Not specified [Not specified] [This petition is damaged] The writer, presumably a...

Petitioners

Not specified

Addressees

[Not specified]

Nature of request

[This petition is damaged] The writer, presumably a royal official, addresses some higher official, or perhaps the king himself, including a list of responses made by Stephen de Abyndon, king's butler, to six complaints made against him by the merchant vintners of Gascony:1) To their request that he might maintain the manner used by other butlers previously, without prejudice to the king or to the merchants, he answers you that he wishes to maintain and treat them in as suitable a manner as he can, saving the king's estate.2) To their request that he make the prise as soon as the ship arrives, he answers that the first working day after the ship comes into the Pool [of London], he will willingly take the prise in person or through his under-butler [and they] will not be disturbed in anything.3) To their request that he might not prise their wines by duress as he has done he answers that he will not commit or suffer duress to be made in any way . . . if they will deal with him reasonably and courteously, so that the lord . . . outrage, nor will he prise or allow their wines to be prised, or any other disturbance . . . lord, to go with him in a reasonable manner.4) To their request that he give them a guarantee under the seal of Chancery that he will give them and their chattels no harm or grievance, he answers that he cannot do this, the seal of Chancery is not under his will, but that when they are agreed . . . guarantee that you other good people [will counsel him?] in a suitable manner.5) To their request that Stephen give satisfaction to individual persons for what he has done personally, or for what others have done at his command, he replies that if there is any merchant who feels aggrieved by a trespass committed against him by him or by his people, he wishes the things to be shown before you out of judgment, and if he cannot acquit himself of it, he will make amends according to your decision in such a form that they might act against him . . . before the king and his council.He asks the person he is addressing that, when he has examined this matter, he might ordain and do what seems to him to be best to be done for the king, for Stephen, and for the merchants of Gascony, as Stephen trusts in him and his aid; and that he might inform the petitioner of his will through the petitioner's clerk.

Nature of endorsement

[None]

Places mentioned

Gascony, [France].

People mentioned

Merchant vintners of Gascony

Stephen de Abyndon (Abingdon), king's butler.

For a transcript, see p.30 of PRO 31/7/129