<Preliminary introduction>

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

“Description: 87 leaves : vellum ; 20 cm.

“Notes: Lacking first leaf.

“Spine title: Formularia brevium. M.S. Super memb. S. XIV.”

The cataloguing in Baker’s English Legal Manuscripts, 1, no. 69 reads as follows:

“REGISTRUM BREVIUM

“MS. 45.

“C.xiv, 87 ff. Imperfect at the beginning.

“Thomas Thorpe catalogue (1836), no. 469; bought by Sir Thomas Phillipps (MS. 9339); his sale, S. 7 June 1899, no. 489, to Reader; acquired by George Dunn in June 1899; his sale, S. 11 Feb. 1913, no. 66; bought privately by HLS.

“Census, I, 1031, no. 45; Early Registers, xxvi.”

Although we have not yet been able to date the manuscript precisely, the date of ca. 1450 given for many years in the HOLLIS catalogue is clearly wrong. It was probably a typographical error for ca. 1350.

The manuscript is approximately 200 X 125 mm.

The script is regular and clearly dates from the 14th century, probably earlier in the century rather than later. It shows none of the distinctive features of the 15th century. It is faded, but legible. The hand seems more like that of a clerk than that of a professional scribe. The manuscript is decorated with red and blue paragraph marks. The decorated capitals are not of particularly high quality. There are no illuminations or grotesques. A number of the pages are not of full size, and seem always to have been, since text is not missing on them. The 19th-century leather binding is in good condition.

Damage includes several missing folios (see quiring below). There are also two small tears in fol. 40 and 67 that do not affect the text; they are stitched with thick thread.

There is no medieval or modern foliation. Our digital foliation does not include the endpapers and ends up with the same number of folios as is found in the previous catalogues. Alphabetic signatures appear on the first page of each quire. The signature letters skip from ‘g’ to ‘j’, but there is nothing that is obviously missing at that point.

Quiring/collation (does not include modern endpapers):

1–2⁸ (f. 1–15, ?one missing before 1), 3⁶ (f. 16–21), 4–9⁸ (f. 22–68, ?one missing after 52), 10¹² (f. 69–79, ?one missing after 75), 11⁸ (f. 80–87).

Although the initial writ of right patent is lacking and the majority of the decorated capitals that begin writs are simply ‘R’ for ‘Rex’, there is a writ in the name of a King Edward on fol. 64r. It is a writ of nuisance and the limitation period is given as the voyage to Gascony of Henry III ‘proavi nostri’. Hence, the register must date from after 1327. The style of the king in the same writ is ‘Rex Anglie, dominus Hibernie, et dux Aquitanie’. Hence, it almost certainly antedates the assumption by Edward III of the style of ‘rex Francie’ in 1340, although the writ could have been copied after that date.

In a number of places in the marginal notes of the writs (65 by a rough count), the clerk has preceded the note with ‘x’ and a superscript ‘a’. This would seem to be ‘extra’, and we have noted it in parentheses throughout the Analysis of Writs. What it means is unclear. It may mean that this was an item that was added that was not in the model from which the copy was being made. That this register was, in part, copied from an older one is suggested, although certainly not proven, by one of the few real names that we have so far found in it. Folio 1r has a writ to the guardians of the land and heir (in the singular) of Gilbert de Clare. Gilbert de Clare, the eighth earl of Gloucester and the seventh of Hereford, died in 1314. He left no male heir, however, and his heirs were his sisters. It probably refers his father, the seventh earl, who died in 1295 when the eighth earl was four. (See M. Altschul in ODNB, s.n.). The register also contains an unusually large number of specific references to statutes by chapter numbers. Magna Carta occurs once, Marlborough, Westminster I, and Westminster II, a number of times. That may also indicate that register was, in part, copied from a source from the time of Edward I.

In the conclusion to the Analysis of Writs, we construct an argument, based on a comparison with other registers from ca. 1325 and with the one (HLS MS 166) that dates from after 1340 for a tentative date of ca. 1330 for this register and hence for the manuscript. That Analysis, however, and the manuscript itself provide few clues as to who the original owner may have been. The best that we can say is that it seems to have been made relatively on the cheap, perhaps for an aspiring attorney or clerk. The one thing that stands out in the Analysis are the writs about urban testaments, which are quite unusual for this period. Their presence might make us lean in the direction of an attorney with urban connections as the original owner.

We lack any provenance before George Dunn. On the top of fol. 1r there are some scribbled notes in pencil and a few letters that seem to be in pen. The fact that they are there suggests that the manuscript was already missing its first folio. More might be made out of them with uv. The pencilled notes seem to begin with ‘40/’, perhaps the price of the manuscript at one time, and may continue with ‘R de Culp’. The penned letters, which seem to be older, may be ‘M_sell’, perhaps the surname Maunsel, Monsel, or Mussell.

No heading found

As indicated in the Introduction, the date previously assigned to this register, 1450, is at least a century too late. The script certainly dates from the 14th century, probably earlier in the century than later. The Introduction offers fairly solid evidence that the register postdates 1327, and some, but less solid, evidence that it antedates 1340. Further discussion of the date is best postponed until after we consider its contents.

The following table gives the names of the writs as found in the marginalia and counts them. Two counts of the writs are given in the right-hand columns. The first counts all the writs for which there are marginal notes, excluding, however, the notes that are labelled ‘Regula’ or ‘Nota’. The second excludes from the total all the writs where the marginal note includes the words ‘eodem’ or ‘aliter’.

Using the larger of the two counts, the total in this register, 819, somewhat less than but close to that of MS 28 (941) and Hall’s Register ‘R’ (886). The former has a fairly solid date of ca. 1325. The total is quite a bit fewer than that in MS 166 (1271), which we tentatively dated between 1340 and 1351. For what the information is worth – and it is not much when we are speaking of decades – the script of this register looks a bit earlier than that of MS 166. The conclusion to the Analysis of writs in MS 166 compares that register with MS 28 and Hall’s Register ‘R’, and concludes that MS 166 has structural features (in addition to its size) that are different from MS 28 and ‘R’ that make it plausible that it dates from two or three decades later. The question that we pose here is whether the structure and contents of MS 45 are more like those of MS 28 and ‘R’ or more like those of MS 166.

We begin with the major categories and their approximate proportions: Right (7%), Ecclesiastical (14%), Replevin (9%), Trespass (7%), Criminal (10%), Account (2%), Debt (4%), Annuity (2%), Covenant (1%), Mesne (1%), Dower (2%), Rights in land (3%), Wardship (3%), Assizes (3%), Testaments (2%), Protections (1%), Novel disseisin (17%), Entry (7%), Formedon (2%), Ad quod dampnum (1%). The proportions of right, ecclesiastical, and replevin approximate those of MS 28 (11%, 14%, 10%). It is further away from MS 166 (10%, 13%, 4%), where replevin is considerably cut down proportionally. Both MS 28 and MS 166 have approximately 3% of their contents devoted to waste. Here it is tucked in on a page and a half (fol. 19r–19v) between ecclesiastical and replevin, reminding us of the skimpy treatment of waste in earlier registers. Trespass (7%) is somewhat smaller proportionally than it is in MS 28 and 166 (11%, 10%), but criminal (10%) is quite a bit larger (4%, less than 1/2 percent). In this, MS 45 reminds of MS 60, which is roughly contemporary with MS 28. Novel disseisin is larger (17%) than it is in either MS 28 or 166 (13% [combined with mort d’ancestor], 12% [15% if combined with mort d’ancestor]). Here, however, the difference may not be real but a product of the fact that there is only one header ‘de redisseisina’ (fol. 70v) (it begins without a header, fol. 64v). In fact, mort d’ancestor is there (fol. 73v–74v), and before reaching entry the section closes with a number of writs about making attorney, mostly in local courts (fol. 76r–78v).

Like MS 166 but also like MS 28, MS 45 knows a category called ‘proteccio’. It is marked in the headers and occupies about a folio (63), just before novel disseisin. It is not so extensive as it is in MS 166, nor is it placed after formedon along with pardons. (Pardons are not found in MS 28, but protection appears after formedon in that manuscript.). Unlike both MS 28 and 166, MS 45 devotes a folio to testaments (61v–62r). It is marked by a header ‘quod burgenses possunt legare cattala sua’, a proposition that does not apply only to burgesses, but the section includes writs about the legacy of land, which could be thought of as applying only to burgesses. Not only is the category new but the writs are new. The only comparable writ that we have found in earlier manuscripts is ‘de vasto in tenementis legatis’ in MS 61 (ca. 1325), fol. 62r. In the second half of the 14th century, this category will become quite common. Ad quod dampnum is a fairly large category in MS 166; it is not found in MS 28. It does, however, appear in MS 52 (ca. 1300) and in MS 60 (ca. 1325), and in the latter it is not tucked in at the end, as it is here.

Certainty is not possible. The fact is, however, that there is nothing new in this register except for the short section on testaments. The three characteristics of MS 166 that, in addition to hints about the later date in the style of the king, led us to date that register in the 1340s or even 1350s – its size, its development of the category of brevia de statuto, and the large section after formedon devoted principally to administrative matters – are not present here. MS 45 dates from the reign of Edward III, but nothing that we have found so far encourages us to date it very far into that reign; hence, our tentative date of ca. 1330.