A Re- Discovered Fragment of the Cartulary of Owston Abbey

The only known cartulary of Owston Abbey was apparently dismantled and recycled at the Dissolution, much of it being lost for ever. A significant portion of it, having passed through an unknown number of private hands, was eventually donated to Cambridge University Library but three folios have recently been identified bound into a herald's scrapbook kept at the College of Arms. The folios, which were probably extracted from the cartulary during a heraldic visitation of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire in 1619, preserve transcripts of several of the abbey's charters, including some of its earliest, and a partial account of a dispute before the Court of Arches between the abbey and the parishioners of Othorpe.