THE ANNALS OF BURTON ABBEY 53 
Frederick was formally excommunicated. It was at the Council that 
the Arckbishop of Russia, as he was called, gave an account of the 
Tartars and their invasion of Eastern Europe. The second piece of 
continuous narrative in the chronicle is an interesting account of the 
Tartars. This account, or something like it, is found in other 
chronicles, and Matthew Paris relates that there was an outlawed 
Englishman in the Tartar host who was sent to one of the towns of 
Hungary to demand its surrender. 
The following is the list of purely local events :— 
1023. An eclipse of the Sun. 
1160 The Trent dried up at Nottingham 
1114 The Church at Burton begun. 
1215 Charter of liberties granted to the Abbey. 
1216 W. de Ferrars at the Coronation and at the Fair of Lincoln. Goes 
to Jerusalem. 
1250 ‘The right of Burton to the tithes of Appleby. 
1253 Remarkable meteor seen at Alvaston, near Derby. 
1254 Fire at Burton. Great floods. 
1255 Capture of a large sturgeon at Castle Donington. Assessment of 
the Abbey of Burton. Dispute as to who should repair the bridge at 
Egginton. 
1256 Brief summoning of the Abbot of Burton to London. 
I cannot give in full the Charter of Liberties granted to the 
Abbey of Burton. I will merely remark that no one was allowed to 
hawk, hunt. or catch hares without the Abbot’s permission. ‘The 
Abbot was granted his own plenary court for all pleas and quarrels 
with soe and sac (cognisance of all criminal and civil cases within 
the liberties) toll and theam (the right of receiving toll and of 
holding serfs) and in fangtheof (the power to imprison felons) with all 
customs within or without the borough, and ali their goods were to 
be free from passage, portage, and any other custom. ‘They had the 
right to hold a fair of three days’ duration at Burton on the eve of 
St. Modwen, on the day itself, and on the next day, and a market 
every seven days, on a Thursday. 
There were quite a lot of charters of this kind given to barons 
and abbots at this period, and the Abbot of Burton had to pay a tax 
of one-fifteenth for the privilege. In these charters you generally 
find the limitation “‘ provided the holding of the fair or market is not 
to the harm of any neighbouring fair or market,” thus safeguarding 
the rights of any neighbouring baron or abbot who had the right to 
