King Edward I and Tandridge Priory: a licence for the alienation in mortmain by William de Ocstede to the prior and convent of Tandridge of a carucate of land in Oxted, in Latin; dated at Westminster, 7 June 1285

single-sheet document, 215×250mm, vellum, 10 lines in fine anglicana documentary script, with a large illuminated initial and three-sided border, the lower 45mm folded up, through which is threaded a plaited cord for the GREAT SEAL OF EDWARD I, in green wax, the central roundel on each side almost entirely intact, but parts of the legend (‘+ Edwardvs Dei Gratia Rex Anglie Dns Hibernie Dvx Aquitanie’) missing, and the impression somewhat indistinct

‘Edwardus dei gratia Rex Anglie Dominus Hibernie et Dux Aquitanie … volentes tamen dilecto nobis Willelmo de Ocstede [Oxted, a few miles from Tandridge] gratiam facere specialem dedimus ei licentiam … priori et conventui de Tanregg … Teste me ipso apud Westmonasterium septimo die Junii anno regni nostri terciodecimo. Irestede’.

This document is mentioned in the Victoria County History for Surrey, II, 1967, pp.112-13, citing the Calendar of Patent Rolls: Edward I, A.D. 1281-1292, 1893, p.117. Tandridge and its documents are discussed at length in A. Heales, ‘Tandridge Priory and the Austin Canons’, Surrey Archaeological Collections, 9, 1888, pp. 19-156, discussing the present licence at pp.30-31. For details of the Great Seal used by Edward I, see W. de G. Birch, Catalogue of Seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, I, 1887, pp.19-20.