Egerton MS 3135

CHARTULARY OF THE BENEDICTINE ABBEY OF SHAFTESBURY, CO. Dors., containing deeds relating to lands, etc., of which the reversion was granted to it by Robert Osegod al. Fovent and Edith his wife, the parents of Cecilia Fovent, abbess 1398-1423, for the establishment and maintenance of a chantry of one chaplain at the altar of SS. Catherine, Margaret, and Faith in the conventual church. The compilation was apparently made soon after 1407, the date of the latest document, and the greater part of it consists of antecedent title deeds, etc., of the properties concerned, 13th and (mainly) 14th cent., arranged in sections by places, viz.:-Fovant, co. Wilts, ff. 1-33 (ff. 1-3 being apparently contemporary additions); Shaftesbury, ff. 35-105; Combe and Charlton in Donhead St Mary, co. Wilts, ff. 107-108. A final section (ff.109- 118) contains copies of deeds and other documents relating to the conveyance of the properties to the abbey 1396-1407, including (ff. 115-116b) a royal licence to alienate in mortmain dated 9 Nov. 8 Hen. IV (1406), and (ff. 116b-118) a valor (imperf.) of those in which Agnes, widow of Robert Flemmyng, retained a life interest. About fifteen leaves, including eleven consecutive ones in the section for Shaftesbury following f. 65, are wanting passim, see below. Occasionally (e.g. ff. 4, 8b, 33), the scribe has apparently been unable to decipher words or phrases in the original deeds and has left blank spaces. A copy of the form of ordination of the chantry by the abbess Cecilia, dated 20 Sept. 1415, has been added in a contemporary hand on blank leaves at ff. 100b-103b. Other '5th-cent. additions on flyleaves at the end consist of:-(i) Two short lists of annual and quarterly rents without date or title, ff. 118 b-119;-(ii) An extract from the decree of appropriation of St James's church, Shaftesbury, n.d., f. 120;-(iii) A copy of royal letters of general pardon to the abbey, 1 July, 3 Hen. V (1415), ff. 121-122. For other registers of the abbey see Harley MS. 61, of similar date to the present MS. and written in similar though rather larger format, which is a chartulary concerned rather with its rights, privileges, etc., than with its title-deeds; and Egerton M S. 3098, a 'Kalendare munimentorum' begun in 1500, in which the deeds transcribed in the present volume are duly listed under the appropriate

headings. These, together with the present MS., are discussed in Brit. Mus. Quart., x, 1935-1936, pp. 66-8. Vellum; ff. 123. 260 mm. x 180 mm. Early XV cent. Gatherings mainly of 8 leaves numbered i-xvi in red, with contemporary foliation (a-h, etc.) by quires and catchwords (iv lacks 6, 7 cancelled; v10; viii lacks 7 and 8; ix is wanting; x lacks 1 and 8; xi12 , 7, 8 and 10 cancelled; xii lacks 3; xvi lacks 5). Ff. 1-3 are added, with one leaf wanting before f. 1, and ff. 120-123 are flyleaves. A post-medieval (18th cent.?) foliation at the top left-hand corner of each leaf runs from 2-139 and shows that the folios now lacking were present when it was made. At ff. 49b-50, contemporary copies have been written into the margin of a bond by Guy Lyt of Tolpuddle, gent., to Stranweies Roiers of Wool, co. Dorset, gent., temp. Eliz. 1. Apparently belonged in 1784 to Joseph Wild of Marchwood in Eling, co. Southt., annotations by whom, and by whose children, occur on ff. 3 b, 61b-62, 108 b-109, etc. Was acquired in 1845 from Payne, the bookseller, by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart. (MS. 11732), who has written in pencil on f. 3 b the title 'Liber Ruber Abbatie de Shaftesbury'. The MS. had no binding when acquired by the Museum and the evidence for this ascription is not known. Satheby's sale-cat., 24-25 June 1935, lot 370. From the Farnborough Fund.