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Battle Abbey Archives: Finding Aid
mssBA
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Title: Battle Abbey Archives
Dates (inclusive): 1077-approximately 1830
Collection Number: mssBA
Creator:
Battle Abbey.
Extent:
Approximately 3,000 pieces
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Manuscripts Department
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2191
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: This collection consists of two parts: the records of the
Benedictine abbey of St. Martin at Battle, Sussex, England, dating before 1538, and
the papers chiefly of the Browne and Webster families, who owned the Battle Abbey
properties following the monastery's dissolution in 1538. The collection is
particularly rich in monastic and estate accounts, court records, and deeds for
lands possessed by Battle Abbey in Sussex and other counties.
Language: English and Latin.
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services
Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to
quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such
activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is
one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
[Identification of item]. Battle Abbey Archives, The Huntington Library, San
Marino, California.
Purchased from the estate of Sir Thomas Phillipps, through the agency of A.S.W.
Rosenbach, 1923.
Custodial History
Around 1833, Sir Godfrey Webster, 5th Bart., offered the monastic records still in
his possession, together with some family estate papers, to the London bookseller
Thomas Thorpe (1791-1851), from whom they were in turn purchased by book collector Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872).
After Phillipps' death, the collection, contained in ninety-nine leather-bound volumes, was
transferred to the possession of his grandson Thomas Fitzroy Fenwick.
With the confirmation of the Court of Chancery, the Huntington Library purchased the collection through the agency of A.S.W.
Rosenbach in 1923.
Processing/Project Information
The collection was received by the Huntington in 1923 as 99 bound volumes.
Volumes 1-33, 76, and 95-99 have been maintained as received, but most of the materials in volumes 51-55 and all of the materials
in volumes 34-50, 56-75, and 77-94, which were
scrapbooks of documents, were removed to folders and boxes by Huntington Library staff in the following manner:
- Pre-dissolution deeds were removed from volumes 34-55 and placed in Boxes 1-36 (individual items are identified by ink numbers assigned by bookseller Thomas Thorpe in the 19th century). Note that there are 55 miscellaneous deeds still bound in volumes 51-55
- Pre-dissolution materials (other than deeds) were removed from volumes 77-94 and placed in Oversize Folders 1-28 (individual items are identified by BA numbers between 1-995 assigned by Huntington Library staff)
- The post-dissolution materials in volumes 56-75 were removed and foldered separately in Boxes 37-67 (individual items are identified by Thorpe's ink numbers)
- Note: the empty bindings for volumes 56-75 have been retained; the bindings for volumes 34-50 and 77-94 were discarded.
The calendaring of this collection was done on-site
at the Huntington by East Sussex Record Office senior archivist Christopher Whittick from 1991 to 2017.
The Benedictine abbey of St. Martin at Battle was founded by William the Conqueror to
commemorate his victory over Harold at Hastings. The first abbot, Gausbert of
Marmoutier, was consecrated in 1076 but the church, built on the precise spot where
Harold fell in battle, was unfinished when William died, and not dedicated until
1094. The Conqueror bestowed upon his abbey extraordinarily wide lay and
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, focused on the banlieu or
leuga, a circle of land one league in radius centered at the high altar.
Within this liberty (geographically within but legally separate from and comparable
to the Rape of Hastings in Sussex) the abbey was free of all feudal dues and customs
and was enfranchised to exercise royal judicial and administrative rights
independent of both shire and hundred. These privileges, imperfectly recorded at the
time they were granted, were confirmed (partly on the strength of forged charters)
by Henry II nearly a century later.
The original endowment included, beside the
leuga, the
six manors of Alciston (Sussex), Brightwalton (Berkshire), Crowmarsh (Oxfordshire), Hoo [also
Hou, Hoton] (Essex), Limpsfield (Surrey), and Wye (Kent), and churches at Reading,
Collumpton, and St. Olave's, Exeter. Royal grants of two additional manors
(Brornham in Wiltshire by William Rufus and Appledram in Sussex by Henry I), a group
of East Anglian churches, and numerous abbey purchases (including Icklesham,
Barnhorn, and Marshal in East Sussex, and Bodiam, added to the
leuga
itself) established Battle's landed estate at ten "home manors"
in East Sussex and Kent and additional "income" properties in eight other counties.
During the economically troubled 14th century most of Battle's estates were farmed
out, and the manors of Marley and Wode "created" to encompass and administer the
remaining demesne lands within and adjoining the
leuga.
The abbey's financial position improved slightly during the 15th century and was on
a sound if not overly prosperous basis by the eve of the Dissolution. The last
abbot, John Hammond, surrendered his house to the crown in May 1538.
The abbey and its immediately adjacent lands, considered now as the Manor of Battle,
together with most of the abbey lands in Sussex and Kent (including the additional
manors of Barnhorn and Maxfield, Sussex), were sold in 1538 and 1539 to Sir Anthony
Browne, Henry VIII's favorite and Master of the Horse, whose son Anthony was created
1st Viscount Montague in 1554. The property descended in the Browne family, despite
a brief forfeiture for recusancy during the Commonwealth, until 1721, when the 6th
Viscount sold it to Sir Thomas Webster, a prosperous London merchant who had moved
into the land market some two decades before with the acquisition of Copthall in
Essex. By 1725, with the assistance of a legacy from Henry Whistler, his wife Jane's
grandfather, Webster also purchased the manor of Robertsbridge, Sussex, at which a
profitable iron foundry had been located for over a century. He also leased the
Beech Furnace ironworks in the town of Battle itself, and thereafter maintained an
interest in the industry and contacts with London ironmongers. Sir Thomas was
succeeded by his son Sir Whistler Webster about 1750, and thereafter the Battle
estate remained in the family (with one 43-year interval in the later nineteenth
century) until 1976. Since then it has been the property of the Department of the
Environment.
Bibliography
Descriptive Catalogue of the Original Charters, Royal Grants, and Donations ... and other Documents constituting the Muniments
of Battle Abbey ... [offered for sale]
By Thomas Thorpe.
London : [Thomas Thorpe], 1835.
Brent, Judith A.
A Catalogue of the Battle Abbey estate archives. Lewes : East Sussex County Council, 1973.
Searle, Eleanor.
Lordship and community : Battle Abbey and its banlieu, 1066-1538. Toronto : Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974.
Searle, Eleanor. "Obedientiary and Other Accounts of Battle Abbey in the Huntington Library,"
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research XII (1934), 83-101.
Searle, Eleanor. "The Obedientiary Rolls of Battle Abbey,"
Sussex Archaeological Collections LXXVIII (1937), 37-62.
Searle, Eleanor, and Barbara Ross, eds.
Accounts of the cellarers of Battle Abbey, 1275-1513. [Sydney] : Sydney University Press, 1967.
Whittick, Christopher. "Battle Abbey and the Vellomaniacs - Locating the Monastic Archive,"
Anglo-Norman Studies XXXIX Proceedings of the Battle Conference, (June 2016), 203-17.
- Battle Abbey archives addenda, 1372-1528 (mssHM 82452-82457)
- Archive of the Brown and Webster families of Battle Abbey (East Sussex Record Office)
- Battle Abbey cartulary, 1240s, Hale Manuscripts, MS Hale 87, Lincoln's Inn Library
This collection consists of two parts: the records of the Benedictine abbey of St.
Martin at Battle, Sussex, dating before 1538, and the papers from 1538 onward, chiefly of the Browne family (1538-1721), Viscounts
Montague,
who purchased the Battle Abbey properties following the monastery's dissolution, and then
the Webster family (1721-1857).
The collection is particularly rich in monastic and estate
accounts, court records, and deeds for lands possessed by Battle Abbey in Sussex,
Berkshire, Essex, Surrey, and Kent.
The records prior to 1538 consist of a complete monastic archive, the product of one
integrated religious institution. Document types include obedientiary and estate and
manorial accounts; court rolls and other court records; deeds and charters; rentals
and surveys, with related papers; and miscellaneous papers.
The papers created after the dissolution of the monastery consist of two major
sub-collections, corresponding to Browne and Webster family papers, as well as of
Cheke, Jorden, and Whistler. The bulk of this post-Dissolution material pertain to
the Webster family, and deals with legal, financial, and estate matters. There is
little correspondence. The latest document is dated 1778.
There are also two volumes (volumes 1-2) of paper slips containing handwritten descriptions of the items in the collection.
These volumes, dating from approximately 1830, comprise a draft of bookseller Thomas Thorpe's 1835 published
Descriptive Catalogue.
Note: many of the pre-1733 documents in this collection are written in Latin and/or with handwriting, symbols, and abbreviations
that
present paleographic challenges to most modern readers. The calendar of the Battle Abbey Archives (available as a PDF) provides
full extracts, in English, of the substance of each document
and in the case of charters includes all personal and place names found in the originals.
Calendar of the Battle Abbey Archives (PDF)
The calendar provides full extracts, in English, of the substance of each document in the Battle Abbey Archives,
and in the case of charters includes all personal and place names found in the originals.
Entries in the calendar contain the following fields (when applicable): description, witnesses, endorsements,
cartulary references, seals, related materials, references numbers, and additional notes.
The calendar summaries can also be searched online in the East Sussex Records Office catalog:
The Keep.
Search "heh/ba"
The collection is organized in the following manner:
- I. Pre-Dissolution Records
- a-b. Accounts (Folders 1-23)
- c. Court Rolls and other court records (Folders 24-31; Volume 5)
- d. Rentals and surveys, with related documents (Folders 33-36)
- e. Cartularies (Volume 29-32)
- f. Miscellaneous records (Folders 32, 37-38; Volume 33)
- g. Pre-dissolution deeds (Boxes 1-36, Volumes 51-55)
- II. Post-Dissolution Papers
- a. Court books (Volumes 15-22 and 26)
- b. Accounts and rentals (Volumes 3-25)
- c. Webster papers (Box 66)
- d. Post-dissolution deeds (Boxes 37-67; Volume 76)
- e. Manorial court rolls and rentals (Volumes 95-98)
- III. 19th century manuscript catalog (Volumes 1-2)
- IV. Empty bindings for volumes 56-75
Physically, the collection is housed in the following manner:
- Folders 1-28: Pre-dissolution documents (removed from volumes 77-94 and now numbered BA 1-995)
- Boxes 1-36: Pre-dissolution deeds (removed from volumes 34-55)
- Volumes 51-53: Pre-dissolution deeds (55 miscellaneous deeds) retained in volumes
- Volumes 1-33: Various bound pre- and post-dissolution volumes
- Boxes 37-67: Post-dissolution documents removed from volumes 56-75 and foldered
- Volume 76: Miscellaneous post-dissolution deeds retained in volume
- Volumes 56-75: [Empty bindings]
- Volumes 95-99: Post-dissolution manorial court rolls and rentals
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
Huntington Library's Online Catalog.
Battle Abbey -- Archives.
Monasteries -- England -- Archives.
Benedictine monasteries -- Great Britain -- Archives.
Great Britain -- History -- Medieval period, 1066-1485 -- Sources.
Great Britain -- History -- 1485- -- Archival resources.
Great Britain -- Church history -- 1066-1485 -- Archival resources.
Great Britain -- Church history -- 16th century -- Archival resources.
Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603 -- Sources.
Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714 -- Sources.
Great Britain -- History -- 18th century -- Sources.
Manuscripts -- Great Britain.
Family papers -- Great Britain.
Estate records -- Great Britain.
Property records -- Great Britain
Phillipps, Thomas, Sir, 1792-1872, former owner.
Thorpe, Thomas, 1791-1851, former owner.
Webster (Family)
Browne (Family)