Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury Raid Boatman, Refectory Raid Fisherman

Summary: A boatman with Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid items and a fisherman with Westminster Abbey Refectory raid cup did not concern royal justices.

Thames River boatman Godde was briefly imprisoned in Tower of London prison for alleged involvement in the 1302 Westminster Abbey refectory raid and in the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid but fisherman Geoffrey Atte Stigle was neither indicted nor imprisoned for catching a Westminster Abbey coat of arms-embellished silver cup in his net and selling it to a silversmith; London's boat traffic, with Tower of London's White Tower (foreground) and London Bridge (upper background), ca. 1415-1440, during 25-year imprisonment of Charles, Duke of Orléans in Tower of London: The British Library, No known copyright restrictions, via Flickr

Informants behind London, Suffolk, Surrey and Westminster indictments July 4-6, 1303, arising from the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid April 30-May 3, 1303, alluded to the November 1302 Westminster Abbey Refectory raid.

Jurors arranging Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid indictments July 4-6, 1303, alluded to Thames River boatmen acquainted with one of their own acquiring Westminster Abbey Refectory raid silver by Dec. 25, 1302.

Perhaps it baffled the king's five appointed commissioners when boatmen and jurors brought two burglaries at meeting places between the first's end and the second's beginning. Possibly it confused one commissioner and four justices that incomplete silver for five Abbey great feasts never caught the Abbot's, the Prior's and the Refectorian's attention. Probably it dawned on the fisherman whose net drew up, and the silversmith whose dealings dispersed, a "precious cup" decorated with Westminster Abbey coat of arms.

The Westminster Abbey Refectory raid sometime during November 1302 endures as an unsolved mystery whose extracted silver cups, dishes and hampers perhaps ended up forever exiled.

River boatmen furnished jurors from the shire of Suffolk with the fact of Thames River fisherman Geoffrey Atte Stigle's finding a "precious cup" before Christmas 1302.

Suffolk jurors gave raid-related indictments in Southwark the day of Fleet Prison Keeper and Westminster Palace deputy Keeper William Palmer's confession in London July 6, 1303. Royal justices John Bakewell, Walter de Gloucester, Ralph de Sandwich and Roger de Southcote heard about Stigle the fisherman and Godde the Westminster King's Bridge boatman. The Palmer confession implicated Godde as barge operator for six Westminster Abbey monks with two "great baskets bound by black cord" and "of a great weight."

Godde journeyed from east of the juxtaposed Abbey and Palace grounds to London the week of the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid April 30-May 3, 1303.

The Palmer confession kept Godde in the Tower of London prison "on suspicion," with Westminster Abbey monks Walter de Erksdale/Erskdale and Simon de Henley only briefly.

Financial arrangements let Godde loose on bail with Erksdale/Erskdale and Henley and left them off lists of Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid prisoners for July/August 1303. Indictments July 4-6, 1303, before the Palmer confession, and July 29 and Aug. 6, 1303, and Jan. 9 and 13-14, 1304, after it, never mentioned Godde. The 1303-1304 indictments, Palmer's confessions June 17 and July 6, 1303, and Richard de Puddlicott's and John de Rippinghale's Dec. 3, 1304, confessions never named Stigle.

The London goldsmiths who offered testimony at the Guildhall July 5, 1303, observed that they "did not know that it was a crime" over stolen objects.

The river boatmen who provided Suffolk jurors at Southwark July 6, 1303, with puzzling evidence that predated the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid presented similar protestations.

River boatmen and fishermen probably qualified among London's and Westminster's socio-economically significant populations since they queued up alternative shore-to-shore transport in-between horse and pedestrian shore-to-shore bridges. King Edward I (June 1, 1239-July 7, 1307) required his appointed justices to research the Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid, not the Westminster Abbey Refectory raid. Stigle suffered no indictments or imprisonment since he sold a silver cup that somehow slipped into his net from Westminster Abbey Refectory, not Royal Treasury, shelves.

Edward's five royal commissioners took back Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid precious items, metals and stones, not Westminster Abbey Refectory raid silver cups, dishes and hampers.

Westminster Abbey's refectory, which was raided November 1302, was sited on the South Cloister, and the Abbey's Royal Treasury storage, which was raided April 30-May 3, 1303, was located on the East Cloister; drawing and engraving of South Cloister, "shewing part of the masonry of the 11th century -- with wall & details of the 14th," by English architectural engraver and draughtsman John Henry LeKeux (March 23, 1812-Feb. 4, 1896) in G.G. Scott's Gleanings From Westminster Abbey (1861), Plate I, frontispiece: Public Domain via Internet Archive

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

Thames River boatman Godde was briefly imprisoned in Tower of London prison for alleged involvement in the 1302 Westminster Abbey refectory raid and in the 1303 Westminster Abbey Royal Treasury raid but fisherman Geoffrey Atte Stigle was neither indicted nor imprisoned for catching a Westminster Abbey coat of arms-embellished silver cup in his net and selling it to a silversmith; London's boat traffic, with Tower of London's White Tower (foreground) and London Bridge (upper background), ca. 1415-1440, during 25-year imprisonment of Charles, Duke of Orléans in Tower of London: The British Library, No known copyright restrictions, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/12458712465

Westminster Abbey's refectory, which was raided November 1302, was sited on the South Cloister, and the Abbey's Royal Treasury storage, which was raided April 30-May 3, 1303, was located on the East Cloister; drawing and engraving of South Cloister, "shewing part of the masonry of the 11th century -- with wall & details of the 14th," by English architectural engraver and draughtsman John Henry LeKeux (March 23, 1812-Feb. 4, 1896) in G.G. Scott's Gleanings From Westminster Abbey (1861), Plate I, frontispiece: Public Domain via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/gleaningsfromwes00scot_0#page/n5/mode/1up

For further information:

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/06/westminster-abbey-royal-treasury-raid.html

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