78 PAPERS, ETC. 



amount of the former tax, and, if the Ninth did not eqiial 

 that sum, the reason of such deficiency. In the roll just 

 quoted, to which also reference has been ciu'sorily made in 

 a previous portion of this memoir, the Prior is recorded to 

 have objected to the amount at which he was rated, which 

 was no less than the sum of cix5. vijc?. ob (halfpenny). 

 Upon examination of the return, it was discovered that this 

 amount was computed. as follows : — Northcory, ijs. iiijt?, ; 

 Nyenhide, xiijs. iiijf/; Bishop's Lydierd, vJ5. viljr/. ; Spax- 

 ton, vs. ; Dulverton, xijs. ; Thorlokeston, xxvjs. viijd ; 

 Pedirton, üijs. ; Stokepire, vs. vjc?. ; Monketon, xijs. \jd. ; 

 Lydierd S. Laurence, xjs. vijrf. ob. ; Esse Prior's, xs. Re- 

 ference was then made to the roll of the 20th of Edward 

 I., or the Taxation of Pope Nicholas, and the temporal- 

 ties were stated as there set forth ; when it aj^peared that 

 the Prior and his predecessors paid a Tenth for all and 

 Singular of these temporalties. It did not, however, appear 

 that the Prior had then any temporalties taxed in Northcory 

 and Bishop's Lydiard. Accordingly, he stated his willing- 

 ness to pay the sum demanded of ixs. on these two proper- 

 ties, but that he had no others on which an assessment might 

 lawfully be made. After a leugthened investigatlon, the 

 Prior appeared in Easter Term in the Court of Exchequer, 

 when an Inquisition was exhibited, taken at Somerton in 

 the presence of the said Prior by John de Hundesmore 

 his attorney, on the Monday in the fifth week in Lent, 

 1361, in which the Jurors on their oath declared that the 

 Prior had no other temporalties save those which had been in 

 the possession of his House in the year 1291, and which 

 were then taxed, except one carucate of land and a rent of 

 fifty Shillings wiih its appurtenances in Dulverton, which 

 Prior Robert de Messingham (or Cressingham) had pur- 

 chascd for himsclf and his succcssors ; that the value of the 



