Medieval Abbott.- Nicholas of Wallingford (Abbott of Burton Abbey 1216-22 or 1218-23) Charter, in 1219 there was a dispute between Nicholas of Wallingford, the convent of Burton and all the parishioners of the said church, free and villein, the cause of this was a custom that the parish send for its lesser tithes in quadragesima [Lent] boys and girls from each house to work in a quarry, or 3d in lieu. Now, in view of the poverty of the parishioners the abbot abandons his claim, and certain lesser sums of money to be rendered by tenants of different amounts of land, witnesses: William de Cresel [Cresley], William de Warda, Gilbert the chaplain of Burton, Herbert the Steward, and Elyas the door keeper, manuscript in Latin, 15 lines, in a very fine charter hand, ragged tear along central fold affecting a few letters but completely legible, with medieval stitching and repairs at head and tail suggesting that this document was repaired in the medieval period, folds, browned, lacks seal, 165 x 230mm., Sunday in the Vigil of St John the Baptist [23 June], a knife being given in seisin [held] in the abbot's hand, in the time of the coming of Pandulf the papal legate, H[enry] son of John, [1219].

⁂ Written in the aftermath of Magna Carta and during the regency of Pandulf, Hubert de Burgh and Peter des Roches, in the minority of Henry III.

This document would have had the knife above mentioned attached to the document in token of seisin, and it is almost certainly the cause of the large central tear with its medieval repairs at head and tail.

Pandulf [Pandulph, Pandulph Verraccio] (d. 1226), bishop of Norwich and papal legate.