Ethelwulf’s Charters.
In Ethelwulf’s Charters we have all these points. I shall omit 1, 2, and 4, and give here 3, 5, and 6.
(3) Charter A.—“Wherefore I Ethelwulf, king of the West-Saxons, with the consent of my bishops and princes, have resolved on a salutary council and uniform remedy and have determined to make a gift of a certain hereditary portion of land to all ranks already in possession of it, whether monks or nuns serving God, or laypeople, always the tenth hide, where it may be the least yet the tenth part perpetually enfranchised so as to be free and protected from all secular services, royal dues, tributes, greater and lesser taxes, which we call ‘Witereden’ and that it be free from all things for the deliverance of our souls and sins, for serving God only, without military expedition and bridge-building and castle fortification, so that they may more diligently without ceasing pour forth their prayers to God for us, for which we in some degree lighten their secular services,” etc.
(5) “Now this Charter of donation was written in the year of the incarnation of our Lord 844, in the seventh Indiction, on the day of the nones of November, in the city of Winchester, in the church of St. Peter, before the high altar.”
(6) It was signed by King Ethelwulf, by bishops Elmstan and Aelstan, 6 dukes, 3 abbots, and 16 thanes.
(3) Charter A.—“Quamobrem ego Ethelwulfus, rex Occidentalium Saxonum cum consilio episcoporum ac principum meorum, consilium salubre atque uniforme remedium affirmavi, ut aliquam porcionem terrarum hereditarium antea possidentibus gradibus omnibus, sive famulis et famulabus Dei Deo servientibus, sive laicis, semper decimam mansionem ubi minimum sit tum decimam partem in libertatem perpetuam perdonare dijudicavi ut sit tutus atque munitus ab omnibus secularibus servitutis, fiscis, regalibus tributis majoribus et minoribus, sive taxationibus quod nos dicimus Witereden; sitque liber omnium rerum pro remissione animarum et peccatorum nostrorum Deo soli ad serviendum, sine expeditione, et pontis instructione, et arcis municione, ut eo diligencius pro nobis ad Deum preces sine cessacione fundant, quo eorum servitutem secularem in aliqua parte levigamus pro honore Sancti Michaelis Archangeli et Sancte Marie Regine gloriose Dei genetricis.”
(5) “Scripta est autem hæc donacionis cartula anno Dominicæ Incarnacionis DCCCXLIIII., Indictione vii., die quoque nonas Novembris. In civitate Wentana in ecclesia, Sancti Petri ante altare capitale, et hoc fecerunt.”
This Charter is printed by Kemble in the “Codex Diplomaticus,” vol. v. p. 93, No. 1048, from a Malmesbury cartulary of the 14th century, Lansd., 417, f. 6, which Haddan and Stubbs collated with a Malmesbury cartulary in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Wood., donat. 5, of the thirteenth century, see “Councils,” iii. p. 630, etc. The rubric in the Bodleian cartulary stands thus: “Quomodo Æthelwulfus Rex decimavit terram suam Deo et sanctæ Ecclesiæ; et quota parte hujus decimæ Meldunensem Ecclesiam ditaverit,” etc. [“In what way King Ethelwulf decimated his land to God and Holy Church, and with what part of that tenth he enriched the Church of Malmesbury, for the honour of St. Michael the Archangel and St. Mary.”] I have taken the orthography of the charter from Mr. Birch’s “Cartularium Saxonicum,” ii. No. 447, p. 26.
I have translated decimam mansionem as the tenth hide.
It appears from this Malmesbury cartulary that annexed to it was a statement of particular lands already in possession (antea possidentibus) of the monastery which by this charter were enfranchised. But in the copies of this charter the schedule of enfranchised land is omitted except in this particular case of Malmesbury.
As regards the date of this charter, Helmstan, whose name appears in it, was bishop of Winchester from 838 to 852. Swithun succeeded him in 852. If, therefore, the charter be dated 854 with Helmstan’s name in it, the date is spurious. I have taken the episcopal dates from Bishop Stubbs’s “Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum,” ed. 1858.
Wilkins gives the general provisions of this grant with the date A.D. 844, Indiction iv., but makes a serious blot by inserting Swithun’s name instead of Helmstan’s.[100]
Selden says, “In Malmesbury the date of the first charter is DCCCXLIV, Indict. iv., v. Nonas Novembris; plainly it is false, neither could that Indiction be in the charter of the year DCCCXLIV, which fell in the seventh Indiction.”[101]