Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 July 2011
It may appear strange to many that a sister of Edward III should be practically unknown, not only to historians and students of the present time, but also to most of the chroniclers of her own period. The children of Edward II were but four in number, of whom one, John of Eltham, died in his youth. Of the remaining three, Eleanor alone has missed that close attention which her birth and position would seem to warrant. Yet the fact remains that although Mrs. M. A. E. Green in her Lives of the Princesses of England devotes a chapter to Eleanor, her list of authorities is a comparatively short one; and the Historia Gelriae of Pontanus seems to be the only work which contains sufficient material for compiling a coherent story of Eleanor's life.
page 111 note 1 Annales Paulini (Rolls Series), 283.
page 112 note 2 Annales Paulini (Rolls Series), 354–5.
page 112 note 3 As early as June 1331, Louis, Emperor of the Romans, assured the issue of Reynald and Eleanor the free possession of the lands held by Reynald of the Empire, especially as regards the town of Nijmegen (Table Chronologique des Chartes, etc., concernant la Belgique, ix, 402).
page 112 note 3 Rymer, Foedera (Record Comm. ed.), II (ii), 834–5.
page 112 note 4 Ibid.
page 112 note 5 Table Chronologique des Chartes, etc., ix, 418.
page 113 note 1 Table Chronologique des Charles, etc., x, 167.
page 114 note 1 Public Record Office, Lists and Indexes, xxxv.
page 114 note 2 M. Jusserand, in his book English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, states that Eleanor's carriage cost £1,000, and quotes Devon's Issues of the Exchequer. According to Devon, however, John le Charer was paid a sum of £20 out of a writ of Liberate for £1,000. Moreover, this sum of £20 included furniture for the carriage.
page 117 note 1 Lemire (Aubert), Opera Diplomatica et Historica (2nd ed.), iii, 644.
page 119 note 1 Nouum Magiunt (Nijmegen) is always written in full in the MS.
page 121 note 1 MS. reads sibi vendito carectario.
page 121 note 2 Instrument qui réduit en miettes.—Maigne d'Arnis, Lexicon Manuale ad Scriptores Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis.
page 122 note 1 This entry is inserted in a different hand. See p. 139.
page 128 note 1 Esmail de Plique, de plite et d'oplite, c'est-à-dire d'applique. Émaux exécutés sur plaques de petites dimensions, et montés de manière à pouvoir être vissés, sertis ou soudés sur une pièce d'orfèvrerie, ou même cousus sur étoffe.—Laborde, Glossaire français du Moyen Âge, a 86.
page 129 note 1 The word in the MS. consists of 9 minims with cta, and carries a contraction sign above.
page 132 note 1 A further marginal note reads ‘summa totalis necessariorum’. The figures, however, are not entered.
page 135 note 1 Note in right-hand margin—per consideracionem Baronum.
page 135 note 1 Note in right-hand margin, bracketing this item with the one preceding—per consideracionem Baronum.
page 138 note 1 I am inclined to think that this means ‘ebony’ and not ‘ivory’, as the form ‘ibenus’ or ‘ybenus’ is often used. The transition from b to v is much easier than that from r to n.
page 138 note 2 Name omitted in original.
page 138 note 3 Sic. Evidently an attempt to write senescʼ at the end of the line, and then an omission to cancel it.