Series 3 > Charters of the Abbey of Inchcolm

PREFACE
vii
period in the Moray collection, one of 1399 (ibid., xxxix.)
and one of 1419 (ibid., xlii.), which do not appear in either
transumpt. The papal bull of 1235, already printed in
Theiner’s Monumenta but included for completeness’
sake in this volume, the Fordell charter of 1240, men¬
tioned above, and a papal mandate of 1417, taken from
the Vatican Transcripts in H.M. General Register House,
are the only charters anterior to 1420 which are not found
in some form at Darnaway. Two eighteenth-century
versions of the medieval transumpts exist, one, of the
Great Transumpt, at Darnaway, and Macfarlane’s render¬
ing of both transumpts (with some additional material
taken from originals now at Darnaway) among the National
Library of Scotland MSS. A memorandum of the contents
of the Great Transumpt, made in 1605, is also among the
Moray muniments.
Several additional charters relating to the Abbey of
Inchcolm were found among the writs preserved at Fordell
House. These, along with other Inchcolm charters extant
in the Register House and among the Edinburgh University
Laing MSS., have been included. Most of the charters
now printed are of a date prior to the Reformation ; and
those dating from 1560 onwards which it has been thought
desirable to exemplify are given in an abbreviated form,
with the exception of No. lxxi. and of the Rentals which
are necessarily given in extenso.
The charters in the text have been arranged in chrono¬
logical order, but it will be seen that they by no means
form a consecutive series. Although the foundation of
the monastery took place in the reign of Alexander i.
(1106/7-1124), no extant charter, with the doubtful ex¬
ception of No. i., is of earlier date than the reign of William
the Lion (1165-1214). Many belong to the thirteenth
century but few to the fourteenth. A hiatus occurs,
again, from 1441 to 1495. There can be no doubt that a