A HISTORY OF DORSET 



The jury found that wood and other neces- 

 saries could be taken in the warren,^' but pointed 

 out that although the constable had used one oak 

 for repairing a bridge, the rest taken had been made 

 into charcoal for his private profit. They also 

 evidently regarded the quarry as an unwarrant- 

 able encroachment, and fixed the damages in 

 respect of the timber and stone removed at one 

 mark. It is significant that when building 

 operations and repairs were in progress at the 

 castle of Corfe a few years later than the date of 

 this trial large quantities of stone were pur- 

 chased "* from Sir Peter [Doget] (probably the 

 chaplain at the castle chapel), Lawrence Cok, 

 John Lenard, and Thomas Cusyn. Indeed, it 

 may be reasonably suspected that the best 

 quarries of marble and possibly of freestone 

 at Purbeck were during the thirteenth and 

 fourteenth century in private hands. Occasion- 

 ally, however, the officers in charge of the work 

 of repair at Corfe Castle seem to have directly 

 employed quarriers to raise stone in the vicinity 

 of the castle. For example^' in 1377-8 wages 

 were paid to Ralph Ridell, John Waytenan, 

 Benet VVaytis, William Fynche, Benet Kydell, 

 Michael Domersham, William Pyell, Thomas 

 Hugon the less, Ralph Rossekyn, Philip Coule, 

 and Richard Combe, eleven masons (Jatomorum) 

 called ' Roughmasons and Quarreours,' working 

 at digging stones at the quarry at Purbeck and 

 shaping [scapulanchim) and preparing the same 

 stones there. They were paid at the rate of 

 dd. a day, and were assisted by four * garciones ' 

 or mates. Several of these rough masons also 

 worked on the castle with John Combe, Master 

 William Wynford, John Harpetre, and Philip 

 Colyn, who were apparently masons in the higher 

 sense and did no rough quarry work. 



Not only was marble and stone raised and 

 exported in block from Purbeck, but a local 

 school of sculptors produced to order polished 

 marble dressings and effigies which they sent to 

 all parts of England. It seems likely from 

 inspection ^^ that the marble capitals and bases 

 sent to Chichester^' in the early years of the 

 thirteenth century were worked at Purbeck, 

 while the mouldings ^* of the Purbeck work at 



*' In another similar case, Elias de Rabayne v. 

 abbess of Shaftesbury, the jury laid down that 

 ' omnia necessaria ad opera ipsius castri perficienda et 

 etiam focalia cum moderamine ' could be taken ' in 

 boscis predictis non dausis vicinibus castro predicto,' 

 but that Elias had taken wood in other manner than 

 his predecessors. It would appear from this and other 

 cases that the right claimed by the crown to take 

 timber and stone for the repair of Corfe Castle was 

 limited to the uninclosed portions of the Warren of 

 Purbeck. 



^* Accts. Exch. K.R. bdle. 470, No. 27. 



" Ibid. 4.61, No. 9. ** Jrchit. Rev. xv, 175. 



" Close, 6 John, m. 2 ; 8 John, m. 4. 



'' Mr. W. R. Lethaby, ' How E.xeter Cathedral 

 was Built,' in Archit. Rev. xiii, 175, 176. 



Winchester Presbytery, Wells Chapter-house, 

 and Exeter are very similar. 



Orders were sent to the Corfe sculptors for 

 effigies, and we hear ■' just after the middle of 

 the thirteenth century that lOOj. is to be paid 

 for a certain image of a queen to be cut in 

 marble stone and then carried to Tarrant Keyns- 

 ton {Tarente Momalinm\ there to be placed on the 

 tomb of the Queen of Scots. Again, early in 

 the reign of Edward I the sheriff accounted '* 

 for the expense of a marble altar '^ made in 

 Purbeck and delivered as a royal gift to the 

 Carmelite friars in London. Occasionally, how- 

 ever, for especially important work a famous 

 sculptor '" was by royal command summoned to 

 a distance and took with him the tools and raw 

 materials of his craft. This documentary evi- 

 dence is confirmed by the deep layers of marble 

 debris containing fragments of mouldings and 

 foliations, the chips from the workshops, which 

 have come to light in the course of excavations 

 within the town of Corfe.^' 



Owing to the long series of royal works 

 undertaken in Westminster and London during 

 the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and the 

 natural advantages of the capital as a distributing 

 centre, a number of Purbeck marblers ^^ settled 

 far away from their Dorset homes and in 

 some cases probably never returned. It may be 

 that whenever the services of Purbeck men 



-' Pipe R. 38 Hen. Ill, m. 9. 



" Hutchins, op. clt. i, 466. 



■" Purbeck marble was a favourite material for altar 

 slabs. Some examples still remain as in the Lady 

 Chapel at Christchurch, Hants, in Corton Chapel, 

 and elsewhere. On Monday, 11 March, 1353 (?), 

 24/. was paid to Thomas Elyot, a merchant, 'for a 

 certain marble stone bought for an altar in eadcm 

 ret'eUiana.^ Accts. Exch. K.R. bdle. 471, No. 6, 

 which relate to works at Westminster and the Tower. 



"" ' Et Magistro Simoni de Well ad expensas suas 

 in eundo versus Westmon.asterium ad mandatum 

 Regis ad faciendum ibidem quendam tumulum ultra 

 corpus Katerine filie Regis 2 marcas per breve Regis. 

 Et in cariagio utensilium suorum ad operacionem 

 dicti tumuli 4/. %d: Pipe R. 41 Hen. Ill, m. 8. 



^^ Hutchins, op. cit. (last edition), vi, 466 n^. 



" One of these may be mentioned in illustration — 

 Adam de Corfe. Early in the fourteenth century we 

 find him settled in London as a stone and marble mer- 

 chant, and about 1307 supplying for 50/. a slab of 

 marble to place on the high table of the king in the 

 Great Hall of Westminster (Add. MSB. 30263, fol. 

 11^). A few years later he is apparently contracting 

 for the new pavement at St. Paul's, and about 1315 

 also supplies stone for an archa goterarum beneath the 

 ' cameram Marculphi super Thamisiam in funda- 

 mento,' since the fun da men turn of the former arch 

 was weak and worn out by the tide of the Thames 

 (Jutta Thamhiae) (Add. MSS. 17361, fol. 14). 

 From the records of the City quoted by Mr. Lethaby 

 we learn that Adam de Corfe lived in Farringdon 

 Ward, and on his death in 1 331 left a tenement in 

 East Street, Corfe {IVestminster and the Kin^s Craftsmen^ 

 186). 



334 



