Saturday, August 13, 2011

[Resources] The Sixty-One Nails and the Queen's Remembrancer

The King's/Queen's Remembrancer was created in 1154 by English King Henry II, in order 'to put the Lord Treasurer and the Barons of Court in remembrance of such things as were to be called upon and dealt with for the benefit of the Crown.' It is the oldest judiciary position in the world, annually responsible to convene the Exchequer Court to render of "the Quit Rents (of the City of London) to the Crown," which consist of two ceremonies of three rents:

The first ceremony contains two rents - one from 1211, payment of one blunt and one sharp knives for land called The Moors, and the other from 1235, payment of 61 horseshoe nails coupled with six horseshoes for land called The Forge.

The second ceremony contains one rent - from 1327, payment of £11 for the town of Southwark.

There's a lot more to the story, about the ceremonies and about the whole ritual, far too much to add here (and why wouldn't you want to do that research yourself?), but that's not all ...

Mike Shevdon wrote a book called The Sixty-One Nails, a tale of Urban Faerie. I'm currently giving it a read, so I don't know what it's fully about yet but look forward to find about it.

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