The Electronic
Sawyer
an online version of the
revised edition of
Sawyer's
Anglo-Saxon
Charters
prepared under the auspices of
the
British Academy / Royal
Historical Society
Joint Committee on Anglo-Saxon
Charters
SECTION TWO
Lost and Incomplete Texts
ABBOTSBURY ABBEY, DORSET
The muniments of Abbotsbury abbey are known to have passed in the sixteenth century into the hands of the Strangways family, of Melbury Sampford and Abbotsbury. The single sheets from the archive, and a cartulary, were used quite extensively by antiquaries working in the first half of the seventeenth century; and while five single sheets remain in the possession of the descendants of the Strangways family (deposited in the Dorset County Record Office at Dorchester: S 736, 961, 1004, plus Abbots 6, registered below, and the statutes of Orc's guild at Abbotsbury), the cartulary itself is now lost, presumed stolen or destroyed when parliamentary forces ransacked the house of Sir John Strangways, at Melbury, in 1644. For our knowledge of the contents of the lost cartulary, we are dependent on three sources: Thomas Gerard's 'Survey of Dorsetshire', written in the early 1620s; Sir Henry Spelman's tract on 'Feuds and Tenures by Knight-Service in England', written in 1639; and Sir William Dugdale's account of Abbotsbury, in the first volume of his Monasticon Anglicanum (1655). Spelman, in particular, illustrated his tract with short extracts from pre-Conquest charters, including several derived directly or indirectly from the Abbotsbury cartulary. The first draft of Spelman's tract is preserved in Harvard Law School, MS 1062; the tract was printed in Reliquiæ Spelmannianæ (1698), and in The English Works of Sir Henry Spelman, Kt (1723), from the fair copy in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. e Mus. 79 (S.C. 3694). For further details, see Keynes 1989.
Abbots 1
A.D. 955 x 957. King Eadwig to Ælfwine, his minister; grant
of 2% hides (mansae) at Shilvinghampton, in Portesham, Dorset.
Latin.
MSS: 1. Harvard Law School, 2062, 212v (s. xvii1)
2. Bodleian, e Mus. 79, pp. 47-8 (s. xvii1)
Printed: Gibson, Reliquiæ Spelmannianæ, p. 19 ex MS 2;
English Works, p. 19 ex MS 2; Keynes 1989, p. 225 (no. 1) ex MSS 1,
2.
Comments: Keynes 1989, p. 226, authentic.
Note. Extract comprises dispositive section (including statement of
powers, immunity clause, and reservation clause), blessing, and
beginning of sanction. <% = a half.>
Abbots 2
A.D. 958. King Edgar to Alur, his minister; grant, for two lives,
of land in Dorset and 3 perticae at Lonk (? Looke Farm in Puncknowle,
Dorset). Latin.
MS: Bodleian, e Mus. 79, p. 48 (s. xvii1)
Printed: Gibson, Reliquiæ Spelmannianæ, p. 19; English
Works, p. 19; Keynes 1989, p. 226 (no. 2).
Comments: Keynes 1989, p. 227, date miscopied, but otherwise
authentic.
Note. Extract comprises verbal invocation, dispositive section
(including statement of powers, immunity clause, and reservation
clause), sanction, introduction to bounds, and dating clause.
Abbots 3
A.D. 1014. King Æthelred to Sealwyne (?Sæwine), his
thegn; grant of 5 hides (cassati) at Rodden, near Abbotsbury, Dorset.
Latin.
MSS: 1. Harvard Law School, 2062, 212v (s. xvii1)
2. Bodleian, e Mus. 79, p. 50 (s. xvii1)
Printed: Gibson, Reliquiæ Spelmannianæ, pp. 19-20 ex MS
2; English Works, pp. 19-20 ex MS 2; Keynes 1989, pp. 227-8 (no. 3)
ex MSS 1, 2.
Comments: Keynes 1980, p. 266; Keynes 1989, p. 228, authentic.
Note. Extract comprises part of dispositive section (including
abbreviated statement of powers, immunity clause, and reservation
clause), and part of dating clause.
Abbots 4
A.D. 1016 x 1035. King Cnut to Orc, his minister; grant of 17
hides (mansae) at Abbotsbury, Dorset. Latin.
MSS: 1. Harvard Law School, 2062, 212r (s. xvii1)
2. Bodleian, e Mus. 79, pp. 50-1 (s. xvii1)
Printed: Gibson, Reliquiæ Spelmannianæ, p. 20 ex MS 2;
English Works, p. 20 ex MS 2; Keynes 1989, pp. 229-30 (no. 4) ex MSS
1, 2.
Comments: Keynes 1989, pp. 230-1, authentic.
Note. Extract comprises verbal invocation, dispositive section
(including statement of powers, immunity clause, and reservation
clause), and beginning of sanction.
Abbots 5
A.D. 1016 x 1035. King Cnut to Bovi, his thegn; grant of land.
Latin.
MS: Harvard Law School, 2062, 212r (s. xvii1)
Printed: Keynes 1989, p. 232 (no. 5).
Comments: Keynes 1989, p. 232, authentic.
Note. Extract comprises part of reservation clause.
Abbots 6
A.D. 1023 x 1045. Vernacular record involving a woman who had
'earned' a parcel of land at Rodden, near Abbotsbury, Dorset, from a
certain Sæwine. English.
MS: Dorchester, Dorset County Record Office, Fox-Strangways archive
[D. 124] (s. xi med.; OS Facs., ii. Ilchester 5)
Printed: OS Facs., ii, Ilchester 5; Keynes 1989, p. 229.
Comments: Keynes 1989, pp. 228-9, authentic.
Note. Lower part of a chirograph, of which only a fragment survives.
Abbots 7
A.D. 1044. Charter of Edward the Confessor concerning the
foundation and endowment of Abbotsbury abbey by Orc and his wife
Tola; recording the establishment of a monastic community, with monks
from Cerne Abbas, and the provision of an endowment said to include
land at Tolpuddle, Abbotsbury, Portesham, Hilton, and Ansty, all in
Dorset.
Sources: Mon. Angl., i. 276; Coker, Survey of Dorsetshire, pp. 30-1;
Gerard's 'Survey of Dorsetshire' (in Dorchester, Dorset County Record
Office, Bond family archive [D. 413]), in Keynes 1989, p. 222.
Comment: Keynes 1989, pp. 223, 236.
Abbots 8
A.D. 1053 x 1066. King Edward to Tola, widow of Orc; grant of 2%
hides (mansae) at (Abbotts) Wootton, in Whitchurch Canonicorum,
Dorset. Latin.
MSS: 1. Harvard Law School, 2062, 211v-212r (s. xvii1)
2. Bodleian, e Mus. 79, p. 51 (s. xvii1)
Printed: Gibson, Reliquiæ Spelmannianæ, p. 20 ex MS 2;
English Works, p. 20 ex MS 2; Keynes 1989, p. 232 (no. 6) ex MSS 1,
2.
Comments: Keynes 1989, pp. 232-3, authentic.
Note. Extract comprises part of dispositive section (including
statement of powers, immunity clause, and reservation clause).
It should be noted that the document recording the statutes of Orc's guild at Abbotsbury, drawn up in the middle of the eleventh century and still preserved in its original single-sheet form (OS Facs. ii. Ilchester 4), is not registered here, since it does not grant land or rights over land; see Keynes 1989, pp. 208 and 237.
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