The Mascury family of mediaeval Nottingham lived and worked in the town c.1400- 1530. The evidence from the Nottingham Borough Records and Court Rolls suggests that they were a well-respected, wealthy family of butchers with at least four generations of the family engaged in the family business. For over 100 years, the family flourished, accumulating wealth from the various butcher’s shops, market stalls, slaughterhouses, and tenements they owned. Then, in c.1530, the family disappeared. The last entry in the borough records dates from 1524. There are no more entries for the Mascurys in Nottingham in the late mediaeval period after this date.
Research into the individual members of the family, some of whom are mentioned frequently in the mediaeval records of the town, has disclosed much about family life in the mediaeval period but, moreover, has revealed some important aspects of everyday life in the mediaeval town of Nottingham.
The surname origins
The modern English surname Maskrey/Maskery is an occupational name of Norman origin. In his Dictionary of English Surnames, Percy. H. Reaney claims its derivation from ‘Macecrier’, meaning butcher. There are very strong grounds for believing this to be the case, since, in the very earliest references we find to the Maskerys, they are, in fact, butchers.
The earliest references to Maskery family in the East Midlands occur in Jeayes Derbyshire Charters. Henry Mascori was granted 3 acres of land in Foston from Roger Wyldegos in 1295. In 1316 a Henry Mascory, quite possibly the same man, witnessed a charter in Scropton, while four years later, in 1326, Robert Mascory also witnessed a charter in Foston. Percy. H. Reaney lists Henry Maskery, the earliest known spelling of modern surname, paying tax in Derbyshire in 1327.
After these few records, references in the East Midlands dry up until the 15th and 16th centuries when the Mascury family emerge in the town of Nottingham.
There may be some significance in the fact that most of the earliest references to the Maskerys were within a short distance of major Norman strongholds. The castles at Nottingham and Tutbury date from 1068 and 1071 respectively, and both are within a stone’s throw of good, prime grazing lands. The cattle and sheep grazed there were undoubtedly used to supply meat for the nobility and the townsfolk alike.
1 Follow up the references in the end notes on page 29
Maskrey, Maskery & many more
Like many surnames, the spelling of the name Maskery and Maskrey changed, not just from generation to generation, but often from record to record. This was almost certainly due to the fact that many of the records were written by people who heard and translated its spelling differently, but it becomes plainly obvious that the records speak of the same family and, often, the same person. The spellings the reader will encounter during this brief story are Mascury, Mascory, Maskree, Mascre, Mascurie, Maskary, Maskere, Maskaray
