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X. 



PEOCEEDINGS IN THE MATTER OF THE CUSTOM CALLED 



TOLBOLL, l;^08 and 1385. 

 ST. THOMAS' ABBEY v. SOME EAELY DUBLIN BP.EWEES, &c 



By henry F. berry, I.S.O., Litt.D. 



Head April 25. Ordered for Publication April 27. Published July 16, 1910. 



So Uttle is known of the medieval religious foundations of this city, as far as 

 their early history is concerned, and so few and scant are the notices regarcUug 

 the buildings contained within their precincts, that any additional record 

 which throws light on them is of interest. The great abbey of St. Thomas 

 the Martja-,' which to-day is only recalled in Thomas Street and the adjoining 

 Thomas Court, was founded in the western suburbs in 1177, under royal 

 auspices, by William FitzAudeHne, " dapifer " of King Henry the Second. 

 It was dedicated to Thomas k Beeket, the murdered Archbishop of Canterbury, 

 and was set apart for the use of Canons of the Congregation of St. Victor, 

 a Parisian institution, the members of which were canons regular of 

 St. Augustine. King Henry and liis son King John specially favoured the 

 abbey, and made it an object of theii- bounty. 



Students of the civic history of Dublin are familiar with two awards 

 relative to the custom known as tolboU, which was a certain proportion of 

 the ale and mead manufactured and sold by brewers and taverners in Dublin, 

 claimed under royal grants by this abbey. These awards, dated respectively 

 1524 and 1527, are enrolled in the Liber Alius of the Corporation, and will be 

 found in Sir John Gilbert's " Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin," 

 vol. i, pp. 178-189. They are also printed in the "Miscellany " of the Irish 

 Archffiological Society, 1846, vol. i, page 33. They arranged differences 

 between the Abbot and Convent on the one part, and the Mayor and Bailitt's 

 of Dublin on the other. The former had filed a bill of complaint, claiming 

 that King John had granted them, for their own use, such measure of ale and 

 mead as he himself was wont to have of the taverns of Dublin, i.e., the 

 tolboU of a gallon and half of the best, and as much of the second brew, 

 which they duly received, until they were hindered in then- right by the city 



See Paper on the Abbey, by Canon A. L. Elliott, in Journal, R.S.A.I., 1892, vol. xxii., p. 25. 



