<Preliminary introduction>

The HOLLIS cataloguing may be found here. The following items are worth repeating:

“Description: 164 leaves : vellum ; 20 cm.

“Summary: The version of the Magna Carta is the one issued by Henry III in 1225 and confirmed by Edward I in 1297. The statutes are solely those of Edward I. The first writ in the register is by Hugh de Scoter against Richard de Brugo for a messuage in Appleby, Westmorland. The tracts are: Distinctio socagii; Fet asaver (leaves 106r-117r); Hengham Magna and Parva (leaves 117r-138v); Judicium essoniorum (leaves 138r-143v); Cadit assisa (leaves 143v-149v); Modus componendi brevia (leaves 149v-152v); Ordo exceptionum (leaves 153r-157v); Quot modis dicitur exceptio; Tractatus de corona (leaves 157v-159v); Summa bastardiae (leaves 159v-163r). On leaves 326-327 are notes of decisions by Bereford C.J.

Notes: “Date of manuscript uncertain. S. de Ricci dates it to ‘between 1294 and 1297 with some later additions’; J.H. Baker, English Legal Manuscripts, gives date as late 13th or early 14th century.

“Written by an English scribe, long lines, 30 to a full page.

“Rubricated in blue and red, with several ornamental pen letters and marginal decorations, including a few grotesques.”

The cataloguing in Baker’s English Legal Manuscripts, 1, no. 64 reads as follows:

“STATUTA VETERA; REGISTRUM BREVIUM; TRACTS

“MS. 39.

“Late C.xiii or early C.xiv, 164 ff. The statutes are solely of Edward I. The first writ in the register is by Hugh de Scoter against Richard de Burgo for a messuage in Appleby, Westmorland. The tracts are: Distinctio socagii; Fet asaver; Hengham Magna and Parva; Judicium essoniorum; Cadit assisa; Modus componendi brevia; Ordo exceptionum; Quot modis dicitur exceptio; Tractatus de corona (‘Eodem modo quo quis feloniam facere . . .’); Summa bastardie. On pp. 326 and 327 are notes of decisions by Bereford C.J.

“‘Hungerford’ (C.xv); ‘This MS. came out of the library of Dame Eliz. Maude of Laughern near Carmarthen’ (C.xvii, on a slip); armorial bookplate of Charles Joseph Harford (mid-C.xix); his sale, S. 24 April 1899, no. 896, to Leighton for George Dunn; his sale, S. 11 Feb. 1913, no. 157; bought privately by HLS.

“Census, I, 1030, no. 39; Hengham, lxxv, no. 38; Early Registers, xxvi.”

Both HOLLIS and Baker are mistaken in saying that the statutes are solely those of Edward I. In addition to the 1225 version of the Charter (HOLLIS misleadingly says that it is the version confirmed by Edward I in 1297), the manuscript contains both Merton and Marlborough. As indicated at the end of this Introduction, we think that we can tie down the date of this manuscript a bit more precisely than do HOLLIS and Baker. Less serious is the fact that ‘Hugh de Brugo’ in HOLLIS should be Hugh de Burgo.

The manuscript measures approximately 200 X 145 mm.

The binding is early modern and in good condition, although the front cover is rather loose. The spine is embossed with the manuscript title in gold leaf. Cloth guards are visible between the covers and the basically blank endpapers at the beginning and end. These endpapers, which include pencilled layout marks, appear to have been part of the original manuscript.

The condition of the manuscript is generally very good, with clear and legible handwriting and little damage. One folio is missing after fol. 19, and the initial and final bifolia each have one folio cut out. The quality deteriorates toward the end of the manuscript, where small tears appear in greater number and pages are increasingly darkened possibly by water damage.

The initial capitals in most places are unusually large and elaborately decorated in red and blue with scrollwork issuing into the margins. The open design of these capitals suggests the possibility that additional color was to have been added later. Other, smaller initials are decorated in the same colors with less extravagant scrollwork; a few of these initials were left undrawn. There are red and blue paragraph marks throughout, some of which have been artistically embellished. There are several marginal decorations, a few grotesques, and no miniatures.

Most, perhaps all, of the folios of the main manuscript are laid out in pencil with lines for a header, 30 lines of text, and a large space at the bottom. Some of the text lines have been nearly or wholly erased; pricking in the margin indicates where they once were.

The manuscript has 164 folios and two freestanding endpapers, one at each end. It has two sets of pencilled foliation marks. The first, which counts both faces of each folio and hence is pagination rather than foliation, starts in Roman numerals at the beginning of the text and switches at fol. 108v to Hindu-Arabic numerals (the hand appears to be the same). This set of pagination marks continues throughout the text, excluding the blank front and back endpapers. It does not account for the missing folio after fol. 19, so we can infer that it was added after that folio was lost. The second set of foliation marks counts only the front face of each folio. It is fully Hindu-Arabic and in a different hand from the first set. It appears for the first time at the bottom of fol. 91r, continuing sporadically through fol. 160r. Its absence from many of the intervening folios may be due to trimming. The digital foliation aligns with the second set of marks in the manuscript but continues across the whole text, leaving the binding, scraps, and front and back endpapers unfoliated. We have included the pagination in our digital foliation, in some cases correcting errors in the pagination in the manuscript, but have otherwise not used the pagination.

The manuscript has 15 quires of 10 folios and two quaterions; the endpapers were bifolia but a folio has been cut out of each, leaving a rather wide strip in the gutter. In three of the quires, the final pages contain text in different, less formal hands than that of the main manuscript; an example would be the notes of decisions at the manuscript’s end. These less formal pages may have been left blank at first and filled with text some time later. Signature marks appear on the initial folios of the first seven quires, and most quires have carryovers on their final pages. Those that do not either end with later-added text or, in one case, lack a final folio. This gives us the following collation:

Collation: i (unfoliated, a second endpaper has been cut out), 1-5¹⁰ (f. 1-49), 6⁸ (f. 50-58), 7-9¹⁰ (f. 59-86), 10⁸ (f. 87-95), 11-17¹⁰ (f. 96-unfoliated), ii (unfoliated, a second endpaper has been cut out).

George Dunn’s pencilled notes are found on the front pastedown and freestanding endpaper. In his list of contents, he mentioned as the last statute chronologically De illis qui debent poni in assisis which he dated to 22 Edw. 1 (1293–4). S.R. has it as 21 Edw. 1 (1293). De Ricci probably got the 1294 date from Dunn’s contents and also probably noted that Magna Carta was in the 1225 version and not that of 1297. Hence, De Ricci’s bracketing dates of 1294 X 1297.

We think that Dunn and De Ricci got it basically right, and that there is no particular reason to date this manuscript vaguely as coming from the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century, or ‘uncertain’ as HOLLIS has it. The problem is made a bit more complicated by the fact that the blank folios after the end of the main section of statutes and before the beginning of the register of writs (fol. 66v–67v) were filled in a different, but contemporary, hands with a number of items, one of which is called ‘De terris amortizandis’ but is, in fact, the Ordinatio de libertatibus perquirendis, 27 Edw. 1. (S.R. 1:131) (1299). When, however, we couple the supposed ending date of the main text of the statute-book with the fact, as explained in the Conclusion to the Writs table, that the register is quite old-fashioned even for the 1290s, we have some confidence in dating this manuscript ca. 1293, with additions ca. 1299.

Registrum brevium

The initial writ of right patent lacks an attestation clause and hence an important clue as to the date of the register. As will be seen below, however, the headings bear a distinct resemblance to those in MS 33, which we dated to 1277. Like MS 33, the limitation periods for both De nativo habendo and novel disseisin reflect the limitation periods in c. 39 of Westminster I. Like MS 33, the writs of entry are still dealing with three degrees, per and cui, and do not know post. They have thus not fully come to grips with c. 29 of Marlborough. Like MS 33, there are two writs of formedon, one in the descender, one in the reverter. The former is not in the form given in the statute (it seems to be garbled, and it is difficult to figure out just what it is), and the latter the statute itself says is already in ‘common use’ in the Chancery. Unlike MS 33, however, trespass is integrated into the main body of the register. This suggestion will be reinforced in the Conclusion where we will note a couple of items that are in MS 39 that are not in MS 33; the converse is never the case. Hence, we might be inclined to date this register just a bit later than MS 33, say ante 1285. Finally, like MS 33, there seem to be few, if any, filled-out attestation clauses, but a rather large number of what seem to be real names in the writs themselves. A careful examination of these, which we have not undertaken, could upset our tentative conclusion about the date of the register.

The following table gives the names of the writs as found in the marginalia and counts them. Two counts are given in the right-hand columns of the table. The first counts all the writs, excluding any marginalia marked ‘nota’ or ‘regula’. The second excludes from that total all the writs where the heading includes the words ‘eodem’ or ‘aliter’.

The total number of writs in the register, 217, is very close to that in MS 33, and hence to Hall’s ‘CC’. The similarity to MS 33 does not stop there. As noted in the Introduction to this table the descriptions of the writs have a distinct verbal similarity to those in MS 33, though they are not the same, and the text of the writs is frequently not the same. The groups of writs are quite similar to those in MS 33: Right (12%), Ecclesiastical (25%), Replevin (10%), Criminal (3%), Rights in land (includes trespass, local courts, account, waste) (12%), Annuity, Mesne, Debt, Warranty of charter, Covenant (7%), Wardship (1%), Dower (4%), Novel disseisin (7%), Mort d’ancestor (6%), Ejectment (4%), Entry (6%), Miscellaneous (includes protection, pardon) (3%). Some of the differences are simply result of slightly different grouping on our part. For example, Annuity, etc. includes covenant, and wardship is a separate category in MS 39, whereas covenant is separate category in MS 33 and includes wardship. Some of the differences reflect different positions of subgroups in the two manuscripts. In MS 33 trespass is a separate subcategory tucked in at the end, whereas in MS 39 it is incorporated (if that is the right term) in Rights in land. All of the ecclesiastical writs are in one place in MS 39, whereas they are divided between the second and final positions in MS 33. Waste is buried in Ecclesiastical in MS 33; it is equally buried in Rights in land in MS 39. Local courts, a separate category in MS 33, is incorporated in Rights in land in MS 39. In the place of Local courts in MS 39, we find Ejectment (Quare eiecit). Neither the category nor the writ is found in MS 33. The Miscellaneous category at the end of MS 39 includes writs of protection and pardons, writs that are not found in MS 33. They will remain there and expand in later registers.