Legal text, Early 14th century

Component identifier:

Item 29

Content Summary:

Content: English Statutes of the Realm, relating to Assizes

Extent: 1 leaf

Other details: On one side are numerous late 15th or 16th-century pen trials including a school exercise in which the student, one Susanna Kymbis (?), writes out many times (incorrectly) 'equore cum gelido zepherus' , a quote from Virgil used in English grammar school teaching and advocated by writing masters of that time. Of interest is the fact that it is written by a girl. Other hands practising script here include Thomas Carent, and a Carent has also written a beautiful calligraphic phrase on the recto 'A plus bele mon coeur vous avez. Carent' (most beautiful one, you have my heart. Carent'. Perhaps they were in schoolroom or tutored at home together. A Nicholas Carent was Dean of Wells, 1446-67, so could possibly be his descendent.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The documents in this collection were presented to the National Library of Australia by Sir Rex Nan Kivell in 1969. He referred to it as ‘The Nan Kivell Calligraphy Collection’. The documents were collected by him as specimens of early calligraphy and/or examples of early documentation. He acquired them over a number of years from varied sources which were not recorded. However, it seems likely that the group of legal documents in Series 1 relating to the Elliott family of Salisbury would have a single provenance. Nan Kivell had a country house in Devizes, Wiltshire, which is only a short distance from Salisbury.

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