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Add MS 88974

Record Id:

032-002560797

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002560797

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100022546320.0x000001

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Add MS 88974

Title:

Cartulary of Lacock Abbey

Scope & Content:

The later of the two Lacock cartularies, numbered '524' in Davis, Medieval Cartularies (1958), p. 59. The earlier cartulary is Add MS 88973.

The core part of the manuscript (ff. 1r-135v) contains charters relating to Lacock Abbey, copied by a single hand in the first half of the fourteenth century (not before 1304), and arranged topographically in eighteen sections. Many of the documents found here are also found in the earlier Lacock cartulary (Add MS 88973).

Further documents were added to the end of the volume in the sixteenth century.

All are in Latin.

For an overview of this and the earlier 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:

ff. 1r-42v: charters relating to Lacock.

ff. 43r-59r: charters relating to Chitterne.

f. 59v: blank.

ff. 60r-62r: charters relating to Winterbourne and Sherington.

f. 62v: blank.

ff. 63r-64r: charters relating to West Amesbury.

f. 64v: blank.

ff. 65r-65v: charters relating to Westbury.

ff. 66r-75r: charters relating to Bishopstrow.

f. 75v: later charter inserted by a different hand on a previously blank page: issued by John Young, rector of Hatherop; dated 24 April 1524.

ff. 76r-81v: charters relating to Heddington.

ff. 82r-85r: charters relating to Westlecot/Wichelscot.

f. 85v: blank.

ff. 86r-86v: charters relating to Upham.

ff. 86v-87r: charter relating to Wanbrough.

ff. 87r-90r: charters relating to Uffcott (and Frith, ff. 87r-87v).

f. 90v: blank.

ff. 91r-95v: charters relating to Calne.

ff. 96r-97v: charters relating to Chippenham.

ff. 98r-98v: charters relating to Trowbridge.

ff. 99r-100v: charters relating to Slade.

ff. 101r-105v: charters relating to Hatherop.

ff. 106r-118v: charters relating to Woodmancote.

ff. 119r-122r: charters relating to Ham.

f. 122v: blank.

ff. 123r-124v: charters relating to Bristol.

ff. 125r-135v: charters relating to Shorwell. Summary of revenues added by fifteenth-century hand at foot of f. 135r. Charter added to f. 135v by a late fourteenth-/early fifteenth-century hand (dated 12 April 1392).

f. 136r: blank.

ff. 136v-142v: charters relating to Shorwell. Added by a sixteenth-century hand. First charter dated 2 June 1516. f. 140v is blank. ff. 142r-142v are blank, with a charter stitched to the fore-edge (dated 1511/12).

ff. 143r-143v: blank.

ff. 144r-147v: leaves recycled from a fourteenth-century account rolls. ff. 144r, 145v and 146r are all blank. f. 147 was formerly used as the pastedown.

Decoration:

Cadels (ff. 136v, charter stitched to f. 142).

Spaces left for initials and headings, but not filled in (instructions for the rubricator are sometimes visible at the top of the page).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Additional Manuscripts

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "032-002560797", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 88974: Cartulary of Lacock Abbey" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002560797

Is part of:

not applicable

Hierarchy:

032-002560797

Container:

not applicable

Record Type (Level):

Fonds

Extent:

Parchment codex

Digitised Content:

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_88974 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1300

End Date:

1540

Date Range:

Early 14th century-Early 16th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 265 x 170 mm (text space 175 x 125 mm, in a single column).

Foliation: ff. iv + 148. Folios i-iv and 144-147 are parchment endleaves, recycled from a fourteenth-century roll of accounts (another portion is used in Add MS 88973, ff. 90-93).

Collation: i⁴ (ff. i-iv), ii-v¹² (ff. 1-48), vi^12-1 (ff. 49-59; 12th leaf excised after f. 59), vii^12-2 (ff. 60-69; 4th leaf excised after f. 62; 7th leaf excised after f. 64), viii¹² (ff. 70-81), ix^14-1 (ff. 82-94; 5th leaf excised after f. 85), x^12-1 (ff. 95-105; 2nd leaf excised after f. 95), xi¹² (ff. 106-117), xii^12-1 (ff. 118-128; 8th leaf excised after f. 124), xiii^12-5 (ff. 129-135; 8th-12th leaves excised after f. 135), xiv⁸ (ff. 136-143; an unfoliated charter stitched to f. 142r), xv⁴ (ff. 144-147).

Script: Gothic cursive (Anglicana formata).

Binding: Pre-1600. Original binding of wooden boards covered with white tawed skin; single leather clasp, now gone; diamond-shaped metal fastening stud on rear.

Custodial History:

Origin:

The Augustinian Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Bernard, Lacock, Wiltshire (Augustinian canonesses). The cartulary contains copies of charters issued by Ela, countess of Salisbury (b. in or after 1190, d. 1261), foundress in 1230, canoness in 1237 and its first abbess in 1239. These and charters issued by other individuals record grants made and rents due to Lacock Abbey.

Provenance:

The Sherington and Talbot families, Lacock. See Davis, Medieval Cartularies, rev. edn (2010), pp. 105-106.

Mrs A.D. Burnett-Brown, Lacock Abbey, 1958.

Deposited at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Chippenham.

Purchased by the British Library from Petronella Burnett-Brown, March 2011.

Information About Copies:

Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/manuscripts/.

Publications:

William Lisle Bowles and John Gough Nichols, Annals and Antiquities of Lacock Abbey in the County of Wilts (London: J.B. Nichols, 1835), pp. viii-li.

W.G. Clark-Maxwell, 'The Customs of the Four Manors of the Abbey of Lacock', The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 32 (1901-02), 311-46.

'Houses of Augustinian canonesses: Abbey of Lacock', A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 3, ed. by R.B. Pugh and Elizabeth Crittall, Victoria County History (London: Institute of Historical Research, 1956), pp. 303-316.

G.R.C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain: A Short Catalogue (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1958), p. 59 (no. 524).

Lacock Abbey Charters, ed. by Kenneth H. Rogers (Devizes: Wiltshire Record Society, 1979).

G.R.C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain and Ireland, rev. by Claire Breay, Julian Harrison and David M. Smith (London: The British Library, 2010), pp. 105-06.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Related Archive Descriptions:

Add MS 88973