THOMAS KYTSON AND WILTSHIRE CLOTHMEN, 1529 -1539 49 
William Allen 
Katherine Pyet 
jun 
sen 
Mistress Baythe 
(Bathe) 
John Walles 
Robert Fraunces 
Total 
Source: Calculated from details in CUL Hengrave Hall MS.78/2. The clothmen and their collated numbers of cloths are 
listed in chronological order, as they appear in the “Boke’. 
payment a fore rehersed of £17 16s 8d 
delyvered to John Raynoldes the 26th day of August 
of the year 1531 
Item 1 baylle of drye pepper weight 2C [1] qtr 20 lb. 
And quites. 
Sold to John Norinton of the Vyes Clotheman the 
25th day of May of the year 1531 
Item 2 ballettes of woode weight 3 % C 4 lb at 17s the 
hundreth. Sum £3 1d halfpenny farthing 
Sum £3 1d halfpenny farthing 
Sold to Roger Tanner the 22nd day of August of the 
year 1532 
Item one tonne of Syvell oyle at £15 at £14. 
Sum £14 
Perhaps in the sale to Thomas Taylour of the 36 
whites that he had bought from the widow Cope, 
can be discerned a desire to sell quickly these poor 
quality cloths at a minimal profit rather than risk 
their failure to sell in the Flanders marts. 
The sale of the fine gold chain to Sir Edward 
Baynton illustrates two points. Firstly, that Kytson 
sometimes rounded up the sale price to his 
advantage, here the actual price of £80 17s. 7d was 
increased to a round £80 18s. Secondly, Kytson 
charged Sir Edward £35 2s. which the latter must 
have owed to ‘master Edgar’, and was given until 
-‘Haloutyd’ (All Hallows, 1 November) and the 
following Easter to pay the total debt in two 
instalments. 
The two sales of woad indicate that Robert 
Adlam and John Norinton probably fulled and 
dyed some of their cloths for local sale. The ‘Seville 
oil’ sold to Roger Tanner would have been olive oil 
used in the spinning of the wool and distributed or 
sold by him to his spinners. Oil was used at the rate 
of about 8 to 10 pounds per the 60 or 70 pounds of 
wool in each cloth® so a tun of oil would have been 
sufficient for approximately 300 cloths. The 
‘holland’ (a linen fabric made in the province of 
Holland in the Low Countries), the ‘barras’ canvas 
(a coarse cloth made of hemp or flax, in this case of 
unknown provenance)** and the ‘Ulmus’ fustian (a 
coarse cloth made in Ulm from cotton and flax)” 
illustrate the kind of fabrics that Thomas Kytson’s 
factors bought in the marts and then had shipped 
home to London. These purchases are not recorded 
in the ‘Boke’, but the dispersal of the imported 
materials are sometimes commented on: 
Delyvered to my master the 24th day of December of 
the year 1530 
1 fyne pece of Holonde, quantity 24 Flemish elles, the 
which pece holonde clothe my master dyd geve to 
Master Recorder of London 
Delyvered to my master the 7th day of July of the year 
1531 
one turks carpett, which carpett my master gaffe to 
master Recorder of London 
It is noteworthy perhaps that Kytson made these 
two gifts of a length of holland and a Turkish carpet 
to the ‘master Recorder of London’, one John Baker 
who served in this elected office from 1526 to 
1535.4° As the vast majority of the entries in 
Kytson’s ‘Boke’ (except for the shipping lists and 
memoranda of deliveries to his wife at Hengrave) 
are concerned with the recording of amounts of 
money involved in the purchase or sale of goods, 
the question is raised whether the gifts to John 
Baker were bribes; was Kytson guilty of some 
misdemeanour or did he seek Baker’s help in some 
