by Jill Blackwell Hughes, BA Thesis submitted to the University of ...

eisdem majore et Roberto ad recipiendum
recogniciones et obligaciones hujusmodi deputatis
se obligassent, nos prefatus episcopus predictos
Henricum et Annam de predicta peccunial
acquietamus omnino. Et volumus quod si littera
statuti predicti sub predictis die anno confecta
inveniatur nullius penitus sit momenti. In cujus
rei testimonium sigillum nostrum apposuimus huic
scripto. Dat' Ebor' die Veneris proximo post
festum Beati Martini anno regis supradicto.
362 4 November 1299, Westminster. Letter from
Walter, abbot of Westminster, to king Edward
requesting the restitution of the lands,
tenements, goods and chattels of William de
Asshindon; clerk, impeached before the justices of
King's Bench and imprisoned for the murder of Hugh
Mulgar and robbery at, or near, Hugh's manor of
Littlebury, Essex, agd at his houses without
Bishopsgate, London. Because William was and is a
clerk and according to the freedoms of the church
and canonical sanctions, the abbot is his judge
and ordinary and William has canonically purged
himself by compurgators from the said crimes and
is, at last, pronounced free and absolved from the
infamy arising against him in this matter and his
former reputation restored.
LITTERA ABBATIS WESTM' DIRECTA FUIT REGI PRO
RESTITUCIONE TERRARUM, TENEMENTORUM ET BONORUM
W[ILLELMI] DE ASSHINDON. Excellentissimo principi
1. Sic for pecunia.
2. Walter de Wenlok, see B. F. Harvey, Documents
Illustrating the Rule of Walter de Wenlok, Abbot
of Westminster, 1283-1307 (Camden, Fourth series,
2,1965).
3. This may be the case cited in L. C. Gabel,
Benefit of Clergy in England in the Later Middle
Ages (New York, 1969), p. 66; PRO, Gaol Delivery
Roll (Just. 3), 38/7, M. 7d.
433