THE DOCUMENTS

In the course of this tutorial you will examine eleven excerpts from the following documents:

Colne Priory Charter 2, 3, 4, 5, 13
Colne Charter 9, 18, 31, 35
Cartulary of Knights of St John Essex no 392
"Carta Comitis Albrici"

Most of them are charters recording grants, or confirmation of grants, made to a group of monks for the creation of a priory at Earls Colne in Essex. The founder was a man named Alberic de Ver, who acquired an important tenancy-in-chief of the king in Essex and other counties soon after the Norman Conquest. The priory was founded early in the reign of Henry I (1100-1135), and its possessions were confirmed by a succession of royal and ecclesiastical authorities for centuries thereafter. The chronological range of the documents given here is limited, being only about 60 years. The latest document given here belongs to the reign of Henry II: the Carta is the list of the men holding knights' fees from him returned by Earl Alberic in 1166 to the king. None of the charters is dated, but they can be assigned a date-range by study of the persons appearing in them. You will be able to provide the missing dates by the time you have completed these exercises.

Please download the documents and read them before we begin the tutorial.

The XML template file, for using to mark up the documents, can be downloaded here.

The original documents in English translation can be downloaded as a Word document file here.

The original documents in Latin can be downloaded as a Word document file here.