeginning with a vowel. So the descriptive name became" atte nasshe," according to the spelling of the time; and,when the particle was dropped, it became " Nash," whichremains a not uncommon surname. " Shaw " being anothername for a Wood, we have " of the shawe," in addition to'•' atte holte " and " atte wood." As in the case of " Holte,"the particle has here been dropped, and the name is nowknown as " Shaw." In the same way, " atte broke " has be-come " Brooke " and " Brooks." But " Attenbrook " also re-mains still known as an English surname.

* One who was a better artist than lingiiist, not long ago made the oddmistake of treating these two lines of Milton's ' L'hllegro' as if the allusion\rere to a love-tale mhispered by a shepherd to a maid, instead of being to theregular duty of the shepherd in his daily life.

t. See c" l’r~ditions of the Old Crown House," p. 45, note, See also on thissubject, Xotcs Iiereaftcr, OIi pages 71, 6%.

3 4 MEN AND WOMEN OF QUALITY.

The surnames " Mercer," " Carpenter," " Keen," andccKean," d l be immediately recognized as sprung fromothers in this list, the particle, as in other cases, havingbeen dropped. And the name " Mole" is a respectablemodern name, sprung, no doubt, from an ancestor whoseshortness of sight led to his getting the niclrname of " themole."

The two names Clurice the claye, and Ckstiaiza the mggede,give curious examples of surnames that have sprung fiompersonal characteristics. In the old Northern tongue, thereis the word " day

f’ and in the closely kindred Anglo-Sasonthere is the word " claag." Both have much the same originalmeaning, which is that of unreadiness of mind or dress. Theoriginal words and meaning are both still living among us, inthe words " daze " and " daggle." A person is " dazed," that is,bewildered; or " daggles," that is, shows untidiness in dress." Day " is a common ancl respectable Birmingham name now;but the particle has been dropped, and with it, no doubt,the qualities whence came the original descriptive name.The name of Cristicma the s.agyede needs no explanation. Inmodein times, the surnames " Wragge " and " Ragg " havedropped not only the foregoing particle but the last syllable,and so hardly remind us of the origin of the name.

It is worth notice here, that names derived from perso-nal characteristics and fancied resemblances to qualities ofanimals, were very common among all the Northern races.They often seem whimsical enough, but were soberly usedas means of distinguishment. I may quote the first lines ofpart of an old Northern saga to illustrate this common habit.Some of the surnames here stated run quite parallel withClarice the daye, Ctistianu the raggede, and Roger the moul.

" There was a man," says the saga, " named THOIED, whomarried F~IIDCERD, daughter of THORER THE IDLE. TI-IORN

’~(’5s son of BIZIARNI BUTTEETUB, grandson of BIARNI IRONSI~I‘:~,

FOUNDERS OF CBAUNTRXES. 3 5

son Of RAGNAR HAIRY-BREECHES [LOD-BROK]. THORD and

F~~IDGERD had a son named SNORXI, who married THORHILD

THE PARTRIDGE, daughter of THORD THE LOUD. They hada son named THORD HORSEHEAD."

The affair of the " Pardon " which has supplied us withthese relics of the Men and Names of Old Eirmingham, seemsto have made it thoroughly known to the freeholders of thetown, that it was unfitting to make any endowment withoutgoing through the regular course which the Law required.Less than twenty years after its date, WALTBR OF CLODES-

HALE, no doubt a son of the J O M OF CLODESHALE named inthe Pardon, set about founding a Chauntry and endowing apriest to perform daily service for the souls of himself andAgnes his wife in the old Church of St. Martin. This wasone of tv70 Chauntries established in Birmingham by the samefamily, and which were always afterwards known as the jystand second Chauntries. They were treated together by theCommissioners in Edmard the Sisth's time, and will be mostconveniently so treated now.

The $& of these two Chauntries was founded in 1330 byWALTEX OP CLODESHAZE : the secornd was founded in 1347 byRICHARD OF CLODESIIALE. The terms of the former founda-tion were, as usual, for the performance of daily service forthe souls of the founder, his wife, and their ancestors. Butthe terms of the latter foundation were peculiar. R I C H ~ D

<ys CLODESH~E seems not to have thought it a sufficientlyprofitable investment to take precautions for the state of hissoul hereafter: he wished to be comfortable in this world, aswell as to smoothen his course through purgatory. So theterms of his endowment are, for the performance of dailyservice " for the well-being of Richard himself and Alice hiswife, and for the souls of Richard and Alice when they havegone from this light" [pro salzc6ri statu ipsius Ricmdi et

36 GROUPS OF PBEEHOLUERS.

Blicie ztxoris ejtis, et aniiwbzis eoricm Ricudi et Alicie czim a6liac lzice entiymuerzcnt].

The Writ nd pod dnmzum for the foundation of the j%stchauntry, was issued on the 19th February, 1350 ; and theInquiry under it was held on the Friday nest after the feastof Saint Marlr the Evangelist (25th April) in the same year.The names of the freeholders who formed the jury for thisinquiry W€m,—\VLLLIAM VEIUTS;—JOHN CO~BPN;—JOHN ATTE

HOLT [sic];—JOHN THE PORTER;—~ILLIAM OF NEUPORT;—

THOMAS MARESCRAL ;—THOHFAS CORBPN ;—JOHN OF COLSULL ;

—ADAM OF PACKEWODE ;—JOIIN TIIE DEYSEER OF BLRJLINGHAHL ;

—JOHN THE FPCHELERE;—and, JVILLIAM THE RIEP.

The Writ ud pod dmnitz~m for the foundation of the se-cond chauntry ~7as issued on 2’7th April, 1347; and the In-quiry under it was held on 26th June in the same year. Thenames of the freeholders who formed the Jury for thisinquiry were,—HENRY &1ONYS;—JOIIN SON OF GILBERT;-—•

GEOPFRY MORYS;—ROBERT PAGE;—THOMAS SON OF JOHN;—

WILLIAM ~RN KPNGES;—WILLIAM COLEMON ;—JOHN PAR~~;—

WILLIAM SON OF MARGERY ;—JOHN BURGEYS ;—HENRY COLE-

&ION;—and, JOHN FMW~S.

It is remarkable that, while the list of 1330 repeats onlyone, the list of 1347 does not repeat a single one, of thenames of I310 ; nor does the list of 1347 repeat a single oneof the names of 1330. So that, within less than fortyyears, we get the names of more than fifty freeholder3 ofBirmingham, either actually living at the same time, or wit l i ithe immediate memory of those then living. And of coiirwthis is by no means a complete list of all who were then free-holders in the town.

These two lists give some remarkable fresh illustrations ofthe origin and growth of surnames. Out of the tlvelve jury-men of 1330, only four (two of these with the same name)bore true family siirnanics; namely, J7&.itp, Cfm%p (tlvice,

THE DEYSEER Ol? BIRMINGHAM. 37

and also found in 1310), and MarescJzal. But the list of 1347gives us eight (though two pairs of them are the same) outof the twelve names, in which the descriptive particle hadbeen dropped, and which had so become true family sur-names ; namely, Moys (twice), Page, Purys, Burgeys, Cole-mon (twice), and Frewes. In the list of 1330, there are fourdescriptive surnames taken from places, namely John atteholt, Filliam of Newport, John qf’ Coleshill, and Adam ofPackwood. The list of 1347 does not contain a single nameof this class. The list of 1330 contains also four other namesbelonging to classes of which not a single example is to befound in the list of 1347; namely, names descriptive of office,occupation, OF personal characteristics. These names areJohn the porter, Johrz the deyseer of Birmingham, John tilefychelere, and William the mey.

The last three of these names claim special remark. Wehave had ‘<the 6ar6er of Birmin,qham;"* but there was aspecial reason, in that case, why the place of abode should begiven, besides the occupation. The same reason does notapply in the case of a list of men who vere necessax-ily allBirmingham men. It follows, that John tile deyseer musthave held some office of special trust that was identified withthe town, and the title of which was " the deyseer." Butwhat was a ‘‘deyseer"? It is not easy to answer this ques-tion with certainty. Tyrwhitt was puzzled to understand themeaning of the word " dey " in Chaucer's line,—

" She was as it wero a maner dey.")

But the true meaning of that word cannot apply here.$ Itseems to me most lilcely, though I would speak cautiously,that the word " deyseer" was a local name given, at least inWarwickshire, to the man appointed to collect the Clergy

* Befoye, p. 18. t The Nonnes Prestes Tale.X "Deigia" and "deigr" mean, in the old Northern tongue, dampness, dniq~.

Hence our word " dairy." The " dey" kept the dairy.I)

38 GREETING THE " MEY."

tax. Formerly, when subsidies were granted by the Com-mons to the Crown, the Clergy granted a separate subsidy.UFifteenths," “Tenths," ‘‘Half-tenths," mere names givento such subsidies. The Clergy-grant was well known as a" disme,"—quite a distinct thing, it must be remembered,from the "tythe" paytable to the Clergy. Collectors ofthese "dismes" mere appointed, and were recognized by Par-liament.” In the Hundred Rolls of Edward the First, Ifind " Roger the disser of Coventry." This name plainly cor-responds, with but a slight difference in the spelling, to "Johnthe deyseer of Birmingham. "j-

I cannot be certain that " the fychelere’’ is only a dis,auisefor " the fisher " (the old ~7ord for " fisherman"), though therecan hardly be much doubt about it. But of the meaning of" the mey," there is, happily, little room for uncertainty. Itis the pure old Anglo-Saxon word ccmteg,f’ meaning nearfi-iend, or relation, and seems CO have been often used as dis-tinctive when a man was adopted into another family, as, forinstance, in the case of a son-in-law. The name is very oftenfound in the old Hundred Rolls and other records. I havelittle doubt that the word " mate," by which working men,both in town and country, are in the habit of addressing oneanother when they are engaged on any work together, andknow not each other's actual names, is the relic of the samegenial word and meaning.$

There remain four names to be noticed, which are foundin the list of jurymen of 1347, belonging to a class of whichthere is not a single example to be found in either thePardon of 1310 or the jury list of 1330. These are John

* Two illustrations will enable any one to verify the facts. See Rolls of Par-liament 8 Edward 11. (A.D. U14), Pet. NO. 113; E. P. 6 Henv V. (A.D. l417),Pet. No. vii.

f A remarkable entry on the Parliament Roll of 10 Henry VI., suggestsa possibility that " deyseer" (" disser") may mean " Tythjngmun,"

X In the Anglo-Saxon, there is the word " maca," obviously from the same root.

PATRONYMICS. 3 9

son of Gilbert, Zliomas son of Joln, William the Kinqes,and William son of Margery. All these are patronymics.Most likely Gilberts, Gilbertson, or Gibsow, was the name bywhich John was called among familiars, though the name,when translated into Latin, was put in a more formal shape.Thomas would, in the same way, be called JoJmson. TheKinges means the son of a man who had got to be called" the King," from the conspicuousness with which he hadplayed the part of " King " in some of the public games andshows which were then both universal and frequent.* Therewas, indeed, one of these games that was known by the ex-press name of " The King-game," and we sometimes findactual record kept of the persons who filled the part of"King" and ‘‘Queen" on the occasion.? The addition ofthe letter "s" to a father's name, has the same significance asthe addition of the word " son."

The most curious of these four patronymics, however,—ifthe fact does not make it necessary to coin the new wordnaatronymic—is, perhaps, TiZliam son of -iWurgery. It is notoften that a freeholder has thus got a descriptive name fromthe mother's, instead of from the father's, side. Margerywas, it will presently be seen, a favourite woman's name atthat time; and the existence of such names as Megson, &!eggs,and Gerison, shows that the descendants of Margaret's sonhave been many and wide spread.

Little more than three years had passed since RICHARD

OF CLODESHALE had endowed the second Chauntry in old St.Martin's Church, when an endowment on a larger scale tookplace in another Church in the town which was then muchresorted to, though all trace, even of its existence, is nowgone. This church is called, in old records, the " Free Cha.pe1"

* I have given some account of these games in " The Pai*ish," pp. 4913-506,515, 516, 521, 522, etc. (second edition).

t See an example quoted in the "The Pariub," p. 515.

D 2

40 THE "FREE CHAPEL" OF 1350.

of Birmingham; and it deserves in itself to be rememberedwith an attention greater than a mere Chauntry, though theChauntry endowment no doubt helped to sustain its impor-tance in the town.

On 3rd July, 1350, a Writ ad pod damnum was issued toJOHN OF WINDSOR, Escheator of Warwickshire, to hold an In-quiry touching grants proposed to be made by FULCO OF BIR-

MINGHAM and RICHARD THE SPENSER, of niessuages and landsin Aston and Birmingham, for the support of a Chaplain whoshould celebrate divine service daily for the souls of WILLIAM

THE MERCER and MARGERY his wife, of ROBMR THE SPEN-

SER and ISABELLA his wife, of HENRY OX CALDEWELL andMARGERY his wife, and of their ancestors, at the altar of theblessed Mary in the Church of the Hospital of Saint Thomasthe Martyr in Birmingham.”

It is noteworthy that all the six names mentioned in thiswrit are descriptive only; three being taken from territorialplaces, and three (two of them being the same) from thecalling or office of the bearer. Fulco of BirmilzgTiam hasbeen named before: ? William the mercer was perhaps theson of Alexunder the mercer.$

Upon this Writ a jury was summoned, and an Inquirywas made at Birmingham on the 19 th July of the same year.The names of the Jurymen who made this inquiry are asfollows:—RICHARD OF SHIRYNTON ;—RICEIARD ATTE CHAPELLE

[sic];—THOMAS OF WYTTON;—JOHN COLEYN;—WILLIAM OF

THE NEOWEHAY ; — JOHN MICHXL; — RICHARD JUDDEN ; —

THOMAS MICHEL;—JOHN XEMPLI:;—THOMAS OF STRE~ON;—

JOHN PHILIP;—and, JOHN TEE RAGGEDX.

All these names are new, except the descriptive surnameof John the ruggede. The bearer of this name was probablya son of Christiuna the raggede.5 Six out of the tlvelve

* It is from this mrit that the quotation is taken that is given in the note to p. 25.t P. 19. 2 See before, p. 28. § See before, pp. 28, 34.

THE NEW HEY. 41

names (two being the same) are " surnames of continuance,"while six are merely descriptive names; all the latter, exceptJoJm tJte raggede, being taken from places, either territorialor special. These are so obvious that two only among themneed any remark.

TJ~ornm of Xtretton was no doubt some relation to theRobert Strettor, who was Bishop of Coventry and Lichfieldfrom 1359 to 1385, and who was one of the parties to a veryimportant transaction that will presently be mentioned.VilZiam of the neowehay bears a doubly descriptive name." Neowehay " is a drawling way of spelling " new-hey;" thatis, " new inclosure." He or his father dwelt at some placethat had been freshly made into an enclosed homestead.There are, near Birmingham, more than one place stillbearing the name "Hey." Each of these must have been,at some time, a " new hey." One of them I have alreadymentioned.” From one of them, no doubt, this Williamgot his descriptive name. By-and-by, the two particles weredropped, and the name ‘‘Newey" has ever since been some-what common in Birmingham.

The name Johr, Philip probably records an ancestor ofhim who, three centuries and a half later, gave the landwhereon to build the church now called St. Philip's Church.The name is found spelled, however, in several ways.

It may be not uninteresting to add, that this Jury reportedthat one house and thirty acres of land in Aston, being partof what was proposed to be granted for the purpose before-named, were held of the LADY OF ASTON at three shillings ayear, and that the LADY OF ASTON held them of JOHN BOTE-

TOURTE ; the said LADY and JOHN being the " medii" betweenthe King and FU~CO and RICHARD, the intending endowersand that another house and seventy acres of land in Bir-mingham, being the remainder of what was proposed to be

* " Traditions of The Old Crown House," pp. 43, 55; and see after, p. 96.

4 2 RELIGION AND HITMANITY.

granted, were held of‘ JOHN OF SUTTON at six shillings a year;this JOHN OF SUTTON being the " medius " between the lringand FU~CO and RICFIARD. The jury goes on to describe thesehouses and land, and their actual value ; and adds, that otherlands and rents in Birmingham, and elsewherk in the Countyof Warwick, remained to FULCO and RICHARD, beyond theproposed endowment, and were held of JOHN OP SUTTON byMilitary Service; and that those remaining possessions wereenough to satisfy all obligations, " so that, by the gift andassignment aforesaid, through default of FMCO and RICFIARD,

the Country will not be charged or burdened more than hasbeen wont."$

The issue of the Licence in Mortmain in this case wasdelayed for some months; but it was done at last, on the12th February, 1351.

I pass on now to a transaction very different in its kindfrom endowments made towards giving ease to souls in pur-gatory. But I cannot leave such endowments without theremark that, whatever form of faith a man may hold, thereis something that must touch every heart not dead to humansympathies, when these traces are met with of the anxiouspiety of those who, putting faith in " the sacred prevalenceof prayer" on behalf of the souls of their no longer livingkindred, took much pains and gave great gifts to ensure thatsuch prayers should be constant.

In the time of Edward the Third, however, men's minds inEngland began to be deeply stirred by the flagrant abusesthat had grown up in the Church establishment, through thewide-spread perversion of Church endowments to personalselfishness, instead of those endowments being devoted tothe Public ends for which alone the endowers gave them.Thoughtful and sincere men raised up their voices in the de-mand for an earnest reality of practical religious teaching.

# See before, p. 25.

PIERS PLOWMAN AND JOHN WYCLIF. 4 3

The gross remissness, ignorance, and misdoings of the clergy,had been the subject of often repeated complaints in Parlia-ment.* A native English poet now arose, who boldly de-nounced, in nervous language, and, though wrapped in pictu-resque allegories, in the plainest manner, the short-comingsand mis-teachings of the clergy, and the mischiefs done bythe monastic orders; and who declared, with a wonderfulsimplicity and undistorted truthfulness, what the reality ofChristian teaching should be. And what Piers Plowmanwas thus saying in a tongue that all the People could under-stand, and in a manner that was most attractive to them, andin verses that soon became familiar through the land ashousehold words, was soon after more scholastically, but notless energetically said, and repeated in many shapes andthrough many years, by one who was indeed a Priest, butwho, himself undertaking the great work of translating theBible into English, denounced the lives and mis-teachings ofthe priesthood, and began a new system of earnest teaching,with a strength and purpose and unremitting vigour that havemade even Roman Catholic historians confess that John

* Some illustrations of these I produced, when giving evidence before the SelectCommittee of the House of Lords on Church Rates in 1860; and they are printedwith the Report presented to the House by that Committee. The evidence whichI then gave, having been referred to in subsequent debates in Parliament, as wellas elsewhere, will not be unknown to some of my readers, and is earily accessibleto all. I will now, therefore, only shortly refer to the Statute of Carlisle(a.D.1306), the Statute of Provisors (A.D. 1350), the Rolls of Parliament of 20 Edward111. (A.D. 1346), and the Rolls of Parliament of 50 Edward 111. (A.D. 1376), forstriking proofs and illustrations, not only of the strong public feeling that waswarm and growing through all that time upon this subject, but of the very clearand precise knowledge that men had as to the true pui’poses, now often niisunder-stood, of Church foundations and endowments. It will be found brought vividlybefore the reader, that whereas Churches were founded "to inform the People ofthe Law of God, and to make hospitalities, alms, and other works of charity, inthe places where the Churches were founded," the Parishioners had been left to" perish in body and soul," and were obliged to " cease sending their children toschool; " and, in short, that " Holy Church is more hurt by such bad Christiansthan by all the Jews and Saracens in the world." No wonder " Reformers "arose, and that, when they arose, they were eagerly listened to.

4 4 PARISH CHURCHES.

Wyclif was the father of the Reformation in England.” Inthe midst of all this,—but, as I have elsemhere shown,+ inimmediate connection with it,—a case that arose out of thenon-fulfilment of a parson's duty, was brought before theCourts of Law; the judgment given in which left no one ableany longer to pretend that Parish Churches were raised forthe sake of the parsons; and which put at rest for ever anyhalting doubts as to whether it is within the spirit, and con-formable to the practice, of the Common Law of England,that the inhabitants of any parish should, of their o m mo-tion and by their own consent alone, repair the Church oftheir parish to make it fit for their own use.$

Piers Plowman's Vision was written about 1362, and soon

* " A new teacher appeared, who boldly rejected many of the tenets which hiscountrymen had hitherto revered as sacred. . . . In proof of his doctrines heappealed to the Scriptures, and thus made his disciples judges between him andthe bishops. . . . Wyclif made a new translation; multiplied the copies with theaid of transcribers; and, by his 'poor priests,' recommended it to the perusal oftheir hearers. In their hands it became an engine of wonderful power. . . .Thenew doctrines insensibly acquired partisans and protectors in the higher classes;a spirit of inquiry was generated; and the seeds were sown of that religious revo-lution which, in little more than a century, astonished and convulsed the nationsof Europe." (Lingard's History of England, vol. iii. pp. 265, 310; $fth edition.)

Some contemporary verses tell us that," Assumpsit Wyclyf multas hareses violando

Catbolicamque fidem, dogmata falsa serens."('Political Poems,' etc., edited by Thomas Wright, vol. i. p. 4.68.)

Mr. Shirley, the editor of the lately published volume entitled " Fasciculi Ziza-niorum Magistri Joliannis Wyclif, cum tritico," tells us that the preface toWyclif's book ' De dominio divino' seems " the true epoch of the beginning ofthe English Reformation.’’ And the same learned writer fixes the date of thepublication of that work as, " at the latest, in 1368." He believes it to have beena year or two earlier.

f- See Evidence given before the Select Committee of the House of Lords, in1860, as before mentioned.

% I have printed a translation of this remarkable case in " The Parish," p.584 (second edition). The most important parts of it are also given in my Evi-dence before the Lords, in 1860, already mentioned. The before-named com-plaints made in Parliament of the misconduct of the clergy, expressly includethe charge that they " suffer the noble buildings, in old times there made, whollyto fall to decay," though the original endowments were meant to supply meansfor reparation of the churches, as well as for the support of the parsons.

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 45

reached and long kept an extraordinary popularity. JohnWyclif was writing, preaching, and teaching, from about1361 to 1384. The case which put the rights of Parishion-ers in their Parish Church beyond a doubt, was adjudgedin 1370.

The spirit of the practical Christianity that Piers Plowmantaught, may be judged of by the descriptions that he gives ofMercy and Charity:—

" Goddes Mercy is mooreThan alle hise othere werkes;And a1 the wikkednesse in this worldThat man myghte werche or thynke,Nis na-moore to the Mercy of GodThan in the see a gleede [hot cinder]."”

And again," Charite ne chaffareth noght,

Ne chalangeth, ne crmeth.

He is glad with alle glade,And good til alle wikkede.And leveth [liketh] and loveth alleThat oure Lord made." t

Piers Plowman very plainly told " prelates and preestes"that hypocrisy is not religion. Whatsoever it is, says he,—

" That ye prechen to the peple,Preve it on yowselve,And dooth it in dede:It shal &awe you to goode.If ye leven as ye leren [teach] usWe shul leve yow the bettre."$

* Passus puintus de visione.t Passus deciws pintus. It is impossible not to be rominded, by these words,

of Coleridge's fine lines in " The Ancient Mariner,"—" Sle prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and small;For the great God who loveth us

He made and loveth all.’’% Piers Plomman is written in the old English abZitemtive ri9ne: that is, the

cadences of time in which the verses are composed, are made to linger on the

4 6 EARLY REFORMERS.

The author of Piers Plowman's Vision is understood tohave been a Monk of Malvern. John Wyclif found a sup-porter in John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who was theowner of Kenilworth Castle, and a Justice of the Peace forWarwickshire; while Lutterwort.h, where Wyclif lived fromthe beginning of 1374 till his death in the last days of 1384,is very near to the borders of Warwickshire. The teachingsof both Piers Plowman and Wyclif would, then, necessarilybe well known in the market-town of Birmingham and theneighbourhood.

Now it happens that Deritend, though within the Lordshipof Birmingham,* lies within the Pa&& of Aston. In thesame Parish, and adjoining Deritend, is Bordesley; which,though a less important and less populous place than Deri-tend, had from of old a separate Court Leet and CourtBaron of its own, distinct from those of Aston. For secularpurposes then, both these places had long, at the time I amspeaking of, had an existence qnite independent of Aston.Aston itself was so dependent; on Birmingham that theParish is called, by two such authorities as Spelman andCamden, " Birmingham's Aston."

Whether SIX RICHARD SROBENHALE (to give him his fullclerical title), who, towards the latter end of the fourteenthcentury, happened to be Vicar of Aston, was a Parish Priestof the sort that Piers Plowman and Wyclif so vigorouslydenounced, cannot perhaps be now known with certainty.But this much is certain ;—that the inhabitants of Deritendand Bordesley had become moved by the spirit that breathed

ear by the repetition of the initial letter of prominent words. This is usuallydone by the initial letter of two leading words in the first line of a couplet,being the same as the initial letter of one leading word of the second line of thecouplet. The last quotation above given contains three couplets, each of whichfulfils this very ancient English rule of rime.

* " Traditions of The Old Crown House," p. $5, note. See also both the ancientdeeds of which facsimiles are given in that work.

THE PIRST CHURCH OF THE REFORRIATION. 4 7

through the teachings of Piers Plowman and Wyclif, andhad grown thoroughly dissatisfied with being dependent, fortheir religious services, upon Aston Church and its Vicar.I t is easy to understand the feelings that waxed strong andstronger on this subject, and the settled wish that arose tohave an independent Church of their own within their ownborders; feelings and a wish that were helped to ripen intodetermination by that important Judgment of Law, whichput beyond doubt the right of parishioners to repair theirParish Church for their own use. It seemed to the men ofenergetic minds who then dwelt in Deritend, to be onlyapplying the same principle one step further if they shouldbuild an entirely new Church for themselves. And this,accordingly, the men of Deritend and Bordesley, joiningtogether for the purpose, set about to do. The Churchwhich they thus built was the first actually new built Churchof which there is any record, as the fruit of the teachingsof the true fathers of the Reformation in England. Thebuilding of this Church becomes therefore a memorableevent in the history of England, and of the Reformation inEurope. It is a specially memorable event in the history ofBirmingham.

In those dim times of early England whereof we learnfrom the " venerable Bede," we h o w that the foundation ofChurches was going on, and was urged as a duty incumbentupon those who held large landed possessions.* The for-mation of (‘Parishes" must have become generally settledbetween that time and the close of the tenth century; for,while we find in Domesday Book the record of new Churcheshaving been then lately built, we find the further fact thatsuch new Churches had already then begun to be called" Chapels." Numerous examples of Churches thus bearing

* See, for example, Hist. Eccles. lib. 6, oapa. iv. v.; Epist. ad Ecgbert (pages306, 307, of Smith's edition of Bede).

48 THE ADVOWSON.

the name of " Chapels," though independent of any ParishChurch, might be given from later records. They seemto have been generally founded, as Parish Churches hadbeen, by single, or a few, landowners. There are, however,some instances that approach more nearly to the manner offoundation of the Church built in Wyclif's time in Deri-tend ; though none seems to be known that is of so early adate, and of which the history is able to be recovered in soclear a manner, as the Church that has been ,now known fornearly five hundred years as the " Chapel of St. John theBaptist of Deritend."*

When a wealthy landowner had built a Church at his owncost and on his own land, for the use of his tenants and hisneighbours, it seemed to follow, as a matter of course, thathe should himself appoint the person who was to celebratedivine service there. And it would follow, on the sameprinciple, that when the inhabitants of a place themselvesbuilt a Church, at their own cost and for their own use, theyshould themselves appoint the person who was to celebratedivine service in their Church. This was the view7 whichthe men of Deritend and Bordesley took, and which helpedthem in their determination to build a new Church for them-selves. It was only thus that they could secure the servicesof one of Wyclif's own followers.

The choice of a site for the new Church seems to havebeen determined by circumstances that are well worthy of

* There is a curious account, in the Domesday Book of Suffolk (fo. 281 (a)),of a Chapel built by four brothers, on their own land, became the Parish Churchwould not hold all the Parishioners. The interesting document given in BishopKennett's " Parochial Antiquities " (under year 1428) is of fifty years later datethan Deritend Chapel, besides differing materially from the document that willpresently be given. It is, however, probably the nearest illustrative comparisonthat can be taken. There are several pages in Kennett., following p. 584 of theedition of 1695 (Vol. 11. p. 262 of edition of 1818), which treat of the foundationand incidents of " Chapels," and the relations usudly kept up between theseand the Mother Church.

CHOICE OF A SITE. 4 9

attention. A knowledge of them may often help to explainthe shape of plots of ground, and the position of old build-ings, near to the highways of old market-towns and cities.

The age of The Old Crown House has been already shown.*Even were that house not still standing, it could be shownthat the part of Deritend whereon the oldest dwellings stood,is that which lies on the left-hand side of the road goingout from Birmingham towards Warwick or Coventry; theside on which one who came into the town, as old Leland did,from the Warwick or Coventry road, would observe that" the water ran down on the right hand." It was becausethe river REA ran along that side, that it became the earliestseat of homesteads, from which the water was thus easilyreached. A path to the water, both from The Old CrownHouse and from the House that was unce the property of thelast Lord of Birmingham, is, as I have already stated, particu-larly mentioned in ancient deeds relating to those two houses. +

The opposite side of the road in Deritend, seems to haveremained long without houses. In 1285 a Statute waspassed, called the Statute of Winchester, which requiredthat, where there were no houses,—" Highways leading fromone market-town to another shall be enlarged, where woodshedges or dykes be, so that there be neither dyke, underwood,nor bush, whereby a man may lurk to do hurt, within twohundred feet of the side of the way; and so that this statuteshall not extend unto oaks nor unto timber trees, where it isclear underneath. . . . And if perchance a park be near toa highway, it is needful that the lord of the park set backhis park so far that there shall be a breadth of two hundredfeet from the highway." There are the strongest groundsfor believing that the latter was the state of things on thisside of the Deritend highway. But whether it were so or not,

* "Traditions of The Old Crown House."f " Traditions of The Old Crown House,’’ pp. 6, 39.

5 0 PLEASANT PLACES OF OLD.

malces, it will be seen, no difference as to the existence of theopen strip of ground two hundred feet in breadth.

On looking, upon Bradford's plan, at the space occupied,more than a hundred years ago, by the houses, with theirgardens, on the side of the street opposite to The Old CrownHouse, it will be seen that the breadth, all along that side,from the river to just opposite The Old Crown House, isremarkably equal; and measurement shows this breadth tobe just two hundred feet. From opposite The Old CrownHouse to Bordesley, it widens a little, by encroachment onthe street, but the inner line remains the same.* No suchregularity is to be found on the other side of the street.The conclusion is inevitable, that, at the time when theStatute of Winchester became Law, there were no houseson this side. It was an open space, with oaks and othertimber trees giving shade and beauty to what, in spring timeand in summer, would be the pleasant resort of the youngfor games and of the old for pastime. The same space wouldremain still thus open at the time when the inhabitantsdetermined upon building a new Church for themselves. Abetter site they could not have; and accordingly they chosenearly the middle point of this open ground to build theirnew Church upon. Having ample room, the new Churchwas, according to custom, set straight with the points of thecompass, but not with the line of the road.

As the river Rea now runs, and as this street is laid downupon modern maps, the new Church, commonly called" Deritend Chapel," will not seem to have been put so nearthis middle point as in fact it was; for the course of the Reahas been more than once changed. About one-fourth partof the length of Deritend lies on the Birmingham side ofwhere the stream now runs. There cannot be thc least

* In " Traditions of The Old Crown House," a copy is given of so much ofBradford's Plan as takes in these parts and shows these facts.

THE NEW CHURCH BEGUN. 51

doubt that the Rea once ran precisely upon, and in factformed, the boundary. The course of the river was howeverchanged, long ages ago, to suit the uses of an ancient Millthat will be named hereafter; and it was again changed, after1784, under an Act passed in that year, " for rebuilding theBridge over the river Rea, at the Town of Birmingham, calledDeritend Bridge, and widening the avenues thereto; and forwidening and varying the course of the said river near the saidBridge, and making a weir and other necessary vorlcs to pre-vent the lower part of the said town from being overflowed."Under the same Act, some alterations were also made in thestreet near to Deritend Chapel; including some of thebuildings that had, after the Chapel was built, grown up onthat side of the street, and even the wall of the Chapel-yardand some of the yard itself'; from which latter, thirty-ninesquare yards were taken, and thrown into the street. Thepresent Deritend Chapel thus stands considerably closer tothe street than did the Chapel first built there."

The new Church was begun, according to trustworthytradition, in the year 1375.f Facing the title-page of thisvolume, I give an authentic view of the Church thus built.But this view is from an original sketch of the Church madewhile the Rea was more distant, on that side of the street,than it now is, and before the original building was pulleddown, in 1735, to give way to the larger but much less archi-tecturally attractive present Chapel of St. John's, Deritend.No one can look at this view of the old Chapel, and not feelwith how much truth it was that Leland said of the streetwhich he passed along, on the one side of which he saw

* The present chapel itself covers more ground than the old one did; andthe enlargement took place partly on the side next the street. This fact, addedto what is above stated, will make the chapel seem to have shifted its place,relatively to surrounding objects.

1" The documents that will presently be given, prove that it TRS Gnished before1381. So that this tradition cannot be far wrong.

52 ’VRESH DIFFICULTIES.

The Old Crown House, and on the other this "propperChappell," and between them, on each side, the over-sha-dowing elms, that this was indeed " a pretty street as ever Ientered."*

But it was not enough to build a Church. Divine Servicemust be celebrated there. And here our good fathers, themen of Deritend and Bordesley, were met by fresh difficul-ties. Neither Piers Plowman nor John Wyclif was in muchfavour among many of the beneficed clergy. The Refor-mation of religious teaching and of priestly life which thoseillustrious fathers of the English Reformation taught, was byno means agreeable to the most active rulers of the Church.And the men of Deritend and Bordesley had to deal withrather a formidable array of those whom Piers Plowman andWyclif denounced. First, there was the Vicar of Aston him-self; who could not but feel that his authority was muchweakened by the building, without his consent asked orgiven, and still more by the use, of a new Church within theborders of his Parish. Next, the Rectorial appropriatorof the Parish was itself an ecclesiastical corporation, andone seated afar off; namely, the Monks of Tykeford. Ithappened, indeed, that the Vicars of Aston and the Monksof Tykeford were not always on the best of terms; and per-haps this was fortunate, at this time, for the men of Deritendand Bordesley. But there still remained. the Bishop of the

* It has been hinted to me, that I may be misunderstood when reading, as Ihave uniformly done in "Traditions of The Old Crown House," Leland'sphrase " a pretty street or ever I entered" (as it is found in Hearne's printededition of his Itinerary) with the particle " as " instead of " or." It can onlybe a narrow and uninformed pedantry that can misunderstand this reading.Explanation seemed to me unnecessary. In well-known instances, the phrase" or ever " is occasionally used to express, solemnly, a lapse of time (e. g. Eccle-siastey, rii. 6); that is, simply instead of " ere ever." But Leland is speakingof place, not time. He could not be SO ignorant as not to horn that Deritendwas part of Birmingham. Undoubtedly he here used " or ever’’ (if he wrote it" or ") in the sense of " as ever;" a sense in which the phrase is still colloquiallyused in many parts of England.

THE FINAL ‘‘AGREEMONT." 5 3

diocese; and at this time ROBERT STRXTTCIN, whc,m 1 taketo have been a Birmingham man,* was Bishop of Coventryand Lichfield. It is not easy to judge how far he woulcl bedisposed to take part vith the Vicar, or how far his sym-pathies ~ould lie with the townsmen. He probably caredlittle, hoivever, for the &iIoiiks of Ty1ceford.t

The negotiations seem to have been tedious; but menwho are in earnest, and ~7ho are in the right, will gciicrdlycarry the day if they quietly but firmly persevere. So ithappened with our good fathers who hacl built themselvesthis new Church in Deritend. They at length succeededin getting all they wanted. They did not object to let theVicar's dignity be saved by the insertion of a preamble ofspecious reasons. They did not cut down the Vicar's in-come;—reserving to themselves, in return, the right of mar-riage and burial in Aston Church. But they secured tothemselves and their children, for ever, the right of havingdivine service celebrated in the Church which tJiey Id tltena-selaes already built, ancl by a Cliciy7ai.n of their ozon uppoint-

merit, absolutely independent of the Vicar of Aston. $In the year 1381, a formal Agreement in writing was en-

tered into: to which the parties were, the Monks of Tykeford;the Vicar of Aston himself; the Patron of Aston Church :the Lord of the Manor of Birmingham 5 ; thirteen good men

* See before, p. 41.t The Monks of Tykeford enjoyed some special favour. I have found a

Papal Bull, promulgated and confirmed on their behalf, upon the Patent Rolls.Cases concerning them occur in the old Year Books. They were a settlementin England in connection v-ith a greater monastery at Tours; which the oldrecords that tell of them call by the one shortened word " Marmonstre."

$ It ail1 be seen, by the document that follows, that the Chaplain of Deritendhas never been bound even to make the personal submission to the Vicar ofAston, which the incumbent of Pidington was bound to make to the Vicar ofAmbrosden (" obedientiam debit am faciet") according to the terms of the originaldocument in that case ; and on which personal submission t.he good Bishop Een-nett insisted so strongly. See " Pnrochial Antiquities," pp. 683, 699, 601.

§ The Lord of the Manor was party to this remarkable document, because of

54 THE MEN OF DERITEND,

and true of the inhabitants of Deritend and Bordesley; andthe Bishop of the diocese. The original of this venerabledocument, unique in its date and kind among the records ofEnglish Church foundations, lies before me as I write *; and

AGREEMENT TOUCHING THE CHOICE OF A CHAPLAIN"TO OFFICIATE IN THE NEWLY-BUILT CHAPEL OF

DERITEND, A.D. 1381.

Hec est composiS Z orclinaG factcz in? Priorem Z mo-nachos Priorat3 bt? Marie de Tykeford jux . NupertepaynellLincolii diocg ecctiam pochicllem cle Aston jux" Birmyncl~~mCovent? Z LicE diocg in p?jos usus optinentes / monnchosmajoris moii Turoneii ad Roman5 eccliam nullo medio pti-nentf subject9 jui: tii Z suporietate AWtiT ContUi dci majoris

his responsibility to the tenants of Lhe Manor of Birmingham in Deritend. Thisresponsibility, too often lost sight of by modern political writers on the feudalsystem, is thus expressed by Glanville, who wrote in the time of Eenry the Se-cond :—" Mntua quidem debet esse dominii et homagii fidelitatis connesio; itaquod quantum lromo debet domino ex homa.qio, tantwm Mi debet dominus exdominio." (Lib. ix. cap. 4.) The Lord was thus bound to uphold all the rights ofthe tenants within his Manor. His seal was a strong assurance in such a re-markable case as the present.

* It, gives a striking illustration of the superficialness of the higher sort ofwhat is called " education" in our day, to find that, on 26th August, 1863, SirWilliam Armstrong, President of the British Association for the Advancement ofScience, made, in his "inaugural address," the following statement:—"While somuch facility is given to mental communication by new measures and new inven-tions, the fundamental art of expressing thought by witten symbols, remains asimperfect now as it has been for centuries past. I t seems strange that, while weactually possess a system of shorthand by which words can be recorded as m-pidly as they can be spoken, r e should persist in writing a slow and laboriouslonghand. I t is intelligible that grorn up persons W~O have acquired the pre-sent conventional art of writing, should be reluctant to incur the labour of mas-tering a better system ; but there can be no reason why the rising generationshould not be instructed in a method of writing more in accordance with the ac-tivity of mind which now prevails. Even without going so far as to adopt forordinary use a complete system of stenography, which it is not easy to acquire,vie might greatly abridge the time and labour of writing, by the recognition of Qfew simple signs to ezprees the syllables which are of most frequent occurrenceour language. Our words are in a great measure made up of such syllables ascorn, con, tion, ing, able, ain, ent, est, ance, etc. These a e are now obliged to

AND THE MONKS OF TYKEFORD. 5 5

it is a document of so much historical interest that, while Igive a facsimile of it at the end of this morli, I also put intype here the exact terms of it, together with an Englishtranslation.

TRANSLATION.

This is an Agreement and Ordinance made between thePRIOR AND MONKS OP THE PRIORY OF THE BLESSED MARY

OF TYREFORD nigh Newport-Pagnell in the Diocese of Lincoln,appropriators of the Parish Church of Aston nigh Birming-ham in the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield (who are subjectMonks of Marmonstre, which belongs to the Roman Churchwith none between; the rights however and superiority per-taining in. this behalf to the Abbot and Convent of the said

write out over and over again, as if time and labour espended in what may betermed visual speech, were of no importance."

Not only did no member of the British Association for the Advancement ofScience correct a statement so marked, but it was immediately followed up, inthe " Times " Newspaper, by several lett~ers in the same style, under the head" Shorthand and Longhand;" until, in a note inserted in that Paper on 11th Sept.,I pointed out that the "longhand" is modern, and that the use of signs to ex-press syllables was, in fact, the old practice. The document that is given aboveaffords an example of the system of short writing that was formerly in use. Butit was used in printed books as well as in writing.

Two hundred years ago, no English gentleman could have fallen into the strangemistake that was thus common to Sir W. Armstrong and his hearers in 1968.Greek and Latin were not then thought studies that could, alone, make any maua " scholar," or any man's education complete. " Education " is nothing betterthan a mischievous sham, if it does not teach’ Englishmen to undemtand the na-ture and the worth of the records of their own country—the stamped remains ofthe past life which we are continuing—at least as carefully as it teaches the relicsof Greece and Rome.

I t ought to be stated that, of the document that now follows, two translationshave been made before, and copies of both are (by the kindness of Mr. J. W.Whateley and of Mr. William Hodgetts) in my possession. One seems to hbvebeen made in 1821, when a local Act of Parliament was being sought; the other(perhaps only a varied copy of the former) was inserted in a " Case," stated forthe opinion of Dr. Jenner, in 1828, after the death of Mr. Darwall, who had thenlately died, having long been Chaplain of Deritend. Neither of these translationsseeming to me rightly to represent the original, I venture to give here a freshone, together with the opportunity, now given for the first time, of a comparisonwith the original.

56 THE MEN OF DERITEND,

moii qui nunc sunt vel impostum erunt in hac pte compe-

tentib3 exceptf T: in omib3 semp salvis / et dnm Kicm

Shobenhale ppetuii vicariu ejusdm ecciie de Aston / ac dnm

Jofiem Buttort militem jDdci Priorat3 de Tykeford fundatorem

ex pte una / et dnm Jofeem de Birmyncham militem dnm de

villa sive hamelett vocat Dury3atehende juxa pjdict villa de

Birmyncham situat / ac Galfridii Boteler / Rofctum Grene /

Jonem Smyth / Willm Jeffe / ThomaHoldon /Willm Coup /

Willm Dod / Adam Bene / Kicfn Bene / SimonE Huwet / Ricrn

de Broke / Rofctum fflaumvile / 1 Thoma Chattok / de p)dictf

vift sive hamelettf de Dury3atehende T; Bordesley/ ac ejusdm

ecctie de Aston pocft / ncnon ceros onies T; singtos pocftnos

in dictf vift sive hamelettf de Dury3atehende T: Bordesley

inRitantf ex pte alra / de consensu T; assensu ven pris dni

Rofoti dei gra Coven tr T: Lycfe Epi ejusdm ecctie de Aston

diocesani /. In pmis qd pJdci pocili in dictf vitt sive hame-

lettf de Dury3atehende t Bordesley inhitantf heredes T: eo s

successores ppr fluvio^ nundacones T; alia^ via^ discrimina

inr pdcam ecctiam pochialem de Aston T; dictf vitt sive

hamelettf de Dury3atehende T; Bordesley longe distantes

sepi3 T: maxie yemali tempe imminencia T; contingencia T; ne

infantes ipas villas sive hamelettf de Dury3atehende T;

Bordesley infcitantf ahsq,, solempnitate Baptismatf pire con-

tingat imppetuu feebunt °t inveniant sumptib3 eo^ ppis unii

Capttm ydoneu Deo *l pocftis vitt sive hamelett de Dury3ate-

hende T; Bordesley p)dictf infeitantf divina officia ministratur

1 defunctur in qadam Capella in honore Sci Jotiis Baptiste ibm

infra dniniu de Dury3atehende p)dict de novo constructa

contie et ppetue celebratur / . Itm infeitantes p)d:ci feeant unu

AND THE MONKS OF TYIIEPORD. 5 7

Rfarmonstre which now are or hereafter shall be, being re-served and in all things always saved); and SIR RICHA~ED

SHOBENHALE, perpetual Vicar of the same Church of Aston;and SIR JOHN BUTTORT, Knight, founder of the aforesaid Prioryof Tylreford; of the one part: And SIR JOHN OF BIRMINGHAM,

Knight, Lord of the town or hamlet called Deritend standingnigh the aforesaid town of Birmingham ; and GEOFHRY

BOTELER, ROBERT O' THE GRENE, JOHN SBLYTH, TVILLIAM

JEFT'E, THOLMAS ROLDON, TVLLLISAF COU1%R, WILLIAM DOD,

ADAM BENE, RICIIARD BENE, SIMON HUWET, RIGHARD OF

BROKE, ROBEET FLAUMVILE, and TEIOMAS CHATTOK, of the

aforesaid towns or hamlets of Deritend and Borclesley, andparishioners of the same church of Aston, and also all andevery other the parishioners dwelling in the said towns orhamlets of Deritend and Bordesley, of the other part: With theconsent and assent of the venerable father SIR RCIBERT, by thegrace of God BISHOP OF COVENTRY AND LICHPIELD, diocesanof the same church of Aston. I;li~stZy, that the aforesaiifparishioners dwelling in the said towns or hamlets of Derbtend and Bordesley, their heirs and successors,—because oEthe floodings of the streams, and the obstructions often,.andespecially in winter time, threatening and happening in theother ways between the aforesaid Parish church of Astoiiand the said far off towns or hamlets o f 'Dei-itend andEordesley,—and lest it should befall that the infants dwell-ing in the saicl towns or hamlets of Deritend and Bordesleyfor want of the rite of Baptism might perish for ever,—shallhave and may appoint, at their ov7n charges, one CHAP-

LAIN fit to administer and discharge, before God and the pa-rishioners dwelling in the aforesaid towns or hamlets ofDeritend and Bordesley, divine services; which are alwaysand for ever henceforth to be celebrated in a certain Chapelin honor of Saint John the Baptist there lately built withinthe Lordship of Deritend aforesaid. Moreover, the inhabi-

5 5 THE MEN OF DERITEND,

Baptis?iG in eadrii Capella ad Baptizand oiiies et singlos

poclinoy pueros dictap villag sive hamelettap de Durygate-

hande T: Bordesley infiitantf ac PurificaGnes matrii eopdCii

pueop p ipiii Captlm qui in dza Capella @ temp fa i t cele-

bratui: / ac eci5 3dCi poczii oiiies et singli dictap viH sive

hamelettf de Durygatehencle 1 Bordesley infra pochiam de

Aston pdici: inliitantf visitabunt dcXm eccfiam sui pochialem

de Aston in festf Pasche Natal diii 06% SFop DedicaConis

ejusdiii eccfie de Aston SCop Petri 1 Pauli pwX post fiii nati-

vitatf S?i Joziis Baptle 1 PurificaGnis b'fe Rlarie Vyginis itjm

deo ac cl& eccfie de Aston tanq," matrici Tt pocfi ecclie eog

reddendo Tt solvendo oiiiiodas decimas majores 't minores ac

ob1ac"ones sicut ab antiquo temp fecerunt eidfii ecclie ut

tenentr / It% si 3dci pocfii de Durygatehende Tt Bordesley

essent infirmi vel aliquis eog infirmus qd no possunt labora?

vel in articfo mortf q& 3did vica? qui g temp fa i t aut

ejus Capltus pocfi non possunt bono temp Z optuno veni?

tales pocfios sic infirmos visitandi T; sacrX ministrandi tunc

3fatg Capits dze Capelle confessiones fJclc~y ta~iii pocziiiop

audiat Tt eos absolvat sacramenta Tt sacramentalia si necesse

fulit eis in forma jurf ministret sic qd Pdci pocEi de ~ury-

gatehende 2 Bordesley dco vicario de Aston qui g temp fa i t

vel CapHo suo pochiali semel in anno confiteantr ut cle jure

tenenV / Sic q, de oniib3 1 singtis supius noiatf Z espssatf

nullu fDjudiciu eidin. matric "ecclie de Aston nec @fate Priori

1 monachis aut eoy successoribg vel fDdict dno 1Eic"o vica?

aut successorib3 suis in futu? ge8etr / In quop ofni 1 singlog

fidem 't testizm ptes 9dicY sigilla sua al?natim Psentib3

AND THE MOKIG3 OF TYICEPOBI). 5 9

tants aforesaid may have a Font; in the same Chapel, forbaptizing all and erery the children of the parishioners ofthe said towns or hamlets of Deriteiid and Bordesley dwellingthere; ancl Churchings of the mothers of the same childrenshall be solemnized by the Chaplain of the said Chapel forthe time being. And also all and every the aforesaid parish-ioners of the said towns or hamlets of Deritend and Bordesleydwelling within the parish of Aston aforesaid, shall visit theirsaid parish church of Aston on the feasts of Easter, Christ-mas, All Saints, the Dedication of the same church of Aston,Saints Peter and Paul next after the feast of the Nativity ofSaint John the Baptist, and the Purification of the blessedVirgin Mary; there rendering and paying to God and to thesaid Church of Aston, as to their mother and parochialchurch, all Bind of tythes, greater and lesser, and oblationslike as from old time they haw done to the same church, asthey are bound to do. MoI’coT~~~, if the aforesaid parishionersof Deritend and Bordesley should be so ailing, or any of themso ailing, that they caimot work, or so near the approach ofdeath that the aforesaid vicar for the time being or his paro-chial chaplain cannot come in good and seasonable time tovisit such parishioners thus ailing, and to administer the sacra-iiieiits, then the aforesaid Chaplain of the said Chapel mayhear the confessions of such said parishioners, and may ab-solve them, [and] may, if necessary, administer sacraments andsacramentals to them in due form; the aforesaid parishionersof Deritend and Bordesley confessing to the said vicar ofAston for thc time being, or to his parocliial chaplain, oncein the year, as of right they are bound to do. So that fromall and every the things above named and set down, no pre-judice may hereafter arise to the said mother church of Aston,or to the aforesaid Prior and Monks or their successors, or tothe aforesaid Sir Richard the Vicar or his successors. In faithancl testimony of all and every which things, the parties afore-

60 "GIVEN AT DEEITEND, A.D. 1 3 8 1 . "

apposuerunt / Day apud Durpgatehende Pdicf xiijciO K h

Junij Anno dZi millmo cccmo octogesimo primo / Et nos RoW3

a%idc"us dei grZ Coventf T; LicE EpGs loci diocesan3 p)ctce

composic"oi conseiisum nfm Pbentes 2 assensum sigillum nTm

9sentib3 apponi fecim3 in robur 2 firmitat2 pmissoy / Day

apud XIap70de iiijto IQn Junij Anno diii sup~d86 / et nTi Cons

vicesimo pEo.

The terms of this remarkable docurnent, show that the menof Deritencl and Bordesley had taken up a thoroughly inde-pendent attitude, and that neither the Monks of Tykeford,nor the Vicar of Aston, nor the Bishop of the Diocese,thought it safe to resist their determination to have ser-vices and a chaplain of their own, entirely independent ofthe Parish Church of Aston. There is a striking contrastbetween the whole form and tone of this document andthose of the one, of fifty years later date, which was printedin 1695 by Bishop Kennett.*

There can be no doubt, morally speaking, that the businessof the important document thus " given at Deritend on the30th day of May, A.D. 1381," was transacted in The Old

* The document touching Pidington (see the notes before, pp. 48, 53,) is in theform of a Decree issued by the Bishop, instead of being, as this is, a "compo-sicio " betmen equal parties. That decree not only bound the chapcl-priest (heis riot honoured by the titlc " Cliaplain," as in this case) to make personal submis-sion to the Vicar, but bound the inhabitants to pay a sum of money and a quantityof corn every year as a tribute to the same Vicar, without any equivalent ahxterei..This is hardly the place to follow out this and similar comparisons. The refer-ence to Eennett having been already given, it will be enough now to refer, inaddition, to the Act of 7 Anne, c. 34, by which the Parish of St. Philip TTas erecteclin Birmingham, in 1708 ; and by which Act the new Parish is bound to pay to theBector of' old St. Nartin's i215 a year, and to the Parish Cleric £7 a year, besidesother liabilities. These facts are stated to show the questions that have alwaysarisen when Parishes have been divided. Our Deritend fathers in 1381 seemedbetter able to grapple with all parts of the case, than men hare uaually bcenfound able to do in more modern times.

ROBEET 0' THE GBENE. 6 1

said have put their seals oiie after the other to these presents.Given at Deritend aforesaid, on the 20th day of May in theyear of our Lord 1351. And we Robert aboveiiaincd, by thegrace of God Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, diocesan ofthe place, giving our consent and assent to the aforesaidagreement, have caused our seal to be put to these presentsin assurance and confirmation of‘ the premisses. Given atHaywode on the 29th day of May in the year of our Lordaforesaid, and of our consecration the twenty-first.

Crown House. From the " Gallorye Chamber" of thatHouse, the new Chapel was, as its less picturesque successorstill is, the most conspicuous object.

Four seals remain attached to the original document, aswill be seen on the facsimile. Of these, the one nearest theleft hand is the seal of the Monlts of Tykeford; the nexttowards the right is that of the Bishop of Coveiitiy andLichfield; the next is that of Sir John Birmingham. Theseal nearest the right hand is the seal representing allthe inhabitants of Deritend and Bordesley, but it is the per-sonal seal of Robert 0' the Grene. This I am able to proveby comparing it with the seals attached to the ancient pri-vate Deeds that have come down to me together with ‘I’heOld Crown House. I may therefore say, without presump-tion, that Robert 0' the Grene thus stands before us, acknow-ledged by all the freeholders and inhabitants of Deritendand Bordesley of his o~vii time, as well asby the Bishop of the Diocese and the Lordof the Manor of Birmingham, to be the manwhose seal is to be accepted as a true andsufficient attestation to a record made in thename ancl on the behalf of all the inhabi-tants of Deritencl ancl Bordesley. Such having been the case,it will be an interesting memorial of Old Birmiegham to

62 A SEAL CUT OFF.

give here an outline of this seal of Robert oy the Grene. Hisname will come before 11s more than once again.

I t will be seen that an empty space is left between the sealof the Rilonks of Tykeford ancl that of the Bishop. Whenthe document was executed, this space was unquestionablyfilled mith the seal of the Vicar of Aston. The place forholding the strip of parchment on which the seal was put, andwhich passed through the fold in the parchment of the docu-ment itself, is plainly seen in the facsimile. It is certainthat this seal was once in its place ; and it is equally certainthat it has been remowcl, not accidentally but designedly.It is physically impossible, from the way in which one endof the doublecl strip whereon the seals are pnt is al117ays split,and the other end passed through it before the sealing, that,even if the seal mere e17er so much broken, the double stripitself could have dropped out by accident. The infereiice is,that either Sir Richarcl Shobenliale himself or some successorof his, stirrecl to wrath by the attachment of Birmingham tothe teachings of John TVyclif,—or, shall it be said, vexed atthe seeming assent to the curtailment of his authority whichthe hanging of the Vicar's seal to this document gave per-petual record of,—found an opportunity, on some occasionwhen the document was produced in his sight, to cut awaythis seal. That the thing 117’51s done is certain; but the ex-ploit v7as a very vain one; for Deritend Chapel has flourishedeyer since, not, it must be remembered (as has been some-times loosely but quite incorrectly saicl), as a" Chapel of Ecisa "to Aston Church, but as an entirely iizdepenchzt C‘lcipel cindinczc~)abenc~; whose incumbent, moreover, has allmays had,and still enjoys, the official title, not of " Curate," but,what is very rare in ecclesiastical foundations of this class inEngland, of " Chaplain."

Special attention must be called to the fact, that DeritendChapel was not built, nor was any Chaplttin el’er appoil1teci

BLUNDERS IN NAMES. 6 3

to it, to say masses for the souls of those n7ho were dead,as was the case with the before-named Free Chapel, andwith the two Chauntries in old St. Martin's Church. Thespirit of Piers Plowman and of John TVyclif being that whichmoved the founders of this Chapel, the character and fnnc-tions of the Chaplain are put in the simple but emphaticwords, that he was to be one "fit to administer diyine servicesbefore God and the inhabitants of Deritend and Bordesley."John Wyclif himself might have dictated those words. Itis not improbable that he did so.

Something must be added as to the Men of Deritend andBordesley whose Names are thus honorably recorded. It willbe seen that the greater part of them are now set down ashaving settled surnames of continuance, and not merely withdescriptive surnames. In some instances, these are incor-rectly given here; which is not to be wondered at, consi-dering the number of distinct parties that had a hand in thedocument, and that the inhabitants of Deritend and Borcles-ley were anxious about the thing to be done, and were toowise to stop to trouble themselves about the spelling ofnames, well assured that, " where the persons appeared thesame?" no one " mould fall out about misnomer."”

Robert 0' the Greias's name is here written as if he haddropped the descriptive particles and taken the modernsurname. This was not the case. He was a thorough Eag-lishma.n, and he and his family clung to a name which, whilein itself descriptive only, was, from its bearer's position, ac-tivity, and influence, more distinctive, and felt to be moregenial, than any shortening of it would be. I am able toaffirm that none of his family woulcl ever allow the name tobe travestied in Latin, as was so commonly done in case ofother names.? I have many private deeds in which his name

* See before, p. lG, in the estract from Fuller.t Persons bearing this numo clsenbxe in England, are found recorded in the

64 DERITEND MEN OF 1381 .

is repeated, for it occurs again and again through nearlyone hundred and twenty years after this time ; and, in everyone of these, without esception, though all are in Latin, thename is spelled "Robert 0' the Grene."

RicJlard oj’ Broke is also here incorrectly written. Wehave had the name before,% as " atte broke." It is a mis-translation into Latin of the very common English particle.

The names PZuzcnzviZe and Cozqer are instances of namesout of which others have gron7n, through the common use ofcontractions in writing. FZuzonviZe would be often written"Fl”aile," and Cozyer is, in this document itself, written" Coup." I’ience have sprung the names Race11 and Cope,both of which are common Birmingham surnames.

For the rest, BoteZer lives in the shapes 3otteZey and But-ler ; Smyth has exchanged the " y" for " i , " escept in a fewcases of mere affectation; Jefe lives as JeyzS:,; Holdon hasbecome hardly disguised at all, as Holden; Bod lives in theshapes of Dodd and Dodsoiz; Be?ze seems to have undergonethe slight change of becoming Benet; IIzcwet remains, withthe spelling Hewitt; Clmttoh has undergone even less change.

The Chaplain who was " had and appointed at their owncharges,’’ must have been supported, during the first year anda half, either out of a rute made among themselves by the

LICENCE IN MORTMAIN, FOR THE ENDOWMENT OF THECHAPLAIN OF’ DERITEND CHAPEL. A.D. 1383.

Ricardus Dei gracia Rex Anglie 2 ffrancie 2 DominusHitjnie. Omnib3 ad quos Bsentes ire pve8int Salutem. Sciatis

Latin shape of " de In grene." The name happens, by an odd coincidence, tobe found in that shape in records relating to " Little Birmingham," in Norfolk.See before, p. 18.

* Page 29.f P. 26. In cams where several persons joincd to make an endowment, it was

of course less necessary to delay for the inquiry, as the presumption was strongagainst any "loss and prejudice" through the individual gifts.

Eh’DOV’ING A CHAPLAIN. 6 5

inhabitants of Deritend and Borriesley, or out of the insen-sibly arising but practically always large produce of the Of-fertory. But, havi11g achieved the important ends of build-ing their own Church and getting their own Chaplain, itseemed to some among them that it mould be wise to providean endowment for the permanent support of the Chaplain. Sosix of them joined together to make up an endowment whichshould produce at least ten marks a year, a handsome endom-ment for that time. Desiring to settle this endo~vment with-out delay, the Letters Patent containing the Licence in Ilort-main were obtained at once, with the clause mentioned beforetas being rare; the disinterestedness of the endowers beingfiirther marked by the fact that, in order to obtain this early,though only conditional, Licence, they went to the enormouscost, as it then mas, of paying thirty-five marks as a fine, tocover any hypothetical loss of services due from the landgranted by them in mortmain for this endowment,.*

To complete the record of the facts as to the founclationand endowment of Deritend Chapel, I now put in type theexact terms of this Licence in Mortmain, together with anEnglish translation of it, as was done in the case of theAgreement. A facsimile of the original Letters Patent isalso given at the end of this volume.

TRANSLATION.

RICRARD by the grace of God King of England and Franceand Lord of Ireland. To all to whom the present letters mayhave come, Greeting. Know ye, that of‘ our special grace we

* On the Fine Roll of 6 Richard 11. 1 have found the following, which I heroprint in full, without the contractions :—" Wurr. Willielmus Geffon et alii danttriginta et quinque marcas, solutas in hanaperio, pro licencia concedendi eis quodipsi certa terras et tenementa et redditus cum pertinentibus infra parochiam deAston in comitatu Warr., que de Rege non tenentur in capite, dare possint etassignare cuidam capellano in quadam capella fundata et ordinata in hamelettode Duriyatehende infra parochiam predictam celebraturo, habenda ad manummortuam, Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium. xx die Februarii."

66 LICENCE IN MORTMAIN

qd de grX n% sp3i concessimus st licenciam declimus Q no%

Tt heredibg n?is quantum in no% est TViRo Geffon Thome

Holdon Rofito of the Grene Ricti Bene Thome de Belne ‘t

Jofii Smyth qd ipi terras ten °t redclitus cum ptiZ infra po-

chiam de Aston in Cofii War? ad valorem decem marcag p

annii juxta verii valor? eogd5 que de nobis non tenent’ in

capite dare possint ‘t assignare cuidam Capellano divina quo-

libet die in quadam Capella fundata ‘t ordinata in honore scUi

Jofiis Baptiste in hameletto de Duriyatehende infra pochiam

pd&m celebraturo. HCnd ‘t tenend eidem Capellano ‘t suc-

cessoribg suis Capellanis divina singulis diebg in Capella @dcZ

celebraturis imppetuum. Et eidem Capellano qd ipe 8as teZ

1 redditus 3dcUa cum ptiii a pfatis TViBo Thoma Ro%to RicUo

Thoma 2 Jose recipe possit ‘t tenere sibi 1 successorib3 suis

Capellanis divina singulis diebj in capella 3dwca celebraturis

ut 3dcm est imppetuii tenore Psencium simili? licenciam

declimus spZlem. statuto de &is ’t teZ ad man6 mortuam non

ponendis edito non obstante. Salvis semp capitalibg cliiis

feodi serviciis inde debitis 1 consuetis. Dumtamen p inqui-

sicijes inde in forma debita capiend 1 in cancellaria nPa vel

heredum nFog rite retornand comptum sit qd id fieri popit

absq, dampno sen pjudicio n?i % heredum n?og ac aliog

quogcunq,. In cujus rei testirnoniurn has $as iiras fieri feci-

mus patentes. Teste me ipii apud Westfii Ficesimo die ffe-

bruarij. Anno regni nPi sexto.NEWENHAM.

p Ere de privato sig % p triginta % quin% marcis sold in hanapio.

FOR ENDOWING THE CIIAPLBIN. 67

hare granted and given licence, for ourselves and our heirs,so far as in us is, to WILLIAM G~BON, THOMAS HOLDON,

ROBERT 0' THE GRENE, RICHARD EENE, THOMAS OF BELNE,

and JOHN SMPTH, that they may give and assign lands tene-ments and rents, with the appurtenances, within the Parishof Sston in the County of Warwick, to the value of ten marcsa year [;E6 13s. 4~7.1, according to the true value thereof,which are not held from us in chief, to a certain Chaplainwho shall celebrate divine service each day in a certain chapelfounded and appointed in honor of Saint John the Baptistin the hamlet of Deritend within the parish aforesaid. Tohave and to hold to the same Chaplain and his successors,Chaplains, who shall celebrate divine service every clay inthe aforesaid Chapel, for ever. And we have likewise givenspecial licence to the same Chaplain, that he may receiveand hold the lands tenements and rents aforesaid, with theappurtenances, from the before-named William, Thornas,Robert, Richard, Thomas, and John, for hiniself and his sue-cessors, Chaplains, who shall celebrate divine service everyclay in the Chapel aforesaid, as is aforesaid, for ever, accordingto these presents; the Statute passed concerning not puttinglands and tenements into mortmain notwithstanding. Savingalways to the chief lords of the fee the services thence dueand accustomed. Provided that, by inquiries thereupon indue form to be made, and into our Chancery or that of ourheirs rightly returned, it may have been found that this canbe done without loss or prejudice to us or our heirs or anyothers whomsoever. In testimony whereof we have caueedthese our letters to be made Patent. Witness myself atWestminster, on the 20 th day of February, in the sisth yearof our reign.

NEWENHAM.

By writ of privy seal, and for thirty and five marcs paid into thehanaper.

6 8 DAILY SERVICES IN CHURCH.

To these letters patent, the Great Seal of England is at-tached, by a bright red and green silken cord, in the usualmanner. The memorandum as to the payment of the thirty-five marcs, is written in a different hand and with a differentink from what were used in the body of the letters patent.It was evidently added afterwards.“

It will not escape notice, that it is thrice repeated, in theseletters patent, that the Chaplain is to perform service in theChapel euwy doy. This is not specified in the " Agreement"of 1351; but it was clearly the intention of the endowers toensure that the Church which they and their neighbours hadbuilt should be every day open, so that any neighbour mightbe able, at any time, to find there fit opportunity for thesacrifice of thanksgiving and prayer.

Four of these endowers were certainly the same as four of

* The Rev. John Darwdl, fw many years Chaplain of Deritend, was a verycareful and conscientious man. At the end of the Register Book of Deritend, hemade a copy, on vellum, of both the Agreement and the Letters Patent abovegiven,—oddly enough, however, transposing their order. This book is now inthe hands of the Rev. W. Bramire11 Smith, as Chaplain of Deritedt%*ough-_._whose courtesy I have made a Ziteratim copy of Mr. Darwall's transcripts therein.I find, upon comparison of these transcripts with the originals, that there aresome, and rather curious, inaccuracies in the transcripts ; but it does not seemnecessary to point these out. The facsimiles given in this volume are of coursewithout appeal.

In the same Kegister Book, Mr. Darmall entered a Memorandum, undcr thedate of 16Lh May, 1821, which still remains there, carefully attested by twowitnesses, and recording that both the original documents were, on that day, putinto the liands of hlr. J. TV. IVhateley for an 05cial and very proper purposc,which is stated in the Memorandum. It seems strange that Mr. Daraall, who livedsome years longer, should have let documents as to which he took such carefuland proper precautions, remain uninquired after. Mr. Whateley fulfilled hisduties; and, when they had been fulfilled, he did not retain the documents.Nevertheless, but for my own persistent search, these documents would unques-tionably have been lost to history and to the town. Even the Bailiff of the Deri-tend Chapel Estates stated in writing, in October, 1863, that he " never heard "of these documents, and, when further pressed, that he could " find no trace ofthem " !! I forbear to touch upon the circumstances under which documents soremarkable have remained so long out of their right custody. For myself, I atleast have done my duty in bringing the full knowledge of the documents them-selves to all who care for what illustrates important historical events.

WHO WERE THE ENDOWERS. 69

the men who took part in the Agreement of 1381; namely,TJLomas Holdon, Robert 0' tJze Grene, RicJiard Bene, and John

Xmyth. But I am much disposed to think, also, that theWWiam‘‘ " Gefon " of the former is the same as the William" Jeffe " of the latter. TJ~omas of Belne is new, unless thisis, as I suspect it to be, a mere corrupt spelling (the soundremaining the same) of " Berrze." It is certain that there wasmuch carelessness in these matters.% On the original Let-ters Patent, now before me, the name of RicJLard Bene was atfirst written "Bever." This was so prepoaterous a blunder, insound as well as in spelling, that when the Letters Patentreached Birmingham, an erasure was made on the place, ancl" Bene " was written instead; but the name remains " Bever "on the copy of the Licence that stands upon the Patent Rollsnow in the Record Office.? " Belne " would sound too much

* A curious illustration of the uncertainty with which names were formerlyspelled, is found in letters patent of 16% years later date than the letters patentnow named, and which concerned a person whose power and influence make itstrange that there should be found such uucertainty. The &Canor of Birming-ham was granted to John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, on 21st December, 1545. Hewas the grand8on of the Lord of Lisle named in " Traditions of the Old CrownHouse," p. 61. A Facsimiie of a Deed touching The Old Crown House, to whichthe last-named Lord of Lisle and the famous Bishop Alcok were parties, is givenin that volume. It might be supposed that the scribes would have known hornto spell the name of a minister of Henry the Eighth, or at any rate that theywould have kept to onc spelling of it. Not so, however. I h d that, in the grantitself, the name is spelled in the very different shapes of Iysle and Lislqy, spell-ings that are the source of very different modern surnames, and that are quite asdifferent as Jefe is from Gefon, or Bene from Belne. Further on (13. 78) we findCefen (not Gefon); which brings us nearly back to Jefe.

t See before, p. 23. I took the name from the Patent Roll, when giving it in" Traditions of the Old Crown HOUSO," p. 46. I may mention hew another in-stance of erasure that I have observed in a highly interesting document. In theoldest Charter of the City of London, granted by William I. (and quoted before,p. 24, note), the title of the Chief Olficer of the City is written upon an erasure.There can be no mistake about the fact, though the late Tovn Clerk of London,when I once pointed out the fact to him, said that of course he could not officiallyacknowledge it. This erasure is curious. The title, as it stands, is "poi*tirefuw "(port-reeve). The common English title of the chief officer of places was then"prafast" (pqfkst, prflost, p?*ovost); and in all probability the scribe wrotethis word first, by very natural mistake.

70 " DUliY3ATEHENDE."

like " Bene " to attract attention when the Licence was readover to those whom it concerned. It is far less of a variationthan is found in the instances given by Fuller.* The in-terpolated particle "of" ("de’’ in the Latin), would not bethought of any importance.

As the place NezuenJzam is in Warwickshire, it will notbe uninteresting to add, that the TJiomas of Nezuenhm whosesurname attests these Letters Patent, is named in the CloseRoll of the first year of Richarcl II., as one among threewho were Keepers of the Great Seal of England at the timeof the death of Edward 111. 9 curious account is theregiven of what mas done with the old Great Seal, and of thedelivery to the Chancellor of a new Great Seal,—namely,the one of which the impression remains still attached tothese very Letters Patent. +

The amount of the fine paid for the speedy issue of thisLicence, gives proof of the wealth, as well as of thepublic spirit, of those who thus endowed Deritend Chapelin 1383.

It will be observed that, in these two documents, Deritendis spelled " Durygatehende " and " Duriyatehende." Thecorrect spelling has been given and explained in the " Tra-ditions of the Old Crown House." The sound of " Der-yat-end " is the same as that of the spellings found in these twodocuments. It is a curious coincidence, worth notice, thatthe syllable " Dur " should have crept in here; inasmuch as" dur " is Welsh for " water," and often appears in the namesof English rivers; and so it might, on a suyerficial glance,be thought that " Durygatehende " expressed something ofthe position of the place on the river. But " &?a" is, be-

* Before, p. 17.t " Qui quidem oancellurius," the record tells us, " eodem die, in capella sua,

apud hospitium suum in vico de Flete Stret, Londini, diotam bursam aperuit, etdictum sigillum extruxit, et diversas literas patentes de diversis offioiariis regniibidem fecit consignari."

THE DEER-GATE-END. 7 1

yond a question, the old name of this river, and not " Dur."" Rea " is a Gaelic word, espressing running water, aud isalso found as the name (sometimes a little disguised) of manyrivers in England. As for " Deritend "—" Der-yat-end "—it remains the End nigh the UDeer-Gate."”

There are some circumstances connected with the later his-tory of Deritend Chapel that may be instructively glanced at.

The fraud upon Parliament, under cover of which Gildsand other Eodies were robbed of their property, under falsepretences, and in the much desecrated name of religion,at the beginning of the reign of Edward VI., in order to feedthe rapacity of hungry courtiers, has been already described.+The endowments which maintained the Chaplain as well asthe Gild of Deritend, were thus unrighteously confiscated,under the pretence (which it has been here shown was whollyuntrue) that this was a Chauntry; although, inconsistentlyenough, this Chapel, more happy than the " Free Chapel ofBirmingham," as 1\7ill presently be seen, was left standing, andthe services were continued here. The legalized plunder fromwhich the whole town suffered so much, would be particu-larly felt in the case of this Chapel. Robbed of long-enjoyedsources of income, both Chaplain and Chapel became whollya charge upon the inhabitants. It is no marvel, then, that

* This interpretation, stated in " Traditions of the Old Crown Houae," p. 45,has since received very unexpected confirmation. Mr. William Hodgetts informsme that he himself remembers the existence of a deer-park here, and has seendeei. feeding in it, and that a large part of the wall of this park stood, at the timohe speaks of, on the North side of Bradford Street. He specifically informs methat a " portion of the wall now forms a portion of the yard attached to the policestation in Alcester Street and Bradford Street; and within my recollection, therewe1.e considelBable extents of boundaries both in Bradford and Warwick Streets ;and from the back yards of the houses, which no doubt had been built on portionsof the park, the deer were frequently fed from the hands of the tenants." Theconclusion at which I arrived from a comparison of ancient records, receives acurious confirmation in these recollections of one of the oldest, but most observant,of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. The park no doubt reached, originally,to the limit prescribed by the Statute of Winchester. See before, p. 49.

t " Traditions of the Old Crown House," pp. 36-42.F 2

72 ENDOWMENT OF 1677.

decay gradually fastened on the old Chapel of 1375. I findthat, exactly three hundred years after the Chapel was built(namely, in 1675), the Vicar General of Lichfield gave noticethat repairs were needed. This seems to have stirred up 8worthy man to imitate the example of those who had endowedthe Chapel three hundred years earlier. On 21st August,1677, HUMPHEXY L O M gave a messuage and lands at RowleyRegis to Trustees, to maintain the Chaplain and to repair theChapel; an endowment which is still enjoyed and appliedfor those purposes by the successors of those Trustees.*Other endowments followed ; but the helping hand came toolate to saye the old Chapel, round which clustered so manymemories well worthy to be cherished with pride. Decaywas thought, perhaps over hastily, to have gone too far forreparation to avail. And so, sixty years after the issue ofthe before-named notice for repair by the Vicar General ofLichfield, the original Chapel of Wyclif s time, of which theoutward look has happily been preserved and is given at thefront of this volume, was pulled down, and the now-standingChapel was built in its stead.

And upon this occasion there took place a very note-worthy transaction, which stands out the more marked bycontrast with the transaction of 1381.

Notwithstanding the formal adoption of the Reformationin and after Edward the Sixth's time, the cultivation of super-stition seems so natural to some men that all sorts of arti-ficial devices were gradually again invented by ecclesiasticalOfficials, and some of them were carried to lengths neverreached in Romish times, in order to impose shacl&s up011

*I The words in which the original Deeds of this and other gifts describe theChaplain, are the same, in spirit, as those of the Agreement of 1381. He is to be" a man of honest and sober conversation, fitly qualified for the constant preach-ing of God's holy word, and performance of such offices and services as ought,by a faithful minister of God's word, according to the Reformed Protcstant reli-gion, to be performed." See before, pp. 57, 63.

PACULTIES" OVER-RIDING THE LAW. 7 3

religious and clerical thought and action, and to interferewith the simplicity of Protestant worship. In 1375, theinhabita.nts of Deritend and Bordesley built a new Churchbecause they chose to do so. In 1735, all sorts of mystifica-tions about pretended ‘‘-Faculties’’ were used, to throw dustin their eyes as to what they could do and what they mightbe allowed to do, in the way of repairing and rebuilding;and even as to setting up again the font, pulpit, and com-munion table, that had been used there by them and theirfathers for more than three hundred and fifty years!—as if a" Faculty," put forth by a Bishop or his Vicar-General, couldreally have, in itself, any power whatever, by the Law ofEngland, to make anything lawful or unlawful. In this case,however, these ingenious contrivances for converting super-stition into a means of raising fees for officials (for that isthe only real meaning or use of " Faculties "1, did worse thanraise mystifications.#

In the old Chapel all the seats were, of course, free andcommon to all the inhabitants of Ileritend and Bordesley.For such is the Common Law and the ancient practice of

* " I call that a simple Licence or Faculty which does not in reality suspendor toll the obligation of a Law, but gives an operation thereunto, in order torender it effectual according to a certain mode or method prescribed 5y Zuw,. . . It ought to be accommodated to the inteution of the Law." Ayliffe'sParergon, p. 281. This sound authority, whose work was published in 1726, andwhose weight no one will venture to question, wrote too soon for it to be possiblethat the favorers of the ecclesiastical encroachments that have grown up in recenttimes, should find much comfort in his pages. The words now quoted are suffi-cient to stigmatize the " Faculties " that are mentioned in the test. The at-tempt made was, to override the actiial Law, and to impose a new one that iswholly repugnant to the spirit and the practice of the actual Law. And thegreat law-upsetter and law-maker was the Vicar-General of a Diocese!

There is not a clergyman in England who has not known the weight of thefees estracted from him at different times. They have as much lawfulness asthese "Faculties,"—and no more. At the end of Ayliffe, and also betweenpp. 138 and 135 of every complete edition of Sparrow's Canons, will be found atable of fees; which those who hare any curiosity to see what modern eccle-siastical estortion can do, in the face of plain Law, will usefully examine.

7 4 . A COhTGIZEGATION IN CHURCH.

England as to the seats in every Parish Church; and Deri-tend Chapel is a Parish Church so far as Deritend and Bordes-ley are concerned. " The Church is in common for everyone: wherefore, it is not in reason that one should have hisseat and that two should stand; for no place is more for onethan for another."“ " The body of the Church is commonto all the inhabitants."+ "And indeed, before the age ofour Reformation, no Seats were allowed, nor any differentapartment in a Church assigned, to distinct inhabitants; butthe whole Nave or Body of the Church was common; andthe whole Assembly, in the more becoming postures of kneel-ing or standing, were promiscuous and intermixt."$ " I f weloolc into all our churches, we shall see thousands or hundredsof people jointly resorting to God's public ordinances, wor-ship, sacraments, celebrated in them ; yet varying from eachother in their dignities, sexes, ages, callings, conditions,estates, vestments, attires, fashions, features; yea privateopinions, voices, corporal gestures; some of them sitting in$eats, others in galleries, others on forms; others standing inallies [aisles]; hew men and women, there old men, youngmen and women, sitting or standing apart from each other;some praying standing, while others kneel; others praying,reading, singing, with an audible voice, though differing intones or tunes from each other, like pipes in an organ, orstrings in a lute; yet all making sweet melody and harmonyin God's ears, and but one congregation." $

But " Richard Rider, Esquire, Batchelor of Laws, Vicar-General of the Diocese," knew much better than all this.I-Ie would by no means have approved the noble answer givenby the Barons of England in the old time, when the eccle-

* Year Books, 8 Henry VII.f Lord Coke's Reports: Vol. 12, p. 105. (Corven's Case.)$ Eennctt's Parochial Antiquities, p. 596: ed. 1695.

. 5 Apology for tcnder conscionces conforming to Public Liturgy, etc.; byWilliam Pryme (A.D. 16@2)).

OLD FREE SITTINGS, NEWLY FRINGED. 75

siastics of that day wished to persuade them to agree to mis-chievous encroachments upon the free Lam of England,—•though that attempt was, at any rate. made in open Parlia-ment.* On the 26th day of June, 1739, he issued a "Fa-culty " to set aside the Law of England, and to impose" Charges upon the People," at the mere will and pleasure,and by the sole authority, of him, Eichard Rider. He putforth his edict that pew rents should thenceforth be de-manded and enforced for some of the seats in Deritend Cha-pel. But it is very instructive to observe, that even thistrader in " Faculties " (a trade not unlike the older trade in" Indulgences ") had some twinges of conscience. The newchapel covered all the ground covered by the old Chapel,and some more besides. So this precious " Faculty" de-clares that where, in the old Chapel, the inhabitants of De-riteiid and Bordesley had sat free, there, in the new Chapel,they should continue to sit free as aforetime; but that rentsshould be demanded, and the payment of then1 be enforced,for certain enumerated lists of seats that lie beyond themagic margin of the ground thus hallowed by the freespirit of the older time.?

I know not of a more thorough or more striking exampleable to be produced, of the contrast between the real freedom ofour older institutions, and the, liollo~v pretentiousness of muchthat is vaunted in modern times as " progress." No commentis needed. It is enough to quote the apt remark made byLord Tenterden in the case of some other less mischievous

* "Etomnes Comites et Barones una voce responderunt, quod nolnnt legesAnglia mutai*c, qua hucuspe usituta swat et upprobntm." Statute of Merton.See Lord Coke's Second Institute, pp. 96-99.

f As representative of founders of the original Chapel of TTryclif's time, myown right and that of my ancestors to seats within this magic margin has, ofcourse, been always undisputed. 1 find indeed tlre particulars entered, wit11minnte care, in old memoranda. I call attention, therefore, to the suLject now,not as having any personal interest in it liere, but as involving a matter of vitalpublic principle, on the maintenance of which the ve1.y existonce of a Church ofthe People, beloved and respected, must depend.

76 ABORTIVE A'JTERIlT OF 1 3 S 2 .

Faculties, which were pleaded before him in his judicial ca-pacity. " I t is clear," said that eminent Lord Chief Justice," that these Faculties have no validity in Law."* The mis-fortune is, that they succeed in deceiving many people intoa belief in their validity.

Passing now from transactions that reflect so much honouron our Birmingham fathers of Wyclif s time, and the directbenefit of which is still being reaped by their successorsafter the lapse of nearly five hundred years, some trans-actions of a few years later must nest be glanced at, fromwhich also the town still reaps, in part, though not in thesame direct manner, a present benefit.

It seems that vhat mas doing in Deritend, roused someother men in the Borough to wish for the presence of thenew religious life in the upper town, instead of, or at leastin addition to, the daily routine that was perfunctorily gonethrough in old St. Martin's Church. To meet this wish,a Licence in Mortmain was, on 25th October, A.D. 1382,obtained by T H O U S of SHELDON, JOHN COLLESHULL, JOHN

GOLDSRIYTII, and WILLIAM ATTI;: SLOTVE [sic], to enable theendowment by them of two Chaplains who should celebratedivine service daily [diviiza sin-yulis die6us], " in honour ofGod, our Lady his mother, Holy Cross, Saint Thomas theMartyr, and Saint Catherine, in the Church of St. Martin ofBirmingham." But these good intentions never really tookeffect. They were let sink down to form part of the greattessellated pavement that lines the floor of a place very diffe-rent from our good old St. Martin's. Ten years later, how-ever, the matter was taken in hand by the town itself, inits Corporate capacity; and on the 10th July, 1392, a Writad pod dummm was, upon the motion of the Bailiffs andCommonalty,.f. issued to THOMAS RALEGR, then Escheator of

* Golding v. Fenn, Barnewall and Cresswell's Reports, vol. 1, p. 981.t " Cornmunitus "—-for which the correct English equivalent is " Commonalty "

GILD OF THE HOLY CROSS, 1392. 77

the County. This writ, from which I now copy, recites theLicence of 13S2, as having been granted to " THOMAS SHEL-

DON, since dead, JOHN COLLESHULL, JOHN GOLDSAIYTH, andWILLIAM ATTE SLOWE [sic], Bzcryesses of tJze Tozun of Ber-

myngehanz ;" and that " now the Bailiffs and Commonalty ofthe said town of Berniyngeham ham prayed us that, in ex-change for the said Licence, which never took effect, as theysay, we ~ould grant to them Licence that they themselves,in honor of the IToly Cross,* may make and found a GILD

and perpetual Fraternity among themselves in that town, ofbretheren and sustern,+ as well men and women of the saidtown of Bermingeham as men and women of other towns andof the country who are n7ell disposed towards it, and may makeand appoint a Master and Wardens of the said Gild and Fra-ternity, who shall have rule and governance of the same$;" andalso that a Chauiitry may be founded, and that " other worksof charity " [ccliu opera caritatis] may be done,$ " accordingto the appointment and pleasure of the said Bailiffs andCommonalty;" ancl that JOHN COLLESHULL, JOHN GOLDSMYTH,

and WILLIAM ATTE SLOWE [sic], may grant and assign, to theMaster and Wardens of the proposed Gild, eighteen mes-suages, three tofts, six acres of land, and forty shillings ofrents, in Birmingham and Edgbaston. The Writ then directs

•—is the corporate title and description of a place. A City or Borough is, in itscorporate capacity, a " communitas:" SO ia a County. This is the name found onall ancient seals, and throughout the ancient Rolls of Parliament. As none but" Communitates " sent Members to Parliament, the Representative House becamecalled the ’House of the Commonallies"—shortened into Commons." It isessential to a true lrnoffledge of English history, thoroughly to understand that" communitas " expresscs a corporate municipal existence, and that the Englishequivalent of the word is " comnionalty." It means a mal thing, not any fancifultheo?;y. See the description of the " Mark," quoted in the note to p. 6.

* See " Traditions of The Old Crown House," p. 22, as to Gilds dedicated toSaints.

f See " Traditions of The Old Crown House," pp. 31, 38.X Compare extracts as to Gild of Exeter, in " Traditions of The Old Crown

Hduse," i . 30.§ These wol;lrs included roads, bridbos; etc. Sec " Tra&t?dns of The Old

Crown House," p. 38, 39.

78 THE JURY, AhV ITS FINDING.

that Inquiry shall be made, in the usual mmner : whether allthis can be done without loss or illjury to any one, or to theCountry."

. The Inquiry was accordingly made in Birmingham, on theSaturday next after the feast of Saint Peter ad vincula (1stAugust), 1302, by a Jury consisting of the following persons :—RICHARD SHERPNGTON;—ROBERT 0' THE GRENE [sic];-

THOBFAS OF TVYRLEY ;—JOHN OF TVYRLEY ;—JOHN SPYCER ; —

DAVID VENDON ;—RICHARD BOTELLER ;—JOHN PHELIPP ;—

TVILLIAHI GEFFEN;—LAWRENCE SJTRHIY;—JOHN BARBER;—

and, THOMAS PHELIPP.

The Jury found that the formation and endowment of' theproposed Gild would not be any injury to any one. Theywent on to say, that sixteen of the messuages, the three tofts,and the forty shilling3 of rents in Birmingham, were held, bythe intending donors, of the heirs of JOHN of BIRMINGHAM,

KNIGI~T ;~ and that those heirs held of ISABELLA, LADY OR

DUDLEY, who held of the King; and that the two other mes-suages were held of JOHN WAIIDE, who held of the heirs ofJOHN OF BIRMINGHAM, KNIGHT, who held as before; and thatthe six acres of land in Edgbaston were held of THOMAS OF

MIDDELMORE, who held of the heirs of JOHN OF BIRMING-

HAM, who held of HUGH EURNE, who held of the King; antithat all the intending donors had other property (which isenumerated), beyond what was proposed to be then grantedaway; and that thus the discharge of the services due fromeach of those intending donors would be fully secured, and sothe Country would not be in any way charged or burdenedmore than has been wont.

The Licence in Mortmain was accordingly granted, to theBailiffs and Commonalty of Birmingham, to establish the

* See before, p. 25.f- The same who joined in the Agreement for the settlement of matters as to

Deritend Chapel.

OFFICIAL BLUNDERS, 79

Gild of the Holy Croqs.* The Borough paid $50 for it tothe Cro~7n. Thus that Gild became founded, se~enteen yearsafter Deritend Chapel had been built. The Hall of the Gildwas built in Ne117 Street, where the Free School now stands.

None of the names mentioned in the course of these pro-ceedings seems to need special remark beyond what has beenalready made: but it m7ill be observed, that fresh names comeup on every fresh transaction; thus again showing the num-ber of substantial freeholders that formed part of the popu-lation of Birmingham in those early times.

But this case gives a stiilcing illustration of the astoundingblunders made in the Reports of the Commissioners of HenryVIIT. and Edward VI., which I have been obliged to remarkbefore.? On matters of historical fact, these Reports cannever be trusted, in the slightest degree, unless collaterallyconfirmed; though they are of course wtluable when they con-tain admissions of states of things that tell in favour of theendowments that they were appointed to condemn.$ TheCommissioners of 37 Henry VIII. reported that this Gild ofthe Holy Cross was founded " in the xiTjth yere of KyngEDWARD the seconde;" the Commissioners of 1 Edmard VI.reported that it was founded " in the xiTjtl1 yere of KingHENRYE the secoiide." The true regnal year was, the six-teenth of RICHARD the second.

A great affray took place in Birmingham not wry longafter the foundation of the Gild of the Holy Cross.§ Whatparticulars are recorded about this affray, are found on theRolls of 1’arliam.ent. The proper place to enumerate theMen and the Names concerned in it, seems therefore to be,

* The most important operatire words are these:—" Licenciam dedimus, quan-tum in nobis est, eisdem Ballivis et Communitati, qiiod ipsi, in honorem sanoteCrucis, facere possint et fundare unam Gildam et Fraternitatem perpetuam."

f " Traditions of The Old Cr0n.n House," pp. 41, 42.Of this, the paspage quoted on pp. 38, 39, of " Triiditions of .Tlle Old Crown

I{ouse" is one example. Some others will presently be cited.$ See " Traditions of The Old Crown Eouse," p. 4s.

80 BEAUCHAMP V. BURDET.

between the statement of affairs as to which I have drawnillustrations from the Patent and other Rolls and Recorcls ofa public character, and the enumeration of some of the Menand Names that are to be found in private Charters.

It was on Saturday in the third meek before Easter, in theyear 1431, that this affray happened. The parties to it mereclearly marked, as the Beauchamp party and the Burdetparty. And it was upon JOAN, the LADY OF BERGEVENNY,

that all the blame was cast, and not upon those who wasedwarm in this affray on her behalf. At the same time, it isclear, from the names recorded, that it was an affray in whichmany of the better class of the burgesses of Birmingham tookpart. The following are immortalized as leaders of the twohostile arrays.

THE BEAUCHANP PARTS.

WILLIAM LEE.

H E N W BROKESBY.

HENRY FYLONGLEY.

JOHN RYDER.

THONAS RUSSELL.

JOHN SEGGESLEY.

MEREDITH WALSHNAN.

THOJFHS FAUCONEIL

THOXAS YECDELEY.

J O M LOUDHAU.

JOHN OR WYRLEY.

HENRY COOKE OF WEOLEY.

ALEXANDER SHEFELD.

JOHN CHEWE.

JOHN MORYS,

" and many others " [ 4 multi

alit7.

THE BURDET PARTY.

TEONFAS PEYNTON.

RICHARD ARBLASTRE:.

JOHN CUTTE.

JOHN GLOVER.

WILLIAM SQUYER.

JOHN COOICE.

JOHN FRAUNCEYS.

WILLIAM STRETTON.

HUGH ROUUERES.

JOEN PENPORD.

RICEARD formerly servant of

RICHARD WALROND.

JOHN NECHELES.

JOEN LORD.

‘(and others m o r e " [Sf pluws

alios].

Very few of these surnames are other than surnames ofcontinuance. But neither list can be read without its beingseen how many of them are merely taken from neighbouring

NAMES FROM SERVICE. 8 1

places, though the particle " of" has, in most cases, now goneout of use. There is one instance, the first yet met with, ofa double surname, — showing how thoroughly establishedfamily surnames had now become. Henry Cooke of Weoleyis a step towards the modern use of " additions." A fewyears before, he would have been called " Henry of Weoley."But the name " Cooke " had become a family surname, anda further means of distinction was found necessary. On theother hand, MereditJh WuZsJman is very plainly Meredith thelYelcJman.

TJLomas Peynton introduces us to the family now known asPeyton. The latter name has, no doubt, like Flavell fromPZuztnzvile, grown out of an ordinary form of contraction,Pey&o?z having been often written " Peyton."

The name of Richurd formedy servant of Richurd Wal-~ond, gives an example of a source of surnames of which noinstance happens to have arisen here before, but which isby no means uncommon, It was in truth, however, the samething as taking a surname from an office held, of which anexample has been seen in the case of Peter Dapifer.%Retainers were often proud to take for a surname the nameof him whom they served; and this the rather that, inEngland, though they thus served another, they remainedthemselves free; a condition of things upon which LordBacon specially remarks, in his Essay " On the true greatnessof Kingdonis and Estates," as being " almost peculiar toEngland."

I have already stated that a rich mine, whence to bringforth to light again the Men and the Names of bygone times,is to be found in the older class of Deeds, or " Charters " asthey are called.? HaT4ng brought to light many of the Menand the Names of old Birmingham who lived through anearly century and a half of what people call the " Middle

* See before, pp. 18, 32. t See before, p. 11.

82 CHAltTXRS,, FROM AD. 1401

A4ges," by the use of documents of a public character, I willnow illustrate an equal length of time by the use of privateCharters. Being in possession of a series of such Chartersand other private documents relating to Birmiagham, fromthe year 1401 clown to the present time, I could give some-thing like a traditional Directory of the freeholders. Ent Iwill no\v only make from these a few selections, enough toillustrate (1) the transmission of names in the town from ge-neration to generation, and (2) the rise, from time to time, offresh names which still are or lately were well known here.

The names found in the Charters selected for illustrationhere, bring up several points in the history of surnames thatdeserve attention: for example, the manner in which sonswere described during the lifetime of their fathers; thegrowth of the use of further means for ciistinguishment,when any settled surname had become common; the use ofan " alias " to bring in a second surname, in order to secure(not, as now, to prevent) identification; the gradual intro-duction of " additions," that is, of the statement of the occu-pation of a man, over and above his surname, and not, as ofold, to constitute the surname; and, the changing forms ofolder names.

The earlier Charters which I shall use, will make somemen and names re-appear that have already become familiar.I quote these in order that the living series of old Birminghammen and names may be kept continuous, from the earliesttime that I have touched upon down to the time where Ishall cease.

CHARTER OF 1401.WILLIAN GEST. THOMAS son of ROBERT 0 ' THE

RICKARD OF MADELEY. GRENE.

ROBERT 0' THE GRENE. WALTER BROMWYCH.

ROGER SNYTH. PHILIP SHYNGLAL~.

RALPH GANULL. JOHN SEYNGLAR.

JOHN son of THONAS HOLDON.

TO A.D. 1426. 83

CHARTER OF 1404.

RICHARD OP MADELEY. JOHN,CGUPER.

ROBERT 0' THE GRENE. WALTEB BRONWYCH.

WILLIAM GEST and JOAN his wife. JOHN HOLDON.

THOMAS HOLDON. THOVAS O' THE GRENE.

CHABTER OF 1419.

WILLIAN PORTER. JOHN COUPER SNYTE.

JOHN SYYTH son of ROGER SNYTH. RALPH GANULL.

JOHN ACTON. JOHN COUPER COUPER.

THONAS LOISYER. WILLIAM PACH [the modern

ROGER SIYTH. "Putch,” and perhaps (rPage"].

In the last case a surname has, on the marriage of adaughter, become prefixed to the children's true surname;and then, to prevent mistake, two cousiiis get each threenames;—John Couper &myth, and JoJL~ Cozcper Couper. Thisis not common at this early time.

CHARTER OF 1421.

THONAS MYCEELL. ROGER SNYTU.

WILLIAM SXYTH som of ROGER JOHN COUPER SMYTH.

SMYTH. JOHN HOLDON.

WARIN OE MADLEY son of RICH- JOHN SMAESLEY.

AITD OF ADLEY. JOEN son of ROGER SNYTH.

TEOMAS s0.n of WILLIAM GEST JOHN ACTON.

ulicls WILLIAM TOLYMOLY. WILLIAM GEST.

CHARTER OF 1426.

WILLIAN RYDWAR~, Mushy of the THONAS LAYFORDE.

GILD of the HOLY CROSS. TEONAS BERNABROKE.

WILLIAM PONTM and AGNES his JOHN GOLDESNYTH.

wife. JOHN PHELYPS CHALONNERE.

WILLIAM WATERBALL. JOHN ATTE MERSH [sic].

JOHN MERSH.

In the name written John Phelyps Chalonmere, it wouldseem that the true name was John PheZyp (a name we havehad before), and that " Chalonnere" was his occupation. I t

84 CHARTERS, FROM A.D. 1476

is not clear what a " chalonnere " meant. Probably it hadsomething to do with being master of a ship or boat.* I tmay be thought unlikely that this should be so in a midlandcounty; but it is remarkable that TVarwick itself found boat-swains for the king, by ancient custom, as we learn fromthe Domesclay Book-j- ; and an instance of another Warwick-shire master of a ship will presently be named.

The next group of Charters that shall be talten, gives t~7onames met with a century earlier, changed into their moremodern forms ;$ while most of the fresh names that nowarise, have forms familiar to this day.

CHdltTER OF 1476.

THONAS GESTE. RICHARD BALL.

RICHALD ANDREWES. JOHN FLAVELL.

ROBERT SWYBTE. WILLIAM BENET.

RICHAED SMYTH. ROGER PEPEWALL.

CHARTER OF 1494.

HuMFREY BAWDRTK. HUMFRY SHAPLEY.

HENRY SHYLTON. WILLIAM BENETT.

SIR WILLTAM BIRKELEP. TNONAS VYTERRE [the modern

THOMAS REDHILL. " Fitter"].JOHN LENCHE.

Four years after the date of the last-named Charter, therebegan a suit at Law between some Birmingham men, which,bringing before us two names found in that Charter, intro-duces us also to two of the practising Attorneys of the time.Indeed, all the names mentioned in it have either been alreadymet with or will presently be so. All are genuine Birming-ham names.

I find by the original contempormy Roll of the Court ofCommon I’leas, that, in Easter term A.D. 1500, RICHARD

* Ducange, II., p. 2’2 (ea. 1842). But Bee Chaucer's Reves Tale, 1. 4138.t See the passage quoted in Parliamentaw Remembrancw, vol. v. p. 190.X See before, p. 64.

TO A.D. 151’7. 85

FENTON, n7ho was a Priest, brought an action of trespassagainst JOHN SHELDON [the same name as Shyltoiz, Shilton,Shelton, etc.] and HUMFREY BAWDRICR [the ‘‘Bawdryk" ofthe last-quoted Charter]. RICHARD FENTON appeared " byJOHN BOTELER, his attorney," and stated his grievance. JOHN

SHELDON and HUMFREY EATTORICK answered " by HUMPREY

SYMONDES, their attorney." In point of fact, it was a dis-pute about the ownership of certain property in the tom7n,consisting of several Houses, but known by the commonname of " T H E NEW-WINE-CELLAR" [ununz solarium vocatumle Newe-wyne-seley cu?n pertiizentibus in Bymyngham pe-dictum, continens in se diversas domos.]

I t must always be remembered, in looking at both theforegoing and the following examples, that it is the soundof a name that is the test of identity, and not the spelling.Very often, many different spellings of the same name arefound in the same document.”

CHBnTER OF 1517.

HENRY SHYLTON. BALDWIN BBOEE, Master of the

JOHN ROGEBS. GILD of ST. JOHN THI BAPTIST

TEOMAS HASTURLEY. of DERYTENDE.

RICHARD RUSSELL. RALPE FOREST.

SIMON RYDERE. WILLIAN SINONDES.

In the Lease of 1518 from Edward Birmingham to JohnRogers, of which I have published a facsimile,f there arefound the names of " ROGER FOXALL, hy beyly off Brymy-cham for pt yere; WILLIAM NICCOLS odyrwise cald HERCH,

constable off the same; RYCHARD SWYBT off the same." Inthe Charter of sale of the same property, in 1524, thereare found the names of JOHN LOCOR, Mnster of the GILD

* See the examples of fijsls, Lis1cy.y; and Prety, Praty, Pmtie; pp. 69, 89.t At the end of "Traditions of The Old Crown House." The name Rogers ”

has already been found, under the disguise of " Itoggeres," among those whotook part in the affray of 1431. See before, p. 80.

86 CHARTERS, FROM A.D. 1529

of the Invention of the HOLY CROSS ; HUMFREY STMONDES ;and WILLIAM SYMONDES. A few years later bring otherfresh names before us.

CHARTER OF 1629.

JOHN ROQERS. JOEN GREVE.

T H O U S H~STURLEY. WILLIBIY: H A W M S .

T H O U S GREVES AT THE HORE- M~URICE BYDDYLL.

STOK. HENRY OSBURNE.

RALPH FOREST RICHARD RUSSELL.

RALPH BROKE. THONAS BYHULL.

The name of Bonzas Greues, with the descriptive addition" at the Horestok," recalls those early names of " atte wood,"" atte holte," " atte gate," " atte chapel," etc., which hadnow long since ceased to appear in this form. But it wasfound necessary, for the same purpose of personal distinc-tion as begat those older names, to bring in again a formvery much the same.

The name of WiZZiam Hawkes deserves notice, as anexample of the same Christian and Sur-name handed down,from generation to generation, through several centuries,and then expiring. It is not yet a matter of years, it isbarely a few months, since the death of Mr. WilliamHawkes, the lineal descendant of this ancient freeholder,and well known as the principal in the works of the EagleFoundry in Broad Street. And from the first WilZiamHawkes to the last, the name has remained a constant com-bination.”

Hawkes, Hawkeqoord, and Hawkesley, are all Warwickshirenames.t An earlier Hawkes showed a sort of enterprise that

* My father bore the name of " William Hawkes " for Christian names, de-rived from the same stock, and in the same lineal degree, as the late Mr.William Hawkes.

t Hawkes and Hawkesford intermarried, both sides being freeholders inBirmingham. (See " Traditions of The Old Crown House," p. 64.)

TO A.D. 1557. 87

I think none of the family have since shown in the samemanner. JOHN HAWICES was Master of a ship called " TheTi-inity." Early in 1353, he brought over in that ship oneRICI-IARD WALSSH, a priest, from Ireland to England. Thiswas a bolder undertaking then than it would be now. Itwas a direct breach of the Law; and JOHN HAWICES had toobtain a formal pardon from the Crom for the offence: inorder to save his ship from forfeiture. The pardon, whichhe succeeded in obtaining, remains still duly recorded onthe Patent Rolls.

A charter of a few years later brings up some fresh factsof interest.

CHARTER OF 1551.

RICH~RD SMALBROKE. JOHN BETWICHE.

WILLLAX PAYNTON. MORRIS BLOCESICHE.

JOHN FETHERBTON. JOHN NEWEAY.*

THOMAS FETHERSTON. R~CHARD DONNE.

WILLIAM WALEER, Tawner.

Here we find the occupation distinctly stated, in the caseof wi‘lliam Talker. In a Charter of six years later date, Ifind RALPH BROKE, Scythe-smith; THOMAS KENDALL, Mil1e.r.;and JOHNFOXE, Cutler;—the occupation now becoming oftenthus stated. The same Charter records the names of SMAL-

B R O ~ and SYMONS as Attorneys, apparently in partnership.In another of the same year, occurs the name of THOMAS

MARSBE alias MSCHJZLL.

A curious illustration is given, in the Charter of 1551,how, though many names have undergone very fantasticchanges in spelling, and even often in sound, some odd oneshave kept all their sound and nearly all their spelling un-changed. Betwiche has probably changed into the namenow known as B&tri%ge; but Blochiche has been preserved

* See before, p. 41.G 2

85 PLACES IN TEIE OLD TOWN.

wholly unchanged in sound, and with only a slight changeof spelling, as Blocbidye.*

CHAETEE OF 1586.

THONAS FETHERSTON, Fzwbeayer. RICHAND FORRESTE son of W I L -

JOHN DYCICSON aZ,ias BAYLEYS. LIAY FORRESTE.

JOHN BILLINQSLEY. T H O U S JESSEPPE.

GEORGE WZLCHE. RJCHARD WELCHE.

RICHARD ROTTON. EDWARD HAYBERD.

CHARTER OF 1589.

EDWARD RASTELL, Drape?.. THONAS ALLICOCKE.

JOHN SHILTON, Mercer. JOHN JONES.

TEONAS AFFEELDE. EDWARD RABONE.

WILLJAM BOTHE Jmt’.

The last of these Charters mentions names of places ofold importance in the town, but which have now becomeforgotten. We are taken back to the buildings called " LKeZLyarde," in the street called " Gome Chepinge alias Comae Nay-&et," and near to " Mercers Streete" and the " Easteyade."

The names thus found in the Charters selected for thepresent illustrations, are all of them, with rare exceptions,those of men who, besides being indwellers in the town,were also freeholders there. I will now give the nanies ofsome of those who happen to have been recorded, under ex-traordinary circumstances, as tenants and indwellers, thoughunquestionably several of them were freeholclers also. Someof the documents which I shall quote for this purpose, have

* This name is found in West's Directory of 1830. I think West's Directorythe safest of the modern ones for the present sort of comparison, as it was atolerably full one made before whatever changes have been brought aboutby Railway communication. A very interesting Directory is that of Pearsonand Rollason (A.D. 1780), for the loan of which, with several others, I amindebted to the kindness of Mr. Samuel Timmins. I have taken the trouble,in every case, to trace the old names through the modern Directories; but itwould have seemed pedantic and tedious if I had encumbered these pages withthe results.

LEASE TO JOHN PRETY, GENT. 89

a further special interest; inasmuch as they throw muchlight both on the old divisions of the town of Birmingham,and upon the old names of different places in it, whencemany modern streets have, though it is not commonly sus-pected, taken their names.

On the 11th October, 1532, EDWARD BIRMINGHAM granteda remarkable Lease to JOHN PRETY,~~ of the Properties, andfor the Terms of years, and at the Rents, that follow:—

EDWARD BIRMINGHAM, Esquire, TO JOHN PRFTY, Gefi [sic].

" WATER MILL to grynde corne, callid HETH MILL . . . with thewater course ‘ t all customes . , . wythin the lordeship of Bremy-cham ‘t within the parisshe of Astonj" and

Lands "callid the CONYNORY, wiche ROUER REDILL nowe occu-pieth;"

For ninety-nine years; at the rent of $6. 13s. 4d. a year." Medowe lying nygh to the said Mill, which is callyd the LAKE

MEDOWE, inrevercion of one JOHN DRAPER;"

For ninety-nine years; at the rent of $6. 13s. 4d." The revercion of an other p-asture the mhiche one WILLIAM RNS-

SELL now holdeth, . . . callyd DODWALLS;"

For ninety-nine years ; at the rent of $1. 6s. 8d." T h ’ ADVOWSON of PARSONAGE ‘t BENEPYCE of t h e CHURCBE of

SAYNCTE TEOMAS THE MARTYR in Bremycham, called the parsonage of

the priory, , . . to geve % to assigne immedyately after the decasse

or resynacon of one SYR EDWARD TOSTE nowe being parson t he re ; "

During the terms of years before named; no rent, but a fine of

$20. OS. Od.

This Lease is witnessed by RAUS WARLEY, GEORGE GERUAYNS of

YARDELEY, JOHN SYALBBOICE, JOHN GEFPRIES, and SYMON HEOEYNS.

The corn mill named in this Lease, is the mill whenceHeath Mill Lane takes its name. There was, besides this,a malt mill belonging to Edward Birmingham, of which weshall hear presently. Mills were generally a very profitable

* Spellod also, in the same Lease, " Pral!i " and " JPretie."

90 THE "FREE CIIAI~EL."

part of manorial property, ancl sometimes a very harsh usewas made by Lords of Manors of their ownership of mills.But Eclward Birmingham was clearly an enlightened man.For he had already, on the 10th May, 1525, made an ad01’ee-ment with Thomas Holte, Lord of Aston,” that the farmersand millers of the mills of Aston might " feche cary and re-cary al maner griste and come of al maner greyn " for anytenants that pleased to employ them in Birmingham, andthat the farmers and millers of the mills of Birminghammight do the same for the tenants of Aston. There isa liberality and enlightenment about this arrangement thatmust be rather startling to those who live in the faith thatsound Political Economy is a modern discovery.

But the " parsonage and benefice of the church of St.Thomas the Martyr":—what ’was that, and where is itnow1 In the year 1532, it was a regular Chuych ivithin thetown, the advowson of which belonged to the Lords of Bir-mingham. This Church is what is elsewhere called the" Free Chapel." The Priory of Birmingham was dedicatedto St. Thomas the Apostle: this " Free Chapel" or Churchwas dedicated to St. Thomas the Martyr. It was an altar inthis Church which became the subject of an endowmelit in1350.t It was a Church much resorted to; for the Commis-sioners of Henry VIII. have themselves put it upon recordthat, in 1545, long after the date of this Lease, U the inhahi-tans of the same [town] dothe muche resorte to the samechapell for dyvyne servyce." But now, the very place thereof1mxVeth it no more. Not one stone stands upon another ofa Church that was formerly one of great resort; which wasregularly endowed; which was a recognized. benefice, and

* The Lordship of Aston did not include all Aston Parish. On the otherIiand, the Lordship of Birmingham reached, as has been seen, far beyond Bir-mingham Parish, into Aston and Edgbaston.

f- See before, p. 39, eto.

THE BELLS OF ST. MARTIN'S TOWER. 9 1

had a regular parson; and the nomination to the parsonageof which was an advowson forming part of the property ofthe Lord of the Manor.

The good men of Deritend, the early but sincere Reformersof 1375, founded a Church for themselves which, thoughit was plundered, was yet saved through all the turmoilof Henry VIII. and Edward VI.; and which still remains aplace where men gather together to worship God. The Lordof Birmingham endowed a church in 1350, which, under thefalse cloak of zeal for a new Reformation, hungry courtiersnot only plundered but utterly wiped out of esistence in1547. The advowson of the " law-worth men " remains : theadvowson of the " lord " has altogether gone.”

It is a curious coincidence that, while other hungry mengot other parts of the plunder of Birmingham, the two whoappropriated the property of the Gild of Deritend, were thesame who appropriated this " Free Chapel" and all thatbelonged to it.?

While speaking of the Churches of Birmingham, T maymention that Birmingham men had a musical taste threehundred years ago. It is particularly recorded that, in theyear 1552, there were, in old St. Martin's tower, "iiij Belles,with a clock and a chyme;" which is a combination not oftenfound.

I now proceed to state who were the tenants of EdwardBirmingham at the time when his estate was confiscated; $and also who were the tenants of the Gilds of Deritend andof the Holy Cross, and of the Free Chapel and the twoChauntries, at the time when the word went forth for a ge-neral plunder, in the outraged name of religion, and by themeans of a gross fraud practised upon Parliament.§

* See the Note $ to p. 24, and the Note 9 to p. 53.t See " Traditions of The Old Crown House, " p. 42.t See " Traditions of The Old Crown House," pp. 51-53.§ See " Traditions of The Old Crown House,” pp. 36’ 37.

9 2 TFIE "BOROUGH" AND "FOREIGN."

To understand some of the places named in the followingstatements, it must be now said (the facts having becomestrangely forgotten in modern times) that Birmingham con-sisted of the " Borough of Birmingham " and " BirminghamForeign," a very usual mode of distinguishment in ancientplaces. Deritend was always a part of the town of so muchimportance that the whole is usually spoken of as the " Bo-rough of Birmingham and Deritend," though the separatepayts are also often named.

TENANTS AND TENANCIES OF THE LORD OF THE MANOR OFBIRMINGHAM, A.D. 1536-1545.”

MANY FREEHOLDERS, whose names are not given, but who paid

" rents of assize" [i. e. quit-rents] for their freeholds. The following

ancient rents, in kind, are specified :—

WILLIAX LENCHE, heir of WILLIAX GOLDESNYTHE, one pound of

pepper.

The MASTER of the GILD of the HOLY CROSS, two pounds of peppw.

JOHN SHELDON, one powid of czLnviqa, one bow, and siz barbed bolts

{eatapidtce barbatce-f).

Lands and houses in BIRMINGHAM FOREIGN, held by,—THOWAS WARYNO, land near SHAWNORE, formerly held by JOHN

* I have carefully gone over and compared several sets of Robert Whytworth'saccounts, and compared them also with the Grant made to John Dudley on 21stDec. 1545. Various readings found by these comparisons, which seemed likely tothrov any light on modern names of places, I liave inserted between brackets.The statement of’ names and tena.ncies is thus complete down to 1545. The otheraccounts are all of 1547, compared with other documents. So that all theselists give pictures of strictly contemporaneous facts. I have in no case ttrusted toa single document, without further comparison.

+ " Bolt, Pilum vel telum catapulticum." (Junius.) And see after, p. 95.I t was said nearly thirty years ago, by one of the most distinguished of English

Antiquaries, that actual rents reserved in kind were even then hardly knownin England. If this be true, it is worth recording that, within my own memory,two pieces of land in the possession of my father's family were held by ancientrents reserved partly in kind; the rent of the one being so much money, and agoose, the rent of the other being SO much money, and a pot of applss. I t is nolonger ago than 1843 that Mr. Brooke Smith and myself, as the representatives ofthose interested, were parlies to the sale of one of the lands held, up to the last,on one of thesc ancient tcnures in hind.

ANCIENT HOMESTEADS. 93

STERKEY j and a pasture called SLYNG, opposite the park of Birming-ham.

JOHN GARNETT, a croft called HILFELD [HILCROFT] .JOHN ELLYOTT, a Croft called STELEDENYS [STELEDEANES] , in SONER

LANE [SONER-LOND], formerly held by HUGH FLETE.

JOHN BONDE, a pasture or wood called WORSTON, and another pas-ture called WYATPELD.

RICHARD FURNYVALL and ROGER FOXOLL [FOXEOLI] , a pasture calledHUNT-CROFTE [HUNCROFTE] .

ROBERT MYDDELNORE, lands called LADY CROFTE, GOLDHELAIE, andHUNGRE HILL.

JOHN FETHERSTON, a crofte called LORDES-FELDS, in Bordesley.ROBERT WHYTWORTH [who was bailiff of the manor: no doubt be-

cause he was the largest tenant], a pasture called WHEAT-PELDS ; ameadow called MALTE-NYL-MEDOWE ; a pasture called HOLME P A E ~ janother meadow called THE LAUNDS, near to the HOLNE PARKE ; apasture called CRAB-TRE-CROPTE [CRABCROPTE] j land opposite themoat of the manor house, called CALF-CROPTE [CALCROFTE] j and, aMill called THE MALTE-YYLL.

JOHN WYLLEYS [WILLIES] , a meadow called MYDEL-MYL-MEDOWE.

ROGER FOXOLL, a meadow called BUT MEDOWE [BUTTE MEDOWE],*

and a pasture called HETH-FELD [HETEEPEILD] in Dyretend.JOHN PRATTYE, a corn mill called THE HETHE MYLL [as before

stated from the Lease to JOHN PRETY " 1 .WILLIAM RASTALL, a house in EGAESASTON Street, formerly held by

ROBERT SMYTH.

HUNFREY SWANNE, a house in EAGESASTON Street.[JOHN RAWLYNS, a house in EABASTON Street.]WTLLIAM RUSSELL, pastures called THE DUDWALL [included in the

Lease to JOHN PRETY] .JOEN SEILTON, nine pastures and meadows adjoining, called TIIE

HAY-BARNES [HEYBERNS] ; and eight meadows and pastures adjoining,called GREATE RUSSELLS and LYTELL RUSSELLS.

THONAS COWPER, five crofts called PATCHETTS LANDS.

R~CHARD RUSSELL, lands called COLBORNE-OELDS.

WILLIAN LYNCHE, a pasture called MYCHEL-HEFE [MICHELHAY] inEGGEBASTON.

* This points clearly to the old practice of shooting, which no placo neglected.See hereon, " The Parish," pp. 24,9, 497, 518, 519,520.

94 RUTTUN PARK: KYLCUPPE.

JOHN PXATP, as fam,ey of the ofice of KEEPER of the Park calledROTTON [ROTEN] PARKE, with all the profits thereof, and the ".ivyndefalmood and ~OPWOO~,~~ building timber excepted, in reversion of oneTHOUS GPLBERT then Keeper of the Park.*

JOHN DRAPER, a meadow called LAKE-NEDOWE, with the moor there[see the Lease to John Prety].

[Two houses in Egbaston Street, called THE WASHPNG STOLE, andTHE PAYNTERS HOWSE.]

MARIA RYDDELL,? relict of ROGER RYDDELL, thee pastures calledBPRCHELLS [BYRCHE-HILL], and two meadows called GREATE BUCK-

STALLS and LPTELL BUCKSTALLS, and a pasture called THE CONYNGRE

[included in the Lease to John Pretyl. 1

The BOROUGH OF BIRMINGHAM, held by,—

THOUS HOLTE, as fcwnzer of the rents and profits of " all that partor portion of the BIanor of Byrmyngehame called THE BOROUGH 0 1

* This mention of Rotton Park deserves some notice. It is well known thata family of the name of Rotton has long dwelt in Birmingham. Not meetingwith the name in the older records of the town, I infer that this old manorial parkgave the family its name, not the family its name to the park. But the familybecame freeholders of high respectability, many of them ddl ing in Bordesley.Of this I have proofs among my private documents (one has been already citcdunder the year 1586). But the fact is very strilringly jllustrated by the history of anold Bordesley Charity founded by RICHAXD KYLCUPPE, who, on 19th September,1611, devised to Robert Shilton and John Foxe certain land at Sparkbrook, upontrusts which he was curiously but wisely careful to order should be always re-cited on every change of trustees. The controllers of the trust were required tobe, all of them, " yeomen, freehoklers, and inhabitants, of Bordesley." In 1612,out of the eight only persons that fulfilled these conditions, four vere " AmbroseBotton, Richard Rotton, Thomas Rotton, and ,John Rotton." It is remarkable,and very instructive, that this Charity altogether escaped the notice of the rovingCharity Commissioners who were sent out, some years ago, to find out the naked-ness of the land. But its course has nevertheless been remarkably regular.Somewhat familiar with this sort of subject, I confess to surprise at the com-pletcness of the manner in which the donor's intentions have been observed.The proceeds of the charity are still annually distributed in accordance withthose intentions. I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. John Webb for the op-portunity of examining the whole series of documents, from the indenture ofL6PZ to the cards for distribution of the Charity at Christmas last,

t Confusion must be avoided between the odd spellings of the three very diffe-rent names, Redhill (here Byddell: and Reddell ~ A.D. 1830); Byddyll (the modernBiddle); and Byhull (which has, I think, sunk into the modern ((Bill ").

X All these places arc near Bradford Street; and the nameBuclcstalls is stronglysignificant of thc timc when thore was a large park there. See before, pp, 49,71.

TENANTS OE THE OLDEST GILD. 9 5

BYRMYNORWE AND DYRETENDE ; ” except one house and garden in

Deritend [now part of The Old Crown House estate], and two houses

and gardens in EGGEBASTON Street, and one close held by HUNBREY

SWANNE j and except the services of the " hrode arrowes " and " brode

arrowhedcls," and of ppper, within the said Borough and Dyretend;

and except the goods of felons beyond forty shillings.

THOMAS HOLTE had been made Xteward of the manor ofBirmiagham by Edward Birmingham; and XOBERT WHYT-

WORTH was his Baih$ So no doubt they now made a verygood thing out of it between them.

Edward Birmingham himself survived the great wrong hehad suffered but a short time. After his death, the annuityof $20, reserved to him by the Act confiscating the manor,*was doubled, in favour of his widow, by Letters Patent of 1stFebruary 1539. She did not remain his widow long; butnevertheless received the doubled annuity for many years, asELIZAMRH LUDFORD.

The particulars as to tenancies are not recorded as fullyin all other cases as they are in the case of the manorialproperty. I give the tenants' names, with some particularsof their tenancies.

TENANTS AND TENANCIES OF THE GILD OF ST. JOHN THEBAPTIST OF DERITEND, A.D. 1547.

RALPH FOREST, land in DICEITEND.

RALPH BROOKE, land there.

THONAS COTTPELL, a house there.

WILLIAM FOREST, a house there.

WILLIAM BUBTON, a house there.

SETH WALTHEW, a house there.

WILLIAM SWEXSON, a house thore.

THONAS SYRE, a house there.

JOHN LEPPER, a house thore.

JOHN BLOXWICM, a house there.

* See " Traditions of The Old Crown House," 1). 53.

96 TENANTS OF THE " FREE CHAPEL,"

T H O U S MARSHALL, a house in BISNINGEANR called THE LION.

HUNFREY COTTERELL, a house there.THONAS WALTER, a house in ASTON.

NICHOLAS COKE OF ASTON, land there.JOHN NEWEY, a house in NEWEY in the Parish of ASTON.*

BALDWIN BROKE, three closes of land and a meadow in BORDESLEY.

JOHN FETHERSTON, seveval pieces of land there.JANES MERSHE, a piece of land there.ROGER MORE, a house and meadow there.

ALICE MICHELL, a, honse and close of land there.RICHARD NEWEY, a piece of land there.MARION BROEEHURST, a close of land in MOSELEY.

THE WARDENS OF THE CHAPEL, a meadow there.HIJGH COLLINS [ C O L P I ] , land in SALTLEY.

GOLD~NGALE, a house in CASTLE BRONWICH.

JOHN MILWARDE, a house and lands in HANDSWORTH.

RICHARD FLETCHER, a meadow in ERDINGTON.

TENANTS AXD TENANCIES OF THE FREE CHAPEL OFBIEMINCIHAM, A.D. 1547.

The heirs of TEOMAS HOLTE, a meadow in DUDESTON.

JOHN VEYSEP, a meadow called SEAWE-MEDOWII ; a close calledBROHE-CLOSE j and another close called THE CHAPPELL ORCHARDE.

RICHARD WELEY, a close and meadow at the HORNE BROEE.

ROGER CLOWSE, two closes called THE BRONE-CLOSES, and a meadowin WALLMER LANE.

HUHFREY COLCHESTER, a close called THE CHAPPELL CONIGRE.

WILLIAH BODQYB, a close called the HORSE-CLOSE.

THOMAS MARSEALL, a pasture called THE ROUNDHILLS.

WILLIAN MYCHELL, lands in EIRMINQHAN.

JOHN PAPNTER, a house near the burying-ground.NARIA VERNON, a house and croft in MORE Street.?HENRY VENTON, a garden in NEW Street.ROBERT COLLINS, certain lands " viz. P. fold."JOHN GRYPFYTHE, a house in the CHAFPELL Street.

* See before, p. 41.t Moor Street was usually called " Molle" Street at this time. See thha

list of Be tenants of the Gild of the Holy Cross.

CI-IAUNTRIES, AND SECOND GILD. 97

JOHN COCIIES, a house there.HENRY BIDDELL, certain lands.WILLIAN COLENORE, quit rents.

TENANTS OF THE FIRST CHAUNTRY, A.D. 1547 *

JOHN PAYNTER. MARIA VERNON.

WILLIAY PEYNTON. RALPH SERGEANT.

ROBEBT BUTLER. RALPH RUSSELL.

T H O U S HAWIIES. ELEN FLAVELL.

RICEIARD BUTLER. THOXAS NARSHALL.

ROBERT MICHELL. HENRY FOXHALL.

ROGER MICHELL. RICHAED BRANDWOOD.

RICHARD BRORHURST.

TENANTS OP THE SECOND CHAUNTRY, A.D. 16417.JOHN ALEYNE. ROBERT COLMORE.

JOHN VEYSEY. JOHN BYGG.

WILLIAN HORWELL.

TENANTS AND TENANCIES OF THE GILD OF THEHOLY CROSS, A.D. 1547.t

ROBERT PORTER, house in EGEBASTON Street.WILLIAN KING, house in WELL Street.

RICEARD SWYFT, house in ENGLTSHE Street.T H O U S COWPER, house at the HIGHE CROSSE called THE MAYDEN

HIDE.

Heirs of NLCHOLAS BAYLIE, house in the BULL RING, and anotherin NEWE Street.

ROBERT RASTELL, croft in GODES CART LANE.

EDWAKD TAYLOR, house in DERYATNND, next the house of T H O U S

GREVES.

THE INCUMBENT OF THI FREE CHAPEL, [land called] SHAWNORE.

WILLIAN PHILIPPES, a garden near MOLLE STRETE BARRES; a,house at MOLEE STRETE E N D I ; .and a garden in PARIIE Street, neara barn of the Gild.

WILLIAN LANE, a house near THE PEACOCM.

* There are not such particulars given of the tenawcies of the Chauntries as Ihave found in other cases.

f The separate tenancies were much smaller, in general, in this case than inany of the others. Henoe the great number of the tenants.

98 OLD STREETS, AND

The heirs of RASTELL, a house in the ENGLISBE MARKETT.

WILLIAM PAYNTON, a house near MOLLE STRETE BARRES.

HUMFREY JORDEN, a house called WHYTE HARTE.

JOEN BONDE, a house in DERYATEND, near HEATH MYLL.

JOHN SHYLTON, a house in MOLLE Street called TENTBE CEOFTE ;

and a house in DYGBATHE, lately of TEOMAS WALTON.

R~BERT MYDDELMORE, a house in EUEBASTON Street.

Lads and Iiozcses in DALEND, held by,—

HENRY RUSSELL. JOHN SHYLTON.

ROGER CLOWSE. WILLIAN SOLEXORE [? mistake

JOHN NICHOLLS (at DALE END for CoZemore].

BARRES). ACINES WALTON.

JOHN ELYAT (THE DALE HALL). CHRISTIAN HBRRYSON.

Lands and hozcses in CEAPPELL [now BULL] Street," held by,—

JOHN VESSEYE (lands called THE JOHN ELYATT.

FOLDES). JOHN MASSYE.

Lands and houses in ENGLISHE M~RKETY, held by,—

RICHARD SMALBROEE (house call- ROBERT PRESTON (near MOLLE-

ed THE WELL) . STRETE).

RICHARD ALATT. ROBERT COLYNS.

TEOMAS SOMPNOR. JOEN ELYAT.

JOHN VESSEY (near RIDEHILL) .

La9zds and houses in NEW Street, held by,—

WILLIAM BODGYE. WILLTAM SHELDON (near FECK

WILLIAM ELSON. [afterwards PECK] LANE),

THOMAS HUDSON.

* It is to be regretted that so many of the oldest streets and places in Bir-mingham have had their names changed. Several of the names given before,p. 88, and in the present list, will be nev to most readers. Some (but not all)of these names will be found on comparing Westley's Plan (A.D. 1731) and Brad-ford's Plan (A.D. 1'751).

I must take this opportunity of acknowledging the liberal courtesy of Mr.Westley Richards, who has furnished me with sets of new impressions printedfrom the plates engraved by his ancestor more than 130 years ago.

THEIR INPWELLERS. 99

Shops in RIGH Street, held by,—THOUAS YENONT. THONAS BAKER.

JOHN W I L E Y . WILLIAM PEYNTON (in THE SHAM-

JOHN SHYLTON. BLES).

LcmZs and hoitses in the MOLLE [now MOOR] Street, held by,—WILLIAN PEYNTON. ELIZABETH CRASSEER.

ROGER HAWEES. JOHN SDIYTHE.

JOHN VESSEY. €LAMON HATTON.

RICHARD WALKER. ALICE SKYLLETT.

THONAS YEMONS. HENRY BAGLEY.

JOHN SBYLTON. MARIA VERNON.

THOXAS NABSHALL.

Lands, cottages, barns, and bzcildings in EGEBASTON Stseet,held by,—

RICHARD SNALBROKE. THONAS MAEWORTHE.

WILLIAM BODQYE. WILLIAN CORPSON.

ROGER D A N E S . ELIZABETH BAKER.

WILLIAM SYXONDES. HENRY BURCOTT.

ELLEN LOKYER. JOHN SHYLTON.

Lands and stables in MERCERS [now SP ICE^] Street, held by,—JOHN SHILTON. ELIZABETE JACKSON.

THONAS &HRSHALL. HENBT WYLSON.

T H O U S PRESTON. near WALSTVOODES house.

LamcZs and houses in BULL-RING, held by,—JOHN SHYLTON. THONAS MARSHALL.

ROB~RT RASTELL (at T H I PYN- ROBIRT SPURRIER.

BOLD). WILLJAM PEYNTON.

WILLTAM MIUHELL.

Lands and cottages in WELL Street [top of DIGBETII], held by,—JOAN BAYLII. THONAS PRJEST.

THONAS SHOETE. WILLIAM WYLLINGTON.

WILTJAM FOXHALL. A A M S HARPER.

Barns and gardens in PARKE Street, held by,—ROB~RT RASTELL. WILLTAN PEYNTON (near GODES

CART LANE).

100 THE GILD HALL, AND ITS OFFICERS.

House in DERYATZND, held by RICHARD CLE~SON.

Lands, pastzires, and houses, in the FOREIGN OF BIRMINGHAM,

held by,—

JOHN SHYLTON (LONGE CROFT, RICHARD WALKER,.

near LAKE-NEDOWE).* HENRY GEST.

JOHN VESSIE. JOHN OSBORNE.

RICHARD SNALBROKE. RICHARD RICROPT.

HENRY BYDIJELL. ROGER CLOVES.

HENRY FOXHALL.

Four cottuges between MERCERS Street and NEWE Street,held by,—

ELIZABETH PALNER. THONAS GROVES (two cottages,

CRISTOPER BAYLEY. rent free).

Besides this long list of names, I find that the Gild of theHoly Cross, being musical, had an organist (pz~lsutor organi),WII,LIAM BOTHE by name ;—the father, no doubt, of the ViZ-Ziam BotJte already named, who writes himself " Fin. Bothe,Jz~?zr."-f He had a handsome salary. They had also a clerkof the Gild, whose name is unhappily not recorded in itsproper place. One THOMAS GROVES, no doubt he who livedrent free in two of the Gild's cottages, was keeper of thehouse and gardens of the Gild; that house being known bythe names (used indifferently) of " THE TOWN HALL, other-wise called THE GILD HALL."$ There was also an officer call-ed " THE BELMAN "; but his name, like the Gild-clerk's, mustremain for the present unknown to fame, there being an un-lucky blank left for this, as for some few other names, inthe old manuscript before me.

It has been already seen how great a number of indepen-dent freeholders there certainly was in Birmingham as early

* The names of some of the other lands here, are given in the Grant to thePree School, as Bynges, Rotten Fields, Walmores, and Sqncte Mary Wood.

t See before, p. 88. $ See before, p. 79.

BIRMINGHAM, PAST AND PRESENT. 1 0 1

as the middle of the fourteenth century." The long lists ofindwellers just given, recall those who were living and mov-ing as heads of families in the town exactly two hundredyears later. And if the facts are marshalled,—by recollec-tion, to those who know the place: by a glance at any map,old or new, to those who do not,—it will be seen that ex-actly the same parts and streets were the busiest three hun-dred years ago that are so now. From Deritend, up Digbeth,Well Street, Corn Cheping, Bull Ring, High Street, EnglishMarket, Dale End and Bull [Chapel] Street:—on the right,Park Street, Moor Street, Cam [Godes Cart] Lane:—on theleft, Edgbaston Street, Spiceal percers] Street, New Street.Here is the busy Birmingham of to-day, found full of life andactivity, in the same parts, more than three hundred yearsago. Dot down, along each of these streets, and in the out-lying parts, the houses and places that are named in even nomore than the nine foregoing pages; and a populous townrises at once before the eye. Let it be borne in mind, thatwhat has been thus named takes in no more than the privuteestate of the Lord of the Manor (not his ?na.lzoriaZ jurisdic-tion, nor even the freeholders paying quit rents), and theestates of five corporate Bodies within the place; and thatthe properties of all the many private freeholders have to beadded to these. With these facts recalled, the Birminghamof three hundred years ago, and of the ages before, will bebetter understood than it has heretofore been.

While the physical facts now for the first time madeknown, will remain henceforth ineffaceable note-marks, theycannot themselves be fully understood, nor give a true viewof the town's past life and steady growth, unless there bereckoned together with them that which has been the leavenof the whole, without which it would long since have beenlifeless and dead, instead of showing itself full of a growing

* See before, p. 36.

H

1 0 2 BIRMINGHAM, PAST AND FUTURE.

and transmitted vigour; namely, the spirit of the Institutionsthat formed the atmosphere in which the men of Birming-ham lived in past ages, and the habits of life under which,animated by this spirit, they grew up to be men." That self-interest and material self-gratification shall be the ends tobe aimed at, is what Governments that smother freedom andcherish despotism seek to make the doctrine and the practiceof man's life. That every man owes a duty, and a full shareof his time in order to fulfil that duty, to his neighbours andto his country, is the doctrine and the practice whence Eng-land has drawn the living breath of freedom through pastages; and it is this doctrine and this practice, on the stead-fast upholding of which the freedom, the prosperity, and thetrue Progress, now and hereafter, of England, and of Bir-mingham as a vital part of England, assuredly depend.

* See before, pp. 9, 10, 20, 24, etc.

INDEX OF NAMES.

A.Acton, John, 83.Affeelde, Thomas, 88.Agate, 33.Alatt, Richard, 98,Aleyne, John, 97.Allicocke, Thomas, 88.Andrewes, Richard, 84.Arblastre, Rkhard, 80.Attwood, 18, 15.Auk, 33.Aygnelet (Inldeys, Ingley, Ingall),

William, 28, 31, 3%Aylet, 32.

B.Bagley, Henry, 99.Baker, Thomas, 99.Baker, Elizabeth, 99.Ball, Iiichard, 84.Barber, John, 78.Bame, Roger of little, 29, 32.Bmrom, 32.Bawdryk (Bawdrick), Humfrey, 84,

85.Bare, Joan, 28, 31,32.Bayley, Chistofer, 100.Bayl~ys, John Dyclrson alias, 88.Baylie, Nicholas, 97.Baylie, Joan, 99.Belne, Thomas of, 67, 69.Brne (Bever), Richard, 57, 67, 69.Beae, Adam, 51.

Benet, 64.Benet (Benett), William, 84.Bergevenny, Joan, Lady of, SO.Bernabroke, Thomas, 83.Berkeley, Sir William, 84.Bettridge, 87.Betmiche, John, 87.Biddell, Henry, 97, 100.Biddle (Byddyll), 94 note.Bill, 94 note.Billingsley, John, 88.Birmingham, Edward, 89, 90, 91, 95.Birmingham, Fulco of, 19,M, 11, 42.Birmingham, John, 19.Birmingham, John the Deyseer of,

36, 37, 38.Birmingham, Sir John of, 57, 61, 78.Birmingham, Roger the Barber of,

18, 37.Birmingham, Thomas, 19.Birmingham, William of, 18, 19, 27,

28, 32.Birmingham, Walter of, 17, 18.Blocksiche, Morris, 87.Blocksidge, 88.Blouwiche, John, 96.Bodgye, William, 96, 98, 99.Bonde, John, 93, 98.Boteler (Botteley, Butler), Geofiy,

57,64.Boteler, John, 85.Botrller, Richard, 78.Botetourte, John, 11.

104 INDEX OF NAMES.

Bothe, William, 100.Bothe, William, Junr., 88, 100.Brandwood, Richard, 97.Brindejone, 19.Broke (Broolrej, R.alph, 86, 87, 95.Broke, Baldwin, 85, 96.Broke, Peter atte, 29, 32.Broke, Richard of, 57, 64.Brolrehurst, Marion, 96.Brolrhurst, Eichard, 97.Brolcesby, Henry, 80.Brooke, Brooks, Broke, 16, 33.Brommych, Walter, 82, 83.Burcott, Henry, 99.Burgeys, John, 36, 37.Burne, Hugh, 78.Burton, William, 95.Butler, Robert, 97.Butler, Xichard, 97.Buttort, Sir John, 57.Byddyll, Maurice, 86, 96 mte.Bggg, John, 97.Byhull, Thomas, 86, 94 note.

C.

Caldewell, Henry of, 40.Carpenter, John the, 28, 32, 34.Chalonnere, John Phelyps, 83.Chapelle, Richard atte, 40.Chattolr, Thomas, 57, 64.Cheme, John, 80.Cissor (Carver), Hamon, 28, 31, 32.Clerkson, Richard, 100.Clodeshale, John of, 28, 32, 35.Clodeshale, Walter of, 35.Clodeshale, Richard of, 35, 39.Cloves, Roger, 100.Clomse, Roger, 96, 98.Coclres, John, 97.Cofton, Geoffry of, 28, 32.Coke (Cook), Sir Edward, 15.Coke, Nicholas, of Aston, 96.Colchester, Humfrey, 96.Colemon, Henry, 36.Colemon, William, 36, 37.Colcmore, William, 97, 98.Coleyn, John, 40.Collins (Colyc), IXugh, 96.Collins, Robert, 96.

Colmore, Robert, 97.CoIsull (Coleshill, Colleshd), John

of, 36, 37, 76, 77.Colyns, Robert, 98.Cooke, Henry, 80 (see " Weoley").Cooke, John, 80.Cope, 64.Corbyn, William, 28, 31, 32.Corbyn, John, 36.Corbyn, Thomas, 36.Corpson, Wiliiam, 99.Cottrell, Thomas, 95.Cottrell, Humfrey, 96.Couper, William, 57, 64.Couper, John, 83.Couper, John Couper, 83.Coventry and Lichfield, Robert

bishop of, 57, 61.Cowper, Thomas, 93, 97.Crassher, Elizabeth, 99.Cutte, John, 80.

D.

Dale, 33.Dale, Nicholas in the, 28, 29, 32.Dapifer, Peter, lS, 81.Davyes, Roger, 99.Daye, Clarice the, 28, 32, 341.Deritend (Der-yat-end), 70, 71.Dod, William, 57, 64.Dodd, Dodson, 64.Dodeston (Duddeston), William of,

28, 32.Donne, Richard, 87.Draper, John, 89, 94.Dudley, Isabella, Lady of, 78.Dudley, John, Viscount Lisle, 69

Izote. •

Dyclison alias Bayleys, John, 88.

E .

Ellyott, John, 93.Elyat (Elyatt), John, 9s.Elson, William, 98.

F .

Fauconer, Thomas, 80.Penton, Richard, 85.Petherston, John, 87, 93, 96.

INDEX OF NAMES. 105

Fetherston, Thomas, 87, 88.Fitter (see "Vyterre").Flaumvile, Robert, 57, 64, 81.Flavell, John, 84.Flavell, El en, 97.Pletcher, Richard, 96.Flete, Hugh, 93.Fokeram, Richard, 28, 31.Forest, Ralph, 85, 86, 95.Forest, William, 95.Forreste, Xichard son of William, 88.Foxall (Foxhole, Fosoll), Roger,

85, 93.Foxhall, Henry, 97, 100.Foxhall, William, 99.Foxe, John, S?, 94 note.Fraunceys, John, 80.Frewes, John, 36, 37.Furnyvall, Richard, 93.Fychelere, John the, 36, 37, 38.Fylongley, Henry, 80.

G.Gamull, Ralph, 82, 83.Garnett, John, 93.Gate, Roger atte, 28, 32, 33.Gates, 33.Geffon (Geffen), William, 65 note, 67,

69, 78.Geffries, John, 89.Germayns, George, of Yardeley, 89.Gest, William, 82, 83.Gest, Joan, 83.Gest alias Tolymoly, Thomas son of

William, 83, 84.Gest, Henry, 100,Gilbert, John son of, 36, 39.Gilberts, Gilbertson, Gibson, 39.Glover, John, 80.Goldingale, 96.Goldesmyth, William, 92.Goldsmyth, John, 76, 77, 83.Grene, Robert 0' the, 57, 61, 63, 64,

67,69, 78, 82, 83,Grene, !l!homas son of Robert 0' the,

82, 83.Greve, John, 86.Greves, Thomas, at the Horestolc,

86,97.

Groves, Thomas, 100.Gryffythe, John, 96.Gylbert, Thomas, 94.

H.Harper, Agnes, 99.Harryson, Christian, 98.Hasturley, Thomas, 85, 86.Hatton, Hamon, 99.Hawltes, Hawkesford, Hawkesley,86.Hawkes, John, 87.Hawkes, Roger, 99.Hawlres, Thomas, 97.Hawltes, William, 86.Hayberd, Edward, 88.Herch, 85.Hegeyns, Symon, 89.Hey, 41.Holden, 64.Holdon, John, 83.Holdon, John son of Thornas, 82, 83.Holdon, Thomas, 57, 64, 67, 69, 83.Holte, 14,15, 33.Holte, Thomas, 90, 94, 95, 96.IIolte, John atte, 36, 37.Horestok, Thomus Greves at the, 86.Horwell, William, 97.Hudson, Thomas, 98.Huwet (Hewitt), Simon, 57, 64.

1.Inpll, 32.Ingley, 33.

J.Jackson, Elizabeth, 99.Seffe, William, 57, 64, 69.Jeffs, 64.Jesseppe, Thomas, 88.John, Thomas son of, 36, 39.Johnson, 39.Jones, John, 88.Jorden, Humfrey, 98.Jori (Jolly), William, 28, 31, 32.Jori, Edith, 28.Judden, Richard, 4,O.

E.Keen, Kean, 34.Xempe, John, 40.Eendall, Thomas, 87.

106 INDEX OP NAMES.

Xene, Alexander the, 28, 32.Eing, William, 97.Kokeyn, Ralph, 28, 31.Kylcuppe, Richard, 94 note.Kynges, William the, 36, 39.

JJ.

Lane, William, 97.Layforde, Thomas, 83.Lee, William, SO.Lenche, John, 84.Lenche, William, 92, 93.Lepper, John, 95.Lisle, Lysle, Lisley, 69 mle.Lichfield, see Coventry.Littlewood, 15.Locok, John, 86.Lolryer, Thomas, 83.Lokyer, Ellen, 99.Lord, John, 80.Loudham, John, SO.Lowe, Humphrey, 72.Ludford, Elizabeth, 95.Lumbard, Richard, 28, 31, 32.Lynche, William, 93.

M.

Madeley, Richard of, 82, 83.Madley, Warin of, son of Richarrd of,

83.Maidenhacche, Thonias of, 19, 26, 29,

32.Makworthe, Thomas, 99.Makynton, Roger of, 28, 32.Mareschal, Thomas, 36, 37.Margery, William son of, 36, 39.Marshall, Thomas, 96,97, 99.Marshe alias Mychell, Thomas, 87.Massye, John, 98.Mercer, Alexander the, 28, 32,34, 40.Mercer, William the, 110.Mersh, John,, 83.Mersh, *John atte, 83.Mershe, James, 96.Mey, William the, 36, 37, 38.Michel, John, 40.Michel, Thomas, 40.Michell, Alice, 96.Michell, Williarn, 96, 99.

Michell, Robert, 97.Michell, Roger, 97.Mychell, Thomas, 83, 87.Middelmore, Thomas of, 78.Milwarde, John, 96.Mole, 34.More, Roger, 96.Morys, Geoffry, 36.Norys, Henry, 36, 37.lorys , John, SO.>foul, Eager the, 28, 32, 34.Murdak, John, 19.Myddelmore, Robert, 93, 98.

N.Nash, 33.Naashe, Richard atte, 28, 32, 33Necheles, John, 80.Newenhsm, Thomas of, 67, 70.Neuport, William of, 36, 37.Neowehay, williani of the, 40, 41.Newhay, John, 87.Nemey, 41.Newey, John, 96.Newey, Richard, 96.Niccols, Williani, 85.Nicholls, John, 98.

0.

Osborne, John, 100.Osburne, Henry, 86.

r.

Pach, William, S3.Puclrewode, Adam of, 36, 37.Page, Robert, 36, 37.Pakynton (Pakington) John of, 28,

32.Palmer, Elizabeth, 100.Parrys, John, 36, 37. ••Patch, Page, 83.Paynter, John, 96, 97.Paynton, William, 87, 98.Penford, John, 80.Peperall, Roger, 84.Peynton (Peyton), Thomas, 80, 81.Peynton, William, 97, 98, 99.Phelipp, Thomas, 78.Phelyps, John, Cbalonnere, 83.

.IND$X OF NAMES. 107

Philip (Phelipp), John, 40, 41, 78.Philippes, William, 97.Porter, Apes, 83.Porter, John the, 36, 37.Porter, William, 83.Portcr, Bobert, 97.Preston, RoLert, 98.Preston, Thomas, 99.Prety (Praty, Prattye, Pretie), John,

89, 93, 94.Preust, Roger, 28, 31, 32.Priest, Thomas, 99.

R.

Rabone, Edward, 8s.Ragg, 34.Raggede, Cristiana the, 28, 32, 36.Raggede, John the, 40, 41.Ralegh, Thomas, 77.Rastall, William, 93.Rastell, 98.Rastell, Robert, 97, 99.Rastell, Edward, 88,Rawlyns, John, 93.Rea, 71.Redhill, Thomas, 84, 94 note.Redill, Roger, 89.Ricroft, Richard, 100.Rider, Richard, 74, 75. (See " Ryd-

ware.")Rogers, John, 85, 86.Roggeres, Hugh, 80.Rolreby (Rugby), Simon of, 29, 32.Roper (Rubraspatha, Rospear, Bous-

pee, Rooper), 17.Rotton, Richard, 88, 94 note.Rotton, Ambrose, 94 qzote.Rotton, Thomas, 94 note.Rotton, John, 94 note.Rugby, Ranulph of, 19, 27.Russell, Richard, 85, 86, 93.Russell, Thomas, 80.Russell, William, 89,93.Russell, Ralph, 97.Russell, Henry, 98.Rustin (Ruston, Ruston), 15.Ryddell, Maria, 94, and mote.Ryddell, Xogcr, 94.

Ryder, John, 80.Rydere, Simon, 85.Rydware, William, 83.

S.

Seggesley, John, SO, 83.Sergeant, Ralph, 97.Skapley, Humfrey, 84.Shaw, 33.Sham, TVilliam of the, 29, 32, 33.Shefeld, Alexander, 80.Sheldon (Shylton, Shilton, Shelton),

John, 85, 88, 92, 93, 98, 99, 100.Sheldon, Thomas of, 76, 77.Sheldon, William, 98.Shilton, R.obert, 94 note.Shirynton (Sheryngton), Eichard of,

40, 78.Shobenhale, Sir Ricliard, 46, 57, 62.Shorte, Thomas, 99.Shylton, Henry, 84, 85.Shynglar, Philip, 82.Shynglar, John, 82.Simondes, William, 85.Skyllett, Alice, 99.Slowe, William atte, 76, 77.Snidbroke, 87.Smalbroke, Richard, 87, 98, 99,100.Smalbroke, John, 89.Smallnood, 15.Smyth, John, 57, 64, 67, 69, 99.Smyth, R,oger, 82, 83.Smyth, William son of Roger, 83.Smyth, John son of Eager, 83.Smyth, John Couper, 83.Smyth, Richard, 84.Smyth, Robert, 93.Solemore, William, 98.Somery, John of, 28, 32.Sompnor, Thomas, 98.Spenser, Robert the, 40Spenser, Richard the, 40.Spurrier, Robert, 99.Spycer, John, 78.Squyer, William, 80.Sterkey, John, 93.Stretton, Thomas of, 40, 41.Stretton, R,obert, 41, 53.Stretton, William, 80.

10s INnEX ol? NAMES.

Sturmy, Laurence, 78.Sutton, Johii of, 42.Smanne, Humfrey, 93, 95.Swexson, WilLam, 95.Srryfte, Richarde, 85, 97.Ssyfte, Robert, 84.Symondes, Humfrey, 85, 86.Symondes, William, 86, 99. (See

" Simondes.")Symons, 87.Syre, Thomas, 95.

T.Taylor, Edward, 97.Tofte, 8ir Edward, 89.Tolymoly, William Gest alias, 83.Tycito, William, 28, 31.

V.Venton, Henry, 96.Verdon, David, 78.Vernon, Maria, 96, 97, 99.Verite, William, 36.Vessey (Vessie), John, 98, 99,100.Veysey, John, 96, 97, 98,100.Vyterre (Fitter), Thomas, 84.

W.Walker, William, 87.Walker, Richard, 99,100.Walrond, Richard servant of Rich-

ard, SO, 81

Walssh, Richard, 87.Walshman (Welchman), Meredith,

80, 81.Walter, Thomas, 96.Walthew, Seth, 95.Walton, Thomas, 98.Walton, Agnes, 98.Warde, John, 78.Warley, Rauf, 89.Waryng, Thomas, 92.Waterball, William, 83.Welche, George, 88.Welche, Xichard, 88.Weley, John, 99.Weley, Richard, 96.Weoley, Henry Cooke of, 80, 81,Whytworth, Ltobert, 92 Note, 93, 95.Windsor, John of, 40.Wombestrong, Ralph, 29, 31.Wragge, 34.

Wylleys (Willies), John, 93.Wyllington, William, 99.Wylson, Henry, 99.Wyrley, Thomas of, 18.Wyrley, John of, 78, 80.Wytton, Thornas of, 40.

Y.

Pates, 33.Yemoua (Yemont), Thorns, 100.Yerdelev. Thomas, 80.

JOHN EDWAED TAYLOR, PEINTER,

QUEEN STREET, LINOOLN'S IBN BIELDS

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