2 A ROYAL PURVEYANCE IN THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



for the royal household, to be supplied partly in money and partly 

 in kind: at an appraised valuation. 



This system of purveyance (purveance, a finding) a prerogative 

 formerly enjoyed by the reigning sovereign of purchasing pro- 

 visions and other necessaries in preference to all other persons, is 

 one that has been scantily dealt with in connection with local 

 history. It may therefore be well to enter into some little detail, 

 in order that we may better understand its application to the 

 district with which we are more particularly concerned. * 



In the simplicity of older times, when gold and silver were 

 scarce, the household of the king was sapplied by provisions 

 furnished from his demesnes. By degrees the servants here 

 employed obtained a fixed tenure of the estates, rendering certain 

 services and supplying certain provisions. Many lands were from 

 time to time granted on condition of yielding such supplies, but 

 these reservations were small, and many of them only to be 

 rendered when the king travelled into the country where the 

 lands lay. In some, special care was taken that he should not 

 make this service burdensome by coming too often, as in the case 

 of William of Aylesbury, who held lands in this manor by 

 finding (amongst other things), three eels for the king, when he 

 should come to Aylesbury in the winter, or two green geese in the 

 summer; but this was not to exceed three times in the year. 

 The town of Yarmouth was bound to send to the sheriffs of 

 Norwich a hundred herrings, which were to be baked in twenty- 

 four pies or pasties, and thence delivered to the lord of the manor 

 of East Carlton, who in turn was to convey them to the king. 

 They were formerly sent to the clerk of the kitchen's office at 

 St. James's ; but the pies could never have been of much source 

 as provisions, unless they were made differently from what they 

 usually were, or our ancestors had stronger teeth and stomachs 

 than we have. In 1778 the Sheriffs of Norwich attended with 

 them in person, and claimed certain allowances in return out of 

 the king's kitchen, but no precedent appearing of these things ever 

 having been delivered, they were refused. 



* Fabian Phillips, an ardent loyalist, and a steady defender of prerogative 

 and old customs, wrote a long treatise or purveyance soon after its abolition 

 in 1661. In this will be found many carious particulars, mixed with many 

 absurdities. He finds purveyance in the Book of (renesis, in the households 

 of David and Solomon, traces it through all the quarters of the globe, deriving 

 its institution in England from the Romans, and observes that it was con- 

 tinued here by the Saxons and Danes. 



