and “having regard to the state of his health and condition he was let off.”  We wonder what the Vicar of Ebberston thought of this lenient treatment of such a Barabbas.  Geoffrey de Wrightington, a late bailiff of Pickering, seems to have taken part in these offences, and he was also responsible for having seized Hugh de Neville in Pickering Church, and for having imprisoned him “in the depths of the gaol in iron fetters for seven weeks, though Hugh had never been indicted.”  John Scott of Pickering also spent nine weeks in prison at the pleasure of this desperate fellow.  On the 30th August 1346 he took L4 by force from Henry de Acaster, the vicar of Pickering, when he was journeying between Coneysthorpe and Appleton le Street.  His methods are well shown by the following.  “Geoffrey also on Sunday, 17th September 1346, seized Adam de Selley Bridge by force at Pickering and imprisoned him until he had compounded with him for 6 [?  L] and when Adam paid the fine Geoffrey made him swear on the Book that he would tell no one how he came to pay the fine or to be imprisoned.”  After all this Geoffrey was let off with a fine when called to account three years later.

In the minister’s accounts for 1322 appear the “wages of a forester to keep Pickering Forest, a door-keeper and a watchman in the castle, each 2d a day for 34 weeks.”  There are references to thatch for the porter’s lodge, the brewhouse, the kitchen, and small upper apartment within the castle.  This thatching took a man three days with two women to help him all the time; the man received 9d and the women 2d each for the work.

The chaplain of the castle chapel received a yearly salary of L3; repairs by contract to the seven glass windows in the chapel cost 10d, and wine and lights 2s.  Under the heading of Small Expenses comes “making 14 hurdles to lie on the draw bridge and other bridges to preserve them from the cart-wheels 1s; making a hedge round the fishpond, cutting and carrying boughs, wages of the hedger—­4s 6d; making a long cord of hemp 20 ells long weighing 6 stone of hemp for the Castle well—­4s 9d; burning after Feb. 2 old grass in Castle Ings that new grass may grow—­8d; 8 men cutting holly, ivy and oak boughs in different parts of the forest for the deer in a time of snow and ice, 9 days at 2d a day—­12s 2-1/2d; wages of a man sent to the king [Edward II.] with a letter from the bailiff to acquaint the king with certain secrets by letters of privy seal, going, residing there and returning, 9 days at 3d a day for food and wages—­3s 9d.”

In the Close Rolls of 1324, there is an order to “John de Kelvington, keeper of the Castle and honor of Pickering, to cause to be newly constructed a barbican before the Castle gate with a stone wall and a gate with a drawbridge in the same, and beyond the gate a new chamber, a new postern gate by the King’s Tower and a roof to a chamber near the small hall; to cover with thin flags that roof and the roof of the small