This document is a copy of “The Hungerford Cartulary: A Calendar of the Earl of Radnor’s Cartulary of the Hungerford Family.” It is from the mid-1400s.
The Radnor Cartulary comprises 302 folios in a mid-15th-century hand, numbered 1-196, 200-249 and 255-310 in roman numerals (eight numbers not being used) and in a hand which appears to be contemporary with the writing of the text. Twenty-one folios (20, 26-8, 30-3, 135-42, 195-6, 266 and 269-70 are blank), and there are also seven folios with blank versos. The folios now measure approximately 275 X 365 mm. They are bound in a somewhat arbitrary (but according to the numeration in roman figures nearly contem-porary) order in heavy wooden boards. The wide margins have been cropped for binding, perhaps more than once.
The 950 items in the Radnor Cartulary comprise some 700 private deeds or charters, 63 royal charters, letters patent or writs, 54 final concords, inquisitions post mortem, 31 pleas or proceedings in court, a few bonds, receipts for money, petitions, and statements of homage, and two pedigrees (of the Montfort lords of Farleigh, and the ancestors of Walter Hungerford). They range in date from about 1150 to 1468.
Two deeds of 1355-6 (nos. 203, 205) appear to distinguish between Thomas Hungerford, citizen and merchant of Salisbury, and Thomas son of Walter Hungerford, and it is not therefore possible to be sure that the many offices held by Thomas Hungerford were all held by Thomas son of Walter. The mayor's wife was called Helen (Elena) and the wife of Thomas son of Walter was Eleanor, perhaps too close to be sure that they were distinct.
