1376-05-15, Westminster

Commission of oyer and terminer to Michael de la Pole, chivaler, Master Geoffrey le Scrope, John de Stafford, clerk, Roger de Kirketon, Henry Asty, William Bussy, Thomas de Kidale, Robert de Morton, John Poucher and John de Boys on complaint by the citizens of Lincoln, for themselves and merchants of the city of York and the towns of Notyngham, Kyngeston-upon-Hull and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and other merchants, as also for the commonalties of divers counties, whereby it has come to the king's ears that a dyke called Fosdyke, extending from the water of Trente to the city of Lincoln, by which ships and boats with merchandise and victuals used to pass to and from that city, is now obstructed by some of those parts who have meadows and pastures on both sides of the dyke taking their cattle in the summer across the dyke to pasture, and also by grass growing therein in unusual quantity and the rising of the sand there, so that there now is no passage for ships and boats.