Book Description

Excerpt from Eynsham Cartulary, Vol. 2 It is a piece of good fortune that so many additional deeds have been discovered, especially as some of them throw some light on what is often the most obscure part of the history of a monastery, its last fifty years. The muniment rooms of New College, Lincoln, Queen's, and Exeter have furnished some interesting leases and sales to which attention may be drawn. Although long leases were for bidden by many bishops, and at one time a limit of five years was laid down,2 yet we have a lease for eighty years granted in 1536 and another for ninety years granted in In 1535 there was a still more extraordinary case, a lease for ninety years to begin after the death of the present tenant.' It may be that some of these favourable leases were granted when the monks saw that the confiscation of their property was imminent, but the accounts of 1539 (ii, pp. 2 50-4) show that many of them date from early in the reign of Henry VIII. They were a feature of the Tudor age and were used by the bishop himself, as the episcopal registers show as a fine was paid at the beginning of such leases, they were a means of forestalling the income of posterity. Unfortunately it was not the custom to mention in the lease what fine was paid; and in the case of monasteries we do not know what fund received such fines. Perhaps the most curious of the leases is the grant to Richard Gunter in 1534 by which he obtained for ninety nine years all the possessions of the abbey in Oxford, namely, six tenements and a garden and quit-rents amounting to o4s. A year, in return for which he was to pay to the abbey 26s. 8d. A year.5 It is obvious that to secure such terms he must have paid a fine, but no information is given on this point. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.