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.)
