Legal commentary, second half 14th century

Component identifier:

Item 96-99

Content Summary:

Origin: English

Content: Legal commentary (?). Difficult to identify specifically. Text talks about abuses in the abstract rather than particular cases. Heavily abbreviated and therefore most likely a working copy.

Script: Cursiva anglicana (English cursive documentary script); with extended pen flourishes and elongated ascenders on upper line, emulating charter practice

Extent: 7 leaves

Other detail: No decoration, no rubrics, unfinished - places left for initials

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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