Catalogue description Charter Granted by King Henry II at Westminster

This charter is not extant, and our evidence for its existence is based on the entry in the Patent Rolls, 50 Edward III, m. 11.

TRANSCRIPT. Henricus, rex Anglorum et dux Normannorum et Aquitannorum et comes Andegavorum, vicecomiti et ministris suis de Suthsexa, sulutem. Precipio quod cives mei de Cicestria habeant et teneant bene et in pace et juste et quiete et honorifice omnes illas consuetudines et libertates infra civitatem et extra quas solebant habere tempore regis Henrici, avi mei, et nominatim in portibus de Wuderyng et Horemuda; et nullus ibi aliquid emat vel vendat aliter quam solebat fieri tempore ejusdem regis. Et prohibeo, super forisfacturam meam, ne aliquis cum mercatu suo exeat a rectis viis civitatis Cicestrie causa asportandi consuetudines meas. Testibus, Manasero Biset, dapifero, et Willelmo Ham onis, apud Westmonasterium.

TRANSLATION. Henry, King of the English and Duke of the Normans and Aquitanians and Count of the Angevins, to his sheriff and ministers of Sussex, greeting. I order that my citizens of Chichester have and hold well and as peacefully and lawfully and quietly and honourably all those customs and liberties within the city and without as they were wont to have them in the time of King Henry my grandfather, and expressly in the ports of Withering and Hormouth, and that none shall buy or sell there otherwise than they were accustomed to do in the time of the said King. And I prohibit, on pain of forfeiture to me, anyone to go with his merchandize out of the straight roads to the city of Chichester to avoid my customs. Witness, Manasser Biset, steward, and William son of Hamo, at Westminster.

NOTES. 'Henry my grandfather' was King Henry I. The port of Withering was the village, now lost, at the estuary which formed Selsey (or Pagham) harbour, and Hormouth was the old name for the entrance to Chichester Harbour. The text of the charter is copied from the printed version in the Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1374-1377 (1916), 289.

PRINCIPAL REFERENCES.

E. Heron-Allen, Selsey Bill: historic and prehistoric (1911), 11-12, 88-89.

A. Ballard, British Borough Charters, 1042-1216(1913), 4, 209.

A. Ballard, A History of Chichester (2nd ed., 1929), 19, 87.

A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Sussex (English Place-Name Society, vol. 6, 1929), 88, 96.