This manuscript contains the Taxatio Ecclesiastica carried out on the orders of Pope Nicholas IV (1227–92). Also known as the Valor Beneficiorum, it is a detailed valuation of English and Welsh parish churches and prebends based on the ecclesiastical taxation assessment of 1291–92. Listed is the taxation for the dioceses of, in the following order, Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester, London, Norwich, Ely, Lincoln, Winchester, Salisbury, Worcester, Exeter, Bath and Wells, Coventry and Lichfield, Hereford, Llandaff, St Davids, Bangor, St Asaph, York, Durham and Carlisle.

The manuscript once belonged to William of Wykeham, along with MS5 and MS15. After Wykeham’s death it was probably in the possession of one of his executors, Thomas Aylward. After Aylward’s death in 1413, the book was brought to the College around 1418–19 by John Arnold, who also worked for Wykeham. When it arrived at the College, it is thought to have been bound with a short biography of Wykeham (now Winchester College Muniments 23220), which has been attributed to Aylward. An inscription on fol. 2 (‘in manibus Park’) indicates that it was once lent to John Park, a Fellow of New College from 1416–30 and then Winchester College from 1431.

 

Literature: William H. Gunner, ‘Catalogue of books belonging to the college of St Mary, Winchester, in the reign of Henry VI’, Archaeological Journal, vol. xv (1858), pp. 1–16, 3, 13; Neil R. Ker and Alan J. Piper, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, Volume IV: Paisley–York (Oxford, 1969), p. 626; Sheila Himsworth, Winchester College Muniments: A Descriptive List, Vol. 1: College (Sussex, 1976), p. 139; Paul Yeats-Edwards, Winchester College (Warden and Fellows’ Library) Medieval Manuscript Collection: Brief History and Catalogue (London, 1978), p. 8; Jeffrey H. Denton, ‘Towards a New Edition of the Taxatio Ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae Auctoritate P. Nicholai IV Circa A. D. 1291’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 79 (1997), pp. 67–80, 74; James M. W. Willoughby, The Libraries of Collegiate Churches, Vol. 2 (London, 2013), pp. 617, 720–21.

Provenance: William of Wykeham (1324–1404); probably with Thomas Aylward, one of Wykeham’s executors, from 1404; delivered to Winchester College by John Arnold, Summoner to the Bishop of Winchester, on behalf of Wykeham, 1418/19.

Location: Fellows’ Library