<Preliminary introduction>

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

“Copy information : Top edges eaten by rodents.

“Description : 236 leaves : vellum ; 12 cm.

“Summary : Contains the Magna carta, also Cadit assisa and Judicium essoniorum, in Latin and law-French.

“Notes : Written in neat legal hand, long lines, 22 to a full page.

“Illuminated initials and borders.”

The cataloguing in Baker’s English Legal Manuscripts, 1, no. 79 reads as follows:

“STATUTA VETERA; TRACTS

“MS. 56.

“Early C.xiv, 236 ff. Also contains Cadit assisa; Judicium essoniorum.

“Acquired by George Dunn in May 1896; his sale, S. 11 Feb. 1913, no. 162; bought privately by HLS.

“Census, I, 1034, no. 56.”

The manuscript measures approximately 120 X 80 mm.

The damage to the top outer edges noted in the HOLLIS catalogue does not seem to affect the text.

The leather binding with a thin gold border on both covers probably dates from the 19th century. It is missing its spine but otherwise in good condition. The blank modern endpapers at the front and back were probably added when the manuscript was bound.

There are red and blue paragraph marks throughout. The decorated initials with scrollwork are of a standard style for the period and of good quality.

The script is less cursive than many. There is no reason to doubt that it comes from the end of the 13th century or the beginning of the 14th. It is pretty clearly the work of a professional scribe.

The manuscript has 20 regular quires of 12 folios each, excluding the unfoliated endpapers at the beginning and the end. Three folios appear to be missing from quire 18 (it is not clear precisely where) and one from the end of quire 20, after f. 236. This gives us the following collation:

i (unfoliated), 1–20¹² (f. 1–236, lacks three between f. 418 and 435; one after f. 236), ii (unfoliated).

The manuscript contains a version of the Ordinances of 1311. This is quite uncommon and is probably an indication of the date of composition of the manuscript. After the repeal of the Ordinances in what modern historians call the Statute of York (17 Edw. 2 [1322]), there would have been no point in including them, and including them might have been politically dangerous.

The manuscript contains one non-statutory item, the ‘Articles of Lincoln’, that is quite rare. The fact that initial capitals in it are illustrated with grotesques may be telling us something.

The manuscript also contains one item that we have not been able to find anyplace else. It seems to be a version of ‘Casus placitorum’. It is certainly in one of the styles of what is known under that name: statements of rules probably derived from cases, but without giving the writ or the count and here without any discussion of the specifics of the case or of who said what. It is hard to believe that this item does not exist someplace else, but spot checking did not find any of it in Dunham’s edition. It lacks both a formal incipit and an explicit. It bears some resemblance to CUL MS Dd.7.14, fol. 363v–365r, for which see Baker, Cambridge Legal Manuscripts 80, who cites this manuscript as a parallel.

As we have it, the incipit is ‘Si un home deseysit un altre e celi feffe tost outre un altre apres si qe il ad plenere seisine amedeus sunt disseysours et deynent estre mis en cel bref de nouele dissine et puis’ etc. Explicit (following paragraph mark) ‘Un home essonse une’. The previous entry is ‘Un home demie a an [read un] altre une charue de terre pur dis sol rendaunt par an et pur homage e pur service e le feffe rend les diz solz a pus vent cele a un altre pur vij d par an. Cele terre gist fresche le chef seygner ne treove rien a destreindre pur les x s ore fet asaver coment il purra avenyr a sa rent par un bref de Custumes e de services envers le meyn e qei si le meyn desavowera qe il cleyme rien attenyr de luy certes par le desavowerement purra il recoverir par un bref de dreit qar si le tenaunt vouche le meyn agarant le tenaunt purra tut perdre par le desvouwement qe le meyn a fet devaunt qar en le bref de dreyt ne ad recoverer si par bataylle ou grant assise.’

Some of the contents of the item that we have described as ‘Notes’ at the end of the manuscript seem to be informal additions to this version of ‘Casus placitorum’.