Steen Clemmensen Powell ‘s Roll from Oxford, Bodley Library, ms. Ashmole 804/iv CONTENTS 1. Introduction 3 2. The manuscripts 4 2.1 Presumed original - PO/a 4 2.2 Early copy - PO/b 5 2.3 Modern copy - PO/c 5 3. The period of collation 5 4. ‘Extinct’ and odd entries 6 4.1 Titles in abeyance by 1348 6 4.2 Contradictory entries 7 4.3 Collating and compiling 8 4.4 Templates of arms or early source 8 5. The baronage 10 6. Selected families and their brisures 11 6.1 Brisures and relationships 12 6.2 Beauchamp of Warwick 14 6.3 Ufford 16 6.4 Neville and Zouche 17 7. Discussion 18 7.1 Heralds as compilers 19 7.2 Territorial affiliation 20 7.3 The Ufford connection 22 8. Summary and conclusion 23 The Powell armorial 25 Appendix A: Concordance with Greenstreet 153 Appendix B: Multiple entries per family 156 Appendix C: Beauchamp arms 163 Appendix D: Ufford arms 174 Appendix E: Neville arms 179 Appendix F: Stapleton pedigree 185 Appendix G: Distribution of knights 186 Abbreviations 187 Bibliography 189 Index armorum 198 Index nominorum 213 © 2018 Steen Clemmensen, Farum, Denmark, www.armorial.dk under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ISBN 978-87-970977-0-0 The Powell roll of arms 1. Introduction According to Anthony Wagner, the late Garter King-of-arms and doyen of researchers of English armorials, this armorial was collated and compiled at the beginning of the glorious middle part of the reign of Edward III, between 1345 and 1351.1 This conclusion did not require much scholarly research, only a little perusing of the manuscript by a person with a fair knowledge of the peerage. The layout of the armorial makes it easy to approach with 45 banners at the beginning and narrow shields for the rest.2 One needs only to look at the banners and note a few odd earls, who never passed this dignity on. There were probably other copies or versions in circulation in former times, but only the one copied in 1584 by Robert Glover, then Somerset Herald, has survived. A more recent copy was painted in 1812 by the Rev. David Thomas Powell. It was considered the most important roll from the reign by James H. Greenstreet (d.1891), who a few years before his untimely early death transcribed it from Powell’s redrawing adjusted with the ‘original’ and named it the Powell Roll.3 Despite this assessment, no real interest in it has been taken before the present edition.4 Wagner noted a commonality with the Antiquaries’ Roll (AN) for which there is an unpublished transcription by Oswald Barron in the Society of Antiquaries in London. This armorial is dated a decade later. There is a considerable overlap, but no concordance. Besides recording a large number of coats of arms the Powell has two interesting elements: (1) there are multiple entries for very many families, and (2) much of the gentry in it appear to have held properties in East Anglia. As will be discussed below, the collation of arms and the compilation of the armorial must have been completed shortly before 1348. The armorial is not a record of participants in the early campaigns, but a survey of people of interest to the anonymous compiler. It is impractical, rather than impossible, to research and write extensive biographies on so many persons in relation to an armorial, so the search for documentation has been limited to just enough to identify the individual and place him socially and in time and space. Further information on the families, patrilineal lineages, is available in the standard references quoted, e.g. Complete Peerage, Brault’s The Rolls of Arms of Edward I, and Moor’s Knights of Edward I (mainly for fathers and earlier ancestors of the entries). The work of G.J. Brault is largely dependent on that of C. Moor, but of value for ease of consultation as well as content. All three draw on, and refer to, calendared governmental records, seals and other armorials. In addition selected volumes of the printed calendars of inquisitions post-mortem, patent rolls and close rolls have been consulted. A county affiliation is placed in the margin of entries in this edition for the county in which the principal properties of the family, if not the person, ought to be. If not, it should be the county in which the family first settled when noted in the official records. In many cases, this is obviously not the case. Acquisitions by marriage or grants often changed the distribution of lands, especially for ambitious (and lucky) younger sons. Similarly, extinction of a branch in the male line transferred many family properties to the husbands of heiresses. The reader will note the passing of lands by grants to apparently unrelated people, who then re-grant them back to the original owner on changed conditions in order to circumvent the normal rules of inheritance - usually for a fine (payment) to the royal administration. Some territorial affiliations were derived from the survey of knights in the Great or Parliamentary Roll (N/PAR) from 1307/12, which in several cases are not the same as the counties a person is known to have represented in Parliament or in a great council. 1 CEMRA 61-62, sigla PO. The date was already noted in Black’s catalogue of the Ashmolean manuscripts (Oxford 1845). 2 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Ashmole 804, part iv, PO/a. 3 Greenstreet PO. The items extracted into Foster DH are noted as from the Ashmole Roll. 4 Denholm-Young CF 118-120 has some comments on it. 3 2. The manuscripts There are three known manuscripts of the Powell armorial, two painted and one tricked. The principal manuscript (PO/a) is on vellum and could be contemporary with the collation of arms. The animal hide has never been tested for age, and the stylistic indicators are in principle unreliable. The copyist would probably faithfully render all details as in his source. This was the case for the Hatton-Dugdale copies of the mid 17th century now in the Society of Antiquaries. Wagner concluded that the tricked 16th century copy (PO/b) was probably from another version than the present principal manuscript, and in any case, this copy is rudimentary and unfinished.5 The copy (PO/c) made in 1812 is nice to have, but essentially worthless from a scholarly point of view. Its main force is that the copyist saw the principal manuscript two centuries earlier, and may have noted details that have been lost in the meantime. It also has an unintentional value as an example of the types and frequency of mistakes a copyist may make. The Reverend Powell was by all criteria a scrupulous workman. There is one printed transcription of the armorial by James Greenstreet published in Jewitt’s Reliquary in instalments during 1889-90.6 He used the 1812 facsimile (PO/c) as his principal source, but verified and corrected his entries with the principal manuscript (PO/c). Greenstreet numbered the banners and the shields in different series.7 There is no analysis, but it gives the names of the persons behind the arms, when available, as written in the legends. It also gives the folio and number on the folio in both of his sources. There is an additional transcription, not consulted, by Robert W. Mitchell in 1982 for the Heraldry Society of Scotland in his series of armorials from Oxford, Queen’s College, Ms.158 (PO/b). This transcription was not expected to provide relevant information when the three manuscripts and the Greenstreet transcription were available. 2.1 The presumed original - PO/a The principal manuscript, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 804, part iv, is a book of 28 leaves of vellum, each 140 x 300 mm, slightly longer and only 2/3 the width of a modern A4 page. It contains 672 items, painted in four rows of three (3x4), 12 to the page. The first 45 are painted on rectangular banners, the remaining on narrow shields. There are multiple numberings on the pages; the one used here is by folio and consecutive item. The contents has been divided into two segments, 01 painted on banners, 02 painted on shields, and interspaced 03 for some items, that belong to peers extinct at the proposed time of collation. The Bodleian Library has made a digitized facsimile available on http://bodley30.bodley.ox.ac.uk:8180/luna/servlet/view/search;jsessionid=D13568DC007C144ED1 53F3FF954B3CCA?q=Shelfmark="MS.%20Ashmole%20804%2C%20pt.%20IV; but easier found through their digital catalogue. They also provide a description of each page with a transcription of the hard to read names. There are legends over the arms in a contemporary hand (A, 14C gothic) for the first five pages containing both banners and shields, the rest in another, probably contemporary hand (B, cursive) with retouching in a later similar hand (C, cursive). There are some later corrections, rewrites and/or additions with different inks. The few anonymous entries appear to be marked with a dot within a circle. The first 14 pages, items 1-168, are richly illuminated using gold and silver, while the remaining pages are more plainly coloured, but not of lower quality in respect of drawing and execution. The colours are faded and the silver blackened. Some yellows are almost white. There is some abrasive damage and occasional signs of water damage, if not corrections.