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Our Lord Jesus Christ reigning forever. Now, therefore, while there is a time of grace, let us hasten with all efforts to avoid the snare of death, and while we possess a carnal patrimony, let spiritual trade be practised, in order that we may deserve to obtain among the angelic choirs the joys that will last for ever. Therefore I, Edgar, king, governor, and ruler of the whole of Britain, have given to a certain faithful minister of mine, whom some call by the well-known name of Ęthelwulf, 10 hides in the place to which the inhabitants of that region assign of old the name of Kilmeston, with the permission of Bishop Beorhthelm and the community of the church, on condition that he renders the dues of the church, i.e. 1 church-scot, and 5 shingles and 1 plank every year; so that he may have and possess it as long as he lives, and may leave it to the church of St Peter, by which it was conceded before. And the aforesaid land is to be free from every worldly hindrance, with all things duly belonging to it, fields, pastures, meadows, woods; except public work, military service and the building of bridges and fortresses. If, however, any depraved person shall try by false machinations to overthrow our grant by any document, may he be himself delivered in fiery bonds into the abyss of chaos, and his memory hidden with the mist of death, unless with assiduous prayers he shall previously deserve to obtain here the wished-for pardon. [bounds] This charter was written in the year of our Lord's incarnation 961, the fourth indiction. [witnesses] Bishop Beorhthelm and all the community in the Old Minster at Winchester let the land at Kilmeston to Ęthelwulf with the consent of King Edgar and the witness of all the councillors whose names stand here above, and also of both the communities, whether priest or nuns, here in the town, free from every service except the ecclesiastical service which the charter includes, and the secular service which all the people must ever perform, for the lives of two men after him. Then I beseech in the name of God and of St Peter and of all his saints that no man be so presumptuous as to keep it longer from the church. If, then, anyone do so, that he be cut off from God and from all his elect, unless he fittingly make amends before his death.
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