Urban Assimilation in Post-Conquest Wales by Matthew Stevens

Author:Matthew Stevens [Stevens, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Social History
ISBN: 9780708322505
Google: NEWuBwAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Published: 2010-03-01T00:33:57+00:00

Source: as figure 4.1; Dyffryn Choyd Database.

* This is the average total interval (in months) between the first and last amercements paid for breach of assize.

‘Related bakeresses’ (group 1) are personified by women such as Tibot Chamberlain, whose amercements were spread across the period 1318–35, during which she was likely to have been working continuously as part of a larger household unit. ‘Independent bakeresses’ (group 2) are best represented by women like Isolda de Stretton, who was amerced for breaching the assize on only three consecutive occasions: in October 1331, April 1332 and October 1332.31 Isolda entered the market for a short time during which she worked steadily, occasioning a middling amercement of 6d. at each relevant great court, and then chose to withdraw from the trade, so ending her commercial venture.

Isolda is also representative of independent bakeresses with regard to her curial background. While most female bakers related to other assize breakers were infrequently involved in borough court litigation, and almost never in trade-related disputes, independent bakers like Isolda were much more likely to be party to a variety of commercially orientated pleas. For example, the independent bakeress Alice le Blake, who was amerced for breaching the assize of bread in October 1320, was also cited by Ruthin’s courts of 1312–21 for forestalling ‘small foods’.32 Independent bakeress Olive, the wife (and eventual widow) of Roger cirotecarius (glover), who breached the assize of ale on four occasions, was recorded in Ruthin’s surviving rolls of the same decade not only in connection with baking but also when pursuing a plea of unjust detention.33 Furthermore, Isolda herself appeared in Ruthin’s borough courts of 1312–21 not only for baking but also when pursuing debt and unjust detention pleas against Einion ap Cynddelw and a prominent borough juror, William de Rowehull.34

By contrast, the related bakeress Amy, wife of baker William de Helpston, was amerced four times for breach of assize, but only appeared in the borough courts of 1312–21 three further times: in connection with pleas of defamation, battery and concord (though the subject of this agreement is lost).35 Maud, the wife of the baker Walter de Lodelow, who broke the assize of ale on four occasions, only appeared in court in one non-assize-related plea, when bringing a charge of bloodshed against the son of Walter carectarius (carter).36 And the regular bakeress, Agnes, the wife of baker William de Flittewyk, appeared in the borough courts only in response to five breaches of the assize of bread.

It is possible that this pattern is to some extent related to the high proportion (around 52 per cent) of women among related bakeresses regularly identified as ‘the wife of’ or ‘the daughter of’ a male member of the community. This contrasts with just 33 per cent of independent female bakers who were routinely referred to with reference to a male member of the community. But, as is argued in chapter III, there was little correlation between marriage and a woman’s capacity to access the courts in Ruthin. The

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