Anglo-Saxon charters: the work of the last twenty years

Abstract

1973 is an auspicious year for the study of the charters of the pre-Conquest period. At the time of writing, the publication of Professor A. Campbell's Anglo-Saxon Charters I, The Charters of Rochester is imminent. This is the first volume in a series in which the entire corpus of pre-Conquest charters is to be edited with full critical apparatus, with detailed analysis of their diplomatic, palaeographical, topographical and linguistic features and with extensive glossaries and indices. Professor Campbell's volume is part of a collaborative enterprise organized by a committee of The British Academy and The Royal Historical Society. When the series is complete, historians will no longer need to reiterate W. H. Stevenson's famous dictum, ‘It cannot be said that the Old English charters have yet been edited.’ One significant feature of the scheme deserves to be noted here; each volume will cover the charters of an archive that was in existence towards the end of the Old English period. Thus there will be one volume for Rochester, another for Christ Church, Canterbury, another for Exeter, another for Burton Abbey, and so on. Small archives will be grouped together with others from the same region or diocese to form suitable volumes. In this way the organization of the edition will itself reveal the local character of Anglo-Saxon charters which is so marked throughout their history. It will also bring to light the work of forgers for individual churches developing their claims to particular lands and rights by means of charters of apparently widely differing dates.