From the privy day-book of T. Lyster, secretary to the Master of S. Aldate's, Oxon — Wednesday, i april 1675
This booke is mine owne, & is not the booke of the Lodgings; the entries are not for the Master his eye unless I shall my self set them before him. I write what I have seen this day in the bursarie, for the keeping of my own minde cleare, & for noe other purpose.
This day, being Wednesday in Passion-weeke, I went to the bursarie at iij of the clock upon Mr Sparke his summons concerning a matter of plate. Mr Sparke was at his desk; the booke of battels-excesses for this last week lay open upon it. He had cast his summa at the foot, & signed the same, the day before, beinge xxj s vj d, accepted to be raysed at the next audit. Below the signature, in his owne hande, in fresher inke than the column above, he had this morning added:
Mr Bourchier his excesse for this same week (xij s viij d) to be allowed, quia in officio decani iunioris fuit hac hebdomade.
I read the addition standing at his shoulder. I said noething.
Mr Sparke, observing my reading, said: Mr Lyster, will you write a word at the foot of this leaf, for the form's sake. I tooke his pen and wrote:
Vide ad statutum cap. xxiij. Decanus iunior non est officium ad quod allowance pertinet.
He read it & smyled, and turned the leaf, and asked me concerning the plate.
—
The statute is plaine: the office of junior dean is not such an office as carries allowance against battels. Mr Sparke knoweth this as well as I. The booke at the next audit will not raise the xij s viij d, because it is not in the engrossed column; it is in the addition below the signature. The audit clerke will reade the column, summe to xxj s vj d, & enter. He will not reade what standes below the foot of the leaf.
I do not write this to the Master because the auditt itself will write it, in the manner of audits, by what it doth not enter. The booke will be honest by absence. Mr Bourchier hath occupied the office of junior dean for the seven weekes of this terme & is to be reckoned to have done it well; the allowance is, in the kindlier light, the bursar his thanks; in the colder, the statute his obstacle. Between the kindlier and the colder, the auditt is silent. The silence is the institution his answer.
I have set my marginal at the foot of the leaf, that the silence be readable hereafter. The marginal was, in candour, the part the bursar wished me to write: not for the form's sake, but for the trace's. He would have me put my hand to the proofe that he had been refused, that the allowance be his alone & not the College's. I wrote what he asked, & have written here what I would not write there.
T. L., this Wednesday in Passion-weeke, 1675.