The Hundred of Wye and the Great Revolt of 1381 De

143 THE HUNDRED OF WYE AND THE GREAT REVOLT OF 1381 david de saxe The Revolt in Kent began when a band from Erith attacked Lesnes Abbey on 2 June 1381, some three days after the Revolt had first broken out in Essex. The classical, chronicle-based, view is that the Revolt in Kent was a unitary operation in which the rebels marched through north Kent, capturing Rochester Castle on 6 June and entering Maidstone on 7 June, after which Wat Tyler emerged as their leader. They continued towards Canterbury, which was captured on 10 June. The rebels’ progress had been marked by violence and looting, and particularly by the destruction of manorial records, which suggests that, rather than the destruction of the State, their chief aims were not only the repeal of the Poll Tax but also the abolition of the unfree status of serfdom and villeinage. Their motto, ‘with King Richard and the trewe Commons’, is some evidence that wholesale revolution was not their purpose. The destruction of property and records, together with personal violence and even murder, also marked the rebels’ stay in Canterbury: in particular, they sought to destroy the Exchequer Rolls of Green Wax held by the king’s Coroners. These records would have included the liability of individuals to pay the hated Poll Tax, which had been imposed the previous December. The rebels gained much support from the artisans of Canterbury and the other towns on their route of march,1 but did not remain long in Canterbury, since Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was the king’s Chancellor and one of those whom they held most responsible for their grievances, was not there, but in London with the King. They therefore marched off towards London, by a different route: they made for Maidstone by what is now known as the Pilgrims’ Way, along the south-west face of the North Downs. (It is known that they were in Maidstone on 11 June,2 and there is no record of their having returned by their original route.) The more modern approach, based on the work of Prescott3 and of Brooks4 and on the judicial records, is to see the revolt, in Kent at least, as a more complex affair, with the activities of the main band of rebels being accompanied by many smaller, more widely spread acts of rebellion. Some of those acts took place in the Hundred of Wye. As long DAVID DE SAXE 144 ago as 1860, W.E. Flaherty published in Archaeologia Cantiana an article entitled ‘The Great Rebellion in Kent illustrated from the Public Records’, in which he set out translations of jury presentments, mainly in east Kent, following the Great Revolt of June 1381, commonly but inaccurately known as the Peasants’ Revolt.5 The importance of that article is shown by the extensive references made to it by a succession of writers from such classic late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians such as Réville6 and Sir Charles Oman7 through to more modern writers such as Hilton.8 Presentments XI, XII and XIII deal with what was alleged by the jurors to have happened in the Hundred of Wye during the Revolt, on 11, 12, 13 and 20 June 1381. This paper seeks to take a closer look at those presentments and principally to bring together what is now known about some of the people mentioned in them.9 The rebels’ new route would have taken them within two miles of the small town of Wye. It has been suggested10 that it was the near approach of the rebel band to Wye that triggered the events of 11, 12, 13 and 20 June in the Hundred of Wye, but it seems equally probable that they were triggered simply by the events in Canterbury on 10 June and the following days. Wye is only some 11 miles from Canterbury and it can be assumed that the news of such dramatic events would have travelled fast, particularly because at least one Wye man, John Herbaldoune, was among those later accused of taking part in the rising in Canterbury.11 Even if the events in Wye were not directly connected with those in Canterbury, the people who took part may have regarded them as being somehow ‘permitted’ in the heady atmosphere of the short period considered here. Wye: the Manor, the Hundred and patterns of landholding Fourteenth-century Wye was a thriving small town, which had had a market since at least 1225. Wye had already been, in pre-Conquest times, a place of importance: it had been a ‘royal vill’ and the administrative centre, insofar as there was one, of one of the largest lathes of Kent. After the Conquest, William the Conqueror gave the vill of Wye to Battle Abbey, which he had newly founded, as one of its Manors. In its new status, Wye gave its name to the judicial division of the hundred. Two custumals, one dating from the reign of Edward I [1272-1307] and the other from 1464,12 show that the manor of Wye contained some 61 yokes of land, or somewhere between 2,440 and 3,050 acres, an important part of the lordship of the Abbot of Battle. Its lands seem to have included what the custumal of 1464 describes as ‘xiiij tithynges, otherwise callid boroughs’.13 One of these was ‘the Borough of Wylmyntonn’ (Wilmington). Its exact position and extent is not now clear, but it lay at the southern end of the parish of Boughton Aluph, on the boundary of the hundred of Wye, THE HUNDRED OF WYE AND THE GREAT REVOLT OF 1381 145 Map 1 The boundaries of the Hundreds of Wye (1) and Longbridge (2). Inset: location of Boughton Aluph and approximate location of Wilmington, close by the modern A28 road. (Boundaries of Hundreds as shown in An Historical Atlas of Kent, p. 59.) abutting on the neighbouring hundred of Longbridge (see Map), about one-and-a-half miles outside Wye, in the direction of Ashford. Even today, there is still a Wilmington Farm on the A28 main road between Canterbury and Ashford. It seems likely that the position of the medieval manor house of Wilmington was some 700 yards to the north of the present-day farmhouse at the point shown on sheet TR04 of the Ordnance Survey map as the position of a moat.14 The importance of Wilmington will appear later in this paper. The manor of Wye and the hundred were not co-extensive: some lands of the manor, such as Hawkhurst, on the border of East Sussex, and Dengemarsh, lying between Lydd and the sea, lay well outside the hundred. Similarly, not all the hundred was occupied by the manor of Wye: there were other manors within the hundred, such as Boughton Aluph, Trimworth and Eastwell, held by lords other than Battle Abbey. The pattern of lordship and landholding in Wye, as in other areas, was DAVID DE SAXE 146 mixed. Beside the major landholder, Battle Abbey, which was a tenant-in-chief from the Crown, there were the smaller tenants-in-chief, any or all of whom might well have leases of part of the Abbey’s land, in respect of which they would be subject to the Abbey’s manorial discipline and have to attend the manorial court.15 By the end of the fourteenth century, land other than that owned by ecclesiastical landlords was mostly let out to tenant farmers. This was an effect of the labour shortage resulting from the Black Death of 1348-49 and of subsequent attacks of plague. This shortage enabled peasants who would previously have accepted holding land in unfree tenure to bargain successfully to become free tenants: landlords were reluctantly prepared to accept this rather than leaving farms vacant. In contrast, ecclesiastical institutions such as Battle Abbey had tended to insist on the strict performance of feudal obligations by its tenants and serfs to keep demesne land in cultivation by local peasants.16 These might hold one or two plots of land from the Manor in villein (i.e. unfree) tenure. By the time of the Great Revolt, there is evidence that the Abbey had let the manor of Wye out ‘in farm’, to a single person who, as principal sub-tenant, would pay a yearly lump sum for the stock, equipment and crops of the demesne, which he then operated with the unsurprising intention of making a profit: the ‘farmer’ had to make his investment pay.17 It takes little imagination to see that there would be at least the potential for conflict between the ‘farmers’ and a peasant class for the first time conscious of possessing some economic power because of the post-Black Death labour shortages: this must have increased the likelihood that the peasants would join in the Revolt when opportunity offered. Events in Wye, 11-13 June 1381 It is convenient to set out the text of presentments XI, XII and XIII as translated by Flaherty: the originals in TNA JUST 1/400 are in Latin, and do not contain Flaherty’s punctuation or use of capitals, nor his bracketed explanation of the relevant dates: XI WY, The Jurors of WY say, that William Cook, of Boughton Aluph, on Wednesday after the feast of St Barnabas the Apostle [12th June, 1381], in the fourth year of the King that now is, by precept of BERTRAM DE WYLMYNTON, came and made insurrection, with other malefactors at WY, and broke into the house of JOHN LAYCESTRE, and plundered it and committed other enormities, against the peace of Lord the King and to the injury of his Crown, to the damage of forty pence. THE HUNDRED OF WYE AND THE GREAT REVOLT OF 1381 147 XII The Jurors to inquire concerning the malefactors who rose against our Lord the King, and his people, from the Sunday next before the feast of St Barnabas, in the fourth year of the reign of King Richard the Second, continuing at intervals until Monday next after the feast of the Apostles St Peter and St Paul, in the foresaid year [from 9th June until 1st July, 1381], to the injury of the Crown of our lord the King and the grievous damage of his foresaid people, say, that BERTRAM DE WYLMYNTONE, Esq., Roger Baker, John Bergheman, John Chelvertone, Robert Foxtegh, Thomas Bulloc and Robert Cademan, of their own will, on Wednesday next after the feast of St Barnabas [12th June, 1381] in the foresaid year, made insurrection and came to WY, and feloniously broke into the house of JOHN LAYCESTRE, and plundered it, and burnt his muniments, against the peace of the King that now is and to the injury of his Crown, and to the damage of ten marks to the foresaid JOHN LAYCESTRE. They also say, that one John Gerkyn, on Thursday in the feast of Corpus Christi [13th June, 1381], rose and made proclamation, that all of the foresaid hundred should assemble, and prepare themselves with divers arms etc., whereby a multitude of people assembled, and did no harm by that proclamation. But they say that that proclamation was made by precept of BERTRAM DE WYLMINTON. Also, they say that the said Thomas, on the same day, rose and drew a certain knife, and made an assault on JOHN ATE WODE, in the presence of the constable of that hundred. Also, they say that John Henwode, Thomas Steyhame, constable of the hundred of Longbridge, John Juyke, Thomas Heldeman, John Smyth, piper, Stephen Repton, Stephen Poynont, unjustly, and against the peace of our Lord the King, made insurrection and came to the muniment-room of JOHN COLBRAND, with other malefactors, on Tuesday on the feast of St Barnabas, in the foresaid year [11th June, 1381], and feloniously broke into the said muniment-room [columbare] and plundered it, and burnt his books and muniments at WY, and assaulted and beat JOAN, the wife of the said JOHN COLBRAND, so that her life was despaired of, to the damage of one hundred shillings. Also they say that certain Henry Atdenne, Thomas Atdenne,and John Beufrer, together with a mob of people who made insurrection with them in the aforesaid form, with force and arms, on Thursday next after the feast of Corpus Christi in the foresaid year [20th June, 1381], feloniously stole XXVIII oxen, cows, and steers [boviculos], two pieces of silver, one silver cover [copertur’], and other jewels of SIMON DE EARDE and JOAN, widow of JOHN ATDENNE, found at the house of the said SIMON, at WY, to the value of twenty pounds. ‘Custos’ of the foresaid hundred, SIMON DE EARDE, sworn. JOHN DE COMBE, sworn. Constables [de novo] newly appointed, RICHARD IDENNE, JOHN P ARKER. DAVID DE SAXE 148 XIII Hundred of LONGBRIDGE [Langbregge], The jurors there say upon their oath, that John de Henwode, William Prowde, Thomas Bodesden, John Heldeman, John Sp …, carpenter, Stephen de Repton, John May, and Richard Elys, made insurrection against our Lord the King and his people, on Tuesday on the Feast of St Barnabas the Apostle [11th June, 1381], in the fourth year of the reign of King Richard the Second, and feloniously broke into the house of JOHN COLBROND, at WYLMYNGTON, in the parish of BOCTON, in the hundred of WY, and feloniously entered the chamber of the foresaid JOHN COLBROND, and took and destroyed the Roll of Green Wax of our Lord the King … The rest of the allegations in Presentment XIII, which is not signed, are not set out here, since they do not refer to the hundred of Wye. While these matters were allegedly taking place in Wye, rebels (mainly from Kent and Essex) entered London and confronted King Richard II at Mile End and at Smithfield. Wat Tyler was killed on 15 June, and the rebels of the South-East (though not yet those of East Anglia) began to be dispersed. The evidence for most of what is said to have happened in Wye on these days comes from these presentments. This evidence by itself would not be of great value, because these documents are merely accusations that various people did various things, and are not judicial findings. The documents give no indication whether or not the accusations or any of them were proved. It is important to bear in mind the strong possibility that accusations might have been brought for personal reasons, or, in the context of a political upheaval such as the Great Revolt, for political reasons: these are accusations brought by the victors (the alleged victims) against the vanquished (the rebels). The danger of this happening was realised at the time by the writer of the Westminster Chronicle: Many people began to charge with this grave offence [insurrection] all those towards whom some hoary grudge had made them ill-disposed, exploiting even this ground for denunciation in order to wreak their long-cherished vengeance upon those they hated.18 The evidence of the presentments has therefore to be regarded with caution. But there is some corroboration of presentments XI and XII, which name Bertram de Wilmington (hereafter referred to as ‘Bertram’) as the leader of the rebels within the Hundred of Wye. There is a judicial finding in a civil claim for trespass to land and to goods brought against Bertram by Thomas Kempe, the father of Cardinal John Kempe, that on 12 June 1381 (the date of his alleged activities against John Laycestre), Bertram headed an armed band which destroyed Kempe’s muniments. Rather inconsistently, Bertram and the others were acquitted of forcibly THE HUNDRED OF WYE AND THE GREAT REVOLT OF 1381 149 entering Kempe’s house.19 This judicial finding suggests that, on the balance of probabilities, Bertram was indeed involved in the events set out in Presentments XI and XII, since the facts of the Kempe incident are essentially similar to those of the Laycestre incident. The Kempe incident is not mentioned by Flaherty, but was discovered by Prescott.20 It is noteworthy that Bertram was never alleged to have been involved in the attacks on John Colbrand or Colbrond, his neighbour at Wilmington, by men of Longbridge hundred. Another incident of the Revolt, which affected the Manor of Wye but which does not appear in the presentments, is the unauthorised absence (whether for rebellious purposes or not), from their haymaking duties of five men of Wye, who were recorded by the Bailiff of the Manor of Wye as having been ‘ensnared by Rakestrawesmayne’ – i.e., the ‘mayne’ [company or gang] led by Jack Straw, if that shadowy person existed, under another name.21 The social composition of the Rebels There is no reason to doubt that the majority of the rebels throughout the parts of England involved in the Revolt were indeed peasants – landless agricultural labourers – but it is also clear that they were supported by some relatively well-to-do yeomen. Hilton names eight such, all of whom owned substantial amounts of land and stock.22 One of these, John Coveshurst, came from Lamberhurst in Kent and held ‘37 acres of arable land, 50 acres of pasture, 5 acres of meadow and 20 acres of woodland’. The others came from East Anglia: in the case of John Hanchache of Cambridgeshire, his holdings were sufficient for Hilton to describe him as ‘a rich peasant moving perhaps up into the minor gentry’. Hilton’s further comment is that ‘The yeomen may have contributed to the rebellion proportionately to their numerical strength in the population’. Dyer points to a number of rebels whose economic position was improving before 1381.23 He emphasises that many of the rebels were minor officials on their manors or in their villages, holding such offices as ‘reeves, chief pledges, affeerers, ale-tasters, bailiffs, jurors, constables or other positions of responsibility’, suggesting that they came from the village or manorial élite.24 It has already been mentioned that there was much artisan – i.e. non-agricultural – support for the Revolt, both in the country and in the towns. To see the importance of that support, it is necessary only to consider the names of two of the leaders of the Revolt: it cannot be coincidental that they bear ‘occupational’ names such as Tyler and Litster (dyer). An examination of the east Kent presentments as translated by Flaherty shows that allegations were made against five tailors, four carpenters, three sawyers, a tiler, a ‘cobler’, a mower, a piper, a weaver, a lime burner and a ‘bekelerpleyer’, which Flaherty translates as ‘Buckler Player’, in DAVID DE SAXE 150 addition, of course, to the allegations made against people of unspecified occupation. The picture is therefore of the rebels being mostly constituted by labourers both skilled and unskilled, rural and urban, but with support from a representative sample of their more prosperous fellows, and from those who were respected in their communities. Two priests, John Ball and, in Suffolk, John Wrawe, were among the leaders of the Revolt, but there is no evidence that it was widely supported by the clergy – although Presentment III in Flaherty contains allegations against the Sacristan and the Clerk of ‘the Church of St. John in Thanet’.25 In London, three aldermen (John Horn, Walter Sibley and William Tonge) were alleged to have been sympathetic to the rebels, although they were eventually acquitted of helping them. As might be expected, it was exceptional for members of the gentry to support the Revolt. In East Anglia, Sir Roger Bacon and Sir Thomas Cornuerd are known to have been involved: Dobson suggests that their participation ‘testifies to the economic difficulties of the smaller English landlords at a time of acute labour shortage’.26 At Bridgwater (Somerset), Sir William Coggan is thought to have succumbed to local pressure to give his support,27 while in Cornwall, Sir William Botriaux appears to have taken the opportunity presented by the Revolt to pay off local scores.28 But in east Kent, Bertram is the only member of the gentry named as such in the presentations. Hilton’s view was that these members of the gentry ‘were not typical of their class, or even of an important minority element’.29 Some of the personalities of the Revolt in Wye The only one of the rebels about whom any appreciable amount is known, apart from their names, is Bertram himself. Records show that Bertram’s family had for several generations held in grand serjeanty a medium-sized farm or toft30 at Wilmington in the parish of Bocton (Boughton Aluph) in the hundred of Wye. The custumal of Edward I’s reign reveals that, in 1236, one Martin de Wilmintune paid a local tax called ‘foxalpeni’, amounting to one halfpenny, in respect of one yoke of land as a follower of the Hundred of Wye.31 Hasted refers to the manor of Wilmington being held, in the reign of Henry III, by Robert de Wilmington (perhaps Martin’s son or brother), who held it in grand serjeanty of the honour of Boulogne, by the service of being the earl of Boulogne’s cook. He also refers to Robert’s descendant, Bertram, holding the manor of the king in chief, by the somewhat different service of finding for the king a pot-hook for his meat, whenever he should come within the manor of Boughton Aluph. That Bertram (the first Bertram) died possessed of Wilmington in 1318 or 1319.32 There is a reference also to one Isaak de Wylmyntone who, in 1254, presumably in succession to Robert, is said to have held Wilmington THE HUNDRED OF WYE AND THE GREAT REVOLT OF 1381 151 ‘per seriantiam de Honore Bononie’ (by serjeanty of the Honour of Boulogne).33 Isaak seems to have died not long before 1294, and to have been succeeded by Richard, presumably his son, of whom it was recorded that he ‘holds 100 acres of land in Wilmynton in chief of the honour of Boulogne by the serjeanty of being master cook of the King, by the demise of one Isaac de Wilmynton …’.34 Richard was in his turn succeeded by the first Bertram, again presumably his son. An entry in the Kent fines for 1309-10 refers to litigation by the first Bertram.35 In 1315 he had to seek replevin of his land ‘in Wotton [recte Bocton] Aluphi and Wy’ from the king, by whom the land had been estreated, ‘for his [Bertram’s] default before the justices of the bench against Simon de Boyton’;36 although the nature of the default is not specified. He seems to have had two sons, Ralph and a second Richard. There is an entry in the Kent fines for 15-20 Edw. II in which Ralph is identified as the son of the first Bertram.37 In the Lay Subsidy of 1334/5, Ralph is assessed at 6s. 8d., appreciably more than John Kempe (a relative, but not the father of Thomas Kempe – perhaps an uncle or great-uncle – and the only Kempe who appears in the list of taxpayers), who is assessed at 2s. 2d.38 At his death in 1337 Ralph de Wylmington is said to have held the manor of Wilmynton of the king in chief ‘by the [again different] service of finding a man called a ‘quystron’, with a flesh-hook (hamo carnium) to serve in the king’s kitchen, for the whole time when the king should come to Bocton, and remain there’. He is also said to hold land in Wye and Boughton Aluph of the value of 14 shillings rent, the land being ‘held in gavelkind of the abbot of Battle by service of 5 shillings yearly’.39 He was succeeded by his brother, the second Richard. Frustratingly, there is no entry in the Calendar of Inquisitions post mortem which tells us when that Richard died. But on 10 May 1361, it is recorded: Pardon, for 26s. 8d, paid to the king by Bertram de Wylmynton, to him and Joan his wife for acquiring in tail from Richard de Wylmynton 80 acres of land in Wylmynton, held in chief, and entering therein without licence; and licence for them to retain the same in tail with reversion to the said Richard and his heirs.40 The reference to ‘Joan his wife’ makes it clear that the Bertram referred to in this entry is the Bertram who was involved in the rising of 1381. The entry in respect of Bertram’s death on 26 May 1414 also refers to ‘Joan his wife’.41 Assuming, as does not seem unreasonable, that Bertram was Richard’s son, and that he was born shortly after Richard succeeded to Wilmington in 1337, he would have been in his early twenties in 1361. The entry quoted above says nothing that would indicate that he had not then attained his majority, and the reference to ‘reversion to Richard and his heirs’ suggests that Richard had not then died. Bertram would DAVID DE SAXE 152 therefore probably have been in his early forties in 1381, and in his seventies when he died, a ripe age for the fifteenth century. There is no surviving record of where Bertram was buried, but it seems reasonable to assume that it was at Boughton Aluph, since that was the parish in which he lived. The entry relating to his death shows that he died possessed not only of Wilmington, ‘held of the king of the honour of Boulogne by the service [yet again different] of finding a cook for the king’s household to serve for one month at the king’s expense when he comes within 1 mile of Wye’, but of several other substantial landholdings in Boughton Aluph, Bethersden, Rolvenden and Tenterden. Although he held Wilmington as a tenant-in-chief directly from the king, the ‘Survey of the Manor of Wye’ drawn up in 1452-54 shows that he also held land from the manor of Wye: it refers to ‘three roods of meadowland in Blykmede which were held by Bertram de Wilmington and Thomas Glover’.42 While that is the only reference to Bertram in the Survey, it does not mean that this was the only land which he held from the manor. He may well have held some on one or more relatively short lease or leases. It can therefore be said with some certainty that, at the time of the Great Revolt of 1381, Bertram was a mature man and a member of a family of local influence. The way Flaherty translates the Latin armiger in the original of Presentment XII seems to suggest no more than the modern honorific ‘esq.’. However, in the fourteenth century (and for some centuries thereafter), to be an esquire was to hold a rank superior to that of a ‘gentleman’: it indicated being a member of the minor gentry. Bertram’s family had long been established in the hundred of Wye, although the spelling of the family name and holding seems to have varied, as do the details of the service by which their land was held. It is also known that other branches of the family – though the relationship is obscure – held land at Sellindge, not far from Wye,43 and at Wilmington, near Dartford, in north Kent.44 Why a man in such a social position, neither peasant nor artisan, should have been or be named as a leader of revolt in the hundred of Wye is a matter which will be considered later. It is perhaps surprising that there are no records which show clearly what happened to Bertram (or to the other rebels) following the jury presentations or indictments contained in TNA JUST 1/400. It is true that the Pardon Roll of Richard II, TNA C67/29 m.29, records that Bertram received a pardon in April 1382, but it does not state whether this is a pardon after conviction and sentence (and if so, what the sentence was), or whether this was a pardon taken out on an ‘insurance’ basis before trial, doubtless in either case for money. Certainly, when Bertram died, he was still a tenant-in-chief in respect of Wilmington, and in possession of the other substantial holdings mentioned above. There is no record of his ever had to follow the example of the first Bertram in having to replevy land which had been estreated by the king. THE HUNDRED OF WYE AND THE GREAT REVOLT OF 1381 153 It is reasonable to assume that, if he suffered any punishment, it was no more than a fine, perhaps equivalent to the 100 shillings which Bertram was ordered to pay to Thomas Kempe for the destruction of his muniments. That sum would have been, in the 1380s, a substantial penalty. The same sum, moreover, was laid as the damage suffered by Joan Colbrand as the result of the attack on her on 11 June 1381. Perhaps that sum was then conventional for a substantial fine or claim for damages. Lastly, it should be mentioned that Flaherty, in his paper of 1860, tantalisingly writes about Bertram, ‘concerning whom we shall have some information to give on a future occasion, which want of space now compels us to withhold’. Unfortunately, that information was never published, and it has not proved possible to trace it. The writer had hoped that it might have been retained as over-matter by the then editor of Archaeologia Cantiana and have been placed in the archives of Kent Archaeological Society, but the Librarian of the Society has assured him that this is not so. Flaherty’s information about Bertram remains a mystery.45 Little is known about the other people named as rebels in the presentations. The name of William Cook, which appears in presentment XI, also appears in the records of the Hundred Court of Wye some two years after the revolt, in the roll for 6-7 Ric. II (1382-84),46 without its being suggested that anything serious had happened to him as a result of the presentation. But the name is not uncommon, so the identification cannot be certain. The William Cook mentioned in the Hundred Court Roll is, with others, mentioned as responding to a plea of trespass, so perhaps the spirit of rebellion was still not entirely exhausted. The names of Thomas Bullok (Bulloc in the original of presentment XII), John Bergman (Bergheman) and John Chelverton (Chelvertone) also appear in the pardon roll, although on the same uninformative basis as that of Bertram. It is interesting to note that the name of Bartholemew Wylmynton of Elham also appears on the Pardon Roll. His relationship to Bertram is not known. It is not clear why he should have needed a pardon, since his name does not appear in any of the presentments.47 Turning to the alleged victims of the revolt in the Hundred of Wye, there seems to be little certain information about John Laycestre, though more might have been expected if he had been, for instance, steward or bailiff either of the manor of Wye, or of one of the other local manors, which would have provided a reason for the destruction of his muniments. The only later mention of John Laycestre in connection with Wye seems to come from the Survey of 1450 to 1452 where one and a half acres in Luklo are said to be ‘nuper Johannis Laurens et Johannis Laycestre’ [recently (or formerly) held by John Laurens and John Laycestre].48 But whether this refers to the John Laycestre whose property was attacked in DAVID DE SAXE 154 the revolt seems doubtful. Even if he outlived Bertram and died in the 1420s (and it is entirely speculative whether he did or not), his property-holding would scarcely be ‘nuper’ in the sense of ‘recently’– although it might be so if ‘nuper’ is translated as ‘formerly’– at the time of the survey. The only clue that he might have survived so long is found in an entry for 18 May 1424: Thomas Walthorp, Vicar of the church of Thrulegh [Throwley], co. Kent, for not appearing before the same [the king’s justices of the Bench] to answer John de Leycestre touching a plea of debt of £18.49 Throwley (south of Faversham) is a village about eight miles from Wye, so it is possible, on the grounds of propinquity, that the John de Leycestre referred to in this entry is the same as John Laycestre, but again the identification cannot be certain. The probability is, therefore, that the John Laycestre mentioned in the presentments was a local landowner who was either a tenant in chief (though, if he was, his death is not recorded in the Inquisitions Post Mortem) or was sufficiently high up the chain of feudal tenants to have sub-tenants, some of whom may have held parcels of land from him as customary tenants in unfree tenure. If that is not the case, then it is difficult to see why he should have been subjected to two attacks; the first, on 11 June, led by William Cook, though allegedly ‘by precept of ’ Bertram, and the second, on the following day, in which Bertram is said to have taken part. Presentment XI, which deals with the first attack, is in vague and general terms, and, although the language is pitched high – Cook and ‘other malefactors’ are said to have ‘plundered’ Laycestre’s house and to have committed ‘other enormities’ – the damage is laid at the moderate sum of forty shillings. Perhaps that attack was neither very serious nor very successful. The second attack, dealt with in Presentment XII, specifically alleges the burning of muniments, to the damage of 10 marks (£6 13s. 4d.), which suggests a more serious and focussed attack with a much more defined object than the first attack. The burning of muniments, which echoes happenings elsewhere in Kent and Essex throughout the revolt, points clearly to the desire of tenants to make unenforceable, and thereby to rid themselves of, their obligations to their landlords, whether in free or unfree tenure.50 The evidence of such a desire being the motivating force of the events in the Hundred of Wye is reinforced by consideration of the burning of Thomas Kempe’s muniments. Kempe is known to have been a wealthy landowner by inheritance, owning property in and around Wye, though it is not clear whether, by 1381, he was the owner, as he almost certainly was before his death, of Olantigh, one of the two large and important houses of Wye. TNA CP 40/493 refers simply to ‘his houses and closes at Wye’ as the objects of attack, and does not refer specifically to Olantigh, THE HUNDRED OF WYE AND THE GREAT REVOLT OF 1381 155 so perhaps he acquired it after 1381, rather than in 1379.51 Certainly, Thomas Kempe was a man of substance, who became escheator of Kent and Middlesex from 1388 to 1390.52 This post must have been a great source of income to him, even though, following a commission of inquiry into his performance,53 he had to pay what was then the very substantial sum of 200 marks (£133 6s. 8d.)54 for a pardon for ‘defaults and misprisions’ in it.55 Kempe was again appointed escheator from 1399 to 1401,56 following Henry Bolingbroke’s seizure of the throne, and yet again from 1408 to 1409, which suggests that his earlier errors had soon been forgiven.57 It is not surprising if such a man had tenants who wanted to make it difficult for him to enforce their obligations. Whatever the outcome of the raid on 12 June 1381 – and we know that the raid did in fact take place, because, unlike the Presentments, TNA CP 40/493 records a judicial finding to that effect – Kempe was subjected to further trouble from the people of Wye. In 1383 he was accused by parishioners of Wye church of having been involved in the stealing of vestments, books, chalices and other ornaments from the church, but he was allowed to clear his name by compurgation before the Archbishop’s Commissary; while the parishioners, who were deemed to have falsely accused him (together with a priest, Thomas Brewster, and another layman, John at Lese) were placed under interdict for a short time.58 This curious episode shows that Kempe was not loved by his neighbours: perhaps the 1381 raid reflected their personal feelings towards him, and was not simply an expression of the general conflict which seems, in the Great Revolt, to have exploded between landlords and tenants. Stow records that Kempe died in 1428, and was, perhaps flatteringly, described in his epitaph as munificus (liberal).59 The Survey of 1452 to 1454 makes it clear that some of Kempe’s holdings in Wye were from the manor of Wye; indeed, there is a reference to the rent of ‘Olynteghe’ being five shillings a year, although it is not suggested that whether this was payable by Kempe, or by his son John, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury (and Chancellor) at the time of the Survey.60 John Colbrand (also spelled Colbrond) was clearly a local man of some substance. He was a neighbour of Bertram’s at Wilmington: in 1372/3 to 1374 he and his wife Joan attended the manorial court of Wye as tenants in the borgh of Wilmington, in the same way as did Bertram and his wife.61 It is known that he was a ‘Baron’ (Member of Parliament) for New Romney in 1372/3.62 Colbrand’s family probably came from New Romney: the Lay Subsidy of 1334 shows a Hugh Colbrand and a Hamon Colbrand each assessed to pay one pound within the Hundred of St Martin Pulteney (New Romney) as ‘Men of the Liberty of the Cinque Ports’.63 It is therefore not surprising that John Colbrand should have represented the borough in Parliament. The details of the attacks on Colbrand’s house, as set out in Presentments DAVID DE SAXE 156 XII and XIII in TNA JUST 1/400, do not include any allegations against Bertram. In Presentment XII, the attackers named include John Henwode; Thomas Steyhame, constable of the neighbouring Hundred of Longbridge, and Stephen Repton. Presentment XIII – which is made by the jurors of the Hundred of Longbridge whereas Presentment XII is made by the jurors of Wye – again names, among others, John [de] Henwode and Stephen [de] Repton. This suggests that both attacks, which both took place on 11 June, were by the men of Longbridge. One attack seems to have been on Colbrand’s personal books and records, and again suggests an attack by tenants anxious to render unenforceable any remaining feudal, or more recent direct tenancy, obligations. The second attack was directed to the destruction of the ‘roll of green wax of our Lord the King’, which was the record of debts due to the exchequer, including poll-tax obligations. The fact that Colbrand was the local holder of this roll indicates that he was a royal official: Brooks suggests, on that basis, that he was a county coroner.64 While there does not appear to be any specific record of his appointment, he was, presumably, appointed in pursuance of the general order for the election of coroners at the beginning of Richard II’s reign.65 References to him in the Patent Rolls of the period show Colbrand engaged in litigation, either on behalf of himself or of others, evidently as a person of some standing. After the Revolt, in 1383, he is named in the Patent Rolls in the following rather curious entry: Pardon, at the supplication of Simon de Burley, king’s knight, to John Colbrond of Wylmynton by Wegh, whom John atte Gatte of Ospreng charged with having harboured himself and Thomas Lybrand in Southam-lane in Thamestrete, London, on Wednesday after Michelmas, 6 Richard II, knowing that they had that day broken the church of Solatton by Laughton Busard and carried away divers goods.66 It is suggested that Colbrand’s standing is shown by the fact that, when he was accused (by the thief himself) of sheltering a thief, he could look for support to someone as prominent in the kingdom as Sir Simon de Burley. Burley was one of King Richard’s closest confidants, and one of the king’s magistri [tutors] when Richard came to the throne: he was subsequently sub-Chamberlain of the royal household, a position of great influence.67 De Burley himself later became a victim of the political conflicts of the later 1380s and was impeached in 1388 by the ‘Merciless Parliament’ and executed; and Thomas Kempe, as escheator in Kent, was appointed together with the sheriff of Kent to enquire into de Burley’s handling of property and estates in Kent, and to seize stock and goods which de Burley was accused of having removed.68 Perhaps it is not surprising that Bertram avoided involvement in the attacks upon a neighbour who, at the time of the Revolt, was so evidently powerful and influential, nor that the attacks on Colbrand came from outside his home Hundred. THE HUNDRED OF WYE AND THE GREAT REVOLT OF 1381 157 It is not known when Colbrand died. There are two entries in the Fine Rolls for 12 June 1410 and for 5 July 1413 which show that a John Colbrond was appointed to collect taxes (‘fifteenths and tenths’) in Sussex, and it is tempting to conclude that this is the same man: he was clearly of sufficient standing and seniority to receive such an appointment, and the dates are consistent with the appointment of a contemporary of Bertram. There are no further entries after 1413.69 Presentment XII is signed by the two wardens of the Hundred. One, Simon de Earde, as has been mentioned, was himself a victim of attack, though the names of the participants suggest that this was an attack for family reasons rather than for the reasons which had motivated the attacks on Laycestre, Kempe or Colbrand. The other warden (custos), who signs himself as John de Combe, may well be the same John Combe who is named on 6 March 1381 as having been ‘associated with the escheator of Kent’,70 and, on 20 March, as, ‘surveyor and inspector’ of the collection of the Poll Tax’ together with the sheriff of Kent.71 If the identification is correct, then John [de] Combe may well have had a particular interest in seeking the punishment of those who refused to pay the tax or who obstructed its payment. There are references in the 1452-54 survey to a Johannes Combe having held land from the manor: this may well be the same person, although it is not possible to be certain.72 Why was Bertram involved in the Revolt? Why should a respectable, middle-aged Esquire have apparently become a local leader of a revolt which was predominantly one of peasants and artisans? In seeking an explanation for Bertram’s involvement, the writer starts from the proposition that, as far as his 80 acres of land at Wilmington was concerned, Bertram was a tenant-in-chief, holding that land of the king in grand serjeanty. The service by which it was held cannot have been onerous or have arisen very often, although the first Bertram may have had to find a cook for King Edward II on his visit to Wye in 1307/8, as recorded by Lambarde.73 The same king seems to have visited Wye again in 1325,74 when the service would have been performed by Ralph. There is, however, no record of the second Richard or of Bertram himself having had to perform this service; but it is known that, in addition to Wilmington, Bertram held land from the Manor of Wye.75 That land was, in the 1450s, held in servicio, i.e. by someone low down on the feudal ladder who held the land from a lord for services and then sublet the land. So Bertram may have been tenant-in-chief of his land at Wilmington, but had to render services for the land which he held from the Manor, which (as discussed above) was not an uncommon pattern of landholding. It seems probable that Bertram also held some land from Laycestre, and some from Kempe, though there is no evidence that he held any at DAVID DE SAXE 158 all from either of them. On the other hand, it is reasonable to ask why he should have been involved in burning their muniments if he were not their tenant, as that would have given him a personal interest in doing so. The manorial Court roll for 1372 to 137476 shows that Bertram was involved, with John Colbrand, in defending himself against an inaccurate allegation that he had failed to keep the highway in repair; and that he was fined three pence, apparently for unauthorised brewing. It may be imagined that, as a tenant-in-chief, he would find this sort of manorial discipline irritating. It may not, therefore, be unreasonable to assume that such irritation and perhaps other matters led Bertram to be influenced by the heady and rebellious ideas which were current in June 1381, so that he came to find his tenancy obligations, whether for rent or for services, exceedingly burdensome. If this was the case, then it is not surprising that he should have been prompted (by the events in Canterbury coupled with the proximity to Wye of the main band of Kentish rebels) to make the attacks on Laycestre and Kempe. Whether he chose to be the leader cannot be known, but it would be understandable if he, an armiger, were regarded as such by the local peasantry. While this is necessarily speculative, it provides at least some explanation for Bertram’s otherwise surprising involvement in the revolt. In conclusion, it can be seen that the events of 11 to 20 June 1381 in the Hundred of Wye were essentially peripheral to the activities of the main body of rebels in Kent, and to the contemporaneous highly dramatic and well-known events in London, as well as those in East Anglia. In this, they echoed similar events elsewhere in Kent, such as the destruction of poll tax records at Mersham and damage to property at Appledore and Tenterden, all between five and fifteen miles from Wye.77 The unusual feature of the events in Wye was the prominent part played in the attacks on Laycestre and Kempe by Bertram, a member of the local minor gentry. This was highly exceptional: there is no reason to doubt that the overwhelming majority of the rebels in the hundred of Wye, as elsewhere throughout the parts of England affected by the Great Revolt, consisted of peasants and artisans. acknowledgements The writer’s thanks are due: to Dr Andrew Butcher for his patient and encouraging supervision of his ma dissertation, on which this paper is based, and for his guidance in the presentation of this paper; to his wife, Maureen de Saxe, for proofreading and for producing the map; and, for their help at various stages, to Professor Nicholas Brooks and Dr Mark Bateson. He is much indebted to Dr Paul Burnham, formerly of Wye College, for helpful information about the first Richard de Wilmynton and about Thomas Kempe. THE HUNDRED OF WYE AND THE GREAT REVOLT OF 1381 159 endnotes 1 Butcher, A.F., ‘English Urban Society and the Revolt of 1381’, in The English Rising of 1381, Hilton R.H. and Aston, T.H. (eds) (Cambridge 1984), 84-111. 2 Flaherty, W.E., ‘The Great Rebellion in Kent of 1381 illustrated from the Public Records’, Archaeologia Cantiana, iii (1860), 65-96; Presentments III and X, 77 and 81. 3 Prescott, A., ‘The Judicial Records of the Rising of 1381’ (University of London, unpublished ph.d. thesis, 1984), passim [hereafter Judicial Records]; ‘Writing about Rebellion: Using the Records of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381’, in History Workshop Journal 45, 1-20. 4 Brooks, N. ‘The Organisation and achievements of the Peasants in Kent and Essex in 1381’, in Studies in Medieval History presented to R.H.C. Davis, Mayr-Harting, H. and Moore, R.I. (eds) (London 1985). 5 Archaeologia Cantiana, iii, 65-96. The original presentments are to be found in the National Archives, TNA �����������JUST1/400. JUST 1/6 In Le Soulèvement des Travailleurs d’Angleterre (Paris 1898), e.g. at lxxiii-lxxx. 7 Oman, Sir C., The Great Revolt of 1381 (Oxford 1906, reprinted London 1989), pp. vi and 45. 8 Hilton, R.H., Bond Men Made Free (London 1973), p. 218. 9 This paper is adapted from a dissertation for the degree of ma in Medieval and Tudor Studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury. 10 By Prescott, A., Judicial Records, 148. 11 Flaherty, W.E., op. cit., Presentment XVI. 12 See Scargill-Bird, S.R. (ed.), Custumals of Battle Abbey in the reigns of Edward I and Edward II (1283-1312) Camden Society New Series no.41 (London 1887), 101-136; see also Muhlfeld, H.E., A Survey of the Manor of Wye (New York 1933), xxvi. 13 Muhlfeld, H.E., op. cit. (see note 12), lxiv. 14 The grid reference is TR 031 464. The Victoria County History of Kent, Vol. 1, p. 426, identifies this moat as being that of Wilmington Manor House. 15 See, e.g., TNA SC2/182/21, the Court Roll for the Hundred Court of Wye for 1372-74, which shows at least one tenant-in-chief, Bertram de Wilmington, attending the Court. 16 See Smith, R.A.L., Canterbury Cathedral Priory (Cambridge 1943), pp. 126-7: see also Dyer, C., ‘The Social and Economic Background to the Rural Revolt of 1381’, in Hilton, R.H. and Aston, T.H. (eds), The English Rising of 1381 (Cambridge 1984), 9-43, at 26. 17 See TNA SC6/901/5, Minister’s Accounts: Manor of Wye, 4-5 Ric. II (1381-2), which shows the bailiff of the Manor reporting not to any person named as an official of Battle Abbey, but to one Sir John de Bourne, presumably the ‘farmer’. 18 Westminster Chronicle, 16, quoted by Prescott, Judicial Records, 24. 19 TNA CP 40/493, Common Pleas Records for 7 Ric. II (1383-84) Easter. 20 Prescott, Judicial Records, 263. 21 Dyer, C., op. cit. (see note 16), 17-18, quoting TNA SC6/901/5. 22 Hilton, R.H., op. cit. (see note 8), pp. 180-1. 23 Dyer, C., op. cit. (see note 16), 35. 24 Ibid., 17. 25 Flaherty, op. cit. (see note 2), 76. 26 Dobson, R.B. (ed.), The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 (2nd Edition, Basingstoke 1983), p. 16. 27 Ibid., p. 16. 28 Ibid., p. xxv. DAVID DE SAXE 160 29 Hilton, R.H., op. cit. (see note 8), p. 184. 30 See Cal. Inq. P M 1-5 Henry V, entry 204, p. 64, which describes the terms on which the land was held. Hasted calls it a manor: see The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (Canterbury 1798), vii, pp. 392-3. 31 Scargill-Bird, op. cit. (see note 12), 126: this is an extract from a small volume dated 20 Henry III (1236), which is attached to the actual custumal. 32 Hasted, E., op. cit. (see note 30), pp. 392-3. 33 Greenstreet, J. (ed.) ‘Holders of Knight’s fees in Kent at the knighting of the king’s son Anno.38 Henry III’, transcribing Feoda Militaria, in Archaeologia Cantiana, xii, (1878), 217. See also Calendar of Miscellaneous Inquisitions for the reigns of Henry III and Edward I, no. 1024, where in an inquisition thought to be of 1275, Isaac is described as having been an enemy of Henry III because, under force majeure, he had sent one of his servants to the siege of Rochester, but it is recorded that his land in the Hundred of Wye, ‘of the value of 100s. a year’, had never been seized by the king, ‘and the said Isaac now holds it’. 34 Burnham, P., ‘The Medieval Manor’, in A new History of Wye: the heritage of a Kent Village, Burnham, P. and de Saxe, M. (eds) (Wye 2003), 35. 35 Transcribed by Greenstreet, J., Archaeologia Cantiana, xi (1877), 325. 36 CCR, 7-11 Edw. II (1313-1319), p. 207. 37 Transcribed by Greenstreet, J., Archaeologia Cantiana, xv (1883), 304. 38 Hanley, H.A. and Chalklin, C.W., ‘The Kent Lay Subsidy Roll of 1334/5’, in Documents illustrative of Medieval Kentish Society, Du Boulay, F.R.H. (ed.) (Ashford 1964), 93. 39 Cal. Inq. P M 10-20 Edw. III p. 6, entry 15 (1337-1347). 40 CPR 1361-64, p. 23 (membrane 21). 41 Cal. Inq. PM 1-5 Henry V p. 64, entry 204 (1314-1318). 42 Muhlfeld, op. cit., (see note 12), p. 16. 43 See CPR 10 Edw. III (1337), entry 96, p. 57. 44 See, e.g., Archaeologia Cantiana, ii, 311 and xi, 313, transcribing Kent Fines for 8 Edw. II (1314-15). 45 Flaherty’s will does not help: in it, he suggests that his books and papers should be given to a bookseller, ‘Mr. Mitchell of 52 Parliament Street’ for disposal. It is not known if Flaherty’s executor did this, or what happened to his historical papers. 46 TNA SC2/183/22. 47 Bullok’s name appears on m.25 of the Pardon Roll TNA C67/29; Chelverton’s name on m.28, and Bergman’s and Bartholemew Wylmynton’s on m.29. 48 Muhlfeld, op. cit.(see note 12), p. 103. 49 CPR 1422-29, p. 150. 50 See Dyer, C., op. cit. (see note 16), pp. 38-41. 51 Nigota, J.A., ‘John Kempe; a political prelate of the Fifteenth Century’, unpublished ph.d thesis, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (1973), p. 15. 52 See CPR 1385-8, pp. 408 and 466. 53 See CPR 1388-92, p. 435. 54 Nigota says £200, but this appears to be a mistranscription of the CPR entry. 55 See CPR 1391-96, p. 54. 56 See CFR 1399-1405, p. 2. 57 See CFR 1405-13, p. 139. 58 Transcribed from Archbishop Courtenay’s Register in Wye Church and Wye College, Orwin, C.S. and Williams, S. (eds) (Ashford, 1912), pp. 41-43. 59 Annales (1631 ed.), p. 398. Much of the information in this paragraph is to be found in Nigota’s thesis (see note 51), 9-15. THE HUNDRED OF WYE AND THE GREAT REVOLT OF 1381 161 60 Muhlfeld, op. cit. (see note 12), p. 136. References to Kempe as having held land from the manor are scattered throughout the Survey of 1452-54. 61 TNA SC 2/182/21, the Hundred Court Roll for Wye in 46-48 Edw. III (1372-3 to 1374). 62 Hasted, op. cit. (1st edition, 1790), vol. iii, p. 524. 63 Hanley and Chalklin, op. cit. (see note 38), p. 146. 64 Brooks, N., op. cit. (see note 4), and in private correspondence. 65 CCR 1377-81, p. 5. 66 CPR 1383-6, p. 321. 67 McKisack, M., The Fourteenth Century 1307-1399 (Oxford 1959), pp. 424-461. 68 CPR 1385-89, p. 468. 69 CFR 1405-1413, p. 181 (the 1410 entry) and CFR 1413-22, p. 28 (the 1413 entry). 70 CPR 1377-81, p. 630. 71 CCR 1377-81, p. 522. 72 Muhlfeld, op. cit. (see note 12), pp. 83, 88 and 134. 73 Lambarde, W., The Perambulation of Kent (1970 facsimile of 1826 edition), p. 259. 74 CPR 1324-27, p. 178 shows that the king’s licence to John de Cherleton to crenellate his house in the town of Shrewsbury was signed at Wye on 14 September 1325. 75 Muhlfeld, op. cit. (see note 12), p. 16. 76 TNA SC 2/182/21. 77 Prescott, A., Judicial Records, 113 and 149.