Add MS 44842

GLANVILLE, De Legibus Anglie, Statutes, etc., in Latin and French. Artt. 1 and 2 are continuous. Contents:-

(1) Treatise 'de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Anglie' ascribed commonly to Ranulf de Glanville, Chief Justiciar 1180-1189. Beg. (after an introductory rubric of the usual style, but now largely illegible from damp) 'Regiam potestatem non solum annis (sic for armis)'. The text has the arrangement into books and chapters of the group of MSS. described as 'beta' by George E. Woodbine in his edition of the work (Yale Historical Publications: Manuscripts and Edited Texts, xiii, 1932); for the significance of this classification see, however, additionally R. W. Southern, 'A Note on the Text of "Glanville"', English Historical Review, lxv, 1950, pp. 81-89. ff. 1-93.

(2) Registrum Brevium, beg. with a writ of right addressed 'Roberto de Nevile', ends with 'quod faciat sectam ad hundredum vel molendinum'. Of the registers described by F. W. Maitland, 'History of the Register of Original Writs', Harvard Law Review, iii, 1889-1890, pp. 97-225 passim (reprinted in his Collected Papers, ii, pp. 110-173), it resembles most closely the type represented by Cambridge University Library MS. Ii. vi. 13 (ibid., pp. 113- 115), whose compilation Maitland assigns to the early years of the reign of Henry III. ff. 93-104.

(3) Statutes of England in Latin and French, opening with copies of Edward I's inspeximuses of Magna Carta and the Forest Charter, 1300, and continuing with copies and extracts from altogether some forty other usual statutes, etc., temp. Hen. III-Edw. II. From f. 193b, the copies (of statutes temp. Edw. I-II) are additions to the original compilation, written in several contemporary hands, the latest statute to be included being the Revocation of the New Ordinances, 1322 (ff. 201b-202b). The last entry in the original compilation is 'Assisa Monetae', i.e. an extract from the 'Assisa de ponderibus et mensuris' (Statutes of the Realm, i, 1810, p. 204). ff. 105-221. Vellum; ff. iii+ 221. 149 mm. x 110 mm. Mid xiii and (art. 3) early xiv cent. Ruled and written in several charter hands. Artt. 1 and 2 have the headings, etc., in red, with spaces left blank for coloured initials. The original part of art. 3 (ff. 105-193b) has conventional pen-decorated initials and paragraphs in red and blue; the additions (ff. 193b-221) have occasional pendecorated initials (grotesques) in black. ff. i, iii (end-papers) are fragments of a treatise on the virtues, written in a 13th-14th cent. English hand. Belonged, early 16th cent., to Richard Brid al. Byrd, see his signature as owner, f. iii (of. ff. 1, 104, 221b). On a front flyleaf (f. ii b) are some brief 7th-cent. extracts on Glanville, taken from J. Bale, Scriptorum illustrium...catalogus, Basle, 1557-,1559, p. 275, and from Sir Edward Coke's preface to the eighth part of Les Reports, 1611.