AN ANCIENT COENISH DEED, IN ENGLISH. 



Communicated by Sir JOHN MACLEAN, F.S.A., Hon. Member of the 

 Royal Institution of Cornwall. 



Our primary object in bringing this Early English Deed 

 under the notice of the Hoyal Institution of Cornwall is that we 

 think it philologically of some value, and it also, we conceive, 

 possesses much local interest, especially with respect to the 

 parties to it of the second part. The family of Wydeslade, (or 

 "Wynslade as the -name is sometimes written) was of considerable 

 antiquity in the County. The representative of the family was 

 an hereditary Esquire of the Silver Spur, but its great 

 misfortune in the sixteenth century has caused its existence to 

 be obscured and almost forgotten. Lysons gives the arms they 

 bore as : Ar. a chev. barry undy, ar. and az., between two lap- 

 wings, sa. 



The earliest note we have of the name is in 1355, when 

 Richard Wydeslade died seized, inter alia, of a messuage and 

 curtilage and three virgates of land and seven pence rent in 

 Putteley, in Leche Turville, Co. Grloucester ; which he held in 

 capita of William Cummin. He also died siezed of seven 

 messuages, 1 62 acres of land, 1 8 acres of meadow, 80 acres of 

 pasture, 51 acres of wood, and the third part of a Mill and 

 appurtances in Frome, Radden, and Marston Bigot, Co. 

 Somerset.* All these lands he acquired by marriage with 

 Alianer, sister and sole heir of Sir Andrew Braunche, by whose 

 family they had been held from the time of King John. This 

 Richard left a son and heir Stephen, who succeeded him and 

 died 1404-5, seized of the Hundred and Manor of Erome, 

 leaving as his sole heir Elizabeth the wife of Edmund Lever- 

 sege,f whose issue inherited these lands for several descents. | 



The abovenamed Richard Wydeslade was probably the pro- 

 genitor of the Cornish family, but at present we have no direct 

 evidence of the fact. He obtained the lands by marriage with 

 the heiress of Braunche, and the name appears to have become 



*Inq. p.m. 29 Edw. Ill, No. 31. 

 t Inq. p.m. 6 Henry VI, No. 35. 

 X Collinson's Hist, of Som., Vol. II, p. 187. 



