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The lost cartulary of Abbotsbury

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Simon Keynes
Simon Keynes
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Extract

The buildings and lands of Abbotsbury abbey in Dorset were acquired by Sir Giles Strangways soon after the dissolution of the abbey in 1539, various records pertaining to the abbey's estates seem to have passed into Sir Giles' possession at about the same time. Among these records was a cartulary, which is known to have belonged to Sir Giles' descendant, Sir John Strangways, in the seventeenth century, but which is said to have been destroyed when parliamentary forces set fire to Sir John's house at Abbotsbury during the Civil War. It is possible, however, to reconstruct something of the nature and contents of the lost cartulary from the writings of certain seventeenth-century antiquaries, and in the process to recover parts of the texts of six Anglo-Saxon charters whose existence has not previously been recorded.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 18 , December 1989 , pp. 207 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

1 I am indebted to Sarah Bridges, Senior Assistant Archivist in the Dorset County Record Office at Dorchester, for her invaluable help in the gathering of material from the Fox-Strangways (Ilchester) archive; to Laurence Keen, for much guidance on matters to do with Dorset; to Susan Kelly for chasing hares in the Bodleian Library; and to Robin Fleming and Katie Mack for their constructive comments.

2 S 1727. In references to Anglo-Saxon charters, S = Sawyer, P.H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography, R. Hist. Soc. Guides and Handbooks 8 (London, 1968) followed by the number of the document; BCS =Google ScholarBirch, W. de G., Cartularium Saxonicum, 3 vols. (London, 1885–1993); KCD =Google ScholarKemble, J.M., Codex Diplomatieus Aevi Saxonici, 6 vols. (London 1839–1948); and OSFact. =Google ScholarSanders, W.B., Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, 3 vols. (Ordnance Survey, Southampton, 1878–1984).Google Scholar

3 See Scott, J., The Early History of Glastonbury: an Edition, Translation and Study of William of Malmesbury's ‘De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie’ (Woodbridge, 1981), pp. 116 and 142.Google Scholar

4 See S. Keynes, The ‘Liber Terrarum’ of Glastonbury Abbey, Stud. in Anglo-Saxon Hist. (Woodbridge, forthcoming).

5 S 969 (KCD 741): OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 2.

6 S 969 (grant by Cnut of land at Horton to Bovi, his thegn) and S 97 5 (grant by Cnut of land at Corscombe to Sherborne abbey); see Charters of Sherborne, ed. O'Donovan, M. A., AS Charters 3 (London, 1988), nos. 20 and 16 respectively.Google Scholar

7 S 993 (KCD 762), concerning land in Berkshire.

8 S 1004 (KCD 772): OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 3.

9 S 999 (KCD 767) and 1010 (KCD 778), both concerning land in Wiltshire. Cf. Barlow, F., Edward the Confessor (London, 1970). p. 75.Google Scholar

10 See further below, pp. 222 and 236.

11 S 1063 (Harmer, F.E., Anglo-Saxon Writs (Manchester, 1957), no. 1).Google Scholar

12 OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 4 (facsimile, text and translation); KCD 942 (text); Thorpe, B., Diplomatarium Anglicum Ævi Saxonici (London, 1865), pp. 605–8 (text and translation);Google ScholarEnglish Historical Documents c. 500–1042, ed. Whitelock, D., 2nd ed. (London, 1979), no. 139 (translation). See alsoGoogle ScholarRosser, G., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Gilds’, Minsters and Parish Churches: the Local Church in Transition 950–1200, ed. Blair, J. (Oxford, 1988), pp. 31–4.Google Scholar

13 S 1064 (Harmer, Writs, no. 2)

14 See London, British Library, Cotton Cleopatra B. ix (a late-thirteenth-century manuscript from Abbotsbury, with a calendar), 59V and 57r. The dedication of the church itself was commemorated on 12 October (59r).

15 ‘A further hide at Abbotsbury, said to have been ad uictum monachorum TRE, had been appropriated by Hugh fitz Grip, sheriff of Dorset, and was still held by Hugh’s wife at the time of the Survey.

16 A further virgate at Portesham, said to have been ad uictum monachorum TRE, had similarly been appropriated by Hugh fitz Grip, and was held by Hugh's wife at the time of the Survey.

17 DB i. 78rv (A History of the County of Dorset, Victoria Hist, of the Counties of Eng. ]hereafter VCH Dorset[ III (London, 1968), 79–81).Google Scholar

18 DB i. 79r. The estate was held by three thegns TRE, but owed renders to Abbotsbury; it passed into the hands of Hugh fitz Grip, who never paid the renders, and who (or whose wife) gave the land itself to St Mary's, Montivilliers (for which grant, see Gallia Christiana xi (Paris, 1759), Appendix, cols. 329–30).Google Scholar

19 DB i. 83v. An estate of two hides at Little Cheselbourne was held by two thegns TRE, and by the wife of Hugh fitz Grip TRW; Hugh's men said that he had held the land from the abbot of Abbotsbury, though the abbot denied it. This is likely to mean the land was the abbey's property (perhaps leased to the thegns), and that although Hugh's men claimed that he had held it with the abbot's permission, in fact he had taken control of it against the abbot’s will. A tenth-century charter which is apparently a title-deed for this estate was preserved in the Abbotsbury archive (below, p. 220).

20 Of course it is uncertain exactly which estates constituted the founders’ endowment. In 1212 the abbot is recorded as holding Abbotsbury, Portesham, Hilton, Tolpuddle and Wootton, ‘que data fuerunt per Ore et Tolam uxorem suam’ (The Book of Fees commonly called Testa de Nevill, 3 vols. (London, 1920–1931) 1, 92).Google Scholar

21 There may, however, have been more to Ore than meets the eye: see below, pp. 230–1.

22 For accounts of Abbotsbury abbey, see Hutchins, J., The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, 2 vols. (London, 1774), 1, 532–41 (3rd ed., ed. Shipp, W. and Hodson, J.W., 4 vols. (London, 1861–1874) II. 714–37);Google ScholarMoule, H.J., ‘Abbotsbury Abbey’, Proc, of the Dorset Natural Hist. and Antiq. Field Club 8 (1886), 38–48Google ScholarVCH Dorset 11 (London, 1908), 48–53;Google ScholarMoule, W.S., Abbotsbury: the Parish Church, the Abbey and Other Points of Interest, 4th ed. (Abbotsbury, 1965);Google ScholarRoyal Commission on Historical Monuments, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset i (London, 1952), 1–11;Google ScholarKeen, L., in ArchJ 140 (1983), 21–4. Translations and transcripts of a series of documents relating to Abbotsbury's history from the eleventh century to the sixteenth (and beyond) were printed by the fifth earl of llchester in 1888, in connection with a lawsuit against some local fishermen: see The Earl of Ilchester v. Kaishley and Others: Plaintiff's Documents of Title, High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, no. 1–56 (1888), andGoogle ScholarAtkinson, E. H. Tindal, ‘Some Abbotsbury Records’, Proc. of the Dorset Natural Hist, and Antiq. Field Club 48 (1927), 70–85. The majority of the documents were derived from Lord Ilchester's own muniments, and these are now in the Dorset County Record Office at Dorchester (Fox-Strangways (Ilchester) Archive [D.124]); others were derived from the Public Record Office.Google Scholar

23 Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum 1066–1154 I, ed. Davis, H.W.C. (Oxford, 1913), no. 108; see also Harmer, Writs, pp. 119–20. For William I's vernacular writs, seeGoogle ScholarKeynes, S., ‘Regenbald the Chancellor (sic)’, Anglo-Norman Studies X, ed. Brown, R.A. (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 185–222, at 217; a date for the writ early in the Conqueror's reign is suggested by the fact that its addressees include two English thegns, Brihtwig and Scewine, apparently representing local authority before the appointment of Hugh fitz Grip. See further below, p. 219, n. 68.Google Scholar

24 For Hugh fitz Grip's activities in Dorset, see A. Williams, ‘Introduction to the Dorset Domesday’, VCH Dorset III, 1–60, at 6–7 and 37.

25 Regesta i, no. 109, issued (in Latin) between 1066 and 1078, and addressed to Bishop Hermann and Hugh fitz Grip.

26 Regesta i, no. 203, issued (in Latin) between 1078 and 1084, and addressed to Bishop Osmund and Hugh fitz Grip.

27 Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum 1066–1154 11, ed.Johnson, C. and Cronne, H. A. (Oxford, 1956), no. 754.Google Scholar

28 Regesta Regum Anglo-Normaimorum 1066–1154 iii, ed. Cronne, H.A. and Davis, R.H.C. (Oxford, 1968), no. 1.Google Scholar

29 See Calendar of the Charter Rolls ii (London, 1906), 132. The original writ of Henry II is in the Strangways archive (Ilchester v. Kaisbliy, no. 4a); it is not recorded inGoogle ScholarBishop, T.A.M., Scriptores Regis (Oxford, 1961), or inGoogle ScholarActa of Henry II and Richard I, ed. Holt, J.C. and Mortimer, R., List & Index Soc., Special Ser. 21 (1986). I am grateful to Professor Tom Keefe for guidance on the apparent date of the writ.Google Scholar

30 The original Inspeximus charter of Henry III is in the Strangways archive (Ilchester v. Raisbley, no. 6b; ptd Hutchins, History of Dorset (3rd ed.) 11, 753–4). There is a copy in London, Public Record Office, Charter Rolls, 54 Henry III (C53/59), membrane 14: Calendar of the Charter Rolls II, 131–2 (omitting the witnesses who are named in the original).

31 PRO, Charter Rolls, 8 Edward II (C53/101), membrane 3, no. 5; Calendar of the Charter Rolls iii (London, 1908), 274–5; translated, from the PRO text, in Ilchester y.Raishley, no. 10a.Google Scholar

32 See Hutchins, History of Dorset (3rd ed.) 11, 717, citing PRO, Originalia Rolls, 30 Edw. III (E371/115). rot. 64.

33 The original Inspeximus charter of the Duke of Gloucester is in the Strangways archive (Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 17a). It was issued at Abbotsbury itself, and was presumably based on the (lost) original of Edward II's Inspeximus charter (of which, however, it gives only an abbreviated text).

34 PRO, Confirmation Roll, 6–10 Henry VII (C56/23), no. I; translated, from the PRO text, in Ilchester v. Raishley no. 19a. For the charter of Henry III, see Calendar of the Charter Rolls 11, 181.

35 The original of this Inspeximus was apparently preserved in the Strangways archive in the early seventeenth century; see further below, p.219, n.68.

36 The original Inspeximus charter of John Woodhall is in the Strangways archive (Ilchester v. Raisbley, no. 20a). It was issued at Abbotsbury; but it does not cite any of the earlier texts directly.

37 Joannis Lelandi Antiquarii De Rebus Britannicis Collectanea, ed. Hearne, T., 6 vols., 2nd ed. (London, 1774) iv, 149–50. For a list of surviving books from the abbey, seeGoogle ScholarKer, N.R., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, R. Hist. Soc. Guides and Handbooks 3, 2nd ed. (London, 1964), 1; one is described byGoogle ScholarKauffmann, C.M., Romanesque Manuscripts 1066–1190 (London, 1975), PP. 112–13 (no. 87).Google Scholar

38 PRO, Deeds of Surrender, no. 1 (E322/1). The charter is sealed with an impression made from a much earlier seal-matrix, depicting an ecclesiastical building (illustrated in Hutchins, History of Dorset (3rd ed.) 11, 719); Ellis, R.H., Catalogue of Seals in the Public Record Office: Monastic Seals 1 (London, 1986), 1 (M005), andGoogle ScholarBirch, W. de G., Catalogue of Seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols. (London, 1887–1900) 1, 422 (no. 2539). Dr Sandy Heslop advises me that the matrix would appear to date from the late eleventh or early twelfth century. For an account of the abbey's holdings at the Dissolution, seeGoogle ScholarValor Ecclesiasticus Temp. Henr. VIII. Auctoritate Regia Institutus, 6 vols. (London, 1810–1834) 1, 227–30; its total income was just over £400.Google Scholar

39 A Strangways chantry was established at Abbotsbury in 1505 (see below, p. 235).

40 See Ilchester v. Raishley, nos. 21a–24a, for (translations of) the documents pertaining to Sir Giles' acquisition of Abbotsbury. Leland visited Sir Giles at Melbury, c. 1540; but there is no evidence that he went to Abbotsbury on this occasion. See The Itinerary of John Leland 1, ed. Smith, L. Toulmin (London, 1907), 247–8.Google Scholar

41 The original letter is in the Strangways archive (Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 25a).

42 The contents of rooms in the houses at Melbury and Abbotsbury are itemized in great detail in the inventory of Sir Giles' personal estate drawn up (shortly after his death) in 1547; see S.E. B[ridges], ‘Inventory of Sir Giles Strangways 1547’, Dorset County Record Office (Dorchester, 1986). There is no reference to muniments in either house; but perhaps they were not considered part of the personal estate.

43 For the Strangways family in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see the documents of the period assembled in Ilchester. Raishley, see also Hutchins, History of Dorset I, 506–16 (3rd ed., II, 656–82), and the earl of Ilchester, ‘The Abbotsbury Swannery’, Proc. of the Dorset Nat. Hist. and Archaeol. Soc. 55 (1933), 154–64, at 156–62.Google Scholar

44 Recte great-great-grandfather.

45 Perhaps the Inspeximus of 8 Henry VIII (1516); see below, p.219, n.68.

46 The memorandum is preserved in the Strangways archive (D.124/BOX 233); endorsed ';A note of Evydences delyvered by Mr Robert Langryshe unto Sir Georg Trenchard for Jo: Strangwayes Esquire', and dated 29 March 1604.

47 For an account of the Muniment Room at Melbury House, see RCHM, Inventory i, 164–7, at 167.

48 Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 34a.

49 Sir William Pole's ‘Book of Evidences’ remains in the possession of Col. Sir John Carew Pole, Bt, at Antony House, Torpoint, Cornwall (and is accessible through the Cornwall Record Office). The Abbotsbury document (dated 1279, and concerning Nicholas de la Strode and the manor of Tolpuddle) occurs in Oxford, The Queen's College, MS. 152 (said to be a copy of Pole's book made in 1608 by Ralph Brooke, York Herald), 223r; on this manuscript, see Coxe, H.O., Catalogus Codicum MSS. qui in Collegiis Aulisque Oxoniensibus Hodie Adservantur, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1852) 1, [The Queen's College] 29–30, andGoogle ScholarBatten, J., ‘Arms of De Mandeville of Coker-Sir William Pole's MSS.’, Notes & Queries for Somerset and Dorset 4 (1894–1895), 170–3.Google Scholar

50 Paper preserved in the Strangways archive (Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 37a (but not printed there)); endorsed ‘A Note of Evidence to be shewne for the liberties of Abbottesbury 1619’.

51 See further, below, pp. 221–34.

52 A scrap of paper in the Strangways archive (below, p. 217, n. 59) is headed ‘A Note of the writings in this Box the 11 th of February 1636. JS.’ Some of Strangways'endorsements on the single-sheet charters in his archive may date from this period.

53 See Bayley, A.R., The Great Civil War in Dorset 1642–1660 (Taunton, 1910), pp. 70–1.Google Scholar

54 Vicars, J., The Burning-Bush Not Consumed, or, the Fourth and Last Part of the Parliamentarie-Chronicle (London, 1646), pp. 67–8; see also Bayley, Civil War in Dorset, pp. 227–9.Google Scholar

55 Memoirs, Letters, and Speeches of Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Chancellor, ed. Christie, W.D. (London, 1859), pp. 97–100, andGoogle ScholarChristie, W.D., A Life of Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury 1621–1683, 2 vols. (London, 1871) 1, 62–4. See alsoGoogle ScholarHaley, K.H.D., The First Earl of Shaftesbury (Oxford, 1968), pp. 51–3.Google Scholar

56 See Bayley, Civil War in Dorset, pp. 30–1, 291, 295, 400 and 417. Sir John's elder son, Giles, was imprisoned with him; but James, the younger son, seems to have escaped, writing to his mother in January 1647 excusing his secret departure to avoid arrest, and again, from La Rochelle in July 1647, requesting an increase in his allowance; both letters are preserved in the Strangways archive.

57 At Melbury, Strangways wrote a perambulatory poem about his various estates (including Abbotsbury), which reveals that after his release he was not allowed to go beyond five miles from his house. The poem, dated 1 May 1650, is printed in theProc. of the Dorset Nat. Hist. and Archaeol. Soc. 54 (1952), lvii–lxiv; on reading it to the Society in 1932, the then Lord Ilchester ‘felt that perhaps his ancestor was considering more the quantity of his property than the quantities of his verses’.Google Scholar

58 See further below, p. 237, n. 150.

59 A copy of an Inquisition, dated 13 October 1427, finding that the abbot of Abbotsbury was entitled to the water known as the Fleet (i.e. the water behind Chesil Beach), is preserved in the Strangways archive (Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 15a); preserved with it is the scrap of paper which was to be used as a box-list in 1636 (above, p. 215, n. 52), and which is endorsed ‘The Seales of the Inquisition for the Fleet weare Torne off when my howse was plundred att Melbury in the yeare 1644. J. Strangways 1644’.

60 See further below, pp. 235–8.

61 See Ilchester v. Raishley, nos. 49–53.

62 Draft of letter from Strangways to Dr Exton, in the Strangways archive (Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 55a).

63 Letter from Strangways to Bestland, in the Strangways archive (Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 20a);

64 Letter from Bestland to Strangways, in the Strangways archive; it would appear that Bestland intended to seek help in this connection from ‘Mr Dugdale’, but in the event did not do so. Bestland reported again in February 1663 (Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 56a).

65 The original document is in the Strangways archive (Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 56b); drawn up by Bestland himself, who adds at the bottom, ‘I doe acknowledge that theis Deeds and Copies are in my handes’.

66 Presumably Cnut's charter granting Portesham to Ore (S 961), supplied faute de mieux; but see also below, p. 242, n. 165.

67 Presumably the Abbotsbury guild statutes (OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 4), which are endorsed ‘An old Saxon Deed concerning Abbotsbury. 11’, in what appears to be Sir John Strangways’ hand.

68 This paper is preserved in the Strangways archive. It is a translation, evidently by Sir Henry Spelman, of the three vernacular writs concerning Abbotsbury (Harmer, Writs, nos. 1–2, and Regesta 1, no. 108), headed ‘The English of the Saxon Charters confirmed by Inspeximus to the Abbot of Abbotesbury An. 8 Hen 8’. The original Inspeximus does not survive, and there seems to be no sign of a copy in the only surviving Confirmation Roll for 8 Hen. VIII (PRO, C56/5 3). That the translation is Spelman's is indicated by the hand (which appears to be his), and by the direction given for further explication of legal terms to ‘my Glossarie’ (published in 1626). It seems possible that Henry VIII's Inspeximus took its text of the writs from a source other than the Inspeximus of Edward II (or Henry VII); for in place of the garbled ‘swa hit þeder in furð Ore leg’ (Regesta 1, no. 108; cf. Harmer, Writs, p. 120, n. 1), Spelman's translation reads ‘as they were hither disposed by Urks widowe’, which makes good sense.

69 The paper records included ‘The copie of a Record in the Tower for confirmation of the Saxon and other Charters conteyning 12 sheets’, and ‘Another Copie out of the Tower translateing the Saxon Deeds, conteyning 6 sheets’. Both documents survive in the Strangways archive, and are derived from the Inspeximus of Edward II.

70 Bestland's list (Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 56b) is endorsed (by an different hand): ‘The 11th December 1663. Delivered Mr. Charles Moore the Register of the Admiralty Court, 10 Deeds of Sir John Strangways in a Box, and six Paper Records out of the Tower and att the Rolls and out of Mr. Fawconbridge's office. And the Cause assigned for heareing the first Court day in next Terme.’

71 See Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 53.

72 Hutchins, History of Dorset I, 515 (3rd ed., 11, 679).

73 Fox-Strangways (Ilchester) Archive [D.124]. See contributions by Laurence Keen and others in The Archives of Dorset: a Catalogue of an Exhibition to Mark the First 30 Years of the Dorset Record Office (Dorchester, 1986).Google Scholar

74 S756 (BCS 1165): OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 1 (facsimile, text and translation). For discussion of the bounds, see Grundy, G.B., ‘Saxon Charters of Dorset’, Proc. of the Dorset Nat. Hist. & Archaeol. Soc. 56 (1934), 110–30, at 129–30; see alsoGoogle ScholarFagersten, A., The Place-Names of Dorset (Uppsala, 1933), p. 177. The charter may relate to the two hides at (Little) Cheselbourne (in Puddletown), in which Abbotsbury had some interest (above, p. 209, n. 19); the other Cheselbourne in Dorset was a Shaftesbury estate.Google Scholar

75 S 961 (KCD 741): OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 2 (facsimile, text and translation); Ilchester. v. Raishley, no. Ia (translation).See Grundy, G.B., ‘Saxon Charters of Dorset’, Proc. of the Dorset Nat. Hist, & Archaeol. Soc. 59 (1937), 95–118, at 113–18.Google Scholar

76 S 1004 (KCD 772): OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 3 (facsimile, text and translation). See Hart, C., ‘Some Dorset Charter Boundaries’, Proc. of the Dorset Nat. Hist.&Archaeol. Soc. 86 (1964), 158–63, at 161–3. Hart states that Kemble printed the charter ‘from the lost Abbotsbury cartulary then in the possession of the Earl of Ilchester’; but Kemble himself states that he used Lord Ilchester’s single sheets (KCD vi, xxiv).Google Scholar

77 OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 4 (facsimile, text and translation); Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 2a (translation).

78 OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 5 (facsimile, text and translation); Ilchester v. Raishley, no. 3a (translation, by John Mitchell Kemble). See further below, pp. 228–9.

79 Collectanea, ed. Hearne, IV, 149 (and cf. 1, 66).

80 For an account of the genesis of this work, see Knowles, M.D., in Powicke, M. et al. , ‘The Value of Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Scholarship to Modern Historical Research’, English Historical Scholarship in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Fox, L. (London, 1956), pp. 115–27, at 119–23. The Apostolatus is based on the collections of Augustine (David) Baker (1575–1641), which are now on deposit at the Bodleian Library; see Coxe, Catalogus Codicum MSS. 11, [Jesus College] 25–30. There is no obvious sign of any Abbotsbury material.Google Scholar

81 C. Reyner, Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia, sive disceptatio historica de antiquitate ordinis monachorum nigrorum S. Benedicti in regno Angliœ (Douai, 1626), tract. 2, sect. 6, memb. 3 (p. 132).

82 The word economus is glossed stiward an eleventh-century glossary (N.R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), no. 2, art.d).

83 See below, p. 237, n. 148.

84 For Gerard's survey of Dorset, see Coker, J., A Survey of Dorsetshire (London, 1732); his authorship of the work was established byGoogle ScholarBatten, J., ‘Who Wrote Coker’s Survey of Dorsetshire?’, Notes & Queries for Somerset and Dorset 5 (1896–7), 97–102. For his survey of Somerset, see The Particular Description of the County of Somerset, Drawn up by Thomas Gerard of Trent, 1633, ed. E.H. Bates, Somerset Record Soc. 15 (1900).Google ScholarSee also Bates, E.H., ‘Thomas Gerard of Trent, his Family and his Writings’, Proc. of the Dorset Nat. Hist.&Antiq. Field Club 35, (1914), 557–70;Google ScholarSandison, A., Trent in Dorset (Dorchester, 1969), pp. 35–42; Coker's Survey of Dorsetshire, with an Afterword by R. Legg (Milborne Port, 1980), pp. 171–5; andGoogle ScholarDeakin, Q.E., ‘The Early County Historians of Wales and Western England, c. 1570–1656’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Univ. of Wales, 1981), pp. 301–20. There is a mid-seventeenth-century fair copy of the survey of Dorset in the Bodleian Library (MS. Top. Dorset C.1 (SC 30701)); the text published in 1732 was printed from another seventeenth-century copy, now in the Dorset County Record Office (Bond family archive [D.413]).Google Scholar

85 See Description of Somerset, ed. Bates, pp. 83, 84 and 86. Most interestingly, in connection with Chiselborough, Somerset, Gerard remarks: ‘my worthy friend Sir John Strangwayes now Lord of it hath an old Saxon deede of it, in which it is written Cealsberge’ (p. 86); this charter is not otherwise recorded. For Gerard at Melbury, see Coker, Survey of Dorsetshire, p. 58.

86 Cf the references (in Leland's Collectanea and Reyner’s Apostolatus) to Orc as Cnut's oeconomus.

87 ‘ Cermill Abby’ is Cerne Abbas, Dorset; see Fagersten, Place-Names of Dorset, pp. 196–7.

88 Printed here from the manuscript in the Dorset County Record Office, Bond family archive [D.413], pp. 18–19; see also Coker, Survey of Dorsetshire, pp. 30–1.

89 The coffin is further described by Hutchins (in his account of the parish church): ‘On the N. side of the altar, was a very ancient coffin of coarse black marble, with a cover of the same. It is supposed to have contained the bones of the founder of the abbey and his wife, and to have been removed hither at the Dissolution out of the conventual church, but, as present tradition says, out of the vicarage house. It was four feet and a half long, one foot and a half deep, and two feet broad, and in 1750, was deposited under ground, near the place where it once stood, there being no convenient place to receive it’ (Hutchins, History of Dorset 1,539–40 (3rd ed., 11, 728).) The coffin would perhaps have borne comparison in certain respects with the mid-twelfth-century (inscribed and decorated) tombstone of Gundrada, from the Priory of St Pancras, Lewes, Sussex (English Romanesque Art 1066–1200, ed. G. Zarnecki, et al., Exhibition Catalogue (London, 1984), no. 145), which is made of Tournai marble; I owe this reference to Laurence Keen.

90 Coker, Survey of Dorsetshire, p. 82.

91 See Adams, E.N., Old English Scholarship in England from 1566 to 1800, Yale Stud, in Eng. 55 (New Haven, 1917), 47–55.Google Scholar

92 See Gibson, E., Reliquiœ Spelmannianœ the Posthumous Works of Sir Henry Spelman Kt. Relating to the Laws and Antiquities of England (Oxford, 1698); re-issued (re-set and corrected), with some additional material, in The English Works of Sir Henry Spelman, Kt, Published in his Lifetime; together with his Posthumous Works, Relating to the haws and Antiquities of England (London, 1723).Google Scholar

93 For the wider context of Spelman's work, see H.A. Cronne, ‘The Study and Use of Charters by English Scholars in the Seventeenth Century: Sir Henry Spelman and Sir William Dugdale’, English Historical Scholarship, ed. Fox, pp. 72–91.

94 ‘Of Antient Deeds and Charters’, first published in The English Works of Sir Henry Spelman, pt 2, pp. 233–56, at 236.

95 ‘The Original, Growth, Propagation and Condition of Feuds and Tenures by Knight-Service, in England’, first published in Gibson, Reliquia Spelmanniana, pp. 1–46; reprinted, with some alterations, in The English Works of Sir Henry Spelman, pt 2, pp. 1–46.

96 For Spelman's use of this manuscript, see Liber Monasterii de Hyda, ed. E. Edwards, RS (London, 1866), pp. lxxxiv-lxxxv. The extracts are from S 865 (ibid. pp. 231–2) and 746 (ibid. pp. 202–3), and are accurately transcribed.

97 Harvard Law School, MS. 2062 (at 211V-212V); acquired by Harvard in 1936 at the sale of books from the library of Hudson Gurney (see below, p. 254), in whose collection it was part of MS. 34 (pp. 182–244). I am grateful to Professor J.H. Baker for his assistance in locating this manuscript, and to Robin Fleming for obtaining copies of the relevant pages.

98 Oxford, Bodleian Library, e. Mus. 79 (SC 3694), at pp. 47–53; sold to the University of Oxford by Spelman's grandson, Charles, in 1672 (see The Reports of Sir John Spelman, 2 vols., ed. J.H. Baker, Selden Soc. 93–4 (London, 1977–8) 1, xxi).

99 Gibson, Reliquiœ Spelmannianiœ, at pp. 19–20, and The English Works of Sir Henry Spelman, pt 2, at pp. 19–20. Gibson printed the text in 1698 from what he describes in the Preface as ‘a fair Copy in the Bodleian Library, corrected with Sir Henry Spelman’s own hand’, evidently e. Mus. 79. The account of Spelman in the Dictionary of National Biography states that the tract was the last work which he published in his lifetime (London, 1641); but I can find no trace of this edition.

100 It is used of Edgar himself in S 736 (BCS 1165), dated 965. This charter is one of the surviving single sheets from the Abbotsbury archive; but its relationship with Eadwig's charter is slight, and by no means necessarily direct.

101 See Keynes, S., The Diplomas oj King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ 978–1016: a Study in their Use as Historical Evidence (Cambridge, 1980), p. 69, n. 135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

102 See Fagersten, Place-Names of Dorset, pp. 248–50, citing no form for Shilvinghampton earlier than Domesday Book.

103 See Grundy, ‘Saxon Charters of Dorset (1937)’, pp. 113–18.

104 See Keynes, Diplomas, p. 65, n. 120.

105 For Look(e) in Puncknowle, see Fagersten, Place-Names of Dorset, pp. 251–2.

106 It may have been assessed under Bexington (held by Ailmar, TRE, and by Roger Arundel, TRW), or under Puncknowle (held by Alward, TRE, and by the wife of Hugh fitz Grip, TRW).

107 For Looke's connection with Abbotsbury, see a charter dated 1336(10 Edw. Ill, no. 41), in Calendar of Charter Rolls iv (London, 1912), 357; see also Hutchins, History of Dorset (3rd ed.) II, 717 and 726.

108 S 869 (Liber Monasteria de Hyda, ed. Edwards, pp. 238–42) and 874 (KCD 673); see Keynes, Diplomas, pp. 92–4.

109 S 1004 (KCD 772).

110 Edward's charter shares one reading (alternatim) with S 874, against Æthelred's charter; but of course it is possible that the word has dropped out of the latter in the course of transmission.

111 See O. von Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, Nomina Germanica 3 (Uppsala, 1937), 357 (for Selewine) and 354–5 (for Sæwine). It should be noted that the Sæwine who held Northleigh, Devon, TRE (DB i. 104V) is named as ‘Salwinus’ in Exon Domesday, 217r.

112 Hutchins, History of Dorset (3rd ed.) 11, 726. For Rodden, see Fagersten, Place-Names of Dorset, p. 245 (citing no form earlier than the thirteenth century).

113 OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 5 (Ilchester v. Raishley, no.3a); not printed by Kemble, and not included in Sawyer's catalogue.

114 The implications of earnode are unclear; but see Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. D. Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930), p. 178, for discussion of the verb in other contexts.

115 S 969 (Charters of Sherborne, ed. O'Donovan, no. 20).

116 For the settlements of Cnut's followers in England, see Stenton, F.M., The First Century of English Feudalism 1066–1166, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1961), pp. 120–2, and Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971). PP 413–14;Google Scholarsee also Insley, J., ‘Some Scandinavian Personal Names from South-West England’, Namn och Bygd 70 (1982), 77–93, and ‘Some Scandinavian Personal Names in South-West England from Post-Conquest Records’, Studio Anthroponymica Scandinavica 3 (1985), 237–58.Google Scholar

117 S 955 (KCD 730).

118 DB i. 78v.

119 S 961 (KCD 741).

120 S 959 (KCD 737) and 981 (Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, A.J., 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1956), no. 85).Google Scholar

121 S 975 (Charters of Sherborne, ed. O'Donovan, no. 16).

122 That Bovi founded Horton abbey was taken for granted by Stenton (Anglo-Saxon England, p. 414); but the situation is complicated by evidence that the place was patronized (if not necessarily founded) by Ordulf, son of Ordgar (see Charters of Sherborne, ed. O'Donovan, pp. lx–lxi).

123 S 993 (KCD 762), 999 (KCD 767) and 1010 (KCD 778).

124 For the incidence of ‘housecarls’ in England as a whole, see Mack, K., ‘Changing Thegns: Cnut's Conquest and the English Aristocracy’, Albion 16 (1984), 375–87, at 376, n. 5, andCrossRefGoogle ScholarHooper, N., ‘The Housecarls in England in the Eleventh Century’, Anglo-Norman Studies VII, ed. Brown, R.A. (Woodbridge, 1985), pp. 161–76, at 172–3.Google Scholar

125 Bovi is styled minister in the body of the text of the Horton charter (S 969: Charters of Sherborne, ed. O'Donovan, no. 20), but is called Cnut's huskarl in the rubric (evidently derived from the contemporary endorsement on the original single sheet). The same may have applied to Ore's Abbotsbury charter; and he is styled huskarl in Edward the Confessor's writ (S 1063: Harmer, Writs, no. 1)

126 DB i. 75r. See Hooper, ‘Housecarls’, p. 170, and Williams, ‘Introduction to the Dorset Domesday’, p. 26.

127 I do not mean to imply that Dorset was a Danish stronghold, for similar arrangements perhaps obtained elsewhere in the kingdom. It is true that the cult of St Olaf the Martyr (who died in 1030) made an early impression at Sherborne (and Exeter; see Dickins, B., “The Cult of S. Olave in the British Isles', SBVS 12 (1937–1945), 53–80, at 56–7 and 69), and there is an entry for him in the Abbotsbury calendar (cited above, p. 209, n. 14); but the popularity of the cult was widespread.Google Scholar

128 Edgar's charter is not cited in the Harvard manuscript.

129 See above, p. 219, n. 68.

130 Also preserved in the Strangways archive is a hand-written booit, bearing the title: ‘Archaismus Graphicus ab Henrico Spelmanno conscriptus in usum filiorum suorum. Anno Domini 1606.’ It contains accounts of letter-forms, and lists of abbreviations arranged alphabetically; one would like to think that Spelman inadvertently left it at Melbury, or that he presented it to Sir John Strangways.

131 S 1065 (Harmer, Writs, no. i). Elsewhere in the tract, Spelman refers to the contents of the writ in more detail: see Gibson, Reliquia Spelmanniana, p. 34.

132 See List of Catalogues of English Book Sales 1676–1900 now in the British Museum (London, 1915), pp. 27–8.Google Scholar

133 The Spelman-Gurney manuscripts are described (in detail) by Macray, W.D., ‘The Manuscripts of the late John Henry Gurney, Esq, of Keswick Hall, Norfolk’, The Manuscripts of the Duke of Beaufort, K.G., the Earl of Donoughmore, and Others, Hist. Manuscripts Commission, 12th Report, Appendix, pt 9 (London, 1891), 116–64. The Spelman-Turner manuscripts are described (in detail) inGoogle ScholarCatalogue of the Manuscript liibrary of the late Dawson Turner, Esq., Puttick and Simpson sale catalogue, 6–10 June 1859 (London, 1859); they include three volumes of Spelman's correspondence with antiquaries (Lot 442), now BL Add. 34599–34601.Google Scholar

134 The Spelman-Gurney manuscripts were sold at Sotheby's on 30–1 March 1936 (and many were broken up into three or four lots); I am indebted to Richard Linenthal, of Quaritch's, for his help in elucidating their fate at the sale. For information on the present whereabouts of some of these manuscripts, see Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Guide to the location of Collections Described in the Reports and Calendars Series 1870–1980, Guides to Sources for Brit. Hist. 3 (London, 1982), 28; the annotated copy of the RCHM report on the Gurney manuscripts, in the National Register of Archives, Quality Court, London, is less accessible, but more helpful.Google Scholar

135 For example, Norwich, Norfolk Record Office, MS. 7198 (T. 139F) [formerly Gurney MS. 22, pt I (fols. 1–131)] and MS. 7197 (T.139F) [formerly Gurney MS. 28, fols. 195–358]; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Eng. hist. c. 241 [formerly Gurney MS. 50, fols. 1–75]; Manchester, John Rylands Library, Enghsh 880 [formerly Gurney MS. 32]; and Ipswich, Suffolk Record Office, MS. HD695/3 [formerly Gurney MS. 22, pt 3 (fols. 218–65)]. The last of these incorporates (25 3r–255 v) a list of the contents of a three-volume set of transcripts made from various cartularies, by various people, in the 1630s and 1640s; but there is no reference to anything from Abbotsbury.

136 See The Life, Diary, and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale, ed. Hamper, W. (London, 1827), pp. 9–11.Google Scholar

137 See Dugdale's list of cartularies, in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Dugdale MS. 48 (SC 6536), fols. 54–64. at 56r: ‘Abbotsbury – Johannes Strangways de eadem miles.’

138 Dugdale, W., Monasticon Anglicanum, 3 vols. (London, 1655–1673) 1, 276–82; new ed., 6 vols., ed. J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel (London, 1817–30) in, 52–61. See furtherGoogle ScholarDouglas, D.C., ‘The Grand Plagiary’, in his English Scholars (London, 1939), pp. 31–59, at 40–2.Google Scholar

139 Monasticon 1, 276. ‘I received this information recently, from the account of a certain most worthy man, in whom one may trust implicitly – Sir John Strangways, a truly great ornament of his order, namely of knighthood, and now the owner of these buildings – together with two charters … And the charters follow, which I have transcribed from the very originals recently and most generously sent to me, as I have said, by the most noble knight, in his courtesy and kindness towards me, and in his enthusiasm for the encouragement and embellishment of this work.’

140 Monasticon I, 280.

141 Monasticon i, 276. ‘A certain Ore (a powerful man in his time and especially dear to Cnut, king of the Anglo-Danes), together with a certain noble woman called Tola, his wife (from Rouen in Normandy), founded this monastery. This Tola, indeed, bought for a price a certain estate in Dorset then called Piddle, today called Tolepiddle; which she, together with her husband, gave by gift to their monastery, with the estates commonly called Abbotsbury, Portesham, Hilton and Ansty. These things, among others, were formerly excerpted from the charter of its so-called foundation, to wl. ch they refer as follows: “And he (the same Orc) lived for a long time with her (namely Tola) not without hope but without possibility of having children.” These remarks concerning the ecclesiastical office of the place are also found there: “And he found the church there supplied with infrequent service, by one priest who had his wife with him.”’

142 It is conceivable that Tola came to England in the retinue of Emma, daughter of Duke Richard of Normandy (and former wife of King Æthelred the Unready), who married Cnut in 1017.

143 Ansty, a hamlet attached to Hilton; see Fagersten, Place-Names of Dorset, p. 189.

144 Cf. Gerard's remark (above, p. 222) to the effect that Ore and Tola had no issue.

145 Cf. Leland's remark (above, p. 221) to the effect that secular canons were expelled, and replaced by monks.

146 S 961: OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 2.

147 OSFacs. ii. Ilchester 4; see above, p. 208, n. 12.

148 Monasticon 1,278. ‘Apart from these (charters) given above – records by no means common – few others are to be expected by us, at least for the present. For indeed we may justly lament the loss of an old manuscript book of the monastery (they commonly call it a “register”) – into which both the story of its foundation and lists of all donations and other written records of the place had been entered through the care of a preceding age – (a loss) suffered by the same distinguished knight, its owner, in the recent quite deadly, nay abominable, turmoil of English affairs, whether snatched by a stealthy hand or consumed by enemy fire, with great loss to himself and to antiquity.’

149 Correspondence between Dugdale (or Dodsworth) and Strangways would clarify the issue; but I have not yet traced any. For Dugdale's papers, see The Life. Diary and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale, ed. Hamper, , and Maddan, F. et al. , A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford II.ii (Oxford, 1937), pp. 1068–92. There does not appear to be anything of this sort among the papers of Sir John Strangways in the Dorset County Record Office.Google Scholar

150 Hutchins, History of Dorset i, 533: ‘This register, or chartulary, which Sir William Dugdale says was in the possession of Sir John Strangways (but destroyed in the civil wars, when his house was burnt)…’. VCH Dorset 11, 48: the register was ‘unfortunately destroyed with the mansion-house of the Strangeways at Abbotsbury in the civil wars of Charles 1’. Harmer, Writs, p. 119, n. I: ‘The only register of the monastery known to have existed is said to have been destroyed with the house of the Strangeways in the Civil War.’

151 Later on in the seventeenth century, Thomas Tanner said of Abbotsbury: ‘A.D. 1026. Orcus and Tola his wife built an Abby for Black Monks to the honour of St Peter.’ See Tanner, T., Notitia Monastica (Oxford, 1695), p. 53, citing Dugdale. This was expanded in later editions: ‘Orcius, or Orking, steward to K. Canute, about the year 1026 instituted a society of Secular canons here, who by him or his widow named Tola (temp. Ed. Confes.) changed into a monastery of the Benedictine order, and dedicated to St Peter’Google Scholar(Notitia Monastica (London, 1744), p. 105). This is perhaps no more than an attempt to reconcile statements in Leland, Reyner and Dugdale.Google Scholar

152 Seec Wright, C.E., ‘The Dispersal of the Monastic Libraries and the Beginning of Anglo-Saxon Studies: Matthew Parker and his Circle. A Preliminary Study’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliog. Soc. i (1949–1953), 208–37.Google Scholar

153 Phillipps, T. and Maddan, F., ‘List of Monastic Cartularies at present existing, or which are known to have existed since the Dissolution of Religious Houses’, Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica 1 (1834), 73–9, 197–208 and 399–404, at 74. For Dodsworth's collection (including various extracts from cartularies, made in connection with the Monasticon), seeGoogle ScholarHunter, J., Three Catalogues (London, 1838), pp. 57–249, and Maddan et al., Summary Catalogue II.ii, 865–961; but the material has been well studied and indexed, and there is no obvious sign of extracts from the Abbotsbury cartulary (beyond the statement, in Oxford, Bodleian. Library, Dodsworth 24, fol. iii, that ‘Sir John Strangways hath the coucher of Abbotsbury’).Google Scholar

154 Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica 2 (1835), 400.Google Scholar

155 Kemble's presence at Melbury is reflected by his providing a ‘restored’ translation of the fragmentary chirograph to the then Lori Ilchester (llchester v. Kaishley, no. 3a); Birch, on the other hand, would have been able to rely on the published facsimiles of the Ilchester charters.

156 Ilchester v. Kaishley, nos. la (S 961), za (the Abbotsbury guild statutes), and 3a (the fragment of a chirograph).

157 Unfortunately, I have not been able to establish how, or even precisely when, the library at Melbury was sold. It is worth adding, however, that a vast quantity of the papers of the Ilchester family, from their home at Holland House, were sold to the British Museum in 1960, and are now BL Add. 51318–52254; among them are the papers of Dr John Allen, including correspondence with J.M. Kemble(Add. 52184)and B. Thorpe(Add. 52185–6), and several volumes of notes on Anglo-Saxon laws, etc. (Add. 52222–30). Books and manuscripts from Holland House were sold at Sotheby's between July 1962 and July 1964.

158 See Davis, G.R.C., Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (London, 1958), no. 1.Google Scholar

159 I am most grateful to the late Lady Teresa Agnew for authorizing another search; and to Mr Waine, Steward at Melbury House, and Mr Green, agent for the Strangways Estate, for apprising me of the result.

160 Dorset County Record Office, D. 124/Box 261.

161 Dorset County Record Office, D. 124/Box 261, written in the same hand as the list.

162 Davis, Medieval Cartularies, no. 83: see Two Cartularies of the Augustinian Priory of Bruton and the Cluniac Priory of Montacute in the County of Somerset, ed. H.C. Maxwell Lyte et al., Somerset Record Soc. 8 (1894), The Bruton cartulary was sold by Lord Ilchester to the British Museum in 1962, and is now BL Egerton 3772.Google Scholar

163 It is a leather-bound volume (comprising 193 folios of text), with ‘Chartulary of Abbotsbury’ tooled in gold on the spine; the number ‘86’ is written inside, on the earl of Ilchester’s bookplate.

164 This document survives in the Strangways archive. It is a confirmation of properties to the bishop and church of Exeter, and corresponds to the text printed, from a fourteenth-century manuscript at Exeter, by Holtzmann, W., Papsturkunden in England II, Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, 3rd ser. 14–15 (Berlin, 1935–1936), no. 78Google Scholar. The Exeter copy lacks the witnesses and date; and (unaware of the original's existence) Holtzmann suggested that the bull was issued on the same occasion as another papal privilege for Exeter, dated 14 March 115 5 (ibid. no. 77). In fact the original is dated 7 February ‘1145’, in the ninth indiction (for 1146), and was evidently issued on the same occasion as Pope Eugenius's privileges for Lincoln (ibid. nos. 48–9).

165 One such collection, compiled in the early nineteenth century, survives at Melbury House. The existence of another is demonstrated by a paper preserved among a bundle of documents relating to a lawsuit in 1852 (Fox-Strangways (Ilchester) Archive, D.124/Box 333), summarising the contents of a book apparently produced for the purposes of that lawsuit. The first item (said to have been copied on pp. 1–4) was ‘A Charter from K. Canute to Ore founding & endowing the Monastery of Abbotsbury’, dated 1023. I should like to believe that this is an unrecorded text, but I suspect it would turn out to be a copy of S 961 (Cnut’s grant of Portesham to Orc, dated 1024). The book also contained copies of various later documents, ranging in date from the reign of Henry II to 1634.

166 Ilchester v. Raishley (above, p. 210, n. 22). The case must represent one of the more recent instances of the citation of Anglo-Saxon charters as evidence in legal-proceedings; it was heard before Mr Justice Kekewich, and there is a hand-written copy of his judgement in the Dorset County Record Office.

167 See Davis, Medieval Cartularies, p. xvi, and Wilson, R.M., The Lost liiterature of Medieval England, 2nd ed. (London, 1970), pp. 237–8.Google Scholar

168 S 1497: Whitelock, D. et al. The Will of Æthelgifu (Oxford, 1968).Google Scholar

169 See Brooks, N. et al. , ‘A New Charter of King Edgar’, ASE 13 (1984), 137–55.Google Scholar

170 For a preliminary account of this most remarkable discovery, see Bascombe, K., ‘Two Charters of King Suebred of Essex’, An Essex Tribute, ed. Neale, K. (London, 1987), pp. 85–96, at 85. The charters are derived from the archives of Barking abbey, and are being edited by Dr C.R. Hart for the series published under the auspices of the British Academy-Royal Historical Society Joint Committee on Anglo-Saxon Charters.Google Scholar