EXTRACT FROM LETTER-BOOK E, DATED 1316, RELATING TO THE GROCERS’ CO.

A larger image is available [here].

Another Book also there was in the Chamber, which I also perused for the same purpose, called Liber Custumarum. The First Tract whereof is, de Laudibus Nobilitatis Insulae Britanniae. It is in old French, and consisteth of thirteen chapters; Beginning thus—

‘De Britaigne, que ore est appele Engleterre, & qui est si benure sur toutes autres Isles; & qui est si plentiuous de blez & des arbres, & large de boys & de rivers & de veneisons & de oisiaus convenables, et noble de mout de maneres bons chiens. Citees y ad mont belles et bien assises, & belles guameries de terre amyable; close de mere & de douces Ewes delitables: ceo est asavoir, de fluvies, de beaus undes, de clers fountaynes & de douces, &c.’

The writer then applies himself to treat of London; as, the several Charters, the Wards, and the Streets, Passages, and Places there, Privileges of Maiors, &c.

To which I add the Calendarium Cameræ, London, which was also another Book in the Chamber, of use to me also in my searches.”

During the eighteenth century, except for Strype, the archives appear to have been unmolested. Early last century Sir Francis Palgrave made many extracts from this treasury. More recently, M. Auguste Thierry published certain treaties of commerce of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, between the citizens of London and the merchants of Amiens. In 1843 M. Jules Delpit spent some time at the Guildhall collecting from copies of documents relating to the connections between France and England. Since then the work of publishing and annotating these papers has gone on with great diligence.

A list of the items which comprise the City archives is given by Riley:—