REgnante Domino nostro imperpetuū ... aliqua parte leigamus. &c.
Placuit autem episcopis ecclesiæ Scireburnensis Alstano, et Winton Switheno, cum suis abbatibus et Dei servis, viris scilicet et fœminis religiosis quibus supradicta collata sunt beneficia, consilia inire, ut omnes fratres et sorores omni hebdomada, die Mercurii, hoc est Wednesday, in unaquaque ecclesia cantent psalmos 50 et unusquisqu presbyter duas missas, unam pro rege, et aliam pro ducibus ejus in hunc modum consentientibus, pro salute et refrigerio delictorum suorum. Postquam autem defuncti fuerimus, pro rege defuncto singulariter, et pro ducibus communiter. Et hoc sit firmiter constitutum omnibus diebus Christianitatis, sicut libertas constituta est, quamdiu fides crescit in gente Anglorum. Scripta est autem hæc donationis charta, anno gratiæ 855 indictione quarta quinto nonas Noveb. in urbe Wentana ante majus altare beati Petri apostoli.
[Ex Flor. Hist. (Lond. 1570, p. 307; Francof. 1601, p. 158. The Latin in the text is according to the printed copies, from which Foxe a little varies.]
John Wade, University of Sheffield
Our Lord Jesus Christ ruling for ever, in our times through the fires of wars, and the plunderings of our wealth, and also the most cruel depredations of barbarous enemies causing devastation, and the multiple tribulations of pagan nations afflicting us for our sins to our utter destruction, we see dangerous times pressing upon us. Therefore, I Ethelwulf, king of the West Saxons, together with the council of my bishops and chieftains, have affirmed a sound plan and uniform remedy: to grant some portion of my land to be held in everlasting right by God and the Blessed Mary and all the saints, namely a tenth part of my land, that it may be safe from burdens and free from all secular services, including greater and smaller royal payments, or taxes, which we call Witteredden: and may be free of all matters, for the remission of souls and my sins, to the service of God alone, without a campaign, the construction of a bridge, and the fortification of a citadel, so that they may the more diligently utter prayers without ceasing for us to God, by which we may in some way lighten their service. Moreover, it has pleased the bishops of the church, Alstan of Sherborne and Swithen of Winchester, with their abbots and servants of God, namely the religious men and women upon whom the above named benefits have been conferred, to devise plans, so that all the brothers and sisters each week on the day of Mercury, that is Wednesday, in each and every church should sing 50 psalms and each priest two masses, one for the king and the other for his leaders agreeing on this manner, for the salvation and consolation of their transgressions and, after we have died, individually for the dead king, and all together for the leaders. And let this be firmly established for all the days of Christianity, just as liberty has been established, for as long as the faith increases in the nation of the English. This charter of gift is written in the year of grace 855, in the fourth indiction, on the 1st November in the city of Winchester in front of the high altar of St Peter the Apostle.
Autor opum ... perpetuumque breui.
John Wade, University of Sheffield
Creator of wealth, avenger of crimes, dispenser of honours, sceptre-bearing Edgar makes for kingdoms on high. He was another Solomon, father of laws, the way of peace; he was the more famous because he did not have wars. He gave churches to God, monks to churches and land to monks; downfall to wickedness and a place for justice. For he knew how to seek out a true kingdom through a false one, a great through a small, an everlasting through a short-lived.
Maguntinensis ... Princerna Bohemus.
J. Barrie Hall
Of Mainz, of Trier, of Cologne - let anyone in the empire who pleases be chancellor of these. And Palatine steward. The duke who bears the sword. The marquis chamberlain. The Bohemian butler.
Humano more crux ... tunc memorata.
J. Barrie Hall
The present cross, addressing you from heaven, in human fashion has uttered from its mouth what you see here written below. God forbid that this and the other things then mentioned should befall.
Quod malum et periculosum ... et consiliis evangelicis.
J. Barrie Hall
The first point [in the sermon] was: That it is an evil and dangerous thing publicly to assert or preach that purgatory does not exist: but that to believe that purgatory does not exist is by no means damnable. The second was: It is impossible for a man to be continent or chaste, although he waste himself away with fasting, fall to his prayers, and withdraw and keep himself away from company in sight and in thought, unless God grant ... another saying not in his sermon ... was this: That in celebrating the daily mass he offered constant prayers to God that celibacy be utterly taken away from the clergy and that matrimony or union be granted and permitted to the same. ... in all these articles ... dissension and error; as: Concerning faith and works, concerning grace and free will, concerning sin in a good work, concerning the sacrifice of the New Testament, concerning the priesthood of the new law, concerning communion in either kind, concerning baptism and Christian liberty, concerning monastic vows, concerning fasting and the choice of foods, concerning the celibacy of priests, concerning the church, concerning the canonical books, concerning things not expressed in the scriptures which should firmly be held, concerning the necessity not to deviate from general councils in faith and morals, concerning the power of the church to establish laws, concerning ecclesiastical sacraments and their efficacy, concerning the power of excommunication conferred on the church, concerning the punishment of heretics, concerning the sacrifice of the mass, concerning purgatory, concerning the veneration of and prayer to the saints, concerning the veneration of images of the saints, concerning pilgrimages, concerning the precepts and counsels of the gospels.