Beschreibung:

SWAN ROLL, a register of the marks of Broadland swan owners, ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [?Norwich, c.1500] 5 membranes (780 x 114mm: 840 x 115mm: 870 x 110mm: 820 x 114mm: 710 x 110mm) with 99 outline drawings of swans' heads in black ink, their beaks painted red and marked in black, the owners' names in brown or black ink above them (creases from rolling, occasional small tears or holes or spots or splashes, the beginning of membrane 1 darkened and worn). A DELIGHTFUL AND EARLY PICTORIAL RECORD OF SWAN OWNERHSIP. The swan has been deemed a royal bird from the Middle Ages on and although the Crown could, and did, grant the privilege of owning a 'game' of swans to individuals or institutions all such birds had to be marked and pinioned; all swans flying free on open and common waters belonged to the King, or Queen, by prerogative right. The King's Swan-Master was appointed both to care for the royal swans and to oversee and regulate swan-keeping throughout England; he was assisted by deputies with responsibility for a specific and manageable region -- such as the Broadland area of Norfolk and Suffolk, the district covered by the present Swan roll. Such a roll was one of the books the Swan-Master or his deputy were required to keep; it was the official register where the names of all the legitimate 'gamesters' in the Broadland were recorded alongside the identifying marks they placed on the upper mandibles of their birds. These rolls were usually made on parchment to provide a durable record that could be kept current by addition and amendation, and could be consulted in any dispute over ownership, or at swan-upping when the Swan-Master oversaw the marking of the new cygnets. Such updatings are evident throughout the present roll but especially in the final membrane. On the basis of the script the present roll can be dated to around 1500. The earlier disregard of restrictions on ownership and abuse of the decreed protection of swans led to the 'Act for Swans' which came into force in 1482. Beyond enforcing the security of the birds and the rights of their owners, the new act for the first time stipulated conditions of rank for 'gamesters'; no mark or game of swans could be held by any person or persons not in possession of freehold lands or tenements worth five or more marks per year. Henceforward the legislation and regulation of the keeping of swans was more thoroughgoing and institutionalised, and was enforced by courts of Swan-mote. The surviving Swan rolls were a part of this and the present example is one of the earliest Swan rolls known. Of the sixty-one rolls surveyed by N. F. Ticehurst in The Mute Swan in England (London 1957), pp.76-79, only one was of a similarly early date. Ticehurst dated all the others after 1535, and the majority to the 17th century. The author was unaware of the existence of the present roll and the earliest Broadland roll discussed by him was the Penhurst Roll recto (Public Record Office) that he dated to 1538-40. The customary manner of recording the swan-marks was to show rows of schematic and disembodied bills; the present roll, in contrast, is in an unusually attractive format. Here each marked mandible is given a head, albeit at right angles to its appropriate position to the beak, so that the roll presents a succession of interlocking profiled birds with their owners' names written above them. The list starts with the two marks of the King followed by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk. The first mark identified on the fifth membrane is that of 'Coke the draper'; that is John Coke draper and mayor of Norwich in 1484. In addition to noble or landed individuals, whether recorded by name or by manor, the list also includes the Abbot of St Bennets, the Hospitals of Norwich and three parish churches - those of Our Lady of Acle, Billockby and Hickling - which had received swanrights as an endowment to keep candles lit before the image of the Virgin. It was not only status that was besto