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In the name of the Blesses and Holy Wisdom which rules the realm of the whole world and the height of the heavens and the hidden depths of the surging sea, in the depths and in the heights. It governs all things with the rule of its majesty, now and evermore, and manifest signs reveal how the change of this passing world, through long seasons grows less by growing and is diminished by increasing. So we have need of the help from the highest sustainer to press on to the heights, to wit from the warmth of that passion, I, Eadred, king of the English, governor and ruler of the other peoples living in the neighbourhood, to a certain faithful minister of mine called Ælfrix, pleased by the skill of his devotion and his ability, have deigned to give 11 measures of land in that place which the cultivators of the land have for a long time called. Stoke. Also by drawing up such a clause of the aforesaid gift, I have conceded this favour that he may possess and firmly hold them until the last days of his life, with all the resources that the God of the skies created in the very crops of the earth. I have granted freedom in known and unknown causes, in small and in great, in fields, pastures, woods, and in the depths of woods, and after he shall have left behind the uncertainties of human life and shall have arrived at the attractive road of happiness through the grace of the Supreme Judge, he may leave them eternally to whichever of his successors he may have given them, as I stated above. The land shall be free from all tax and from all peculiar services, except military service and bridge [fort?] building. But if anyone by his own rashness shall presume to trespass, let him know that he shall find distress and a terrible reckoning before the tribunal of the district judge, unless he chooses first to make full satisfaction… [bounds] The aforesaid grant was made in the year after the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 948 and in the 6th year of the Indiction.
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