(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]