Edward by the grace of God king of England, lord of Ireland and duke of Aquitaine to the sheriff of Suffolk, greeting. Our beloved in Christ the abbot and convent of St Edmund have supplicated us by petition displayed before us and our council that since the justiciars and other ministers of ours ought not to enter the Liberty of their town of St Edmund, they were not accustomed in former times to hold any business or plea there; excepting the place of Cattishall, in which pleas within the eight-and-a-half hundreds (which are examined within the liberty of the said abbot) have hitherto been accustomed to be held and pleaded, and remote from the aforesaid town of St Edmund, where the justiciar and other ministers and very many other men coming together in the same place on the occasion of the aforesaid pleas are thus received and given hospitality. We wish to graciously grant them that pleas may be held and pleaded within the abbot's aforesaid liberty of the eight-and-a-half hundreds, in a certain place which is called Henhowe near the said town of St Edmund, for the convenience and utility of the justiciars and other ministers of ours, and of the people coming there for the aforesaid cause. Therefore, to truly certify their aforesaid petition, without prejudice or injury to us or to anyone else, whether it should be done annually or not, we command the men of your county that [they should swear] publicly and lawfully upon the sacrament. And that the truth of this matter should be better shown forth, you are to diligently enquire if it would be to our (or any other’s) detriment or prejudice if we were to grant to the aforesaid abbot and convent for us and for our successors, that all pleas and assizes heard outside our aforesaid liberty should be held and pleaded as aforesaid in the aforesaid place named Henhowe, and whether it would be to our (or any other’s) detriment or prejudice, and then to what detriment and what prejudice, and whose, and how, and in what way. And you are to send without delay the inquisition distinctly and openly made beneath your seal and the seals of those by whom it was made, and this writ. Witnessed by me at Westminster, the fourth day of April in the thirty-third year of our reign.