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The Compotus or Yearly -Account Roll of Tliomas Syngleton, 

 Monk, Keeper of the common stock of Spices (Custos 

 CommunicB SpecierumJ, and Chamberlain of the 

 Monastery of St. Mary, York, from the Sunday after 

 the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, 1528, to the 

 same Sunday in the year 1529. — With Remarks and 

 Notes by the Rev. C. Wellbeloved. 



This curious document was presented to the Yorkshire 

 Philosophical Society in the year 1849, by Mr. Henry Sotheran, 

 who stated that it had been lately found in a chest in the vestry 

 of a church in the neighbourhood of York. 



It is written on eight skins of parchment, forming a Roll 

 exactly 12 feet long and 12 inches broad ; and, with the 

 exception of a small portion at the beginning, in a good state 

 of preservation. To the foot of the Roll are attached five small 

 quarto leaves of paper, containing particulars of expenses 

 attending the celebration of four Anniversaries, and of the 

 day of ' O Oriens.' 



At the back of the roll is a list of tenants and others who 

 were in arrear in their payments ; and also an inventory of 

 eflfects under the especial charge of the Computant. 



The Abbey of St. Mary was the most wealthy of the Monas- 

 teries in Yorkshire ; the clear annual revenue at the Dissolu- 

 tion being estimated at no less than £1670. The Annual 

 expenditure was, no doubt, proportionate to this income. 

 But the receipts and expenditure accounted for by Thos. 

 Syngleton, amount not to a twelfth part of that income. To 

 understand the nature of this document, therefore, it must be 

 observed, that in every monastery, a certain number of the 

 brethren, who were called Ohedientiarii, were appointed to 

 superintend each a separate department in the establishment, 

 having tithes and other revenues assigned to them to defray 

 the necessary expenses of that department. At the end of the 

 year, which began and ended at some great festival, each of 

 these officers delivered to a superior officer, as the Bursar, or 



