Western Medieval Manuscripts : Compilation of legal and language texts

Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>The contents of this manuscript comprise a mixture of legal and language texts: notes relating not only to laws and court procedures but also in aid of correct French grammar and conversation. Though there are frequent changes in scribal hand, often though not always coinciding with divisions between the quires, the manuscript is likely not a composite but one formed of codicological units copied more or less around the same time. The reason is that this particular combination of subjects bears similarities to the courses on <i>dictamen</i>, conveyancing, court-keeping and French language taught at Oxford during the fifteenth century. That this volume contains fictional cases in which one of the parties concerned is 'W.K.', and the existence of similar combinations of notes in other manuscripts, has led scholars to propose that the notes in this volume derive from the teaching of William Kingsmill William Kingsmill. Kingsmill had been a scrivener of London from at least 1402 until at least 1419, and was also under-marshal of the King's Bench until his dismissal around the same time (for a brief biography of Kingsmill, see Jonathon Bush, <i>Learning the law: teaching and the transmission of English law, 1150-1900</i> (London: Hambledon, 1999), pp. 167-70). He taught thereafter in Oxford, and perhaps as late as 1450.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Kingsmill's treatise <i>De forma et compositione cartarum</i>, a guide to the correct composition of legal documents, is preserved in another University Library manuscript, MS Dd.5.46. This other manuscript is datable to c. 1429 on the basis of most of its deeds being dated with the regnal year 7 Henry VI (1428-29), with a copy of an Inquisition dated 1430 being added on the flyleaves, and is thus the earliest datable version of his conveyancing course known to survive in manuscript. Given the compilatory nature of the present manuscript, which suggests copying from other manuscripts and lecture notes in circulation in Oxford, it is likely that it dates from around the same period.</p>Dr James Freeman<br /> Medieval Manuscripts Specialist<br /> Cambridge University Library