The Cartulary of Haughmond Abbey

The fruit of a dozen years' work by Dr Una Rees, following her editing of the Shrewsbury Abbey Cartulary. Even more than her earlier work, the Haughmond Cartulary is a major contribution to monastic and social history and to the history of Wales, Shropshire and the Marches in the Middle Ages. Haughmond was founded in the early 12th century and shortly afterwards came under the patronage of the FitzAlans (later Earls of Arundel). The Cartulary contains over 1,380 documents dating from c.1130 to 1480, few of which have previously been published. In addition to charters recording the gifts and purchases whereby the abbey's estates were built up, there are over 170 leases which provide considerable information on the administration of the estates and the general history of leasehold tenure. Over forty mortgages are included, a type of document which rarely survives; some of the more unusual ones reveal the influence of Welsh customs of land tenure, especially in the area around Oswestry. There is information on other counties, such as Norfolk and Sussex where the abbey also had property. In addition, there is much of general interest, and there are detailed liturgical regulations -hitherto sparsely available for the Augustinian canons - and accounts of religious services not usually included in a cartulary. Over 100 charters relate to the town of Shrewsbury, providing valuable material not only for local historians but also for all those interested in medieval boroughs in general.