History of corn milling .. - Centrostudirpinia.it

116 HISTORY OF CORN MILLING: vol. IV.
DEE^MiLLS From the brief for Russell's defence it appears he
CHESTER.' pleaded the ''ancient customs" of Dee Mills, upon
28. Another which Gamull relied as to soke, to be not a charter
"Case,' 1635. upon record in the Exchequer, as alleged, but only
208^/ 168
^' ^ private document belonging to the mills '' when they
had a court " : also, that there was no such custom in
Queen Elizabeth's time ; that " there are not so many
mills now in and near Chester as there have been, for
there were twelve, and now there are but six besides
Dee Mills, and the latter are insufficient to serve the
city, and they make bad usage ; further, E. Gamull
bought nothing but the mill structure, neither courts
nor privileges, nor any warranty for the same : nor
hath he
Of the
kept any such courts since the
trial and the result there seems
purchase."
to be no
available record, but Russell and the others
certainly
were
ordered to suppress their
^
mills.
29. Buying 29. The sixth of the interrogatories in the preced-
Ground Malt, jj^g ^^^^ discovers in practice the same ingenious
evasion of soke which had been prohibited at Liverpool
in 1524, at York in 161 7, and other places. The
Chester maltsters about 1635 had combined to purchase
outside the city malt ready ground ; a process which
they imagined might
free them from the Dee soke.
A small ring of maltsters was formed ; a subscrip-
tion was raised to procure legal advice from London ;
John Edwards, a miller of Boughton, joined ;
and one,
Tyrer, a malt-dealer, began openly to sell the readyground
malt. On May 13, 1636, an order was secured
Harl. MSS., against four of the ring —Thomas Dennison, Richard
2081. III.
Dickenson, Edward Russell, and Andrew Minshall ;
but despite this, not only did they carry on their
illicit practices as before, but they were joined by four
Ibid., 2083. 450. others—Thomas Weaver, Henry Hazel well, Elizabeth
* The only apparent clue to the date of this afifair is an allusion in the case to
the erection of Davenport's mill in 1620 as being " about fifteen years ago."