The Cumberland and Westmorland Lay Subsidies for 1332 (1966) by C. M. Fraser, Article 8 in "Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian Society, new series, 66 (1966), p131-158

My thanks to Andrew Lancaster for bringing this to my attention.

p131

"Can the earliest comprehensive tax assessment for Cumberland and Westmorland be used as a mirror to reflect local conditions in the first half of the 14th century?

The Lay Subsidy for 1332 was one of a series of national taxes granted in parliament to the King in certain years to augment royal revenue from the regular sources of wool customs, land rents and feudal dues and services."


"In each county throughout England assessors and collectors were appointed by the king's council, and the men selected for Cumberland were Robert de Barton and Clement de Skelton,"

pp132-133

"At the other end of the scale, Robert de Barton might almost be described as a professional royal official. His service to the Crown began under Edward I when he acted as clerk to the commissioners of array in Cumberland in 1303: continued with the keepership of the royal lands at Penrith, Castle Sowerby and Wark on Tyne intermittently between 1307 and 1312: the view of Inglewood Forest in 1310, and the tallaging of the royal demesne in Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire in 1312 [Calendar of Patant Rolls 1301-7, pp. 132, 509; 1307-13, pp. 75, 226, 315, 416, 442, 521]. The inroads of the Scots brought further duties. In 1314 he was an auditor for the money collected in Cumberland to buy a truce with the Scots: in 1316 he was to value horses in the Western Marches: in 1318 his commissions included a valuation of the dilapidations committed by the Scots at Penrith and at Salkeld, and keepership of the king's food supplies at Carlisle: and in 1321 he was surveyor of the castles of Carlisle and Cockermouth [CPR 1313-17, pp. 240, 565; 1317-21, pp. 191, 298, 608]. Between 1314 and 1330 his name appears regularly on the judicial commissions of oyer and terminer in Cumberland. Later responsibilities included custody of the temporalities of the bishopric of Carlisle in 1325, in which connection he is described as "king's clerk", and of lead and silver mines at Minerdale, Silverbeck and Hartley, being opened up in 1331, in which year he was again keeper of Penrith and Castle Sowerby [CPR 1313-17, p. 234; 1324-27, p. 92; Calendar of Fine Rolls 1327-37, pp. 280, 249]. In 1332 he was appointed to maintain the peace in Cumberland, and in 1333 he was again receiver of stores at Carlisle and Skinburness [CPR 1330-34, p. 288; CFR 1327-37, p. 353]. His appointment as collector of the Lay Subsidy in Cumberland in 1332 was followed by a similar commission in April 1336 [CFR 1327-37, p. 481]. This veteran in the royal service, with his experience of accounting at the royal exchequer [e.g. Public Record Office, London, Queen's Remembrancer Memoranda Roll (6 Edward II), mm. 101, 115, 141d] would supply the technical expertise to guide the local gentry in their work of valuation."