Add MS 40725

CHARTULARY of the Priory of Augustinian Canons at Blythburgh, co. Suff., a daughter-house (or possibly cell) to the Abbey of St. Osyth, co. Essex ; compiled at the end of the 14th century, with a few later additions. Latin. The contents, which consist mainly of grants to and from the priory, mainly in Norfolk and Suffolk, are arranged in very rough alphabetical order, conveyances from (dimissiones) in each case following those to the Priory. Included also are:-(a) Notes on the value of the spiritualities and temporalities of the house in the Archdeaconries of Norfolk and Suffolk, based on the taxation of Pope Nicholas IV, with the yield thereon of various taxes. f. 1;-(b) Extract from the Domesday Survey relating to Blythburgh church (ed. Rec. Comm., ii, 282). ib.;-

(c) Extracts from the taxation of Nicholas IV relating to the possessions of the Priory in the Archdeaconry of Suffolk. f. I b:-

(d) Customary of Hyntone [Hinton, in Blythburghl. f. 35 b;-(e) Extract, in a later hand, relating to the tenement of John Broun from the "Domysday de Iernemutha" [Great Yarmouth, co. Norf.], then preserved "in le Tolhows," but now apparently lost (cf. H. Swinden, History of Great Yarmouth, p. 72), temp. Edw. I. f. 43;-(f) Extract from the court-roll of Reydone [Reydon, co. Suff.], 1402. f. 48;-

(g) Agreement between William, Prior of Blythburgh, and William, Prior of Wangford, respecting the tithes of Stofuene [Stoven, co. Suff.], 1260. f. 50 b;-(h) Agreement whereby Sir Robert FitzRoger releases the Prior and Canons of Blythburgh from the custom of giving a feast at Christmas for his men and serfs of Walberswick on condition that they provide a resident chaplain in the chapel at Walberswick to celebrate Mass daily instead of twice weekly as

before, 1278[9]. f. 60 b. Many extracts from the Chartulary are given in Hist. MSS. Comm., 10th report, appendix iv, p. 451, and the Victoria County History of Suffolk, ii, p. 91, n. 30. Vellum: ff. i + 60. 10.1/2 in. x 71 in. Late xiv cent., with additions of the xv cent. Gatherings of 12 leaves (4 wants 6, 7 ; last^l4). Initials in red. A fly-leaf (f. 1), formerly pasted on the front cover and attached to the first gathering, contains a choral setting of parts of the Mass for three voices, in score, in a 14th cent. hand. Contemporary binding of oak boards covered with leather, having remains of silk tag. On f. 1 is a note in a 16th cent. hand: "This was the fyrst leaff at the fyrst delyuery to Thom[as] Thurston." A chartulary of this Priory is stated to have been in the possession of Sir John Playters [4th Bart.] in 1714 (Suckling, Hist. of Suffolk, ii, p. 147), and Sir Richard Gipps refers to one in the library of Gresham College (see Tanner, Notitia Monastica, 1744, p. 513, note f), but whether these were one and the same MS. and identical with the present one is not clear. Belonged in 1885 to the Rev. Thomas Smythe Hill, Rector,of Thorington (Hist. MSS. Comm., l.c.), and later to Frederick Arthur Crisp, F.S.A. (Vict. County Hist., Suffolk, ii, p. 92; Sotheby's sale-cat., 4 Dec. 1922, lot 188).