The Black Book of Wigmore

Abstract

There are in the British Museum two manuscripts which deal with the family holdings of the Mortimers as they existed at various stages of the fourteenth century. The two are Harleian MS. 1240 and Additional MS.6041. The first of these is styled "Liber Niger de Wigmore" and consists of the remains of an elaborately organized family cartulary which was obviously designed as a record of family land holdings, revenues and rights. It must have provided a ready source of reference, especially important when challenges were made to the family's holdings or rights, something which happened so often to many noble families in the fourteenth century and particularly to the Mortimers.