There’s trade war with France, the pandemic is peaking on the continent and Scotland is making a bid for independence.
Yes, we’re going back 650 years for today’s Wakefield Woman in History, the formidable Annabel Grenehod. She could certainly put over a convincing case at the Manor Court which was in the middle of town, right opposite the main entrance to the parish church (now the cathedral) on the site now occupied by the former BHS store.
On Thursday, 18th November, 1350, there were more than a dozen cases for the attention of for R. (Robert?), son of John the Steward, including debt, trespass, a runaway servant, straying animals and the theft of a crop of oats. First up was Elizabeth Pellesondoghter, who was fined for not prosecuting a trespasser, but in the next case Annabel proved more determined. The Wakefield Court Rolls record that:
John del Rode failed to make the law which he waged against Annabel Grenehod, executrix of the will of John Grenhod chaplain: therefore it is judged that she should recover against the said John del Rode 1 stone of wool which she claimed against him in the preceding court, and he is amerced (fined).
Wakefield Court Rolls, Thursday, 18th November 1350
At that previous court on the 21st October, Annabel had claimed 2 stones of wool, price 8s, against John del Rode. Eight shillings would be about about £230 today, enough to buy a cow or a quarter of a ton wheat. John had admitted to owing one stone of wool but had disputed the second.
That seemed to be the case settled, so presumably Annabel reclaimed the rest of her wool, but it wasn’t the end of her legal tussles because at the next court, on 18th November, she was chasing Robert de Bothe for a debt of sixpence (£14 or £15, the daily wage of a skilled tradesman). Again she won the case.
Unusually, the Lord – or Lady? – of the Manor of Wakefield at the time was the equally feisty Matilda de Neirford, Countess de Warenne, who had been in a long term relationship with the late John, Earl de Warenne, but their children were considered illegitimate, so he was the last of his line of the Norman Lords of the Manor of Wakefield.
A Stone of Wool
In the year that Annabel’s case came up, Edward III turned his attention to weights and measures, insisting that the Stone – which he specified as 14 pounds weight – should be used as a measure of wool, using a ‘Beam of the Balance’, rather than the Auncel, a balance scale with a movable weight, which made it easy for a merchant to falsify the weight.
Wool was so important to the kingdom’s economy that Edward insisted that his Lord Chancellor should sit on a bale of wool – the Woolsack – a tradition that continued in the House of Lords until 2006. The tradition continues to this day with the Lord Speaker now sitting on ‘The Woolsack’.
One of the reasons that Edward III’s ‘Hundred Year War’ got started was to protect England’s wool trade routes. Battle of Crécy in 1346 gave Edward an early victory.