Muniment Chamber

Muniment Chamber i.e., an Ecclesiastical Register-house or Treasury, is a room used for the preservation of charters, fabric and matriculation rolls, terriers, and registers. At Salisbury it is detached, on the south side of the cathedral. At Chichester it was over a chapel of the transept, dedicated to the Four Virgins, and at a later date next to the chapter-house, and furnished with a sliding panel. At Winchester and New College, Oxford, it is in a tower, as at St. Martin des Champs, Clugny, and Vaux des Sernay. At Fontenelle it was over the church-porch, as now at Peterborough. Where there was a provost, that officer kept the key. Muniments are, as it were, the defences of Church property.