A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



course have been a great many small industries which were not rewarded by 

 a grant of land, and do not therefore figure in Boldon Book. An instance of 

 this would be such woman's work as spinning, weaving, and the making of 

 garments, which was no doubt as necessary at Durham as elsewhere. 



Hitherto we have been considering village industries, but it is convenient 

 at this point to turn our attention for the moment from the vill to the larger 

 community, and examine the evidence afforded by Boldon Book with regard 

 to the state of industry throughout the bishopric. Architecture, chiefly, 

 though not exclusively, ecclesiastical, is the most noticeable achievement 

 of the twelfth century in this department. Bishop Pudsey was a mighty 

 builder, and has left a record of his activity that is not confined 

 to the pages of the chroniclers, although they are by no means silent. 

 We hear of his chief architect, a certain Richard called ' Ingeniator,' a 

 person of wealth and consequence, ' cunctis regionis hujus incolis arte et 

 nomine notissimus,' x who we find in the charters buying and selling land in 

 Durham and the neighbourhood. 8 We hear also of other persons connected 

 with these activities, whom we gather were the master masons or builders. 

 At South Sherburn Christian 'Cementarius ' holds 40 acres which the bishop 

 gave him in the moor, and 2 bovates which used to belong to Arkill, and is 

 quit of the rent the land owes so long as he is in the bishop's service. We 

 find Christian testing one of the bishop's charters, and Canon Greenwell has 

 discovered his grave-stone in Pittington churchyard and printed the 

 epitaph. 8 At Stanhope, Lambert, a marble worker (marmorarius), holds 

 30 acres free of rent while he is in the bishop's service, and, as it is known 

 that Pudsey made use of a local marble for the Galilee chapel, it has been 

 reasonably conjectured that this man was employed to work the quarries.* 



A passage in Boldon Book leads us directly to the consideration of another 

 important industry. We are told that the mint at Durham used to render 

 10 marks, but that this had been reduced by the mint which Henry II. set 

 up at Newcastle, and that the king had at length done away with the older 

 establishment altogether. The existence of a mint at Durham is attested 

 from the time of William the Conqueror. 6 Coins struck there in the reigns 

 of that king and of Henry II. have been preserved. 6 These, however, are 

 merely royal coins which chance to have been struck at Durham rather than 

 elsewhere, for at this period local mints were of common occurrence, and 

 several of them, such as those of Winchester, Canterbury, and Durham, lived 

 on into the later Middle Ages. 7 At Durham, however, the mint had a two- 

 fold character, issuing episcopal as well as royal coins. The origin of this 

 institution is very obscure. It was not a chartered mint like that which the 

 abbot of Reading maintained by direct royal grant, 8 but seems to have been 

 first employed for purely local purposes during the anarchy in Stephen's reign 

 by Bishop Geoffrey Rufus who supported Stephen and who may have 



1 Reginald! Dunelmensis Libellus de Admirandis, etc. (Surtees Soc., 1835), chs. 47, 54. 

 8 FtoJ., 140-141 n., 198 n., cf. Boldon Bk. (Surtees Soc.), 2. 



\ %?*> J 33 ", Boldon Bk. (Surtees Soc.), 10. * See Canon Greenwell's note in Boldon Bk., 10. 



This paragraph is taken from my work on the County Palatine of Durham, pp. 278-282 ; for 

 convenience sake I reproduce the references here. The mint must have been established at Newcastle some time 

 before the Boldon survey, as its presence is attested in the Pipe Roll, 22 Hen. II. (Pipe Roll Soc.), 1004., 137. 



Ruding, Amah of Coinage of Great Britain, ii. 164. 



1 Ashley, of. at., i. 167-169 ; Leake, Historical Account of English Money, 65-66, 71, 81, 100. 

 8 Leake, of. tit., 91-92. 



