EXCEPTIONAL MANUSCRIPT ELIZABETHAN TRIPARTITE INDENTURE, 1588, WITH ORIGINAL WAX PENDANT SEAL

PEARSON, Robert. Manuscript Indenture Regarding the Tithing of Howden. Entered into by Robert Pearson, Lewis Mordaunt, Marmaduke Grymston, and others. [Howden]: October 5, 1588. Large folio parchment sheet (25 by 26 inches), with original pendant wax seal. $1500.

Exceptional original manuscript legal document in fine Elizabethan secretarial hand, tithing the corn crops of the farming town of Howden to establish a prebend (stipend), presumably for the local cleric, with scarce original wax pendant seal.

Modern-day Howden, in East Yorkshire, is still very much rural farmland; it tracks its borders "from Elm Tree Manor across the road heading between the two-works complex at Howdendyke to meet with the Trans Pennine Trail on the banks of the River Ouse, and so on over flat farmland to join the east bank of the River Derwent at Loftsome Bridge." This 1588 agreement between three town leaders establishes a stipend ("prebend") for an unnamed party, presumably the office of the local church (since the term "prebend" at the time almost always referred to the stipend given a clergyman). Funds were to be obtained from a tithe on sheaves of corn. Original seal bears the monogram WB.

Folded parchment with usual soiling to exposed surfaces, wax chipped not affecting clearly-impressed seal. A fine manuscript document, showcasing the Elizabethan legal hand and with scarce wax seal intact.