Ideas for an Exhibition of the King S College Estates Records

CatalogueCatalogue ofof thethe EstatesEstates RecordsRecords ofof King’sKing’s College,College, CambridgeCambridge

Map of Heaths Lands in Walkern, Hertfordshire, made by W. Rowlett. 1810 (KCAR/6/2/162/3 WLK/80) Vol.Vol. 33 Bedfordshire,Bedfordshire, Berkshire,Berkshire, Buckinghamshire,Buckinghamshire, Hampshire,Hampshire, Hertfordshire,Hertfordshire, Kent,Kent, Lincolnshire,Lincolnshire, Middlesex,Middlesex, Oxfordshire,Oxfordshire, Surrey,Surrey, Sussex,Sussex, WarwickshireWarwickshire INTRODUCTION KING’S COLLEGE ESTATES RECORDS, VOL. 3

About the Project

Thanks to the generous support of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the estates records of King’s College have now been fully catalogued. These are the records of estates in England given to the College by Henry VI following its foundation in 1441, many of which were the lands of the so-called alien priories, the dependencies in England of foreign religious houses such as the Norman Abbey of Bec, confiscated by the Crown in 1414. Although most colleges are responsible for lands outside their local area, the King’s College estates are perhaps the most far flung, covering 189 estates in 30 counties from Cornwall to Norfolk, Suffolk to Yorkshire. For a complete list of the estates, please see the index at the end of this volume.

Figure 1: View of the College Chapel and the Gibbs Building from the Archive Centre window.

The records themselves vary between manors, but overall contain an impressive range of material, including court rolls and other manorial documents, deeds tracing the exchange of property among local inhabitants, wills and probate inventories and a number of royal documents, all of which deserve to be made available to a wider audience. Because many of the lands were appropriated from the alien priories, such as Ogbourne in Wiltshire, Great Bricett and Kersey in Suffolk, which were older administrative institutions in their own right, the records stretch back well before the foundation of the College, with the oldest dating from the 11th century.

Figure 2: Our oldest document – A Charter for the exchange of land in West Wretham, Norfolk, 1085 (KCAR/6/2/171/4 WEW23)

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A project website has been set up as a first port of call for readers interested in the estates records – there you can see images of the documents and download copies of the catalogue in Microsoft Word format. The catalogue will also be provided as a searchable online database through JANUS, a webserver for archival catalogues based in Cambridge. Links to JANUS will be given from the project website.

The project has also included outreach work such as exhibitions of the records in the Archive Centre Reading Room, a Day School for Local History students, publication of an article in Local and Family History Society journals and a travelling exhibition, touring record offices and public libraries in relevant counties. If you would like more information, please visit the project website:

http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/library/archives/college/hlfproject

About the Records

The catalogues have been compiled according to the categories used in Michael Stansfield’s original card index (available for consultation in the Archive Centre Reading Room) in turn prompted by F.W. Steed’s catalogue of the archives of New College, Oxford. These categories essentially split the records of each manor into three main groups, ecclesiastical records, manorial documents and estate records. Within these main divisions, the papers are then divided by type of material, e.g. receipts, accounts, deeds, surveys. These document types can help indicate useful starting points for the reader – you can use the Detailed Contents list included at the beginning of the volume to determine what kinds of material exist for each estate.

Within the collection for most of the manors, rentals have Figure 3 survived, which list the names of tenants living on the manor, Seal of Matilda on a and describe the amount each would have paid in rent for their grant of the Burton homes. Perhaps the most common documents among the Coggles advowson, records are title deeds and leases – these can pinpoint more Lincolnshire, c. 1150. exactly who bought or leased which lands from whom, and (KCAR/6/2/25 BUC/3) when. We are lucky to have some testamentary records among the estates collections, including a number of wills as well as several, rarer, probate inventories – these can provide truly fascinating accounts of the minutiae of a person’s daily life, family relationships and even physical details about the layout of their home. All of the more substantial manorial collections include a number of court rolls, recording proceedings of the manor courts which were the principal means of local administration, from property exchange to punishment. They always included a list of jurors and usually mentioned any bailiffs or other officials who played a part in proceedings. Accounts regularly occur among the manorial documents, including those for stewards, receivers, servants and other officials of the manor. There are many early charters among the collections, mostly from the administration of the estates prior to the College’s involvement which were then inherited once it took over as landlord – these usually record the exchange of land or property between local inhabitants, and many have personal seals attached.

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For those interested in the development of a geographical area, or the changing landscape or boundaries surrounding a particular property, there are many terriers among the collections, with a substantial number from the 18th to the 19th centuries. These provide a detailed topographical description of the area surveyed, and were often used as evidence in legal disputes over land rights between the College and local landowners. Along similar lines, there are many surveys and valuations of land and property belonging to the College. Often, surveyors produced maps of the areas surveyed, and there are some beautifully-drawn and detailed estate maps and plans among the collections, the earliest of which dates from 1587.

Many of the estates collections include bundles of correspondence, usually between the incumbent College bursar and local tenants, from which often interesting stories emerge. For example, the report of the discovery of some significant roman coins in the Glebe lands attached to the rectory in West Wretham, Norfolk, by a local tenant (KCAR/6/2/171/10 WEW/28). These kinds of ‘local interest’ stories are common among the estate papers, and would greatly repay closer study. Most of the larger estates also include papers regarding the inclosure act, as well as any records of legal disputes over rights or land, of interest Figure 4 Seals and to those looking into the history of the English landscape, signatures of Ruislip or the legal aspects of land ownership. tenants, 1579 (KCAR/6/2/133/24 RUI/32) In addition, there is a good deal of material in the records which would be useful to anyone researching the history of ecclesiastical houses, such as the priories of Kersey and Great Bricett in Suffolk, as well as the development and decline of the manorial system or, indeed, the history of King’s College itself.

We also have a considerable collection of royal documents, several illuminated , and an impressive range of examples of the Great Seal, from Stephen to Victoria.

Figure 5 Great Seal of King James I (reverse), 1614 (KCAR/6/2/133/24 RUI/36)

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About the Catalogues

This volume includes the records of estates in Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lincolnshire, Middlesex, Oxfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire. Three other volumes are available:

Volume 1: Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire

Volume 2: Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk

Volume 4: Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Wiltshire, Yorkshire

 A complete index of estates is printed at the end of each volume, giving the volume and page number relating to each manor.

 Also included as an appendix is the catalogue of the records of the Norman Abbey of Bec held by King’s – the Abbey was the original owner of the majority of the estates granted to the College, and there are many cross references to its records from the estates catalogue.

 To avoid confusion concerning Old Style/New Style dates for any pre-1752 documents dated Jan-Mar, the date as given in the old catalogue has been given first in each catalogue record, followed by a clarification of the year in OS/NS format, e.g.: WEW/52 Lease Lease of West Wretham manor by King's College to Sir Nicholas Bacon (1509-1579), keeper of the Great Seal of Elizabeth I. The document is signed by Bacon and features his seal. 23 Feb 1560 1559/60

For more information about Old Style/New Style dates, see C.R. Cheney, ed., Handbook of dates for students of English history (Cambridge, various editions), or Chris Phillips’s Medieval Genealogy site, http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/guide/chron.shtml

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This catalogue was compiled in 2004/5 by Jude Brimmer from a card index by Dr Michael Stansfield at the King’s College Archive Centre, Cambridge, as part of the ‘Promotion of Public Access to the King’s College Estates Records’ project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. It is available online via the project website.

If you have any questions regarding the catalogues, the project or the records themselves, or would like to make an appointment to visit the Archive Centre to view the records in person, please contact us or visit the website for more information.

http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/library/archives/college/hlfproject

The Archivist Archive Centre King’s College Cambridge CB2 1ST

Telephone (01223) 331444 Fax (01223) 331891

Email [email protected] Archive Centre Website http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/library/archives

September 2005