Earliest Records

The name Broket goes back to 1170, perhaps 1140. These dates are simply based on the oldest surviving record, so the name may well have been used earlier. 10 instances from various places in England have been found in the 13th C, 28 in the 14th—mainly from Yorkshire. The 2 in mainland Europe were linked to England. Nearly all would have been married and heads of household, but wives' and children's names rarely appear in such records.

Note: The surname is spelt 'Broket' in this website when no specific variant is being referred to.

13th Century

Stixwould was a Nunnery, about 5 miles SW of Horncastle, 18 miles W of the Percy manor of Claxby and about 13 miles E of Lincoln. 1207 was during King John's reign—of Magna Carta fame. Crespin and Osbert may well not have been from Lincolnshire—a generally marshy and inhospitable environment, into which men moved for work.

The compiler of the 1931 Calendar for the first entry mistranscribed Brochet as Brechet. ch was the earliest spelling of the k sound in Broket, but e for o was an error. There has never been a name Breket in the English-speaking world.

William had lands and went away on the King's service. He must therefore have been at least 25 years old when he returned in 1214, and so born before 1190. Was he given the name as a nickname or by birth?

Emericus de Rupe Cavardi became 9th Count de Rochechouart 1245, knight 1253 and died 1285 (Roles Gascons vol 1 pp 406, 408, and vol 1 Supplement p 97). He would have been young in 1214.

By spring 1205 King John had lost the last of his French possessions and returned to England. The final 10 years of his reign were occupied with failed attempts to regain these territories, like this attempt in 1214 from Limoges, c 200 miles south of Paris. A year later the discontented barons revolted, capturing London in May 1215. Then at Runnymeade in June, John succumbed to pressure and signed the Magna Carta.

This was an important mission; probably carrying most of the army's pay for that year. 10,000 marcs was equivalent to £6,666 at the time. 150 years later in 1410 the whole budget for the defence of Gascony was £8249 (Pugh 1988 p 52). To have joint responsibility for so valuable a mission, William would have been in his 30s at least, born before 1212. If William's father had not been called Broket before him, then this emergence of the nickname can be dated at latest 1225-8.

Following his 1230 campaign in Gascony Henry III was in debt and in 1232 the great council allowed him to raise a tax. Another tax was levied in 1235 and another in 1237. These were probably the source of the 10,000 marks. The first of the following 2 letters was from Windsor recording the beginning of the mission and the second was from King Henry in Bordeaux about 5 weeks later recording his receipt of the money. Note: the Wardrobe was an office, moving around with the king.

These were feudal times and John Broket held a bovate of land from a tenant in chief in Newton Kyme near York, as recorded in the IPM of William de Kyme (YATARS 1892 vol 12, pp 85-7):

Inquisition of the fees, held of William de Kyme, at the time of his death, in the County of York, made before the Coroners, by Richard de Colton, ... [21 names] ..., John Broket of Neuton, ... [15 names] ... They, being sworn, say upon their oath that Mauger le Vavasur held immediately of William de Kyme in Wlsington, two carucates of land, whereof twelve carucates make one knight's fee. Hugh de Brinkel held immediately of him in the town of Neuton [Newton Kyme] two bovates and a half of land, whereof fourteen make a fee. John de Oykumbe held immediately of him in the same town, two bovates of the same fee. Elias son of William Clerk held immediately of him in the same town, four bovates of the same fee. John Broket held immediately of him in the same town, one bovate...

A bovate was apparently only slightly smaller than a carucate here, which for the Ainsty was usually 120 acres or eight bovates (M J Harrison 2000 pp 2-3). The Kyme family had been Percy tenants (Clay 1963 p 92; M J Harrison 2000 p 281), and also held lands in Lincolnshire (Speight 1902 p 366). John would have been head of a household and probably aged 30 at least in 1260, and so born by 1230.

Simon was a cloth merchant in business with partners across the Channel. In this bond he is called a merchant of Douai, but the names of his partners make it likely that he was the English arm of the partnership. Was he of a different stock from his contemporary, John Broket, the small farmer up in Newton Kyme? Much of York's overseas trade was with Flanders and the Low Countries, especially for cloth (Palliser 1979 pp 194ff). England exported '30,000 sacks of wool every year, nearly all to Flanders, where there was a highly developed cloth industry dependent upon English wool' (Briggs 1999 p 73).

Henry III bought £100 worth of cloth—cartloads. It was sold at Easter, the bond was issued 14 May with credit till early Oct, and payment was received 18 Jan (Calendar of Liberate Rolls 1260-67 p 72).

St Ives fair, held for a week from the Wednesday after Easter, was one of England's main international medieval fairs. St Ives is on the river Great Ouse, near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire; the cloth would have come there by boat from Flanders.

The 1279 hundred roll for Bampton recorded that Henry Broket held a messuage and a yardland in the parish of Curbridge, about 12 miles W of Oxford, in return for 3s 9d rent a year and 10s 10d worth of work. These hundred rolls recorded all landholders in England from the highest to the lowest. Like 33 others of the 39 listed for Curbridge, Henry was a serf (servus) and 'work' could be discharged by actual work or by money (E Stone 1968 pp 75-6):

Freeholders often appeared in these rolls as tenants in more than one village, serfs rarely in more than one place. For Oxfordshire very little has survived other than Bampton's return, so it is not known whether there were other Brokets in Oxfordshire. That there were no more records of Brokets there until modern times, however, makes it probable that Henry was either one of a small clan which soon died out or else a Broket by byname rather than surname.

Kirkby Mallore is about seven miles W of Leicester, 40-45 NW of Bedford, 80 N of Oxford and 107 S of York. It is not clear if Thomas was related to other known Brokets.

Of his five surviving records, the first in 1290 is as a surety, and the other four, some 26+ years later, are all allegations by complainants that bands of men, Thomas among them, entered and appropriated their property. The 26 year interval could be a new generation.

So after the surety, only the shortest of the 4 complaints (1319) is quoted here in full:

The 1319 record is so similar to the others and concerns Leicestershire that it is presumably the same Thomas, even though the case was heard in York.

John Broket and 3 associates paid a small fine for trespass and for a licence from the court—probably to conclude a property sale—recorded in the accounts for the manor of Lostwithiel (6/7 miles NE of St Austell, Cornwall):

Lostwithiel manor was among the lands of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall and nephew of Henry III, whose northern estate centred in Knaresbrough Castle (Midgley 1942-5 p xviii). It is possible that John or his father hailed from Yorkshire.