Charters and episcopal scriptoria in the Anglo-Saxon South-West (original) (raw)
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This article analyses three different versions of a charter from the Anglo-Saxon archive of the church of Worcester which was fi rst issued in 767 to record a grant of land in the area of Aston Fields, near Stoke Prior, Worcestershire. Special attention is paid to the second surviving version of the document, which is the most problematic of the three and the only one preserved on a single sheet. A relatively recent hypothesis on the origins of this single sheet is reviewed, and an alternative interpretation that draws on the tenurial history of the area is presented. Through a specifi c case-study aiming at understanding the different reasons which in each case may have led the church of Worcester to modify the document's original contents, it is possible to cast further light on that community's use of the past throughout the Anglo-Saxon and early Norman periods.
2012
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.
History, 2016
renaissance men, in that his interests transcended disciplinary boundaries. His seminal contributions to aesthetics, metaphysics, political theory and the philosophy of history resonate across disciplines and have been appropriated in the most unlikely areas of study, including statistics, psychology, library cataloguing, and marketing. His An Autobiography and First Mate's Log have attracted admirers not only for their scholarly, but also for their literary, merits. His published work is just the tip of the iceberg. His voluminous correspondence to friends and colleagues, on subjects ranging from art and photography to ethnographic observations on music and dance in Bali, together with the vast number of lectures, drafts of papers and books, including drawings for a volume on Roman Broaches, makes Collingwood an intriguing and fascinating subject for study as a person and academic. The Research Companion painstakingly identifies the sources, locations and interest of the whole range of work that Collingwood produced. It builds upon earlier bibliographies, adding a surprising number of published, yet obscure, items to them, but makes its own distinctive contribution to Collingwood scholarship by locating the thousands of letters and other documents that even the most intrepid scholar is unlikely to uncover without the aid of this guide. On page 190, for example, there is a description of a letter Collingwood wrote to The Yorkshire Post, dated 17 August, 1926, in which he discusses 'the relative strength of Roman and Saxon influences on the English character, laws and way of life'. The added value is that the authors of the Companion give contextual references for further clarification; for instance, in this case, the discussion was occasioned by Collingwood's pamphlet The Roman Signal Station on Castle Hill, Scarborough. The modest aim of the guide is to help the specialist and novice in Collingwood studies to make their researches easier by presenting a systematic compendium of resources. The authors have succeeded admirably in their aim, but they have achieved much more. Each of the contributors, James Connelly, Peter Johnson and Stephen Leach are passionate about the work Collingwood produced, and about the man who produced it. The volume therefore exudes an excitement that one does not expect to find in such research companions. We have a very helpful family tree, but of especial interest is the select chronology which is
2016
This paper looks at the correlations between MSS C, D and E of the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' over the course of the eleventh century. It first argues that MSS C, and '√D' and '√E' (the antecessors of D and E, respectively), all begin their lives at Canterbury in the 1040s, with C being allocated to Siward, suffragan bishop at St Martin's; √E earmarked for Wulfric, bishop of St Augustine's; and √D ultimately assigned to the keeping of Ealdred, bishop of Worcester. It then suggests that √D is taken to York as Ealdred's personal copy, kept up there until the archbishop's death in late 1070, removed to Durham just before the attacks on the City, continued at Durham to 1084, and subsequently brought back to Canterbury by 1085, where it is used in the revision of C and of √E, as well as in the making of D. It stresses that D is not in any way a contemporary text; proposes that there is no significant link between C and Abingdon; and suggests that there is scant evidence for an early northern recension of the 'Chronicle'. The analysis relies largely on comparisons between the blocks of composition and the stretches of handwriting in the different texts.
Charters, Northumbria and the Unification of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries*
Northern History, 2015
The extent to which southern kings of England, from the tenth century onwards, were able to claim authority over the kingdom of Northumbria, is a question of considerable importance in any consideration of the unification of England in the Anglo-Saxon period. Scholars have previously made use of a range of historical evidence in the pursuit of answers, including the testimony of, for example, narrative texts, coins and place-names. But the royal charters and diplomas of Anglo-Saxon Northumbria have never before been harnessed in such discussions and this article examines what they reveal about structures of power within England and likewise within Northumbria itself.*
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Authorship and Origins. Part D: The Annals between 891 and 982
2024
This paper dismisses the theory of a common archetype for the different versions of the Saxon Chronicle-an edition which extended only to 891-and argues that the shared source was a 'Base Text', perhaps from the Winchester Old Minster, which was copied at various times between 909 and 920, and sent out to the newly-formed sees at Ramsbury, Crediton, Wells and the New Minster-and, probably, to the existing one at Sherborne. An examination of the extant Chronicle-texts, and a simultaneous consideration of their purported sources, suggests that there was a degree of interaction between these establishments around 946, and again in the 970s, as the different manuscripts came to be updated.