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Add MS 40010
- Record Id:
- 032-002059981
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002059981
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000039.0x0003a7
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100192941292.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 40010
- Title:
-
Rentals of Fountains Abbey
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a collection of entries from manorial court records and extracts from manorial rentals of the tenants of the Cistercian monastery of Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire during the 14th and early 15th centuries. The manuscript's original parchment binding is now housed separately as Add MS 40010/1.
For a detailed description and discussion of the manuscript, its compilation and dating, see Spence, The Late Medieval Cistercian Monastery of Fountains Abbey (2020), pp. 171-80.
A contemporary manuscript belonging to Fountains Abbey, known as the 'Memorandum Book of Thomas Swynton', who became its abbot in 1471, containing a set of accounts, rentals and lists of the abbey's servants, dating between 1446 and 1460, is now Add MS 40011 A.
Contents:
ff. 1r-7r: Three medieval indexes of place-names featured in the manuscript (ff. 1r-5v, 6v, 6r-7r), arranged alphabetically with accompanying folio references, the first imperfect, starting partway through the entries for C, and missing at least one leaf at the beginning.
ff. 7r-63v: Extracts from manor court records concerning tenurial conditions for the estates of Fountains Abbey in the 14th century, written in Latin, and arranged by township, with marginal subheadings and glosses.
ff. 64r-269v: Extracts from manorial rentals of the tenants of Fountains Abbey principally in the 14th century, with some dating from the early 15th century, arranged alphabetically in eight sections, as follows:
ff. 64r-75v: Rental 'F', written in Latin, with dates ranging between 1305 and 1316.
ff. 76r-88v: Rental 'G', written in Latin, with dates ranging between 1304 and 1317.
ff. 89r-116v: Rental 'H', written in Latin, with dates ranging between 1336 and 1346.
ff. 117r-140v: Rental 'I', written in Latin, with dates ranging between 1319 and 1347.
ff. 141r-166v: Rental 'K', written in Latin, with dates ranging between 1356 and 1361.
ff. 167r-181v: Rental 'L', written in Latin, with dates ranging between 1358 and 1435.
ff. 182r-221v: Rental 'M', written in Latin, with dates ranging between 1361 and 1398.
This section also includes an inserted schedule (ff. 185-187v), entitled Onceracio curie, written in Middle English in a later 15th-century hand, and detailing the matters a manor court should inquire into to safeguard the interests of the lord of the manor.
ff. 222r-269v: Rental 'N', written in Latin, with dates ranging between 1310 and 1381.
ff. 270r, 271v: Added inscriptions in 17th-century hands.
ff. 45v, 46r-47r, 140r-v, 188r-v, 236r-v, 260v, 270v-271r, and 272r-v are blank.
Decoration:
Large initials in black, and/or red, in the upper margins corresponding to each lettered section of the rentals (ff. 64r-269v).
Line-fillers, underlining and highlighting of initials in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002059981", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 40010: Rentals of Fountains Abbey" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002059981
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002059981
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100192941292.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1430
- End Date:
- 1470
- Date Range:
- Middle of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 245-260 x 160-170m (text space varies: 180-190 x 110-120 mm).
Foliation: ff. 272 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 1 unfoliated parchment stub at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment stub between ff. 43 and 44, and 101 and 102 + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).
Script: Gothic cursive, written by at least seven scribes (see Spence, The Late Medieval Cistercian Monastery of Fountains Abbey(2020), pp. 175-77), one of whom was probably John Usborne, monk of Fountains Abbey, who twice signs his name in red (ff. 225r, 237r).
Binding: British Museum in-house. Brown leather binding, tooled in gold; marbled endpapers. The original medieval binding is now housed separately as Add MS 40010/1.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Yorkshire, England.
The manuscript was made for the Cistercian monastery of Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire during the mid-15th century and most likely remained in its possession until the monastery's dissolution in 1539.
Provenance:
Inscribed, 'Fountains Rental / No. 24' on the upper cover of the original medieval binding, now detached (Add MS 40010/1).
The Ingilby Family of Ripley Castle, Yorkshire: in their possession during the 19th and early 20th centuries (see Sixth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 6th Report (1877), Appendix, p. 358).
Lt Colonel Sir William Henry Ingilby (b. 1874, d. 1950), 4th Baronet: his sale, Sotheby's, 21 October 1920, lot 56; purchased by the British Museum for £27, together with Add MSS 40006-40011 (see inscribed note, f. [ii] recto).
- Publications:
-
Sixth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 6th Report (1877), Appendix, p. 358.
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1916-1920 (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1933), pp. 287-88.
Joan Wardrop, Fountains Abbey and its Benefactors, 1132-1300 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 198), pp. 2, 93 n. 117, 128 n. 286, 216 n. 9, 231 n. 104, 232 n. 106.
Christopher W. Brooks, Law, Politics and Society in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 247 n. 25.
G. R. C Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain and Ireland, rev. by Claire Breay, Julian Harrison, and David M. Smith (London: British Library, 2010), no. 424 (p. 86).
Sarah Rees Jones, York: The Making of a City, 1068-1350 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 169 n. 171.
Michael Spence, The Late Medieval Cistercian Monastery of Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire: Monastic Administration, Economy, and Archival Memory (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2020), pp. 11, 14, 19, 30, 32, 39, 40, 41, 42, 66-69, 73, 85, 86, 101, 102, 104-07, 109-12, 134, 136, 139, 141, 171-80.
Tom Johnson, Law in Common: Legal Cultures in Late-Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 50.
Angus L. Winchester, Common Land in Britain: A History from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2022), pp. 52 n. 6, 54 n. 9, 76 n. 164.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)