Now! Then! Archbishop Melton of York tells the Ripon bailiff to ensure that everyone pays their proper share of the protection money agreed with the Scots

1 June 1318: Archbishop Melton of York tells the Ripon bailiff to ensure that everyone pays their proper share of the protection money agreed with the Scots

James Raine, Ed. 1873. Historical Papers and Letters from the Northern Registers. London: Longman. Get it:

Excerpt

We wish and command those men and persons residing under our liberty and bailiff of Ripon to contribute a thousand pounds [£765K in June 2023] for the purpose agreed, as we understand it, with our treacherous enemies of avoiding murder and burning, and the loss of all their goods through the most wicked invasions of our said enemies, which we regretfully report are imminent, such that, your considering the capacities of individuals, and the benefit to each from the aforesaid purpose as regards the preservation of their goods and chattels, you will cause them to contribute according to your discretion.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Stephen Werronen on the myth that the “sons of perverted rashness” burned Ripon minster:

In the turbulent years following the English defeat at Bannockburn, Ripon was one of scores of towns and villages that were vulnerable to Scottish raiders. Most histories of the minster contain a similar version of events: the Scots enter the town and the townspeople take refuge in the minster, an agreement is reached whereby the Scots will spare the town for a ransom of one thousand marks, and later the Scots return to set fire to the town and the minster. While Ripon Minster’s historians have been quick to repeat this episode, none of them has ever produced physical evidence of fire damage to the minster. This evidence is not forthcoming because, as closer examination of textual evidence indicates, the nature of the Scottish raids has been exaggerated by Ripon’s historians. This article begins by showing how the accepted version of events passed from one author to the next, from the beginning of the eighteenth century down to the present. As the discipline of architectural history developed, the early claims for total destruction of the minster by the raiders should have been critically reconsidered. However, they were retained and simply modified to suit other evidence. Moreover, the partial destruction of the minster has been taken for granted by historians to the extent that they have used this assumption to interpret other evidence regarding the building and its history (Werronen 2012/09/02).

Werronen’s first un-source is the folkloric Thomas Gent:

Happily did this church and town flourish, (escaping the miseries of the barons wars in King Henry III’s time) till the 12th year of the unfortunate King Edward II, anno 1318. Then it was, the Scots, with their valiant King Robert, won the important fortress of Berwick; which King Edward endeavouring to recover again, by a close siege; others of that country diverted him, by making havoc of his people in other parts of England, and had like to have taken the Queen prisoner, who resided in a village near York, in the time of the siege. ‘Tis inconceivable what losses and devastations the city and adjacent country suffered by those people in the following year. [Misdated account of the battle of Myton-on-Swale.] No wonder was it then, the Scots should renew their exactions, as they had done before. For so much had they impoverished, in particular Ripon, that the distressed inhabitants could not comply with a new demand, to redeem it from ruin, by the payment of a thousand marks, which occasioned several of their lives to fall as sacrifices to the fury of these men: Who were not satisfied with blood alone; but set the town in a conflagration, which destroyed the house of the most high: As though, in time of war, there should be no regard to the honour due to the great king of heaven and earth! And this happened about September, anno 1332 [i.e. 1318].

[Edward III’s victories at Dupplin Moor in 1332 and at Halidon Hill and Berwick-upon-Tweed (which was retaken) in 1333]

These great successes of the English so exhilarated the hearts of the king’s subjects, especially about Ripon, that several persons of eminence, assisted by the Archbishop of York, soon began to make a contribution towards the rebuilding of the town. Workmen were employed, who happily effected the same, in a few years. Its late lamented desolation was then turned to a welcome place of resort, adorned with more delightful habitations.

Then, too, did the church, after so often repeated fortunes and misfortunes, begin to raise its declined head. It was built almost from its very foundations: the spires, more beautiful than before: the windows, adorned with curious painted glass, containing, among other devices, the arms of its renowned benefactors. Everything appeared magnificent: nothing was wanting to incite a true veneration for the house of prayer, in the eye of the religious beholder.

(Gent 1733).

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Original

A MANDATE FROM ARCHBISHOP MELTON TO THE BAILIFF OF RIPON.
(Reg. archiep. Melton, 401 a.)
Willelmus permissione, etc., dilecto filio ballivo nostro Rypon salutem, gratiam et benedictionem. Volumus et mandamus quatenus homines et personas infra libertatem et ballivam nostram Rypon commorantes ad contributionem mille librarum pro fine facto, ut intelleximus, cum perfidis inimicis nostris, ad evitandum homicidia et incendia, et omnium bonorum suorum amissionem per invasiones nequissimas dictorum inimicorum nostrorum, quas dolenter referimus, imminentia, quatenus, consideratis per te facultatibus singularum personarum, et emolumento quod unicuique personæ contigit ex fine prædicto, quoad conservationem rerum et bonorum eorundem, contribuere facias, prout tua discretio quæ personarum conditiones et qualitatem facti hujusmodi magis novit, et de bono et æquo viderit expedire. Et si qui fuerint alii extra libertatem nostram, qui aliqua bona sua, ut audivimus, infra dictam libertatem nostram, in ecclesia videlicet Rypon, vel alibi servandi causa allocata habuerint, et sibi, prætextu conventionis prædictæ, ad ipsorum commodum securius conservata, ad contributionem similiter faciendam, utilitate pensata quam reportant hac de causa, modis et viis quibus poteris coerceas et compellas: quæ omnia et singula tuæ industriæ urgente necessitate hujusmodi duximus committenda. Vale. Data apud Wilton, kal. Junii, anno gratiæ Mº. CCCmo. decimo-octavo, et pontificatus nostri primo.

206 words.