Rental 1. (1379–80)

This rental is clearly dated 3 Richard II (22 June 1379–21 June 1380) and the expenses for making it are in Accounts 5 (29 September 1379–28 September 1380). The overlap gives a period for first making it of 29 September 1379–21 June 1380. Further narrowing of the date would be speculative and is probably pointless: the accounts tell us that expenses were paid for ‘94 days by several men’ to make it, so it was clearly an extended exercise as weather and the jurymen’s usual work allowed. The finely written register copy (see Plate 10) was annotated on one occasion later in in a single ink and tiny, spidery handwriting, inserting the names of later tenants above the names of most of the original 1379–80 tenants. About twenty-five of the original tenants are unannotated, so they must still have been tenants at the annotation date, which is difficult to ascertain exactly. A few of the inserted names are mentioned in the few court rolls that survive for the early fifteenth century: William Prior, clerk (Court Roll 22: courts of 2 September 1420 and 2 August 1422), Thomas Malcher, lessee of the manor 1419–38 (2 September 1420) Andrew Schopp lessee of the manor 1449–50 (Court Roll 19, 1 August 1414) and William Archer (Court Roll 22, 2 August 1422) for example. But most of the annotated names do not appear in any court rolls, so either they did not happen to appear before the courts in the surviving court rolls after 1380 or they first became tenants after 1422 (the date of the last court roll surviving before 1545). Perhaps the best estimate for the date of the annotations would be the 1410s–1420s, about a generation after its first creation. See also Introduction, p. l on annotated surveys generally.

[Fol. 149v, in red ink] Rental of the manor of Monks Eleigh (Illegh Monachorum) drawn up by the tenants of the same in the time of brother William Woghope warden there in the third year of the reign of King Richard the second [22 June 1379–21 June 1380]. Clerk Thomas Rydle. [In black ink hereafter]