Canterbury, St Augustine's

The abbey of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, was founded, probably in the early years of the seventh century, by St Augustine (Bede, HE i. 33).  The church (originally dedicated to SS Peter and Paul; known initially as St Peter’s and from the ninth century generally as St Augustine’s) was built by King Æthelberht and endowed with various gifts, ‘so that the bodies of Augustine himself and all the bishops of Canterbury and the kings of Kent might be placed in it’ (ibid.).  Abbot Ælfstan of St Augustine’s (c. 1025-45) managed to obtain possession of the lands of the (?derelict) nunnery of Minster-in-Thanet (founded in the 690s by Mildred (Mildthryth), daughter of Eormenburg), and then secured the relics of St Mildred herself, allegedly by gift of King Cnut (S 990); it was presumably in this connection that a number of purportedly seventh- and eighth-century charters pertaining to Minster-in-Thanet came into the St Augustine’s archive.

There are no surviving pre-Conquest single-sheet charters from the archives of St Augustine’s.  Three charters recording transactions in which the abbey had a particular interest were, however, preserved in their original form at Christ Church: S 332 was probably at St Augustine’s in the late ninth century, and moved to Christ Church thereafter; S 1400 and 1472 (both vernacular documents of the mid eleventh century) are evidently the designated Christ Church copies of local records, and in archival terms belong where they are.

<Plus portions of S 1461, 1465, 1471, 1473, 1530.>

<Check.  15th-cent. location index of St Augustine’s muniments (London, College of Arms, MS. B.35): see L. Campbell and F. Steen, A Catalogue of Manuscripts in the College of Arms, Collections I (London, 1988), pp. 00-0.  List of the abbey’s privilegia in CCCC 301 (Davis 199), pp. 180-1.>

<Charters in gospel-books (see Kelly 1986, pp. 96-8).  The ‘Gospels of St Augustine’ (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS. 286 (Davis 199A; Ker, Catalogue, no. 55)), contains S 1198 and 1455.  A gospel-book known at St Augustine’s as the ‘Textus S. Adriani’, but now lost, is mentioned by Thomas Sprott and others as if it were an especially important source of information on the abbey’s history (see Kelly, Charters of St Augustine’s, pp. 00-0).  It is said to have contained copies of S 10 and 11 (both for Minster-in-Thanet), bounds relating to S 1401, and much else besides.>

<The alleged charters of King Æthelberht (S 3 and 4).  See M. Deanesly, ‘The Court of King Æthelberht of Kent’, Cambridge Historical Journal 7.2 (1942), pp. 101-114 (authentic basis, originally written on papyrus); W. Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford, 1946), pp. 174-225 (forged by Guerno in the late eleventh century); J. Morris, Arthurian Period Sources, I: Annals, Badon and Charters (Chichester, 1983), pp. 95-107 (authentic basis).  S 3 and 4 were copied, with associated papal privileges, in a book which otherwise contains a collection of Goscelin’s Vitae of the Canterbury saints, etc. (BL Cotton Vespasian B. xx, written in the early twelfth century).  The same two charters, with St Augustine’s grant of privileges to the abbey (S 1244), occur in the surviving fragment of a cartulary compiled in the late twelfth century (BL Cotton Vitellius A. ii (Davis 191)); check whether this really is from a cartulary.  Transmission of S 2 different.>

<S 2 and 3 in Prise-Say register.>

<Texts of bulk of the St Augustine’s charters depend largely on copies entered in thirteenth-century cartularies, and on the works of the abbey’s historians (13th-15th cent.).  Seem to depend to some extent on an earlier cartulary, now lost.  Possible that earliest St Augustine’s cartulary was compiled in the twelfth century; cf. Bury, Christ Church, etc.  A series of over forty pre-Conquest charters occurs in BL Cotton Julius D. ii (Davis 192) (+ BL Add. 46352 (Davis 200)).  This composite register begins with lists of kings, etc. (fols. 1-23), followed by a text of the Rule of St Benedict (fols. 24-39), and then by a cartulary (fols. 39v-133v); for a discussion of its conception, see J-P. Genet, ‘Cartulaires, registres et histoire: l’éxemple anglais’, Le Metier d’historien au Moyen Age, ed. B. Guenée (Paris, 1977), pp. 95-138, at 96-100.  The pre-Conquest charters occur in several distinct groups, between fols. 84 and 133; but it is difficult to discern any logic in their selection or order in their arrangement.  Several charters for Minster-in-Thanet are interspersed with charters for St Augustine’s.  The texts are abbreviated, etc.>

<The cartulary known as the ‘Red Book’ (BL Cotton Claudius D. x (Davis 193)) is more coherent in its organisation, and was conceived more directly in relation to the abbey’s particular interests; interestingly, it does not contain any of the charters pertaining to Minster-in-Thanet.  Copies of twelve pre-Conquest charters occur at various points throughout the manuscript, as originally conceived; but this number is augmented by the later addition of a copy of the Inspeximus charter of Edward II (whence the texts of S 2, 4, 6, 501, 300, 990, 1048 and 1092, on fols. 61-3).  Some good texts.  Texts of S 990, 1048, 394 and 1267 in Canterbury, D. & C., lit. MS. E. 19 (Davis 196), apparently derived from Claudius D. x.  Also S 989 and 1091.>

<The ‘White Book’ of St Augustine’s abbey (PRO E164/27 (Davis 195)) is another composite volume, compiled in the late thirteenth century and continued by various hands thereafter.  A list of benefactions on fols. 3v-6v was evidently derived from charters; one might like to suppose that it is, in effect, a list of charters still preserved in single-sheet form, but perhaps more likely that it represents a digest of the contents of a cartulary now lost (though not necessarily the putative ‘original’ cartulary itself).  The list ‘omits’ the early-seventh-century charters (S 3, 4, 6), and includes the Minster charters en bloc.  A few of the grants mentioned in the list are not covered by texts now extant (S 1650, 1652, 1655, 1656, 1658, etc.).  Summarises contents of Latin charters; and merely registers the existence of vernacular charters (Kelly nos. xxxiv-xxxviii, xliv-xlv, xlvii-xlviii), as if not understood.  The ‘White Book’ includes a group of 16 pre-Conquest charters on fols. 76v-84r; comprises a selection of the Minster charters, followed by others, in a roughly chronological order.  Smaller selection of charters than in list of benefactions.  Most of the charters also in Julius D. ii; but not derived from it.  Copies of two writs (S 990, 1091) occur later on; and copy of S 29 added on fols. 150-1.>

<Textual problems.  The three thirteenth-century cartularies appear to be substantially independent of each other, in the sense that each presents its own selection of texts from a lost cartulary, or cartularies, perhaps supplemented by some copies derived from single sheets.  Julius abbreviates, by omitting bounds and witness-lists.  Claudius abbreviates, to a lesser extent, but preserves some vernacular; has its own more exclusive principles of selection and arrangement.  PRO omits bounds, but has slightly better lists (printed for the first time in Kelly’s edition).  Tampering with dates, beneficiaries, etc.  Treatment of S 159, 300/324, 501.>

<A number of the abbey’s charters were submitted for confirmation during the Middle Ages, and copies are accordingly preserved in the charter rolls.  S 4, 990 and 1091 (representing lands and privileges granted to the abbey by King Æthelberht, King Cnut and King Edward) occur among a group of St Augustine’s charters entered in one of the Cartae Antiquae rolls, written in the early thirteenth century (see Landon, pp. 128-35).  S 2, 4, 6, 300, 501, 990, 1048, and 1092 were included in an Inspeximus charter of 20 Edward II (1326), which was itself ‘inspected’ and confirmed on subsequent occasions.  Of these charters, S 300 and 501 are title-deeds for estates at Lenham and Sibertswold respectively; the copies are ‘better’ than the texts of the same charters in the abbey’s cartularies, and were probably derived from single sheets.>

<An especially interesting aspect of the St Augustine’s archive is the use to which the charters were put by the abbey’s historians.  (Unpublished) chronicle compiled in the thirteenth century by Thomas Sprott.  Chronicle compiled in the fourteenth century by William Thorne.  Speculum Augustinianum (Cambridge, Trinity Hall, MS. 1 (Davis 198)) compiled by Thomas Elmham, with access to cartularies and single sheets; printed Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis, by Thomas of Elmham, ed. C. Hardwick, Rolls ser. (London, 1858).  See A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England, II: c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century (London, 1982), pp. 345-55; and Genet, pp. 112-16.  Fols. 1-11 contain a Chronologia Augustinensis (ed. Hardwick, pp. 2-73), indicating intended range and referring to a number of grants (in ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries) for which no charter-text survives; see S 1650 and 1653-7).  History ends abruptly in early ninth century.  ‘Facsimiles’ of the early charters, in their single-sheet form; see M. Hunter, ‘The Facsimiles in Thomas Elmham’s History of St Augustine’s, Canterbury’, The Library, 5th ser. 28 (1973), pp. 215-20.  Dr Kelly (Charters of St Augustine’s, pp. 00-0) reveals the extent to which these historians tampered with the details in the charters, in their attempts to make sense of the material at their disposal.>

<Minster-in-Thanet.  Founded in the 690s by Mildred (Mildthryth), daughter of Eormenburg.  See D. W. Rollason, The Mildrith Legend: a Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (Leicester, 1982), esp. pp. 33-40.  Fourteen charters in the St Augustine’s archive were ‘acquired’ from Minster-in-Thanet, probably in the eleventh century (S 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 26, 29, 86, 87, 91, 143 and 1180).  (? + 20).  Grants to abbesses.  Ship-toll charters; see S. Kelly, ‘Trading Privileges from Eighth-century England’, Early Medieval Europe 1 (1992), pp. 3-28.>

<Dispersal of the archive after the Dissolution (Kelly 1986, pp. 139-42).  Leland.  Julius D. ii and Claudius D. x passed into the hands of John Twyne, of Canterbury.  A. G. Watson, ‘John Twyne of Canterbury (d. 1581) as a Collector of Medieval Manuscripts: a Preliminary Investigation’, The Library, 6th ser. 8 (1986), pp. 133-51 (nos. 15 and 16).>

Edition: Charters of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, ed. S. Kelly, Anglo-Saxon Charters 4 (Oxford, 1994).

Royal diplomas.  2; 3; 4; 6; 7; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 20; 25; 26; 28; 29; 86; 87; 91; 134; 140; 143; 159; 279; 297; 300 (= 324, MS. 1); 330; 394; 501; 518; 809; 875.  See also 1648, 1649 (= 324, MS. 2), 1657.  (There is a single-sheet version of 20 in the Christ Church archive; see also 332 (Christ Church).)

Writs.  989; 990; 1091; 1092.  (The single-sheet versions of 1091 and 1092 are later medieval copies from Christ Church.)

Miscellaneous.  1048; 1050; 1180; 1182; 1193; 1198; 1239; 1244; 1267; 1401; 1455; 1502; 1650; 1651; 1652; 1653; 1654; 1655; 1656; 1658. (See also 1400 and 1472, single sheets preserved at Christ Church, Canterbury.)

(BL Add. 7138 (BCS 614) was written by a scribe who may have been a member of the community of St Augustine’s; see BAFacs. 00.)

<S (Add.) to be added.>

Mon. Angl. i. 23-6; Mon. Angl. (rev. ed.) i. 120-52; VCH Kent ii. 126-33; MRH, p. 61; HRH, pp. 34-7.

Harmer, Writs, pp. 190-201; S. E. Kelly, ‘The Pre-Conquest History and Archive of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury’ (unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1986); S. E. Kelly, ‘Some Forgeries in the Archive of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury’, Fälschungen im Mittelalter, IV: Diplomatische Fälschungen (II), MGH Schriften 33.4 (Hannover, 1988), pp. 347-69; and Edwards, Charters of the Early West Saxon Kingdom, pp. 289-90.