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 50 A BUTLER'S SEE J E ANT Y January part of Essex. He there enfeoffed a niece, to hold the land of him as half a knight's fee. 1 Here again we have strange con- fusion over William's surname. Mr. R. E. G. Kirk, although a record agent, read the name as ' Knully '. This is a useful illustration of the risk of misreading minims, for we have only to read the nu as ivi to obtain the right form, i. e. Kivilly. The name also occurs in a fine of 1220, where Mr. Kirk read it as ' Kynely ', 2 which, of course, should be ' Kyvely '. Indeed, in BractorCs Notebook, where case 1374 (in 1220) relates to the subject of this fine, the name is rightly given as * Kivilly 3 If a surname is not recognized, or has a suspicious appearance, it is always well to check the reading of its minims, if any. For instance, the surname of Thomas de Bavis, as Mr. Kirk read it in a fine of 1197, 4 should clearly be read as c Baius' (i.e. Bayeux), for the manor is found, later, held by a family of Bayeux (de Baiocis), who even gave to it their name. J. H. Round. The Two Earliest Municipal Charters of Coventry The charters of the city of Coventry preserved in the archives of its corporation begin with (1) an undated grant of privileges by Ranulf de Blundeville, earl of Chester 5 (1181-1232), lord of a moiety of the town, and (2) a charter of Henry II, 6 given at Marlborough, but otherwise undated, confirming concessions of Earl Ranulf which, for the most part, are verbally identical with those of no. 1, but include three remarkable variations. Not unnaturally, the king's charter has usually been regarded as a con- firmation of the earl's with additions and alterations. 7 When, however, the late Miss Bateson examined them twenty years ago, she saw at once that the variations could not be so accounted for, and described Henry's charter as a confirmation of another charter of Ranulf 's without even considering it necessary to discuss the point. 8 There is nothing to show whether she had 1 Essex Fines, i. 35. 2 Ibid., p. 57. 3 The case, however, is there wrongly assigned to Kent, instead of Essex, one of the places named being wrongly identified in the index, and the other not identified at all. 4 Essex Fines, i. 17. 6 MS. B. 1. Facsimiles in A Memorial of the Visit of the Archaeological Institute to Coventry on July 28, 1864 (Coventry, 1864), and Miss M. Dormer Harris, Life in an Old English Town, p. 46. Neither shows the interesting seal. The text is printed in Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, i. 541, and (in part) in Ballard, British Borough Charters, 1042-1216. 6 MS. B. 2. Facsimile (not altogether satisfactory) in Memorial of the Visit of the Archaeological Institute. Printed ante, xvi. 98, by Miss Bateson ; in Col. of Charter Bolls, ii. 88, and (in part) in Ballard. 7 Ballard, p. xxviii ; Dormer Harris, p. 46. 8 Ubi supra.