Sold – A Medieval English Land Transfer

Teston is a village near Maidstone and East Peckham is one near Tonbridge, both in Kent, England. The Gore and Hobbs families were prominent in the towns, and to this day there remain place names related to them. Records also show that the Hobbs were settled in Kent by the early 1300’s.

Document in Latin, English gothic script, dated 1435, transferring land in Kent from the Hobbs to the Gores and some of their associates. “Let all people present and future know that I Thomas Hobys of Eastpeckham have given conceded and confirmed, with this my present charter, to John Reve, Thomas Goore, John Goore and William Shepherde, one piece of land containing two acres lying in the parish of Teston called Welfedysshys between the land of William Tyve toward the north and the land of William Goore toward the east and west and the path…toward the south. Given at Teston on the 20th day of the month of September in the 13th year of the reign of King Henry VI after the conquest.”

The Hundred Years War was raging when this document was drawn up; it was dated just six years after Joan of Arc broke the siege of Orleans and five years after her martyrdom. This same year, the Treaty of Arras between Charles VII of France and Philip the Good of Burgundy saw the latter state change sides, permanently altering the war’s balance of power in favor of the French.