Westminster Abbey Refectory Raid and London Sheriff Hugh Pourte

Summary: Hugh Pourte's London sheriffship in 1302 and death in 1307 aided Westminster Abbey Refectory raid and Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid mysteries.

During his stay from October 1306 to March 1307 at North West England's Lanercost Priory, Edward I was urged by the priory's treasurer to recover cups removed from Westminster Abbey's refectory by Richard Puddlicott in 1302; Lanercost Priory, northern Cumbria, North West England; Shermozle at English Wikipedia, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Hugh Pourte's sheriffship September 1302 and death in 1307 assured unsolved mystery aspects to the Westminster Abbey Refectory raid November 1302 and the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid April 30-May 3, 1303.

Pourte's behavior during and after his sheriffship baffles Paul Doherty in The Great Crown Jewels Robbery of 1303 for Carroll & Graf Publishers, Sept. 26, 2005. The Sheriff of London conducted one Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid arrested suspect to his residence instead of to the Tower prison commanded by the king. He and wife Margaret Horn dispensed hospitality as host and hostess until five days later, when his guest dared to dash into sanctuary for 40 days.

Pourte extracted Richard Puddlicott (died Nov. 28, 1304) from sanctuary in the Church of St. Michael's in Candlewick before the first day's end June 25, 1303.

King Edward I's (June 17, 1239-July 7, 1307) writ June 6, 1303, formulated Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid procedures as securing filched treasures and their suspects.

And yet nothing galvanized Pourte to go after precious royal coins, metals and stones going around London, Middlesex, Suffolk, Surrey and Westminster May 3-June 6, 1303. He had property in Boston, Lincolnshire, and revenue as fishmonger and loan and wool merchant; headed "one of the old families of London"; held an aldermanship. Edward's writ Aug. 10/23, 1302, included Pourte among arrested merchants and confiscated merchandise for the Ghent Mayor to release for money royally seized from Ghent burgesses.

Pourte journeyed to London where Mayor John le Blund and 12 men from each ward judged him sheriff-worthy, with Simon de Paris, by Sept. 28, 1302.

Arrest, confiscation and fines of "fourteen pounds and seventeen shillings" from Edward reneging on debts in Flanders kept Puddlicott in Bruges until late July/early August 1302.

Puddlicott launched suit in Westminster King's Court August 1302 and left Westminster Abbey Refectory raid and Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid loot around London and Westminster. And yet Abbey refectorian Reginald de Hadham, valet Roger de Aldenham and King's Wardrobe Keeper John de Drokensford, not Pourte, likely mentioned Abbey raids to Edward. Puddlicott, descendant of Oxfordshire landowners notable as Benedictine community supporters in Abingdon, Evesham, Islip and Waverley, nestled noticeably as an outsider among London goldsmiths and merchants.

And yet Pourte obstructed none of Puddlicott's Westminster Abbey Refectory raid and Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid operations and, against orders, offered house, not prison, custody.

The Lanercost Priory Treasurer in Cumbria pushed Edward to pursue "all the cups which were lately stolen from their refectory at Westminster by Richard de Puddlicott."

The Westminster Abbey Refectory raid silver-related order Feb. 10, 1307, qualified Puddlicott as "hanged by consideration of the King's court for different robberies committed by him." It remonstrated, "These treasures were delivered to Hugh when he was sheriff of London by the justices appointed to deliver [Richard] the gaol of the Tower." It stressed that Westminster Abbey Refectory raid, not Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid, silver should "be kept safely by him until the King should order otherwise."

Only Henry III's (Oct. 1, 1207-Nov. 16, 1272) coronation spoon nowadays testifies to turned-in stolen royal, not Refectory, treasures since Pourte never turned in the silver.

The coronation spoon of Edward I's father, Henry III, is the only crown jewel that survives from the time of the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid; G. Younghusband and C. Davenport's The Crown Jewels of England (1919), page 50: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commonsspan>

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

During his stay from October 1306 to March 1307 at North West England's Lanercost Priory, Edward I was urged by the priory's treasurer to recover cups removed from Westminster Abbey's refectory by Richard Puddlicott in 1302; Lanercost Priory, northern Cumbria, North West England; Shermozle at English Wikipedia, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lanercost_Priory_1.jpg

The coronation spoon of Edward I's father, Henry III, is the only crown jewel that survives from the time of the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid; G. Younghusband and C. Davenport's The Crown Jewels of England (1919), page 50: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coronation_Spoon.png

For further information:

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