Helen J. Nicholson's Blog, page 7
February 19, 2016
The Templars’ chapel at Dinsley
Those readers who have read the descriptions of dark deeds in Templar chapter meetings in the Proceedings against the Templars in the British Isles (translation apparently no longer available since Taylor and Francis bought out Ashgate) will remember that many of the dark deeds were supposed to have happened at Temple Dinsley – for example, Agnes Louekete’s tale (which you can find on pp. 222–23 of the elusive translation or in a short version on page 3 of my ‘Daily News’). Agnes described a vault containing an image of a devil with glittering eyes; a black cross; and a well 360 feet deep. However, the sheriff who was in charge of the Templars’ manor at Dinsley from 9 January until 9 February 1308 did not find any dubious relics or other equipment. He listed what he did find:
J porthors {a breviary}, J anciph[ona] {an antiphoner}, J missal’ {a missal}, J psalter’ {a psalter}, J tropar’ {a book of tropes}, J gradali {a service-book}, J martilog[io] {a calendar of saints}, J Calice { a chalice}, iiij Cap[is] chori {3 copes worn in choir}, J vel’ q[u]\a/drag’ cu[m] appar’ {a lenten veil with equipment}, ij vestiment’ debil’ {two worn-out vestments} . He sold the lot for less than £7 (TNA E 358/19 rot. 52). There were no relics or images, and no cross of any colour.
Hertfordshire, near the former Dinsley manor. Photo by N2 Productions
Despite these sales, the chapel remained in operation. In the accounts for 9 February to 29 September 1308 (TNA E 358/18 rot. 23) 8 shillings were spent on 12 pounds of wax for the chapel, and 41 s 3 d were spent in wages for the chaplain, at a rate of 15 d per week. In addition Martin of Stokton, chaplain, who was working as priest at Dinsley, received 69 s 6 d. As there had not been a Templar brother-chaplain at Dinsley before the arrests in January 1308, presumably for some years past a non-Templar had been employed as chaplain there. He would have provided his own chalice and cross for services.
So, what about the image, cross and well mentioned by Agnes? If the sheriff had found the image and cross he would have sold them (King Edward II needed all the funds he could get), but they were never found. The dark deeds in the chapel at night look like an imagined horror story worthy of Ann Radcliffe. There is a well in the neighbouring village of Preston which is just under 212 feet deep, so Agnes was exaggerating with her well of 360 feet.
Dinsley manor is long gone: Princess Helena College is now on the site.
February 12, 2016
Peacocks!
Yes, there really were peacocks on Templar farms!
In Warwickshire
There were peacocks at Temple Balsall in Warwickshire: see Eileen Gooder, Temple Balsall: The Warwickshire Preceptory of the Templars and their Fate (Chicester: Phillimore, 1995), pp. 34, 42, 51). Income was produced from selling their discarded feathers. At Balsall the foxes took peacock chicks (Gooder, p. 51), which doesn’t appear to have been a problem elsewhere.
In Bedfordshire
Between 14 April and 28 July 1308 there were two peacocks at Swanton in Bedfordshire, two at Sharnbrook plus four chicks; and three at Staughton (TNA E 358/18 rot. 25 dorse). On 28 July the Bedfordshire farms were handed over to Brother William de la More, master of the Temple in England, to support him, his aides, and the Templars of Hertfordshire. On 3 December King Edward II ordered these estates to be taken back into his hands, on the grounds that the Master had been ‘wasting’ the houses, woods, gardens and other things relating to the manors (TNA: E 358/18 rot. 24); but despite the master’s alleged reckless expenditure the peacocks were still there. Between 3 December 1308 and 18 June 1309 (ibid.): there were three peacocks at Swanton, four at Sharnbrook and (TNA E 358/18 rot. 24 dorse) one and two chicks at Staughton. There is no mention in the accounts of the sale of feathers; these peacocks had no clear function.
In Hertfordshire
At Dinsley between 9 February and 29 September 1308 there were 5 peacocks, one of which died (TNA: E 358/18 rot. 23). Again, these peacocks had no obvious function, except to look attractive.
Templar country: looking over north Hertfordshire from the area around the Templars’ former commandery at Dinsley. Photo N2 Productions.
Read about medieval views of peacocks here!
Reynard the Fox
Following my ‘predators’ post: those readers who aren’t familiar with the medieval anti-hero Reynard the Fox should read this.
That fox pulling the papal tiara off Celestine V’s head in my last post reminded me of Reynard the Fox, a very popular medieval fable which developed in the later twelfth and thirteen centuries in France and Germany, from where it spread throughout western Europe: the many “branches” of Reynard verse are generally grouped together as the Roman de Renart cycle. Reynard is an anthropomorphic fox who is always up to no good, a cunning trickster whose escapades are both entertaining and illuminating. He is the animal representative of the medieval outlaw, far less benevolent than Robin Hood, and utilized by medieval scribes (who were of course, monks) as a form of satirical and whimsical criticism. But Reynard is also a fox, and like all sly foxes, quite capable of feigningvulnerability (and piety) in order to elude capture and capture his next meal. One of the most common images…
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February 11, 2016
Predators
It was a dangerous life for geese at the former Templar manor at Staughton in Bedfordshire in the first part of 1309. John de Shadworth reported that there had been 6 geese on the farm when he took over responsibility on 3 December 1308. By 18 June 1309, when he handed the estate over to his successor Richard de Penle, 16 geese more had been hatched, but 11 had died ‘through foxes and kites’ (per vulpes et milues). So only 11 were left to be handed over to Richard. Interestingly, only the geese had suffered from predators: the chickens (gallus and gallina) and the peacocks (pauones) were unaffected.
Image from an English bestiary of 1230–40, from British Library, MS Harley 4751: reproduced from ‘Fox and Geese’ by daseger, 18 September 2013, posted at: https://streetsofsalem.com/2013/09/18/fox-and-geese/
Modern readers will be familiar with foxes as predators, but the kite has been so rare until recently that most of us are unaware that it used to be regarded as a menace to domestic birds. The Medieval Bestiary describes the kite’s reputation in the middle ages.
February 10, 2016
Drink and food
I’ve commented in an earlier post on cheese produced on the Templars’ estates, and on the porridge produced for the farmworkers. Other food and drink listed in the accounts for these estates include cider and bacon.
At Upleadon in Herefordshire, in the first year that the estate was administered for King Edward II there were 5 tuns of cider in the commandery, valued at 5 shillings each; four were sold. There were also 20 bacons in the larder, an ox carcass and four sheep carcasses. In the second year there was no bacon, and there was just a single tun of cider, valued at five shillings (TNA E 358/18 rot. 2 and 2 dorse, E 358/20 rot. 25(2) and dorse).
Herefordshire cider is still highly prized – although so far as I know there is none produced at Upleadon now. But cider was also produced in locations which are no longer known for cider production. At Keele in Staffordshire in the second part of 1308 receipts included 6 shillings from the sale of apples from the garden, and 5 shillings from the sale of a tun of cider (TNA E 358/18 rot. 4 and TNA E 358/20 rot. 5 dorse).
At Bulstrode in Buckinghamshire in the latter part of 1308 receipts included 3 shillings and 4 pence from the sale of 50 gallons of cider from the produce of the garden. In the first four months of 1308 there had been 12 bacons in the larder, from which two were sold; but there was no mention of bacon being produced after April 1308 (TNA E 358/18 rot. 6).
At Swanton in Bedfordshire, in John de Shadworth’s accounts for 3 December 1308–18 June 1309 at Swanton there was a cask full of cider, worth 4 shillings, and an apple press, valued at 3 pence (TNA: E 358/18 rot. 24 (2)). But although the Templars’ estate at Swanton had an income from the sale of cheese and butter (14 stones of cheese and 8 gallons of butter sold 14 April – 28 July 1308 (E 358/18 rot. 25 dorse); and 42 cheeses and 8 gallons of butter during Dec 1308 to June 1309), there were no receipts from sale of cider. Presumably all the cider produced was drunk by the household and farm workers.
Obviously production of food and drink on these estates would have changed after the Templars stopped running the farms and the king’s officials took over: there were no Templars to be fed, and there may have been less spent on hospitality for travellers. But these accounts give us some idea what food and drink was produced while the Templars were around, and presumably the Templars in England also ate the bacon and cheese and drank the cider that their farms produced!
P.S: Templar farms also sold large quantities of eggs: but that is for another post.
Apples growing near Temple Farm, Bosbury, in August 2013. The farm is on the site of the Templars’ commandery of Upleadon.
February 8, 2016
Update on feeding the farmworkers
I’ve updated my blog post on feeding the farmworkers with some information on the grain received by farmworkers on the Templars’ estates in Bedfordshire: Swanton, Sharnbrook and Staughton.
January 29, 2016
Beds. and Northants
As Wattpad is down for maintenance, I am putting a copy of today’s draft transcription here for safe keeping. It includes a final account for John of Shaddesworth, custodian of the Templars’ lands in Hertfordshire, Essex and Bedfordshire in the first few years of King Edward II’s reign, and the first year’s account for their property in Bedfordshire, which also includes some property in Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire. I have translated the introduction to the 1308 material and the account for Millbrook in Bedfordshire.
The Templars in Hertfordshire and Essex year one with translation draft
January 27, 2016
Cheese! (and: calculations in Old Money)
I’ve put on to Wattpad transcriptions and translations of the sheriffs’ accounts for Temple Bulstrode in from Easter to September 1308 and from the end of September 1308 to March 1309. (There is also a .pdf file of the accounts from January 1308 to March 1309 here.)
Between Easter 1308 and the end of September Walter of Molesworth, sheriff of Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, accounted for 157 cheeses at Bulstrode: 44 that were there when he took over the manor from the previous sheriff at Easter 1308 and 113 produced while he was in charge. Between the end of September 1308 and March 1309 the manor produced ‘rowen’ cheese, so-called because the cows had been grazing on mown grass – this was apparently worth less than cheese produced in the summer. But the accounts entered on rolls at the Exchequer don’t tell us anything more about these cheeses.
There is more detailed information in the ‘particulars of account’ which were submitted to the Exchequer by Edmund de Burnham who took over the manor in March 1309, and which are now in the British Library as Harley Rolls A 25–27. The particulars for March–September 1309 list all the cheeses that had been sold:
12 shillings (s.) and 8 pence (d.) for 38 cheeses sold for 4 d. each;
7 s. 1 d. for 17 cheeses @ 5 d.;
10 s. for 20 cheeses @ 6 d.;
8 s. 2 d. for 14 cheeses @ 7 d.;
13 s. 4 d. for 20 cheeses @ 8 d.;
7 s. 6 d. for 30 cheeses @ 3 d.;
5 s. 3 d. for 28 cheeses for 2¼ d.
… presumably these different prices reflected the quality of the cheese, its maturity and its size. Clearly there was a lot of variation, as the most expensive cheese was worth more than three and a half times as much as the cheapest cheese. The inventory from January 1308 states that the dairy at Bulstrode contained more than one ‘form’ for shaping cheese: perhaps these were different sizes.
In summer 1309 there were also sales of butter, at two different prices. As the quantity remained the same, perhaps the price reflected different qualities:
3 s. 8 d. for 5½ lagens (gallons) of butter at 8 d. per lagen;
8 s. 5½ d. for 14½ lagen’ of butter @ 7 d.
(Mathematical note: UK readers over the age of 52 should be able to check the calculations above; everyone else needs to remember that there were 12 d. to the s.)
January 25, 2016
The Templars in Essex revisited
I’ve returned to Essex to tidy up the transcription and add some translation to the work Valerie Rudd has done: more coming soon.
