By the Rev. J. E. Jackson. 37 



" I, Athelstan, King of the Anglians, raised by the hand of the 

 Almighty to the throne of all Britain, freely give to my faithful 

 servant Atheline a certain portion of land, to wit, 16 cassates 

 (farms) in a place called by the natives At Kingtone ; to hold it with 

 all rights, &c., thereto belonging, free from the irksome yoke of 

 bondage, so long as he lives, to leave the same for ever at his death 

 to any heir he pleases. If any one (which God forbid) swollen 

 with insolence, shall dare to infringe or curtail in any matter great 

 or small this my writ of gift, let him know that at the last day of 

 Judgment when the Archangel's trumpet shall sound, he, together 

 with the traitor Judas (called by the Sower's holy seed, the Son of 

 perdition), and with all impious unbelievers who deny that on the 

 altar of the Cross Christ took away the sina of the world, shall 

 perish everlastingly in fiery torment. 



This grant is made in the year of our Lord 934, at the town of 

 Buckingham. 



+ Athelstan, King, &c. 



-f- CoNSTANTiNE, Viceroy, and many others." 



A few years afterwards, Edmund the Elder, Athelstan's brother, 

 by Deed dated at Chippenham a.d. 940, gave to his ofl&cer Wilfric 

 30 holdings (mansiunculas) at Langley : which is presumed to mean 

 Kington Langley.^ 



Manor under Glastonbury Abbey. 



In the same reign (c. 941) the connexion of this manor with 

 Glastonbury Abbey began by a donation of eight hides from the 

 King, and of the 30 mansiunculae just mentioned, from Wilfric.^ 



In 987 the monks received a further and principal gift of 40 

 manses at Kington from Ethelred II., or the Unready, " to be by 

 them held so long as the Catholic Faith should endure in England." 



It was probably as a fee for this alienation and in order to secure 

 the estate to the Church that a devout Lady, one Elswith wife of 

 a nobleman called Elphean, paid to the crown 40 mancuscs^ of gold. 



1 TLc Deed, naming the boundaries, is in the New Monast, I. p. 60. 

 2 New Mon. I. p. 4. 

 3 From rnanu-cusa, coined with the hand. 



