Stowe Ch 36

Will of Ælfhelm (Polga), including bequests of land at Wratting, Cambridgeshire, to Ely Abbey; at Brickendon, Herts., to Westminster Abbey; at Whepstead, Suffolk, and Walton (perhaps near Felixstowe, Suffolk), to his son Ælfgar; and at Baddow and Burstead, Essex, at Stratford (probably Stratford St Mary, Suffolk), at Enhale and Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire, at Rayne, Essex, at Carlton, Cambridgeshire, and at Gestingthorpe, Essex, to his wife; at Gestingthorpe, Essex, to Godric and Ælfhelm’s daughter; at Conington, Cambridgeshire, to his wife and daughter, and to Æthelric, Ælfwold and Osmær; also at Cockayne Hatley and Potton, Bedfordshire, to Ælfmær, Ælfstan and Osgar; at Littlebury (near Saffron Walden), Essex, to Leofsige, and at Great Staughton, Huntingdonshire, to Leofsige and his wife; also at Troston, Suffolk, to his three brothers and Ælfwold; at Ickleton, Cambridgeshire, and Mawyrthe to Ælfhelm; and at Barnham (probably Suffolk), to Wulfmær; 975 × 1016, Old English (Sawyer, no. 1487).

Lower portion of a chirograph, inscribed ‘CYROGRAPHVM’ along the upper edge.

Endorsed in a contemporary hand, ‘Gif hwa æfre ænig þinc of þysum cwyde awende oþþe ætbrede. sy him godes ar ⁊ his ece edlean æfre ætbroden. ⁊ he næfre ne wurþe on his myltse gemet. ac he sy amansumod of þam gemanan ealra gecorenra cristes heapa. ge nu geon ecnysse buton he þe hrædlicor þæt forlæte. ⁊ on riht eac eft gewende’; in another contemporary hand, ‘þis is ælfhelmes cwide’; in a 12th-century hand, ‘Brichendun’; and in a 15th-century hand, ‘+ Cyrographum testamenti [logatocio deleted] Elfelmi qui legauit sancto Ethelarth a terra a Erattyng et […] et oclui et Qestimus logauit terras de Erkeidonum et of ut patet impra Westm’// n// Brikandon'.