Agricultural History Review, Volume 60 Part 1 (2012), p. 135

The Sussex Record Society has a long and distinguished history of producing scholarly, meticulous and above all useful editions of primary sources. This volume fits very well into that tradition.

Mark Gardiner and Christopher Whittick’s edition of the accounts and records of Mote manor in Sussex provides both a meticulous transcription and translation of the documents themselves and an extensive and highly informative introduction. The addition of the appendices and a glossary make this an exemplary volume of its type and one that will be used by local historians, students and academics alike.

The records comprise accounts, court rolls, a rental and a survey and cover over 200 years of the manor’s history. One outstanding feature of the accounts is that the management of manor was taken back into the lord’s hands in 1471. This makes these accounts particularly valuable since direct management was rare at this time and surviving accounts are often very sketchy indeed. The accounts presented in this volume therefore have an importance quite apart from their information about the individual manor. Their value is heightened by the fact they survive for a period of large-scale building on the manor.

The introduction is excellent and surely covers all the necessary elements of the documents. The expected diplomatic of the various documents is there but this introduction contains much more. It also outlines the history of the manor and its owners, and then discusses in detail the contents of the documents themselves. It focuses on the household and the building elements of the accounts, but also looks more briefly at the agrarian economy of the estate.

The section concerning the agrarian economy puts the activity on the manor of Mote in its historical context and offers such things as calculations of the yield and seeding rates of different crops. The importance of wood sales to Calais is highlighted; Sir John Scott made the most of his knowledge of the Calais market to expand this trade using wood from his own and others’ estates. The accounts paint a lively picture of the Scott household in the 1460s, ’70s and early ’80s, using evidence in the accounts to look briefly at purchasing patterns of the household and the local processing of foodstuffs. The building accounts too are fascinating for the snapshot that they provide of the building/refurbishment of a private house in the fifteenth century. References in the accounts to ‘the lady’s paper’ and ‘the accountant’s paper’ and ‘books of particulars’ are a tantalising reminder of the lost layers of medieval administrative documents.

The editors have also provided considerable information about the history (up to the present day) of the archive of which these documents are part, and include a list of stewards of the estate from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Their detailed discussion of the diplomatic of all the different record types includes an analysis of the paper of the account rolls. The individual administration of the different bailiffs is also outlined and their characters brought to life; Thomas Russell’s notes, which form part of the 1673 survey documents, display the impatience and frustration of someone trying to make maps from a combination of direct survey and written descriptions.

The appendices are also very welcome. The stock-deeds, which encompass records from 1280 to 1645, demonstrate, as the editors point out, the changes in terms over time, which reflect the changing nature of feudal relationships. The detailed prosopography highlights the breadth of the medieval ‘career’. The concordance will be of great use to those using the records themselves and a glossary is always handy.

The indices in this volume are especially detailed and a highly valuable accompaniment to the texts. The carefully compiled index of persons and places is to be expected from such a volume, but the index of subjects will also be welcomed by a wide range of scholars.

There is however one area where the editors’ care is somewhat lacking. The maps are a good addition but their usefulness is undermined by a lack of detail. Illustration 3 is discussed in the text with regard to Walland Marsh and Ewhurst, but these are not marked on the map. Again in a discussion about Map 4, Walland Marsh is mentioned, but not marked on the map. A key on these maps would make clear the import of the shaded areas. More generally, the maps which comprise illustrations 8, 9 and 10 might have been more convenient had they appeared close to the rental to which, one assumes, the numbers on them refer.

These are small quibbles. This volume makes a highly valuable source accessible. It will be of great use to a wide range of historical enquirers and will be mined for evidence across a wide range of subjects.