Suffolk Charters – serie

Cartulary of one of the earliest houses of Augustian canons to be established in the diocese of Norwich.The priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Blythburgh was one of the earliest of the many houses of Augustinian canons established in the diocese of Norwich; the beginnings of conventual life most likely date from the mid-12th century.

The first two volumes make available all the existing pre-Reformation charter material, the third consists of an introduction and index. Taken together the three volumes illuminate the social and economic as well as the ecclesiastical organisation of the Suffolk-Essex border in the 12th and 13th Centuries.

First modern edition of medieval documents from an important East Anglian religious house.The charters and other documents recorded in the thirteenth-century Cartulary of the Augustinian priory of Sts Peter and Paul, Ipswich, donated to the public library of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1806, and purchased for Ipswich Record Office in 1970, throw light on an institution whose early history was mostly shrouded in obscurity. They are an important source for the study both of the expansion of the priory estates and the consolidation of its holdings bythe gift or purchase of adjoining parcels of land in common fields, and a mine of information for the student of place-names. Light is thrown on various aspects of the life of the house, extensions to its buildings, and the stepstaken to safeguard its assets from predation. Included in it are various manorial documents and estate surveys of the late thirteenth century, the originals of which almost certainly did not survive the Peasants' Revolt a centurylater. Evidence is also present for the local family of the de Badeles as the priory's founding patrons.This first volume of two presents the Priory's Cartulary, with introduction and notes.DAVID ALLEN was archivist in the Suffolk Record Office for over thirty years. He has also produced, among other works, Ipswich Borough Archives, 1255-1835: A Catalogue (Suffolk Records Society 43).

Edition of documents from an important medieval East Anglian ecclesiastical institution.The charters and other documents recorded in the thirteenth-century Cartulary of the Augustinian priory of Sts Peter and Paul, Ipswich, donated to the public library of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1806, and purchased for Ipswich Record Office in 1970, throw light on an institution whose early history was mostly shrouded in obscurity. They are an important source for the study both of the expansion of the priory estates and the consolidation of its holdings bythe gift or purchase of adjoining parcels of land in common fields, and a mine of information for the student of place-names. The charters presented here, with full explanatory notes, complement the contents of the priory'scartulary published in 2018. They illuminate the religious life of the priory, its community, spiritual rewards for its benefactors, steps taken to safeguard its assets, and the circumspection sometimes shown by the convent in itsdealings with the powerful.