Page:Somerset Historical Essays.djvu/58

 charters offer several examples of the combination of two charters in a single document in the tenth century, perhaps for mere convenience of use in the courts of law. Fraud is a motive which seldom can be proved, though there are a few undoubted instances, where privileges are claimed or where legendary history called for corroboration. The critical study of our early English charters has been worthily initiated by the able editors of the Crawford Charters: already it has begun to bear fruit of historical value here and there. But Glastonbury is neglected still, and the purpose of this Note is to call attention to some exceptional features in two charters which suggest that its ancient muniments are peculiarly worthy of investigation. The two earliest of the Glastonbury charters are grants of land by K. Coenwalch and Bishop Haeddi, bearing the dates 670 and 680 respectively. It will be well to take the latter first, as there is reason to think that it is a more faithful representative of its lost original. Both charters are printed by Birch from the fourteenth-century Secretum of Abbot Monyngton in the Bodleian Library.

B. C. S. 47.

Bishop Haeddi grants to Abbot Hemgisl Lantokai (Leigh in Street) and an island: 680 (for 677).

Regnante ac gubernante nos domino nostro Jhesu Christo: mense Julio, pridie nonas, indictione quinta, anno incarnationis ejusdem.DCLXXX. Nichil intulimus in hunc mundum, verum nee auferre possumus: ideo terrenis caelestia et caducis aeterna comparanda sunt.

Quapropter ego Eddi episcopus terram quae dicitur Lantokai, tres cassatos, Hemgislo abbati libenter largior: nee non terram in alio loco, duas manentes, hoc est in insula quae giro cingitur hinc atque illinc pallude cujus vocabulum est Ferramere.

Denique solerter peto ut nullus post obitum nostrum hoc donativum in irritum facere praesumat. Si quis vero id temptaverit, sciat se Christo rationem redditurum.

Ego Eddi episcopus subscripsi.

Let us begin by looking at our earliest evidence as to the gifts of Bishop Haeddi, who ruled the undivided see of Winchester from 676 to 705. In the Liber Terrarum (J. of G., p. 370) the fifth entry runs thus: Hedda episcopus de Lantokay, i. Leghe. dat. Glast. II. This indicates that there were two charters dealing with this property which were copied into this ancient Land-book. One of these no doubt was the charter used by William of Malmesbury, who in the De Antiquitate (p. 50) writes thus, under the heading De Leghe:

Eodem anno Hedde episcopus Lantocay hidas, Kentuino eciam et Baldredo consencientibus, dedit Glastoniae: quam donacionem Cedualla confirmavit, et propria manu, licet paganus, signum crucis expressit.

This is plainly not the charter which we have before us, for it grants six hides at one place, as against three cassates in one place and two manses in another. William of Malmesbury has placed it 'in the same year' with Baldred's grant of Pennard, that is, in 681. This is probably an error, for it seems that this was the year in which Caedwalla was in exile and came