The Gatehouse website record of a grant of murage for Coventry granted 4/5/1385

Coventry was given a grant of murage dated 4/5/1385.

This was in the form of:-

Levy:-
Grant of money:- for 5 years of £24 from ulnage
Grant of material:- sufficient stone
Licence to crenellate Starting 2/4/1385 running to 25/3/1390.

Wording

Licence, upon the petition of the mayor, bailiffs, and good men of Coventry, promising to enclose the site of the king's manor of Cheillesmore within the walls of their city, in accordance with the bounds limited by the kind's steward for the time being, and reciting the like licence of the late king, dated 20 November, 37 Edward III. and his subsequent letters patent assigning certain persons to assess the merchants, inhabitants and other dwellers in Coventry, and apply the sums levied for the purpose, and that the work has been left unfinished, to crenellate the residue of the walls accordingly, on condition that they fulfil their said promise, with power to assess the merchants and inhabitants as aforesaid, until the work is complete, and during its progress to take sufficient stone from the king's quarry within the park of Cheillesmore for fencing the said manor and making a gate through the city wall near the park in the highway by the house of the Friars Minors. Further grant to them, as from Easter last, of the farm yearly accruing to the king from the sealing of woollen cloth in Coventry, to the value 24/., receivable for the next five years, in aid of the said work. By p.s.
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June 8. 1391. Westminster
To the treasurer and the barons of the exchequer. Order to search the rolls and memoranda of the exchequer, whether the mayor, bailiffs, citizens and true men of Coventre have received in part or in whole the sum granted to them by the king or no, certifying in chancery what they shall find; as by letters patent of 4 May 8 Richard II the king granted to them for five years from Easter then last the farm to him belonging of the seal of the alnage of woollen cloth in Coventre up to the value of 24l., to be taken by the hands of the farmers in aid of the works upon the walls for enclosing that city; and they have, as they say, received nought thereof, although they have a long while been laying out great sums upon building the said wall. By p.s.

Granted by Richard II. (Regnal year 8). Granted at Westminster. Granted by p.s..

Primary Sources

Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1897, Calendar of Patent Rolls Richard II (1381-85) Vol. 2 p. 557 online copy
Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1922, Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II Vol. 4 p. 272 online copy

Secondary Sources

Coulson, C., 1995, 'Battlements and the Bourgeoisie: Municipal Status and the Apparatus of Urban Defence' in Church, Stephen (ed), Medieval Knighthood Vol. 5 (Boydell) p. 170n201
Joan C. Lancaster and Margaret Tomlinson, 1969, in Stephens, W.B.(ed), VCH Warwickshire Vol. 8 p. 1-23 online copy

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