Cartulary of Oseney Abbey; England (Oxford), s. xiiiex (perhaps 1280 × 1284), with additions s. xiiiex-s. xvi

Title

Cartulary of Oseney Abbey; England (Oxford), s. xiiiex (perhaps 1280 × 1284), with additions s. xiiiex-s. xvi

Shelfmark

Christ Church MS. 343

Associated place

Oseney

Iver, Bucks

Burtona

Water Eaton

Westona

Berkshire

Stowa

Hook Norton

Watlintona

Waterperry

Kidlington

Turkdean

Kilternan, Ireland

Shenston

Byburia

Fulwell

Cleydone

Twycros

Stone

Forest hulle

Steeple Barton

Place of origin

England (Oxford)

Date

s. xiiiex (perhaps 1280 × 1284), with additions s. xiiiex-s. xvi

Language

Anglo-Norman

Latin

Middle English (1100-1500)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment (FSOS, later portions HSOS).

Physical extent

Fols: i (but assigned i, ii) + 353.

Hands

Written in several anglicana scripts, s. xiii2 or ex., with some blanks filled in by later hands, in the main of s. xiv (but, e.g., fols 34–35 intruded s. xv med.; fol. 71v filled s. xvi in.).

Punctuation by point, punctus elevatus, and virgula.

Decoration

Headings in red. The decoration has been standardised through the volume (as has page format). At the opening of individual deeds, two-line alternate red and blue lombards. Frequent blue, and less frequently, alternate blue and red paraphs to introduce specific clauses and set off the headings. Red running titles, head and foot, the former for the manor (with the corresponding number in the tabula), the latter for the bailiwick.

Binding

Brown leather over millboards, s. xviiin. A defaced gold stamped armorial (Robert Cotton’s) in the centre of both boards; as Jane Eagan in her conservation report (11th March 2016) comments, it seems as if the gilding has been intentionally removed, and there are signs of red wax perhaps intended to cover the arms. Brass fittings with fragments of leather straps on the upper board, their clasps at the leading edge of the lower. Sewn on five thongs. At the head of the spine, the former Chapter House number ‘24’ in a paper lozenge (see provenance); in the upper spine compartment, in gilt on a red leather label, ‘Cartularium Osney’, gold floral stamps on the spine. Pastedowns old parchment; at rear of volume, on the first pastedown (of four, pasted together), there is a continuation of the table of contents, dated to 1689 and signed by ‘AW’, that is Anthony Wood. At the front, one parchment flyleaf with a pasted-on fragment of an engraved frontispiece (ii and i, respectively). Colin G. C. Tite, The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton’s Library(London, 2003), 271 reproduces fol. i.

Provenance

A note explaining the production: ‘Librum istum composuit et ordinauit bone Memorie Frater Willelmus de Suttona abbas Osen’ cum summa diligencia et Magno studio . . .’ (fol. 362; Salter, 4:x-xii). William was abbot 1267–84, and the volume includes charters from as late as 1280.

By the mid-1580s, in the library of Sir Walter Cope, where it was seen by Thomas James, who cited it (as Cope’s no. 200) in his Ecloga Oxonio-Cantabrigienses (London, 1600), 1:81; see Andrew G. Watson, ‘The Manuscript Collection of Sir Walter Cope (d. 1614)’, Bodleian Library Record, 12 (1987), 262–97 at 290 [reprinted as id., Medieval Manuscripts in the Post-medieval World (Aldershot, 2004), VIII]. Comparison with the plate provided by Watson (268) suggests that Cope is responsible for the first pen foliation. As Salter points out (OHS 89 [1929], x-xi), at least three sets of transcripts were made from the manuscript c. 1586, when Cope owned it: by Robert Glover, now in BodL, MS Tanner 12, fol. 72; by Robert Beale, now in BL, MS Additional 32100; and by James Strangman, now in BL, MS Sloane 1301.

While in Cope’s ownership, it was lent to ChCh. This is revealed by an entry recorded in the Disbursement Book for 1605; in the first term of that calendar year, under ‘Expenses extraordinary’, a payment of 16s is noted []: ‘To Mr Tho. James bibliothec. for his iorny to London for the ligier booke of osney for the college use the last yeare’ (ChCh Archives, xii.b.49, fol. 27; it is signed in a display script: ‘Ita est Tho James Bibliothecarius’).

It must, however, have returned to London and to Cope. Before Cope died in 1614, it passed to Robert Cotton, who was in a position to lend it to Arthur Agard in 1612: Tite, Early Records, lists 71.3 and 77.4 (55, 58). Cotton added his signature at the foot of both fols 9 and 362: ‘Ro: Cotton Bruceus’; he would seem also to be personally responsible for the second foliation and for the title added at top right of fol. 9: ‘Registrum Monasterij de Oseney per Willemum de Suttona Abbat. Ecclesiæ’ (two lines, bracketed with ‘Fol. 1’ written to right). After it returned to him, he exchanged it with ChCh for another monastic volume: ‘This 31 May I deliuered to Mr Phillip king Esquier Auditor of the Colledge of Christchurch in Oxford for the perpetuall vse of the sayd Howse and Society and had in a thankfull remembrance from them a Book called Annales Burtonensis Robert Cotton’ (fol. i, on a pasted-on fragment from the title-page of a printed book, reproduced at Tite, The Early Records, 271; Cotton’s). See Colin G. C. Tite, ‘“Lost or stolen or strayed”: a survey of manuscripts formerly in the Cotton library’ in C. J. Wright ed., Sir Robert Cotton as Collector (London, 1997), 262–306, at 267–68 and n39 (296–97), and Tite, Early Records, 241; Tite argues that the exchange probably occurred not long before 1621, and points out that the manuscript was at Christ Church (and in Philip King’s control) when Brian Twyne made transcripts from it in BodL, MS Twyne 22, p. 362 (part dated 1617). What Tite could not know is that two further entries in the Disbursement Books confirm his supposition. The first, from Hilary 1617, records a reward ‘To the messenger that carried our letters to Sir Robert Cotton…’; the subject-matter is unspecified but we might surmise that it relates to an early stage of the negotiations that resulted in the second entry, from Hilary 1620: ‘To the carrier for carringe up Burton booke to Mr auditor’ (ChCh Archives, xii.b.61 and 64, both unfoliated). The Burton Annals which passed into Cotton’s ownership are now the opening fascicules of BL, MS Cotton Vespasian E.iii. That manuscript provides no internal evidence for ChCh’s ownership, if, indeed, the institution owned it at all: a letter quoted by Colin Tite from BL, MS Cotton Julius C.iii, fol. 274, in which Richard Montague, later bishop of Norwich, asks Cotton for the loan of the Annals, mentions that he, Montague, had been led to be believe that they had been in the hands of the Oxford collector, Thomas Allen, and had passed to Cotton ‘in exchange’; if Montague was well informed, it would appear, then, that Allen assisted ChCh in gaining the Oseney cartulary by providing a manuscript for them to send to Cotton via their auditor, Philip King (on whom, see Hiscock, 7 and our Introduction, ‘From Restauratio’).

The manuscript also shows evidence of later readership, with Anthony Wood not only completing the contents list at the rear pastedown but also adding his initials at fol. 9 and providing the foliation. Wood’s transcriptions from this volume form a large part of his discussion of the Abbey at “Survey of the Antiquities of the City of Oxford,” composed in 1661–6, by Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, 3 vols, OHS, 15, 17 & 37 (Oxford, 1889–99), 2 (1890), 188–228.

In Christ Church, this manuscript was held in the Chapter House, and was included in the 1771 Catalogue of the books kept there as number 24, ‘A Book containing a Register of the Estates belonging to the Monastery of Osney’ (with a later hand noting the Cotton association): Christ Church Archives, D&C iv.a.1, fol. 13.