DCM

Durham Cathedral muniments

RS

Rolls Series

SS

Surtees Society

The object of this paper is to illustrate from one area how the prevalence of a standard canon law in the medieval Church could yet cover immense differences in practice, especially when local custom was at issue. A mortuary was an offering given to the parish church when a person died.Footnote ¹ It is generally agreed among scholars, as it was among medieval canon lawyers, that the details of the ancient practice of mortuary depended on local custom. In England mortuaries (which were known, though by other names, throughout Europe) certainly predated the Conquest, the oldest probably from the ninth century.Footnote ² The older English name was soulscot, but in the post-Conquest period they were known as mortuary and also as corse present or principal. The origins of the custom are disputed. By 1000, however, they were paid to one church at burial, though later this custom certainly could be modified for persons who attended several churches. But it is also generally agreed among scholars, ancient and modern, that only one item was owed.Footnote ³ In the famous Hunne case in 1511 the parish priest demanded the winding sheet for the dead child.Footnote ⁴ Durham and some other northern evidence, however, shows just how varied local custom could be.

In the 1360s and 1370s some parishioners of St Oswald's church, in the city of Durham, got into controversy with the prior, who was their rector, about mortuaries. They were not quarrelling about their duty to pay them but about who owed what.Footnote ⁵ Some contended that because they were tenants of the bishop, with their animals kept on Framwellgate moor, they owed only a mortuary cloth and not an animal. Others, no doubt knowing of this claim, said that if some living in the city did not have to give an animal none should do so. Here I wish to examine the truth or otherwise of what the parishioners said about custom. In the end the priory had to concede the claim of the Framwellgate parishioners but the rest lost. As I have tried to discover the truth of their statements, I have found that some mortuary customs in the northern area were different from norms elsewhere. The evidence is so strikingly different from that usually presented that I have found it very difficult to convince fellow scholars whose research has lain only in southern dioceses that the north was really so singular: but it was.

All the Durham witnesses accepted that they owed a cloth. The wording used: ‘the best garment taxed’ (‘meliorem vestem talliatum’) agrees with wills in the York registers where the phrase will be something like: ‘my best gown taxed for my body’.Footnote ⁶ In Durham these were articles of personal clothing. We still have the lists for St Oswald's parish, where they are often headed ‘panni mortuorum’ and are sometimes described. Tunics and gowns are the most common (‘tunica’, ‘toga’) but kirtles are fairly common and jackets, tabards or shirts (‘colobium’) and even embroidered garments appear (‘unum acupictum’).Footnote ⁷

However, one issue in the Framwellgate case was that many people also owed an animal, so that in the city of Durham the mortuary was often both an animal and a garment. The parishioners, however, not only asserted that people with animals in Framwellgate did not owe an animal but also that burgesses in York, Bishop Auckland, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Gateshead, likewise by long-standing custom, owed a cloth only. The priory denied this, of course, and claimed that all across the diocese of Durham both were owed.

How true were the various claims? For Durham city the priory accounts supply some information. The procurator of St Oswald's answered to a priory obedientiary, the hostillar. His accounts list ‘panni’ and ‘mortuaria viva’ and every year several names occur in both lists. Other city parishes agree. In the tiny parish of St Mary Magdalene, not involved in the other case, in the almoner's accounts the rare mentions of mortuaries show the same custom.Footnote ⁸ Within the city therefore some people certainly owed both an animal and a garment.

This custom was widespread in the northern area. In the procurator's accounts for the parish of Norham, owned by Durham Priory, the lists of ‘mortuaria viva’ (animals) or ‘non viva’ (clothes), show that many people owed both a beast and a cloth. In 1516–17, for instance, William Dodd of Cornhill is listed for a cow and a tunic.Footnote ⁹ Bishop Kellaw asserted in 1315 that this applied, as the ‘custom of those parts’, to the parishioners of Meldon near Morpeth.Footnote ¹⁰ They were bound to give their best cloth with their best animal and Adam de Thorneton should therefore have given his best horse but it had been taken away by the Cistercian abbot of Newminster. This certainly seems to have been the custom in Darlington where we find in 1343 Celia Underwood, wife of a merchant, seeking burial in St Cuthbert's church and specifying in her will her best cloth and her best animal.Footnote ¹¹

It is perhaps more surprising to find this in Northallerton too. But Northallerton was in fact part of the diocese of Durham and furthermore a peculiar of the prior of Durham, who proved its wills.Footnote ¹² There again some people owed both a cloth and an animal. William Ampleforth of Northallerton in 1489, for instance, seeking burial in All Saints church there, specified as his mortuary ‘my best animal with my best cloth pertaining to my body, as is the custom’.Footnote ¹³ Only two wills mention a best gown only.Footnote ¹⁴

Even more suggestive than this is a will from Hexham offering both a cloth and a beast. In 1396 Robert Cooke of Hexham, whose status is not given, sought burial in the priory there ‘with my best beast of burden and a cloth for my mortuary, as is the custom’.Footnote ¹⁵ Hexham belonged to the archdiocese of York as a peculiar but until just after the Conquest had been part of Durham.

If Hexham had followed the general custom of the diocese of York one would have expected either a cloth or an animal to be given. Yorkshire wills show that country places almost always exacted beasts but city parishes usually asked burgesses for garments only, as the Durham citizens asserted. Some wills, specifying a garment, say ‘as is the custom’.Footnote ¹⁶ Sir Thomas Fulthorpe, justice of the King's Bench, in 1454 left to the rector of his parish church of St Cuthbert in Peaseholm ‘my best gown with a hood as a mortuary as is the custom in that city’.Footnote ¹⁷ That this was a particular York city practice can be seen in the will of Peter de Bolton, rector of Scrayingham, in the diocese of York, in 1414. If he died and was buried in his parish his mortuary was to be his best animal but if he died in the parish of St John del Pyke, in the city of York, it was to be his best garment.Footnote ¹⁸

The Durham citizens were perhaps also right about Gateshead. William Sire of Gateshead, a rich and well-endowed man, whom one would expect to own horses, in his will of May 1349 left only his best cloth as a mortuary.Footnote ¹⁹ I have not been able so far to verify the contention of the Durham citizens that the custom of Newcastle was like that of the city of York. One witness only in the Durham case, an elderly priest, said he knew the Newcastle custom because he now lived there; only a cloth was owed.Footnote ²⁰

One further northern area where something like the Durham custom prevailed was the diocese of Carlisle. Some people in the city and diocese of Carlisle owed both a garment and their best beast. The Testamenta karleolensia reveals a man wishing to be buried in St Kentigern, Crosthwaite, and specifying his best draught animal and a cloth.Footnote ²¹ Thomas de Alayneby, in 1362, a citizen and former mayor of Carlisle, asking burial in St Cuthbert's church,Footnote ²² and another former mayor, William de Arthureth in 1369, specified this.Footnote ²³ There are several other examples, the majority being people who asked for burial in Carlisle itself.Footnote ²⁴

As far as one can see, therefore, in the diocese of Durham many people owed the church on death both a garment and an animal, and those without animals nearly always seem to have given a garment. Elsewhere some people, who might be expected to own animals, owed only a garment because of local custom. I have not found in these northern parts that anyone owed other ‘mortuaria non viva’. Garments were the norm.

There is one notable exception: those who bore arms owed very specifically a horse and armour. There are numerous occurrences of this custom. Some York wills give detail of the armour. For instance John, 4th Baron Graystock, in 1436 sought burial in Graystock church with as a mortuary ‘my best horse with all my armour, coat armour, pennon and gyton’.Footnote ²⁵ There are examples from all over the north, including from the Norham accounts. In 1300, for instance, Sir Robert Gray's mortuary horse and armour were sent to the prior of Durham from Norham.Footnote ²⁶ In the Norham procurator's accounts for 1420–1 the sale of the mortuary horse of Richard Berehalgh, who belonged to an important local family, brought £6 13s. 4d. with in addition 6s. 8d. for ‘one prikyn hat, one small coat of mail, one pair of “vambras” and one pair of gloves of plate’.Footnote ²⁷ In Carlisle the same custom applied. Walter de Claxton, whose status is not given, in 1377 for instance asked to be buried in the cemetery of St Mary, Carlisle, ‘with my horse and my arms for my mortuary’.Footnote ²⁸

The custom covered lower levels of persons obliged to bear arms. In about 1344 the bishop of Durham wrote to the prior about complaints that the priory had been demanding as mortuaries in Norham garments called ‘bombicini’ or ‘actons’.Footnote ²⁹ These were padded buckram jackets or doublets worn instead of armour. The priory replied that it had always collected these and could not allow custom to lapse. Evidently it won. In 1497–8 the procurator of Norham accounted for four ‘bombicini’ mortuaries each worth 2s.; two of the dead also owed oxen, worth 5s. and 6s. 8d., one a cow worth 5s. and the fourth a horse worth 6s. 8d.Footnote ³⁰ A few people in Durham city may have owed the same. In 1471–2 St Oswald's accounts list a mortuary ‘tunica defensiva’ and in 1512–13 Christopher Bethwell owed a doublet valued at 3s. 4d., described as a ‘diplois’ (which seems to mean the same as ‘acton’) and a horse valued at 5s. These were not the most valuable animals; a war horse might be worth as much as £20.Footnote ³¹ But neither were they offerings from the very poor.

It remains to try to discover who owed two mortuaries and why. In the city of Durham the crucial point was to have animals at time of death, not held on Framwellgate moor. All the other evidence about obligation to pay and about the social status of those who owed is ambiguous.

Mortuaries were supposed to be the best gown and beast. In the St Oswald's accounts for 1486–7 out of twenty-seven living mortuaries recorded, the beasts were valued at prices ranging from three horses worth 13s. 4d. each, and one at 5s., seven cows ranging from 9s. to 5s., two oxen worth 12s. and 13s., nine pigs worth between 1s. 8d. and 8d. and one sow worth 1s. 4d. The owners of the most valuable horses gave gowns worth 10s. and 8s. but conversely the donor of an 8s. cow gave a gown which only produced 3d. So it does not follow that the owners of valuable animals always gave the most valuable clothes.

There are other anomalies. Some St Oswald's and Norham dead apparently gave a beast only.Footnote ³² These do not look like the poorest people. Among those in St Oswald's not credited with a garment John Broun's cow was worth 9s. in 1473–4, and Roger Bell's 6s. 8d. in 1486–7.Footnote ³³ In Norham in 1341–2 the wife of Robert Irwin of Twisell gave only an ox worth 10s.Footnote ³⁴ Perhaps these were wholly rural parishioners of very large parishes.

The archives do not suggest that we are only seeing accounts for goods sold, rather than items received. Much was taken in kind. In the 1360s, remembering the Black Death, Thomas Grome, servant of the Durham priory hostillar, recalled driving 100 mortuary animals, all from St Oswald's, up to Muggleswick, the main cattle farm, in 1349.Footnote ³⁵ Transfers to the priory were registered in the accounts. The 1420–1 account for Norham, with Berehalgh's details, has ‘sold to the bursar of Durham’ for Berehalgh's horse, and ‘sold to this computant’ (the procurator himself), for Berehalgh's armour.Footnote ³⁶ The horse duly appears in the bursar's accounts as bought.Footnote ³⁷ This was only an in-house transfer but the procurator had to account for it. In the St Oswald's accounts a genuine sale is sometimes fairly clear. In 1448–9, for instance, the list reads under living mortuaries: ‘13s. 4d. from John Henrison for one ox, the mortuary of William Bywell’ and under panni mortuorum: ‘12s. from the hostillar’ for Bywell's garment. In 1473–4 of seven animals six were paid for by the hostillar and one by someone else, but money came from the hostillar for only two of the garments of these same persons.

Sometimes we may be seeing money equivalents given by executors. From 1488 onwards the Norham formula was ‘received Xs. as the price of Y mortuary’. In all accounts payment was sometimes shown for a portion of an animal. This perhaps implies someone with two domiciles, when canon law suggested that the mortuary be sold and the proceeds shared.Footnote ³⁸ In 1473 John Eme's living mortuary (4s.) was described as one third of a mare.Footnote ³⁹ Occasionally persons with the same name as the deceased paid for the mortuary, which suggests that it did not leave the possession of the family. For instance in 1474–5 Thomas Nicholson in St Oswald's parish in Durham gave 8s. for the mortuary gown of his wife; Isabella Gray bought the gown of Thomas Gray in 1479–80.Footnote ⁴⁰ A court case records a garment ‘bought back’ by the family after serving as a mortuary and re-used as a mortuary later after being remade.Footnote ⁴¹

The proctors were expected to list everything that they should have received. Some years in fact the Norham accounts say under living mortuaries ‘nothing was received because none occurred, by the oath of the computant’.Footnote ⁴² The auditor must have scrutinised the list. It would appear therefore that some people, even in St Oswald's parish in Durham city, owed only the animal recorded but no cloth.

Rarely can one discover who exactly the dead were. In the St Oswald's lists for 1486–7 out of one hundred names only two can be identified. The wife of Thomas Rogerson of Old Durham is recorded as having given an ox worth 13s. and a gown worth 5s. 8d. Rogerson held a tenement from the hostillar next to Elvet Bridge in 1487.Footnote ⁴³ An Alexander Rogerson was a church warden of St Oswald's church in 1496–7.Footnote ⁴⁴ In the same list Thomas Melbeck paid a cow worth 8s. and a gown worth 3d. A man of this name held a tenement in New Elvet between 1458 and 1465.Footnote ⁴⁵ Some of the Norham dead are easier to identify. The Gray family of Heton is well known and its head always seems to have owed his horse and his armour, as we saw in 1300. In 1400–1 Sir Thomas Gray's mortuary horse was bought by the bursar from the procurator of Norham for the huge sum of £26 13s. 4d., and his armour for £5 6s. 8d. These were rich tenants-in-chief.Footnote ⁴⁶ William Ampleforth of Northallerton was a fairly substantial citizen who left property in both York and Northallerton.Footnote ⁴⁷

But mortuaries were owed by seemingly very lowly people. In Norham in 1329–30 the shirt (‘collobium’) of someone described as a poor person of Twizell was valued at 6d. Footnote ⁴⁸ In 1519–20 ‘a poor woman of Cornhill’ had given a tunic worth 4d. and a sheep worth 1s. Footnote ⁴⁹ In 1520–1 the tunics of four poor people were valued at 1s. 4d. in all.Footnote ⁵⁰ In 1485–6 4d. was received from someone in St Oswald's for a gown described as debilis.Footnote ⁵¹

Servants owed mortuaries. Under living mortuaries in the Norham accounts for 1330–1 is 2s. for the servant (‘garcio’) of Henry de Qwiteby.Footnote ⁵² In 1341–2 two persons described as maid-servants (‘ancille’) of Norham and Tilmouth respectively had paid a ‘trucket’ worth 2s. and a surcoat worth 4s.Footnote ⁵³ The young also owed. In Norham in 1449–50 6d. was received for the tunic of the boy (‘puer’) of Thomas Milner.Footnote ⁵⁴ Some of the dead were described only as the son or daughter of someone, which may imply the same thing.Footnote ⁵⁵ In 1472–3 St Oswald's accounts give 2s. 2d. for part of a cow, the mortuary of John Hobson an orphan boy, and 8s. 6d. for a mare, a bullock and a sheep, mortuaries of John, Henry and Ralph Batmanson, sons of Robert Batmanson.Footnote ⁵⁶

One can see why the payment of mortuaries would be irksome. In the Framwellgate case the large numbers of depositions show people living within a stone's-throw of one another, with very different obligations. When arguing about who owed what, citizens pointed out with triumph that some of those who had given animals lived not in Framwellgate but in Sidegate or Milburngate, nearby small areas of the city marked by streams and other boundaries. They all belonged to the same parish, however. But the most telling illustration is what happened in epidemics. On two occasions the accounts reflect some terrible catastrophe: 1486–7 in Durham and 1520–1 in Norham. The Durham case is the most striking, with 100 deaths in all. Among these are lists of family members: George Milne, his wife Elizabeth and their daughter also Elizabeth; John Littilfield and his three daughters Joan, Agnes and Margaret; William Cathe and his wife. What is more the buyers of (or payers for) the mortuaries then also appear in the lists as themselves dead. Elizabeth Milne gave 3s. 4d. for the gown of the wife of John Bedell and the same for the gown of the wife of Robert Batmanson; William Flatte, whose wife died, gave 1s for the gown of Robert Hynge. The chantry chaplain John Maynforth bought George Milne's gown and then himself died. In Norham in 1520–1 twenty-eight deaths are recorded. Among these were Robert Orde and his wife, widow Dabson and her daughter, and Gilbert Hesslop of Cornhill and his wife.

The lists also show how heavy the burden may have been on some families. The Milne family in Durham, for instance, contributed three horses at 13s. 4d. each and gowns worth 10s. and 8s. The daughter Elizabeth was only charged a horse. The Littilfields gave one cow worth 8s, and each daughter a pig, one worth 18s and two at 16d. Only John gave also a gown, a ‘jak’ for which John Fermour paid 16d. It looks as if the young did not always owe two items but the amount owed is great.

A further point needs to be made. Readers may wonder why, if mortuaries were obligatory, they were mentioned in wills. The reason is unclear but certainly it was not only in Durham and the north that the practice is found. C. W. Foster pointed out how frequent is the mention in the early sixteenth-century wills of Lincoln, for instance, even though this may only mean reference to an accustomed mortuary and only one item is ever specified.Footnote ⁵⁷ If the customs were as varied as they appear to have been items may have been specified in any case where there could be ambiguity, for instance if town and country had different practices, as appears to be the case in York, or where, as in the case of Baron Graystock, he died in his castle of Morpeth in Morpeth parish in Durham diocese but wished to be buried in Graystock, his family church, each of which, however, seems to have demanded the same things.Footnote ⁵⁸

When change finally came at the Reformation it is worth recording that the northern parishes must have lost revenue. The statute which came into force on 1 April 1530 professed to do away with ambiguity and overcharging. It fixed mortuaries to money payments on a sliding scale according to value of goods at death after debts were paid, with no one to be charged more than 10s.Footnote ⁵⁹ It also said that no femme covert nor child nor wandering man need pay and payment was only due in the principal habitation of the deceased for those with several domiciles. For the northern area it was equally telling that in that habitation ‘but one mortuary’ was owed.

My conclusion is that in many parts of the diocese of Durham and in Carlisle mortuaries were a heavy burden involving for some people both a beast and a cloth. Only in the Framwellgate area of the city of Durham is there clear evidence that this rule did not apply because of local custom, but as one would expect there were customary variations in other places, whose details are now lost. Part of the unfairness was that these differences applied to places in the same parish which could be very near to one another. Furthermore all over the northern area a horse and armour were owed by some better-class persons but protective clothing was also owed by others less affluent. It is also clear that the obligation to pay mortuaries went far down the social scale and covered the young as well as the old. Further than that one cannot go but I hope I have given enough information here to show that Durham really was different.