AUTHOR’S PREFACE
Reading edition
The MSS. at Southwell include the following:— The “White Book,” of which the earlier part is in a fourteenth-century handwriting. It contains bulls, charters, etc., the earliest of the date of 1106. The “Register of Thurgarton Priory” is almost a duplicate of this.
The “Chapter Register” contains the Acts of the Chapter from 1467-1542, and includes the Visitations by the Chapter, and probate matters, entered without regard to order.
The “Register of Leases” is chiefly concerned with a date still later. Extracts from one or other of these appeared in Dugdale’s “Monasticon” and other works. A century ago William Dickinson (afterwards Rastall) of Muskham Grange used the MSS. in compiling his “Antiquities.” He was a laborious but inaccurate scholar, resembling Jonathan Oldbuck, and his Ad Pontem theory, together with similar inferences, has met the fate of the Prætorium of the Laird of Monkbarns. His book contains a certain amount of useful information; and I am indebted to Mr G.T. Knowles of Southwell for the loan of his copy of this scarce work. A late edition of Le Neve’s “Fasti” (1854) contains a list, necessarily incomplete, of the canons by the Rev. J.F. Dimock, a former minor canon; and in various papers read before learned societies my father quoted from the records. The report of the Historical MSS. Commission for 1891 has a short notice.
In 1891 Mr Arthur Francis Leach, Assistant Charity Commissioner, and formerly fellow of All Souls, Oxford, published for the Camden Society his “Visitations and Memorials.” The documents are chiefly from the Chapter Register: “the book was intended to exhibit the church in its inner relations.” This volume is the most valuable that has been published; and the introduction and the lists enhance its importance. Mr Leach has kindly written to me about the mysterious criminal court alluded to in the corrections by the chapter.
Outside sources of information are scanty. An occasional reference in an old chronicle or in the York records includes almost everything of value.
A folio on the architecture was published by Mr Dimock in 1853. He was familiar with the records in the library, and, in the conclusions he drew, had the assistance of many of the leading architects and antiquaries. So far as I know his inferences have not been superseded in any important particulars; and the only drawback to this folio (of which a popular edition appeared in 1875) is, that it is rather an explanation of the plates than a complete treatise.
I am indebted to Mr A.H. Lyell, the honorary secretary of the Royal Archæological Institute, for a copy of the Rev. J.L. Petit’s paper, and to Messrs S. B. Bolas & Co., and Mr A.J. Loughton of the Market Place, Southwell, for the use of the photographs—duly attributed to each.
A. D.