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(i) The Cartulary Tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2009

Extract

A cartulary (Latin: chartularium) is a compilation of deeds and charters, mostly relating to land rights and other privileges and franchises which an individual or corporate body possessed. Its purpose was to gather together for ease of reference copies of these important muniments, so that the originals might be located at a time of legal dispute, or evidence to tide be supplied should those charters have been lost or destroyed.

Type
The Cartularies
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1993

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References

1 Davis, G.R. in Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (London, 1958)Google Scholar notes 1185 belonging to religious houses as opposed to 169 compiled for laymen.

2 The preface to the cartulary of Dover Priory of 1372, for example, gives the loss of documents in the past and the threat of future damage as the main reason for the compilation of the volume. See Foulds, Trevor, ‘Medieval Cartularies’, Archives xviii (1987), 23.Google Scholar

3 Davis, , Medieval Cartularies, xivGoogle Scholar; Foulds, ‘Medieval Cartularies’, 32–3.Google Scholar

4 McFarlane, K.B., ‘The Investment of Sir John Fastolf's Profits of War’, reprinted in England in the Fifteenth Century, 194Google Scholar; Smith, Anthony, ‘Litigation and Politics: Sir John Fastolf's defence of his English property’ in Pollard, A.J., ed., Property and Politics (Gloucester, 1984), 5975Google Scholar; Davis, N. (ed.), Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1971), xlliiGoogle Scholar. Clearly Fastolf was not uninterested in tracing manorial descents and establishing the legal status of his lands, as his employment of William of Worcester shows, yet he seems not to have thought it necessary to have a cartulary compiled.

5 Coss, P.R., The Langley Family and its Cartulary: a Study in Late Medieval ‘Gentry’ (Dugdale Society Occasional Papers, 22, 1974), 20.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., 3–4.

7 Coss, P.R., ed., The Langley Cartulary, Dugdale Society, xxxii (Stratford-upon-Avon, 1980).Google Scholar

8 James, M.R., ‘The Anlaby Chartulary’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal xxxi (1934), 337–47.Google Scholar

9 Vale, Brigette, ‘The Scropes of Bolton and Masham, c.1300–c.1450: a Study of a Northern Noble Family with a Calendar of the Scrope of Bolton Cartulary’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of York, 1987), 2 vols., ii, ivGoogle Scholar. For the Clervaux cartulary, see below.

10 Martin, M.T., ed., The Percy Chartulary (Surtees Society, cxvii, 1911), v.Google Scholar

11 Dunning, R.W., The Hylk Cartulary (Somerset Record Society, lxiv, 1968), xviii.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., xx.

13 Ibid., xv.

14 Swynnerton, Charles, ‘A Domestic Cartulary of the Early Fourteenth Century’ in Collections for a History of Staffordshire (William Salt Archaeological Society, 1913), 217–76.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., 227.

16 The original document was not traced by Davis, (Medieval Cartularies, 142).Google Scholar

17 Swynnerton, , ‘Domestic Cartulary’, 260.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., 227, 259.

19 Thompson, A. Hamilton, ‘The Clervaux Cartulary’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 3rd Ser., xvii (1920), 195.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., 190. For the career of Richard Clervaux and an interesting account of the consolidation and expansion of his estates, see Pollard, A J., ‘Richard Clervaux of Croft: North Riding Squire in the Fifteenth Century’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 50 (1978), 151169.Google Scholar

21 Proceedings of the Society of Antiguaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 3rd Ser., ix (19191920), 98.Google Scholar

22 Thompson, , ‘Clervaux Cartulary’, 190–1.Google Scholar

23 See Walker, David, ‘Organisation of Material in Medieval Cartularies’, in Bullough, D. and Storey, R.L., eds., The Study of Medieval Lands. Essays in honour of Kathleen Major (Oxford, 1971), 132–50.Google Scholar

24 BL Add. Ms. 6041, Harl. Ms. 1240.

25 Davis, , Medieval Cartularies, 150Google Scholar; Wood, H., ‘The Muniments of Edmund de Mortimer, Third Earl of March, concerning his Liberty of Trim’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy xl C, no. 7 (1932).Google Scholar

26 PRO C115/K2/6683 (continuation 6681). See also Walker, , ‘Organization of Medieval Cartularies’, 140–2.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., 141–4.

28 F1.

29 F225.

30 F424–5.

31 F1282–3.

32 F1286. See 1 (i).

33 VCH Middlesex v, ed. Baker, T.F.T. (London, 1976), 149, 150, 156–7Google Scholar; Glennie, ‘In Search of Agrarian Capitalism’, 15.Google Scholar

34 VCH Middlesex v, 163.Google Scholar

35 Stone, Lawrence, ‘The Fruits of Office: The Case of Robert Cecil, First Earl of Salisbury, 1596–1612’ in Fisher, F.J. ed., Essays in the Social and Economic History of Tudor England in honour of R.H. Tawney (Cambridge, 1961), 108.Google Scholar

36 He received Harefield in 1586 in exchange for a Warwickshire manor (VCH Middlesex iii, ed. Reynolds, Susan (London 1962), 241Google Scholar), and Eyworth in 1594–5 (VCH Bedford ii, 231, 232).Google Scholar

37 CIPM, xiii, no. 193 p. 162Google Scholar; CIMisc. vii, no. 489.

38 CCR 1369–74, 74Google Scholar. The three colleagues are all Fraunceys familiars, the lawyer and recorder of London, William Halden, John Oskyn, vintner and John Ussher, clerk. Lambert acknowledged a debt of 800m.

39 Mr D.O. Pam notes that there survive over 1,600 charters recording the sale of land in Edmonton between 1200 and 1400 (The Hungry Years: The Struggle for Survival in Edmonton and Enfield before 1400, Edmonton Hundred Historical Society Occasional Papers, New Series, 42 (1980), 14).Google Scholar

40 Hatfield Deeds; PRO Ancient Deeds E40/4401, 2038; BL Add. Charters 40513.

41 Why so many of the original charters were acquired by Westminster abbey is a matter for speculation. Perhaps the documents were deposited there for safe-keeping at some time.

42 P4–8.

43 P59.

44 P81. See above, 2 (i).

45 For example, the interest which William la Zouche, archbishop of York had in part of the manor of Sudborough, which he granted to Anketil Malore, apparently his brother (P45).

46 John Pyel's brother, Henry, had been a canon of Southwell (CPL, iv, 72).Google Scholar