1920 THE EARLY USE OF ' TESTE ME IPSO ' 217 Under Richard I we find a distinct development. In all the examples of the formula teste me ipso in this reign, of which I know, the king is the sole witness, and only one of the documents is in charter form.^ Of the others two are letters to different popes, ^ Three are in the form of the later letters patent.^ Three more are letters of protection,* and two are notifications.^ In one case the formula, instead of teste me ipso, is teste nobis ipsis, a change which corresponds to the newly adopted use of the plural pronoun in royal charters.^ It is evident that, shortly after Richard's accession, the formula was used in a fashion which the chancery of the thirteenth century would have regarded as correct, since four at least of the examples quoted belong to the first two years of the reign. This seems to point to a fairly common and regulated use of the phrase before thafr date.' Hilda Prescott. Bibl. National. MSS. lat. 5423, fo. 183 (dated by Mr. Round between 1142 and 1157). Mr. Poole has kindly pointed out to me that the confusion of ideas involved in the witness of the donor dates further back than the twelfth century. He has drawn my attention to the charters of the abbey of Pulda, where early in the ninth century the donor figures as a witness, as for example in a charter c. a.d. 803, ' Hi sunt testes traditionis + sign : Engilberti qui haec tradidit + sign : Mattoni clerici ' : Dronke, Codex Diplomaticus Fvldensis (Cassel, 1850), p. 106, no. 194 ; cf. p. 95, no. 168, and p. 107, no. 197. Some documents seem to show a transition between the signum and the witness. The donor may affix his signum accompanied by the names of other people as testes : Round, Ca^. o/ Doc., i. 154, no. 449. Cf. GaU. Christ, xi, instrum., col. 114, xiv, to Savigny, and col. 125, iii, to St. Sauveur, Evreux. The dates of these charters are respectively 1077, 1150, and c. 1060. With regard to the survival of the donor's witness after the disappearance of the signa and its development into the form teste me ipso, it may be tentatively suggested that this development was due, mainly if not entirely, to Norman influence, since a possible connexion with Norman custom may be traced for all the examples quoted. It is at any rate certain that the practice appears in private documents in Normandy before it was taken up and developed by the EngUsh kings.
- This is a confirmation of previous grants to Richard's ' dear and faithful Pierre
Bertin ', given 21 February 1190: Archives historiques de Poitou, vii. 154, from the Censif de Chize. ^ Benedict of Peterborough, ed. Stubbs, ii. 137 ; Hoveden, ed. Stubbs, iii. 65 ; Recueil des Historiens de France, xix. 364.
- Round, Ancient Charters prior to a.p. 1200 (Pipe Roll Soc), i. 95 Benedict,
ii. Ill ; cf. Hoveden, iii. 36 ; Archives historiques de la Gironde, xxvii. 101.
- Madox, Formvlare Anglicanum (London, 1702), p. 298, from the Westminster
archives ; Calendar of Charter Rolls, i. 228, ii. 52. « Tanner MS. 223, fo. 31 b ; Hoveden, iii. 38. « Benedict, ii. 137 ; cf. Hoveden, iii. 65. ' The formula was still used by persons other than the king with various irregu- larities. Thus in 1193 we find Queen Berengaria and Queen Joan of Sicily witnessing an act with the words tesiibus nobis ipsis : Round, Cal. of Doc. i. 94, no. 278. Queen Eleanor appears as the first of many witnesses in a charter which she gives to the abbot of Bury St. Edmund's (Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, iii. 154, from the Cole MS., xlv. 37 e, in the Brit. Museum), and Richard's captain, Mercadier, uses it in the same way {Recueil des Historiens, xvii. 710, 711 n).
