XXVII. 1367. taking in the joint consideration of weight of CHAP. silver and price of provisions, was equal to about eighteen times the money of the same denomination in our own age. Chaucer's pension therefore of twenty marks will be properly represented to our apprehension, by a revenue of £. 240 per annum. It be instructive to add here a few Illustrations, may examples of the gratuities bestowed by Ed ward III. upon persons of different classes and professions in society, for the purpose of illustrating the degree of estimation which it was the habit of these times to annex to such classes or professions. We find him granting in the year 1345 the sum of sixpence per diem for life to a certain apothecary [apothecarius], who had attended him in a dangerous illness during an expedition into Scotland'; and, some years before, a pension to the court-physician of £. 100 per annumTM. To a person who had brought to him the XXVII. 1367. CHAP. first news of the victory at Neville's Cross, he granted one hundred shillings per annum for life"; and to another, on the ground of having first carried the intelligence to the council at London, a gratuity of £.10. The sum of forty marks per annum was given by the king to the man who brought him intelligence of the birth of his eldest son; £.10 per annum as a provision for his nurse; and ten marks per annum to his rocker P. One hundred shillings is the amount of the annuity, granted to a lady supposed to have been afterward the wife of Chaucer, the cause in consideration of which it was granted being that she had been one of the maids of honour [domicella] to the queen : the grant bears date a few months after the queen's decease1 the pension of the same date, granted to the maids of honour of the highest class is ten marks. The salaries of ■ Ditto, Tom. V. 21 Edv. 3, Mar. 10. • Ditto, 20 Edv. 3, Dec. 12. Ashmole, Chap. XXVI, Sect. iii, XXVII. 1367. the judges, as we have seen, were about forty CHA P. marks': but there is reason to think that they had certain perquisites and boons, which tended considerably to increase the gross amount of their revenue; this may be regarded as pretty strongly corroborated to us by a line of Chaucer formerly quoted : The judge dremeth how his plees be spedde. Each of the dreamers mentioned in this разsage of Chaucer, dreams of the thing about which he was anxious when awake, and fancies that it turns out in the manner that he then wished: the judge therefore would certainly not have found a place in this enumeration were it not that his emoluments deupon pended either the number of the causes he tried, or upon the way in which he decided them. Chap. XVIII, p. 67. Parliament of Birds, ver. 101. See Chap. XXI, p. 174. CHAP. 1367. num t Montagu, afterward earl of Salisbury, for his services in the overthrow of Roger Mortimer, was rewarded with an income of L. 1000 per annum'; and, some years after, his younger brother, sir Edward Montagu had a grant of a pension of £. 100 per anThe annuity granted to Robert of Artois, first instigator of the wars of Edward III. for the crown of France, was of the amount of twelve hundred marks ". The king likewise conferred a pension of £. 1500 per annum upon the duke of Brabant for life; and the pension of Baliol, subsequently to his surrender of all his claims upon the crown of Scotland, was £. 2000. This was also the amount of the allowance settled upon Joan, wife to David Bruce the reigning king of Scotland, and sister to Edward III". The 'Collins, Peerage of England: duke of Manchester. XXVII. 1367. income of Philippa queen of England was CHA P. £. 15000 per annum3. In the writ conveying to John of Gaunt a certain portion of duke Henry's inheritance, which had been reserved till one of the daughters, coheiresses, should have issue, the value of the lands hereby assigned, independently of the property which had fallen to him at the death of his father-in-law (and the other part of a Rymer, Tom. IV. 2 Edv. 3, May 5. The sum here put down is undoubtedly too high, but it is perhaps impossible to ascertain the exact value of these grants. The word in the instrument of dower, both to Joan and Philippa, answering to £, is not libra, but librata terræ & redditus. This term is explained by Spelman as equivalent to an acre; and an acre of land, according to Fleetwood, was worth at this time on an average three pence per annum (Chronic on Preciosum, Chap. IV). This would reduce the value of queen Philippa's income to £. 262: 10: per annum, and of queen Joan's to £. 25 per annum. Cowel, on the contrary, rates the denarius terra as an acre, and consequently the libra, or librata terra, as two hundred and forty acres. This would raise queen Philippa's revenue to £. 63,000 per annum, £. 7000 above the revenue of the whole kingdom. Ducange, Glossarium, in voc. is inclined to consider the librata terra as signifying so much land as would yield a revenue of £. 1 per annum ; and Ducange's authority is followed in the text. |
