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from the barton of St. Augustine's on the east side
of the city (commemorated to-day in Barton Fields) illustrates both the
limited and extended sense of the word. It was the home-farm of the
monks but was also, from an early date, the place where their barley was
stored, milled, and malted. We learn that in 832 King Atulph, at the
behest of Archbishop Ceolnoth, gave the vill near the city of Canterbury
called Northwood (Nordwda) to the monks, to which were attached
five yokes (jugera) of land and two meadows, one at Thanington
and the other at Schettynge. In the Domesday Monachorum this
manor of Northwood, which stood for reasons which will now appear
obvious received the name of Barton, was said to be appropriated to the
table of the monks (est de cibo eorum) and to be in the hundred
of Canterbury. No less than 97 burgesses dwelt on the manor and paid
rents to the value of £8 0s. 6d. With all its assets the manor was said
to be worth £17. Pope Alexander III confirmed the possession of the
manor of Barton to the monks in 1179, together with the meadows and
mills which belonged to it. It was only natural that a large area of
land in close proximity to the city should become a bone of contention
between the city authorities, assertive of their judicial rights, and
the monks of Christ Church, who were equally bent on maintaining their
franchises, arrested a man within Barton manor and confined him in the
city gaol. Archbishop Winchelsey wrote a letter of sharp reproof to the
bailiffs of the city in 1303, |
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ordering them to hand over the prisoner to the
bailiffs of the prior and chapter.
The first indications as to how the Christ Church barton
was managed is contained in a Canterbury rental of the late twelfth
century (R.31 in Box D. in Room ZA in Dean and Chapter Library). Rents
were then owned in the parish of Northgate by "the monk who manages
our barton" (monachus qui custodit bertonam nostram). It
seems certain, therefore, that at least by the end of the twelfth
century the Saxon and Domesday manor of Northwood was the site of the
barley granaries, mills, and malthouse of the priory, from which it took
its new name of Bertona, and was specially supervised by one of the
monks. This much we can infer from the rental. In the thirteenth century
the records become abundant and leave us in no doubt as to the function
of the barton and its monk-manager, the bartoner (berthonarius),
in the economic system of the cathedral priory.
The first extant bartoner's account forms one of that group
of obedientiaries' accounts which were compiled at the Michaelmas audit
and thus called Assisae Scaccarii. Its date is 1225, but we learn
from the treasurers' account of 1214 that barley was taken to the barton
before the exile of 1207-13. It therefore seems reasonable to suppose
that bartoners were presenting accounts at, or before, the turn of the
century. A magnificent series of accounts, surpassing those of any |