The Spice Account: From Eleanor de Montfort’s Household Rolls
The year 1265 marked the climax in the fortunes of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Having defeated the forces of King Henry III during the previous summer, and captured his son and heir, Prince Edward, the Earl was the effective master of baronial England. But his dominance did not endure for long. In May, Prince Edward escaped from his guards and, on August 4th, he overwhelmed Montfort's army at the Battle of Evesham; the Earl himself was killed in the engagement. For six months of this period, the Montfort household rolls have survived. Originally compiled for his wife, the Princess Eleanor, sister of Henry III, they present a remarkably intimate picture of domestic and social life in a powerful thirteenth-century nobleman's family, writes Margaret Wade Labarge.
Eleanor de Montfort’s household roll of 1265 is the earliest private household account of English life still in existence.1 It provides a mine of information on purely domestic affairs, and also throws incidental light on the political events of that turbulent summer. Before going into the details of the Countess’s daily expenditure, it is worth considering what the roll was like on which they were listed. Her roll comprised a statement of all her daily, domestic expenses from February 19th to August 29th, 1265.
It consisted of a number of long narrow slips of parchment; on the front of each slip, the clerk noted where the household was, and entered the normal, daily accounts of expenditure. When the slip was finished, he entered on its back the personal and miscellaneous expenses that had been incurred during the period covered by the entries on the front of the membrane, such as wages and items of clothing, as well as gifts and alms.
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