Receipt for a knight's fee for Basingham. 13 May 1386

MARSHAL, Margaret, suo jure Duchess of Norfolk (c.1320-1399). Document as 'margarete mareschall Cendesse [sic] de Norffolch', a receipt for a payment of 50 silver shillings by Sir John Mauteby owed as a knight's fee for Basingham, Norfolk, Framlingham Castle, 13 May 1386.

In Norman French. On vellum, four lines on one membrane, 70 x 305mm (later pen annotations, a little soiled, slight tear to vellum seal tag). Fine impression of Margaret's armorial seal pendant on vellum tag (a little chipped at the top). Provenance: Phillipps MS 4119.

A document signed by one of the great female magnates of the 14th century. Margaret was the daughter of Thomas of Brotherton, and therefore a granddaughter of Edward I by his second marriage. After her father's death in 1338 she inherited the earldom of Norfolk and with it (uniquely for a woman) the office of Earl Marshal. Framlingham Castle, from which Margaret dates this document, was her father's main seat and the place of her birth: it had however passed into the hands of the Uffords, Earls of Suffolk, in the 1360s, and she had only recovered it a few years before this.

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