Book Description

Edited accounts from the estates of Durham Priory provide a rich vein of information for the economic history of the time. This volume provides a closely edited text of all the manorial accounts surviving from Durham Priory estates before 1310. These include twelve accounts for individual manors (the two earliest being from 1277-8), together with enrolled manorial accounts for the years 1296-7, 1299-1306 and 1309-10. The accounts supply detailed evidence of farming activities on the twelve or so manors that were farmed directly by the priory: their number fluctuated during thecourse of the period. A couple of livestock inventories supply additional material relating to the priory's sheep flocks. The editor's introduction supplies a new study of the scale and operations of the priory estate as documented both by the edited accounts and by related material in the priory archive, particularly bursars' accounts and the granators' accounts. It includes a description of the priory's estate management and accounting and an economic analysis of the the monks' arable and pastoral activities.The introduction also calls attention to material in the accounts relating to disturbances that affected the priory in these years as a result of royal campaigns in Scotland and the monk's conflict with Bishop Anthony Bek. The volume is completed with a glossary of the Latin and Middle English words used in the accounts. Richard Britnell, who specialised in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages, was until his retirement professor of History at Durham University.