The rental of Newnham Priory’s property in Bedford in 1506-7, which is printed below, was bought by me at Quaritch’s in 1932. It had previously been in the possession of Mr. W. Glassby, who, at a meeting of the Bedford Natural History and Archaeological Society held on 18 April 1917, gave a lecture upon it, illustrated with lantern slides prepared by me for the purpose. The lecture was printed in full in the Bedfordshire Standard and afterwards issued in the form of a pamphlet. The early history of the manuscript is unknown, as is that of three similar rentals relating to property of Newnham Priory in Biddenham, Toddington and Willington, now in the County Record Office.

The volume contains 37 paper leaves (11 of them blank) measuring 16¾ in. by 11¼ in. These are gathered in five quires of 6, 2½, 4, 1 and 5 sheets respectively. The whole is stitched into a parchment cover of the same size; this appears to have been done subsequently, for the outer paper leaves show a slight stain which has no counterpart on the parchment cover. The watermark in the paper is a bunch of grapes, which is usually considered an early 17th century mark. The handwriting is a Secretary hand. In the text printed below, punctuation and the use of capitals have been modernised. The scribe’s usage has been followed in the case of u and v.

The manuscript deals with rents of assise and rents of free tenants in the parishes of All Saints (f. 3-3d), St. Paul (ff. 4-6), St. Peter (f. 11), St. Mary (f. 12) and St. John (f. 17). The total of these is approximately ￡5.5 It also gives other rents in the parishes of St. Paul (ff. 8d-10), St. Mary (f. 14), St. Peter (f. 31) and St. Cuthbert (f. 32). These total approximately ￡33. Rents of assise for St. Paul’s prebend (ff. 18-19) come to ￡2 8s. 4d., and other rents (ff. 20-21) ￡5 12s. 4d. Tithes account for ￡1 17s. 4d. The total exceeds ￡47,R of which almost the whole, as might be expected, comes from the parish of St. Paul.