387 



This document has a further special interest as it is the first 

 that occurs in English and it is the first that mentions together 

 three names now somewhat historic. Says Leland, the often 

 quoted, in his Itinerary, writing of Bath : — " the Toun hath a 

 "long tyme syns bene continually most mayntained by making 

 " of clothe. There were in hominum memona three clothiers at 

 " one tyme thus named — Style, Kent, and Chapman^ by whom 

 "the toun of Bath then flourished. Syns the death of them it 

 "hath somewhat decayed." Until the publication of the Poll 

 Tax last year this entry has been a constant puzzle, no previous 

 history in any way recording Bath as a manufacturing city. 



The next files are yet more full; the title, somewhat long, 

 being here slightly epitomised : — This indenture of certificat 

 made the xviij. day of Aprell the xv, yere of the reign of our 

 Sovereign Lord King Henry the VIII. by John Kent, then 

 maior of the Citie of Bath, Thomas Chepman, Thomas Style, 

 John Bryd, and JefFray Francom, of the said citie, and by Thomas 

 Gibbes, Kecorder there. Commissioners for the said citie and the 

 suburbes of the same, &c., witnesseth, &c., the names and 

 surnames of every person and persons Avith their values and 

 profits inhabitaunts within the same, also of the some or somes 

 of money thereof rated and assessed, at the utasse of (eight days 

 after) the Purification of our Lady last past, &c.* Thomas 

 Whelpleigh and John Chepman were then nominated to be high 

 collectors, to receive of the petty collectors the money gathered 

 by them according to the five schedules annexed. An allowance 

 of sixpence in the pound was deducted, twopence for the 

 commissioners and their clerk, twopence for the high collectors, 

 and for the petty collectors twopence. 



The total sum for the whole city was £43 6s. 4d. By 

 good fortune we have now not only the names of those who paid, 

 but also their parishes in which they lived. First came the — 



* Subsidies 169—142. 



