140 Leland’s Journey throuyh Wiltshire. 
This Stwmpe’s sunne hath married Sir Edward Baynton’s 
daughter.! 
This Stwmpe was the chef causer and contributer to have th abbay 
chirch made a paroch chirch. 
At this present tyme every corner of the vaste offices that 
belonged to th abbay be fulle of lumbes (/ooms) to weve clooth yn, 
and this Stwmpe entendith to make a stret or 2 for clothiers in the 
bak vacant ground of the abbay that is withyn the toune walles. 
There be made now every yere in the toune a 3,000 clothes. 
{From the state in which Leland found Malmsbury Abbey, Mr. Stumpe’s looms 
being in full play in the small church annexed to the south transept, and in the 
abbey offices, it is clear that his visit must have been after Dec. 15, 1539, the day 
on which Abbot Frampton, alias Selwin, signed the deed of surrender. The monks 
were probably dispersed, and their library plundered. This may account for the 
very scanty collection of manuscripts which Leland found, unless we may suppose 
that he noted down the names only of those which were most rare or valuable. 
The following is his list, from which the reader may form an idea of the general 
character and composition of abbey libraries :—]2 
MANUSCRIPTS FOUND BY LELAND IN MALMSBURY ABBEY.3 
Juvencus. [4d Spanish Christian Poet s.pD. 330, who translated the 4 
Gospels into Latin verse. His works are printed. | 
Works of Fortunatus, written in verse. 
Life of Paternus, in prose, by Fortunatus. 
Wm. of Malmesbury (the Librarian of the Abbey). The Four Evangelists 
in different kinds of verse—16 books. 
Do. on the Lamentations of Jeremiah, beginning ‘‘ Thou hast often 
admonished,” &e. 
Do. the Life of Aldhelm. 
1 ‘Baynton.”? Two shields in stone bearing severally the arms of Stumpe and Baynton, 
the latter a bend lozengy between two demilions, an unusual addition to the Baynton 
shield, are still to be seen over the garden door at the abbey church. 
2 “ A curious account is given by Aubrey Nat. Hist. of Wilts, p. 79, of the way in which numbers 
of the finely illuminated manuscripts belonging to the abbey libraries, were wantonly destroyed by the 
tasteless owners into whose hands they fell. Those of Malmsbury were used, he says, for covering 
boy’s copy-books, for stopping the bung holes of barrels of ale, scouring guns, and the like. Bale 
“ knew a merchant-man who bought the contents of two noble libraries for xu shillings a piece, a 
shame it is tobe spoken, This stuff hath he occupied in the stead of gray paper by the space of more 
than these x years, and yet he hath store enough for as many years tocome. A prodigious example is 
this, and to be abhorred of all men which love their nation as they should do.’’ In another place he 
says that the choicest manuscripts were often torn to pieces in the houses of the persons who bought 
the monasteries of the King, or were sold by them to grocers and soapdealers to wrap up their goods. 
Others were sent over sea to be used by the bookbinders, “not in small number, but at times whole 
ships full, to the wondering of the foreign nations.’’ A church book belonging to the parish of Chip- 
penham, dated 1620, is still in existence, covered in this way with a fine fragment of monastic parchment 
jlluminated in red, black, and gold, 
3 ‘* Collecta, 114. 357, 
