From the visitor's docket-pouch of the late priory of S. Helene at Wenlock, 30 Henry VIII — with an accession card of 1924
A printed accession card and two slips of vellum, removed from the canvas pouch tagged W·H 1538 in the Hereford Cathedral Chapter Library on the occasion of the New Building survey of August, 1924, by Miss Caroline Annerley, Sub-Librarian.
— accession card, ruled, in Miss Annerley's hand —
LIBRARY · HEREFORD CATHEDRAL · ACCESSION CARD · ND 47/1924.
Pouch, canvas, damp-stained, with leather tie and lead seal-fragment (Crown, partial). Tagged in ink, c. xvi: W·H 1538 · priorie of S. Helene. Contents: two slips of vellum, separated by a folded leaf of paper bearing only the word receaved in a later hand. Pouch received among the muniments of the late Dean's office at the breaking of the old presses, June 1924. Original deposit not traceable; the pouch is named in the Chapter's Liber Praesentationum under May 1538 as deliuered into the keepynge of the cathedrall this xiiij of Maye by W. H., Visitor.
(In red ink at the foot of the card —) Not for general use until the truth of the second slip is determined. — C. A.
— first slip, vellum, vj × ij in., entire —
To Master Visitor at the priorie of S. Helene of Wenlock, the xiij of Maye in the xxx yere of our soueraigne lord —
Whereas the cuppe of Dame Margery FitzHardy is wantinge from the presse this present daye, and the keys two haue been tryed by my owne hande and by ye hande of Dame I. pryoresse, and the presse founde fast, and the count thrise made and the count thrise alyke wantinge by one peece of plate to witt the said cuppe —
It being ye fourthe Sondaye since Pasche, the chalice vsed at the masses of these last fower Sondayes was a cuppe of base mettell, parcell gilt, the weighte therof xij ounces by ye scale of Bridgenorthe, lent to this howse out of the parishe churche of S. Peter at Astley by the gifte of Sir Iohn FitzHardy of the same, agaynst suche tyme as the want should be made good.
I have receaved the said cuppe in the press at compline thes fower Sondayes followinge, & sett it againe vpon the high altar at ye masse, and it was not the cuppe of Dame Margery.
— A. H., sacristane, receaved.
— second slip, vellum, scarcely the breadth of three fingers, the upper edge torn close, the lower entire —
calicem nostrum non vidi a Quinquagesima.
[in a second hand, ink darker, the letters cramped agaynst the lower margin —]
nec ego, soror.
— end of slip —
— accession card, verso, in pencil, undated, in another hand —
The first slip is in the sacristane's hand, which I haue compared with the leaf described by the Rev. E. Cattermole in Marches Antiq. Trans. IV (1844) 47–49: the same. A. H. of the Wenlock priory was Anne Howell, of the chapter of S. Helene's at suppression, afterwards laundress at the Cathedral kitchen-yard until her death in 1571 (so the Cathedral parish register, S. John, fol. 12). She signed her hand receaved on the linen-rolls until the last year of her life.
The second slip is not in her hand. Comparison to the bursar's book of Sir John FitzHardy at Astley (Astley muniments, B-7) shews that the upper line is in the hand of Dame Isabel Pickering, prioress of the house at the suppression, and that the lower line, nec ego, soror — neither have I, sister — is in the hand of the sub-prioress, Dame Cecily Hawte, second daughter of John Hawte, the same Hawte who held the stewardship of the FitzHardy of Astley and was steward there at his death.
— end of card —
Miss Annerley's note in pencil at the foot of the verso, dated February 1925: the truth of the second slip remains unknown to me. The sacristane was permitted to enter what she had seen; the prioress and the sub-prioress were not. The pouch is to be kept under the Chapter's reserved press, with this card. — C. A.