Copy of petition concerning marshland in Iden and Stone in Kent at the Public Record...

Petition, in French, to 'my most honoured lords' [?the barons of the exchequer]; William de Lyghe should have completed a wall against the sea for the enclosure and salvation of the marshland belonging to Stephen de Pesenden in Iden in Sussex and Stone in Kent, for sums of money which he received from the men of the community of the country and from Stephen; William affirmed that the work could not be completed without a further £63 6s 8d, so Stephen entered into two bonds for twice the sum to William and to John Cheseman, on condition that the sum be levied and paid by the men of the community with as much haste as possible by session of the king's justices assigned to oversee in the country by the custom and law of the marsh called mersshelawe, to which William agreed, as appears by indenture under his seal and by another which he should have sealed, as appears by evidence accepted in the chancery, and as Stephen required that William and John should be examined on oath

The sum was neither levied nor paid before the days of payment in the bonds, by William's fault, as is known throughout the whole country. As the enclosure was not made Stephen has lost some of the land, to the value of £40 a year and more, as is known, and the whole of the money paid to William, to the sum of £130, over and above the sum secured by the bonds

<p>For a defeasance of a statute merchant by Stephen de Pesenden to William de Leghe of Sussex and John Cheseman of Canterbury, 7R2 (1383-84), see PRO E210/2459; for a bond for a repayment of a loan between the same parties, 8R2 (1384-85), see PRO E212/122; for a general release of actions by Cheseman to Stephen Pesenden of Kent, 20 April 1385, acknowledged before the abbot of Boxley in Kent on 15 June 1389, see Calendar of Close Rolls, 1385-89 684</p>

Copies purchased 9 April 2001 (ACC 8316)

This petition, possibly to the barons of the exchequer, was originally among the class Exchequer, Accounts Various at the Public Record Office, where it formed part of a bundle of fragments of accounts and subsidiary documents, temp H3 to H8, with the reference E101/547/7. That bundle was subsequently withdrawn from E101 and placed in a class of extracts, where its current reference is EXT 6/144/7

Although the document is undated, other material in the PRO points to a date of the mid-1380s, which would be quite consistent with its hand

The petition is anonymous, but its content suggests that it was written on behalf of Stephen de Pesenden