POLITICAL HISTORY 



THE SHIP MONEY ASSESSMENT OF SURREY IN 1636 

 S. P. Dam. charter i. vol. 348, No. 82. 



The total sum demanded by the government was apportioned by 

 the sheriff, Sir Antony Vincent. The various assessments throw light 

 on the relative importance of places at the time. The comparative 

 decay of Guildford is strongly marked by its contribution being so far 

 less than those of Farnham and Godalming. The totals for the Hun- 

 dreds include clerical assessments, all trifling in themselves, and chiefly of 

 interest as preserving a list of the beneficed clergy of the county. 



Side by side with the ship money assessment is printed an abstract 

 of a Subsidy Roll probably of about 300 years earlier, perhaps of 1334 ; 

 the original in the Record Office is undated and is partly obliterated. It is 

 preserved in an early sixteenth or late fifteenth century copy at Loseley. It 

 is misdescribed in the Report of the Hist. MSS. Comm. on the Loseley Papers. 

 The Taxatores named were John d'Abernon and William de Weston. A 

 John d'Abernon was knight of the shire in 4 Ed. III., 1330, and sheriff 

 in 1334. William de Weston was knight of the shire in 4th, 5th, 8th 

 and loth Ed. III., that is 1330, 1331, 1333-4, 1335-6. The subsidy is 

 of a tenth and a fifteenth. Such subsidies were granted in 1334, in 1336 

 and in 1337. The amounts are not quite the same as those of the 

 Subsidy Roll of 1337, but very near to them. The total for each Hun- 

 dred includes the Taxatores in each. The assessment is usually by 

 parishes, but certain west Surrey parishes are not mentioned. All these 

 are probably included under the manors which extended into them, or in 

 other parishes. In the fourteenth century they were not all recognized 

 parishes. 



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