An Oxford Brasiers' Dispute of the 1390s: Evidence for Brass-Making in Medieval England

Abstract

A contract of 1392 between two Oxford brasiers, with an account of the ensuing dispute, provides important evidence for the organization of the medieval brasier's craft andfor technical aspects of his trade. One brasier employed another to make pots, bells and fawtys (probably faucets) for a flat payment by weight. The master-brasier provided the raw materials, comprising scrap brass on the one hand, and graycober (perhaps antimonial copper) and stelebake (probably zinc-bearing calamine ore so called from the place Stolberg) on the other. This, with newly discovered references to the importation of calamys and calamin in 1384, provides the first evidence yet found for the making of brass in England from its raw materials.