7 - The Status of the donors and Recipients of the Charters

Summary

If it is accepted that LL contains at least some records of authentic transactions with authentic witness lists, stretching from the seventh to the eleventh century, its historical value needs no underlining. Yet historians will want to know whether they can trust the main details of the charters in the admittedly doctored form in which they see them. In particular, were the donors and recipients really of the royal/ non-royal and episcopal statuses assigned to them?

Wherever LL can be tested, it seems to be reliable on the status of the persons mentioned. Several of the LL donors who are styled reges are so styled outside LL, for instance Peibio (Peipiau) of Sequence i in Rhygyfarch's Life of St David, §13, and two of the kings in Sequence iii in Asser's Life of King Alfred, §80 (‘Houel filius Ris, rex Gleguising’ and ‘Brochmail fili[us] Mouric, re[x] Guent’). The compilers may sometimes have added the title rex out of their own knowledge, of course; but they have not been detected in any errors. 73b is a grant by duo filii Pepiav Cinuin uidelicet & Guidci, witnessed by Guoidci & Cinuin, while its doublet 163a calls them Cinvin rex & Guidci frater suus, possibly having added the title rex. But the title rex is supported by charter 162b (which possibly influenced the copyist of 163a) and the royal status is inherently plausible (Gurcant rex Ercicg in 163b is filius Cinuin). Strikingly there are no other examples of doublets in which a donor is royal in one version but not explicitly so in the other; thus the compilers seem to have been careful on this point.

A further point in favour of the compilers is the pattern that emerges by which the arguably authentic early grants are grants by kings. It is unlikely that this pattern, which must surely have some historical basis, was invented by the compilers, who wrongly placed a non-royal Sequence iii grant (74/171b = iii.5–6) in the Sequence i period, and further obscured the pattern by dividing up the Sequence i charters in LL; thus the royal grants 160–166 (Sequence i) were placed after the Sequence ii charters of Bishop Euddogwy, which include two apparently non-royal grants (151a and 159b).