Liber Primus Kilkenniensis (Private Ownership)

COIMISIÚN LÁIMHSCRÍBHINNÍ NA hÉIREANN, IRISH MANUSCRIPTS COMMISSION, KILKENNY CITY RECORDS

LIBER PRIMUS KILKENNIENSIS

THE EARLIEST OF THE BOOKS OF THE CORPORATION OF KILKENNY NOW EXTANT, EDITED BY, CHARLES McNEILL

DUBLIN PUBLISHED BY THE STATIONERY OFFICE, I93I

The city of Kilkenny has been more fortunate than any other town in Ireland, save Dublin, in the number and importance of its early records that it has preserved. The journals and books of record of the Corporation were made in 1851 the subject of a paper read before the Kilkenny Archaeological Society by a prominent citizen and student of Kilkenny antiquities, Mr. John G. A. Prim, who gave the following list of those then, as they are still, in the town clerk's custody.

The “ Liber Primus,'' a vellum book bound in oak boards, ‘ written in various contemporary hands, commencing with an entry ‘ of the year 1230, and carrying down the proceedings of the municipal ‘ body to the year 1538.
A thin paper book, marked “ Liber 2,” deficient in the commencement. It begins in the year 1540 at folio 37 ; wanting eleven leaves near the end, and concluding the register of the corporation minutes with the year 1544, but having records of assizes for general gaol delivery, courts baron and piepoudre, and entries of kings' letters and inquisitions, amongst which 1572 is the latest date.
The “ White Book,” opening with the inauguration of Abel Warren as mayor in 1656, and bringing forward the register of the council's transactions to 1687.
The “ Clasped Book," which was commenced on the restoration by King William III, after the rout of the Boyne in 1690, of the civic representatives who had been displaced from office by James II. The book terminates in the year 1717.
A journal or minute book, taking up the proceedings where the clasped book ended, in 1717, and reaching to 1730.
A similar book, from 1730 to 1760.
Journal from 1760 to 1775.
Journal from 1775 to 1826.
Journal from 1826 till the old corporation was superseded by the operation of the Municipal Reform Act in 1843.

In addition to these, several others had been in the corporation's possession down to the middle of the 18th century, but were afterwards lost. Among them were the Old Red Book or Large Red Vellum Clasped Book extending from 1590 to the time of the Confederation of Kilkenny, Desney's Book, the Green Book, the Black Book and Connell's Book. The last-named was the only one which Prim could trace. It was then in the possession of Sir William Betham, who could not remember from whom he got it.¹

Of still greater authority, no doubt, than any of the foregoing was the “ Liber Communis Communitatis," the Common Book of the Corporation, mentioned in the Liber Primus as in existence in the year 1352, but lost sight of ever since. Through its disappearance the Liber Primus has become Kilkenny's most ancient record, and naturally has on several occasions received attention from students of local antiquities. The present editor submitted some notes on it to the Royal Society of Antiquaries in 1927, from which the following account is taken.

In a paper published in J.R.S.A.I. = Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, vol. i, p. 47 under the title ‘ Ancient Corporation By-Laws,' the Rev. J. Graves cited a number of the ordinances entered in the earlier pages of the book, and held out a prospect of recurring to the subject on some future occasion. It was stated afterwards that he had been engaged in making a transcript with a view to publication ; but this very desirable purpose was not carried into effect, nor is the transcript now known to be in existence. At a much earlier time another student of Kilkenny antiquities, the celebrated David Rothe, who was bishop of Ossory in the Confederate period, used these pages for an account of his native city. His manuscript passed among the Sloane MSS. to the British Museum (No. 4796), and was cited by Canon Carrigan in his History of the Diocese of Ossory.

The Liber Primus is a small vellum book of 86 folios, measuring about 9 inches by 7 inches, and bound, though not originally, yet at a comparatively early time, between oak boards, the front one of which is now split. The folios were numbered at the top, and the last one bears the number 77, not 86. The explanation is that between folio 33 and folio 37 instead of three folios (34, 35, 36) there are now twelve. Consequently, nine folios must have been inserted here after the numbering. The insertion can readily be distinguished both by the handwriting and by the quality of the vellum. It contains a well executed transcript of an exemplification made of the early charters in 1383. The original order is also disturbed after the 31st page, at which the copy of the English Statute of Labourers breaks off incomplete ; the concluding portion appears some pages earlier at the top of the present page 22. Again, the front of the folio now standing at the beginning of the volume formerly contained a list of names, no doubt of burgesses, written in column, but now so faded, evidently through long exposure before the book received its present binding, as to be illegible. After the names had faded out some lines of an early religious poem in English were written across the page. The other side of the folio contains entries for years from 1378 to 1383, similar to entries on the page now numbered 34A, between pages 33 and 35. All these entries belong to the same series, and the present first folio is obviously out of place in the manuscript as it now stands. They are here printed in their chronological sequence at p. 36 infra. The manuscript, as we have it, ought to begin with what is now the second folio, headed by an entry in old law French, recording that on the Feast of S. Michael the Archangel in 1231 (not 1230 as read by Prim) it was ordained and established by assent of the commonalty of Kilkenny that the commonalty should be assembled at Michaelmas each year to elect a sovereign and four provosts. The position given to this entry shows that the year 1231 was an epoch in the history of the municipality. It is the earliest date recorded independently and is the only one of the kind for the 13th century. Others relating to that century, it is true, do appear ; but by way of recital in documents of later date. Such, for example, are the copies of the earliest extant charters of the town, those granted by the elder William, earl marshal, and the younger. These most important documents, it should be noted, formed no part of the original book, but are contained in the interpolated transcript of the exemplification of 1383 already mentioned.

The initial entry for 1231 is followed immediately by municipal ordinances of 1318 and 1333, after which are regulations for the assize of bread and ale, determining the standard prices according to the rise and fall of the grain market. The regulations were not of local origin ; they are those contained in the English statute attributed to Henry III. Succeeding pages detail proceedings in the court of the feudal lord in cases where the townsmen of Kilkenny made good, by production of their original evidence herein recited, the liberty they claimed to be tried in their own court by a jury of burgesses for offences committed within their franchises ; and by a mixed jury of whom half should be burgesses when they were brought before the lord’s court for offences committed outside their franchises.

Miscellaneous entries of another class either contain local ordinances on which penalties might be recovered, or which may have been set down in later times without method wherever a blank space was available. Thus far the manuscript has much the character of a note-book of precedents and authorities such as a town clerk or recorder might compile for his own use.

From the middle of the 14th century, however, the book has more the character of a contemporary official record. The elections of sovereigns, burgesses and other officers and the admission of freemen are noted with increasing frequency, and with some appearance of regularity and completeness. There are, besides these, notices of events of more than ordinary concern to the community, matters affecting trade and industry, important public works, serious disorders and their exemplary punishment, enactments as well of the municipality itself as others made by the representatives of the town and of its neighbourhood sitting as a sort of parliament under the presidency of the king’s deputy, and, so late as the year 1500, exercising sovereign powers to make ‘ statutes and acts,' involving the penalty of death within the area they represented, namely ‘ the contres of Kilkenny and Typerary.' The powers assumed by these local bodies show that the sword was no mere ornament of civic pomp ; the corporation of Kilkenny did not hesitate to assign the death penalty for a breach of one of its own ordinances.

The year 1231, as has been stated, is the earliest year for which an entry appears ; the latest date mentioned is the 28th year of Elizabeth, that is 1586. These, however, are both outlying dates, and the effective record lies between 1313 and 1537. The first entry being that of 1231, the earliest document recited is the charter of the elder William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, which, together with the charter of his son and successor, William Marshal the younger, and a detailed recital of the liberties claimed by the townsmen, was copied from the inspeximus of 1383 by order of Thomas Talbot, sovereign, and inserted in the manner already explained.

The general character of the contents has been indicated summarily in the foregoing. The records of the periodical elections of sovereigns and portreeves, the appointments of the first and second “ duodenae ” (who appear to have acted partly as grand and petty jury, partly as aldermen and councillors did in other municipalities) and of inferior officials, the farming of the chapmen’s gild, the admissions of men and women to be free of the town and to exercise their trades accordingly, and enactments and proceedings concerning the trade and the good order of the town, make up the greater portion of the volume, and, in the main, have been entered chronologically.

2 - 5 . The remaining material contains in part the assise of bread and ale, the “ judicium pilloriae ” and other statutory regulations for the sale of food.

6 - 9 . Proceedings in pleas of the crown before the seneschal of the liberty of Kilkenny, that is, in the court of the overlord, 1324, where letters of privilege from Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, were recited and a burgess was acquitted of a charge of killing because the person killed was a mere Irishman.

9 . Letters patent of the same earl to secure the townsmen against his officials who might take goods without payment.

10 . Letters patent of the younger William, earl marshal, confirming the townsmen in their burgages.

10 - 11 . Letters patent of justiciars in protection of traders.

15 - 17 . Proceedings in pleas before the seneschal, 1350, in which the privileges of the town were again upheld.

21 - 24 . Similar proceedings, 1352.

25 . Provision for perpetual masses in the Churches of the Franciscans and Dominicans in S. Canice’s.

32 . The English Statute of Labourers, 23 Edward III, as exemplified by him to the chancellor of Ireland, 26 June, 1349.

33 . A portion of the English Statute of Labourers, 25 Edward III, in Norman French (with some variants from the text printed in Statutes of the Realm).

49 - 50 . Payments made in 1392 to the earl of Ormond and his “ bondys ', (buannadha, Irish foot-soldiers).

54 - 57 . Division of County Kilkenny between the daughters of Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester.

59 . Proceedings to deprive a burgess of his freedom if he took proceedings against a fellow burgess outside the hundred of the town.

61 - 65 . Brief annals A.D. 1 - 1394.

68 - 70 . Names of burgesses, 1383 - 4, beginning with John Cadde, sovereign.

70 , 83 , 85 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 100 . Rentals of corporation estate.

71 - 82 . Exemplification (1383) of charters granted by the earls marshal.

91 , 95 , 97 , 125 , 127 , 132 . Proceedings to maintain the sovereign's authority and dignity.

104 - 107 . Demises of corporation estate at the end of the 15th century.

113 . Freedom of all persons from arrest in the town at Corpus Christi feast.

118 . Confirmation of liberties by Henry VIII.

130 New maces.

132 , 128 - 129 . Repair of tholsel, 1507-1517.

135 Dispute between glovers and shoemakers about making girdles.

153 Statutes for sale of wine.

156 - 157 . Extract from local statute for the reformation of “ the Contres of Kilkenny and Typerary ” enacted by Gerald, earl of Kildare, lord deputy, and council, the sovereign and council of Kilkenny, the recorder and council of Waterford, all the clergy, gentlemen and commons of the said shires and towns, 2 June, 1500.

158 - 160 . Rates for murage levied on merchandise.

The text for this edition of the Liber Primus Kilkenniensis has been collated by Louis P. Roche, M.A., D-ès-L., by whom also the index was compiled. The Mayor and Corporation of Kilkenny have facilitated the publication of this valuable historical record by liberally placing it for the necessary time at the disposal of the Commission.

Liber Primus Kilkenniensis

COIMISIÚN LÁIMHSCRÍBHINNÍ NA hÉIREANN, IRISH MANUSCRIPTS COMMISSION, KILKENNY CITY RECORDS