Hemming's Cartulary

The manuscript comprises two separate cartularies that were made at different times and later bound together; it is in the British Library as MS Cotton Tiberius A xiii.The second section, Hemming's Cartulary proper, combines charters and other land records with a narrative of deprivation of property owned by the church of Worcester.[8] The first part of the work is an early 11th-century collection of older charters, arranged geographically, with a section on late 10th-century land leases tacked on the end.[7] A few blank areas in the original manuscript copy have been filled with information in the later 11th and 12th centuries, mainly related to properties owned by the cathedral.Historian Nicholas Brooks, along with Vivian Galbraith, argues that Hemming's work was a response to the problems encountered by the diocese during the vacancy, when royal officials administered the lands of the bishopric.[19] Ker has identified the second part of the manuscript as being created by three scribes, describing their writing as "round and fairly large", in a style belonging to a period of transition between the late 11th and early 12th century.[22] The main goal of the Liber was to document the landholdings of the diocese and bishop, and to keep a register of the written charters and leases pertaining to the property of the church at Worcester.In the 10th century, the Bishop of Worcester leased out various small estates attached to the Church in the three counties (Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Warwickshire) to several high-ranking men and women, usually for three lifespans.[24] The pattern may be taken to suggest that this way of association served to "create a network, an inter-meshing, of high-status 'neighbours' ... with its central knot in Worcester and the domus of the bishop".[25] In the bishop's residence or at home, the lessees may have come together to participate in convivial drinking, just as the Norman successors to these lands are envisaged as doing in William of Malmesbury's Life of St Wulfstan.[27]The historian Richard Southern argues that, notwithstanding the stated aim of the work, it was not produced to be used in lawsuits, but rather as a kind of utopian picture of what was in the past.The historian John Reuben Davies sees a close parallel between Hemming's work and the Welsh medieval document The Book of Llandaf.[30] More recently, Francesca Tinti has arrived at a different conclusion, arguing instead that Hemming's work, more so than the Liber Wigorniensis, came to serve very real needs, and that these specifically concerned the monastic community at Worcester.[b][31] The coming of the Norman newcomer, Samson, who had been involved in the dissolution of Westbury-on-Trym, would have given the enlarged community a particular incentive to safeguard its property and rights.The litigation involved lands that the abbey held in Hampton and Bengeworth in Worcestershire, but that the diocese maintained were actually part of one of the bishopric's manors.Ownership became disputed under the abbacy of Æthelwig, when the abbot managed to acquire the allegiance of a number of the new owners of lands previously held from the diocese.After Æthelwig's death, most of these lands passed to Odo of Bayeux, but Evesham managed to retain Hampton and Bengeworth, which became the basis of the dispute.