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I. Monastic Foundation Charters of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

V. H. Galbraith
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Extract

The draughtsman of a foundation charter in the century after the Norman Conquest had the choice of two distinct diplomatic forms, each of which was a legacy from earlier times. He might cast it in the shape of a letter, authenticated by the seal of the donor, informing the superior lord or the relevant bishop of what had been done: or he might use the more ancient, solemn and pretentious form of the diploma, authenticated not by the seal but by the sign of the cross made by the hands of the witnesses. In either case he would be careful to include a list of witnesses who could prove the grant; and the most obvious difference between them would lie in this—that the letter referred to the act as already past (sciatis me dedisse…), while the diploma described the actual moment of gift (do—or trado—deo et abbati…). To the latter an exact date was appropriate—hence the elaborate dating of the Anglo-Saxon landbocs: for the letter, on the other hand, a date was superfluous, since the act was recorded as a thing of the past. Whichever form he chose, his purpose was the same, viz. to supply evidence for the remote future of a grant made verbally. There is no question about this so far as letters or writ charters are concerned: for not only are they often addressed to all men present and future, but they sometimes include preambles which leave us in no doubt as to the current conception of the written word.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , 1934 , pp. 205 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1934

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References

1 I have to thank Professor Stenton for a great deal of help in preparing this paper, including the text of the charters of Alan de Craon and Archbishop Thurstan. The conception of the Anglo-Norman charter here set forth is based on Professor Stenton's introduction to Transcripts of Charters relating to Gilbertine Houses (Lincoln Record Society, vol. XVIII), some of the implications of which it tries to develop.

2 Monasticon, VI, 1016.

3 Salter, Oxford Charters, no. 6.

4 F. M. Stenton, Transcripts of Charters, etc. (Lincoln Rec. Soc. vol. XVIII), p. xvii.

5 Zur Rechtsgeschichte der Römischen und Germanischen Urkunde (1880), pp. 149–209; Carta und Notitia in Commentationes in hon. Th. Mommseni, 1877, pp. 570–89.

6 Francesco Brandileone, “Early Anglo-Saxon Document,” in Illinois Law Review, vol. XIII, Feb.-March 1919; H. D. Hazeltine's introduction to Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. by Dorothy Whitelock (1930); G. J. Turner, “Bookland and Folkland,” in Historical Essays in Honour of James Tait (1933).

7 Birch, Cart. Sax. no. III, (B[ritish] M[useum] Facs[imiles], pt. I): quoted by Brandileone, op. cit.

8 Cart. Sax. no. 152 (B.M. Facs. pt. II): quoted by Brandileone.

9 Cart. Sax. no. 160 (B.M. Facs. pt. I): cf. No. 194.

10 Cart. Sax. no. 603 (O[rdnance] S[urvey] Facs[imiles], pt. III).

11 Cart. Sax. no. 748 (O.S. Facs. pt. II).

12 Turner, “Bookland and Folkland,” p. 359. Cf. Brunner, Rechtsgeschichte, p. 165.

13 Vide infra, p. 296 (Appendix II). The charter may be dated as c. 1145.

14 Bigelow, Placita Anglo-Normannica, p. 150 (1145): “…Caritati vestrae notum facimus, et quia ad praesens verbo non possumus, scripto testamur, nos praesentes affuisse, hoc etiam vidisse et audisse, quod Robertus Gernun dedit sancto Petro, et Petro abbati.… Hoc quidem vidimus et testamur.… Vidimus etiam quod domina mea Matilda regina ipsum Robertum Gernun usque ad altare sancti Petri Gloucestriae conduxit, ubi ipse, astante regina, pluribusque aliis, per cultellum super altare donationem illam confirmavit.”

15 Salter, Oxford Charters, no. 9.

16 Cf. Kemble, Cod. Dip. p. 945, quoted by Brunner, Rechtsgeschichte, p. 157.

17 Cart. Sax. no. 45 (B.M. Facs. pt. I).

18 Cart. Sax. no. 148 (B.M. Facs. pt. I).

19 Cf. Brunner, Rechtsgeschichte, p. 159 n. I.

20 Cf. Prof. Hazeltine in Anglo-Saxon Wills, who points out that the Anglo-Saxon wills are closely analogous.

21 The form, for example, of the elaborate charters issued by Stephen in 1136—a singular and rare reversion to the diploma, is perhaps indicative of a momentary political situation which had analogies with the normal conditions of a much earlier time. [See Round, Geoffrey deMandeville, p. 19; and “Royal Charters to Winchester,” E.H.R. July 1920].

22 Round, Ancient Charters, No. 13.

23 Madox, Formulate, No. 100.

24 Bigelow, Placita Anglo-Normannica, pp. 70–1.

25 Turner, “Bookland and Folkland,” p. 360. Mr Turner suggests that the allusion in Cart. Sax. no. 194 to the handing over of a sod may refer to a formal livery of seisin in Anglo-Saxon times. But if so, it is hard to see how we are to exclude Cart. Sax. nos. 842 and 843, where the sod is laid upon a copy of the gospels.

26 Warner & Ellis, Charters in the Brit. Mus. No. 25. Cf. above, p. 206.

27 Cf. Madox, Formulate, pp. ix—xi.

28 Cal. of Sel. Pleas…of the city of London, 1381–1412, ed. A. H. Thomas, pp. 279–80.

29 Vide supra, p. 208 n. 14.

30 E.g. Round, Ancient Charters, No. 12 (1127). In this charter the gift and the seisin are carefully distinguished (a most unusual thing) but only because the man who is seised is to occupy the land on behalf of the donee (a woman).

31 Farrer, Early Yorkshire Charters, III, p. 35.

32 A.O. Miscellaneous Books, 30, 1 (2). It is transcribed infra, p. 297 (Appendix III).

33 Monasticon, v, 314; Complete Peerage, IV, 308 sqq.; Mémoires de Soc. des Antiquaires de Normandie (1853), pp. 269–70, v, Kal. Maii 1132. The MS. quoted by Dugdale was apparently Otho B, III, art. I: only two much-injured leaves of these annals survive. Vespasian A, v, however, f. 39 (in the hand of William Lambarde), contains extracts from “the chronicles of St Werburgh's abbey,” to the end of the thirteenth century, including a note of the foundation of Quarre in 1132.

34 A second text, made like Dugdale's from a transcript, is given in Worsley's History of the Isle of Wight, Appendix No. LI (p. cxxiv). It is, if anything, worse than Dugdale's, and a comparison of the two shows how bad each is. Worsley's text, however, includes a witness—Simon Godshull—not given in Dugdale. A better text than either is supplied by Henry II's confirmation (Monasticon, v, 318). But there are differences at the end due apparently to fresh grants since the making of Richard's charter.

35 Monasticon, v, 106. Preserved at King's College, Cambridge. It is interesting to note that while Baldwin is called Comes Exonie on the seal, the text calls him Comes Devonie.

36 Salter, Oxford Charters, no. 14.

37 Stapleton, Norman Rolls, II, cclxxiii; Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 272. See too the Pipe Roll for 31 Henry I; the charters given in Farrer's Itinerary of Henry I and the Gesta Stephani. In particular may be noted a charter of July 1133 printed by Professor Stenton (Cambridge Historical Journal, III, No. 1, p. 10) and attested by “Huberto dapifero Baldwini de Redvers.”

38 (British Museum) Additional MS. 5937, p. 109b, an abstract only of the bull, which, it should be mentioned, confirms certain other grants not elsewhere recorded. See, too, the agreement between the abbey of Lire and the abbey of Quarre in Madox, Formulare, p. 292, No. ccccxcvii. This can be dated between 1140 and 1148, and is apparently subsequent to Engelger's charter, as it grants to Quarre the tithes of Haseley. It mentions also the tithe of Shelcombe, which had not yet been granted when Baldwin's charter was made, but is mentioned in Earl Richard's charter of confirmation.

39 The chartulary of…St Werburgh (Chetham Soc.), ed. J. Tait, I, 13–22, and cf. the Introduction.

40 The lists of witnesses to each baronial grant are exactly analogous to those of Alan de Craon's charter mentioned above, p. 208.

41 Gesta Abbatum, I, 57

42 Monasticon, VI, 191.

43 Appendix I, p. 296, infra

44 Monasticon, IV, 40.

45 V.C.H. Notts, 11, 120.

46 Monasticon, III, 391–2.

47 1, 274.

48 From Cotton MS. Vitellius F. iv. f. I. An analogous case is that of the Austin priory of Warter, the final foundation of which, that is the grant to build an abbey, is dated by Mr Denholm-Young, on the strength of a charter, as 1142. But t he reasoning is not conclusive and prima facie the charter suggests that William de Roumara “founded” the priory some time before 1139, made a further grant in that year, and still another in 1143. It may well be, therefore, that the traditional date of foundation, viz. 1132, is the correct one. [See Yorkshire Archaeological Society's Journal, XXXI, pt. 123, (1933)]

49 Chartulary of the Abbey of Lindores, ed. Rev. John Dowden (Scottish Hist. Soc.), 1903.

50 Ibid. p. 103, cf. pp. 233, 265.