Egerton MS 3316

BATH CHARTULARY. CHARTULARY OF THE BENEDICTINE CATHEDRAL PRIORY OF BATH; 14th cent. (mainly temp. Edw. III) with additions to 1506. Latin and, occasionally, French. Contains copies of royal, episcopal and private charters, a few of which occur in other Bath chartularies, viz., Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS. 111 and London, Lincoln's Inn MS. 185, edited and calendared respectively in Two Chartularies of...Bath, ed. W. Hunt, Somerset Record Soc., vol. vii, 1893; for these and other Bath registers see also G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain, 1958, p. 5. The chartulary occupies ff. 14-110b; for prefatory material see below. The entries on ff. 14-86 are temp. Edw. III, the earliest deed transcribed (f. 15b) being a charter of William II, circ. 1094-1097, printed from C.C.C. MS. 111 in Hunt, op. cit., part i, no. 38 (cf. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, i, ed. H. W. C. Davis, no. 326). The latest dated is 1 Sept. 1352 (f. 85b). F. 19, is an inserted leaf, on which are (a) presentations to the church of Bampton, co. Devon, 1153- 1397;-(b) f. 19b, a charter of Roger, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 13 Aug. 1247, with inspeximus by the Dean and Chapter of Wells, 30 Mar. 1263;-

(c) portioners of the church of Olveston, co. Glouc. (see also f. 93b). The entries on ff. 87-110b are additions mainly temp. Hen. V and later, the latest dated being 26 Mar. 1506 (f. 104b). The arrangement is mostly topographical, with the more important royal and episcopal grants at the beginning. Less important documents are sometimes summarized and lists of witnesses curtailed. There are brief contemporary marginal summaries of most charters. Two added quires at the beginning contain:-(a) Statutes of the Benedictine Provincial Chapter at Northampton, beg. 6 July 1444, published at London 31 May 1445; printed, from other texts in Oxford, Bodl. Lib., Hatton MS. 87, ff. 1 sqq., and Brit. Mus., Cotton MS. Nero A iii, ff. 90b sqq., in W. A. Pantin, Documents...of the General and Provincial Chapters of the English Black Monks 1215-1540, vol. ii, Camden 3rd Series, vol. xlvii, 1933, pp. 187-220. Lacks parts of chapters 1 and 4-9, corresponding to Pantin, op. cit., p. 191 l. 1, after 'favore inflex[ibili]' to p. 194, l. 20, bef. 'supprior ecclesie cathedralis', and p. 200, l. 5, after 'auferant indilate' to p. 206, l. 2, bef. 'a nobis auferre presumit'. f. 1-9b;-(b) A single constitution from a Benedictine Provincial Chapter held in 1453 beg. 'Cum multitudo legum seu constitutlonum', not noticed in Pantin, op. cit. f. 9b;-(c) Acts of the Benedictine Provincial Chapter at Northampton, 6-11 July 1450, not noticed in Pantin, op. cit. Defective by reason of a folio missing after f. 11. ff. 10-13b. Vellum and (ff. 10-13) Paper; watermark (ff. 10, 12), a fleur-de-lis between the horns of a mitre, not recorded in C. M. Briquet, Les Filigranes, Paris 1907; ff. ii + 111. 325 mm. x 210 mm. xiv-xvi cent. Gatherings mostly of 12 leaves with occasional catchwords (i wants 2, 6, 7; ii⁸ wants 1-3, 6; iii wants 8; iv wants (11 ?); v wants 6; vii¹⁰; xi wants 11, 12; xii⁸ wants 5, 7). Gatherings iv-ix are lettered b-g; iii-vi, ix are numbered 'quaternus primus... quartus, septimus'. Ff. 19, 97 are inserted leaves. An irregular arabic foliation in ink, much altered, was made after the loss of folios after ff. 1 and 11, and before the loss of two folios after f. 4. Another folio is wanting after f. 21. The arabic foliation of gathering v is 46-50, 40-45, indicating that the quire was once incorrectly bound in reverse, v⁷ then being v^l; both folios (ff. 37, 42) have the signature'quaternus tercius' in the same hand as the text. There is also a later ink foliation, 1-111. The first entries in the chartulary are numbered i-xxix in the same hand as the text (xxiii-xxvi wanting); the numeration is continued to xxxix in a later hand. Written in several 14th-16th cent. hands. Decoration, red and blue initials with ornamental pen-work in the carlier entries and occasional pen drawings of donors. Stamped Oxford binding (rebacked) of circ. 1518-1524, from roll II, stamps 91, 92 and ornament 11 in the classification by S. Gibson, Early Oxford Bindings, Bibliographical Soc. Monographs, 10, 1903, p. 28, pl. xxxvii; see also N. R. Ker, Pastedowns in Oxford Bindings, Oxford Bibliographical Soc., New Series, v, 1954, p. 191, no. xlii. Another Bath register, London, Lincoln's Inn MS. 185, is similarly bound, see Davis, op. cit., p. 5. Various 16th-cent. scribbles, f. 111, include the name 'Thomas Armys(?)'. Formerly Phillipps MS. 3518, acquired by Sir Thomas Phillipps in April 1827 from Stewart and Wheatley; at Phillipps sale, Sotheby's 27 June 1919, lot 610, bought by Sir Robert Leicester Harmsworth, 1st Bart.; Sotheby's sale-cat. (Leicester Harmsworth sale) 15-16 Oct. 1945, lot 1919.