f 11 (29 September–29 September) (Borough accounts)
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Wherof is payed yerely for fees of men of lawe and attorneyes wages and lyvereis of the towne Clerk Seriauntes Prestes ministrellis & obites the Summes herafter folowing that is to say
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f 11v
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Item paied to the kinges ministrelles and to the kinges fotemen this yere | xiij s. iiij d. |
Item paied to the Quenes ministrelles this yere | vj s. viij d. |
Item paied to the Erle of Arundelles ministrellis | vj s. viij. d. |
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[Footnote: Rewardis … ministrellis: in display script]
Record title: Second Book of Remembrance
Repository: Southampton City Archives
Shelfmark: SC2/1/4
Repository location: Southampton
The contents of this Book of Remembrance include copies of ordinances made during the mayoralty of Thomas Overay (1490–1), as well as illustrative examples of accounts, a corporation rental, and other civic records from that period. Some records of the admiralty court from the eighteenth century are also included. In 1491 mayor Thomas Overay instituted extensive reforms in town government, including its accounting practices. For that reason, the borough accounts kept by the stewards were also copied into the Second Book of Remembrance. The accounting year ran from Michaelmas to Michaelmas. Most of the amounts recorded were annual and customary ones paid as wages to the officers of the town, for example, the town clerk, sergeants, and cranemen. The accounts also include amounts spent on liveries and on obits (see Thick, Southampton Steward's Book, pp xvi–xvii.) Possibly the authorities felt the need to record the rewards to minstrels in this year when new ordinances were established in order to set out the traditional practices and amounts involved in receiving visits by such entertainers.
The date at the beginning of this set of accounts is given
as 'MCCCClxxxj' with a fourth 'x' added above the line by another hand,
presumably to agree with the date of Overay's mayoralty and the regnal
date, which is given as 6 Henry VII. The ordinances which precede these
accounts give a date of 1 July, 6 Henry VII, as the date on which the
assembly established these ordinances as remedies for the grievous
complaints that threatened 'thutter distruction' of the town (f
5v).
1490–1; Latin and English; paper; 118 leaves; contemporary ink foliation to f 53, modern pencil foliation thereafter; original parchment cover with some writing on front, mostly too faded to read: two B's near the top, but separate from each other, lower down, '32,' and below that 'liber Rememora<...>s.'