NOTES

"beremen"
The same term was apparently still current when an English version of the custumal [Add. Ms. 25011] was made in the first half of the fifteenth century. As the opening sentence of the document indicates, they were also known as wine-drawers, since wine containers were the cargoes most commonly requiring their carriage services.

"chieftain"
The original has chevinteyn, also found elsewhere as cheveteyne according to Twiss. The English version retains the same term, either because mystified or because the title was still used in the fifteenth century. One cannot help wondering, however, if the term has an etymological association with vintner.

"unloading"
This is defined in the text as comprising two separate actions: hoisting the container up, and putting it down again (in some other location).

"poor porters"
That is men of low socio-economic status. The English version adds bearers as an alternative descriptor for porters.

"frail"
Various types of goods were packed in containers known as frails. The English version equates it with a fardel.

"fess"
A measure perhaps no more precise than a bundle or basket small enough to be carried on a human back.

"fish-market"
This was located across town near the High Street and St. Lawrence's church.

"Hugh Leu"
This is most probably the name who served as bailiff in 1255/56 and possibly 1269/70 (if we can rely on Bacon), and not the man of the same name who served three ballival terms between 1367 and 1376. Member of a family that had been of some consequence in the town since at least 1200 (when wealthy ship-owner Roger fitz Lyu was one of the original coroners and town councillors) Hugh was one of the wealthiest townsmen judging from his tax assessment of 1283, based on large quantities of malt, oats, other grain, and livestock, but also valuable amounts of clothing and jewellery; he held lands in several rural districts in the vicinity of Ipswich. He left three sons, of whom two were also prominent enough to be elected town bailiff: John, who continued his father's involvement in victualling, and Richard, who inherited and expanded his father's rural property (to the point where he narrowly escaped knighthood) and was active in the royal customs service. Hugh, who was dead by 1288, is known to have held a shop in St. Lawrence parish and a property in Brook Street (conceivably in the same parish) , but it is impossible to know whether either of these may have been the building referred to in the above document.

"Alexander Margaret"
In contrast to Hugh Lew, he was a newcomer, from a London-based family that had acquired property interests in Ipswich around mid-thirteenth century. A merchant, whose 1283 tax assessment was based mainly on cash and clothing, Alexander was important enough in local society to be appointed in 1291 to the committee tasked with redrafting the borough custumal, and he thereafter became associated with the Stace/Le Rente political faction, which necessitated taking out a royal protection in 1320 when that faction was under attack. He was a town councillor and twice elected town bailiff during the first half of Edward II's reign. He is, however, most often seen in the records when a party to legal transactions relating to debt or real estate. His last appearance is in the 1327 tax assessment.

"Baldry Horold"
The family name is much in evidence at Ipswich between the mid-thirteenth and mid-fourteenth centuries, with two of its members (brothers Hugh and Laurence) on the 1291 committee to redraft the custumal. Laurence, a ship-owner, sometime attorney, and owner of numerous rural properties, served several terms as bailiff between 1283 and 1294; while Hugh was a councillor (1309) and also undertook attorney's work, and his son John was for much of the 1340s one of the town's sergeants and its gaoler. Baldry seems to have been of the same generation as Hugh and Laurence, though not so much in evidence. His 1283 tax assessment shows him part-owner of a ship. Married to the daughter of Roger le Maister, he died ca. 1311.

"Hugh Davy"
Several persons of this surname are listed in the 1327 tax assessment, but a Hugh is not among them. However, Hugh Davy appears in the 1283 assessment as a ship-owner and apparently a merchant dealing in malt, coal, fuller's earth, iron and stones (the last a monopoly of members of the merchant gild); a Robert Davy junior also appears as a ship-owner and merchant dealing in much the same commodities. Both men's assessment was well above the average. The only member of the family to achieve any evident political prominence was Godfrey Davy, who was bailiff in 1271/72, but whose absence from the 1283 assessment may indicate he was dead by then.

"Roger le Maister"
A man of the same surname was one of the original Ipswich councillors elected in 1200. Roger's prominence in the town is indicated by his election as bailiff in 1279 and the fact that when Ipswich made the king a loan in 1282, Roger was the highest contributor and also assisted the bailiffs in collecting from others; he was also collector of a roal loan the following year. His tax assessment in 1283 would suggest him the third wealthiest man in town, and was made on ships, grain, malt, wine, ashes, salt, coal, chalk, millstones, handmills, and tombstones, so we are fairly safe in assuming he was a merchant – and doubtless a frequent user of the services of the beremen. This assumption is reinforced by the fact he was one of the customs collectors at Ipswich, a role cut short by his death in June 1284. His sons John (who took up the franchise shortly after his father's death) and Thomas also became leading townsmen, but there is no sign of a Roger among that generation. However, Roger's house may have continued for some years to be a local landmark associated with his name, since it was probably from there that his widow Mable operated Roger's business (or their shared business) after his death, to the point where she was actually described in 1303 as mercatrix (a rare occurrence); the following year she was suing the Prior of Holy Trinity for a debt for rye, malt, boards, and chalk sold to his predecessor. The family continued to produce mercantile leaders for the town to the end of the fourteenth century.

"poles and other things"
That is, equipment needed for moving and repositioning in storage the heavy containers of wine. The English version uses levers instead of poles. The master of the beremen had to supply this equipment, in a time when borough authorities held little by way of communal equipment.

"shore extends"
In fact, English Street (the shop-lined medieval high street) and French Street ran perpendicular to the coast. What was being done here was to define an area stretching back from the quayside within which importers could legitimately expect their goods to be transported to storage facilities for the base fee. The entrances to English Street and French Street from the quayside were connected by a lane later known as Porters Lane, facing onto which, at its corner with English Street (before the construction of the fourteenth-century town wall interposed to block access), still stands the ruins of a late twelfth century stone building, inaccurately named "Canute's Palace", which comprises mercantile living quarters atop lower-storey warehouse facilities (perhaps also with space for one or more shops).

"Walter le Fleming"
The Fleming family was, for several generations, one of the most important of the town. A good part of Southampton's lively overseas trade was with Flanders, and a number of Flemish merchants are known to have settled in the town. Walter le Fleming's long stone residence, on the southern corner of Broad Lane (the first lane north running parallel to the quayside) at English Street, but stretching back some distance towards French Street, was later – and perhaps in his lifetime – used to host visiting foreign merchants. Walter was already one of the more prominent townsmen when he first appears in the record in 1211; he served as bailiff several times during the extensive mayoralty (1234-48) of Benedict fitz Azo, who was also his business partner), before being elected mayor himself in 1249. The Michael le Fleming who was bailiff in 1222 seems to have been related. A merchant and owner of several ships, he mainly exported wool and imported wine, but also traded in cloth and salt. He also owned near the town's western quayside 'Martin's Hall', named after the owner from whom Walter had purchased it prior to his death in 1258; in bequeathing it to his eldest son Henry he described it as his 'manor'. Like the earlier Canute's Palace, it was one of a number of great mercantile bases in the town. Henry's inheritance also included rural lands, as well as property interests in Winchester, Chichester, and Portsmouth, which led him to remove from the town. His nephew John le Fleming – whose widowed mother Petronilla kept up her late husband's business – was his heir in Walter's Southampton mansion and held it to his death in 1336.

"James le Weyte"
Nicholas le Weyte is seen in 1251 forced by financial need to sell off his part of the family tenement facing onto English Street; it seems likely that the family complex stretched between English Street and French Street, with the part occupied by James (or 'Jakes' as referred to in the ordinance) at the French Street end, and probably also on the corner of Broad Lane, which ran between the two streets.

"West Hithe"
The western shore of Southampton had a series of quays stretching along it, notably the West Quay and the West Hithe.

"Sampson del puytz"
Or de Puteo (the English equivalent would be atte Welle). He was bailiff in 1241 and 1244. In 1247 and 1251 he was a witness to deeds in which parts of the Weyte tenement on English Street were sold.

"castle"
This was in the north-west corner of the town, and had its own quay and watergate. It was in existence by the time of Henry I, and much redeveloped by later kings, but only a small garrison was housed there.

"Dame Claramunda"
A wealthy townswoman who, having survived two husbands, appears to have been trading in her own right [Colin Platt, Medieval Southampton: The port and trading community, A.D. 1000-1600. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973, p.237] and in 1258 is seen selling wine to the king. She may have been a member of the family with the surname Gloucester, which had some tradition of service to the king; in 1253 she was granted exemption from royal tallages. Her residence was a tenement, known as Ronceval (because leased from a priory of that name), facing onto the West Quay; she had a life interest therein, but also had interests in properties elsewhere in the town and its suburbs, some of which she gave to religious houses. She died ca.1260 without any evident children, offspring from a line of the Gloucester family subsequently claiming to be her heirs.

"drag or hand-barrow"
The original has poleins ou lotels. The latter was the hand-carried predecessor of the wheelbarrow, without wheels: illustrations show it carried stretcher-like by two men. The former term designated something similar, that might be used as a slide for lowering casks into a cellar (the same kind of device still used by pubs), or dragged sled-like bearing a load.

"Church of St. Cross"
Holy Rood Cross was a greater distance northwards up English Street.

"Church of St. Michael"
A greater distance northwards up French Street (about as far up as Holy Rood was up English Street).

"storerooms"
The original has sendes, which Studer translated as warehouses; but, as he notes, the word might actually be seudes meaning selds (which also, in this case, could also be interpreted as a place where the wool is stored). St Lawrence parish lay alongside English Street, further north than Holy Rood, which would make it a likely place for storing wool entering the town from the hinterland to its north.

"weys of cheese"
Studer notes that in the time of Henry VI a wey of cheese was considered to be 256 pounds avoirdupois.

"a set"
That is, the upper runner stone and the lower bedstone.

"tin house"
Situated in the cellar of the Linen Hall, not far from the West Quay.

"others"
According to a similar complaint made in 1566, it was left to carters to load up the vehicles hired by merchants.

"Vintry"
One of the wealthiest areas (per capita) of London, Vintry was a ward just north of the Thames, close to where wine was landed, named because it was where many vintners – both Londoners and Frenchmen (especially Gascons) – lived and had their storage cellars; in particular the wine-merchants of Rouen are thought to have had a base there, while the merchants of Cologne had what later became known as the Steelyard on nearby Dowgate. The name had been acquired by the neighbourhood by 1170, perhaps taken from the house of the Rouen merchants, in a period when the demand for wine from the nobility and prospering townsmen spurred the development of the vintner's trade. One of the lanes running from the quayside, through Vintry, to Thames Street was named Broad Lane, and according to Stow this wider-than-usual lane was to serve carts carrying merchandize up to Thames Street.

"Ropery"
A neighbourhood that was also home to some vintners, just as the Vintry was home to some ropers, or corders. It lay around a street of that name, in Dowgate Ward, running east from the Vintry as far as Bridge Street, and perhaps extended partly north of Vintry into Cordwainer ward. In fact, the Latin version of the name, Corderia makes me wonder whether it might have originated as a corruption of corduveseria.

"those amounts"
It appears that these amounts included the mensurage fee.

"Church of St Anthony"
Stood at the east end of Atheling (Watling) Street, a little south of the east end of West Cheap.

"Horseshoe Bridge"
Crossed the Walbrook on a lane running just south of La Riole.

"Wolsiesgate"
A small inlet off the Thames, next to the Heywharf, about mid-way between Queenhith and Dowgate; it terminated at Wolsye Lane which led northwards to Candlewick Street. It was part of the Ropery neighbourhood.

"Fleet Bridge"
The bridge across the Fleet was part of the suburb of Fleet Street, just west of the city walls.

"Berchenereslane"
Or Byrchyn Lane, connected Langburne Street and the middle section of Cornhill.

"bars"
These bars were barriers set up on the main suburban roads, mostly outside the northern and western stretches of the city walls, such as at Smithfield and Holborn. They marked the boundary of the city authorities' jurisdiction (which was not defined by the walls), served for traffic control and toll collection. Although not in its original position at the point where Fleet Street became the Strand, Temple Bar still survives in its post-medieval form, today an elaborate gateway with ceremonial characteristics, although the original bars were perhaps no more than the toll-gate type, with moveable chain or pole placed between two posts.

"La Riole"
A large tenement made up of several houses built around a courtyard, situated in Vintry ward, a little south of the church of St. Anthony. First mentioned in 1276; its name had also transferred to an adjacent street by mid-fourteenth century. Possibly for a while a base for Gascon wine merchants, some of whom were from the town of la Reole, near Bordeaux. By the fourteenth century it was in the hands of the king, and Edward III assigned it in 1330 to his queen to consolidate the offices of her wardrobe; after her death he granted it to the dean and canons of the chapel in his palace of Westminster, to found a college, although parts of it continued to be rented by the royal bureaucracy.

"Bucklersbury"
By the early fifteenth century at least, the city's main balance, or 'trone', for weighing commercial goods, known as the Great Beam or Common Beam, was being kept in a weigh-house at Bucklersbury. The name of this neighbourhood may derive from a fortified residence built for the Buckerel family prominent in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, descendants of an Italian pepperer who had migrated to London around the end of the eleventh century; Andrew Bukerel, another pepperer also dealt in wine and was the king's butler at the time of Henry III's accession to the throne. Bucklersbury was the farthest point to which the Walbrook was navigable.

"Wine-brokers"
Their purpose was to facilitate negotiations and credit arrangements.