A letter from Eleanor of Aquitaine when she was still Queen of France.
In the name of the holy and individual Trinity. Amen.
I, Eleanor, by the grace of God queen of the Franks and duchess of the Aquitainians. We wish to make known to all the faithful, future as well as present, that we, for the redemption of our soul and [that] of our ancestors and for the redemption of the souls of the ancestors of Louis, king of the Franks and duke of the Aquitainians, our husband, have given and granted in eternity to God and the knights of the Temple present and future who were established for the defense of holy Christianity against the unfaithful pagans, the mills which I had at La Rochelle and which Isembert of Castre Julie held in his lifetime and which Gangan of Taunac reclaimed from the gift of the count of Poitou and that Gangan gave them to the said knights of the Temple. Besides that we have given and granted in eternity to the knights of the temple the houses which they had at La Rochelle, occupied by them, that is within their enclosures utterly free and immune from all custom, infringement and legal exaction and tallage and violence of our ministers except our toll. Whoever should wish to give to those knights of the Temple anything from our fief by which we do not lose the service of our men, that we wish and grant. Also we have given and granted to said knights of the Temple that all the possessions of those knights throughout our land may go and come securely and freely without any custom and without any charge/tax either by land or by water. That this deed/charter may obtain the perpetuity of stability, we have commended it to writing and strengthened it with the authority of our seal and the writing of our name.
Enacted publically at Lorrez-le-Bocage, in the thousand thirty-ninth year of the incarnation of the Lord, the third of our reign, with those prsent in our palace whose names and signs are inscribed below.
The sign of Ralph count of Vermandois and our seneschal.
S[ign] of William, butler.
S., of Matthew, chamberlain.
S., of Matthew, constable.
Historical Ragbag 