Andrey Kasatov Saint-Petersburg [email protected] AN ORIGINAL THIRTEENTH CENTURY CHARTER FROM MONK BRETTON PRIORY (YORKSHIRE) IN THE ARCHIVE OF ST. PETERSBURG * INSTITUTE OF HISTORY (RAS) The generations of scholars have made great eff orts to fi nd and publish medieval documents wri en in scriptoriums of the English monasteries and now preserved in diff erent archives of Great Britain. The Russian archives are represented only by separate documents and, hence, it is a great success to discover a new one.1 This study deals with a charter acquired by N. P. Lichatchev (1862–1936), a famous Russian historian and collector of ancient deeds.2 The document itself has a form of the right quadrangular piece of parchment (size 157x123 mm) with plica (a folded edge of a document) bearing slits for a seal’s cord (so called charter “sur double queque”). It becomes common for a royal chancery since the middle of the twel h century being accepted by less powerful lords. It was the seller himself who had sealed the charter: “ego Willelmus… scripto sigillum meum apposui” (Appendix I). The seal, meanwhile, is lost. As we shall see, he hardly took a prominent position and had not own chancery. (*) The publication is maintained with the program “Organization and fi nancial support to the young scholars of Russian Academy of Sciences on the fi eld of fundamental studies”. (1) View for example the list of documents preserved in the Department of manuscripts of the Russian National Library (РНБ). F. 922. and a collection N 18 “England and Scotland. Deeds and le ers” in the Archive of the Institute of History (Saint-Petersburg, RAS). (2) Col. 18. “England and Scotland. Deeds and le ers”. Folder 381. N 1a. Now the ruins of Priory is situated in the county South Yorkshire, Borough of Barnsly. Previous it lied in a Western Riding (wapentake Staincross, parish of Royston) County Yorkshire en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Borough_ of_Barnsley; www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/WRY/Royston 243 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 01:18:27PM via free access 244 Scrinium VΙI–VIII.2 (2011–2012). Ars Christiana So, the charter was wri en by either one of the monks or Stephen, the witness, called a clerk (clericus).3 The charter a ests the purchase of landholdings and possessions (terras et possessiones) with pertinences situated in Carlton village and around it. The seller, William received from the brethren of Monk Bre on fi ve silver shillings under the con- dition that neither he nor his heirs should claim their right or bring an action from this time onwards: “non <…> aliquid jus vel clamum debemus ponere vel poterimus interrogare”. Monk Bre on priory was subordinated to neighboring Pontefract and to immense cluniacensis monastery Lа Charité sur Loire as evi- denced by Adam’s charter.4 Only around 1280–1290 Monk Bre on priory could gain freedom. As electronic data of British archives dem- onstrate, the early documents from Monk Bre on priory are rare and dispersed.5 Sometimes it is possible to make clear the circumstances caused their appearance but the precise date remains unknown. As one example, a fi nal concord between Adam, son of William, and the brethren of Monk Bre on should be mentioned wri en as a list of wit- nesses a ests around the second third of the thirteenth century.6 Some documents from Monk Bre on are preserved at the Sheffi eld Munici- pal Archive but when they were compiled remains unclear. The earli- est deeds from that archive can be dated from 1249–1252.7 There is else one document dated if original at the latest from 1280–1290 and preserved among deeds of Duke Lancaster’s family.8 (3) D. Postles, Country Clerici and the Composition of English Twel h- and Thirteenth-Century Charters, in: K. Heidecker (ed.), Charters and the Use of the Wri en Word in Medieval Society (Turnhout, 2000) 29. (4) W. Farrer (ed.), Early Yorkshire Charters, vol. III (Edinburgh, 1916) № 1669. (5) www.nationalarchives.gov.uk. (6) Greater Manchester County Record Offi ce E7 13/4/1. A short content of the deed can be found here www.nationalarchives.gov.uk. I express my gratitude to Mr. Lees, custodian at the Manchester Record Offi ce, for a photo- copy of the document concerned. (7) www.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Wharncliff e Muniments/Deeds 1–687 (1250–1920). (8) h p://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguede tails.asp?CATLN=6&CATID=7210339&j=1 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 01:18:27PM via free access Andrey Kasatov 245 Together with separate charters two cartularies wri en in Monk Bre on Priory and their abstracts are available.9 The earliest manu- script dated from 1336–1340 is preserved now in the British library (Lansdowne 405).10 Although it contains some le ers and diplomas of such papas as Urban III (1185—1187), Clement III (1187–1191) or Innocent III (1198–1216), and private deeds of the twel h–thirteenth centuries all of them are without doubts later copies. The full version of the cartulary can be dated from 1529–1538 and it is kept in the Brit- ish library (Ms. 50755) too. So, none of the cartularies concerned illus- trates the evolution of handwriting at the scriptorium of Monk Bre on Priory when the book script all around Western Europe underwent the transformation and the cursive (chancery script) was proliferating through the royal chancery to become accepted among less powerful lords. Thus, our charter deserves close a ention for two main reasons. From the one hand, we deal in all probability with an original. Taking into account that the evolution and typology of chancery script in Eu- rope (sometimes called “the gothic cursive script”) and particularly in England is still a debated question any new document contributes to its reconstruction.11 From the other hand, it shows some circumstances of everyday economic and social life of the priory and countryside, giving information straight from the tin.12 In the absence of precise dates, wri en into the text of a document, historians have option to a variety of internal and external indicators to determinate approximate or circa dates. As professor Michael Gervers (9) None of them is published. There is only a book of extracts prepared by J. W. Walker. J. W. Walker (ed.), Abstracts of the Cartularies of the Priory of Monk Bre on (Leeds, 1924) (Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical So- ciety, 66). (10) J. S. Purvis, New light on the chartularies of Monkbre on Priory, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 37 (1948/1951) 67; G. Davis has argued this dat- ing and suggests the XIII c. G. R. C. Davis, Two Cartularies from the West Rid- ing, The British Museum Quarterly 24, N ¾ (1961) 69, n. 1. (11) M. H. Smith, Les “gotiques documentaires”: un carrefour dans l’his- toire le l’écriture latine, Archiv für Diplomatik: Schri geschichte, Siegel- und Wap- penkunde 50 (2004) 417–420. (12) Farrer, Early Yorkshire Charters, vol. III, № 1669. The Priory was founded as a new monastery of Cluny congregation around 1153–1156 by the descendant of Anglo-Saxon thegns who had survived the Conquest to become the tenants of Norman family of Lacy. Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 01:18:27PM via free access 246 Scrinium VΙI–VIII.2 (2011–2012). Ars Christiana supposes the list of witnesses is more instructive than the formulary but it is he who has wri en very intriguing and informative paper about the formulary of Essex charters. He cites some examples when the later copies preserved the formulary of original deeds making confusion.13 But the list of witnesses may be misleading too. Instability of the me- dieval family names or their absence at all is well known. There are cases when witnesses from older sources have been appended to later lists, and there are lists containing names that have exact counterparts in preceding or succeeding generations as our charter demonstrates. Handwriting has also its limitations but it is of importance to establish whether we deal with original, copy or forgery. That’s why the paleo- graphical analyses undertaking in due manner cannot be disregarded. Handwriting looks like a chancery calligraphic script. As separate words evidence, the script itself has a resemblance with book one (Ap- pendix I). Each stem is wri en out in the same manner: bold, strong calligraphic lines resembling to the book le ers. As it might be, some elements show plain that our charter was wri en at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The most visible is the double forms of the capital le ers r, d decorative as they are which can not be found in documents of the twel h century. The cursive elements although not expressed hardens our assumptions. Such elements are most evident on the example of the uncial d. One can notice the slight trace which connects the bo om element of the le er d with its vertical stem. It is so called air trace of feather. A scriber ended bo om element of the le er and without tearing the pen led the feather from right to le to fi nish the le er with a bold and as a rule inclined vertical stem (Appendix II). Nevertheless, our charter has more common with handwriting tra- dition of the eleveth–twel h centuries, too. One can note a slight split on the top of the vertical stems of le ers b, l, h. It was a character- istic feature of Anglo-Norman scribers due to the fact that they had changed the manner of pen-holding and angle of the writing surface (Appendix I, word Alex in line 3).