III John Benet's Chronicle for the years 1400 to 1462

Abstract

MS. E.5.10 in Trinity College, Dublin, is a volume measuring approximately 8½ × 6 inches, consisting of 224 leaves of vellum and paper written in English and Latin.1 The greater part is in one clear, regular fifteenth-century cursive hand, but the volume also includes sections of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century date and has flyleaves of fragments of similar date. Throughout the volume additions have been made in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries by a dozen or more different hands. On fo. 2v an inscription in the hand of the greater part of the book reads: ‘Iste liber est Domini Johannis Benet de harlyngdon. Quisquis istum elongaverit de custodia sua absque suo consensu anathema sit maranatha’, and at not less than twelve other places throughout the volume Benet signs his name, usually in the form ‘quod Benet’2. Three of these are dated: on fo. 75v ‘Quod Benet apud Harlyngdon Anno Domini M1CCCColxjo DominicalilitteraC’; on fo. 12Ir ‘quod Benet apud Harlyngdon Anno Domini M1CCCC1XViijo littera dominicali B’; on fo. 189v ‘M1CCCClxxj 13 die Novembris quod Benet’. John Benet was vicar of Harlington in Bedfordshire throughout the period covered by these dates, during which he wrote and assembled his book. The paper he used shows a variety of watermarks of the mid-fifteenth century, such as might be expected of a compiler in the provinces buying paper in small packets or using what happened to be at hand. After it was bound several of the remaining blank leaves were used by others for additional notes. The volume was foliated by one of these later hands, and on ff. 191–2 a table of contents with the folio references was made in the late fifteenth century. All the items in the table are present in the book as it survives today.