Land Conveyance with Two Partial Pendant Seals Regarding Property in Kimbolton, England

Cultural Narrative: 

Land Conveyance with Two Partial Pendant Seals Regarding Property in Kimbolton, England
English (Kimbolton), 1475-1499

Language: Latin

ink on paper
height 16 cm
width 35 cm

Portland State University Library Special Collections
Mss. 22, Rose-Wright Manuscript Collection no. 14

 

 

Chris Pickrell, Medieval Portland Capstone Student, Winter 2005
The document is a 15th-century land conveyance from England. The conveyance was written with black (or possibly dark blue) ink on a single side of a single piece of vellum parchment, measuring about 16 x 35 centimeters. The remainders of two wax seals, reddish-brown in color, are attached to the conveyance by means of paper strips. One of the seals has largely disintegrated, but the other is largely intact, though time has faded the details of the pendant seal that is impressed in the wax. There is a reddish paperclip mark on the upper right corner of the document, perhaps rust from the clip, and there are pencil marks from a much later hand denoting line numbers every fifth line.

The conveyance is written in a thin, fine script that is probably the work of a secretary at the time. Despite, or perhaps because of, this conveyance's status as an official document, we find that there are two or three languages present in the document. Latin makes up the bulk of the text, with certain words being a variant of Middle English and possibly Medieval French words (which, due to it similarity to the earlier language, makes it difficult to distinguish from Medieval Latin). It was not unusual for public and semi-public documents in Medieval England to be written in multiple languages (within the same document) and there seems to be very little reason for the choice of a particular language to be applied to a specific word or phrase. Even a proper name may exhibit more than one language. One of the two people granting the land to at least six others in the document is Richard Gayows the Elder. While the name "Gayows" is written as such, in an Anglicized way, the name Richard is recorded as "Ricus" in an attempt to Latinize it. His name is therefore written in both English and Latin (at once). The mix of languages, combined with the almost shorthand-like nature of the script, makes the document exceedingly difficult to translate.

The thrust of the conveyance states that "Richard Gayows the Elder (formerly of Catworth in Huntingdonshire) and Thomas Lewys (formerly of Tilbrook in the same county)" are transferring a piece of land in Wornditch, Kimbolton (in England) to at least six other people. The number of people involved in this land transfer appears to be unusually high, compared to similar deals of the time. Among the people receiving the land were "Robert Portesoyll (a soldier), John Phillips (rector of the church of Shelton), and six other"". Wornditch, to the west, is now a village separate from Kimbolton in southeastern England (near Huntingdonshire).

The conveyance strictly sets out not only how much land, in this case 12 acres and an additional pasture, but the land's exact location (it is the land located next to land owned by the Duke of Buckingham, so it carries additional prestige in that regard). It also specifies that the manse located on the land shall be transferred as well, though the conveyance seems to indicate only the building itself and not any property or servants connected to it. The manse may not have been an actual mansion, despite the origin of the later word coming from the word manse. The term at the time was simply used to indicate the principal residential house of an estate. The conveyance also seems to make no provision as to exactly how the property should be divided among its eight recipients, or who would be in charge of such a division. None of the men involved in the conveyance appear to be especially historically noteworthy, but the number involved provide added interest to the document.

Background Essay: New Gifts of Old Lands - The Changing Ways in Which Property Was Distributed in Medieval England

It is apparent that significant changes happened to legal property transference in the 15th and early 16th centuries. In the course of a little over a century, England saw the fall of three ruling houses of monarchs (Plantagenet, Lancaster, and York) and the rise of the House of Tudor. A major civil war, the War of the Roses, also split the country asunder. During this time, it was necessary to formally register one's political allegiance and such proclamations led to many lands being revoked and given away, only to be re-instated later. Confusion as to actual ownership of property in the early part of the century was the norm.

A further shift away from extensive monarchical control in all matters, especially land and property, further exacerbated the need for formalized written documents detailing land transactions. This became especially important as land owners became increasingly aware of the problems of Royal arbitration in such matters. By the reign of Henry the VII in 1485 the use of prescribed written documents for the use of transferring land became common throughout the country. Property was also becoming increasingly recognized as belonging to those who held it, as opposed to the previous belief that it belonged to the king and was simply dispersed for holding by him.

Despite all this, a regimented form of legal land documents was still far off in the future. There were no strict, formal style, or rules regarding, how to write such a document. Any language, or combination of languages, could be used in the document and the spelling of the names was up to the whim of the secretary writing out the forms. As most people in England--even the elite and the aristocracy--were illiterate, they had to rely almost entirely on the few who could write and were not in a position to critique that work too closely.

This should not indicate that all legal forms were haphazard and without distinction. A conveyance, for instance, was very different from a grant of land. A grant suggested an (almost) absolute gift of land from an esteemed personage (royal, aristocratic, etc.), with all that such a bequest entails. Such grants often spelled out the reason for the gift, and what was expected from its recipient. As more land passed out of the hands of royalty (often as payment to soldiers for service in wars both abroad and at home) it was necessary to alter the legal language slightly. Conveyances detailed a specific transaction of land, including associated lots (like pastures and sties) and also comprehensively detailed the buildings on such sites. This specificity largely replaced the personal elements of the older grants. Such a shift is apparent in our "formal and stuffy" legal property documents of the present day.

Special thanks to Prof. Caroline Litzenberger for her help with the translation of this document.

Suggestions for further reading: 

  • Edwards, Martin. "Gen UKi - Kimbolton," January 8th, 2005, <http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/HUN/Kimbolton/> February 26th, 2005
  • Whittle, Jane. The development of agrarian capitalism: land and labour in Norfolk, 1440-1580. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.