Add MS 46846

EDWARDS MEMORANDUM-BOOK

Formulary- and Memorandum-Book, apparently of John Edwards, Receiver of Chirkland 1498, whose signature as owner appears at f. lb. English, Welsh, Latin, and French. Art. 3 was used extensively by C. Monro, Letters of Queen Margaret of Anjou and Bishop Beckington and others, Camden Soc., lxxxvi, 1863. The principal contents are:-

(1) Verses 'De Monacho et Clerico', in rhyming elegiac couplets, beg. 'Diues diuicias non congregat absque labore' (cf. H. Walther, Versanfänge Mittellateinischen Dichtungen, Göttingen, 1959, p. 234, no. 4639 ('Divitias dives') and Ergänzungen, 1969, ad loc.), with other verses, etc., in Latin and English. ff. 1b-2.

(2) Formulary of deeds, 1454-1470, n.d., mainly rel. to co. Chest. ff. 3-12b.

(3) A collection of royal and other letters, etc.; 1415-1456, n.d. English, Latin, and French. Mostly printed by C. Monro, op. cit., but in a rearranged order. For the suggestion that the compilation derives from one made as a formulary at the end of the reign of Henry VI by George Ashby, d. 1475, poetical writer, Clerk of the Signet to (successively) Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, Henry VI, and Margaret of Anjou, and a protégé of Bishop Thomas Beckington, see J. Otway-Ruthven, The King's Secretary and the Signet Office in the XV Century, Cambridge, 1939, pp. 119-120. A reference to Ashby occurs in a letter of Margaret of Anjou transcribed at f. 49b (Monro, p. 114). For Beckington's part in introducing stylistic changes in English letterwriting see R. Weiss, Humanism in England during the Fifteenth Century, 3rd edition, 1967, pp. 74-75, where Cotton MSS. Tiberius B. vi, B. xii (cf. Harley MSS. 861, 4763) and Bodleian MS. Ashmole 789 are noticed as comparable formularies compiled at his direction. Two further letters, perhaps from the same collection, are transcribed at ff. 2b, 82b. ff. 12b-69b.

(4) (a) Agreements made at a 'Parliamentum' or 'Dies Marchie' between Llanandras, Gwerthrynion, Mortun, and the three commots of Powys, held near Pont Gamach; six years aft. [the beginning or the end of] the war of Owen Glendower, i.e. 1406 or 1421. Welsh. Printed from later and inferior texts by J. B. Smith, 'Cydfodau o'r Bymthegfed Ganrif', Bull. Board of Celtic Studies, xxi, 1964-66, pp. 309-324, where the present version corresponds most closely to that of Peniarth MS. 271. ff. 70-71;-(b) Similar agreements of a subsequent parliament between Powys, Gwynned, Deheubarth, etc.; n.d. Welsh. ff. 71-72. ff. 70-72.

(5) Extent of Trevor Issa, ringildry of Isclawdd, in Welsh, corresponding to the Latin text published by G. P. Jones, The Extent of Chirkland (1391-1393), 1933, pp. 13-20, with paragraphs of additional material inserted on ff. 73 and 76b. ff. 73-76 b.

(6) Legal 'dicta' relating to the law of the March. Welsh. Noticed by R.R. Davies, 'The Law of the March', Welsh History Review, v, 1970, p. 5, n. 17. ff. 77-78 b.

(7) Charters for Chirkland of Edmund and Richard FitzAlan, 2nd and 3rd Earls of Arundel; 1324-1335. Welsh translations. Printed from later Welsh texts in Add. MS. 15022, ff. 98 b-105, by J. Y. W. Lloyd, History of the Princes ... of Powys Fadog, iv, 1884, pp. 23-28. ff. 78 b-81 b.

(8) 'Modus irrotulandi curiam letam' and other material relating to the procedure of manorial courts, etc. Latin and English. ff. 83 b-85 b, 89 b-109.

(9) Meditation on the Lord's Prayer. Latin. ff. 110-110 b.

(10) Notes on the care of hawks. English. ff. I 1 3-1 15. Paper; ff. viii + 117. Late xv cent. 295 mm. x 220 mm. The original covers of limp sheepskin (ff. i-ii) with six pieces of deeds used in binding (ff. iii-viii) are now kept separately. Inscription as owner of John Edwards, f. 1 b, 15th cent.: marginal, etc., annotations as owners (?) 'per me W. E.', f. 69 b, and 'Wyllyam Edwards', f. 117, early 16th cent.; 'John Wyn ap John', f. 116 b, 16th (?) cent. Later belonged to the Puleston family of Emral, co. Flint (Monro, op. cit., p. xiii; Hist. MSS. Comm., 2nd Report, 187 1, App., p. 66): for other MSS. from this source cf. Add. MSS. 46397-46400, Add. Ch. 74370-74435; Nat. Library of Wales MSS. 251, 423, 3561-3600. Presented by Lady Katherine Lambton.