Note 135 — BOOK II.

Ingulf has A.D. 855: 3 indict, which agrees with Asser, who assigns that year for the grant. It appears to be the charter which Malmesbury before referred to on the king’s going to Rome, and has given rise to much controversy; some holding that it conveyed the tithes of the land only, while others maintain that it was an actual transfer of the tenth part of all lands in the kingdom. See Carte, vol. i. 293. Both opinions are attended with considerable difficulties. Mr. Carte very inadvertently imagines this charter and the copy in Ingulf to be distinct grants: the latter being, he says, a confirmation and extension of the former, after Ethelwulf’s return from Rome: but the false date in Malmesbury is of no importance, some MSS. having even 814, and 855 was the year of his departure, not of his return.