The Gatehouse website record of a grant of exemption for murage for grant to the prioress and convent of Derteford

Priory of Dartford (grant to the prioress and convent of Derteford) was granted an exemption from murage dated 12/8/1372.

Wording

Whereas the king recently, for the safety of his own soul and the souls of Edward, his father, and Eleanor mother of his said father, and of all his ancestors and successors and all the faithful departed, founded a monastery of sisters living under the Augustinian rule and under the care of the Friars preachers living at Derteford in the diocese of Rochester, to the honour of St. Mary and Saint Margaret, and endowed the same and designs to endow them yet further;
grant to the prioress and convent of Derteford aforesaid, of special grace and for their better maintenance and tranquility, of the following liberties:-
they shall have the chattels of their men and tenants, being felons or fugitive, of all their lands and fees already bestowed or in the future to be bestowed upon them ; so that if any such for any offence ought to lose life or limb, or flee or refuse to stand to judgment, or do any- thing else for which he ought to lose his chattels, wheresoever justice ought to be done of him, whether in the court of the king or in any other court, his chattels shall belong to the said prioress and convent, who may put themselves in seisin thereof without impediment from the king or his ministers;
they shall have all fines for trespasses and other offences, fines for licence to agree and all amercements, redemptions, forfeited issues and forfeitures, year, day and waste, with all that should belong to the king thereof, and murders of all their men and tenants of all their lands and fees as aforesaid in whatever court of the king they be made, whether before the king or in his Chancery, or before the treasurer and barons, or the justices of the Bench, or the steward and marshals, or the clerk of the market of the king's household, or before any other courts, as also before the justices itinerant to take common pleas or pleas of the forest or any other justices or ministers of the king, whether in his presence or in his absence ; all which fines and so forth they may by themselves or their bailiffs levy, take and keep without hindrance as aforesaid;
they and all their men shall be quit of toll, pavage, pontage, quayage, murage, passage, paiage, lastage, stallage, tallage, carriage, pesage, picage, terrage, scot and geld, hidage, scutage and works of castles, parks and bridges, enclosures and building of royal houses, as also of suits of counties, hundreds and wapentakes, of all manner of aids of kings, sheriffs and their bailiffs, of view of frankpledge, of murder, of common amercement whenever the county falls in the king's mercy before the king or his justices of the Bench or in eyre, and of all other custom throughout the king's realm and power;
they shall be free of all manner of aids, contributions and tallages which might be exacted from them by the king or his bailiffs or ministers for his use in respect of any of the lands, tenements, rents, goods and chattels which they now have or in the future may have ; and when the clergy of the England or of the province of Canterbury or of the province of York by way of a tenth or other quota of their spiritualities make a grant to the king, or when the communities of the counties contribute a tenth or fifteenth or other quota of their temporal goods, moveables, lands, tenements or rents, or when the king tallages his demesnes or the Pope imposes a tenth or other quota upon the clergy of the realm or of the provinces aforesaid and grants the same or a part thereof to the king, the lands, goods and so forth of the said prioress and convent and of their men shall not be so taxed, nor they be in any wise distrained or molested therefore;
and if the men of the counties or of any county or other district (locorum) of the realm or their lands, possessions or goods be assessed at any sum for the furnishing and arraying of men-at-arms, hobblers, archers or other footmen for the king's service in any part or for coast defence, or if any other burden be laid upon them on such occasions, the lands, possessions and goods of the prioress and convent shall in no case be charged therewith;
they shall have all animals called wayf and 'strayf' found in their lands and fees unless any follow and prove ownership and unless within a proper time, according to the custom of the country, they be claimed and followed; they shall have their monastery and all the houses which they now or in the future may hold throughout the realm quit of livery of stewards, marshals and ministers of the king and of marshals, purveyors or other ministers of the magnates, so that no such officer shall make there any livery to the use of any person against the wish of them, the said prioress and convent; and no earl, baron or magnate of the realm or of any other place, nor any stewards, marshalls, escheators, sheriffs, coroners or other officers of the king, or their ministers, nor any other of any state or condition shall harbour or stay there against the will of the prioress and convent upon any pretext; and to the end that their goods and chattels be not taken and wasted by takers and purveyors of victuals or other matters for the household of the king or of any others, the king has taken the monastery, the said prioress and convent and all the lands and so forth which may now or hereafter be given, granted or assigned to them and all their goods and chattels into his special protection, willing that nothing of their corn, hay, horses, carts, carriages, victuals, or other goods, chattels and things, shall be taken or carried off by any officers or ministers whatsoever for the use of himself or of any other;
they shall not be called upon or compelled to find pension, corrody or maintenance for anyone out of their house or other possessions against their will at the request or order of the king;
they shall have free warren in all the demesne lands which have now been or may in the future be granted to them. By p.s. {29287.}

Granted by Edward III. (Regnal year 46). Granted at Westminster. Grant by By p.s..

Primary Sources

Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1916, Calendar of Charter Rolls 15 Edward III - 5 Henry V 1341-1417 Vol. 5. (HMSO) p. 225-27 view online copy

Secondary Sources

Page, Wm, 1926, 'Friaries: The Dominican nuns of Dartford' VCH Kent Vol. 2 p. 181-190 online

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