Aspects of Kentish Local History

from the barton of St. Augustine's on the east side of the city (commemorated to-day in Barton Fields) illustrates both the limited and extended sense of the word. It was the home-farm of the monks but was also, from an early date, the place where their barley was stored, milled, and malted. We learn that in 832 King Atulph, at the behest of Archbishop Ceolnoth, gave the vill near the city of Canterbury called Northwood (Nordwda) to the monks, to which were attached five yokes (jugera) of land and two meadows, one at Thanington and the other at Schettynge. In the Domesday Monachorum this manor of Northwood, which stood for reasons which will now appear obvious received the name of Barton, was said to be appropriated to the table of the monks (est de cibo eorum) and to be in the hundred of Canterbury. No less than 97 burgesses dwelt on the manor and paid rents to the value of £8 0s. 6d. With all its assets the manor was said to be worth £17. Pope Alexander III confirmed the possession of the manor of Barton to the monks in 1179, together with the meadows and mills which belonged to it. It was only natural that a large area of land in close proximity to the city should become a bone of contention between the city authorities, assertive of their judicial rights, and the monks of Christ Church, who were equally bent on maintaining their franchises, arrested a man within Barton manor and confined him in the city gaol. Archbishop Winchelsey wrote a letter of sharp reproof to the bailiffs of the city in 1303, 

ordering them to hand over the prisoner to the bailiffs of the prior and chapter.
   The first indications as to how the Christ Church barton was managed is contained in a Canterbury rental of the late twelfth century (R.31 in Box D. in Room ZA in Dean and Chapter Library). Rents were then owned in the parish of Northgate by "the monk who manages our barton" (monachus qui custodit bertonam nostram). It seems certain, therefore, that at least by the end of the twelfth century the Saxon and Domesday manor of Northwood was the site of the barley granaries, mills, and malthouse of the priory, from which it took its new name of Bertona, and was specially supervised by one of the monks. This much we can infer from the rental. In the thirteenth century the records become abundant and leave us in no doubt as to the function of the barton and its monk-manager, the bartoner (berthonarius), in the economic system of the cathedral priory.
   The first extant bartoner's account forms one of that group of obedientiaries' accounts which were compiled at the Michaelmas audit and thus called Assisae Scaccarii. Its date is 1225, but we learn from the treasurers' account of 1214 that barley was taken to the barton before the exile of 1207-13. It therefore seems reasonable to suppose that bartoners were presenting accounts at, or before, the turn of the century. A magnificent series of accounts, surpassing those of any