f 188 (29 September–29 September)(Payments)
...
| Given my lorde of Oxfordes players | vj s. viij d. |
...
| Paide the Quenes players | ij li. |
...
f 188v
...
Laide out for Liveries for the officers
this yeare as ffolloweth in Anno 1583
...
To Peter breame j yearde 2 quarter 1/2
To henrye Myles j yeard 2 quarter
To thomas Williams j yeard 2 quarter 1/2
To thomas Breame j yeard 2 quarter
To Symon Reston j yard 2 quarter
To Henry helliar j yeard q 3 quarter
| Soe the saide Lieveries dothe amount vnto 51 yardes 1/2 quarter at 8s 8d the yeard amountes to | xxij li. iij s. j d. |
All these entries are linked by a bracket on the right, to the right of which the total ('Lj yeardes 1/2 quarter') is written. 'henrye Myles' is likely the 'henrie the Minstrell' who was given his freedom in 1579–80 for 'keping of the waightes.' The names that immediately follow Myles' and receive the same amount of cloth (Thomas Williams, Thomas Breame, and Simon Reston) may be those of other civic musicians. 'Peter breame' was a glasier who played the drum and flute for musters, as the accounts for 1568–9 indicate (f 126, and see Butler, Book of Fines, vol 3, p xxxviii). Henry Helliar was also paid for solder for the gutters of the west hall (f 188).
Record title: Book of Fines
Repository: Southampton City Archives
Shelfmark: SC5/3/1
Repository location: Southampton
This account book was started to record only the receipts from 'casualties': here, fines for offences such as fighting, burgesses verbally attacking each other, married men being caught in the stews, and citizens and foreigners buying and selling in violation of the town's ordinances, as well as admission fees paid by those desiring to practise a craft in the city. These receipts provided the mayor with a small fund from which to pay for rewards to players, messengers, noblemen and their servants, and the like, and occasionally for minor repairs to town buildings. After a few years of accounts the payments also begin to be recorded here, so that in fact the accounts are not just a record of fines, but are the complete mayors' accounts. In the second half of the sixteenth century the accounts, especially the payments, become more detailed and broader in content, including much more extensive expenses for construction and repair, and detailed accounts for poor relief. The accounting year runs from Michaelmas to Michaelmas. The Book of Fines has been transcribed by Butler, Book of Fines, 3 vols.
The dating of these accounts by regnal years gets a year
out of step with the heading of the 1573–4 accounts as 16–17 Elizabeth
(f 147r), following the accounts for 14–15 Elizabeth: there is no set of
accounts headed 15–16 Elizabeth. The error was only rectified in 1586–7,
which is correctly headed 28–9 Elizabeth. (1585–6 is also, incorrectly,
labeled 28–9 Elizabeth.) Dates given within the accounts are correct,
further revealing the error, as in the accounts for 1576–7, which are
headed 19–20 Elizabeth (which would be 1577–8) but twice dated
internally to June and July 1577.
29 September 1488–29 September 1594; English with some Latin; paper; 252 leaves; 417mm x 285mm; modern pencil foliation (numbering in upper right corner of the rectos has been used throughout rather than numbering of some folios at bottom left, which is often 1 higher than the correct numbering but has been used by Cheryl Butler in her edition); good condition (only last 2 leaves have lost any written space, several leaves lost between ff 41 and 42, so there are no accounts for 1514–15, 1515–16, or 1516–17, many different hands; contemporary parchment cover in poor condition, title on front of cover much faded.