Abstract
The medieval accounting materials which survive from Durham Cathedral Priory constitute one of the largest collections from any medieval institution outside royal government. The total number of extant items within the medieval archive, including accounting and non-accounting material, has been estimated to be approximately 40,00c).1 Following the surrender of the house in December 1539 its last prior, Hugh Whitehead, was left in a position as a ‘caretaker manager’, and in 1541 he became the dean of the newly constituted chapter of Durham Cathedral which was largely endowed with the estates pertaining to the former priory.2 Thus there was both a continuity in administration and a reason to preserve ancient records, potentially useful in upholding claims to land or revenue at a much later date. For similar reasons, large collections of medieval accounting material also survive from other Benedictine foundations such as those of Canterbury Norwich, Westminster, Winchester and Worcester.3
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
J. C. Davies, ‘The muniments of the Dean and Chapter of Durham’, Durham University Journal, 44 (1952), p. 77.
R. A. L. Smith, Canterbury Cathedral Priory: A Study in Monastic Administration (Cambridge, 1943);
H. W. Saunders, An Introduction to the Obedientiary and Manor Rolls of Norwich Cathedral Priory (Norwich, 1930);
B. Harvey, The Obedientiaries of Westminster Abbey and their Financial Records (Woodbridge, 2002);
G. W. Kitchin (ed.), Computus Rolls of the Obedientiaries of St. Swithun’s Priory, Winchester (London, 1892);
J. M. Wilson, J. H. Bloom and S. G. Hamilton (eds), Accounts of the Priory of Worcester (Worcester Historical Society, 21, 1907).
W. A. Pantin, Report on the Muniments of the Dean and Chapter of Durham (Privately printed, 1939), pp. 1–2; Rites, p. 84; Davies, ‘Muniments’, p. 81.
J. T. Fowler (ed.), Rites of Durham (Surtees Society, 107, 1902), pp. 99–102. Plans of the cathedral, the priory and the peninsula upon which they sit are inserted between pp. 534–5.
An illustration is provided in A. J. Piper, ‘Dr Thomas Swalwell: monk of Durham, archivist and bibliophile (d. 1539)’ in J. P. Carley and C. G. C. Tite (eds), Books and Collectors 1200–1700: Essays presented to Andrew Watson (London, 1997), p. 77.
Caruaria I, II, and III (Part II): R. B. Dobson, Durham Priory 1400–1450 (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 90–1.
The English cells of Durham were dissolved as follows: Jarrow, Holy Island and Lytham were leased before 31 December 1539; the remainder were dissolved with the mother house in December 1539, although the site and buildings of Durham College, Oxford, were not finally surrendered until 1544: M. Heale, The Dependent Priories of Medieval English Monasteries (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. 310–13; Collectanea, p. 21.
The Guide lists accounts, rent-rolls and rentals separately. In the above table these three categories have been aggregated. Some items exist in duplicate: these have been counted as a single record. Some items have been bound into books: each book counts as a single record, although in fact it may contain a number of records for a number of years or may be particularly large such as the Feodarium Prioratus Dunelmensis, the survey of the freeholdings of the main monastic estate undertaken in 1430, which runs to 92 printed pages: W. Greenwell, Feodarium Prioratus Dunelmensis (Surtees Society, 58, 1871), pp. 1–92.
W. T Baxter, ‘Early accounting: the tally and the checker-board’ in R. H. Parker and B. S. Yamey (eds), Accounting History: Some British Contributions (Oxford, 1994), pp. 201–16.
W. E. Lunt, The Valuation of Norwich (Oxford, 1926).
This rental is printed in R. A. Lomasand A. J. Piper (eds), Durham Cathedral Priory Rentals: I Bursars Rentals (Surtees Society, 198, 1986), pp. 21–9.
R. B. Dobson, Durham Priory 1400–1450 (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 346–7. A single earlier status of 1315 survives which comprises a list of vestments, books etc. held at Durham College in Oxford: Collectanea, pp. 35–8.
Durham Priory, pp. 148, 316–27; R. B. Dobson, ‘The last English monks on Scottish soil: the severance of Coldingham Priory from the monastery of Durham’ in R. B. Dobson (ed.), Church and Society in the Medieval North of England (London, 1996), pp. 113, 116.
B. Dodds, ‘Durham Priory tithes and the Black Death between Tyne and Tees’, Northern History, 39 (2002), p. 17.
R. A. Lomas, ‘A northern farm at the end of the Middle Ages: Elvethall Manor, Durham, 1443/4–1513/14’, Northern History, 18 (1982), pp. 26–53.
J. Raine (ed.), Historiae Dunelmensis Scriptores Très (Surtees Society, 9, 1839), pp. cclxxv–cccviii;
W. Greenwell (ed.), Feodarium Prioratus Dunelmensis (Surtees Society, 58, 1871), pp. 98–211.
Kirk, Obedientiars of Abingdon Abbey; E. Searle and B. Ross (eds), Accounts of the Cellarers of Battle Abbey (Sydney, 1967);
I. Kershaw and D. M. Smith (eds), The Bolton Priory Computus 1286–1325 (Woodbridge, 2000);
P. D. A. Harvey, ‘Mid-13th-century accounts from Bury St Edmunds Abbey’, Transactions of the British Archaeological Association Conference, 20 (1998), pp. 128–38;
Smith, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, pp. 222–3; A. M. Erskine (ed.), The Accounts of the Fabric of Exeter Cathedral, 1279–1353, 2 vols. (Devon & Cornwall Record Society, 24, 1981; 26, 1983);
L.J. Lloyd, The Library of Exeter Cathedral (Exeter, 1956), p. 21;
R. Graham, ‘The finance of Malton Priory, 1244–1257’, TRHS, new series, 18 (1904), pp. 131–56; Saunders, Obedientiary and Manor Rolls, p. 8;
J. Greatrex (ed.), Account Rolls of the Obedientiaries of Peterborough (Northamptonshire Record Society, 33, 1983);
P. I. King (ed.), The Book of William Morton, Almoner of Peterborough Monastery 1448–1467 (Northamptonshire Record Society, 16, 1954);
Tillotson, Monastery and Society; A. H. Denney (ed.), The Sibton Abbey Estates: Select Documents 1325–1509 (Suffolk Records Society, 2, 1960);
D. Dymond (ed.), The Register of Thetford Priory, 2 vols. (Norfolk Record Society, 59, 1994; 60, 1995);
B. Harvey, Living and Dying in England 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford, 1993), pp. 252–3;
G. W. Kitchin (ed.), Computus Rolls; J. M. Wilson, J. H. Bloom and S. G. Hamilton (eds), Accounts of the Priory of Worcester (Worcester Historical Society, 21, 1907), pp. xi–xxvi.
A. J. Piper, ‘Evidence of accounting and local estate services at Durham, c. 1240’, Archives, 20 (1992), p. 36.
J. Raine (ed.), The Correspondence, Inventories, Account Rolls, and Law Proceedings of the Priory of Coldingham (Surtees Society, 12, 1841); J. Raine (ed.), The Charters of Endowment, Inventories and Account Rolls of the Priory of Finchale (Surtees Society, 6, 1837);
J. Raine (ed.), The Inventories and Account Rolls of the Benedictine Houses or Cells of farrow and Monk-Wearmouth in the County of Durham (Surtees Society, 29, 1854).
J. Raine, The History and Antiquities of North Durham (London, 1852);
H. Fishwick (ed.), The History of the Parish of Lytham in the County of Lancaster (Chetham Society, 60, 1907); Collectanea, pp. 1–76.
J. Raine (ed.), The Durham Household Book or the Accounts of the Bursar of the Monastery of Durham from Pentecost 1530 to Pentecost 1534 (Surtees Society, 18, 1844).
J. T. Fowler (ed.), Extracts from the Account Rolls of the Abbey of Durham, from the original MSS, (Surtees Society, 99, 1898; 100, 1898; 103, 1900).
R. Britnell (ed.), Durham Priory Manorial Accounts 1277–1310 (Surtees Society, 218, 2014).
See also, F. G. Davenport, The Economic Development of a Norfolk Manor 1086–1565 (London, 1967);
P. D. A. Harvey (ed.), Manorial Records of Cuxham, Oxfordshire, c. 1200–1359 (Oxford Record Society, 50, 1976);
M. Bailey (ed.), The English Manor c. 1200–c. 1500 (Manchester, 2002).
Household accounts have been investigated in C. M. Woolgar (ed.), Household Accounts from Medieval England, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1992–3).
In the past there has been disagreement and doubt over what specific terms such as arreragia or remanentia (the balance shown at the bottom of an account) actually indicate: C. Noke, ‘Agency and the Excessus balance in manorial accounts’ in R. H. Parker and B. S. Yamey (eds), Accounting History: Some British Contributions (Oxford, 1994), p. 139.
D. Postles, ‘The “excessus” balance in manorial accounts’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 54 (1981), pp. 105–10; Noke, Agency’, pp. 139–59.
R. R. Davies, ‘Baronial accounts, incomes and arrears in the later Middle Ages’, EcHR, 21 (1968), p. 211.
D. L. Farmer, ‘Prices and wages’ in H. E. Hallam (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 733, 785;
M. Page, ‘Challenging custom: the auditors of the bishopric of Winchester, c. 1300–c. 1310’ in M. Prestwich, R. H. Britnell and R. Frame (eds), Thirteenth Century England VI: Proceedings of the Durham Conference 1999 (Woodbridge, 1997), p. 39.
G. G. Coulton, Five Centuries of Religion, vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1936), p. 448.
DAR, vol. 3, p. liv; M. Threlfall-Holmes, Monks and Markets: Durham Cathedral Priory 1460–1520 (Oxford, 2005), p. 31.
M. M. Postan, ‘Why was science backward in the Middle Ages?’ in M. M. Postan (ed.), Essays on Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 81–6.
A limited number of account rolls from Selby and Whitby have been published: J. H. Tillotson (ed.), Monastery and Society in the Late Middle Ages: Selected Account Rolls from SeJby Abbey, Yorkshire, 1398–1537 (Woodbridge, 1988);
J. C. Atkinson (ed.), Cartularium Abbathie de Whitby, Ordinis S. Benedicti, Fundatae Anno MLXXVIII, vol. 2 (Surtees Society, 72, 1881), pp. 553–85, 600–25.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Alisdair Dobie
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dobie, A. (2015). The Corpus of Accounting Material. In: Accounting at Durham Cathedral Priory. Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137479785_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137479785_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-55282-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-47978-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)