Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 29.djvu/175

Rh (Endorsed) A nostre tres-cher en dieu et tres-bien ame l'abbe de Westmonster.

Under "Suffolk" is entered a confederation between the Abbots of Westminster (William de Humez, the last Norman Abbot) and Bury St. Edmunds (Hugh de Northwold), being one of affection and charity, promising aid, advice and assistance to each other in case of need, and divine services at their decease. I need scarcely mention that the Abbey of St. Edmunds Bury was one of the most important in the kingdom, and shortly preceding the date of this agreement it had become famous from the great meeting of the insurgent barons within its walls, and their swearing at St. Edmund's altar to secure the Magna Charta from King John.

Among the "Curiosities" which, strangely enough, is not a title of one of the sub-divisions of the section "Various Persons and Things," is the well-known lease by the warden of the Lady Chapel to Geoffrey Chaucer of a house and garden contiguous to that structure. There is also an agreement between the Abbot and two bell-founders of Reading, "for the new castyng of ii belles of the rynge of the said monasterye," 31 Henry VIII., which may, it is hoped, appear in a future portion of this Journal.

It is, however, under the somewhat quaint title, "Various Persons and Things," that Widmore brought together the documents of more general interest. The subordinate headings—"Anniversaries, viz. of Abbots, &c.,"—"Compositions between the Abbot and Monks,"—"Corrodies and Pensions,"—"Fabrick,"—"Funerals,"—"High Wales, Bridges, and Sewers,"—"Jews,"—"Indulgences,"—"Inventories of Goods,"—"Jurisdiction,"—"Law Suits,"—"State and History,"—and many others equally comprehensive and discordant, testify to the wide range of subjects over which the documents spread, and the difficulty experienced in classifying them—a difficulty which has not always been effectually met. A simple chronological arrangement of the whole might have been more satisfactory.

In considering this miscellaneous portion of the collection we shall arrive at documents which have no apparent connection with the Abbey, and which could only be found among its archives by circumstances similar to those which