If you have ever waited for a parcel to be delivered you may not be so far from some medieval people as you might think. The Benedictine Cathedral Priory needed to maintain various means of transport in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, even if the majority of the monks did not leave the convent very often.
There were several reasons why the monks or their servants might need to move considerable distances. These could include those monks who travelled around to inspect their manors and properties and others fortunate to get the opportunity to study at university. To ensure this transport was in good order, it is known that a blacksmith’s was located on the north side of the Cathedral [1]. A stable block was likely located on the south side of the Cathedral around where College Green is now.
There was also the need to transport goods from local and distant markets to supply the Priory as well as the need to bring materials from quarries and forests that were required to maintain both the Cathedral and its surrounding priory buildings such as the infirmary, the Guesten hall, or the separate bell tower, known as the leaden steeple, located on the north side of the Cathedral.
To get a better understanding of how all of this impacted the finances, and administration, take a typical annual account for a monk official, the cellarer. He had the most important administrative position at Worcester Cathedral Priory. In 1404-1405, Cellarer Thomas Dene recorded paying 21s 10d for the repair of the Priory’s ship[2]. He also paid 39s 1d for the repairs to long carts and another 34s 8d for ordinary carts. Shoeing horses during the same year cost him another £2 16s 1½d. Sixteen years later and one of his successors as cellarer, Richard Tyburton paid £4 15s 5d for the repair of the Priory’s ship[3]. This sum included payment for, amongst other things, pitch and rosin, different types of nails, two cables called ‘headropes,’ hooks, and a pan. He also spent £7 0s 7d on various types of carts, and long carts. Some of these were located on priory manors elsewhere in the county, such as Hallow or Cleve. Finally, he had to shoe horses, such as his own horse[4] and two belonging to the Prior.
What practical matters might have required the monks to maintain so many transport options? The accounts show that the cellarer was purchasing timber to build or repair a bakery and a stable in 1420-21, and also two shiploads of stone and some tiles as well as two bars of iron for a furnace in the bakery amongst many other building projects that year, all of which would have required transporting of materials to either the Priory or one of its manors[5]. However, it is not necessarily true to assume that every purchase was collected and delivered by priory servants using the priory ship, carts or horses. For example, Richard Tyburton stated that he paid a man for two shiploads of stone costing 13s 4d for some of this building work. It is not clear if this cost was a private ship or the monastery ship.
By the time of cellarer Roger Kingslond in 1481-82, the amount of building work in the Cathedral and the surrounding priory buildings seems to have reduced but there was still a need to keep the ship and carts in working condition and horses shoed. Kingslond also had to pay the 20s wages of William Smith the palfreyman[6], a palfrey being a type of horse. Similarly, he had to pay for the travel costs of the steward of the cellarer to ride to Blackwell, Shipston, Evesham, Alveston and Stratford during the year on business[7].
Fuel was another annual expense for the cellarer with wood and charcoal costing £9 14s being purchased by Roger Kingslond in 1483-84[8]. The Priory must have required a substantial amount for so large a complex, and this is clear when Kingslond recorded obtaining from one supplier in Bewdley 2600 pieces called “keywode” (keywood) at 15s per 1000 pieces. All of which would have needed to have been transported to the Priory.
Interestingly, in 1481-82 the Prior Robert Multon, whose duty it was as head of the monastery to entertain important guests, noted spending £18 9s 8d on red and sweet wine for the Lord Prince (of Wales), justiciars, King Edward IV, and other unnamed lords and magnates during the year and that he purchased the wine for all these guests from John Yimiynge who was a Bristol merchant and from John Morys and John Conner[9]. He also spent £5 19s 11d on beer for entertaining. Frustratingly, he does not state if the merchants provided the transport and whether most of the purchases were local. However, even if only a half or a third of the wine was brought specially from the port of Bristol, transport would have been involved, and it is hard to see why the Cathedral Priory would not have used its ship for such a journey.
Prior Multon also spent £3 8s 11½d on a journey by horse to see the Prince of Wales based at Ludlow in 1481-82. Three of his servants, Richard Horewoode, John Broke and Michael Horsman were paid 34s 8d for various business trips by horse and John Grafton and various others were paid 18s 5d[10] for a trip to London. Similarly at some point in the year Prior Multon noted that he had given or sent gifts to the households of the King Edward IV, the Queen, the Prince, the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of York and the Earls of Northumberland and Arundel[11]. Perhaps this explains the prior’s servants’ journey to London that year. Prior William More in 1533-1534 furnishes another example when he noted in his journal that he journeyed to London leaving on Saint Julian’s day with an escort of eleven horses and staying in London for nineteen days until the 6th March[12].
Hopefully this brief exploration of the topic has shown that assumptions about the difficulties of travel and transport in the middles ages are not true. It also shows the investment of time and effort that a large organization like a Cathedral Priory was prepared to make in maintaining its ship, various wagons, carts, and horses to ensure the smooth running of its many projects and tasks.
David Morrison
Bibliography:
Worcester Cathedral Muniments.
[1] WCM Add Mss 419a Barbara Ronchetti, Worcester Cathedral College Yard. Some documentary evidence 2nd edition.1999, p.4
[2] WCM C78
[3] WCM C84
[4] WCM C84
[5] WCM C84
[6] WCM C100
[7] WCM C100
[8] WCM C101
[9] WCM C407
[10] WCM C407
[11][11] WCM C407
[12] WCM A10 folio 148r
Worcester Cathedral Library and Archive Blog 
David, how interesting to know that it is not only us with money worries. There must have been a lot of work for their ‘accountants’ to do.
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