UNRECORDED MIDDLE ENGLISH VERSE IN THE LIBRARY AT HOLKHAM HALL, NORFOLK

Abstract

i 'Spes mea in deo est'A box on the shelves of the manuscript library at Holkham Hall, labelled 'Covers of Old Law MSS.', contains five vellum wrappers removed from manuscripts. A group of law manuscripts on an adjacent shelf were all rebound in the nineteenth century in identical style, using the same distinctive red cloth as the box containing the wrappers. The five manuscripts are the same size as the wrappers, .and all have pencil numbering at the foot of their first leaf corresponding to numbering on the removed covers. Clearly these are the 'Old Law MSS' from which the wrappers were removed.The five legal manuscripts are Holkham Hall, MS 751, Registrum brevium, with the ownership inscription of Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634); Holkham Hall, MS 75 z, Magna Carta, Statutes and Registrum brevium, with the ownership inscriptions of Sir Robert Cotton (1571-1631) and Thomas Pagitt (f 1614); Holkham Hall, MS 75 3, an incomplete copy of the Statutes, with a mnemonic of the order of succession of the kings of England on the wrapper; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Holkham Misc. 30 (olim Holkham Hall, MS 754), Natura brevium, Brevia placita and other texts, with the ownership inscription of Sir Edward Coke; and Holkham Hall, MS 755, Natura brevium and other texts.1 The last of these manuscripts, Holkham Hall, MS 755, is a legal miscellany, on paper, including excerpts from the Statutes, a copy of the Natura brevium, forms of pleading, a Book of Tenures, a formulary of letters of attorney and other documents, a Register of Writs and other texts, in Latin and law French, with excerpts from the Statutes for 24 Henry VI in Middle English. The manuscript appears on palaeographical grounds to date from the last quarter of the fifteenth century.2The Book of Tenures is headed 'Tenures q#od Skarnyng', with a colophon 'Expliciunt Tenum quod R. S. Amen dico.' The Natura brevium is headed 'Natura Breuwm quod Skarnyng', and a set of legal notes in law French at the end of the manuscript has the colophon 'Quod Skarnyng'. The headings and colophons naming the scribe are in the same hand as copied the whole manuscript and the Middle English verse on the now detached wrapper. The wrapper also has the ownership inscription of Richard Skarnyng, in an engrossed version of his normal script, 'Iste liber constat Ricardo Skarnyng Amen', and the same individual is mentioned in a pen-trial opposite the opening of the copy of the Natura brevium·. 'Thomas Norris queritwr versus Kicardum Scarnyng in ploiito debiti.'The name Skarnyng in the heading of the Natura brevium and in the colophon to the set of legal notes in law French at the end of the manuscript were later crossed through and 'Straunge' written beneath in the same hand as appears elsewhere in the manuscript, including another ownership inscription on the page opposite the opening of the Natura brevium: 'Cest liuer apparteyn all Antony Straunge'. Other names appearing in pen-trials in the manuscript and on the now detached wrapper include Thomas Nether and Thomas Scarnyng, whose ownership inscription on the wrapper in an informal hand entirely unlike that of the text of the manuscript also appears later: 'Iste liber constat Thomas Scarnyng.'None of these names is specifically identifiable, but is seems reasonable to conclude that the family of Seaming originated in the village of that name a few miles west of East Dereham. To judge from the contents of the manuscript and its informal style and layout, it would seem likely that it was copied by Richard Scarnyng for his own use, possibly indicating that he was a lawyer or a local official with some knowledge of the law. Unless Richard Scarnyng had migrated to a centre such as Norwich, it seems probably that the manuscript was copied and remained in the vicinity of Seaming, before passing by the first half of the seventeenth century into the hands of Chief Justice Coke, who lived in the neighbouring village of Godwick.3Sixteen lines of macaronic Middle English and Latin verse were copied inside the now detached vellum wrapper in the same hand as that of the rest of the manuscript. …