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Add MS 8877

Record Id:

032-004394537

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-004394537

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100172203374.0x000001

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100177687679.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Add MS 8877

Title:

Household roll of Eleanor de Montfort, Countess of Leicester and Pembroke

Scope & Content:

The household roll of Eleanor de Montfort (b. 1215, d. 1275), Countess of Leicester and Pembroke, containing a set of financial accounts produced in her household for the year 1265. Eleanor de Montfort was the wife of Simon de Montfort (b. c. 1208, d. 1265), Earl of Leicester, and the sister of King Henry III (r. 1216-1272). This account covers the months before and after the Battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265, which took place during the Second Barons’ War (1263-1267). Eleanor’s husband, Simon, and Eleanor’s son, Henry, died in this battle, and their loss forced the countess into exile in France.

The face of the roll contains a day-to-day continuous record of the expenses of Eleanor's household in food and provisions, known as a ‘diet account’. The beginning of the roll is now lost, and the extant membranes run from 19 February to 29 August 1265. Each entry states the location of the household, which was itinerant, and records the presence of the countess, her close kin, and the names of prominent visitors. Every entry lists the countess' household departments, and the types and quantities of food and drink consumed. The account was compiled by at least three different clerks, who recorded the entries every few days (Wilkinson, The Household Roll of Eleanor de Montfort (2020), pp. xxi-xxii).

On the dorse of the roll there is a ‘wardrobe journal’, covering the period to 1 October 1265. This record was not updated every few days, but instead it was entered periodically. This explains the gaps and empty membranes with no entries in between (membranes 11d, 12d), and could attest to the fact that in one of the membranes the text is upside-down (membrane 2d). Eleanor’s wardrobe journal details expenditure on the purchase and her repair of household furnishings, goods and utensils, on clothing and wages for their servants and officials, on the Montfortian war effort in the South, and on messengers travelling to and from the countess, her family members, and her associates.

The roll's parchment wrapper features a short 19th-century summary of the contents written in French, and incorrectly dates the roll to 1268.

For the edition and translation of the roll, see Wilkinson, The Household Roll of Eleanor de Montfort (2020).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Additional Manuscripts
Medieval and Renaissance Women

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "032-004394537", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 8877: Household roll of Eleanor de Montfort, Countess of Leicester and Pembroke" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-004394537

Is part of:

not applicable

Hierarchy:

032-004394537

Container:

not applicable

Record Type (Level):

Fonds

Extent:

1 roll

Digitised Content:

https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100177687679.0x000001

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1265

End Date:

1265

Date Range:

1265

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: parchment.

Arrangement: 13 membranes stitched together, chancery style, enclosed in a parchment wrapper (200 x 180 mm). Several membranes present contemporary damage and stitching (membranes 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 13).

Dimensions: 6449 x 180 mm.

Script: Gothic cursive.

Custodial History:

Origin:

England.

Provenance:

Said to have been with Eleanor de Monfort (b. 1215, d. 1275), Countess of Leicester and Pembroke, when she was in exile in Montargis, France (Turner, Manners (1841), p. liv).

Purchased by the British Museum from H. Bohn, July 1831, together with Add MSS 8873-8879.

Publications:

Ambler, S. T., The Song of Simon de Montfort: England’s first revolutionary and the death of chivalry (London: Picador, 2019), p. 306.

Asaji, K., The Angevin Empire and the Community of the Realm in England (Osaka: Kansai University Press, 2010), pp. 162-88.

Blaauw, W. H. and Pearson, C. H., The Barons’ War, including the Battles of Lewes and Evesham, second edition (London: Bell & Daldy, 1871), pp. 314-15.

Blaauw, W. H., The Barons’ War, including the Battles of Lewes and Evesham (London: Nichols & Son, 1844), p. 281.

Household Accounts from Medieval England, Part I, ed. C. M. Woolgar, Records of Social and Economic History, new series, XVII (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 36.

Kjaer, L., ‘Food, Drink and Ritualised Communication in the Household of Eleanor de Montfort, February to August 1265’, Journal of Medieval History, 37 (2011), pp. 75-89.

Labarge, M. W., A Baronial Household of the Thirteenth Century (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1965), pp. 24-25.

List of Additions Made to the Collections in the British Museum in the Year 1831 (London, Printed by the order of the Trustees, 1833), p. 26.

MacGregor, P., Odiham Castle, 1200-1500: Castle and Community (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1982), pp. 55-67.

Manners and Household Expenses of England in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, ed. T. H. Turner (London, William Nicol, 1841) [edition].

The Household Roll of Eleanor de Montfort, Countess of Leicester and Pembroke, 1265, ed. L. J. Wilkinson, Pipe Roll Society new series 63 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020) [edition and translation].

Walker-Meikle, K., Medieval Pets (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012), pp. 41-42.

Wilkinson, L. J., ‘The Great Household in Wartime: Eleanor de Montfort and her Familia’ in The Elite Household in England, 1100-1500, ed. C. M. Woolgar, Harlaxton Medieval Studies XXVIII (Donington, 2019), pp. 29-55.

Wilkinson, L. J., Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England (London: Continuum, 2012).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)