Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/100

92 THE STAFF OF A CASTLE IN January When we come to examine the evidence which Mr. Lapsley brings forward as to ' the proper function of the capellamis ', we find that — with the exception of entries as to Wimar capellanus (with which I shall deal fully) — it rests only on a solitary entry that ' in the seventeenth year work carried on in the castle of Hertford and the king's houses in the castle was under the super- intendence of Henry capellanus (Pipe Roll 17 Hen. II, pp. 11 8-19) '. This entry, however, runs : ' in operatione castelli, &c. . . . per breve Regis et per visum Henrici capellani et Willelmi Parcharii et Wigerii et Roberfci crassi', so that these men were not 'clerks of the works ', but * viewers ' (as I believe they are now termed) of work done for the Crown ; and Henry the chaplain was only one of the four ' viewers ' named. Moreover, on examining this roll, we find entries of work executed at the castles of Salisbury, Exeter, Shrawardin, Bridgnorth, Winchester, Nottingham, Windsor, and Bowes, and at none of these places is a chaplain named even among the viewers. The principal expenditure was at Nottingham, where it is the subject of nineteen entries; four viewers are there named, but none of them was a chaplain, though one was a leech (rnedicus). On the roll of the thirty-first year we again meet with Henry the leech, as a viewer of the work at Nottingham Castle, but Helyas the parson {p&rsona) is his only colleague (p. 110). There is neither a chaplain nor a clerk. Of Wimar capdlanus Mr. Lapsley says (pp. 350-1) : The custody of the castle of Eye was several times committed to Wimar (Pipe Roll 15 Hen. II, p. 95 ; ann. 16, p. 3). . . . Wimar capellanus occasionally had charge of the castle of Eye, and accounted for the honour (Pipe Roll 12 Hen. II, p. 35 ; ann. 16, p. 3). We refer to the three passages cited only to discover that in the twelfth year it was, not Wimar, but the sheriff, Oger dapifer, who had the custody of the castle (p. 35) ; that in the fifteenth year he had it again (p. 95) ; and that in the sixteenth year he had its custody still (pp. 2, 4), although no longer sheriff after Easter 1 170. Again : When in the thirteenth year of Henry II considerable repairs were undertaken on the castles of Eye and Orford, they were carried on under the supervision of three persons, one of whom was Wimarus capellanus (p. 350). . , . We find a capellanus, whom we have already met with as a clerk of the works of the castle of Eye, one of those who accounted at the exchequer for the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk (p. 351). Wimar capellamis, however, is not spoken of in the first passage as a ' clerk of the works ', but only as one of the three viewers who had examined the work on the castle of Orford, not of Eye, and who were jointly responsible.^ As for the second passage, ' Viz. Bartholomew de Glanville, Robert de Val', and ' Wimania capellanus * (pp. 18, 33).