Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/108

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 B. v. APK.L, 1919.

But there is 1 the third version of this double notification to be considered dig- nified as the " Confirmatio." It is word for word the same as the rest. To this version is appended an array of eight new witnesses, most of them of the highest possible rank, with the King and the Queen to lead them. If the attestation clause is not a forgery, then MB. WHITE and MR. BADDELEY are right, and the elusive date .cannot be later than November, 1106 (ante, p. 18). I hold it to be suspect for t,vo reasons :

(1) There could have been no real necessity for two separate twofold confirmations of the same grants by the same king, with two separate lists of witnesses, issued within a year or so of each other.

(2) This version could not have been known at Gloucester, or else the twelfth- century interpolator would surely never have been so blind to the interests of his own house as to forgo so splendid a chance of parading that brilliant company at the foot of his own version of the King's double notification.

After all, in dealing with chroniclers and monkish cartularies we are largely dealing with shadows. Here the one solid fact before us is " a Gloucester charter " which I had the honour of publishing in * N. & Q.,' and which in all probability passed at Easter, 1123.

In taking leave of this interesting inquiry, which has been illumined by MB. G. H. WHITE'S scholarship and clearness of vision, and MB. BADDELEY'S " Confirmatio," I may add that there is one point which calls for a word.

MB. BADDELEY (ante, pp. 16, 17) wants to know " why the modern spelling of Mynors should be adopted for magnates who never so wrote their name." NTow the " y " as a variant of " i " is quite innocent, though later fashion has frowned on the dot. On the other hand, " o " stands self-condemned, and MB. ST. CLAIB BADDELEY is right those old magnates, who wielded sword and lance to some purpose, assuredly never did so write their names.

CHARLES SWYNNEBTON, F.S.A.

Stanley St. Leonards Vicarage, Glos.

The sole difference between MB. SWYN- NEBTON and myself as the result of our independent discoveries of the Coin charter in, I find, 1915, is that he sent it to ' N. & Q.,' while I communicated its presence, purport, and witnesses to my friend Dr. Round,

drawing the attention of the latter to the omission of the witnesses in the version of the charter published by W. H. Hart (vol. i. p. 236, no. cxliii) from the Gloucester Cartularium. Probably Hart never saw the original charter. When, therefore, yet another transcript (i.e., the Cambridge MS. of William of Malmesbury previously ad- duced) of the same charter correctly giving all the witnesses in their proper precedences,, and not misspelling the most important personal name "William" for " Gilbert "- came to my knowledge, I considered it the more perfect of the two transcripts. In addition, the monkish writer had added (probably, not a guess at alf) the date and the place of this rather memorable charter. This explains the phrase used by me " the more perfect duplicate " ; for, naturally r that could not refer to the original, but de- scribed only the monastic transcript. That it was justified will presently appear fully. But that does not suit MB. SWYNNERTON at all ; for the reason that he is spellbound by the famous Easter assembly of April 15, 1123, when Geoffrey, the new Chancellor, first appears. He therefore suggests that MCXXVII. is a possible blunder for MCXXIII. Why not add " Wintoniam," a possible blunder for " Westmonasterium " ? Yet he finally thinks it possible that 1127 may be correct. But, if that be so, it makes the despised Cambridge ('Gesta') transcript as correct in the date as it proves to be in text.

Let us compare, therefore, the two- monkish versions of the charter :

Cambridge ' Gesta ' Hart's (Cartularium)

version. version.

Rex Anglorum. Bex Anglie.

Gilebertus de Mineriis. Willelmus de Miners.

Bogerius de Gloecestra. Bogerus de Gloucestria.

Monachos. Monachis.

Unde. Inde.

The original charter differs from both in spelling Culna " Chulna," and " Gislebertus," " Portd," while it spells " Gloecestr'," as does the Cambridge version. On the whole, therefore, the " despised " latter version possesses several points to the good over the Cartularium one ; and I should have thought that MB. SWYNNEBTON would be the first to welcome the additional evidence which it affords on a very interesting subject, which he has been the first to publish. " Dux " for " Rex " in the " Confirmatio " (ante, p. 17, col. 1) was an oversight in my proof-reading.

In conclusion, I may add that the sugges- tion of the date (approximate) and place, Lisieux (ante, p. 74, col. 2), is thus not