Rochester | Kemble

The church of St Andrew at Rochester was founded in the early seventh century, by Æthelberht, king of Kent (HE II.3; HE III.14). <Note evidence for affiliation in the eighth century with the western part of the bipartite kingdom of Kent; cf. Canterbury and eastern Kent. On route between Canterbury and London; also exposed to viking attack (842, 885, 999). King Æthelred ‘laid waste the diocese of Rochester’ in 986. Poverty of the see. Penenden Heath. Bishop Gundulf. Etc.>

The majority of the pre-Conquest charters of Rochester are preserved in the ‘Textus Roffensis’ (Maidstone, Kent Archives Office, DRc/R1 (Davis 817)). The first part of this manuscript (fols. 1-118) contains a collection of Anglo-Saxon law-codes, including texts of the early Kentish legislation of King Æthelberht, Kings Hlothhere and Eadric, and King Wihtred; the second part (fols. 119-234) is essentially a cartulary of Rochester priory, compiled during the episcopate of Ernulf, bishop of Rochester (1115-24), with some later (mainly twelfth-century) additions. The collection of legal texts, and the original part of the cartulary, were written by one and the same scribe, in the form of two separate books; it would appear that the two parts of what is now known as the ‘Textus Roffensis’ were bound together by the early fourteenth century. For further discussion, see Textus Roffensis, ed. P. H. Sawyer, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 7 and 11 (Copenhagen, 1957 and 1962). For an (incomplete) edition of the manuscript as such, see Textus Roffensis, ed. T. Hearne (Oxford, 1720), printed from a transcript made by Sir Edward Dering. Two documents bearing in one way or another on the history of the Rochester estates, preserved in the cartulary part of the ‘Textus Roffensis’, were not included in Campbell’s edition of the pre-Conquest charters. One (copied on fol. 162rv, between the texts of S 926 + 1562 and S 1457) begins by listing the various families of æhtemen on the church’s estate at Wouldham, and then records a quittance from the estate of two members of one of the families in question, for the duration of the lifetime of Bishop Sigeweard (1058-?74); printed and discussed by D. Pelteret, ‘Two Old English Lists of Serfs’, Medieval Studies 48 (1986), pp. 470-513, at 492-503. The second (copied in Latin on fols. 164v-165v, and in English on fols. 166v-167r, though in each case the first leaf is a later replacement of the original text) records arrangements for the maintenance of Rochester Bridge, and occurs in a variant form in a cartulary of Christ Church, Canterbury; printed by Robertson, Charters, no. 52, and discussed by N. Brooks, <article in Festschrift for Karl Leyser>.

Several of the Rochester charters were also copied in the ‘Liber Temporalium’ (Maidstone, Kent Archives Office, DRb/Ar2 (Davis 820)), compiled in the early fourteenth century. The pre-Conquest charters in this cartulary occur as a group on fols. 3-10, though not in any consistently chronological or topographical order. Most of the texts appear to have been derived (directly or indirectly) from the copies previously entered in the ‘Textus Roffensis’; but there are certain significant exceptions. The ‘Liber Temporalium’ contains the texts of two ninth-century charters (S 291 and 299) and one tenth-century charter (S 864), which had not been included in the ‘Textus Roffensis’ evidently because they were cast in favour of laymen and gave no overt indication of Rochester’s interest (cf. S 157 and 315 + 1514). It also contains the text of a spectacularly spurious charter of King Alfred, in favour of the bishop of Rochester (S 349), forged c. 1200. The compiler of the ‘Liber Temporalium’ presumably derived his texts of these four charters from single sheets; two of the charters in question are still extant in this form (S 864 and 349), but the presumed originals of S 291 and 299 have not survived.

The ‘Textus Roffensis’ has come to enjoy a reputation as the most trustworthy of all cartularies containing pre-Conquest charters (see, e.g., Stevenson, Asser, p. 151 n. 2, and Stenton, Latin Charters, p. 79); and certainly there can be no doubt that its compiler copied the various documents in front of him accurately and in good faith. The charters are arranged as far as possible in chronological order, beginning with one in the name of King Æthelberht, dated 604, followed by a series of royal grants made in the eighth and ninth centuries, and by a more varied group of documents dating from the latter part of the tenth century; the latest royal diploma in the cartulary is a charter of King Æthelred the Unready, dated 1012, granting land in Huntingdonshire to Bishop Godwine (S 926 + 1562 [separate boundary-clause]), though it is not clear whether this grant was intended for the church of Rochester or whether it was a grant to the bishop in a personal capacity. The compiler had evidently chosen to restrict himself to those documents in the archive which had an explicit connection with the church, and left aside a number of important title-deeds cast in favour of laymen (S 291, 299, 331 and 864, and perhaps others as well), any one of which might affect understanding of the history of the estate in question before or after it came into the church’s hands. It must be recognized, therefore, that while the ‘Textus Roffensis’ may contain trustworthy copies of a certain selection of the charters which were available to its compiler at Rochester in the early twelfth century, it may nonetheless create a misleading impression of the process of Rochester’s endowment in the pre-Conquest period. If the charters are read as a continuous series, they appear to indicate that Rochester accumulated the bulk of its eleventh-century endowment in the eighth and ninth centuries, and held it, moreover, by virtue of royal charters cast directly in favour of the church; but it is worth remarking that such a process might not accord with one’s expectations (cf. Keynes, Diplomas, pp. 7-10), not least because it would leave rather little scope for benefactions from members of the local nobility. It is also the case that a significant number of the Rochester charters turn out on closer inspection to be far from trustworthy in themselves, and there is good reason to suppose that they were forged at Rochester for various purposes and at various times before the Norman Conquest.

Indeed, the particular interest of the Rochester archive arises from the fact that it is possible, on a relatively small and comprehensible scale, to detect some of the complications which underlie the superficial impression created by an apparently ‘trustworthy’ cartulary. Of the ten pre-Conquest charters which survive from the archive in single-sheet form (not counting S 349), six were written in the eighth or the ninth century (S 35, 88, 165, 266, 327 and 331), and four in the tenth century (S 280, 671, 864 and 1458); and if it is reassuring to have a good range of single sheets against which to measure the accuracy of the cartulary copies, the same charters afford some sense of the practices employed by members of the pre-Conquest community at Rochester in defending their title to land and privileges. S 266 (which concerns land in Rochester) reveals that the community found the need on at least one occasion in the later ninth century to concoct an ostensibly eighth-century grant on the basis of a current exemplar; and it should be noted in the case of S 327 (also concerning land in Rochester) that a charter perhaps cast originally in favour of a layman was subsequently altered into a charter in favour of a much earlier bishop of Rochester (with disturbing implications for our confidence in the received texts of charters preserved only in the ‘Textus Roffensis’). Little enough is known of Rochester’s fortunes during the vicissitudes of the ninth century, though the events of 885, recounted in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, give some hint of the circumstances in which the church might have come under severe pressure, as much from those charged with the duties of local defence as from the Vikings themselves. Some of the church’s ancient endowment in and around Rochester and the Medway valley might well have been taken into secular or royal hands at about this time (EHD, ed. Whitelock, no. 222, and Asser, ch. 91, convey a sense of the background; see also the history of Wouldham recounted in S 1458), and if Bishop Swithwulf could have done little but object, it would have remained for his successors to repair the situation.

<Brooks, Fleming, DND.>

No less telling is the evidence bearing on the various difficulties suffered by Rochester in the second half of the tenth century. The archive contains three vernacular documents which are of particular importance as examples of the kinds of written evidence generated by disputes over land (S 1456–8); and it is these documents which establish the context of litigation in which several other charters in the archive must be approached. The material is capable of different interpretations, and it must suffice for present purposes to summarise one view of the probable course of events. A group of three estates, at Snodland, Bromley and Fawkham, appear to have belonged in the central decades of the tenth century to a West Kentish family whose affiliations were with the church of Rochester. We learn from S 1511 that Snodland was bequeathed to Rochester by one Ælfhere, though it seems that the bequest was subject to the respective life-interests of certain members of his immediate family; Bromley and Fawkham, on the other hand, appear to have passed from Ælfhere to his son Ælfric, who seems himself to have bequeathed them to the church, subject to the life-interest of his wife Brihtwaru. We learn from another document (S 1457) that Æscwyn, Ælfric’s mother (and Ælfhere’s widow), gave the title-deeds of Snodland to Rochester, evidently in accordance with her late husband’s intentions; but some priests, presumably of Rochester, secretly removed the title-deeds from the church, and sold them to Ælfric (who may have wished to change the arrangements made by his father, in certain respects). When the theft was discovered, the bishop demanded the return of the title-deeds, first from Ælfric himself, and then, following Ælfric’s death, from Ælfric’s widow (Brihtwaru). At a meeting at London, held towards the end of the reign of King Edgar, the stolen title-deeds for Snodland were returned to the bishop (though it is uncertain what became at this stage of the estate itself), and Brihtwaru’s estates at Bromley and Fawkham were declared forfeit to the king. Brihtwaru duly surrendered the title-deeds for these two estates to the king; but the bishop of Rochester managed to persuade the king to allow him to purchase the deeds and the estates, and proceeded to lease the estates back to Brihtwaru. It was perhaps in connection with the terms of this settlement that a certain Brihtric seems to have been made responsible for ensuring that Bromley and Fawkham, as well as Snodland, passed after Brihtwaru’s death to Rochester, in accordance with earlier arrangements (see S 1511); in which case it would follow that Brihtwaru had also managed to retain or renew her life-interest in Snodland.

King Edgar died in 975, whereupon a kinsman of Brihtwaru, called Brihtric, ‘compelled’ her to agree that they should seize the estates at Bromley and Fawkham. It is conceivable that the Brihtric in question was the one who seems to have stood as guarantor of Brihtwaru’s good faith towards Rochester; but it is more likely that he was a quite different person (named, in fact, among the witnesses to S 1511), who was not so well disposed towards the church. Brihtric and Brihtwaru applied to Ealdorman Eadwine ‘and the section of the public which was the adversary of God’, and in some way ‘compelled’ the bishop to give up the title-deeds, managing at the same time to deny him the opportunity of proving Rochester’s title to the estate in any one of the normal ways. It was apparently in the early 980s that Ælfstan, bishop of Rochester, made an attempt to recover Bromley and Fawkham by litigation. S 1457 is a statement of Rochester’s case, presumably prepared at the church for use as evidence in the lawsuit; but it is clear that the preparations also involved the forgery of some pertinent charters. S 671 (extant in single-sheet form) is a charter of King Edgar purporting to represent the bishop’s purchase of Bromley from King Edgar, dated ‘955’; and it bears an endorsement to the effect that there was another charter like it, suggesting that Rochester might also have forged a similar charter for Fawkham. One should note, further, that at this stage in the proceedings the original title-deed for Bromley (S 331, also extant in single-sheet form) would have been in Brihtwaru’s hands, and that for the purposes of the production of S 671 the estate was necessarily surveyed afresh. The outcome of the lawsuit is not recorded, but if it was the usual kind of compromise it might have involved the return of the title-deeds to Rochester and perhaps a renewal of Brihtwaru’s life-interest in her husband’s estates (if only to judge from Rochester’s apparent willingness to excuse her own actions). It is not known when Brihtwaru died, and so when the estates might have returned to Rochester; nor could one be sure, in fact, that they did not pass from Brihtwaru into the hands of others. In 987 Bromley was granted by King Æthelred to his thegn Æthelsige (S 864, drawn up using the survey of the estate in S 331, as opposed to that in S 671), representing its appropriation from Rochester (see Keynes, Diplomas, pp. 178-80 and 185) or at least a disregard for Rochester’s reversionary interest; but it is not clear whether Fawkham suffered a similar fate at this time. Snodland belonged in the early 990s to a certain Leofwine, son of Ælfheah (S 1456), perhaps indicating that it had been among the estates appropriated from the church in the later 980s.

It was left to Bishop Godwine, following his appointment in 994 x 995, to institute the legal proceedings which led to the recovery of various Rochester estates. One, at Wouldham, had allegedly been given to Rochester in the eighth century, by King Æthelberht II, and had been alienated at an unspecified date thereafter; a later owner of the estate had bequeathed it to the church, in the presence of Archbishop Dunstan, and when the will was challenged and the estate seized, Dunstan himself had sworn an oath attesting to the terms of the bequest. S 1458 (extant in its original form) seems to be Godwine’s own statement of this particular case; and S 885, dated 995, is the charter of restoration which he secured from King Æthelred. Yet Godwine did not rest there. Among the muniments of his church he had found documents which revealed Rochester’s interest in Snodland (presumably including S 1457 and S 1511, as well as S 280, a forgery produced at Rochester at about the same time as S 671, if not for Godwine’s own purposes), and at a meeting of the shire-court at Canterbury he duly submitted them as evidence; as usual (perhaps), the suit ended in compromise, whereby Leofwine surrendered the deeds which he had, but was allowed a life-interest in the estate (an agreement of which S 1456 is the formal record). In 998 Godwine also managed to secure the restoration of Bromley (S 893). It is possible that the forged S 671 was brought back into service for the purpose, to judge from the fact that the statement of the bounds (and appurtenances) of the estate in S 893 is based on S 671, as opposed to the two earlier title-deeds (S 331, 864); it is also of interest that in Æthelred’s charter of restoration Bromley is assessed at ‘6’ sulungs (which remained its assessment in 1066), as against the ‘10’ sulungs of all three of the earlier charters (including S 671), suggesting that the king had chosen to compensate the church for his wrongdoing by agreeing to a reduction in the assessment of the estate.

The church of Rochester can thus be shown on this basis to have suffered much during the troubles which followed the death of King Edgar, and again at the hands of King Æthelred in the later 980s; and it is not unlikely that several other of the church’s estates were the subject of litigation in the late tenth century. Malling is perhaps one case in point, represented in the ‘Textus Roffensis’ by a charter which purports to record King Edmund’s grant of the estate to Bishop Burhric (S 514); for there can be little doubt that this charter is another Rochester forgery, pieced together in a rather incompetent manner on the basis of earlier documents in the archive. Cuxton may be a second case in point, represented by no more than a charter purportedly of King Æthelwulf, dated ‘880’ (S 321).

Two lists of Rochester’s benefactors occur in the ‘Textus Roffensis’: one, in the original hand, on fols. 215r-216r (ptd Mon. Angl. (rev. ed.) i. 174), and another, added in a later twelfth-century hand, on 177r-178r (ptd ibid. i. 161-2). The first list appears to be a digest of information contained in the charters copied in the ‘Textus Roffensis’, though it ‘omits’ several grants, including (oddly enough) all those which concern land in Rochester. The second list is clearly related to the first, though it does contain some different information. Neither list is of any value for grants of the pre-Conquest period.

<The ‘Textus Roffensis’ was not known to Lambarde when preparing his Archaionomia in 1568; but it was used by Parker, and was annotated by Lambarde in 1573. See Sawyer, vol. ii, pp. 18-19. The manuscript was removed from Rochester on various occasions in the seventeenth century, but was recovered or returned. Single sheets may have left Rochester at about the same time.> It is striking that all of the extant single sheets from the Rochester archive are among the ‘Cotton Charters’, and as such may not have entered the Cotton library until after the formation of Sir Robert’s main collection (above, pp. 00-0); like the charters of the Old Minster, Winchester, and like so many of the charters of Worcester, they may not have been removed from the archive until the 1640s. It should be noted that in John Thorpe’s Registrum Roffense (London, 1769), ten of the Rochester charters are said to have been printed from ‘autographs’ at Rochester, which has led to the supposition that a fair number of the church’s pre-Conquest charters remained in the hands of the Dean and Chapter in the eighteenth century, and were only lost after that date (see Oakley, p. 59). In eight cases (S 35, 88, 165, 280, 327, 349, 671, 864), however, the reference is evidently to the single sheet charters still preserved in the Cotton library; the two remaining charters (S 291, 299) are otherwise known to have been preserved only in the ‘Liber Temporalium’, and there can be no doubt that Thorpe actually derived his texts from this source.

Edition: Charters of Rochester, ed. A. Campbell, Anglo-Saxon Charters 1 (London, 1973). <Add reviews.>

Royal diplomas. 1; 27; 30; 32; 33; 34; 35; 36; 37; 88; 105; 129; 130; 131; 157; 165; 266; 271; 280; 289; 291; 299; 315 + 1514; 321; 327; 331; 339; 349; 514; 671; 864; 885; 893; 926 + 1562. (S 349 was not included in Campbell’s edition.)

Miscellaneous. 1456; 1457; 1458.

Will. 1511. (S 1514 was probably endorsed on S 315.)

<Ref. to summary of S 959, in ‘TR’, 57v (CCC)? Also Lewisham connection; see under Ghent.>

WM, GP, pp. 133-6; Mon. Angl. i. 27-31; Mon. Angl. (rev. ed.) i. 153-88; VCH Kent ii. 121-6; MRH, p. 74; HRH, pp. 63-4.

A. M. Oakley, ‘The Cathedral Priory of St. Andrew, Rochester’, Archæologia Cantiana 91 (1975), pp. 47-60;
E. E. Barker, ‘The Bromley Charters’, Archæologia Cantiana 93 (1977), pp. 179-85;
Edwards, Charters of the Early West Saxon Kingdom, pp. 281-8;
M. Brett, ‘Forgery at Rochester’, Fälschungen im Mittelalter, IV: Diplomatische Fälschungen (II), MGH Schriften 33.4 (Hannover, 1988), pp. 397-412;
M. P. Richards, Texts and their Traditions in the Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory (=Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 78, pt 3 (1988)), esp. pp. 43-60;
M. Brett, ‘The Church at Rochester 604-1185’, <?History of Rochester>, ed. W. N. Yates (forthcoming).
N. P. Fox, ‘The Bromley Charter Dated A. D. 862’, Archæologia Cantiana 66 (1953), pp. 172-4;
article by C. Flight