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A lost cartulary of St Albans Abbey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Simon Keynes
Simon Keynes
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Extract

It would be a truism among Anglo-Saxonists to say that we depend for our knowledge of a fair proportion of pre-Conquest literary and historical texts on the labours of scholars active in the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Among the many important texts which were casualties, for example, of the Cotton fire on 23 October 1731, and for which we now depend on early modern transcripts and printed editions, one thinks immediately of Asser's Life of King Alfred and of the poem on the battle of Maldon (in Cotton Otho A. xii), of manuscript G of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (in Cotton Otho B. xi), and of Ealdorman Æthelweard's Chronicle (in Cotton Otho A. x). Should one choose to venture into the realm of Anglo-Saxon charters, the importance of antiquarian transcripts of manuscripts now lost becomes ever more apparent. The most spectacular addition to the corpus of charters made since the publication of Professor Sawyer's catalogue in 1968 arose from the examination of a sixteenth-century cartulary of Ilford Hospital preserved at Hatfield House, which proved to contain the texts of eleven pre-Conquest charters derived ultimately from the archives of Barking abbey in Essex; of course this manuscript is an ‘original’ cartulary, as opposed to an antiquarian transcript, but it serves here as a salutary reminder of the treasures which may lurk as yet unidentified in libraries and archives throughout the country. Other ‘discoveries’ include a seventeenth-century copy of a charter by which King Edgar granted an estate at Ballidon, in Derbyshire, to his thegn Æthelferth, Sir Henry Spelman's extracts from a lost cartulary of Abbotsbury abbey, and notes made by the jurist John Selden from a charter-roll formerly preserved in the archives of St Paul's Cathedral in London.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 22 , December 1993 , pp. 253 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 See Sawyer, P., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography, R. Hist. Soc. Guides and Handbooks 8 (London, 1968) [hereafter abbreviated S, with number of document], passim; see also S. Keynes, Anglo-Saxon Charters: Archives and Single Sheets, AS Charters, Supplementary ser. 2 (forthcoming). A revised and updated edition of Professor Sawyer's catalogue is being prepared by Dr Susan Kelly, under the auspices of the British Academy – Royal Historical Society Joint Committee on Anglo-Saxon Charters.Google Scholar

2 For an account of this discovery, see Lockwood, H. H., ‘One Thing Leads to Another – The Discovery of Additional Charters of Barking Abbey’, Essex Jnl 25 (Spring, 1990), 11–13Google Scholar; see also Bascombe, K., ‘Two Charters of King Suebred of Essex’, An Essex Tribute, ed. Neale, K. (London, 1987), pp. 85–96. An edition of the Barking charters is being prepared by Dr Cyril Hart.Google Scholar

3 Brooks, N. et al. , ‘A New Charter of King Edgar’, ASE 13 (1984), 137–55Google Scholar; see also Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Keynes, S., AS Charters Supplementary ser. 1 (Oxford, 1991), no. 44.Google Scholar

4 Keynes, S., ‘The Lost Cartulary of Abbotsbury’, ASE 18 (1989), 207–43, at 223–34.Google Scholar

5 Kelly, S., ‘Trading Privileges from Eighth-Century England’, Early Medieval Europe 1 (1992), 3–28, at 26–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Keynes, S., ‘A Charter of King Edward the Elder for Islington’, Hist. Research 66 (1993), 303–16.Google Scholar

6 On 28 May 1606, Peiresc showed a drawing of the penny (evidently corresponding to the type represented by Anglo-Saxon Coins, ed. Dolley, R. H. M. (London, 1961), pl. V, no. 52) to an English antiquary, and at the same time communicated texts of the two charters (S 133 and 318); see BL, Harley 66, 91v and 113v.Google Scholar

7 See Delehaye, H., The Work of the Bollandists through Three Centuries 1615–1915 (Princeton, 1922)Google Scholar, and Knowles, D., Great Historical Enterprises (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 1–32.Google Scholar

8 Brussels, Bibliothèque des Bollandistes, Boll. 23, and Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, 21583–8, 146r–185r ( ‘Catalogue des Manuscrits trouvés dans la Bibliothèque de la Maison professe à Anvers’). I am grateful to Father Robert Godding, SJ, of the Société des Bollandistes, and to C. van den Bergen-Pantens, of the Bibliothèque Royale, for their assistance in this connection.

9 ‘✠MS. 62’ (Aldhelm), ‘✠MS. 64’ (glossaries, etc.) and ‘✠MS. 31’ (Chrodegang, etc.), in the library of the Bollandists (the first two noted in Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, 21583–8, 156v), now Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, 1650 (1520), 1828–30 (185), and 8558–63 (2498) respectively; see Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), nos. 8–10Google Scholar, and Gneuss, H., ‘A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100’, ASE 9 (1981), 1–60, at 50–1.Google Scholar

10 E.g. ‘Aldhelmi occidentalium Saxonum Episcopi de laudibus Virginitatis, Libri duo, in 4°’ ( ‘✠MS. 9’, in Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, 21583–8, 153r); ‘Historia Prioratus de Ely in comitatu Cantabrigiæ, ms. in folio’ (ibid. 182r); and ‘De Rebus Anglorum, ms. in 4°, sur velin’ (ibid.).

11 Listed in Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, 21583–8, 165r (‘Monasteria Angliæ, ms. info.’), and in Brussels, Bibliothèque des Bollandistes, Boll. 23, 67r (‘Monasteria quædam Angliæ antiqua eorumque Historia’).

12 Gheyn, J. van den, Catalogue des manuscrits de la bibliothèque royale de Belgique VI (Brussels, 1906), 89–90.Google Scholar

13 Microfilm and photographs of the manuscript were acquired with a grant from the Fellows' Research Fund, Trinity College, Cambridge. I am grateful to the following for their help in various respects: Martin Brett, James Carley, David Rollason, Joy Jenkyns, Peter Kitson, Kathryn Lowe, Nigel Ramsay, Richard Sharpe and Pamela Taylor.

14 For Jesus 78, see Coxe, H. O., Catalogus codicum MSS. qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur II (Oxford, 1852) [Jesus College], 29–30Google Scholar, and Chronicon Abbatia Rameseiensis, ed. Macray, W. Dunn, RS (London, 1866), pp. xiii–xiv. The Brussels transcript shares with Jesus 78 the omission of chs. 113–17, and is abbreviated towards the end.Google Scholar

15 On Father Augustine Baker, and the priory of St Laurence at Dieulouard (later removed to Ampleforth abbey), see Memorials of Father Augustine Baker and Other Documents relating to the English Benedictines, ed. McCann, J. and Connolly, H., Catholic Record Soc. 33 (London, 1933)Google Scholar; 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 119–23Google Scholar; Knowles, D., The Religious Orders in England III (Cambridge, 1959), 444–55Google Scholar; Ampleforth and its Origins, ed. McCann, J. (London, 1952)Google Scholar; and Green, B., The English Benedictine Congregation: a Short History (London, 1960).Google Scholar

16 For this work, see Hardy, T. D., Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland I.i, RS (London, 1862), 269–71Google Scholar. There was a copy in Cotton's Peterborough register (Cotton Otho A. xvii; see Martin, J. D., The Cartularies and Registers of Peterborough Abbey (Peterborough, 1978), pp. 34–5)Google Scholar, destroyed in 1731, and in the ‘Book of Walter of Whittlesey’ (BL, Add. 39758; ibid., pp. 17–19). It was printed by the Bollandists from what would appear to have been their own Peterborough manuscript (Acta Sanctorum, Iul. V, 571–82).

17 The text in the Brussels transcript extends from ‘Est nobile monasterium’ (The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, ed. Mellows, W. T. (Oxford, 1959), p. 4Google Scholar) to ‘quo eum requirat’ (ibid. p. 64), and seems generally to agree with the ‘earliest’ recension in the burnt Cotton Otho A. xvii (as represented by the transcript in Cambridge, University Library, Dd. 14. 28. 2), against the later recensions in the ‘Book of Robert of Swaffham’ (Peterborough, Dean and Chapter 1; Martin, , Cartularies and Registers, pp. 7–12) and the ‘Book of Walter of Whittlesey’ (above, n. 16); and since the name of Robert of Swaffham appears also to have been written in Otho A. xvii, the reference to him in the Brussels transcript need not suggest that its source was the ‘Book of Robert of Swaffham’ as such. But obviously the matter requires more detailed investigation.Google Scholar

18 This text is evidently related to the tract printed by Dugdale from an ‘ancient manuscript’ in the library of Sir Symonds, D'Ewes (Monasticon Anglicanum I (London, 1655), 150–2).Google Scholar

19 The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the Years 1535–1543, ed. Smith, L. T., 5 vols. (Oxford, 1906–1910) II, 126–30.Google Scholar

20 For accounts of this manuscript, see Colgrave, B., Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 39–42Google Scholar; Lapidge, M., in The Annals of St Neots with Vita prima Sancti Neoti, ed. Dumville, D. and Lapidge, M., AS Chronicle 17 (Cambridge, 1984), lxxx–lxxxiGoogle Scholar; and Carley, J. P., ‘John Leland and the Contents of English Pre-Dissolution Libraries: Lincolnshire’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bib. Soc. 9 (1989), 330–57, at 351–3Google Scholar. See also The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis II: Books III and IV, ed. Chibnall, M. (Oxford, 1968), xxv–xxix and 338–50.Google Scholar

21 The next item in the manuscript began on ‘p. 108’ (see below).

22 See Holtzmann, W., Papsturkunden in England III (Göttingen, 1952), 120–3Google Scholar (with a brief summary of the contents of the Brussels manuscript as a whole), and Davis, G. R. C., Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (London, 1958), p. 94.Google Scholar

23 For the ‘Magna Tabula’, see Bennett, J. A., ‘A Glastonbury Relic’, Proc. of the Somerset Archaeol. and Nat. Hist. Soc. 34.2 (1888), 117–22Google Scholar; see also Carley, J. P., The Chronicle of Glastonbury Abbey: an Edition, Translation and Study of John of Glastonbury's ‘Cronica sive Antiquitates Glastoniensis Ecclesie’ (Woodbridge, 1985), p. xxiiGoogle Scholar, and ‘A Grave Event: Henry V, Glastonbury Abbey and Joseph of Arimathea's Bones’ (forthcoming). For Lord William Howard, see Carley, J. P., ‘Two Pre-Conquest Manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey’, ASE 16 (1987), 197–212, at 204, n. 26.Google Scholar

24 On Herbert, and the substance of his letters, see Barlow, F., The English Church 1066–1154 (London, 1979), pp. 68–9 and 240–5.Google Scholar

25 See Goulburn, E. M. and Symonds, H., The Life, Letters, and Sermons of Bishop Herbert de Losinga, 2 vols. (Oxford and London, 1878) I, 250 and 266–70.Google Scholar

26 Epistola Herberti de Losinga, primi episcopi Norwicensis, Osberti de Clara, et Elmeri, prioris Cantuariensis, ed. Anstruther, R. (Brussels and London, 1846)Google Scholar; for corrections to Anstruther's text, see Life, Letters and Sermons, ed. Goulburn, and Symonds, I, 416–23.Google Scholar

27 Historiœ Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres, ed. Raine, J., Surtees Soc. 9 (London, 1839), 3–31, at 5–20.Google Scholar

28 Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. Arnold, T., 2 vols., RS (London, 1882–1885) I, 1–169, at 55–82.Google Scholar

29 Brussels, Bibliothèque des Bollandistes, Boll. 23, 68r, ✠ MS. 73 (‘S. Albani donationes et privilegia’); and Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, 21583–8, 157r, ✠ MS. 73 (‘Registrum Albani; Epistola Heriberti, Ep. Norwicensis. ms. in 4° velin’).

30 See, in general, Newcome, P., The History of the Ancient and Royal Foundation, called the Abbey of St Alban (London, 1795)Google Scholar; Williams, L. F. R., History of the Abbots of St Alban (London, 1917)Google Scholar;Levison, W., ‘St Alban and St Albans’, Antiquity 15 (1941), 337–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levett, A. E., ‘Studies in the Manorial Organization of St Albans Abbey’, in her Studies in Manorial History, ed. Came, H. M. et al. (Oxford, 1938), pp. 69–368Google Scholar; and Thomson, R. M., Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey 1066–1235, 2 vols. (Woodbridge, 1982, rev. 1985).Google Scholar

31 Jenkins, C., The Monastic Chronicler and the Early School of St Albans (London, 1922)Google Scholar; Vaughan, R., Matthew Paris, rev. ed. (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar; and Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307 (London, 1974), pp. 356–79.Google Scholar

32 For Matthew Paris's Gesta abbatum, the early part of which seems to have been based on the (lost) work associated with Adam the Cellarer, see Vaughan, , Matthew Paris, pp. 85–90 and 182–9Google Scholar. The text is ptd in Matthæi Paris Monachi Albanensis Angli, Historia Major, ed. Wats, W. (London, 1640)Google Scholar [Vitæ Duorum Offarum sive Offanorum (London, 1639)], pp. 35–145Google Scholar, from BL, Cotton Nero D. i, collated with BL, Cotton Claudius E. iv and with a fourteenth-century manuscript which belonged to Sir Henry Spelman (Mountstuart, Marquess of Bute, 3, purchased by the British Library in 1983, and now BL, Add. 62777); see also Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. Riley, H. T., 3 vols., RS (London, 1867–9), from Thomas of Walsingham's recension in BL, Cotton Claudius E.iv. For convenience, the Gesta abbatum is cited below from Riley's edition (checked against the text in BL, Cotton Nero D. i).Google Scholar

33 See especially Matthew Paris's collection of material on St Alban (and Offa's foundation of the abbey), in Dublin, Trinity College, 177 (E. i. 40) (Lowe, W. R. L. and Jacob, E. F., Illustrations to the Life of St Alban (Oxford, 1924)Google Scholar; Morgan, N., Early Gothic Manuscripts [I] 1190–1250 (London, 1982), no. 85)Google Scholar, and his Vitae duorum Offarum, in BL, Cotton Nero D. i, 2r–25r (ed. Wats, , pp. 1–32)Google Scholar; see also Keynes, S., ‘Changing Faces: Offa, King of Mercia’, Hist. Today 40 (11 1990), 14–19.Google Scholar

34 See Gesta Abbatum, ed. Riley, I, 151Google Scholar; see also Williams, , History of the Abbey of St Alban, pp. 68–75.Google Scholar

35 See Matthæi Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, H. R., 7 vols., RS (London, 1872–1884) I, 360–4.Google Scholar

36 Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, VI (Additamenta), 1–40Google Scholar. On the genesis of the material in the Liber additamentorum, see Vaughan, , Matthew Paris, pp. 78–91.Google Scholar

37 Dublin, Trinity College, 177 (E. i. 40), fols. 63–8; see Lowe, and Jacob, , Illustrations to the Life of St Alban, p. 36 and pl. 54 (63r).Google Scholar

38 Note, for example, the following passage (ed. Wats, , p. 31): ‘Nor can I fail to mention that King Offa was a man of such great humility and modesty that although he ruled and held sway over so many and such great kingdoms, and was master of their lords and rulers, he never wished to be addressed, or to be styled in his letters or charters, by any title other than “King of the Mercians”. For only that kingdom belonged to him by right of blood; he acquired the other kingdoms violently, by the sword, although they were his by right.’Google Scholar

39 S 916 (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Eng. hist. a. 2, no. VII); see The Crawford Collection of Early Charters and Documents now in the Bodleian Library, ed. Napier, A. S. and Stevenson, W. H. (Oxford, 1895), no. 11Google Scholar, and Facsimiles, ed. Keynes, , no. 16.Google Scholar

40 S 1497 (Princeton University Library, Scheide Library, MHO); see Whitelock, D. et al. , The Will of Æthelgifu: a Tenth-Century Anglo-Saxon Manuscript (Oxford, 1968)Google Scholar, and Facsimiles, ed. Keynes, , no. 15Google Scholar. For the circumstances in which the will was discovered, among papers of John Selden and Sir Matthew Hale, see also Keynes, , ‘Charter of King Edward the Elder for Islington’, pp. 304–5.Google Scholar

41 Reference is made in the Gesta abbatum (ed. Riley, I, 39) to the transactions represented by S 1235, 1228 and 1425, ‘Quæ cuncta in chirographis Anglicis hujus ecclesiæ reperiuntur’.Google Scholar

42 The vernacular chirograph recording an agreement between Abbot Ælfric and a certain Leofsige and his associates, concerning land at Tiwa (? Tew, Oxon), is a case in point (Gesta abbatum, ed. Riley, I, 33).Google Scholar

43 For example, copies of Offa's charters (S 136, 138), and of two of the charters of King Æthelred (S 888, 912), occur in a fourteenth-century cartulary of the abbey, at Chatsworth. For this cartulary, see Levett, , ‘Studies’, p. 101Google Scholar, n. 3; Davis, Medieval Cartularies, no. 832; and Hunn, J. R., ‘A Medieval Cartulary of St Albans Abbey’, MA 27 (1983), 151–2.Google Scholar

44 For example, it contains the words ‘cum terminis suis, et Scelfdune sive Baldinigcotum, trium manensium’, omitted by homoeoteleuton in the text of the third version of S 138 in Nero D. i, 152v–153r; and it contains the words ‘in jus monasteriale pro anima mea et parentum meorum’, omitted by the same process in the text of the second version of S 150 in Nero D. i, 153v. The witnesses ‘Ceol’ and ‘Æmund dux’, in Birch's text of S 136 (from Nero D. i, 149r), appear correctly in the Brussels transcript as ‘Ceolmund dux’.

45 For example, in the Latin abstract of S 1517, below, p. 276.Google Scholar

46 In several cases, the chrismons have an associated or conjoined letter ‘A’ (cf. Keynes, S., ‘An Interpretation of the Pacx, Pax and Paxs Pennies’, ASE 7 (1978), 165–173, at 169); some have a conjoined letter ‘E’; and others are even more complex in design.Google Scholar

47 See above, p. 259, n. 32Google Scholar. For Adam the Cellarer, see Jenkins, , The Monastic Chronicler, pp. 33–6Google Scholar; Lovett, , ‘Studies’, pp. 109–10Google Scholar; and esp. Vaughan, , Matthew Paris, pp. 182–4.Google Scholar

48 For connections between the contents of the cartulary, the Gesta abbatum and Adam the Cellarer, see below, pp. 269 and 271.Google Scholar

49 On the dispersal of the Bollandists' library, see Gachard, M., ‘Mémoire historique sur les Bollandistes et leurs travaux’, Messager des Sciences et des Arts de la Belgique, 2nd ser. 3 (Ghent, 1835), 200–49Google Scholar; Bibliotheca Hulthemiana, ou Catalogue méthodique de la riche et précieuse collection de livres et de manuscrits délaissés par M. Ch. van Hulthem, VI: Manuscripts (Ghent, 1837), iv–viiGoogle Scholar; Voisin, A., Documents pour servir à l'histoire des bibliothèques en Belgique (Ghent, 1840), pp. 159–63Google Scholar; Delehaye, , Work of the Bollandists, pp. 171–4Google Scholar; Peeters, P., L'oeuvre des Bollandistes, 2nd ed., Subsidia Hagiographica 24a (Brussels, 1961), 53, 67–8 and 70–1Google Scholar; and Bibliothèque Royale Mémorial 1559–1969 (Brussels, 1969), pp. 66, 70 and 168–9.Google Scholar

50 For the ‘Collectanea Bollandiana’, see Gheyn, J. van den, Catalogue des manuscrits de la bibliothèque royale de Belgique V (Brussels, 1905), 406–676; several of them might repay investigation from an Anglo-Saxonist's point of view.Google Scholar

51 The charters will be edited in due course by Dr Julia Crick, for the series published under the auspices of the British Academy – Royal Historical Society Joint Committee on Anglo-Saxon Charters.

52 E.g. the list of benefactors, said to have been taken from an ‘ancient book’, in BL, Cotton Nero D. i. 63r (and 167v), ptd Gesta abbatum, ed. Riley, I, 507–8Google Scholar; the list of benefactors incorporated in the bull of Pope Eugenius III (above, p. 271)Google Scholar; and the Liber de benefactoribus (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 7, pp. 203–22Google Scholar, and BL, Cotton Nero D. vii), Ptd Johannis de Trokelowe, et Henrici de Blaneforde, Monachorum S. Albani … Chronica et Annales, ed. Riley, H. T., RS (London, 1866), pp. 427–64, at 430–2, 441 and 443–5.Google Scholar

53 Great Domesday Book [hereafter GDB] 135v–136r; Domesday Book, ed. Morris, J., 35 vols. (Chichester, 1975–1986) [hereafter DB, with county abbreviations] Herts. 10. 1–20.Google Scholar

54 S 136 is dated ‘793’, indiction ‘3’, in the ‘33rd’ year of Offa's reign, and S 138 is dated ‘795’, indiction ‘5’, in the ‘35th’ year of Offa's reign; so at least the charters are consistent between themselves. But 793 was indiction 1, and 795 was indiction 3. Moreover, if Offa's regnal years are calculated from his accession in 757, his 33rd year would be 789–90, and his 35th would be 791–2; the calculation in the charters appears to be from 760 or 761. There is little to be gained from ‘correcting’ the date of the charters in accordance with the given indiction, or in accordance with the given regnal year; and any other solution of the discrepancies would involve the supposition that several numbers have been miscopied. ‘793’ and ‘795’ were clearly the intended dates; cf. Gesta Abbatum, ed. Riley, I, 4–6. In S 150–1, on the other hand, the indiction for 796 is given correctly as 4.Google Scholar

55 See Williams, , History of the Abbey of St Alban, pp. 11–14Google Scholar; see also Stevenson, W. H., ‘Trinoda Necessitas’, EHR 29 (1914), 689–703, at 692, n. 16, and 702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 There are several instances, from other archives, of productions of a similar kind, which might repay investigation as a group: e.g. S 333 and 1032 (Sherborne), S 779 (Ely), S 959 (Christ Church, Canterbury), S 976 (Old Minster, Winchester), S 980 and 1045 (Bury St Edmunds), and S 984 (St Benet of Holme); see also Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St Edmonds, ed. Douglas, D. C. (London, 1932), no. 7 (diploma of William I for Bury).Google Scholar

57 For Ælfric and Leofric, see The Heads of Religious Houses England and Wales 940–1216, ed. Knowles, D. et al. , (Cambridge, 1972), p. 65.Google Scholar

58 See Keynes, S., The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ 978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 102–3, 109–12 and 122–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 The operative formula in S 912 recurs in an apparently original charter of Edward the Confessor for Westminster (S 1031; see Facsimiles, ed. Keynes, , no. 22, and p. 8)Google Scholar, and elsewhere (Keynes, , Diplomas, p. 109, n. 75)Google Scholar. The monks of St Albans are known to have been familiar with the sealed writs of Edward the Confessor preserved in the Westminster archive (Gesta Abbatum, ed. Riley, I, 151); and they might well have taken their cue from charters for that abbey.Google Scholar

60 All of the ‘new’ boundary clauses in the Brussels transcript have been transcribed and ‘solved’ by Joy Jenkyns and Peter Kitson; those for Winslow (art. 2a) have also been ‘solved’ by Dr A. H. J. Baines.

61 See Lowe, K., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Vernacular Will: Studies in Texts and their Transmission’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Univ. of Cambridge, 1990), pp. 44–74.Google Scholar

62 See Brooks, N. P., ‘Arms, Status and Warfare in Late-Saxon England’, Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. Hill, D., BAR Brit. ser. 59 (Oxford 1978), 81–103, esp. 85–90.Google Scholar

63 According to II Cnut, ch. 71 (Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, F., 3 vols. (Halle, 1903–1916) I, 356–8Google Scholar; English Historical Documents, c. 500–1042, ed. Whitelock, D., 2nd ed. (London, 1979), p. 465), the heriot payable by a king's thegn was ‘four horses – two saddled and two unsaddled – and two swords and four spears and as many shields, and a helmet and a coat of mail and 50 mancuses of gold’.Google Scholar

64 See Holt, J. C., ‘Feudal Society and the Family in Early Medieval England: I. The Revolution of 1066’, TRHS 5th ser. 32 (1982), 193–212, esp. 194–7Google Scholar; see also Holt, J. C., What's in a Name? Family Nomenclature and the Norman Conquest, Stenton Lecture 1981 (Reading, 1982), pp. 11–12. These matters will be pursued further by P. Wormald, The Making of English Law (forthcoming).Google Scholar

65 The translation ‘But if some misfortune should befall the child, not involving any dispute’ depends on the supposition that tosale is a noun from tosælan, ‘to happen amiss’; other interpretations are available, and of course it is possible that the text is corrupt.

66 Cf. Keynes, S., ‘The Fonthill Letter’, Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of bis Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Korhammer, M. (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 53–97, at 89.Google Scholar

67 For other instances of an expressed preference for the male line, see e.g. S 1507, 1508 and 1303; see also Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M., Alfred the Great: Asser's ‘Life of King Alfred’ and other Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth, 1983), p. 309.Google Scholar

68 The circumstances in which Leofwine came into his inheritance make one wonder whether the byname has some particular significance; cf. Tengvik, G., Old English Bynames, Nomina Germanica 4 (Uppsala, 1938), 243–5Google Scholar, and Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, A. J., 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1956), p. 395.Google Scholar

69 GDB 211v (DB Beds. 18.1); GDB 212v (DB Beds. 23.3).

70 GDB 138v (DB Herts. 28.4); GDB 139r (DB Herts. 31.1).

71 The readings in the vernacular text could be ‘Hærlea’ or ‘Hæslea’; the reading in the Latin abstract in the Liber additamentorum is ‘Hærlea’, or possibly ‘Hætlea’.

72 Land at Pyrian (? Woodperry or Waterperry, Oxon.) had been granted to Abingdon abbey by King Æthelred in 999 (S 937; English Historical Documents, ed. Whitelock, , no. 123)Google Scholar; see also Gelling, , ECTV, p. 136.Google Scholar

73 Hatley: GDB 217v and 218a (DB Beds. 53.29 and 55.6). Wood- and Waterperry: GDB 156r and 158v (DB Oxon. 7.18 and 28.22).

74 10 hides, held by Leofwine from the king, were assessed in Hertfordshire (GDB 136r (DB Herts. 13.2)), and a further 5 hides, said to have been held by Leofwine cilt, were assessed in Bedfordshire (GDB 21 lr (DB Beds. 12.1)). Both properties passed to the church of St Paul's, London.

75 GDB 214v (DB Beds. 24.18). Land at Streatley was also held by Godwine, a man of Ælfstan (of Boscombe) (GDB 212r (DB Beds. 18.2)), by Askell (GDB 213v (DB Beds. 23.22)), by Ælfric, a man of Ælfric the Small (GDB 214v (DB Beds. 25.3)), and others.

76 GDB 139r (DB Herts. 29.1). There were several other holdings at Barley, in the hands of other parties.

77 E.g. Kensworth, Beds., which passed to St Paul's (GDB 136r (DB Herts. 13.1)); Beeston, Beds. (GDB 215r (DB Beds. 25.14)); Meppershall, Beds. (GDB 142r (DB Herts. 40.1) and GDB 216v (DB Beds. 48.1)); and Bushey, nr Watford, Herts. (GDB 139v (DB Herts. 33.2)).