The historical background to the survey may be noted briefly here.It is dealt with in great, if disorderly, detail by Daniel MacCarthy Glas in his . The work draws heavily on the state papers of the period and includes numerous verbatim extracts from them. In 1565, as a check against Desmond Geraldine's power, Domhnall MacCarthy Mór, lord of Desmond, was created earl of Clancar or Clancarthy. Though he participated briefly in the first Geraldine revolt in 1569, sharing the general sense of land insecurity, his subsequent role was generally that of a spectator while the Geraldines, his neighbours and traditional enemies, were being overthrown.For the creation of the earldom, June 1565, see and , pp. 365-66. For his attitudes in 1568-69, see Richard Bagwell, , II, 151, 157. 161, 167-8, 186, 223, 233. His anti-government activities in 1579-80 were brief: , 1575-88, pp. 171. 173, 176, 257-9, 268-9. Yet the suppression of the Desmond rebellion brought the undertakers to his doorstep and these Elizabethan adventurers soon realized that their own security demanded a satisfactory land settlement in the adjoining Gaelic lordship.

Domhnall's son and heir, the baron of Valentia, died in 1585,Cf. MacCarthy Glas, , pp. 23, 145. he had no close male legitimate relatives, so that the future of the MacCarthy demesne lands was now bound up with the person of his daughter Ellen, his only surviving legitimate child. The authorities in Munster were naturally concerned that Ellen should make a fitting match. The ambitious Sir Valentine Browne, who secured a mortgage on some of the MacCarthy demesne lands by lending money to the unthrifty earl, MacCarthy Glas, , p. 24; Charles Smith, (hereafter referred to as ), p. 40n. An Elizabethan deed of 1588, granting the mortgaged lands to the Brownes on the death of the earl of Clancarthy without male issue, was invalidated by the omission of the word male; see MacCarthy Glas, , pp. 156-7, and also Edward MacLysaght, ed., , pp. 459-60, 476. negotiated with Domhnall for a marriage between Ellen and his son, Nicholas Browne. The projected alliance with an upstart planter family was strenuously opposed by the countess of Clancarthy as well as by the leaders of the septs. They expressed their opposition to Sir William Herbert who suggested to Sir Thomas Norreys, vice-president of Munster, that he should consider offering for Ellen's hand, Herbert promising to use his influence to secure not only the queen's consent, but also a grant-of succession for Norreys to the earl's lands. But Norreys, after some paines taken, he in the ende mysliked of it, being as it seemed, otherwise disposed to bestowe himself.Tracts sent to Lord Burghley: the first tract given in MacCarthy Glas, , pp. 34-5, also in , pp. 536-7. The author of attributes the tract to Sir Warham St. Leger, but the editor of the (pp. 538-9) shows clearly that the author was Sir William Herbert. Events now took a surprising turn and one which greatly disconcerted the English authorities. In May 1588 Ellen suddenly and secretly married the redoubtable Finín (Florence) MacCarthy Riabhach, tanist of Carbery, the most dangerous man of all the Irish nation.Cf. , p. 339. Like the Brownes, Florence had also secured a mortgage on some of the earl's demesnes. Herbert urged that steps be taken to counter Florence McCarte's dryft, to joyne in himsealfe Desmond and Carberie, and so to erect againe the greatnes and tyranny of the McCarties. The problem was complicated by the emergence of a party within the MacCarthy territory which opposed at once Florence's ambitions and the extension of the English interest. The principal members of this group were Sir Owen O'Sullivan of Beara and the able Domhnall MacCarthy, the earl's bastard son, whom that countrey doth much favor and would fayne have to be MeCartie.MacCarthy Glas, , p. 37; pp. 542-3. See , pp. 516-17, for the reasons that Florence McCartie allegeth to prove that the lands ought to descend to Ellen his wife.

The neighbouring undertakers may have had their bitter disagreements such as that which arose between Sir William Herbert on the one hand and the Brownes, the Springs and the Dennys on the other, See MacCarthy Glas, , pp. 51-4. but all had their designs on the MacCarthy lands and they made the usual convenient planters' identification between their own ambitions and the interests of the Crown. Sir William Herbert who desired to have 6,000 akers in the countye of Desmonde after the Earl of Glincarr's deathHerbert to Walsingham, 27 December 1588, cited ibid., p. 54. made a report to Burghley on the position in Desmond and recommended that it is of great consequence and importance unto our inhabitation here that the Earl's estate be not enlarged, to the end that after his decease English gentlemen may be there planted This occurs in ibid., p. 34, and , p. 536. This tract also contains a brief account of the traditional rights of MacCarthy Mór in Desmond, an account which it is of interest to compare with the more detailed returns of the survey. This advice accorded with the fundamental principle of Elizabethan policy as expressed by Sir Henry Sidney: the dissipation of the great lordships: to distribute the lands, if among English, the better: if not, yet that they be dissipated.Cited in MacCarthy Glas, , p. 21.

The conflicting claims to, and interests in, the MacCarthy lands were brought to the forefront by the death of the earl towards the end of 1596. The planters urged that Florence's claims to the landes and honor be rejected and that the country be divided amongst gentlemen of good sort and condition.Bishop of Ardfert, Graye, Herbert and others to Privy Council, 12 February 1597, cited ibid., pp. 151-2. In , Lambeth Palace Library, there is a document setting forth why Florence MacCartie's wife should be heir to the earl of Clancare's lands. But the critical political situation brought about by the Tyrone rebellion precluded such a simple and brutal solution by the crown.Cf. the debate in council, 5 November 1597, where it was stated that although Munster was, for the moment, quiet, yet there, was information that many are practised withal from the North to be of combination with the rest and to stir coals in Munster whereby the whole realm might be in a general uproar, , p. 273. Though in theory Desmond reverted to the crown because of the absence of legitimate male heirs (ibid., p. 215), in practice the crown had to proceed cautiously. Nicholas Browne, whose particular concern was to enforce his title to the lands mortgaged to his father, submitted a memorandum to the lord treasurer in 1597 on the situation in Munster, with particular reference to the position in Desmond.[Nicholas Browne,] Munster in A.D. 1597, , XII (1906), 54-68: in particular see pp. 61-5. Butler, , p. 11n., states that the idea of a commission of survey was suggested by Browne in his report, but a careful reading of the memorandum fails to support Butler's suggestion. This included a list of the various septs in the lordship with a comment on their traditional loyalties or otherwise to the howse of McCartie. This general analysis is similar to the overall arrangement of the survey and there are also resemblances of phraseology, so that Browne may have been the author of, or at least a principal source of information for the survey, possibly helping with the final draft.The text itself offers no clue as to authorship. The first person singular occurs only once, in sect. 25. Another piece of related material is A note of all such lands as belonged to the Earl of Clancar and to whom he passed them,

On 1 July 1597 the survey was ordered to be made. The English Privy Council directed that the commissioners of survey (these included the president of Munster) should proceed along certain lines of inquiry. They were to report on the extent and value of the earl's demesne lands; the various tributes traditionally due to him; the castles, islands and havens in his possession which might be kept by the crown; the extent of the mortgaged lands; the lands claimed by the dowager countess and the lands which might be given at a rent to the bastard Domhnall. Finally the survey was to list the English planters who were already in Desmond together with the rents and services they paid to the crown. The Irish council was to add such other articles as may seem good to them whereby the country may be distributed to English people. pp. 330-1. The Privy Council's instructions do not name the members of the commission of survey, but that these included the president of Munster is clear from a royal warrant of 13 August 1598, given in MacCarthy Glas, , p. 155. The survey, then, was carried out with an eventual eye to partial plantation. A comparison of the above instructions with the text of the survey will show that the terms of reference were fairly closely observed.

There is no date on the survey itself but it is possible to assign a date to it within certain limits. As we have seen, it was commissioned in July 1597. From a letter of Sir Roger Wilbraham, solicitor-general, to Sir Robert Cecil on 25 May 1598, commenting on the claims of Domhnall MacCarthy, it would appear that Wilbraham had been studying the survey for some time. p. 154; MacCarthy Glas, , p. 154. However this may have been only a draft or a portion of the report, for a royal warrant of 13 August 1598 mentions that the said survey may not (as is doubted) be speedily effected.MacCarthy Glas, , p. 155. On 16 March 1599 the lord lieutenant and council gave their decision on the claims of Florence MacCarthy and Nicholas Browne. It is clear from this and from a petition by Florence of the same date that the survey had been completed well before that.Ibid., pp. 182-4. A letter from the queen to Essex, 28 May 1599 ( pp. 300-1) has the statement: Of such lands of the said Earl's as Florence hath formerly sued for, and were to that end appointed to be surveyed by our President of Munster and others, we send you the survey ^{(my italics)}. The letter states that the matter had been considered by Essex, St. Leger (master of the rolls) and Wilbraham, and goes on to outline the principal decisions arrived at. See also H.M.C., pt. 8, p. 280, where a letter from the countess of Clancarthy to Sir Robert Cecil is noted under date 29 July 1598. In this it is stated that her suit for a third part of her husband's lands and rents was granted by the queen and Cecil but the solicitor of Ireland had said that she should have but a reasonable portion of her dower which in effect is a referment to the surveyors whose going thither is uncertain. On the whole, it is reasonable to conclude that the material for the survey was gathered between the autumn of 1597 and the spring of 1598 (it has no hint of the turbulence in Munster in the latter part of 1598) but that it was not given formal shape until late in 1598. It may be said here that the survey did not in itself provide a solution to the various problems concerning the succession to the earl's demesnes, and there were protracted legal disputes for well over a generation afterwards.The details are given in MacCarthy Glas, . See Butler, , for a discussion of the result of the survey and the subsequent history of the lordship, particularly pp. 68-72.

In his catalogue of the Lambeth Palace manuscripts, ToddTodd, , pp. 135-6. lists the contents of volume 625. The list is based on the table of contents which prefaces the volume itself and which is headed The Principall Matters Contayned in this Booke. Above this heading, at the top right-hand corner of the folio, is the unmistakable signature Gr Carew over the date 1617, presumably the year in which the volume was compiled from disparate material. It comprises a copy of a letter from Elizabeth concerninge sterlinge pay (1582); an account of wages due to the lord deputy and the army (1587-88); the survey; a discussion of James I's claims to Longford, Leitrim and other areas, as well as a project for their plantation; and finally, a booke of the armes of certain sundrie noblemen and gentlemen of Irland

The lay-out of the manuscript has been modified in the printed text. In the manuscript, extensive use is made of margins to show different divisions of the subject matter. Thus an outer left-hand margin is used to indicate each of the three main groups referred to above, the heading being placed outside the margin at an appropriate point. Sub-headings along inner left-hand margins denote the different septs within each main group. Each group of lands within a sept has a right-hand bracketing outside which is placed the money value of the rents and services for that particular group of lands. Since such an arrangement would be inconvenient to reproduce, the vertical marginal headings of the manuscript have been replaced by ordinary horizontal headings in the printed text. Similarly the money totals outside the right-hand bracketings of the manuscript are simply placed in a separate line in the printed text. The original paragraphing has, of course, been retained. The editor has italicised headings for the sake of clarity.

With the exceptions subsequently mentioned, the printed text is a faithful reproduction of the manuscript. Contractions whose meaning is certain have been silently extended. Thus wth, wch are printed as with, which, respectively; pl, plo, pt, pcells, porcon become ploughland (or plowland ), part, parcells, portion . Fortunately there are few doubtful contractions in the manuscript: indeed, though there were occasional reading difficulties, the manuscript was found to have very little undecipherable matter. Abbreviations which would find approval in modern usage have been retained— str, viz., li.s.d., for example. There is very little punctuation in the manuscript and it has been thought safer to follow suit in this regard, except where modern usage would require the insertion of full stops after abbreviations, as in wh. gr. (white groats). In money totals, the figure 1 occurring in the manuscript has been replaced by the small roman numeral i (i d, i white groat). The spelling of the original (for example, initial v and internal u ) has been retained, as well as the usage of capitals and lower case. It should be noted, however, that the manuscript uses a special, large clear script for proper names (as well as a rather ornate script for the headings) and that this has not been reproduced in the printed text. Where scribal errors are corrected in the text, they are mentioned in the footnotes which also draw attention to any other peculiarities in the manuscript, square brackets enclosing letters or words indicate obvious omissions by the scribe. Finally, reference in introduction, notes and indices to different parts of the text is to sections numbered by the editor in order to facilitate indexing.

In the sixth of the Historical Manuscripts Commission (1877), p. 309a, there is mentioned as item 89 of the manuscripts of Lord Leconfield, Petworth House, Sussex: Folio 16th century: A general survey of all such lands as are conteyned within the county of Desmond as well of such as wear the Earl of Clancarty's own demesnes as of all other lands belonging to the lords and others the freeholders of the said country (22 pp. + 4 maps done by hand). On investigation, this manuscript was discovered to be another copy of the Clancarthy Survey. It is still preserved at Petworth House, Sussex. Written on paper and bound in vellum it is in good condition. Unfortunately, nothing has been discovered about its history. The (referred to subsequently as 'Petworth") may possibly have been copied from Carew Manuscript 625, but a comparison of the two texts suggests that both Carew and Petworth were independently copied from another manuscript. Erroneous forms of some place-names in CarewSee text, sects. 3, 6, 32, 62, 83 and notes thereon. Generally, place-names in both are identical, though some interesting differences occur in the case of the maps, e.g., in the Kerry map, Pentworth has the Irish—derived Ballino where Carew has Niwtown . But the Petworth spelling seems to be slightly more modern (e.g., internal v for u, general dropping of superfluous final e ) as does the letter formation (the modern form of w ). The hand, which seems to be later than Carew, is very regular, and this impression of ruled regularity is strengthened by the orderly lines of writing and the straightness of the side brackets. Petworth is also somewhat better punctuated and is a much cleaner copy, with no erasures at all. It may be of interest to set down here, side by side, the opening paragraph from the two manuscripts:

Carew MS 625 A General Suruay of all such landes as are conteyned wthin the Country of Desmond as wel of such as were the Earle of Clancarties owne demeanes as of all other landes belonging to the Lords and others the freholders of the said Country w'th what dewties rentes and Chiefryes are customablye to be payd to the said earle out of the same, taken vpon the recport [sic] of the Sergeantes and officers of the of the saide Contrye

Pentworth 89 A generall survey of all such lands as ar conteyned within the Country of Desmound as well of such as wear the Earl of Clancartyes owne Demeanes as of all other lands belonging to the Lords and others the freholders of the said Country, wth what Dutyes rentes and Cheifryes are coustomably to be paid to the said Earl out of the same, taken vpon the report of the sariauntes and officers of the said Country.

Petworth is spaced more generously and its material per folio is only about three-quarters that of Carew. Whereas paragraphs in Carew are concluded at the end of folios, Petworth occasionally runs on in mid-sentence to the top of the next folio.

It is difficult to refer to particular pages of the Petworth manuscript since it is not foliated at all and there are some blank pages. An introductory page (verso only) is followed by eleven folios, recto and verso, i.e., twenty-threeThe description in the H.M.C. is not, therefore, altogether accurate. pages of manuscript in all, with one or two blank pages interspersed. Unfortunately some three folios of materialCorresponding, in the printed text, to sects. 87 to 103 inclusive, as well as the last sentence in sect. 86. are missing from the manuscript. Since the sequence of maps is the same as in Carew (the first four in each case being those of Kerry, Glanerought, Dariry and Magunihy) it is clear that the missing Petworth section included the maps of Dunkerron and Iveragh baronies. The lacuna was probably there when the manuscript was being bound as there are no indications that the missing folios and maps were subsequently extracted.

The maps are bound in at different places in the survey which they are intended to supplement as well as to illustrate. Since the complex assessment of the various rents and services was on different portions of lands, not on people, it was of importance for the purposes of the survey to show the location of the lands and the geographical distribution of the various septs.Cf. Butler, , p. 22. All the six maps in Carew Manuscript 625 would appear to be in the same hand (which seems to be identical with that of the manuscript) although occasionally a later hand has added more names, e.g., in the general map of Kerry, the later form Valentia (corruption of Bél Inse) has been written under the original Dariry.Bél Inse proper is the harbour or channel on the east side. We may take it that the surveying for the maps was carried out at the time the information for the report was being collected. Though the map-maker may well have got help from earlier maps, these maps reproduced below were obviously made specially for the survey.

The late sixteenth century is a period of exceptional interest in the history of cartography.46 See G. A. Hayes-McCoy, ed., intro., esp. pp. xi and xv; John Andrews, pp. 5, 7. More advanced techniques were being used, even though the kind of competence typified by Petty was still a long way off. The maps in the survey exhibit that combination of picture, survey and map characteristic of the period. In general it may be said that, considering the remoteness and difficulty of the area surveyed, these maps are extremely good. Our cartographer may not have had Bartlett's expertise or sophistication, but he gives us much more information about late sixteenth-century Kerry than Bartlett does about Ulster in the same period.Compare the detail of these maps with Bartlett's maps in Hayes-McCoy, . We cannot be sure what surveying methods and implements were used: possibly a compass, perhaps only a system of simple triangulation. The latter was practised since the early part of the sixteenth century but it is very doubtful whether our cartographer used the plane table which came into general use only about 1590. But accurate visual observation compensated in large measure for the lack of technical knowledge and equipment.

The general map of Kerry and Desmond48 This map (which distinguishes the baronies by different colours) shows Kerry north of the river Maine, that is, the former Geraldine territory, as well as Desmond proper. was intended as background reference for the five barony maps, the purpose of which, as has been said above, was to illustrate the place-names in the text and to show the extent of the different lands of the free-holders, distinguished by letters or numbers as well as by the use of different colours.The maps may well have had the secondary purpose of adding to Elizabethan military knowledge of a remote part of Ireland. After nearly four centuries, the colours (varying shades of yellow, green and red) are still remarkably vivid and the lettering surprisingly clear.Hickson (), p. 255) in 1874 and Butler (, p. II) in the early 1920s, were both very impressed by the condition of the maps. Unfortunately, it was not possible to arrange colour reproduction of the maps for the present volume. Churches, abbeys and castles are represented by stylized drawings. Particularly important churches and abbeys are given a special symbol—e.g., Kilmore in the Dariry map (this map is of special interest, with its large scale, it clear pictorial symbols and its particularly fresh colouring). Castles like Dunkerron and Castleisland are shown as ringed around by a rectangular or circular fort. Unroofed buildings probably indicate a derelict state at the time of mapping. Wooded areas are represented pictorially while mountains are shown in pictorial elevation or perspective, a series of inverted V s which are intended to convey the impression of height. As Kerry is exceptionally mountainous, these curved lines are everywhere.

We have referred to the keen eye of the cartographer. The Skelligs are drawn impressionistically, just as they appear to a mainland observer—towering rocks jutting out of the sea, though shown perhaps too near the coast. The Kerry coastline is drawn with reasonable accuracy but the location of islands is sometimes erroneous (e.g. in Ballinskelligs bay). The island of Valentia is badly orientated in the four maps in which it is shown, and the drawing of the baronies is frequently rough-and-ready. Barony boundaries, however, were not well defined at the time.It should be noted that the limits of sixteenth-century baronies do not always correspond to those of today. From the maps it appears that Glanbehy, which is today in Iveragh, was at this time in Dunkerron. Attention must also be drawn to an apparent discrepancy in demarcation of lands between the separate Dariry map and that part of the Iveragh map which shows the same island. The former shows lands of the earl of Clancarthy which the latter assigns to Thomas Denny and to Domhnall MacCarthy, i.e., the latter map shows the position after the earl had assigned these lands, by mortgage or otherwise (see sects. 6 and 7 of the text).

Some other features of the maps call for a brief comment. The conventional compass directions (top of map to north, etc.) are not observed, and the elaborate compass roses found in other maps of the same period are lacking.See the maps in Hayes-McCoy, Indeed, artistic embellishment in general is at a minimum. With the exception of the general map of Kerry and Desmond, each of the maps is circular in shape and this must be regarded as a survival of the archaic method of drawing the world, and portions thereof, in a circular frame. It should also be noted that the original maps are of varying size, the Dariry map being drawn within a comparatively small circle and the Dunkerron map being by far the largest. None of the mans attempts to show a scale and there are no initials or signatures to indicate authorship.

The four surviving maps (Kerry and Desmond; Glanerought; Magunihy, and Dariry) in the Petworth manuscript closely resemble their counterparts in Carew Manuscript 625. The Petworth maps are also coloured. They lack, however, the additions in a later hand which are so obvious in the Carew maps and to which reference has already been made. It is of interest that when Dunlop was making his catalogue of sixteenth-century maps he noted the reference in the sixth of the Historical Manuscripts Commission to the Petworth maps.Robert Dunlop, Sixteenth Century Maps of Ireland, , XX (1905), 323. However, it is clear that he did not inspect these maps and he seems to have known nothing of the existence of the Carew maps.

While the maps reproduced in the present volume have never before been published, mention must be made of the maps of Glanerought, Dariry and Iveragh which appear as an appendix to Hickson's .Hickson, . Miss Hickson's reference to the originals as belonging to Carew MS 635 is erroneous. She regrets (p. 256) not being able to give the maps of Magunihy and Dunkerron. Her Glanerought map was reproduced by the marquis of Lansdowne in his , facing p. 31. When collating the name-forms of townlands in Iveragh, An Seabhac constantly cites Carew Maps for late sixteenth-century references: unfortunately, the references are really to the mangled name-versions in the Hickson maps and are therefore valueless. An Seabhac would have found the originals of very great use and interest:Uí Ráthach. Ainmneacha na mBailte Fearainn sa Bharúntacht, , XXIII (1954), 3-69. Miss Hickson states that her maps have been taken from the Carew maps. This must be interpreted to mean free adaptations and in no sense copies or reproductions. The lines of division in the originals have been greatly over-simplified, the keys to the maps have been transposed and considerable liberties taken with captions and titles. Moreover, the draughtsman was obviously unfamiliar with the script of the originals so that many words were badly garbled in transcription. Some of the misreadings are quite inexplicable and would have been obviated by a consultation of a modern map of Kerry. The Hickson maps, then, are of no historical value.

The references to currency and coinage occurring throughout the text, as well as in the Desmond and Peyton Surveys, (half face money, old money, sterling, legal money of England) call for some comment.I am indebted to Dr. William O'Sullivan, National Museum of Ireland, and to Mr. R. H. M. Dolley, Queen's University, Belfast, for their expert and generous information on this difficult subject. For currency and coinage references in the Desmond and Peyton surveys, see subject index there, s.v. Money. Two studies of interest in this general field are: R. H. M. Dolley, Elizabethan Bungal, , XXXVI (1967) and Dolley and MacNiocaill, Some Coin-names in Ceart Ui Neill, , II. The background here is the successive debasement of the Irish coinage begun by Henry VIII and continued by his successors. Elizabeth I partially restored the standard for Irish silver coins in 1561 but lightened the weights. There was a somewhat similar development in English silver coinage during the Tudor period.

Old money or half face money almost certainly refers to the English silver issues of Henry VIII struck on the sterling standard of 92.5 per cent pure silver. These coins carried the king's head in profile as distinct from the later issues of the same on a debased standard, where the portrait was full face or nearly so. As only half the face could be seen when struck in profile, the term half face was a convenient one for distinguishing the profile issue from the later, or full face, issue. But there were, in fact, two English issues of silver on the sterling standard of Henry VIII. In the first (1509-26), they were based on a penny weighing 12 grains. In the second (1526-44), sometimes called the Wolsey coinage, the silver issues were based on a penny of 10 2/3 grains weight. It is this latter issue which is referred to in the survey as half face or old money.

The term legal money of England refers to the standard in force in England at the date of the survey, which was the sterling standard restored by Elizabeth in 1561.A reference to the new issue occurs in Elizabeth I's instructions to Sussex, 22 May 1561, p. 311. See also documents on introduction of new money to Ireland, given in , ed. S. H. O'Grady, II, 335-42. The silver coinage in this restored sterling standard was, however, based on a penny weighing 8 grains. Therefore the bullion ratio of the old money to the Elizabethan standard money (legal money of England) was 10 2/3 to 8, i.e., 32 to 24, or 4 to 3. In other words, one-third would have to be added to any quantity of this Elizabethan English money to make it equal in bullion value to the same quantity of old or half face money of Henry VIII.Cf. a document of 1592 in pp. 71-2, where halfe-face money is defined as the third part better than sterling. We may assume that where old money or half-face money is not specifically mentioned, a money reference relates to the then existing currency in the sterling standard at 8 grains to the penny.

The white groat is continually used in the monetary calculations in the survey. These groats are probably the debased Irish issues struck by Elizabeth in 1558 and possibly other debased issues struck before that by Mary (1554) and Philip and Mary (1555-58). All of these had only a 25 per cent silver content. The proclamations or orders defining these have not been discovered but the general average weights were about 8 grains to the penny for Mary, 12 grains to the penny for Philip and Mary, and 12 grains for Elizabeth. This would give a silver content varying from about 2½ to 3 grains per penny. Simon in his James Simon, , pp. 36-8. states that the 1558 silver was recoined from English base issues. The English penny at 8 grains sterling would have roughly 7½ grains of silver and the bullion ratio of it to the Irish base penny would be roughly three to one (7½ to 2½), the tendency being to value the debased coinage at the lowest standard. This would reduce the value of the Irish base groat (nominally 4d ) to 1⅓ pence (⅓ of 4d ) in terms of the restored coinage of sterling standard of Elizabeth: in other words, 3 white groats would be equal to 4d in new sterling money. This is precisely the value of the white groat that one establishes by calculation from internal evidence in the survey.

What has been said may be illustrated from a passage in the survey where reference is made to a cuddy or refection of a sopper and breakefast for the earle of Clancartie or els in lieu thereof five markes old money which amountcth to iiijli viijs viijd ij w[hite] g[roats].Sect. 82. Since a mark was two-thirds of a pound,For how mark came to have this meaning, see five marks old money was five times 13s 4d, or £3 6s 8d in old money. To get the equivalent of this sum in Elizabethan standard money, one-third (or £1 2s 2 2/3d ) has to be added. Thus we get £4 8s l0 2/3d, or £4 8s 8d and 2 white groats (worth 1 1/3d each). This may seem a strange method of keeping accounts but the white groat was in plentiful supply and had to be fitted into monetary calculations.Sometimes the white groat seems to have been ignored in calculations. See, for example, sects. 118-21 where five marks half face are equated to £4 8 s 8 d . The value of the white groat at 1 1/3 d is referred to by Fynes Moryson, , II, 139: Also they had white groats which were coyned for four pence but of such base allay as nine of them were given for an English shilling.

All the calculations in the survey, as well as the individual and group tots, have been thoroughly checked and it has been found that, with very few exceptions, the scribal accounting is accurate. Such arithmetical anomalies as do occur are dealt with in footnotes to the text. The gross total at the end is a correct tot of the group totals given throughout the survey.