Add MS 50755

THE MONK BRETTON CHARTULARY Chartulary of the Benedictine, formerly Cluniac, Priory of Monk Bretton, W.R., co. York, founded 1153-1155; 1529-1538, with additions, 1558. Latin and English. See G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies, 1958, no. 675, and B.M.Q., xxiv, 1961, pp. 67-70. Belonged in 1574 to Francis Wortley, of Wortley Hall (d. 1603). Still in the possession of his son, Sir Francis Wortley, 1st Bart., in 1630, when Roger Dodsworth made extracts from it, now Bodl. Lib., Dodsworth MS. 155, ff. 25 sqq. In the possession of Sir George Wentworth, of Woolley Hall, by 1648, when extracts were made for Gervase Holles, now Lansdowne MS. 207 D, ff. 283-296. Subsequently belonged to the Wentworth family; armorial bookplate (f. i) of G. W. Wentworth (d. 1865). Sold at Sotheby's, 11 Apr. 1961, lot 143.

Vellum; ff. v+343. 270 x 210mm. Cropped. 1529-1538, 1558. Gatherings of 8, mostly with catchwords (i6, 1 cancelled; ii a bifolium, 1 cancelled; v6; vii6; ix6; xi6; xii10; xv6; xix6; xxiii-xxiv6; xxxix6; xliv6-xlvi6; xlvii8, 7 cancelled). Irregular foliation, 1-352, on ff. 7-343, 17th cent. Mostly written by William White and Thomas Wilkinson. Bold capitals coloured and decorated with grotesques and human faces. Rubricated throughout. These two scribes were identified when the chartulary was produced, with attestations taken in September 1574, in a tithe dispute in 1575, in which Robert Scoleye, Vicar of Brodsworth, a former monk, and John and William Fox, nephews of the last prior, deposed that the chartulary had been compiled by White and Wilkinson, together with Richard Tickhill and Richard Hinchcliffe; that the transcripts were collated with the original evidences; and that the volume was then bound by the monk William Lounde 'who could and did bind many the bookes of the monasterie' using for the clasp plate a piece of a mazer bought as silver gilt but discovered to be only copper. The attestations are printed, from York Diocesan Registry, R.VII.G. 1757, by J. S. Purvis in Yorks. Archaeol. Journ., xxxvii, 1948-1951, pp. 67-71. Rebound in brown calf, and badly cropped, early 19th cent.

Contents:

1. ff. 1-4. Contemporary contents-table.

2. ff. 4b-6. List of books formerly belonging to the priory, in the house of William Brown, the last prior, and the chamber of two former monks, Thomas Wilkinson and Richard Hinchcliffe, at Worsborough, near Monk Bretton, 21 July 1558. Printed by J. W. Walker, Yorkshire Archaeological Soc., Record Series, lxvi, 1924, pp. 5-9. See ff. ii-v. See also C. E. Wright in The English Library before 1700, ed. F. Wormald and C. E. Wright, 1958, pp. 160-1.

3. ff. 7-14b. Papal documents. Copies. Two, on ff. 9-9b, 11b-12b, bear drawings of the rota, monogram, and crosses and marks of subscribing prelates.

4. ff. 15-343. Private charters topographically arranged, the latest (f. 74b) dated 6 July 1529. Copies. Calendared, with an earlier Monk Bretton chartulary, Lansdowne MS. 405 (Davis, no. 674), containing some charters not in the present MS., by Walker, op. cit.