Add MS 88973

The earlier of the two Lacock cartularies, numbered '523' in Davis, Medieval Cartularies (1958), p. 59. The later cartulary is Add MS 88974.

The core part of the manuscript (ff. 7r-72r) contains charters, rentals and custumaries relating to Lacock Abbey, copied in stages in the thirteenth century, and arranged perhaps chronologically (many are not dated). Each document has a marginal note citing the place to which it refers. Some have been assigned numbers that cross-reference with the later Lacock cartulary (Add MS 88974).

Further documents were copied in stages in the late thirteenth or fourteenth centuries on the blank leaves of original quires or on inserted quires and leaves (some stitched onto other leaves).

All are in Latin unless otherwise stated.

For an overview of this and the later Lacock cartulary, as well as translations of many of the documents they contain, see Lacock Abbey Charters, ed. by Rogers (1979).

The contents of the manuscript are as follows:

f. 1r: 'Tot modis cassatur electio': list of 35 conditions under which the election of the head of a religious house might be annulled. Slip of parchment stitched to bottom of page, concerning 'Q... Militem in Anglia'.

ff. 1v-4r: charters, copied by several hands of the early to mid-fourteenth century; some are dated, and provide dates ranging from 1270 (issued by Selby Abbey, f. 1v) to 1337 (issued by Robert Wyvil, bishop of Salisbury, f. 4r). On ff. 1v-2r, a formulary on three ceremonies to be observed in elections.

ff. 4v-5r: blank pages.

ff. 5v-6v: four charters, each copied by a different hand of the late thirteenth century.

ff. 7r-20r: early charters, mostly issued by Ela, countess of Salisbury (foundress and later abbess of Lacock), her eldest son William (II) Longespée, Henry III (ff. 11v-13r, dated 1242, 1237, 1229/30 and 1236/37), Robert Bingham, bishop of Salisbury (ff. 7v-8v, dated 1240), and others.

ff. 20r-20v: two charters issued by William (II) Longespée, copied by two hands of the early fourteenth century.

ff. 21r-46v: charters, copied by perhaps a single hand of the second half of the thirteenth century (after 1268).

ff. 47r-56r: rentals and custumaries of the manors of Bishopstrow, Heddington, Hatherop and Lacock (see Clark-Maxwell, 'The Customs of Four Manors of the Abbey of Lacock' (1901-02), 311-46), copied by perhaps a single hand of the second half of the thirteenth century.

ff. 56v-57r: three charters copied by two hands of the mid-fourteenth century (dated 1297/98 and 1221).

ff. 58r-72r: charters, copied by perhaps a single hand of the second half of the thirteenth century (after 1268). f. 59v contains a slip of parchment stitched onto the bottom of the page: inquisition into the custumary guarantees held by the abbess of Lacock, dated 1298/99.

f. 72r: note on the rental of Bishopstrow, copied by the same hand as ff. 58r-72r.

ff. 72v-79v: charters, added by several hands of the fourteenth century.

ff. 80r-85r: blank pages.

f. 85v: note on the rental of Bristol, copied by a hand of the late fourteenth/early fifteenth centuries; rough note added later, naming Thomas Watkins (Wattkynis) and Lacock Abbey.

f. 86r: brief note on the contents of the cartulary, by a hand of the fifteenth/sixteenth centuries.

f. 86v: charter in middle French, copied by a hand of the mid-fourteenth century; charter (dated 1380), copied by a hand of the late fourteenth century.

f. 87r-89v: charters and miscellaneous documents, copied by various hands of the fourteenth century. f. 87v contains a charm in Middle French, written upside down at the foot of the page. f. 89r has been mostly cut away: the bottom half of an indenture is stitched onto the upper part of the stub: it is in Middle French (dated 8 July 1306, not 30 December 1305 as noted by a modern annotator); the verso contains faint notes recording sums of money.

The following two leaves (ff. 89*, 89**) are stitched together but are loose and not fastened within the volume. Both have been written by mid-fourteenth-century hands.

f. 89*r: a slip of parchment containing a charter dated ?1352/53.

f. 89*v: blank.

f. 89**r: a larger piece of parchment, containing a charter of the same date.

f. 89**v: faint notes recording sums of money.

ff. 90r-93v: leaves recycled from a fourteenth-century roll of accounts, loosely stitched into the volume (two other portions are also in Add MS 88974, ff. i-iv, 144-147):

- ff. 90*r-90*v: a slip of paper, loose, inserted after f. 90, containing memoranda written by a late fourteenth-/early fifteenth-century hand.

- f. 91*r: a piece of parchment stitched onto the upper edge of f. 91: a charter copied by a fourteenth-century hand.

- f. 91*v: blank.

- f. 93 was formerly used as the pastedown.

Decoration:

Plain red initials (ff. 7r-f. 72r, but omitted from quire vii, ff. 58r-69v), signifying the beginning of documents.