The data I wish to introduce is preliminary and coincidental. It involves a group of patronymic Carpenters in Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Oxford. All three places, I wish to remind were all-important places for cloth production in the period discussed. A Ralph Carpenter appears in the Curia Regis Rolls in a series of land acquisitions in Hereford, Suffolk and Norfolk. I would like to add Oxford as well. Many of Ralph’s land holdings were royal lands (manum domini regis). A Ralph was found having rented a mill from the Earl of Norfolk. This could have been a wool fulling mill. Ralph appears with a William Carpenter in Norfolk land settlements suggesting a family relationship. I suspect William was a son. William also appears in Norfolk settlements with a John specified as his son. Also in Norfolk was an Adam Carpenter, who in a later land settlement had a specified son Galfridus. Adam also showed a patter of land acquisition like Ralph, but in Kent. However, Adam’s activities take him in the end to Herefordshire. In Oxford at during the same years the exact same names appear in the records of the charity behests of St. John the Baptist Hospital. In 1220 Radulfus Carpentarius makes his appearance. The name Radulfus appears once suggesting no long-term residence in the town. However from 1226 a Iohannes Carpentarium appears in several instances of quitclaims of his property to the hospital. We could draw a number of conclusions from this; that John was wealthy, that John now lived outside of town (in style) etc. Contemporary with John is Willemus Carpentarius de Coule who appears in a St.John related quitclaim for 1235 and 1242. William Carpenter seems well established outside of Oxford and could easily be the father of John. If we return to Adam Carpenter’s son Galfridus once again, in 1246 the hospital is given a formal charter by King Henry III. Among the list of charter patrons,with the King, s Galfridi Carpentarii. Geoffrey Carpenter first appears in Oxford St. John records in 1210, but it isn’t until 1240 the he begins to surrender his town holding to the hospital,and finally as a charter member of the royal charity itself. Geoffrey also appeared active in Lincolnshire in the early 1200s with a Rodger Carpenter. Rodger held land in Norfolk with John Carpenter in the 1230s. Much later in the 1280s a Rodger Carpenter becomes one of the tenants of the hospital, suggesting an older man in need of care. Already the hospital was functioning as a place for Carpenters as Geoffrey had originally intended. A William Carpenter held Lincolnshire land in the early 1200s. The Lincolnshire Carpenters maintain themselves there through the 1300s as ship owning merchants. Another Carpenter in Oxford in 1240, and appearing in the same ducuments as Geoffery, is a Robert Carpenter. Their relationship is unspecified. Robert Carpenter appears in many Kent dispositions at the same time as Adam. Might Robert have been Geoffery’s brother? The Lincolnshire Carpenters can be connected to a Richard Carpenter in London through the merchant Gilbert Carpenter. The Oxford Carpenters can be traced to the London Merchant Rodger Carpenter. They all can be connected to the Fleetsteet area of London through the 1300s. All the above Carpenters in Kent, Sussex, Lincolnshire, Norfolk etc., exhibit what is plainly an overlapping pattern of land ownership. One Carpenter from one area joins with another in a joint ownership. I do not quite understand this, but might there be some legal reason for this? As I stand back from my notebooks, and view the data as a whole, there seems some kind of clan economic activity. Was this typical? Was this a result of their having come from another country. This discovery of a charity for Carpenters says a lot, I think, about their mentality as a group at this point in history. Sincerely, Bruce Carpenter