Original Documents.
The following inventory of the effects of Reginald Labbe, an individual who belonged, probably, to the agricultural class of life, and died in 1293, is communicated by W. S. Walford, Esq., who possesses the original. It appears to have been prepared by the executors, in the usual course, after probate of the deceased's will, for the satisfaction of the ecclesiastical court; and affords a curious view of the circumstances of a husbandman or small farmer at the close of the thirteenth century.
Reginald Labbe died worth chattels of the value of thirty-three shillings and eight-pence, leaving no ready money. His goods comprised a cow and calf, two sheep and three lambs, three hens, a bushel and a half of wheat, a seam of barley, a seam and a half of fodder, a seam of 'dragge,' or mixed grain, and one halfpenny worth of salt. His ward- robe consisted of a tabard, tunic and hood, and his 'household stuffe' seems to have been limited to a bolster, a rug, two sheets, a brass dish, and a tripod, or trivet, the ordinary cooking apparatus of those times. Possessing no ready money, his bequests were made in kind. A sheep worth ten-pence is left to the high altar of the church of Neweton, and another of the same value to the altar and fabric-fund of the church of 'Eakewode,' possibly Oakwood. His widow Yda received a moiety of the testator's cow, which was valued at five shillings, and Thomas Fitz-Noreys was a coparcener in its calf to the extent of a fourth. It is worthy of note, that the expenditure of the executors upon the funeral, the 'month's-mind,' and in proving the will of Reginald Labbe, consumed something more than a third of all he left behind him, being in the relation of 11s. 9d. to 33s. 8d. Some of the items are curious. One penny was paid for digging his grave, two-pence for tolling the bell, sixpence for making his will, and eight-pence for proving it 'with the counsel of clerks,' in other words, under legal advice. We may safely multiply these sums by fifteen, perhaps by twenty, to arrive at the value of money in the thirteenth as compared with the nineteenth century, and by this process we shall find that the lawyer or clerk who prepared the will received a fee not greatly disproportioned to the modern charge for such professional assistance. The mourners bidden to the funeral, some of whom probably bore Reginald's body to its resting place, were refreshed with bread and cheese and beer, to the amount of six shillings: the same homely fare at the 'month's-mind' cost the estate two shillings and eight-pence. The scribe who prepared this account for the executors was remunerated with three-pence, a large sum having regard to the brevity of the document. T. H. T.
