<Preliminary introduction>

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

“Description : 160 leaves : vellum ; 11 cm.

“Summary : Contains a Magna Carta, as well as, Praerogativa Regis, Articuli cleri, Expositio Vocabulorum de Ponderibus, Assisa Panis et Cervitii, De Visu Franci Plegii, De Champartia.

“Notes : Written in law Latin by an English scribe with long lines, 23 to a full page.

“Illuminated initial with miniature of King Edward III and ornamental pen letters with marginal decorations.”

The cataloguing in Baker’s English Legal Manuscripts, 1, no. 62 reads as follows:

“STATUTA VETERA; EXPOSITIO VOCABULORUM

“MS. 58.

“C.xiv, 162 ff., illum. initial with miniature of king.

“‘Natus in mediis Anglorum finibus istum Hugo Lorimeyre possidet ecce librum’ and ‘LORIMEIR’ (early C.xvi); ‘R. Amherst’ (C.xvii), probably Richard Amherst (d. 1632), serjeant at law; ‘Wadham Wyndham’, i.e. Sir Wadham (d. 1668), justice of the King’s Bench; sold at S. 29 June 1898, no. 692, to Ridler; bought from him by George Dunn, Nov. 1898; his sale, S. 11 Feb. 1913, no. 167; bought privately by HLS.

“Census, I, 1034, no. 58.”

The manuscript measures approximately 110 X 73 mm.

The binding is in good condition, leather covers with a debossed border of stylized garlands and two metal clasps at the foredge. There is evidence that the manuscript was trimmed at the top and bottom for binding. The binding probably dates from the 19th century. The blank modern endpapers at the front and back were probably added when the manuscript was bound.

The script is eminently legible, clearly a professional hand. The decorated capitals are standard in design and of good quality.

We have found no foliation, either ancient or modern. Our first instinct was to foliate digitally all the medieval folios and omit those at the end that did not have medieval writing on them. Ultimately, it seemed better to foliate digitally all the folios that had either medieval or early modern writing on them, which meant that all that remained unfoliated was what was added as endpapers when the manuscript was most recently bound.

The manuscript appears to have 18 regular quaternions, two ternions, and one duernion, excluding the modern blank endpapers at either end. This gives us the following tentative collation:

1⁴ (f. 1–4), 2–8⁸ (f. 5–60), 9⁶ (f. 61–66), 10–20⁸ (f. 67–154), 21⁶ (f. 155–159), 22⁸ (f. 160–167).

It is unclear why HOLLIS identifies the minature on fol. 5r as being of Edward III. Since it precedes the Confirmatio cartarum of 1297, it is much more likely to be of Edward I. Lacking that identification we see no reason why this manuscript has for many years carried the date of ca. 1330. The last datable item in it that we so far found (excluding the obvious later addition of a writ of Henry VIII at the end) is Articuli cleri of 9 Edw. 2 (1316). The later date would seem to be based on a tentative suggestion made by George Dunn at the beginning of the manuscript. That suggestion was, in turn, based on his assigning in the list of statutes at the end of the manuscript various items temp. incert. to specific years in the reign of Edward II. We no longer have any confidence in these attributions and rather suspect that most, perhaps all, of the items listed in S.R. as temp. incert. were in existence before the end of the reign of Edward I.

There are a rather large number of notes written in early modern hands on otherwise blank folios: fol. 3v–4r, fol. 165v, fol. 166v–167r. Baker derived his provenance from the notes on fol. 4r. Those on fol. 166v may indicate that Sir George Gresley, bart. (c. 1580–1650), parliamentary sheriff of Derbyshire from 1644, was a former owner. He would fit nicely between Amherst (d. 1633) and Wyndham, JKB (d. 1668). Those on seq. 165v may contain further indications of provenance if the symbolism could be deciphered. There are also private notes on fol. 3v and fol. 166v that, particularly if transcribed better than we have been able to, could be of literary or historical interest. What struck us was the contrast between the sentiments expressed on fol. 3v, which seem to be decidedly amorous, and those expressed on fol. 166v, which fit with a man who, we imagine, was a Puritan parliamentarian.