Malmesbury

An Irish monk called Mailduib established a monastery at Malmesbury towards the middle of the seventh century. He was succeeded by Aldhelm in the early 670s, and the abbey appears to have prospered for some time thereafter under the patronage of both Mercian and West Saxon kings. King Æthelstan was buried at Malmesbury in 939. The abbey is said to have been ‘restored’ by Archbishop Dunstan, during the reign of King Edgar.

The pre-Conquest charters of Malmesbury abbey are preserved in three relatively ‘late’ cartularies, each representing a different stage in the transmission of a collection of texts which would appear to have been put together in the early twelfth century. The cartulary in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Wood empt. 5, fols. 9-60 (Davis 641), written in the mid-thirteenth century, is a copy of this collection in what seems to be its earliest extant state. It begins with a list of knights owing service to the abbey (ptd Brewer and Martin, i. 277-8, from a different source), which may have been an addition in the exemplar. The majority of the charters, which are arranged in an approximately chronological order, are royal grants cast directly in favour of the abbey; they thus create an impression of an uninterrupted process of endowment beginning in the last quarter of the seventh century, extending throughout the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries, and culminating with Edward the Confessor’s general confirmation of lands, dated 1065 (S 1038). The series does, however, include a related group of texts of more varied import (S 356, 1205 and 1797, representing the abbey’s dealings with Ealdorman Ordlaf in the early tenth century), and one charter (in the name of King Æthelred) cast straightforwardly in favour of a layman (S 862). The collection ends with a small group of post-Conquest texts (Regesta i. 136 and 135; a ‘private’ charter dated 1084; Regesta i. 247; and Regesta ii. 971 (1108 x 1110)), followed by a copy of the bull of Pope Sergius (on which see further below). <Cartularium Saxonicum Malmesburiensem, [ed. T. Phillipps] (Middle Hill, [1831]). Curious; apparently from Wood empt.> The cartulary in PRO, E 164/24 (Davis 644) was compiled in the late thirteenth century. It contains all of the pre-Conquest charters found in Wood empt. 5, in the same order, but it also contains a large amount of additional material from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; for an edition of the manuscript as a whole, see Registrum Malmesburiense, ed. J. S. Brewer and C. T. Martin, 2 vols., Rolls ser. (London, 1879-80). It is interesting to note that the table of contents provided on fols. 20-26 (Brewer and Martin, i. 3-28) does not correspond precisely to the composition of the cartulary in its present condition; and indeed, it is clear from examination of the physical structure of the manuscript itself (and from the alterations made to the quire signatures) that the PRO cartulary is of more complex construction than would appear from the printed edition. Of the first twelve chapters listed in the table of contents, chs. 1-4 are present and correct (fols. 28-41r, ptd Brewer and Martin, i. 29-59); chs. 5-11, however, are ‘missing’, and their place has been taken by the material on fols. 44-120 (ptd Brewer and Martin, i. 65-277); the original plan seems to resume thereafter with quires marked ‘II’ (fols. 121-32) and ‘III’ (fols. 133-44), containing ch. 12 (Brewer and Martin, i. 277-8), chs. 13-42 (i.e. the series of pre-Conquest charters, ptd Brewer and Martin i. 279-325), and so on. The matter is of interest because two late-thirteenth-century quires preserved in association with another Malmesbury cartulary (BL Add. 15667 (Davis 643), fols. 18-39), which correspond very closely in appearance to the original parts of the PRO cartulary, prove to contain precisely the ‘missing’ chapters 5-11. Of them, ‘ch. 8’ (Add. 15667, 33r-36v) is a collection of ‘detached’ boundary clauses for Malmesbury estates, given in Latin translation (S 1552, 1586, 1584, 1579, 1582, 1587, 1578, 1575, 1585, 1583, 1576, 862 (MS. 1) and 1577), and ‘ch. 10’ (Add. 15667, 38r) is a shorter set of boundary clauses, again given in Latin translation (S 1580). A third Malmesbury cartulary, BL Lansdowne 417 (Davis 645), written c. 1400, appears in substance to be a copy of PRO, E 164/24, with some significant editing and re-arrangement of its contents. A contemporary list of chapters, headed ‘Capitula de evidenciis huius registri’, occurs on fols. 2-7. The series of pre-Conquest charters is given as chs. 1 to 29 (fols. 8r-21v), followed by a consolidated set of the boundary clauses (in Latin translation), as ch. 30 (fols. 21v-25v), and by extracts from Domesday Book detailing the holdings of the abbey, as ch. 31 (fols. 25v-27v). The greater part of 27v was left blank, but the charters resume with a text of S 1038, as ch. 32 (fols. 28r-29r), followed by post-Conquest texts.

The pre-Conquest charters of the abbey, and a charter of William I (Regesta i. 136), were transcribed from a Malmesbury cartulary by a Bollandist scholar, in the first half of the seventeenth century (Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS. 7965-73 (3723), fols. 137-50); the transcript seems to be affiliated most closely to the PRO cartulary, but the likely identity of its exemplar is a matter which requires further investigation. BL Add. 38009 and BL Add. 15667 (Davis 642-3) contain parts of yet another Malmesbury cartulary, of composite construction; a text of S 629 + 1577 occurs in Add. 15667, 12r-13r, added to the original compilation in the later thirteenth century. It should be noted, finally, that a group of Malmesbury charters, beginning with S 1038 and otherwise comprising various post-Conquest texts, was entered in the early thirteenth century on one of the Cartæ Antiquæ rolls (Conway Davis, Cartæ Antiquæ Rolls 11-20, pp. 107-13); these copies are potentially of textual importance, since they may have been derived from single sheets.

The study of the Malmesbury charters in their received form should perhaps proceed from analysis of King Edward’s charter of confirmation, dated 1065 (S 1038). The charter is said to have been drawn up by Abbot Brihtric, who claims to have read and diligently examined ‘the charters of our church’, and it incorporates a list of the abbey’s benefactors from the seventh century onwards; the list is clearly related to the charters in the form in which they have been transmitted in the abbey’s cartularies, and it also bears close comparison with the endowment of the abbey as recorded in Domesday Book. The charter itself appears to offend the accepted principles of Anglo-Saxon diplomatic; but it may be that it should be regarded as a possibly authentic example of a pancarte drawn up by the ‘beneficiary’ and submitted to the king for confirmation (see Keynes, ‘Regenbald’, p. 214, and n. 174). One is left wondering whether Abbot Brihtric was instrumental in gathering the material to suit his purposes. It may be significant in this connection that the charters as copied in the cartularies do not have boundary clauses; and that, as we have seen, a series of ‘detached’ bounds (given only in Latin translation), relating to what is essentially the same set of estates, was transmitted separately. These bounds were undoubtedly derived from authentic pre-Conquest charters in the Malmesbury archive; and it is possible that at least some of the Malmesbury charters were put into their received form by a member of the community who wished to present evidence pertaining to the process of the abbey’s endowment in which the role of royal benefactors would be to the fore, but who found himself dependent upon a series of miscellaneous title-deeds which in themselves did not tell quite the story he had in mind.

Whatever the case, there is good reason to believe that the collection of Malmesbury charters already existed, in the form represented by the later cartularies, in the early twelfth century. The majority of the charters are cited (without bounds, and with abbreviated lists of witnesses) by William of Malmesbury in the course of his account of the life of St Aldhelm, and of the later history of Malmesbury, in the fifth book of his Gesta Pontificum Anglorum. The charters are printed from William’s final (and autograph) recension of GP (Oxford, Magdalen College, MS. lat. 172) by N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum Libri Quinque, Rolls ser. (London, 1870); see also R. M. Thomson, William of Malmesbury (Woodbridge, 1987). William evidently felt free to adapt texts to suit his particular purposes: thus S 436 is his own conflation of an unspecified number of charters of King Æthelstan, corresponding to S 415 and 434-5 in the cartularies; and S 1166, found only in GP, was based on the same charters of King Æthelstan. It is interesting, moreover, that he alludes at one point to the ‘English writings’ from which he learnt about Abbot Brihtwold’s mismanagement of the abbey’s estates in the eleventh century, explaining it in terms of the need to raise money for the geld (GP, p. 411); but unfortunately these documents have not been preserved. William of Malmesbury incorporated texts of several charters in his Gesta Regum: some are of Malmesbury interest (S 1245, 436, 796); others relate to Glastonbury (S 250, 257, 499, 783); and two had a more general application (S 92, 314). A ‘Malmesbury’ charter which turns up in the Crowland archive (S 797) was presumably derived from the text of S 796 circulated in the Gesta Regum.

In the mid-eleventh century an Old English version of a document purporting to be a bull of Pope Sergius I for Aldhelm and Malmesbury abbey (BCS 106) was entered in a copy of the West Saxon gospels (BL Cotton Otho C. i, pt 1 (Ker, Catalogue, no. 181)), presumably at Malmesbury. The cartulary in Wood empt. 5 concludes with a version of the same document in Latin (also copied in the other cartularies), and this Latin text was used by William of Malmesbury (GP, pp. 367-70 (and BCS 105)); for the suggestion that the Latin is a translation of the Old English text, itself adapted from an authentic papal bull, see Edwards, ‘Two Documents’, pp. 9-15 (and Edwards, Charters of the Early West Saxon Kingdom, pp. 100-5).

None of the pre-Conquest charters of Malmesbury survives in its original form; but for the possibility that S 96 came from the archive, see below, p. 000. <What happened to the abbey’s lands and archives at the time of the dissolution? Nothing in VCH.>

Charters of Malmesbury Abbey

Edition: Charters of Malmesbury Abbey, ed. S. E. Kelly (Oxford, 2005)

Royal diplomas. 71; 73; 149; 231; 234; 243; 245; 256; 260; 301; 305; 306; 320; 322; 356; 363; 415; 434; 435; 436; 629; 796; 841; 862; 1038; 1169. See also 92 and 314 (William of Malmesbury), and 797 (Crowland).

Miscellaneous. 1166; 1170; 1205 (+ 1797); 1245.

Boundary clauses. 1552; 1575; 1576; 1577; 1578; 1579; 1580; 1582; 1583; 1584; 1585; 1586; 1587.

Select bibliography

WM, GP, pp. 332-443; Mon. Angl. i. 49-54; Mon. Angl. (rev. ed.) i. 254-64; VCH Wilts. iii. 210-31; MRH, p. 70; HRH, pp. 54-6.

M. Lapidge and M. Herren, Aldhelm: the Prose Works (Ipswich, 1979), pp. 5-10;
H. Edwards, ‘Two Documents from Aldhelm’s Malmesbury’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 59 (1986), pp. 1-19
Edwards, Charters of the Early West Saxon Kingdom, pp. 79-127.

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