f 18 (29 September–29 September)
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| Item paid by ye commaundment of master mayer to my lord of Arundell is mynstrelles Summa | vj s. viij d. |
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f 18v
The Reward of °vacuatum
quia petitum in vltimo die
anno°
[Footnotes: anno: for anni (?); vacuatum … anno: 'cancelled because it was requested on the last day of the year']
The entry at the top of f 18v appears to continue the rewards to minstrels begun at the bottom of the recto of the leaf, but the entire entry is struck through, with the amount separately struck through. It is the only entry on f 18v and may have been added after the rest of the section, then cancelled for the reason given in the marginal note – that is, that payment was requested on the last day of the accounting year and the actual payment not given until the beginning of the following year. We would presumably have found the payment entered in the 1501–2 steward's accounts if they had survived. 'Gylbert montagew' was a merchant who lived in Holy Rood parish and was made a burgess in 1504–5, becoming mayor in 1521–2 (Butler, Book of Fines, vol 1, p 179). The mayor this year was Robert Bishop and the steward, John Payne, so why Montagew should have been the one to pay the minstrels, four years before he became a burgess, is not clear (Butler, Book of Fines, vol 1, pp 54, 173).
Record title: Steward's Accounts
Repository: Southampton City Archives
Shelfmark: SC5/1/25
Repository location: Southampton
The accounts run from Michaelmas to Michaelmas and cover
all areas of civic receipt and expenditure, from land rents to annual
payments to civic officials, costs of construction and repair of town
structures, and rewards to visiting performers. See the introduction to
Thick (ed), Southampton Steward's
Book, pp iii–xlvi. Thick's edition of the 1492–3 accounts
includes full transcriptions of those documents, including records
relating to drama and minstrelsy.
1500–1; English with some Latin; paper; 38 leaves; 305mm x 210mm; modern pencil foliation; some repair; original parchment cover.