A cartulary is a book into which a member of a religious house entered copies of some or all of the records, including charters, which accumulated in the archives or among the muniments of the house from the time of its foundation or re-foundation, generally in connection with the process of its endowment. It is intended to develop this section of the 'Kemble' website with pages on some of these cartularies, using images derived from microfilms acquired from the Britiah Library in the 1970s. We are grateful in this connection to Dr Claire Breay, and to the British Library.
The standard reference work is G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1958), revised by Claire Breay, Julian Harrison and David M. Smith (London: British Library, 2010). Cited below as MedCart, with number.
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There are recorded instances of the keeping of charters by religious houses in the eighth and ninth centuries, and thereafter, presumably in a chest or box. It is also apparent that documents, or copies of documents, might be entered, for the record, in gospel-books, libri vitae, and perhaps other special books, probably from the tenth century onwards (perhaps earlier).
Cartularies were compiled in the Frankish world from the late eighth century onwards. The earliest surviving English example is 'Tiberius I' (below), from Worcester. Cartularies came in many different forms; the selection and organisation of the documents, and the treatment accorded to them by the copyist, depended on the purpose which each was intended to serve. The prime examples containing copies of Anglo-Saxon charters are:
Several cartularies are known to have existed, but are now untraced:
To be developed further.
Page maintained by SDK March 2014