Excerpt from The Compotus or Yearly-Account Roll of Thomas Syngleton, Monk: Keeper of the Common Stock of Spices (Custos Communiae Specierum), And Chamberlain of the Monastery of St. Mary, York, From the Sunday After the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, 1528, to the Same Sunday in the Year 1529<br><br>The writer of this roll describes himself as holding the offices of Camemrius and Castes Commum'e Specierum. The Ca merarius, or Chamberlain, was an officer who belonged to every Monastic House; although the nature and extent of his duties may not have been uniformly the same. But no such officer as the Custos Communiae Specierum is mentioned in the ordinary lists of Monastic officers nor is it noticed by Da Cange or Carpentier or Réyner. The title denotes that he had the care of the common stock of the Spicery. Spices appear to have formed a large and important portion of Monastic stores com prehending a great variety of articles as ginger, pepper, mace, cloves, cinnamon, raisins (great raisins), currants (small raisins), prunes, almonds, liquorice, sugar, sugar candy, barley-sugar, sandars, turnsole, comfits, cakes, &amp;c. &amp;c. They were generally expensive articles, yet, as Dr. Whitaker has observed with respect to the Monks of Bolton Priory, they were used with no sparing hand. 1' The Bursar of the Monastery of Durham accounts for the delivery to the Cellarer, in one year of more than 130 lbs. Of pepper, of 105 lbs. Of currants, of481bs. Of prunes, of 551bs. Of sugar, in addition to a large supply of honey. The charge for spicery in that year was above £38, when a sheep was sold for 2s. And an ox for from 14s. To 16s.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.