Anglo-Saxon Charters – serie

This second volume in the "Anglo-Saxon Charters" series contains the thirty-eight documents from the archives of the Abbey of Burton upon Trent. These charters, which date from the tenth and eleventh centuries, include the will of Wulfric and an important group of single sheets discovered in the twentieth century. There are facsimiles of portions of these five documents, and fifteen chrismons are reproduced from the Burton Cartulary in the National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 390.

This volume contains 17 documents concerning the bishopric and monastery at Sherborne, and 5 charters from the Abbey of Horton. Their dates range from A.D. 671 to A.D. 1061, and all (with one exception) have been preserved in the impressive Sherborne Cartulary, BL Add. MS 46487, dated c.1150.

The charters from the archive of St Augustine's Abbey, many very early indeed, provide crucial evidence about the history of the Anglo-Saxon church in Kent and the development of the documentary in process. A high proportion of the thirty-nine pre-Conquest charters which are edited in this volume, together with fourteen from another early foundation at Minster-in-Thanet, date from the seventh and eighth centuries.The editor's Introduction sets the documents in their historical and diplomatic contexts and analyses the extent and nature of the contamination by later medieval scholars of the abbey. A detailed commentary is also provided on each text and important topics such as lost charter, the sequence of abbots, Kentish Kings and so on are discussed in separate appendices.This is the largest and most important collection to be published in the Anglo-Saxon Charters series.

The latest volume of Anglo-Saxon charters covers the pre-Conquest archive of Shaftesbury Abbey in Dorset, founded by King Alfred and destined to be of great importance in the medieval period. The majority of the thirty surviving documents date form the tenth century, with the last a charter of Cnut from 1019. The present edition addresses the extensive corruption introduced into the surviving texts by repeated earlier copying, particularly in the vernacular boundary clauses.This is a very important collection providing almost the only evidence for the history of Shaftesbury in the Anglo-Saxon period.

St Paul's was the principal church of London from its foundation in A. D. 604. This volume is an edition of all the surviving documentary material from St Paul's from the seventh century to 1066, with expert analysis and commentary on the history of the bishops and the cathedral community within the city and diocese, considered against the background of London's history during this period. The medieval archives of St Paul's suffered at times from neglect, and as a result the majority of the Anglo-Saxon charters of the bishop and chapter are preserved only as fragments in the notebooks of two seventeenth-century scholars who studied a crucial manuscript before it disappeared at the time of the Commonwealth. These excerpts are here edited with full diplomatic and historical commentary, which makes it possible to resurrect to some extent the full documents. The edition of the charters is prefaced by an extended introduction which provides an important new synthesis of the history of London and St Paul's in the Anglo-Saxon period, complete with an extensive bibliography.

Malmesbury Abbey was one of the few English minsters which had a continuous existence from the seventh to the sixteenth century, and the Malmesbury archive is a particularly important witness to the history of Wessex and the West Saxon church in the pre-Viking period. More than half of the surviving charters purport to date from the seventh and eighth centuries, many of them directly associated with Malmesbury's most celebrated abbot, the scholar and poet Aldhelm. This volume is the first scholarly edition of Malmesbury's pre-Conquest charters.The Malmesbury archive poses a particularly difficult editorial challenge, since the manuscripts are generally late and the abbey's scribes were prone to forgery and the 'improvement' of their muniments. Although the abbey had its own celebrated post-Conquest historian in William of Malmesbury, regrettably little detailed information has survived about the early history of the monastery. Nevertheless, analysis of the charters has made it possible to build up a fairly coherent picture of Malmesbury's development in the first four centuries of its existence. This volume provides an important background to William of Malmesbury's De gestis pontificorum Anglorum, and includes significant new material for the study of William's use of historical documents.Charters of Malmesbury Abbey is comprised of editions of thirty-five charters and also a small group of separate boundary surveys, with expert detailed commentaries on their historical and topographical importance. The charters are prefaced by a lengthy introduction which presents a new synthesis of the history of the abbey and an extensive bibliography.

Seat of the oldest saint's cult in Britain, St Albans has a remarkable claim to continuity of cult from Romano-British times. The recent discovery of previously unknown charters, most of them in the vernacular, has provided significant new information about the history of this important medieval monastery and its region. These texts are presented here, mostly for the first time, together with new editions of all other known charters relating to the house, including three single-sheet originals, with full historical commentaries and translations of vernacular charters. An extended introduction offers a reassessment of the history of St Albans and its region in the early Middle Ages and, in particular, an analysis of the workings of the monastery, its economy, and its relationship with its locality in the century before the Norman Conquest. Particular attention is devoted to the management of the assets of the house, both material (an assessment of their estates and their management) and symbolic (involvement with forgery and enhancement of their documentary record).

This is the first critical edition of the Anglo-Saxon archive of the Benedictine monastery at Peterborough, established by Bishop Æthelwold around AD 970 on the site of an earlier house known as Medeshamstede. The archive comprises 31 documents ranging in date from the 7th to the 11th centuries.Alongside genuine royal diplomas, leases and an Old English will, are a series of spectacular forgeries that were created after the Norman Conquest as the monastic community strove to enhance its status and protect its endowment. A collection of hugely important memoranda, 'the Medeshamstede memoranda', preserve intriguing details of transactions that took place in the later 7th century, and a series of brief records illuminate the processes by which Æthelwold built up the endowment of the refounded abbey in the 970s and 980s. This volume contains authoritative editions of these 31 texts, plus a further 4 related documents. There is a full commentary on every text, with translation of all Old English documents and passages, and detailed discussion of boundary clauses. The Introduction provides a detailed elucidation of the history of the monastery in its two incarnations. This includes a ground-breaking new evaluation of the sources for the history of Medeshamstede, which overturns the conventional understanding of the status of this house and its supposed early 'colonies', and also much new material on the fate of this area of the East Midlands during the period in the 9th and early 10th centuries when it came under Danish rule.This volume will be of great value to those studying Anglo-Saxon and ecclesiastical history, to local historians, and to specialists in other fields, such as medieval Latin, Old English, and place-name studies.

Glastonbury Abbey was the wealthiest and most influential monastery in later Anglo-Saxon England. It was a noted centre of scholarship, and claimed ancient origins which were later extravagantly embellished to link the house with such luminaries as St Patrick, St David and King Arthur. The historiographical evidence for Glastonbury is particularly challenging, because the accounts of the monastery's early history were revised and interpolated over centuries, as the legends grew. There are also complications in the study of its archive: the manuscripts are mostly late and corrupt, and the whole is overshadowed by the contents list of a lost cartulary (the Liber Terrarum), which included many more early charters than now survive. The present volume is the first critical edition of the sixty-one surviving charters from the abbey's pre-Conquest archive, which date from the later seventh century to the reign of Cnut. The texts are edited to a high standard, with comprehensive commentaries that include translation and elucidation of the Old English boundary clauses, and authoritative assessments of authenticity. There is a long introduction with analysis and synthesis of the documentary evidence for Glastonbury's history in the Anglo-Saxon period and for the accumulation of its endowment, including a section on William of Malmesbury's works on Glastonbury. The volume concludes with a series of appendixes which present all the evidence for the lost charters in the Liber Terrarum and in other sources.

Anglo-Saxon Northumbria is renowned for producing scholars of the eminence of Bede and Alcuin and saints of the stature of Cuthbert and Oswald. But despite its enormous cultural and political impact on the course of early English history, only a relatively small amount of documentary material has survived, scattered through five different archives. This book constitutes the first edition of all Anglo-Saxon charters surviving in archives north of the River Humber, a body of material previously neglected. It provides edited texts, together with detailed analysis and commentary, for twenty-one documents which have been preserved in the ecclesiastical archives of York, Beverley, Ripon and Durham, and also a unique survival from Lowther Castle. These commentaries also provide translations and elucidations of each Old English boundary clause and assessments regarding each document's authenticity. The charters themselves are preceded by comprehensive historical introductions which not only provide up-to-date historical accounts of each religious house, but also give an overview of the evolution of each ecclesiastical archive (Lowther Castle is treated slightly differently). In bringing all of this material together for the first time, this book encourages comparisons between the types of charter used in different parts of Northumbria, which in turn allows a better understanding of the complex political and ecclesiastical situation throughout the kingdom.

Volumes 17 and 18 provide a scholarly edition of all the 185 charters from the period before the Norman Conquest that survive from the archiepiscopal cathedral of Christ Church Canterbury. Many of the charters exist in variant versions, and these are assessed for their authenticity. More of the Christ Church charters are preserved on single sheets of parchment from every century down to the eleventh than have survived from any other English church. Christ Church, indeed, has more authentic original charters, including many from the seventh, eighth and especially the ninth centuries, which are so rare elsewhere. There are also forgeries - at least from the beginning of the ninth century - which were produced over a longer period than those from other churches. So these volumes provide an essential foundation for Anglo-Saxon diplomatic. But in view of Canterbury's importance, as the first English bishopric and metropolitan see, the documents edited here (together with the critical commentaries and the Introduction) provide essential evidence for English political, ecclesiastical, social and economic history over more than four centuries, for the development of the English landscape, and (since many of the charters are in Old English) also for the development of the English language. For any scholar interested in the evidence for England before the Norman Conquest, these volumes are a source of fundamental importance.

These two volumes provide a scholarly edition of all the 185 charters from the period before the Norman Conquest that survive from the archiepiscopal cathedral of Christ Church Canterbury. Many of the charters exist in variant versions, and these are assessed for their authenticity. More of the Christ Church charters are preserved on single sheets of parchment from every century down to the eleventh than have survived from any other English church. Christ Church, indeed, has more authentic original charters, including many from the seventh, eighth and especially the ninth centuries, which are so rare elsewhere. There are also forgeries - at least from the beginning of the ninth century - which were produced over a longer period than those from other churches. So these volumes provide an essential foundation for Anglo-Saxon diplomatic. But in view of Canterbury's importance, as the first English bishopric and metropolitan see, the documents edited here (together with the critical commentaries and the Introduction) provide essential evidence for English political, ecclesiastical, social and economic history over more than four centuries, for the development of the English landscape, and (since many of the charters are in Old English) also for the development of the English language. For any scholar interested in the evidence for England before the Norman Conquest, these volumes are a source of fundamental importance.

This is the first complete modern edition of the early charters of Chertsey Abbey in Surrey, one of the most important of the English medieval monasteries, and one which appears to have had a nearly continuous existence from its seventh-century foundation until it was surrendered to Henry VIII's commissioners in 1537.The pre-Conquest archive is fairly small and has a poor reputation; indeed, the majority of the sixteen extant charters are obvious fabrications (which have their own importance in throwing light on the later medieval history of the house). But the archive does contain ancient documents of enormous interest: a charter which has claims to be the earliest surviving Anglo-Saxon diploma; a seventh-century episcopal charter; a diploma of King Æthelred 'the Unready' which adds to the evidence about the development of London around the year 1000; and an authentic writ of Edward the Confessor, again referring to London.In this volume all the extant diplomas are expertly edited, with extensive commentaries on their content and implications. A thorough introduction comprises a new synthesis of Chertsey's early history, discussion of the history of the archive and of the later medieval background to the fabrication of the purportedly early documents, and painstaking analysis of the history of the landed endowment. This volume also includes editions of four papal privileges said to have been obtained on the monastery's behalf in the Anglo-Saxon period, of which two or perhaps three are genuine or have a genuine basis.