240 



WITH A COPY OF THE 



ORIGINAL DEED OF ENDOWMENT: 



A.D. 1483. 



Edited with Introduction and Notes, 



By the Rev. W. H. Jones, M.A., F.S.A., 



Vicar of Bradford on Avon. 



HE document relating to Terumber's endowments, of which 

 an accurate copy is appended, is preserved in the register- 

 chest belonging to the parish church of Trowbridge. On several 

 accounts it is an interesting deed. Not only is it rare to find a 

 document of this date and character written in English, but there 

 are contained in it many incidental notices, relating not only to 

 the rules observed by the inmates of the Alms-house, which owed 

 much to Terumber's munificence, but also as to the names of the 

 principal contributors to the erection of the present very beautiful 

 Church at Trowbridge, which is described as having been then" newly 

 bielded." This last good work we may fairly believe to have been 

 carried out about the year A.D., 1475. 



Of Terumber himself we know almost nothing. In his deed he 

 describes himself as a " marchaunte ;" by this meaning that he was 

 a member of that honorable and wealthy community who were 

 designated Merchants of the Staple, a full account of whom has 

 been given in the Wiltshire Magazine. 1 Leland, in his passing 

 notice of Trowbridge, describes James Terumbre as " a very rich 

 clothier," who, he adds, " buildid a notable fair house in that toune, 

 and gave it at his deth with other landes to the finding of 2 can- 

 tuarie prestes yn Throughbridg Chirch." 



We have also among the lists of institutions to livings in the 

 old Diocese of Lincoln, which included much that is now in that 

 of Oxford, one or two notices which shew that Terumber's 

 property was not confined to Wilts; and further, that between 1461 

 1 Wilts Arch. Mag, ix. 137—159. 



