The Building Accounts of Kirby Muxloe Castle, 1480-1484
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THE BUILDING ACCOUNTS OE KIEBT! MUXLOE CASTLE. 193 THE BUILDING ACCOUNTS OF KIRBY MUXLOE CASTLE, 1480-1484. EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY A. HAMILTON THOMPSON, M.A., F.S.A. INTRODUCTION. A brief description of the MS. volume of accounts, of which a summary edition follows here, has been given already in our Transactions by Mr. T. H. Fosbrooke, together with a photo graphic reproduction of two of its leaves.3 It will be remembered that it is the record of the weekly expenses disbursed in connexion with the rebuilding or, as the steward who cast up the accounts more accurately calls it, the repair of the castle of Kirby Muxloe. Since the discovery of the MS., it has been examined by Mr. C. R. Peers, Professor Lethaby and other architectural scholars ; but it has remained untranscribed and unedited. Early in 1917 the present writer was enabled, through the good offices of his friend Mr. Fosbrooke, to undertake the task ; and the results are now presented to members of our Society. The work begun in October, 1480, by order of William, lord Hastings, was the transformation of the manor-house or small castle which already existed at Kirby into a fortified dwelling of considerable size and importance. We know nothing ot the earlier building apart from the few indications contained in the accounts, which show that it stood on part of the present site and that its hall was retained when the new inner court was made. Lord Hastings' work included the formation of this inner court, the castle proper, which he surrounded with a moat and a brick wall. The enclosure was entered from the outer court by a great gatehouse in the middle of the north side; and the wall had a tower at each angle and a tower in the middle of its east, south and west sides respectively. Thus there came into being one of the latest of English fortified dwellings which deserves the name of a castle.b The plan of lord Hastings' building is a late survival 1 See Transactions XI., 87, 88. The leaves illustrated are ff. 79 d, 80 of the MS., containing the final accounts for the working year 1481-2 and the opening account of the year beginning 4 November, 1482. * The word ' castle' does not occur in the accounts. The building and the site are referred to as manerium and placea, the ' manor ' and the ' place.' 194 LEICESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. of the type of castle-plan of which the castle of Bodiam in Sussex, a hundred years earlier, is the most perfect example in England. From the defensive point of view, almost its only fifteenth-century rival is Tattershall castle in Lincolnshire, rebuilt about 1430, which also combines the characteristics of stronghold and dwelling- house ; while it shares with Tiittershall and the castle of Hurst- monceaux in Sussex, begun about 1446, the pre-eminence, among secular buildings of the fifteenth century, in beauty and perfection of brick architecture. Upon the first leaf of the account-book is a memorandum by Roger Bowlott, Hastings' steward, who acted throughout as clerk of the works, of the sums received by him at various periods in the course of the work. The regular weekly accounts begin upon the second leaf with the last full week of October 1480. Wood, straw and sand were brought to the brickhouse near the site of the new building, and a workman was employed to clear a way for the carriage of rubble into the Warren moat. Four labourers were set to work upon the new moat and its outlet into the neighbouring brook, and two more were placed under the superintendence of Thomas the gardener to clear the site of the garden of the oaks, ashes and elms which grew there. These labourers were handy men, paid by the day and half-day, and at first they were employed indiscriminately in the moat and garden, John Powell receiving fourpence and each of the others threepence daily—sums which we must multiply considerably to obtain their equivalents in money of to-day. They soon fall, however, into two divisions, Powell having charge of an increasing number of ditchers who worked at the moat, while there were normally two garden-men, John Peyntour and Morris Pryce. Peyntour's occupation, as winter drew on, was to ' gather' crab-trees ' for grafts to be done therefrom,' while Pryce, and on one occasion another helper from the moat, were ' grubbing in the garden.' For the most part, the labourers seem to have been Welshmen who were probably hired upon Powell's recommendation. Local men were hired occasionally: one Stephen Jeffson appears at intervals through the whole accounts in con nexion with various forms of labour, while such names as William Leyceter and Thomas Pakyngton occur for short periods. But, of the eleven ditchers who were regularly in the moat by the end of April 1481, only three, William Nevell, Henry Hylton and John Byngharn, bear names which are not characteristically Welsh : the others, John Powell, Davy Jonson, Ellis Gough, John Davy, William or John ap Gryffyth, Hugh Powell, John Hugh or Hewes, and Lewis William, were evidently Welsh importations, as was Pryce or Apreece, the garden-man. Their individual work averaged about four days a week. Christmas week was a holiday for all, but six men did their full day's work on the Saturday. THE BUILDING ACCOUNTS OF KIEBY MUXLOE CASTLE. 195 Until Christmas the weekly accounts are insignificant, and the highest total reached is 11s. Id. At Christmas, however, there occur several separate accounts for the work done during the quarter. These include the carriage of 197 loads of rough stone by various local persons from the quarries at Steward hey and the Waste at sixpence a load, Roger Bowlott, the surveyor and clerk of the works, receiving his share. From a second account it appears that the old manor-house upon the site was kept as the nucleus, at any rate, of the dwelling-house which, as in all mediaeval castles, occupied part of the fortified enclosure. Later on, we have evidence of new kitchens and their offices, but the only mention of the hall and its adjacent chambers occurs in the bill paid at the end of this first quarter to Richard Godesalf the slater and his servants for several days' work. The inference is clear : either the hall had been completed shortly before the work of converting the site into a fortified enclosure began, and needed nothing but an outer roof, or the old manor-house roof was now repaired or renewed. The usual history of fifteenth-century castles indicates the second alternative as more likely : we need remember only the example of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where the later castle has similarly grown round a manor-house which, before the fifteenth century, was of little or no importance as a stronghold.3 At the same time 6s. 8^d. was paid for work connected with the garden fence, of oak palings cut upon the demesne, and £13 14s. Id. for waggons and oxen. Eight yoke of oxen were bought 'of divers men and in markets,' one at Narborough, the price of a yoke averaging 25s. Two pairs of waggon-wheels cost 26s. 8d. and 26s. 9d. respectively; the bodies of the-waggons and the axle-trees were made for 6s. 220 Ib. of iron bought of Thomas Cooper at Narborough at ^-d. a pound were worked by the smith into ' cleeves, teams, hooks, rings, shackles and pins' for the waggons at the same rate. Finally there is a small account of 4s 8d. for miscellaneous payments—an axe and a bill for the gardener, two mattocks and an axe for the waggoners, an iron axle-pin for a waggon, and ' vna mucfforke empta pro le ffermyng.' Two waggoners, William Haslam and Thomas Launder, were constantly employed, each at 5s. a quarter with lOd. a week for his board and lodging; and, throughout the accounts, the ' wain- men's boarding ' is a never-varying item. After the first week in February 1480-1, there was a rise in wages. Powell was advanced from 4d. to 6d., the other labourers from 3d. to 4d. daily. This rate continued throughout the spring ' See Fosbrooke, T. H., Ashby-de-la-Z ouch Castle (Assoc. Soc. Report.ts and Papers XXXI., 181-224). 196 LEICESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. and summer : but, for four weeks iu April, Peyntour was reduced from 4d. to 3d., possibly by way of a fine. On 26 February, a change takes place in the form of the weekly accounts, which now begin to be arranged, according to the usual mediaeval practice, under classified headings. This change is due to the coming of two new labourers, classed neither as 'Dykers ' or ' Gardiu',' but under the general title of ' Laboratores.' The other items ai-e ' Waynmen Bordyng ' and ' Empciones,' i.e., purchases, of which there is one, a bar of iron bought for 18d. of John Parsons ' for a croo (crow) to be made thereof for divers necessaries within the manor in the same place and for digging stone.' The new labourers, John Byngliam, who soon after joined the ditchers, and Richard Hakett, who is probably the same person as Richard Haukyn, employed very constantly afterwards, were hired to lay foundations for walls and a chamber within the moat ' upon the draw-bridge '; and next week Richard Bradeffeld was paid 3s. 4d. for laying the slates of the ' chamber by the bridge.' a During the week before and after Lady day Haukyn was busy getting together stones, plaster and other necessaries within the site.