Concordia, drawn up probably by St Ethelwold under St Dunstan's guidance, and beginning with the words ' Gloriosus etenim Edgarus'. The other is described by the later hand as 'of (or 'from') Caen'. It is possible that these were actually Caen Customs, brought over by the Norman abbot Turstin, who came, as did his successor Herlewin, from Lanfranc's old abbey of St Stephen at Caen:[1] or else they were the 'Constitutiones Lanfranci', which the archbishop drew up for his own church at Canterbury, and which found their way into most of the great monasteries, sometimes as the 'Bee Customs' and sometimes as the 'Canterbury Customs'.[2]
The Liber Terrarum, described as 'ancient but legible', is struck out of the catalogue in 1248: perhaps it had left the library for its more appropriate place among the muniments. This book is now lost, but fortunately we learn its contents from an earlier section of our MS (ff. 77 ff.). For here we find, written by the first hand of the codex (the hand that wrote the library catalogue in 1247), a list of charters actually preserved in the abbey.[3] Just before the list of the extant charters comes a separate list, or calendar, of charters contained in the ancient Liber Terrarum.[4] These are 136 in number, and are given under the heading: ' Carte contente in libro terrarum Glaston.' The latest of them are two granted by K. Ethelred: the former is a grant of Stoke to a certain Godric; the latter a grant to Glastonbury of an estate at Wilton, made according to William of Malmesbury (De Antiq., p. 87) in 984. It is tempting therefore to suppose that this Liber Terrarum was drawn up at the end of the tenth century, perhaps even before St Dunstan's death in 988.[5] But we must be careful not to identify it with the 'Liber Sancti Dunstani' mentioned by the compiler of the Glastonbury Feodary in the fourteenth century as the oldest authority on which he relied. For this book got its name from its handsome binding of silver-gilt, with an ivory crucifix of St Dunstan's handiwork: its alternative title was, 'Liber Domusday', and it included notices of the enfeoffment of Norman knights.[6]
There are however two references to the Liber Terrarum in another fourteenth-century book, the Secretum of Abbot Monyngton (1341-74).[7] The first occurs in the calendar or table of contents prefixed to the volume.[8] Here we find among Privilegia region a heading which tells us that K. Cnut's charter was written in the beginning of the Land Book: ' Carta Knoutonis
- ↑ For Customs introduced by Turstin and Herlewin see De Antiq., pp. 118-20 (ending 'de minutis quaere in texto').
- ↑ See 'Lanfranc's Monastic Constitutions ', Journ. of Theol. Studies, x. 375 (April 1909).
- ↑ Hearne attributes this section to the time of Abbot John of Taunton (1274-90). Dr. M. R. James however attributes the writing to the first half of the thirteenth century. Both this and the library catalogue doubtless belong to the vigorous period of Abbot Michael of Amesbury (1235-52).
- ↑ Hearne, J. of G., pp. 370 ff.
- ↑ This may however be too early for the inclusion of B. C. S. 61, to which reference will be made below.
- ↑ Cf. Somerset Record Soc., vol. 26, p. 2.
- ↑ Wood empt. I, in the Bodleian Library.
- ↑ This useful calendar has been printed in the Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, vols, xii, xiii.
