A Memorial Other Than on His Tomb: The Case of the Munimenta Antiqua, Kent Volume I of Frederick Arthur Crisp

The discovery of a cartulary of Crisp is of interest for the historian in relation to a body of works worthy of further investigation. Here, the author outlines the important features of the volume. Crisp was influenced by the conventions of antiquarian publishing and inspired by medieval book forms, but he was also willing to use modern technical means to reproduce images and to conserve manuscripts. The documents are introduced but their origins remain unknown and any conclusions made here are provisional and the article is accompanied by an appendix of a summary of the contents.

There is a monumental volume in the Templeman Library at the University of Kent that resembles an exceptionally tall cartulary.[fn1] It has munimenta Antiqua kent vol.i stamped on the front and spine in gold and the armorial stamp of Frederick Arthur Crisp on the back.[fn2] Crisp created the volume in about 1900 and only the title page is printed, there is no colophon. His full case vellum binding forms a carapace for fifty deeds from Kent dated between 1527 and 1807 all of which, although large and ornate, appear to record transactions of modest importance.[fn3] Why did Crisp bind these deeds in this manner? Where did he find the documents? Why use documents from Kent? Are there further volumes? Some of these questions are answered by reviewing Crisp’s antiquarian activities and his special interests to understand how the documents fitted into the collector’s mental and cultural world. The volume is presented here as witness to Crisp’s collecting and book production activities.

The significance of this article is that it identifies and collates material that has not been connected since the lifetime of Crisp the collector, based on evidence in a wide range of primary sources, to support a study of the volume. It does not however attempt to contribute to discourse about Kent in the early modern period or to analyse historical setting. The documents are introduced but their origins remain unknown and any conclusions made here are provisional; Kent, Volume I awaits further reading (Fig.1).

[fg]jpg|Fig. 1 Munimenta Antiqua: Kent, Volume I. Exterior. Front cover image courtesy of Kent University Special collections, LH/KENT/ IND/1.|Image[/fg]

The armorial stamp is on the back board of Kent, Volume I; the Arms Per pale argent on a chevron invected and plain cotised sable five horseshoes was identified as belonging to Frederick Arthur Crisp in the database British Armorial Bindings.[fn4]The volume measures (24 x 16 ½ x 4 ¾ inches); it is heavy and the boards are [pg249][pg250]slightly bowed. The contents are a bound compilation of fifty ‘muniments’ being deeds or charters, many as indentures, mounted in paper frames. The documents are on parchment, or vellum, many are larger than the volume and have been folded. Only a few of the manuscripts in the volume have been transcribed.[fn5] In order to gain some understanding of the type of documents and the information in them, an index of dates, regnal years, incipit, names of people and places was compiled (Figs 2a & 2b).[fn6]

[fg]png|Fig. 2a and b Amorial Stamp on back board. Courtesy of Kent University Special Collections.|Image[/fg]

The area of land represented in the volume covers much of Kent, including the North Downs, between Romney Marsh and Lamberhurst, with clusters in Thanet and Eltham. Twenty-five of the fifty charters are from the seventeenth century, some involve members of families identified as part of the ‘community of Kent’ in the mid-seventeenth century, whom Everitt described as the parochial gentry.[fn7] Family names include Barling, Barrone, Beale, Bunce, Denne, Fyffe, Guldeford, Hart, Harvey, Honeywood, Marsh, Pettit, Sawbridge and Tufton amongst others. Most participants are described as gentleman or yeoman, the ten women who appear amongst about one hundred and twenty participants are described as spinsters, wives and daughters, owning, or more often transmitting interests in property. There is a draper of London, a clothier, a boatbuilder from Deal, and several landowners in London are mentioned. There are several transactions within a family: one is a statement in a dispute arising about the will of a yeoman with an inventory attached (fol.31) (Fig.3).

[fg]jpg|Fig. 3 Fol.1 Image of Indenture sale of mansion house, messuage and tenements. Henry Rose gent of Chislet to Stephen Bartlett gent. of Hoad.|Image[/fg]

Most of the Kent, Volume I documents record transactions between the lessors and lessees of small lots of rural property, typically a messuage or tenement with stables, yard, and orchard such as the lease of 1738 by John Denne, Archdeacon of Rochester and others (fol.20) of a tenement called Rooks Garden. The property comprises a stable, garden, orchard and barn at Stourmouth. Further study might lead to identification of one or more origins or collections for the records, as there are clusters around places and possibly families. The deeds date from between 1527 and 1807. Three are sixteenth century, fol.25 (1527), fol.49 (1571) and fol.15 (1591) and twenty-five are seventeenth century including four from the Interregnum; twenty are from the eighteenth century, one is from 1807.

Among the documents are examples with hand-drawn initials (fol. 8r, 1682, lessor Sir John Hendon) and proforma produced by a stationer (fol. 20r, 1738, lessor John Denne). The scripts are formal and most documents are folded various times to fit into the volume. Some consist of multiple sheets and several have administrative summaries and numbers on the verso (e.g. fol.42v). A conservation assessment notes that out of the fifty documents seventeen have red shellac seals (most in fragile condition), one has the very fragile remains of a red wax seal and several, such as fol. 12r, have blue paper embossed stamps recording payment of duty.[fn8] The case of Wanley Sawbridge provides an example of the type of information to be found.[fn9] He is the subject of two documents. Fol.22 of 1768 is the induction papers of his appointment to the curacy of St Thomas the Apostle church, Isle of Harty by Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury. The sponsor is John Sawbridge of Ollantigh [Olantigh] in the parish of Wye in the county of Kent. In 1779 Frederick, Archbishop of Canterbury, conferred the vicarage of Stalisfield on him. There are records of Wanley Sawbridge in the Clergy of the Church of England database and in the record of Cambridge graduates of Emmanuel, Cambridge, but [pg251][pg252][pg253]neither mention his post at St Thomas’ church.[fn10] Thus the charters enhance what is known about him, although his other known Kent appointment, as domestic chaplain to Sackville Tufton, 8th Earl of Thanet (1733-1786), is not represented in the volume.[fn11] Kent, Volume 1 is witness to the interests of Crisp the antiquarian, who began his work in the nineteenth century, transcribing and printing parish registers and editions of Visitations and pedigrees. At his Grove Park Press in Walworth, Crisp printed transcripts of medieval and early modern records and compilations of genealogical information. It was a private press, printing for private circulation or subscription, and Crisp was proprietor and distributor. Both antiquarian traditions of publishing and the influence of the Arts and Crafts vision of the book as a work of art, a beautiful, hand-made artefact, can be seen in the volume Kent, Volume I. It exists as it does partly because of Crisp’s intentions as its creator in terms of his practice as a printer/publisher. Type, ink, paper, imprint, decoration, illustration, binding, conservation and placement show that not only was Crisp influenced by the conventions of antiquarian publishing and inspired by medieval book forms, but he was also willing to use modern technical means to reproduce images and to conserve manuscripts. Crisp has re-envisaged a medieval cartulary in its pale vellum binding. His binding may have been influenced by the limp vellum covers used by William Morris for the Kelmscott Press. Crisp’s pale vellum half and quarter bound vellum books appear from 1893/4, within two years of the starting up of Kelmscott Press in 1891.[fn12] However, medieval books were often bound in white vellum and Crisp owned at least one that had its original binding, the ‘Chartulary (sic) of Blythburgh Priory’ of the late 14th century, now in the British Library. The binding of this is of a pale buff vellum with a smooth surface showing pore marks, on wooden boards, the skin folded around the edges and stuck down onto the wood, without pastedowns. Crisp used boards so his influence may have been directly from volumes such as this.[fn13] Crisp’s modernity is evident in his approach to the old antiquarian challenge of how to present multiple original sources. As Rosemary Sweet has explained, there had been ongoing debate amongst antiquaries throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries about how to present evidence, particularly in relation to publications on local and topographical history. To avoid ‘imposing presumptions and conjecture on the reader’, the author would bring selected materials together and arrange them thematically, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions. This led to material being published as ‘Collections towards...’.[fn14] Sweet’s forecast that the direction of antiquarian projects in the nineteenth century would shift from the presentation of evidence towards preservation and popularisation is apparent in Crisp’s practice. Although he did collect ‘objects of vertu’ and rare historic volumes, he also amassed vast collections of ephemeral documents recording significant events in the lives of working people which he organised, processed and presented, such as the collection of sixteen volumes of apprentice bonds at The Genealogical Society (London). His extensive collection of around twenty thousand original marriage licences, ephemera ‘obtained directly or indirectly from the parish clerks’, he had bound in two hundred and twenty-one albums.[fn15] The Genealogical Society (London) now holds thirty-eight of these albums, the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies in Canterbury own most of the [pg254]remainder, bound in name order in volumes titled Munimenta Antiqua. These Munimenta Antiqua might fairly be described as ‘collections towards’ ... [a history of this or that], but Crisp did not expect the reader to draw conclusions from his arrangement, he produced reference works to support other potential use and interpretation. Crisp had documents bound in volumes and he also printed books. Both forms of production are at play in Kent, Volume I, so both are considered here in more detail.

Lists of works printed at the Grove Park Press can be found in the parish registers and other documents compiled and printed by Crisp [hereafter Lists]. Eight editions of the List have been identified, printed between 1888 and 1920. The List shows that Crisp was, as his associates recognised, motivated by a keen interest in genealogy.[fn16]The Grove Park Press Lists provide some context for Kent, Volume I as they give details of contents, binding, printing processes used, print run and price of books for sale. Crisp printed about fifty individual titles: transcripts of single sources (parish registers, wills from a specific county) and catalogues of some of his collections of objects. Incidentally the only Kent source he printed was possibly his last book, the Registers of Shipbourne, Co. Kent of 1921.[fn17] Crisp’s search for documents relating to the history of his own family of Crisp also appears to have been his early motivation for collecting deeds. The Crisp and Steedman family archive contains the manuscripts of his ‘Pedigree of Frederick Arthur Crisp’ and ‘Pedigree of Frederick Arthur Crisp and his children’.[fn18]If Crisp had not printed extensively, these handwritten documents alone might suggest he was engaged in an improving pastime with and for his family, however, he also printed Documents relating to the family of Crisp for sale, the first volume dated 1882, the second year of Grove Park Press.[fn19]

The generic volume title Munimenta Antiqua was also used by Crisp as a running title for series or sequences of books, as was traditional in antiquarian publishing. His Munimenta Antiqua are specifically albums of original material, or manuscript transcripts made from original deeds by Crisp, munimenta being a legal term for a document that indicates ownership of an asset. In the medieval period, such records were kept in a muniments room, a designated strongroom. The series must be explored to understand how Kent, Volume I differs and why.

There are more than 250 known Munimenta Antiqua volumes bound by Crisp. The title may be translated as old deeds. No other Kent volumes have been identified, neither have volumes of this kind for other counties. Crisp’s titles are in this sense uniform titles, running titles or descriptive titles, like those used in archival catalogues for a series but Crisp’s use of the term ‘series’ instead describes the size, so Kent, Volume I is ‘folio series’, which is printed on the title page. Some Munimenta Antiqua are ‘octavo series’. No other volumes of Munimenta Antiqua for Kent, or other volumes of this size and format, called ‘folio series’ by Crisp, appear for any other counties in current catalogues of archive and library collections. Kent, Volume I was not intended for sale, so does not appear in the Lists, neither has a catalogue of Crisp’s own library been found.

Kent, Volume I has the semblance of a cartulary, upon opening it the title page is significant because it announces that this is not an early manuscript volume but mimicry, a play on the medieval form. In other respects, Crisp’s title pages followed a pattern already set in Howard’s edition of The Visitation of London of [pg255]1880. The first two volumes of the Visitations edited jointly by Howard and Crisp in 1893 and 1894 were printed by Mitchell & Hughes who had printed for William Pickering.[fn20] Subsequent volumes were printed by Crisp as Grove Park Press using the same type, composition and colouring. In Kent, Volume I, the mise-en-page is noticeably more austere with fewer typefaces, all in black ink and more page space. Crisp’s choice of typefaces is allusive in Stanley Morison’s terms, evoking earlier printing.[fn21] The title Munimenta Antiqua is in finely cut Roman capitals in an ‘old face’, the name of the county ‘Kent’ is in Gothic blackletter. The re-use of archaic typefaces refers to antiquarian printing. It has a conventional symmetrical centred arrangement. The Roman capitals are widely spaced, there is clear space around the lines of text, which is relative to the assorted sizes of type used. The quality of impression is crisp, the black is noticeably clear and lustrous. The paper used for framing and support and interleaving of the documents is thick, hand- made, laid paper with watermarks of the Dutch maker Van Gelder Zonen (active 1685-1982).[fn22] Crisp produced fine books for private distribution, for collectors, in limited print runs of fifty to one-hundred and fifty copies. The Kent volume uses the best quality elements of his productions (Fig. 4).

[fg]jpg|Fig. 4 Fol.49r, Indenture – Walter Stable the younger of Orpington in the county of Kent, yeoman.|Image[/fg]

[pg256]Additional evidence of Crisp’s aesthetic medievalism can be found. Crisp, adopting a clerical mode of practice, produced some whole works in manuscript. Some volumes of the Munimenta Antiqua and Fragmenta Genealogica series are handwritten. Crisp’s hand appears to be influenced by medieval calligraphy. His letters have a resemblance to a fifteenth-century humanist script, upright, even, his r’s with a concave downward stroke. It seems Crisp aimed to provide an accurate visual record of sources rather than to decorate his books due to his disposition as an antiquarian.

Crisp’s wider collecting scope shows his interest in the visual representation of knowledge, seen most clearly in his collections of epigraphic objects. These artefacts of three-dimensional form, bearing text or heraldic symbols offered genealogical information. The approach to understanding these objects has semiotic as well as aesthetic, archaeological and historical elements. Crisp’s particular interest in epigraphic objects is a key to his visual sense and a contributing factor to the form of Kent, Volume I.

Whilst his reproduction of images demonstrates Crisp’s use of modern technology, his book bindings are, like his type, allusive and show his aesthetic preference for the medieval period. Volumes now in libraries across the UK and USA have Crisp’s characteristic bindings. These are of three types all of which use pale vellum, the smooth off-white coloured skin used for bookbinding. Grove Park Press standard quality books are either half-bound in vellum on boards covered in marbled paper or quarter-bound in vellum on cloth-covered boards. Both types usually have gilt lettering stamped on the spine in upper case in a Roman serif font. Crisp’s third type of binding, a full case of vellum on board with his armorial stamp on the reverse cover, is not used for Grove Park Press, but for books in his own library. Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library hold one volume owned by Crisp, the ‘Deeds relating to the Curteis family of Tenterden’. This, like the ‘Chartulary (sic) of Blythburgh Priory’ has an older vellum binding, his bookplate but no armorial stamp indicating that it was owned but not bound by Crisp, who preserved the original binding.[fn23] The final element of Crisp’s book-making practice to be considered is his conservation of documents. Inside Kent, Volume I looks like an album, and similar to other volumes bound by Crisp contains slips, scraps, and ephemera. Alongside his collection and preservation of rare, historic manuscripts, he collected in bulk sources that were not intrinsically valuable. Binding can help to conserve documents, to present them in order, make them easier to handle. The ‘Court Book of Dullinghams Manor’ in Crisp’s binding has pages interleaved with hand- made paper. Kent, Volume I is bound with guard pages sewn into the text block to adjust the height between leaves to reduce pressure. The method used to stick the documents to paper frames was reversable, the guards protected the folded documents, although the folding of the documents has made use difficult and the binding may have been harmful to the seals present, the documents have been conserved.[fn24] In Kent, Volume I, Crisp made a book artefact which suggests that his interest was as much in the visual as in the documentary meaning of it. It is a fabrication of an idea about a book and Kent, Volume I is unlike other volumes in the Munimenta Antiqua folio series because it is larger than the usual folio size, it has full case [pg257]jacqueline spencer vellum armorial binding, and it contains original manuscript charters. The binding of vellum on board with gold stamped title and spine lettering is typical of Crisp’s library. It has no bookplate, but the armorial binding indicates that this volume was held by Crisp in his collection, kept in his home. The houses that Crisp acquired: the Manor House at Godalming and Little Wenham Hall, described by Pevsner as an ‘incunabulum of English domestic architecture’, can themselves be seen as objects in his collections. They were places to display his interest in cultural heritage and affirm his identity as a gentleman scholar, an antiquary.[fn25] In the ‘Manor House’ at Godalming, Crisp had a large private museum that was situated on the second floor, described as ‘a perfect museum of relics,’ in the Edinburgh Evening News, one of many articles in newspapers prompted by the auction sales of his collections after his death.[fn26]The room did not survive a conversion of 2022 into apartments, but architectural plans of Crisp’s house are in Godalming Museum.[fn27]

Crisp died in January 1922 and his grave is at All Saints Church, Little Wenham (Wenham Parva), Suffolk, and there is a memorial window in St John the Evangelist, Farncombe, Godalming, Surrey.[fn28] Crisp’s will requested the sale of his collections still in his possession at his death.[fn29] The first sale was by Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge on 4th December 1922 of The extensive and valuable library of Frederick Arthur Crisp, Esq. F.S.A.30 Kent, Volume I appeared in the Day 2 Folio section as item 441 described as ‘Kent: A Collection of Deeds relating to the County of Kent, 50 in all, on vellum, mounted or inlaid in a folio volume (24in by 16 ½ in.), with printed title, vellum xvi-xviii cent.’ It was bought by a (so far unidentified) Richardson for £4 5s. They also bought item 428 (Hasted, Blackheath volume, 1886 edition), item 445 (Rental of the Manor of Sherescourt, Kent), item 605 (Surrey and Sussex parish registers). There were 730 lots in the sale, the total proceeds were £2,535 7 s.

There were no other ‘mounted or inlaid’ volumes of Kent deeds in that sale. Other Kent items in the ‘Folio’ section included item 442: Canterbury wills, item 443: Deeds relating to the Cary family of Thanet, item 444: ‘Kent. Indentures etc., relating to lands in Kent 5 parcels’ and item 445: Rental of the Manor of Sherescourt. A later sale on 7 February 1935 included remaining books and manuscripts, including item 150: ‘Kent, album of 35 documents manuscript and print mounted in an album, half-bound’. This has not been traced, so it is not known whether it had the title Kent, Volume II. However, its form is different, being half-bound, it would be less impressive as an artefact and not another in the same (size) ‘series’ in Crisp’s terminology.

The auction of 4th December 1922 did however include other volumes of the same size as Kent, Volume I for other counties. Items ‘470 Norfolk 100 Deeds in 2 volumes’, 474 ‘Nottinghamshire; 76 Deeds inlaid in a folio’, Suffolk; 440 ‘Deeds mounted or inlaid in 9 volumes’ which had “abstracts and genealogical notes on the flyleaf facing each deed in the first four and a half volumes” were all of 24in x 161/2in.[fn31] The dealer Thomas Thorp of Guildford bought the Norfolk and Suffolk volumes. It appears from this description that Crisp included abstracts and notes in some of the Suffolk volumes, not all. These Suffolk volume notes could provide the key to understanding the arrangement of the Kent volume if they could be found but their present whereabouts is unknown. Crisp’s remaining collections were sold in another three Sotheby’s auctions and some entries into other sales at [pg258]Sotheby’s and Puttick and Simpson[fn32]. Sotheby’s sale of 7th February 1923 included engravings, all bought by the bookseller Thomas Thorp of Guildford. The sale of 31st January 1935 was of his silver (including memorial rings) and the last on 7 February 1935 of assorted items of all types.[fn33]

Concerning the provenance of the manuscripts in Kent, Volume I, the fifty documents were examined for evidence. None of the documents had a dealer’s stamp. A few had a number on the back that could indicate that they had previously been itemised, either for sale by a dealer or by a previous collector.[fn34] The absence of a dealer’s mark may be because Crisp acquired them as part of a bundle. It seems most likely that the deeds in Kent, Volume I were obtained as part of a lot and Crisp later selected them to be included in the volume. The mounts are all inscribed with ‘Kent’ in Crisp’s hand, below the right-hand lower edge of the manuscript (example fol.49r) in landscape orientation, as well as a folio number in the top right-hand corner in portrait orientation which suggests that they were mounted before they were bound.

The manuscripts in Kent, Volume I are in no discernible order, which is surprising. Crisp appears to have been a capable and meticulous scholar. John Joseph Howard chose him as joint editor of the Visitations which were acknowledged to be reliable and well received (press reviews are printed in the Lists) and Crisp produced them efficiently. Crisp used book formats to present his material, sometimes printed, sometimes primary sources arranged logically in order, appropriate to his purpose and presented with correct scholarly apparatus. In the pamphlet ‘Little Wenham Hall’ of 1910’[fn35] he provides a careful description based on his own observation, gives accurate references to property deeds and draws some conclusions based on his evidence. It is a scholarly work, although some elements of his interpretation have since been disputed.[fn36] The Munimenta Antiqua are bound volumes of primary sources, most of which are original manuscripts, some of which are transcripts. The other Munimenta Antiqua volumes are arranged in date or name order. Kent, Volume I contains legal documents from Kent which contain clear information about dates, names, places and type of transaction. The two documents relating to the case of Wanley Sawbridge are an example. The documents fol.22 from 1768 and fol.16 from 1779 are not together, in reverse date order, not with other documents from nearby places or involving the same people. The reason for this lack of order in the volume remains unclear. Transcriptions and further study may reveal more.[fn37] The main sources of information identified about where Crisp obtained manuscripts are the provenance records of items from his collection now held in libraries and archives, the colophons of his published volumes and his notes in the List. A significant amount of the historic manuscript material he collected is held in libraries and archives in the UK and USA.[fn38] While it has not been possible to trace the provenance of the documents in Kent, Volume I, there is evidence that Crisp had a wide range of sources including auctions, manuscript dealers, his numerous contacts in parish churches, and individuals who knew of his interests. The traced provenance of some of the more prestigious and valuable manuscripts that Crisp collected give an indication of his range of sources. The Society of Antiquaries holds some papers of Peter Le Neve FSA FRS, first President of the Society obtained by Crisp.[fn39] The catalogue notes these to have come from the Morant (Alfred William [pg259]Morant, F.S.A.) sale by Puttick and Simpson on 24th May 1882,40 and the sale of the ‘Tixall Library’ (of William Constable, FRS, FSA) Sotheby’s, 24 June 1889.[fn41] Of the manuscripts in the British Library, the Exchequer Accompts of Sir William Heyricke[fn42] was also in Constable’s collection, the ‘Chartulary (sic) of the Priory of Augustinian Canons at Blythburgh Abbey’ belonged in 1885 to the Rev. Thomas Smythe Hill, Rector of Thorington and was by 1894 in the possession of Crisp.[fn43] Crisp’s editorial notes on ownership of his primary sources in the Lists frequently cite parish churches. The notes also show that Crisp owned some church records. The Register and Church books of the French Church at Dover ‘In my possession’ and the Registers of Kempsford ‘now in my possession’, are just two examples from the 1897 edition of the List. Crisp recounts in his colophon to his printed transcript of Shipbourne in Kent that ‘The first volume of the Parish Registers of Shipbourne here printed has been for many years missing from the parish chest ... An opportunity occurred a short time ago of my acquiring this valuable record, which has now been restored to the custody of the Vicar – F.A.C.’, demonstrating responsible curatorship.[fn44]

Crisp’s use of the running title Munimenta Antiqua has made similar volumes hard to find in current catalogues. Archives would not necessarily use the title in their own catalogues because it is not a true title, it just means old deeds. The Sotheby’s Crisp sale of 1922 included large numbers of bundles of deeds and charters. Harvard Law School library had a bundle of 820 deeds and other documents, for example.[fn45] If the other folios of inlaid deeds of the same size as Kent, Volume I listed in the same Sotheby’s sale catalogue of 4th December; for Suffolk, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, and the other Kent volume of smaller size and half- bound still survive, they may be in repositories but invisible as such in available catalogues. Alternatively, it is possible that they went into private collections and are not evident for that reason. The record of the Kent, Volume I’s entry into the University of Kent collections has not been found. It is likely that it was deposited in the years shortly after 1964 when the university was constituted. It may have arrived in the collection of the Shakespearean scholar John Crow which included early printed books and formed the basis of the Templeman Library’s Special Collections.[fn46] The volume did not appear in the online public catalogue until 2022, possibly due to its unique size and format, part book, part archival material.

Crisp’s interventions as conservator have been considered above, here the point to be made is that Crisp’s appetite for documents included records considered ephemeral at the time, which he curated. The marriage licences in his 120 volumes of Munimenta Antiqua were copies and would have been redundant after the marriage had been recorded in the parish register, the originals were held by the issuing office. Apprentice indentures rarely survived. Crisp judged them worthy of preservation and he made them accessible by arranging and binding them. In this form they have survived and continue to be consulted.[fn47] The people appearing in the documents in Kent, Volume I include those of middling sorts and working people with a trade or craft, along with landowners. The external appearance of Kent, Volume I suggests important charters, the internal appearance is of an album. The contents are, as introduced above, modest and mundane. Crisp’s enjoyment of collecting, his appreciation of the history of place, conservation, heraldry, of epigraphic artefacts, his appreciation of the mundane as well as the official [pg260]records of individuals’ lives as well as his sense of humour are encompassed by the following sentence, a note on Mary, wife of Joseph Thurston, owner of Little Wenham from 1695, which is the endnote to his history of Little Wenham where he himself intended to be and was buried: Of this lady a memorial other than on her tomb in Wenham Church was discovered in Wenham in the form of a glass bottle stamp, bearing on a lozenge the arm of Thurston impaling Rebow.[fn48]

Kent, Volume I can, like these objects, be understood as an artefact. Crisp made it from manuscripts and some elements of a book. In creating it, Crisp was acting as a conservator and curator. He designed it to hold the documents and keep them safe in a form that he could keep in his library, with other rare books given his armorial binding, on display. The case of Kent, Volume I is a container for the documents which it guarded, supported and preserved. In the Godalming Manor House Crisp’s life became that of a lord of the manor, manager of the estate, participant in local and parish government. Inside the manor, the library of manuscript books was kept as the library of a gentleman scholar, emulating his predecessors, the gentlemen scholars of the sixteenth-century Visitations, perhaps.

After Crisp’s death and the sales of his collection, the manuscripts he had collected were dispersed widely. Volumes from Crisp’s collection now in the British Library’s Archives and Manuscripts collections, the London Society of Genealogists library and Canterbury Cathedral Library and Archives have been consulted for the current study. Many other volumes have been identified in libraries and archives in the UK and USA. The volume, Kent, Volume I, has been considered here as a witness to the contribution Crisp made to antiquarian scholarship as editor, printer, publisher, genealogist, collector and conservator. Crisp created the volume to conserve and present a selection of charters from his collections that would otherwise have been likely to have remained unseen. He transformed them into an impressive object, inspired by medieval cartularies, to be displayed in his library. It has qualities of a fine print book, of a manuscript volume and an album.

The volume led to a survey of Crisp’s work as printer-publisher, as a private press producing fine print over four decades around the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth centuries. The techniques of fine print, binding, decorative embellishment, manuscript conservation and presentation that were used in the volume show his understanding of book arts. With the resources to print and have books bound to high quality, he chose to have them made by hand and to emulate the appearance of medieval books. He also used recent technologies for image reproduction to produce more accurate facsimiles, better antiquarian evidence. Contemporary with the Kelmscott Press, his work is likely to have been influenced by William Morris’ advocacy of craft and medieval inspired book design. However, Crisp’s medieval aesthetic was not Gothic but humanistic, his preference for clarity and light are shown in the volume.

Crisp’s interest in the medieval and early modern periods was developed primarily amongst antiquarian society rather than artistic society. He was trained as a chemist and was interested in the fine arts; he blended science and art in his book production in a way that displays highly developed visual intelligence. His obvious strengths as a scholar were in transcription, indexing, arrangement [pg261]and handling a mass of material. As a competent researcher himself, he arranged the material that he published so that it could be used for research. However, the volume is unlike his other volumes of Munimenta Antiqua in this respect, the reasons for this remain unclear. His special interests in epigraphic objects, his adoption of armorial binding provide evidence of his antiquarian interest in visual and material culture which are apparent in the volume. The volume as a conceptual work embodies Crisp’s image of a library of the past (Fig. 5).

[fg]jpg|Fig. 5 Munimenta Antiqua: Kent, Volume I. Interior – image courtesy of Kent University|Image[/fg]

This volume also demonstrates Crisp’s appreciation of history as entertainment and the peculiar as an object, it embodies Crisp’s pleasure in old things. On a blank page in the back The Court Rolls of Dullinghams Manor[fn49] bound in Crisp’s full case white vellum with the Crisp arms on the back and gold lettering, like Kent, Volume I, is a pencil drawing of the head of a knight, considered to be by Crisp, a private drawing, like his pedigrees in the family archive. It appears as a depiction of ‘a country gentleman of knightly rank’ that Crisp presented in his history of Little Wenham, a link to his vision of himself as such a gentleman. Crisp’s concept of history was based on genealogy and he collected from the medieval period through into his own time because he had this genealogical purpose. He understood time as a continuum, his own education and membership of traditional societies reinforced this, he was, in a sense, a time-traveller.

The investigation of the volume reveals that Crisp had a wide range of sources from major auction houses to parish churches. The county of Kent appears not to have been central to his interests, there was no other Kent volume of Munimenta Special Collections, LH/KENT/IND/1 [pg262] Antiqua of the same size in the Sotheby’s sales of Crisp’s collections. There does appear to have been a larger folio series of Suffolk deeds, but as these are not traced, Kent, Volume I is for now the sole identified witness to the existence of the folio series of Munimenta Antiqua. “Volume I”, assigned by Crisp, does not imply that there was actually a volume II, or further numbers, it is testament to Crisp’s practice of publishing in sequences, but it does indicate that he had other Kent muniments and imagined there might be more volumes.

The volume also signposts the dispersal of Crisp’s collections, to the afterlife of the manuscripts and transcripts, seen through traces of their sale and arrival in the catalogues of libraries and archives – Crisp valued the material document. There were times during the twentieth century when the document was at risk of being discarded, dematerialised after the extraction of the information it recorded, left in storage, sold on, broken up, some of the Munimenta Antiqua (octavo series) have travelled via this route. The whereabouts of the Volume between 1922 and 1964 remains unknown. The Kent, Volume I has been moved to a conservation studio. Following careful assessment, it had been decided to dismantle it, to take the deeds out so that they could be unfolded and the fragile seals preserved and the documents become more accessible to researchers. The binding will then become an empty case, possibly to hold facsimiles in the future. In the future the monumental case and the documents will be separate again as the documents become the focus of future study, but both will equally remain a memorial to Frederick Arthur Crisp.

His processing of records of the life events of the masses as well as of the landed gentry anticipate twentieth century developments and attitudes towards preservation and popularisation. His collections and arrangements of them facilitate family history research. Many of the University of Oxford collection of Grove Park Press books have been digitised and are for open access online. Around fifty of his titles are still in print including Visitations volumes and parish registers. Collections of deeds and bound volumes acquired by research libraries in the UK and USA are now preserved, catalogued and made accessible for research. The Munimenta Antiqua which have survived are valued and used by genealogists today where they are held in libraries. They still have much greater potential for research. The volume bears witness that Crisp contributed to the survival of medieval and early modern manuscripts, as well as amusing himself. It is a memorial, other than on his tomb, that would please him.

References

Primary sources

London, British Library (BL) Add MS 40725 ‘Chartulary of the Priory of Augustinian Canons at Blythburgh, co. Suff.’

BL Add MS 41578 ‘Exchequer Accompts of Sir William Heyricke’ BL Add MS 45387 ‘Barking Abbey rentals 1456-1493’.

BL Egerton MS 3294 ‘Court Book of Dullinghams Manor in Burwell, co. Camb., … 3 Feb. 1681/2-1 June 1702.

Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library (CCAL) Add MS 59 ‘Deeds relating to the Curteis family of Tenterden’.

[pg263]Godalming Museum, (GM) B002.65/1/2/3 ‘Architectural Plans, The Manor House, Godalming’ (Godalming, Surrey).

London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) F/CRS/01-21 Steedman and Crisp. London, The National Archives PRO RG 13 UK Census 1901.

Principal Probate Registry, UK (PPR), Will of Frederick Arthur Crisp, proved 1922, Ref. COW1685362521878W.

Society of Antiquaries (SAL) London MSS/0457. SAL MSS/0458.

SAL MSS/0459. SAL MSS/0460. SAL MSS/0461.

London, Society of Genealogists (SoG) Munimenta Antiqua (Apprentice indentures bound in volumes, octavo series).

SoG BU/GZ Munimenta Antiqua: Buckinghamshire vol. II (octavo series).

SoG SF/GEN Frederick Arthur Crisp, Munimenta Antiqua: Suffolk, Volume I (octavo series) Canterbury, University of Kent, Templeman Library (UKC) LH/KENT/IND/1 Munimenta Antiqua: Kent, Volume I.

Secondary sources

Carter, A.C.R., ‘Rare China from Lowestoft: Unique “Birth Tablets”’, Daily Telegraph, 28 January 1935.

Casley, Henry C., ‘Lowestoft China Factory’, Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History Proceedings, XI.3 (1903), 339–69.

CCEd, ‘Wanley Sawbridge’, The Clergy of the Church of England <https://theclergydatabase.org.uk> [accessed 15 August 2023].

Churchill, E., ‘Munimenta Antiqua and Crisp and Clench’s Collections of Original Apprenticeship Indentures 1641-1888 and Original Marriage Licences’, The Genealogists’ Magazine, 28.3 (2004), 101–3.

Crisp, F. A., List of Genealogical and Other Works Printed at the Private Press of Frederick Arthur Crisp, F.S.A., (London: privately printed, 1886-1920).

Crisp, F. A., Abstracts of Somersetshire Wills Etc.: Copied from the Manuscript Collections of the Late Rev. Frederick Brown, M.A., F.S.A., (London: Privately printed for Frederick Arthur Crisp, 1887).

Crisp, F. A., Armorial China: A Catalogue of Chinese Porcelain with Coats of Arms in the Possession of Frederick Arthur Crisp (London: Privately printed, 1907).

Crisp, F. A., Collections Relating to the Family of Crispe, 4 vols (London: privately printed, 1882-1913), IV.

Crisp, F. A (ed) Fragmenta Genealogica 13 vols (London: privately printed, 1889-1909).

Crisp, F. A., Little Wenham Suffolk (London: privately printed, c.1910).

Crisp, F. A., Lowestoft China Factory and the Moulds Found There in December 1907, NYPL Digital Collections (New York: New York Public Library, 2023) <https:// digitalcollections.nypl.org> [accessed 20 July 2023].

Crisp, F. A., Munimenta Antiqua: Index to Letters of Administration, I (London: privately printed, 1888).

Crisp, F. A., Registers of Shipbourne, Co. Kent (London: privately printed, 1921).

Everitt, A., The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion 1640-60 (Leicester: University Press, 1966).

Find a Grave ‘Frederick Arthur Crisp’ <https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/73952697/frederick-arthur-crisp> [accessed 23/08/2023].

‘Fortunes Made by Advertising’, Edinburgh Evening News, 30 January 1935, p. 8.

[pg264]Harris, H.A., ‘In Memoriam’, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institutes of Archaeology and History, XVIII.2 (1923), 164.

Hasted, E., The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, X (Canterbury: W. Bristow, 1800).

Howard, J., J, and Crisp, F. A (eds.), Visitation of England and Wales, 21 vols (London: privately printed, 1893-1902).

International Association of Paper Historians, ‘Van Gelder Zonen, 1685-1982’, Questions & Answers, 2011 http://www.paperhistory.org/questions.htm.

Jessopp, Rev. Dr, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institutes of Archaeology and History, VIII.3 (1894).

Langreder, A., Quotation for Conservation of Volume With Indentations for Templeman Library (Canterbury: Book and Paper Conservation Studio at Canterbury Cathedral, 3 March 2023).

Mapping Manuscript Migrations https://mappingmanuscriptmigrations.org[accessed 3 September 2024].

Martin, E.A., ‘Little Wenham Hall: A Reinterpretation’, Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History Proceedings, XXXIX.2 (1998), 151–64.

Morison, S., and Day, K., The Typographic Book (London: Ernest Benn, 1963).

Morris, J., and Oldfield, P., ‘Crisp, Frederick Arthur [1851-1922]’, British Armorial Bindings (Toronto: University of Toronto Library) <https://armorial.library.utoronto.ca> [accessed 17 August 2023].

Morris, W., The Art and Craft of Printing: Collected Essays by William Morris (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Elston Press, 1902).

Pevsner, N., and Radcliffe, E., Suffolk, Buildings of England (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975).

Puttick and Simpson, Catalogue of the Renowned and Extensive Collection of Chinese Armorial Porcelain of Frederick Arthur Crisp (London: Puttick and Simpson, 1923).

Spencer, J., ‘The Munimenta Antiqua: Kent, Volume I of F. A. Crisp’ (unpublished MA dissertation, University of Kent, 2023).

Society of Antiquaries, London, ‘Frederick Arthur Crisp’, Proceedings, vol. 16, (1897), 102–113, (102).

Sotheby’s Wilkinson & Hodge, Sale of the Extensive and Valuable Library of Frederick Arthur Crisp, Esq. F.S.A. on 4th December 1922 (London: Sotheby’s, 1922); see also sales of 7th February 1923, 30-31stth January 1935, 7th February 1935.

Sweet, R., Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2004).

Venn, J., and Archibald Venn, J., ‘Joseph Jackson Howard’, in Alumni Cantabrigienses; a Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates, and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900 (Cambridge: University Press, 1922).

Who Was Who (Oxford: OUP, 2007).

[pg265]Folio number Incipit reads This indenture … unless otherwise stated below Year Summary of content

? indicates query/omission in entry.

[tb] [th]1.|1668|Henry Rose gent of Chislet. to Stephen Bartlett gent. of Hoad, sale of mansion house, messuage and tenement, barns, stable, outhouses, courts, yards, gardens, orchards, easements ... 36 acres of arable, marsh, pastures, woodland in [Chislett?].[/th] [tr]2. Know all men by the grace of God...|1654|Thomas Pettit of Hackington and Henry Pettit of Staple to Simon Devinson, possibly [of or at] bridge? arable and pasture land and hay.[/tr] [tr]3.|1686|John Mund and Henry Mund to ?? Honeywood, Challock and Wichling, 16 acres.[/tr] [tr]4.|1807|John Hart, William Pepper, ? Siddesden all of Folkestone and their wives to Isaac Tourney, 4 tenements in Folkstone, a lease.[/tr] [tr]5.|1646|John Chittenden and Mary his wife, and the late Richard Wily to Richard Wily, messuage near Cranbrook.[/tr] [tr]6. TBA …|1736|Henshaw? to George Sayer, property in Deal andRamsgate.[/tr] [tr]7.|1746|Birkoff? boatbuilder to ? Sayer, property in Deal.[/tr] [tr]8.|1682|Sir John Henden of Biddenden to Richard Waterman, messuage, tenement, one kitchen, one barn, stable … and land in Biddenden, High Halden.[/tr] [tr]9.|1604|Sir Henry Guildford of Benenden to Thomas Hammond of Rye, conveyance of land in Hempstead, Benenden of land commonly called or known as ?three[sford] ?Arred.[/tr] [tr]10.|1651|Edward Harper to ?? land at Bearsted.[/tr] [tr]11.|1751|John Adams to Abraham Adams, land at Shoreham.[/tr] [tr]12.|1696|George Morton, Gervaise Morton and Hugh Morton to John Harvey of Benenden, land at Cranbrook, according to the custom of gavelkind.[/tr] [tr]13. The bondmen of the within written obligation...|1609|George Knowles and John Knowles to James Skett? and Christian his wife, that parcel of land knownas … in the Borough of Hoad? and now in the occupation of William Barnes, adjacent to lands of the Archbishop of Canterbury.[/tr] [tr]14.|1606|Valentyne Pettit to John Yonge of Kingsnorth, maltmaker, property at Ringwould.[/tr] [/tb] [pg266]

Appendix A: Summary of contents of Munimenta Antiqua: Kent, Volume I

[tb][th]Folio number|Incipit reads This indenture … unless otherwise stated|Year|Summary of content[/th]

[tr]1.| |1668|Henry Rose gent of Chislet. to Stephen Bartlett gent. of Hoad, sale of mansion house, messuage and tenement, barns, stable, outhouses, courts, yards, gardens, orchards, easements ... 36 acres of arable, marsh, pastures, woodland in [Chislet?].[/tr]

[tr]2.|Know all men by the grace of God...|1654|Thomas Pettit of Hackington and Henry Pettit of Staple to Simon Devinson, possibly [of or at] bridge? arable and pasture land and hay.[/tr]

[tr]3.| |1686|John Mund and Henry Mund to ?? Honeywood, Challock and Wichling, 16 acres.[/tr]

[tr]4.| |1807|John Hart, William Pepper, ? Siddesden all of Folkestone and their wives to Isaac Tourney, 4 tenements in Folkstone, a lease.[/tr]

[tr]5.| |1646|John Chittenden and Mary his wife, and the late Richard Wily to Richard Wily, messuage near Cranbrook.[/tr]

[tr]6.|TBA …|1736|Henshaw? to George Sayer, property in Deal and Ramsgate.[/tr]

[tr]7.| |1746|Birkoff? boatbuilder to ? Sayer, property in Deal.[/tr]

[tr]8.| |1682|Sir John Henden of Biddenden to Richard Waterman, messuage, tenement, one kitchen, one barn, stable … and land in Biddenden, High Halden.[/tr]

[tr]9.| |1604|Sir Henry Guildford of Benenden to Thomas Hammond of Rye, conveyance of land in Hempstead, Benenden of land commonly called or known as ?three[sford] ?Arred.[/tr]

[tr]10.| |1651|Edward Harper to ?? land at Bearsted.[/tr]

[tr]11.| |1751|John Adams to Abraham Adams, land at Shoreham.[/tr]

[tr]12.| |1696|George Morton, Gervaise Morton and Hugh Morton to John Harvey of Benenden, land at Cranbrook, according to the custom of gavelkind.[/tr]

[tr]13.|The bondmen of the within written obligation...|1609|George Knowles and John Knowles to James Skett? and Christian his wife, that parcel of land known as … in the Borough of Hoad? and now in the occupation of William Barnes, adjacent to lands of the Archbishop of Canterbury.[/tr]

[tr]14.| |1606|Valentyne Pettit to John Yonge of Kingsnorth, maltmaker, property at Ringwould.[/tr]

[/tb]

[tb][th]Folio number|Incipit reads This indenture … unless otherwise stated|Year|Summary of content[/th]

[tr]15.| |1591|Richard Gaunt, Alderman, Valentyne Pettit, George Pettit, Richard Pettit to Andrew Adason. Indenture of award following the Will of Richard Pettit father of the 3 Pettits sons. Property in Ringwould.[/tr]

[tr]16.|TBA …|1779|Frederick Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury confers vicarage of Stalisfield on Wanley Sawbridge.[/tr]

[tr]17.| |1712|John Barnes of London to Henry Petley, counterpart of lease for 7 years of property at Woodham Water (not in Kent?).[/tr]

[tr]18.| |1705|John Beiro of Folkstone, baker, to John Davison, yeoman of Staple, lease for 1 year of Barnsolefield, parcel of arable land of 2 acres and appurtenances at Staple, 5 shillings.[/tr]

[tr]19.| |1780|John Deveson late of Staple to Alexander Deveson, yeoman, lease for 1 year of Barnsley Field at Staple now in occupation of John Scarvoy or assignees and Woodnesborough now in occupation of Edward [Rig]den or his assignees.[/tr]

[tr]20.| |1738|James Franklyn of Badlesmere and Reverend John Denne, Archdeacon of Rochester and late John Denne of Littleborne, gentleman to Charles Watson and Michael Wood, lease for 1 year to ‘Rooks Garden’ at Stourmouth, stable garden orchard and Barn. only sons and [heires] in gavelkind of John Denne late of Littleborne aforesaid yeoman deceased.[/tr]

[tr]21.| |1716|Ann French of Maidstone spinster, daughter of Richard French, sister and heir of Thomas French to John Edmead of Otham, lease of 1 year of one shop, one garden and one orchard in possession of John Edmead.[/tr]

[tr]22.|Induction paper|1768|Induction of Wanley [Elis] Sawbridge to curacy of St Thomas the Apostle church, Isle of Harty [near Leysdown, Sheerness] by Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, sponsor John Sawbridge of Ollantigh.[/tr]

[tr]23.| |1688|Samuel Grosvenor citizen and ?? of London to William Ward of Benenden, conveyance of arable land in Benenden.[/tr]

[tr]24.|To all Christian People|1634|John Bode of Davington to Richard Marsh of Honington, “Alhowmarsh” marshlands and for cattle at Goodnestone.[/tr]

[tr]25.| |1527|?? of London? Undeciphered.[/tr]

[/tb]

[tb][th]Folio number|Incipit reads This indenture … unless otherwise stated|Year|Summary of content[/th]

[tr]26.| |1687|Samuel Round, citizen and skinner of London and John Round, citizen and clothier to Edmund [Snodfall?] of Kingsnorth and Harry Halton of Brightling in the county of Sussex, land near Meopham now in the occupation of Abraham Edwards adjoining the highway from Meopham to Trottiscliffe. Etc., by gavelkind.[/tr]

[tr]27.| |1705|Thomas Beare of Wingham, Joseph Beare of A ?? next Sandwich to ??, lease of all that messuage … the barns, stables … building yard … backfields, orchard, garden land at A?.[/tr]

[tr]28.| |1702|William L.?rk to John [Heaver?] ‘Sparrows Green’ barns, stalls, stable buildings at Wadhurst.[/tr]

[tr]29.| |1740|Henry Lamb of Staple to Richard Hayward of the town and port of Sandwich, merchant, lease for 1 year of messuage or tenement with the barne stable orchard, garden close yard or backside … and parcel of now planted with hops and fruit trees formerly in the occupation of Richard Cleveland … etc. at Staple.[/tr]

[tr]30.|Know all men …|1671|Stephen Bunt of [??] in the county of Kent and John Bunt of Novo Romney and Nicholas Bunt of the city of Canterbury to John Bunt of Novo Romney and Thomas Bunt of [?? same as Stephen Bunt] [Borrow] Hill or Little [Bennon] lying in Willisborough.[/tr]

[tr]31.|Defendant’s statement and Inventory …|1747|Answer of the Defendant Peter Webb, Executor of the Will of Walter Hendley late of Lamberhurst with the Inventory of Mr Walter Hendley from Mr Okefe.[/tr]

[tr]32.| |1724|John M. [W]oadhurst of Bethersden to Jeremiah Milstead.[/tr]

[tr]33.|To all Christian people …|1652|Frank [Witling?] to Henry King, deed of feoffment, South end at Eltham.[/tr]

[tr]34.| |1721|John M. [W]oadhurst of Bethersden to Jeremiah Milstead of Tenterden, all that messuage or … edifices … and buildings … one garden, payment of 5 shillings.[/tr]

[tr]35.|Indenture quadrupartite …|1717|Sir Charles Gresham to Oliver Marton, messuages, arable and woodlands etc. at Eltham.[/tr]

[/tb]

[tb][th]Folio number|Incipit reads This indenture … unless otherwise stated|Year|Summary of content[/th]

[tr]36.| |1676|John [V]ye, one of the sons of Elizabeth Gibbons deceased who was the wife of William Gibbons of Chislehurst in the County of Kent, Gob Vye, one of the sons etc ... to Francis [Vye/Tye?] of the parish of St Clement Danes in the county of Middx (Middlesex), three messuages or tenements … several orchards, yards and backsides in the occupation of … (NAMES) in Chislehurst.[/tr]

[tr]37.| |1704|Henry Barling of Bobbing to William Barron of Borden, land in Thurnham, 5 shillings.[/tr]

[tr]38.| |1662|Stephen Dawes/Davis and Stephen Adams of Farnborough and Mary his wife, one of the daughters of Nicholas Rolfe to William Gibbons of Chislehurst and Elizabeth his wife, 3 messuages in Romney [SEE also Elizabeth Gibbons’ son f.37].[/tr]

[tr]39.| |1644|William Elyott of Eltham to Dorothy Warren of Eltham, widow, mortgage for £100, messuage and land, on one side abutting the road to London.[/tr]

[tr]40.| | |James [Masters?] to Edward [Nutter?], messuage in ?.[/tr]

[tr]41.| |1656|Alexander Birchley of Benenden in Kent to Edward Croyden of Tenterden, messuage, tenement and parcel of land [Lord Protector?].[/tr]

[tr]42.| |1664|Martin [Day/Dye/Dyer?] of the parish of St Paul’s, Covent Garden to Francis Day of the parish of St. Martins in the Field Middx, 3 messuages or tenements with the appurtenances, orchard yards and backsides, in Romney and other places.[/tr]

[tr]43.| |1645|John D[?] the elder to [?re gift] Stace of London St Pauls and Mary Stace, counterpart of a mortgage for lands in Wittersham [perhaps Partridge Farm?] and other places.[/tr]

[tr]44.| |1707|James Simmons yeoman of Allington, Kent to James Simmons also of Allington, conveyance of messuage & appt. with barn, stable, hall, orchards and /land in Allington.[/tr]

[tr]45.| |1644|Mr Witkins to Henry King, lease of South End house in Eltham.[/tr]

[tr]46.| |1660|William Wanstall of Goodnestone in the county of Kent to Thomas [P??body] of Udimur in the county of Suffolk and Goddard [P??body], one messuage etc. ‘Fairfields’, the property of late Thomas Peabody late of Pett. Also mentions a John P??Pbody, nephew of William Wanstall, a son in the transaction.[/tr]

[/tb]

[tb][th]Folio number|Incipit reads This indenture … unless otherwise stated|Year|Summary of content[/th]

[tr]47.| | |John Tufton of Benenden, taylor to Thomas [Sloman?] of Wittesham, parcel of land etc. at B? in Kent.[/tr]

[tr]48.| |1710|Nathanial Hoskins of North Cray in the County of Kent, yeoman, only son and heir of Nathanial Hoskins deceased of North Cray who was second son of Richard Hoskins of North Cray now deceased and Ann now wife of the said Nathanial Hoskins of the one part to Sir Comport Fytche Of Southend near Eltham, Baronet? lease for 1 year of all that messuage etc. where now dwelleth Nathanial Hoskins … in North Cray.[/tr]

[tr]49.| |1571|Walter Stable the younger of Orpington in the county of Kent, yeoman, one of the sons of Thom(as) Stable, deceased and Johanna his wife daughter of William [Savode?] to Thomas [Harmswood?], property in Chislehurst.[/tr]

[tr]50.| |1677|Nicholas (Tufton), Earl of Thanet Island to Richard Tufton one of the younger brothers of the Earl, the messuage etc. in the parish of St John the Baptist in the Isle of Thanet … etc more property and lands, £500.[/tr]

[/tb]

Notes

[fn]1|Canterbury, University of Kent, Templeman Library, LH/KENT/IND/1.[/fn]

[fn]2|Hereafter Kent, Volume I.[/fn]

[fn]3|See Plate I.[/fn]

[fn]4|John Morris, ‘Frederick Arthur Crisp’, British Armorial Bindings, continued and edited by Philip Oldfield, <https://armorial.library.utoronto.ca> [accessed 17/08/2023].[/fn]

[fn]5|Draft transcripts fol.2,15 available in Templeman library.[/fn]

[fn]6|Index table, appendix A.[/fn]

[fn]7|Alan Everitt, The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion (Leicester: University Press, 1966).[/fn]

[fn]8|Arianne Langreder, ‘Quotation for Conservation of Volume With Indentations for Templeman Library’ (Canterbury: Book and Paper Conservation Studio at Canterbury Cathedral, 3 March 2023).[/fn]

[fn]9|CCEd (Clergy of the Church of England database), available at <https://theclergydatabase.org. uk>, [accessed 15/8/2023].[/fn]

[fn]10|Venn, Cantabrigiensis, accessed 15/8/2023.[/fn]

[fn]11|CCEd, 15/3/1766 under the jurisdiction of Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury. Fol. 50 of 1677 also has Nicholas Tufton, Earl of Thanet.[/fn]

[fn]12|Kelmscott books have limp vellum covers, without boards.[/fn]

[fn]13|London, British Library Add MS 40725 ‘Chartulary of the Priory of Augustinian Canons at Blythburgh, Co. Suffolk’. Late 14th century.[/fn]

[fn]14|Rosemary Sweet, Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain, (London : Hambledon and London) pp. 18-19.[/fn]

[fn]15|From his introduction, cited by Else Churchill, ‘Munimenta Antiqua and Crisp and Clench’s Collections of Original Apprenticeship Indentures 1641-1888 and Original Marriage Licences’. The Genealogists’ Magazine, 28, 3 (2004), 101-103.[/fn]

[fn]16|H.A. Harris, ‘In Memoriam,’ Proceedings of the Suffolk Institutes of Archaeology and History, Volume XVIII Part 2 (1923), 164.[/fn]

[fn]17|F. A Crisp (transcriber), Registers of Shipbourne, Co. Kent (London: privately printed, 1921).[/fn]

[fn]18|LMA F/CRS/08 and F/CRS/09.[/fn]

[fn]19|F.A. Crisp, Documents relating to the family of Crisp. 4 volumes (London : privately printed 1882- ).[/fn]

[fn]20|Mitchell & Hughes, printers and publishers, 140 Wardour Street, London W1 in Kelly’s Post Office Directory of London, 1901.[/fn]

[fn]21|Stanley Morison’s concept. Stanley Morison and Kenneth Day, The Typographic Book (London: Ernest Benn, 1963), pp. 49-50.[/fn]

[fn]22|International Association of Paper Historians, ‘Questions & Answers’, IPH < http://www.paperhistory.org/questions.htm > [accessed11/12/2011].[/fn]

[fn]23|Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library (CCAL) Add MS 59 ‘Deeds relating to the Curteis family of Tenterden’.[/fn]

[fn]24|Ariane Langreder (2023).[/fn]

[fn]25|Nikolaus Pevsner and Enid Radcliffe, Suffolk, The Buildings of England (Harmondsworth: Penguin books, 1975).[/fn]

[fn]26|‘Fortunes made by advertising’ in Edinburgh Evening News 30th January 1935, p. 8.[/fn]

[fn]27|Godalming Museum, B002.65.1/2/3.[/fn]

[fn]28|Find a Grave <https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/73952697/frederick-arthur-crisp> [accessed 23/08/2023].[/fn]

[fn]29|PPR, will of Frederick Arthur Crisp. Gross effects £163,832 7s 9d.[/fn]

[fn]30|Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge Sale on 4th December 1922 of The Extensive and Valuable Library of Frederick Arthur Crisp, Esq. F.S.A. (London: Sotheby’s, 1922). BL copy annoted with names of buyers.[/fn]

[fn]31|61 x 30 cm as is Kent, Volume I.[/fn]

[fn]32|Puttick and Simpson, Catalogue of the renowned and extensive collection of Chinese armorial porcelain of Frederick Arthur Crisp (London: Puttick & Simpson,1923).[/fn]

[fn]33|Sotheby’s sales catalogues, 4th December 1922, 7th February 1923, 30-31stth January 1935, 7th February 1935 at BL, annotated.[/fn]

[fn]34|Examples: manuscript fol.24v, fol.39v.[/fn]

[fn]35|F. A. Crisp (c.1910).[/fn]

[fn]36|E.A. Martin, ‘Little Wenham Hall a reinterpretation,’ SIAH Proceedings, XXXIX:2 (1998), 151–64.[/fn]

[fn]37|Appendix A, Index to Kent, Volume I.[/fn]

[fn]38|Jacqueline Spencer, ‘The Munimenta Antiqua: Kent, Volume I of F. A. Crisp’ (unpublished MA dissertation, University of Kent, 2023).[/fn]

[fn]39|The manuscripts previously owned by Crisp were acquired by the Society from Ralph Griffin, FSA, not directly from Crisp, according to provenance notes.[/fn]

[fn]40|Society of Antiquaries, MSS/0458 MSS/0459, 1889 lot 95.[/fn]

[fn]41|Society of Antiquaries, London SA MSS/0460 and SA MSS/0461.[/fn]

[fn]42|London, British Library Add MS 41578 ‘Exchequer Accompts of Sir William Heyricke’.[/fn]

[fn]43|BL_Add MS 40725. Rev. Dr. Jessopp in SIAH volume viii part 3 (1894) states “now in the possession of F. A. Crisp.”[/fn]

[fn]44|Frederick Arthur Crisp, transcriber, Registers of the parish of Shipbourne (London, privately printed, no date [1921?]). (Colophon).[/fn]

[fn]45|Schoenberg database from 1930s records. Flagged as ‘orphan’ record in Mapping Manuscript Migrations https://mappingmanuscriptmigrations.org. 271 jacqueline spencer [/fn]

[fn]46|University of Kent, Templeman Library, Special Collections and Archives, ‘Collections’ <https://www.kent.ac.uk/library-it/special-collections> [accessed 24/08/2023].[/fn]

[fn]47|SOG, London. Munimenta Antiqua: Apprentice indentures (octavo series).[/fn]

[fn]48|Frederick Arthur Crisp (c.1910), p. 7.[/fn]

[fn]49|BL Egerton MS 3294.[/fn][pg272]