This Day

       A second set of documents that even raised the level of my amazement, were written during the same time frame as the Anglo-Saxion Chronicles described in the last post. Instead of a chronology of events, they were charters that documented land grants, deeds, special agreements, and the like, that were being recorded for all to read and acknowledge. They were called charters, and they contained a description of the agreements that were being witnessed and the location of the event. Well, believe it or not, on the 28th of May, 934 A.D., at Winchester, King Athelstan gave to Aelfwald, minister, 12 hides of land. There were 88 folks who signed this donation with 2 archbishops, 17 "episcopus", 4 "abbas", 12 "dux", and 49 ministers. Four "subregulus" also gave their consent, and "Ego Howael" [Hywel Dda] along with "Ego Teowdor" [Tudor Trevor (JC-1)] were signees. The following is my copy from Anglo-Saxon.net S 425, 10/30/2008. Hywel is outlined in orange and, Tudor Trevor (JC-1) is outlined in blue.

      The text is written in "church" Latin mixed with some vernacular. The spellings certainly differ from the Welsh and, for the longest time it was difficult to identify the person most likely signing this document. One other individual who was a possible fit to "Teowdor", instead of our boy, was named Tewdwr ap Elise who fl 925 A.D. and, was from the district of Brycheiniog [South Wales near Gwent]. Now I had to laugh when Ashley in his book titled British Kings & Queens on page 159 stated that this Tewdwr had stolen funds due to the church. Thus, it seemed highly improbable he would be part of this group of ministers shown below.

      The source of my copy is shown right above this sentence and, the original is given to be in the "Archive Canterbury, Christ Church". Tudor Trevor (JC-1) it is with his father-in-law this day.