Register E: the ‘Great Cartulary’ of Christ Church Priory, Canterbury
This article is premised on the author’s MA thesis which was awarded the Kent Archaeological Society’s Thirsk Prize and the Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society’s bi-annual research grant in 2022. It was judged to be a major contribution to the history of Kent.
Register E (hereafter Reg.E) is both an honoured, but significantly understudied cartulary (Fig. 1). Despite having been calendared, cited, catalogued, and criticised in many major studies of Christ Church Priory, Canterbury, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of how, why, and when Reg.E was produced. Reg.E, like many other cartularies, has been more appreciated for its contents than for itself, but its qualities and characteristics do deserve a more holistic examination as they reveal valuable insights into the complex world in which its commissioner, Prior Henry of [pg212]Eastry (in office from 1285-1331; hereafter Henry), and his scriptoria were operating. This article aims to determine what can be learnt by thoroughly reexamining the content, structure, and context of Reg.E, a cartulary now rightly known by the title recently given by Nicholas Brooks and Susan Kelly; the ‘Great Cartulary.’[fn1]
[fg]jpg|Fig. 1 ‘Register E’ (CCA-DCc/Register/E). (Photograph by Dr Toby Huitson; reproduced with the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury.)|Image[/fg]
The late thirteenth century was a critical period for the priory. Mounting pressures from both within and without the monastery pushed newly elected Henry to begin reorganising the priory’s monastic archive, whose navigation became increasingly important as outside entities began to pry into their monastic privileges and properties. The current story tells that Henry commissioned new manuscripts to meet demands, the most significant being two large identical cartularies; CCA-DCc/ Register/E (Reg.E) and its twin (now CCA-DCc/Register/A, B, C & D). Likely some of the priory’s most prized possessions, both contained around 2,000 copies of the monastery’s charters, ranging from its ancient foundations to the early fourteenth century. Although the twin would be significantly modified in the fourteenth / fifteenth centuries, Reg.E survives largely unaltered and allows us a rare glimpse of a monastic cartulary as it was designed and used by the monastery.
Reg.E, amongst numerous muniments preserved by Henry, has garnered praise since the time of Canterbury’s earliest antiquarians and has been used as evidence to restrictively define Henry as a pure bureaucrat. William Somner, author of the influential The Antiquities of Canterbury (1703), heavily relied upon Reg.E for lost charters, and was building upon a long-established tradition of figures like Sir Edward Dering and Archbishop Matthew Parker who were already appropriating material from the Cathedral archives.[fn2]In the nineteenth century, biographer T. F. Tout and Canterbury Cathedral Archivist J. B. Sheppard first associated Reg.E and its contemporaries with Henry’s ‘zeal’ and created the initial Register catalogues, whose notes were used in the Eighth Historical Manuscript Commission (1881; hereafter HMC).[fn3]The next generation, including Irene Churchill and R. A. L. Smith, both of whom pioneered our understanding of Canterbury Cathedral’s administration, further reassembled Henry’s collections and emphasised his managerial efficiencies.[fn4]Smith praised Henry’s financial restructuring and described him and Archbishop Pecham (1279-1292) as ‘two remarkable men with a genius for organisation.’5 Smith’s ideas were readily adopted, and Henry was honoured with his own chapter in David Knowles’ The Religious Orders in England (1948). Knowles’ descriptions are critical, describing Henry as ‘highly intelligent’ and a ‘superbly able man of business’, but spiritually and educationally lacking, with the ‘assurance that often accompanies a limited outlook.’[fn6] Their opinions, bolstered by Mavis Mate’s work on Henry’s financial innovations, would come to inform Barrie Dobson’s influential chapter in A History of Canterbury Cathedral (1995) which described Henry and his community as an administrative apex.[fn7]Subsequent scholars of Henry’s priorate and muniments, excluding John Moon (discussed later), have only enhanced this opinion, arguing further that his bureaucratic influence extended into foreign policy, manorial church restorations and the priory’s Franciscan tutored theological school.[fn8] Although not without supporting evidence, this view implies an apocryphal division between pragmatism, creativity and memory to Henry and Reg.E that was not as well defined in the thirteenth century. Since their research was published, subsequent scholars like Joanne Tucker, Patrick Geary and Trevor Foulds, have [pg213]all emphasised, for other cartularies, that there are multifaceted purposes behind their creation, but the influence of their ideas has yet properly to permeate the discourse surrounding Christ Church Priory’s muniments.[fn9]As such, Reg.E remains frequently described by scholars like Nigel Ramsey, Brooks, Kelly and Mary Berg as a manuscript which conventionally contains all the charters of the monastery.[fn10]It also remains labelled as a ‘general cartulary’ in G. R. C. Davies’ influential catalogue Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (1958, revised 2010); or in other words, the most standard type which contained the ‘entire muniments’ of an institution, usually arranged topographically.[fn11] Admittedly, at first glance, it is not hard to see why, as Reg.E was purposefully designed to be perceived as a comprehensive and impressive collection. The scribes wrote in a display script atop the front folio ‘Registrum omnium cartarum et Composicionum Ecclesiae Cantuariensis’; quite literally, ‘Register of all the Charters and Compositions of the Church of Canterbury.’12 To match this, Reg.E is befittingly large, currently consisting of 406 folios which all measure roughly 410 x 280 millimetres (mm) and 398 of which are made from high-quality unblemished off-white to cream vellum leaves. Their size would suggest that each bifolia (or two folios folded) required one entire animal skin to make, which when summated would suggest Reg.E consumed over 250 animals in its creation alone. This includes the near 50 missing folios whose absences are revealed by analysis of gaps in the medieval foliation and headings.[fn13]Many folios were intentionally left blank at the end of sections in anticipation of later engrossment, and thus were likely recycled once materials became scarce following the cattle plagues from 1319-1320.[fn14]Based upon the 13,730 sheep and 767 cows recorded in Henry’s Memorandum Book, it seems likely the priory drew from their own resources over a prolonged period of time, but the sheer quantity of parchment (even excluding its twin) demonstrates that the priory went to considerable expense.[fn15]Overall, these folios combine to form a manuscript with an imposing size of 420 x 290 x 100 mm, with a content once so extensive it required the restraint of two former hook- clasps, whose downwards force can still be traced in the corrosion that passes through multiple flyleaves.[fn16] the manuscript: creation and contents Beyond its physical form, the priory’s scholars may have been influenced by Reg.E’s uninspiring visual appearance. From the outside, Reg.E appears authoritative, but bland. In 1933, after fundraising by C. Eveleigh Woodruff for repairs, the manuscript was rebound in an undecorated ‘dark brown Nigerian goat skin’ with a ribbed spine, an engraved shelf-mark and two clasps, one of which is broken.[fn17]Although adequate, this cover does detract from the original glamour intended by Henry, as its first binding likely featured five metal bosses in a quincunx pattern (as suggested by the five circles on f.1r and f.402v). The same awe may have been evoked by the very sight of its bulging inner contents, which if commercially copied could have cost between 1d-6d per sheet in scribal labour and which on average amounted to 74 per cent of the total production cost.[fn18]To a modern eye, however, the internal layout is equally drab. Reg.E fits well with Ramsey’s comment that ‘late medieval registers’ were ‘colourless books’, as 383[pg214]folios possess only lines of text, taking up a carefully ruled space of 320 x 210 mm.[fn19]The bulk of entries are copied in a dark brown or black ink and surmounted by a red or blue rubric, which is very common in late thirteenth to early fourteenth century manuscripts. Also, each charter is numbered by an early modern hand and it is this enumeration that will be used to locate discussed charters hereafter, indicated by a precursory ‘E’. On a higher level, each engrossed charter is listed under a three-tiered system in the table of contents (ff.5r-33v), which undoubtedly was inserted once the manuscript was fully compiled.[fn20]Unlike other contemporary cartulary-type manuscripts, like Matthew Paris’ Liber Additarmentorum, which contains vivid illustrations of St Albans’ abbots and benefactors’ coats of arms, Reg.E only contains two small contemporary marginalia.[fn21]One of these, at the base of f.277v, consists of a small self-portrait of a monk’s face with the caption terris quas de mei (‘the land which is mine’) likely alluding to a charter copied above that was relevant to the scribe (Fig. 2).[fn22]
[fg]jpg|Fig. 2 Self-portrait marginalia, Reg.E, f.277r. (Reproduced with the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury.)|Image[/fg]
This scribe’s use of an Anglicana script suggests they may have been one of two scribes or more who copied the charters during Phase 1 (P1) of compilation.[fn23]This phase, first explored by Moon, included copying the main bulk of charters in a carefully planned approach. One of these scribes (1A) copied the P1 charters for the first half of the manuscript, including the ‘codicellus’ section (ff.40r-45r), charters from the archbishop (ff.60v-84r) and charters for the parishes and altars in Canterbury (ff.85r-172r). They did so in a media / formata book-hand script, attempting to balance quality and speed; it’s most identifiable by its textura aspect with straight and thick minims and carefully employed flicked finials. The other scribe (1B) copied all the P1 charters for topographical sections in the latter half of the manuscript. They wrote in neater littera cursiva anglicana documentary formata script, whose elegant style evidently took so long to perfect that 1A took over during the Elverton charters to speed up the process (Fig. 3).[fn24]Once the compilation of P1 finished, copying at the end of most sections became more staggered and less well executed, with the numerous later scribes copying sporadically, accompanied by the downgrading of litterae florissae to literrae notabiliories and thereafter a general lack of any rubrication. In addition, each section of charters engrossed in P1 are organised and grouped dependent upon their contents (discussed more [pg215]later), and these structures disappear after P1 ends. For example, in the Great Chart section, the careful arrangement of land grants, followed by charters for woodland, meadows and rents, degenerates into a disorganised mixture of documents in different hands.[fn25]The only section copied near entirely in an uninterrupted phase other than P1 is the ‘Temporal Liberties’ (TL) section (ff.50r-59r), whose scribe worked around 1326 (long after P1; discussed more below), but they did so in a carefully planned approach which emulated P1.[fn26]
[fg]jpg|Fig. 3 Scribes 1A (until E1661) and 1B (from E1662), alternating on Reg.E, ff.335v- 336r. (Reproduced with the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury.)|Image[/fg]
Within Reg.E’s very ‘general’ arrangement, there is a far more intricate pragmatic design that deserves discussion. The topographically ordered sections are carefully arranged by either their spatial proximity to the priory or by their contemporary administrative denominations (see Appendix). This is best illustrated by the first sections for Berton (ff.85r-89v), Colton (ff.90v-91r), the intramural parishes (ff.94r- 134r) and ‘diversis in Cantuaria’ (‘diverse [places] in Canterbury’; ff.136r-142v), all of the latter falling within the overarching Liberty of the City of Canterbury.
27 Following these are then charters for shrines, altars and reliquaries within the Cathedral precinct, which are arranged in descending order of both their importance and location.28 They begin with charters for the shrine of patron St. Thomas Becket (ff.143r-144v), followed by those located in the Trinity Chapel like the Shrines of St Alphege, Dunstan and Blasius (ff.145r-152r), and then move back through the Choir, Nave and Crypt, before ending in the Infirmary and with anniversary endowments. The remaining topographically ordered sections concern the priory’s manors across England, and these too are arranged spatially and administratively. All the manors in Kent adhere to their contemporary administrative Hundreds, but, more significantly, with their Lathes, a regional administrative division unique to [pg216]Kent that had endured since at least the eight century.[fn29]It appears that the compilers gave this latter division precedence with the initial twelve manors grouped under St Augustine’s Lathe and then grouped at lower level by their Hundred. For example, Ickham and Adisham were together due to both being within the Downhamford Hundred, and in the following Scray Lathe the first two are grouped under the Felborough Hundred. There was some interchange between Hundred and Lathe predominance, but even with estates elsewhere, like Cheam to Risborough in Surrey, or Illeigh to Ashbocking in Suffolk and Norfolk, efforts have been made to align the charters with their relevant judicial authority. Although likely intended simply to aid with navigation and influenced by the contemporary geographic and archival realities, this ordering also undoubtedly reflected the economic and judicial ties with which Reg.E was inextricably linked (discussed further below).
The importance of these ties is revealed when the context of Reg.E’s creation is better understood. Sheppard and the HMC previously believed that Reg.E was made around 1300, but more recent analysis by Moon pushed this further back, suggesting that P1 started around 1285 and finished compilation around 1302-3, based upon a charter (E1489), which he argued gives P1 a terminus ante quem of around King Edward’s death (1307).[fn30]However, based upon a reanalysis of this hand, which is distinctly different from those found in P1, as well as considering the patterns of copying described above and its position as the final charter engrossed in the Little Chart section, this charter must be a later insertion.[fn31]When we tabulate all 655 datable charters (Fig. 4) which we can firmly say are in P1, it appears that the bulk of copying took place throughout the 1290s, with the P1 scribes ceasing [pg217]work near entirely as of 1300 and possibly returning to copy a few individual entries as late as 1310.[fn32]Following their departure, we see a rapid increase in later contemporary scribes from the mid-to-late 1290s onwards, who added newly acquired charters onto the end of completed sections.[fn33]We must treat this data with caution, as only around 40 per cent of all the charters are datable, but it does provide a fitting timescale that aligns with intense demands for legal evidence that both Christ Church and all monasteries in England were experiencing in the late thirteenth century.
[fg]jpg|Fig. 4. Tabulation of datable charters by their phase of compilation. (Reproduced, with alterations, from Knight, ‘Great Cartulary’, p. 61.)|Image[/fg]
the national context of register e’s production With King Edward I came a considerable shift in the legislative programmes towards land ownership and procurement. In 1279, inspired by the problems arising from population growth and land subdivision, Edward issued the Statute of Mortmain, requiring the Church to seek royal licences to acquire new property. The Statute of Quia Emptores followed in 1290, preventing the alienation of land by subinfeudation and only allowing transferal by substitution.[fn34]Undoubtedly, this caused anxiety for a monastery with a portfolio as large as Christ Church, and it’s likely their individual worries were exacerbated as Mortmain was issued during a land-related conflict with their patron Archbishop Pecham. We should not overemphasise how personal this retaliation was towards the archbishop and priory as Douie Decima once argued, but Moon and Michael Clanchy rightly comment that these reforms put an emphasis on the ‘burden of proof.’35 This increasing pressure must even have been felt by Henry himself, as he still held connections to the archbishop, having only just left the previous Archbishop Kilwardby’s household in 1275, immediately before he held multiple manorial administration positions, including Monk-Warden and Custodian of the Essex estates (1275-1282), before becoming Priory Treasurer in 1282 and then prior in 1285.[fn36]
It is probably unhelpful to consider the impact of Mortmain on the priory’s archive as ‘self-explanatory’ as Moon stated, because the policy was initially ineffective.[fn37]Ernest Jones showed that for smaller Benedictine houses like Crowland, Thorney and Spalding, considerable assets were acquired without licences following 1279, due largely to a lack of royal investigation.[fn38]Mate has argued the same sentiment for the first 15 years (1285-1300) of Henry’s priorate, as over £650 was invested in land acquisition.[fn39]This line of argument is manifested in Reg.E, as no Mortmain licences were engrossed during P1, or even when compiling the majority of the Temporal Liberties section (ff.50r-59r). The first charter which mentions Mortmain is dated to 1302 (E136), and two others are dated to 1316 and 1321 (E137-138) and were copied later. Although we can intuit that both statutes began a legislative evolution that would have a long-term impact on Christ Church, we should instead focus on the programmes that were directly inquiring into the priory’s business during Henry’s formative years and earliest years as prior; those being the Quo Warranto proceedings.
Much like Mortmain, the Quo Warranto proceedings resulted from Edward I’s attempts to instill his royal authority through judicial procedure. From 1274 onwards, Edward ordered the creation of the ‘Hundred Rolls’, essentially an updated record of who held the liberties and power in each Hundred. These rolls have [pg218]been described as a ‘second Domesday’, but like Mortmain, its ill-implementation limited its success.[fn40]Nevertheless, it did still provide a near comprehensive insight into land ownership on a micro-level, notably in Kent where Christ Church was a dominant landowner. Following their collection, Edward utilised this data to issue the Statutes of Gloucester (1278) and Quo Warranto (1290), both of which required liberty holders to demonstrate in local ‘general eyres’ Quo Warranto, literally ‘by what warrant’, they held such privileges.[fn41]The impact this had on manorial records and cartulary production has been identified nationwide. Foulds points to a rapid increase in cartulary production around 1300 as the pressure on charter evidence became crucial, and Clanchy illustrated the fears manifested in the Liber Memorandorum, a cartulary of Barnwell Priory in Cambridgeshire, in which the monastery copied not just their own muniments, but those of ‘other institutions’ which concerned their monastery.[fn42] These examples link with a wider trend in cartulary historiography which ties their production to periods of crisis.[fn43]This line of argument has already been applied to other local cartularies, including the 1240 cartulary from St Gregory’s Priory, possibly created in reaction to contests over their relics of St Mildred and patronage of Archbishop Lanfranc, and to the 1389 cartulary from Dover Priory whose authors claimed that their archives’ decay necessitated its creation.[fn44]Additionally, the priory’s own Anglo-Norman cartulary (now lost) has been convincingly linked by Robin Fleming with the political landscape following the Norman Conquest, arguing that scribes copied and arranged its contents to emphasise narratives and facts ‘that were woefully unclear in the originals.’45 That the crisis resulting from a combination of Quo Warranto and the Hundreds Rolls affected the priory and its direct associates is evident from the production of Archbishop Kilwardby and Archbishop Pecham’s manorial surveys of 1273-4 and 1283-5. Both gave accounts of the obligations, customs and expenses for their Kentish estates, aligning them closely with the details recorded in the Hundred Rolls, and the transcriber of Pecham’s surveys, Kenneth Witney, also argued that their creation ‘chimed’ with Quo Warranto and the evolving issues of land ownership.[fn46]Edward’s legislation has also been repeatedly cited as the impetus for the increasing production of thematically similar ‘Custumal’ manuscripts, which recorded the social, economic and political customs of a manor. Local examples include the Sandwich Custumal produced in 1301, which would have been of special interest to Christ Church due to its role as a local landholder in the port, the Custumal of Battle Abbey, and a mysterious non-extant ‘Custumal of Kent’ which was possibly related to the 1293 Canterbury eyre; copies of which were in the possession of both the priory and the archbishop in the fourteenth century.[fn47] Alongside their manorial surveys, the archbishop’s household also produced their own cartulary, Lambeth Palace Library MS 1212 (hereafter Lambeth MS 1212), from the 1270s onwards for the archbishop’s clerks, one of which was likely Henry.[fn48]We have no direct evidence that Henry himself had a role in its creation, but his proximity and occupation would undoubtedly have brought him in contact with its contents and compilation. In fact, we know Henry had a personal insight into the archiepiscopal archives, as he directed Archbishop Meopham in 1329 to the location of a Dover Priory charter from King Henry II which he had personally been shown by Archbishop Walter Reynolds in the Archbishop’s Palace [pg219]
in Maidstone.[fn49]Admittedly, this was long after Henry departed the Archbishop’s household, and additionally after Pecham moved the Canterbury branch of the archiepiscopal archives from Christ Church to St Gregory’s Priory around 1285.[fn50]Regardless, it is evident that archival collusion between patron and client was frequent, and it is likely that following Pecham’s restructuring, the incentive to reformulate the priory’s own now fully delineated muniments, possibly in surveys that closely mirrored the archbishop’s, increased exponentially.
That Reg.E came from the same legislative milieu is exemplified in its internal arrangement. At the sectional level, ordering by Lathes before Hundreds is reflective of the contemporary local judicial system, in which each Lathe was administered by a single adjudicating bailiff, and it was against this system that both the 1273 and 1293 eyres were arbitrated.[fn51]On the charter level, the charters are often similarly arranged by their legally relevant content. For example, in the home manors of Chartham and Godmersham (ff.230r-276v), both within the Felborough Hundred, the sections begin with grants for land or tenement (E983-1019 and E1252-1268), followed by meadows and pasture (E1020-1081 and E1269), then woodland (E1082-1146) and finally rents (E1158-1252 and E1295-1314).[fn52]This arrangement allowed Henry to review the muniments in his possession and their categories quickly upon request, which is exactly what happened for manors in the Felborough Hundred in the 1279 eyre. Both eyres were directly informed about the priory’s manorial holdings by the local jurors examined for the 1274 Hundred Rolls. They claimed that ‘the Prior of Christchurch’ had control of all rabbit warrens, waterways and land, including the rights of ‘gallows’, ‘bread and ale’, in the ‘the whole of Chartham and Godmersham manors’, and had so since ‘ancient times.’53 Crucially the jurors did not know ‘by what warrant’ the priory held such rights, and it was that ambiguity that John de Reygate in the 1279 eyre ordered the monastery to clarify.[fn54]They were requested to show evidence for ‘liberam warennam’ (free warren), and ‘sak & sok’ (sake and soke), on ‘strone & streame’ (streams and rivers) and ‘wode and felde’ (woods and fields), in groupings which closely align with those in Reg.E.[fn55]Despite such extensive demands, the priory fared well in the eyre, which as Donald Sutherland points out was not uncommon for legally literate monasteries.[fn56]In fact, ever since the priory had gained independence in its liberties and franchises via an agreement with the archbishop in 1259, they had obtained particular legal protections they could wield to avoid investigation.[fn57]For example, Henry’s predecessor Thomas Ringmere utilised a ‘return of writs’, in combination with a non-intromaittat clause found in a litterae clausae from the archbishop during the 1279 eyre to avoid proving a claim.[fn58]Nevertheless, such circumstances and their increasing likelihood to reoccur would certainly have prompted the need for a new reworking of the muniments to address such inquisitions.
It is also important to highlight that, despite this careful copying and arrangement, Reg.E would never have been used in an eyre. As historians like Joanne Tucker, Constance Buchard and Foulds have often argued, cartularies were only ever reproductions, akin to a ‘photocopy’ which no contemporary justiciar would have trusted over an original.[fn59]For example, during the 1293 eyre (during Reg.E’s compilation), the court was shown charters issued by Kings Edward the Confessor, William and Henry I for the priory’s rights in the Cinque Port of Sandwich, two of which are engrossed in Reg.E (E64 and E111). Both are referred to with the [pg220]ablative ‘cartis’ (‘from/in the charters’), suggesting the originals were presented as would have been customary.[fn60]This precedent of charter over cartulary can be seen in Register I, another small composite cartulary produced during Henry’s priorate, which listed the locations of the priory’s muniments amongst the engrossed charters, so the reader could refer to the originals.[fn61]In Lambeth MS 1212 also, the scribes cross-referenced their engrossed charters with the fourteen ‘vasa’ (drawers) where the originals were stored, thus providing them with an authenticating source.[fn62] The only known contemporary location of Reg.E also sheds light on its referential design and association with the contemporary legal climate. Upon Henry’s death in 1331, he gifted his manuscripts to the monastery, including Reg.E which was listed amongst his ‘Libri de Iure Civili’ (Books of Civil Law).[fn63]This collection was likely housed in the prior’s chambers, which Henry built between 1285-90 above the ‘Dark Entry’, opposing the Cheker and treasury to the south which were only thinly separated by a dual stairway with neighbouring doors.[fn64]Reg.E sat wedged between books crucial for manorial administration, including Henry’s ‘Memoriale multorum’ (Memorandum Book) containing similar data like charters, legal cases and surveys, and two other registers for monastic offices and holidays. The wider collection also contained legal codices, like the ‘Liber de Statutis Regni Anglie’ (Book of the Statutes of the Kings of England) and the ‘Liber de legibus Anglie qui dicitur Bracton’ (Book of the Laws of England called Bracton).[fn65]The latter is significant, as Sutherland points out, it was on Henry of Bracton’s legal treatises that the ‘regalian nature of all franchises’ and Edward’s right to investigate Quo Warranto was based, and the associated statutes which necessitated Reg.E’s creation were undoubtedly in the former.[fn66] register e: the importance of memory and history Another significant aspect of Reg.E is its memorial and historical functions. The priory manipulated their muniments for centuries before Henry or Reg.E, both in narrative historia like Eadmer’s Historia Novorum or Gervase of Canterbury’s Chronica, but also in legal contests like their battle for ecclesiastical primacy over York, from which historians like R. W. Southern, C.N.L. Brooke and Robert Berkhofer have demonstrated the priory repeatedly foraged papal charters.[fn67]This trend only continued following St Thomas Becket’s martyrdom, as the priory was investigated by envoys of Pope Gregory IX in 1238 over the foraging of the ‘Magna Carta Beati Thomas.’68 That Henry also did not distinguish between memory and modern administration is best exemplified by his copy of the Historia Trianorum et Grecorum (believed to be London, British Library, Add. MS. 45103), which was included in his Civil Law collection.[fn69]Within is a ‘seamless combination’ of ancient and early medieval historical prose by Dares of Phrygia, Maurus Servius Honoratus and Fredulf of Lisieux, alongside a Statute of Edward I.[fn70]Their association likely resulted from ideological links made by Edward I’s government in conjoining his ambitions to conquer Wales and Scotland with the pseudo-histories of Troy and Britian’s founder ‘Brutus’, but what this manuscript demonstrates is that there was a certain degree of historical and legal collusion deemed valid in Henry’s management.[fn71] Recognising memorial qualities in Henry’s work began with T.L. Hogan’s 1966 [pg221]study of Henry’s Memorandum Book, which he suggested Henry designed as ‘a memorial’ to himself rather than ‘memoranda’.[fn72]This was furthered by Moon who suggested Henry may also have ‘envisioned’ Reg.E as a memorial ‘to Christ Church itself’.[fn73]Although a significant leap forward, Moon meant to use Reg.E as an example of a wider ‘institutional memory’ and only briefly touched upon its intricate details and arrangement, leaving a considerable avenue for exploration. The most obvious area for memorial intentions is in the ‘Codicellus’ (ff.40r-45r) and ‘Carte Regum Anglie de Libertate Ecclestiastica’ (ff.46r-48r) sections, both of which were chronologically arranged during P1, containing charters stretching from the eighth-thirteenth centuries, and located at the forefront of the manuscript. As Geary and Georges Declerq point out, a chronological arrangement of charters is memorially significant as it indicates an intention for commemoration, and their positioning in Reg.E is undoubtedly intentional as they form a historical foundation for the subsequent 350 folios of contemporary charters.[fn74]If we also maintain that Quo Warranto was contextually significant for Reg.E, then we know these charters must have served an ulterior purpose, as they existed beyond the ‘limits of legal memory.’ In the Statutes of Westminster (1275) and Quo Warranto (1290), King Edward declared that only evidence after 1189 needed consideration, and it was against this date that the royal attorney John Mutford adjudicated at the 1293 Kent eyre. This ruling was even reaffirmed in royal writ sent on 12 July 1293 to the Kent justices ordering that ‘narrations shall be limited to the time of King Richard and after …’.[fn75] The collection of ‘codicellus’ charters is of particular interest, as it contains 20 pre-Conquest charters dating from between 774-1023 in both Latin and Old English. For these charters we have direct evidence to show Henry’s scriptoria was being intentionally manipulative. Kathryn Lowe pointed out that the P1 scribes of the Old English charters intentionally copied them with more legible, contemporary Middle English forms and purposefully trimmed their witness lists.[fn76]The surviving original single sheet charters also have multiple endorsements in a late thirteenth century hand corresponding with their display in Reg.E, which Brooks and Kelly also suggest is reflective of their shared container in Henry’s ‘charter-aumbry’ in Prior Wibert’s treasury.[fn77]For example, BL Stowe Charter 27 (E48), is endorsed in thirteenth to fourteenth century hands with ‘XII’ (corresponding to its twelfth position in the ‘codicellus’ section), the named parties like ‘Odo’ (Archbishop Oda) and ‘ethelwirde’ (King Æthelweard) and the date ‘anno dccccᴼ.lviiiᴼ’ (958 ad), which notably is absent in the original text and therefore retroactively researched and applied by Henry’s scribes.[fn78]In fact, all charters in the ‘codicellus’ section are provided speculative dates and ordered by them, showing a direct intention at historical orientation. It should also be noted this dorsal enumeration was also practised in Lambeth MS 1212, which could have been a plausible source of inspiration (Fig 5).[fn79]
[fg]jpg|Fig. 5. First half of charter E48, with retroactively applied dates in the rubric (Reg.E, f.42v). (Reproduced with the permission of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury.)|Image[/fg]
Initially, the ‘codicellus’ charters seem ‘miscellaneous’ (Brooks and Kelly’s description), and this is likely due to a lack of survival.[fn80]By the 1290s, the priory’s collection of pre-Conquest charters was probably already fragmentary because of age and several debilitating fires. A catastrophic fire in 1174 necessitated the partial reconstruction of the Cathedral and the fire of 1067, according to Eadmer’s Life of Bregwine, supposedly ‘reduced’ many of the priory muniments ‘to nothing’.[fn81]
[pg222]Although likely exaggerated, the rapid increase in charter forgeries from the 1070s onwards does suggest considerable losses.[fn82]That said, we know that the priory had more than the 20 codicellus found in Reg.E. as 85 pre-Conquest charters, dated roughly from 679-1066, were copied into Register P, a smaller cartulary made during Henry’s tenure for Walter de Norwich, Monk-Warden of the East Anglian estates.[fn83]As Fleming points out, some of these charters were likely copied from the Anglo-Norman cartulary, also a source for the Archbishop’s Lambeth MS 1212, so we know more were available.[fn84]Brooks and Kelly have suggested the 20 charters in Reg.E were chosen due to their significance and storage by the high altar, and although not improbable, this is speculative and a close reading of the charters themselves reveals a more intentional arrangement.[fn85]
When read in order, the ‘codicellus’ charters lead us through a series of concatenating grants from connected lineages of kings, archbishops, and nobles. They begin with grants from King Offa (E37-E38) and his son Coenwulf (E39-E40), whose exchanges connect us to the next charters with successive Archbishops Athelheard (E41), Wulfred (E42-E43) and Ceolnoth (E44). With the rise of the Wessex regime comes charters from King Ecgberht (E45) and his son Aethelwulf, followed by a grant from an ‘Ealdorman Aelfred’ (E46), likely meant as King Alfred as indicated by the applied date ‘871’.[fn86]During the ninth and tenth centuries, the quality of the priory’s scriptoria degraded, and Reg.E scribes began utilising charters like E47, a low-quality eleventh century forgery from Kings Edmund, Eadred and Eadwy, which they probably saw no inauthenticity in copying.[fn87]The charters then begin covering grants for wealthy estates like Ickham (E48), Bocking (E49 & E50) and Hollingbourne (E51), exchanged with local noble Aethelweard and King Aethelred, whose son Athelstan’s ‘will’ (E51) provides a fitting introduction to the reigns of King Cnut, his priest Archbishop Eadsige (E52-E53) and the claims to their estates at Stistede (E54) and All Saints, London (E55).
With these charters, we see the priory engaging in a process described by Amy [pg223]Remensynder as ‘imaginative memory’; a purposeful curating of their past for their present circumstances.[fn88]These glittering historical patrons provided the priory with a prestigious bulwark against royal aggressions, whilst also demonstrating their affinity with royalty. For example, the scribes chose to engross forged charters (E37-E38) for lands they no longer held, primarily because they anachronistically call their early patron King Offa ‘rex totius Anglorum’, a title only attributed from 928 onward to King Athelstan, rather than his actual ‘rex Merciorum’, which he is titled in other charters engrossed in both Register P and Lambeth MS 1212.[fn89]Choosing to start with Offa’s patronage was likely also intentional, as the conflicts between Offa and Archbishop Jaenberth over primacy in Lichfield was intimately remembered in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum and, later, Matthew Paris’s Vita duorum Offarum, which were progressively circulated.[fn90]Another telling example includes the copying of the same forged charter twice; both concern King Cnut’s grant of Sandwich, accessibly recorded in both Latin (E56) and Middle English (E57), likely in defiance of King Edward’s forced acquisition of the port’s privileges in 1290.[fn91]This charter emphasises an equality of power between King and priory, with Cnut personally placing his crown on the high altar.[fn92]Although undoubtedly a forger’s fantasy, the tone it sets primes the reader for the following Ecclesiastical Liberties section (ff.46r-48r), which contains 4 similarly themed charters from Kings William, Stephen and John affirming Canterbury’s primacy over York and rights to free elections. The final of these charters (E61) is also a copy of the priory’s own Magna Carta, which evidences both their prestige by holding a copy, but also demonstrates an effort to resist royal infringement.[fn93] This interplay of pragmatism and memory is also encountered in the topographical sections, recognisably in the arrangement around familial groups. Identifying a similar layout in the cartulary of Rievaulx Abbey, Emilia Jamroziak argued this acted as ‘a way of mapping the world’, how ‘people and places were related’, and in turn preserved ‘the memory of the institution, its property, and the people who were its benefactors.’94 For families like the ‘de la Lees’, whose 18 charters in Ickham in Reg.E record a traceable four generation chronology, the need to assure their spiritual and financial remembrance would have been immense.[fn95]Their substantial land holdings provided financial incentives and their ancestor Roger (issuer of E655-657A) was previously prior (1234-1244) and therefore would have warranted obligatory memorial and intercessory prayer.[fn96]Many family members were likely also still active in monastic and manorial affairs during Reg.E’s compilation, as we also know was the case for the local ‘great men’ jurors who testified for 1274 Hundred Rolls.[fn97]Of the 12 who testified in the Felborough Hundred, many continued to issue and witness charters. One, Giles de Forstalle, was witnessing exchanges (E1010) until 1282 and he would have warranted remembrance as he individually issued charters like E1032 and E1198.[fn98]In addition, he also issued charters E303 and E1018 with his mother and brothers, whose shared ownership was likely a product of unique Kentish gavelkind customs which stressed familial ties.[fn99]This unique set of customs, possibly contested at the 1293 Canterbury eyre, proscribed that property or land should be inherited and divided equally amongst all male heirs, and that given a surviving widow remained unmarried, she was entitled to portions of her husband’s lands.[fn100]It is likely for this reason that Giles with brothers, Simon and William, and mother Hawise, conjointly quitclaimed rents (E303) and why his widowed sister-in-[pg224]law Maud’s charter (E1019) remains grouped with them following Simon’s death.[fn101]These customs not only impacted the wider land market by fragmenting larger estates, thus warranting Edward’s legislative reforms, but they also put pressure on major landowners like the priory to keep track of transactions and the relevant familial relationships which dictated them.
Conclusion
As generations of scholars have repeatedly discovered, there is always more to Henry’s muniments than previously known, and Reg.E is another example where our understanding continues to broaden. Beyond simply being a comprehensive survey, Reg.E was a living and thriving tome which was frequently consulted and carefully curated for its contemporary climate. Rather than just being one of Davies’ ‘general cartularies’, Reg.E was designed to be an integral part of Henry’s wider collection of managerial resources. It functioned as multiple tools; as a broad referential guide to their muniments, as a written map of their benefactors’ complex social networks and as a historical companion to the priory’s prestigious past, all laid out in ways that provided an accessible and dynamic answer to their problems. Although no longer appearing as visibly impressive as its compilers intended, its contents still maintain the steady hand of Henry’s scriptoria and warrants its title; the ‘Great Cartulary’ of Christ Church Priory.[pg225]
For this article, the author has provided a simplified tabulation of the internal content and sections, but for a full breakdown of the manuscript charter content, refer to: George Knight, ‘The “Great Cartulary” of Christ Church Priory: Manuscript, Muniments and Memory’ (unpublished Masters dissertation; University of Kent, 2021), p. 65.
Category Institutional Charters Liberty of Canterbury Charters Shrines and Altars within the Cathedral Precinct Charters for Manors in Kent Folios Section5r – 33v Table of Contents –
34r – 35v Charters of the Kings of France 36r – 38v Rents and Tolls of Diverse Men in France 40r – 45r Codicils 46r – 48v Ecclesiastical Liberties 50r – 59v Temporal Liberties 60v – 84r Charters and Compositions of the Archbishops 85r – 89v Berton 90v – 91r Colton 94r – 98r Parish of Northgate 99r – 100r Parish of Saint Alphege 101v – 104r Parish of All Saints 105r – v Parish of Holy Cross, Westgate 106v – 114r Parish of St Mildred 115r – v Parish of St Margaret 116v – 117r Parish of St Mary Bredin 118r – 123v Parish of St Andrew 125r – 126r Parish of St George 127r – 129v Parish of St Mary Magdalene 130v – 132r Parish of St Mary, Queningate 133r Parish of St Michael, Burgate 134r Parish of St Paul 136r – 142v Diverse Places in Canterbury 143r – 144r Shrine of St Thomas Becket 145r – 152r Shrines of St Alphege, St Blasius and St Dunstan 153r – 154r Altar of St Martin 155r – v Altar of St Anselm 157r – 158r Altar of St John the Evangelist 159r Altar of St Gregory 159v – 160r Altar of St Michael 161r Atlar of St Edward 161v Altar of the Holy Cross in the Nave 163r – 166v Altar of St Mary in the Nave 167r – v Altar of St Mary in the Crypt 168v – 169r Altar of St Mary in the Infirmary 170r – 172r Charters for Anniversaries 173r – 188r Ickham 190r – 193r Aidsham 195r – 198r Eastry 200r – 201v Sandwich 203r – 205r Monkton 206r – 211v Moningham 212r – 217v Langedun 218r – 221r Fordwich 222r – 223r Thornden 223v Seasalter [pg226]
Charters for Manors in Kent (cont.)
Charters for Manors outside of Kent
Fines, and Levies 223v – 224v Greenway 225r – 228v Blean 230r – 262r Chartham 263r – 276v Godmersham 277v – 279r Brook 279v – 281r Mersham 282v – 284v Ruckinge 285v – 287v Appledore 288v Agney 288v – 289r Orgarswick 289r – 290r Fairfield 291r – 295r Westwell 296r – 299r Great Chart 301r – 304v Little Chart 305v – 310v Hollingbourne 312v – 317r Loose 318r – 322v Farleigh 323r West Farleigh & Teston 325r Peckham 326r – 327r Berksore 327r – 328r Laysdone 329r – 340v Elverton 341r – 342r Copton 343v – 344r Cliffe 344v Cooling 345r – 346r Osterland & Hoo 347r – 348v Meopham 349v Farningham 350r – 351v Orpington 353r – 357v London & Southwark 358r – 363v Walworth 364r Cheam 365r – 367r Merstham 367v Horsley 368v – 369r Halton 370r – 373v Risborough 374r – 375r Newington 375v Brightwell 376r Charlwood 376v Southchurch 377r Middleton 378r–v Lawling 379r – 383v Bocking 384r Mersea 385r – 387v Illeigh 389r – 390v Hadleigh 391r – 394v Deopham 395r Doccombe 396r – v Ashbocking 397r – 400v Diverse Places in England 306r – 316r (In Register B) Fines levied in the King’s Court [pg227]endnotes
[fn]1|Charters of Christ Church Canterbury Part 1, ed. by N.P. Brooks and S.E. Kelly, Anglo-Saxon Charters 17 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 102.[/fn]
[fn]2|William Somner and Nicholas Batteley, The Antiquities of Canterbury: In Two Parts (London: R. Knaplock, 1703), p. 144.[/fn]
[fn]3|CCA-DCc/LA/5/56; Literae Cantuarienses: The Letter Books of the Monastery of Christ Church Canterbury, ed. by Joseph Brigstocke Sheppard, The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland During The Middle Ages (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1887), I, p. xxviii; Thomas F. Tout, ‘Henry of Eastry (d.1331)’, in Dictionary of National Biography, ed. by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1885), XXVI, pp. 117-18; Eighth Report of the Royal Commission of Historical Manuscripts: Report and Appendix (Part 1) (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1881), viii, p. 316.[/fn]
[fn]4|Irene Josephine Churchill, Canterbury Administration: The Administrative Machinery of the Archbishopric of Canterbury Illustrated from Original Records (London: SPCK, 1933), I, p. 220.[/fn]
[fn]5|R.A.L. Smith, Canterbury Cathedral Priory: A Study in Monastic Administration, Cambridge Studies in Economic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 20.[/fn]
[fn]6|David Knowles, Religious Orders in England, Reprinted (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), I, p. 51; Margaret Sparks, ‘Henry of Eastry, Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, 1285- 1331’, Canterbury Cathedral Chronicle, 79, 1985, p. 14.[/fn]
[fn]7|Mavis Mate, ‘The Impact of War on the Economy of Canterbury Cathedral Priory, 1294-1340’, Speculum, 57.4 (1982), 761–78 (passim); Mavis Mate, ‘The Indebtedness of Canterbury Cathedral Priory 1215-95’, The Economic History Review, 26.2 (1973), 183–97 (passim); Mavis Mate, ‘Property Investment by Canterbury Cathedral Priory 1250-1400’, Journal of British Studies, 23.2 (1984), 1–21 (passim); Barrie Dobson, ‘The Monks of Canterbury in the Later Middle Ages, 1220- 1540’, in A History of Canterbury Cathedral, ed. by Patrick Collinson, Nigel Ramsay, and Margaret Sparks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 89–98.[/fn]
[fn]8|John Oxley Moon, ‘Managing Jurisdictions at Canterbury Cathedral Priory in the High Middle Ages, 1285-1331’ (University of Kent, 2012), (passim); Charles Coulson, ‘Prior Henry (1285 - 1331) - Rescuer of Eastry Church’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 139 (2018), 199 (pp. 199– 200); Catherine Royer-Hemet, ‘Henry Eastry: An Eminence Grise at the Priory of Christ Church, Canterbury’, in Canterbury: A Medieval City (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), p. 200; Keith Parfitt and Sheila Sweetinburgh, ‘Further Investigations of Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Eastry’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 129 (2009), 313-32 (pp. 315-16); Mary Berg, ‘Twelfth-and Early Thirteenth-Century Charters Containing Pledges Naming Thomas Becket’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 125 (2005), 291–310 (passim). Michael Robson, ‘Franciscan Lectors at Christ Church Cathedral Priory, Canterbury, 1275-1314’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 112 (1993), 261-282 (p. 281).[/fn]
[fn]9|Joanna Tucker, Reading and Shaping Medieval Cartularies, Studies in Celtic History (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2020), p. 24; Trevor Foulds, ‘Medieval Cartularies’, Archives: The Journal of The British Records Association, 27.77 (1987), 3–33 (p. 8); Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 84.[/fn]
[fn]10|Nigel Ramsay, ‘The Cathedral Archive and Library’, in A History of Canterbury Cathedral, ed. by Patrick Collinson, Nigel Ramsay, and Margaret Sparks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), passim; Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church Canterbury Part 1, p. 80; Berg, p. 296.[/fn]
[fn]11|G. R. C. Davies, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. by Claire Breay, Julian Harrison, and David M. Smith, Revised Ed (London: The British Library, 2010), pp. xv, 37.[/fn]
[fn]12|Reg.E, f.5r; All translations in this article are the author’s.[/fn]
[fn]13|For more discussion on the gaps in foliations, see George Knight, ‘The “Great Cartulary” of Christ Church Priory: Manuscript, Muniment and Memory (unpublished Master’s dissertation, University of Kent, 2021), p. 16’.[/fn]
[fn]14|Other relocated folios include a section of royal fines (2 folios) rebound by cathedral auditor Samuel Norris (1717-1753) into CCA-DCc/Register/B (ff.441r-453v) following the Audit House fire of 1670 and one folio of charters for St Mary’s altar in the Cathedral Nave (Reg.E, ff.163r-167r) which was purposefully removed by Sir Edward Dering (1598-1644) to London, British Library, Add. MS. 25109, 228 REGISTER E: THE ‘GREAT CARTULARY’ OF CHRIST CHURCH PRIORY, CANTERBURY ff.1r-2v; Bruce M.S. Campbell, ‘Agriculture in Kent in the High Middle Ages’, in Later Medieval Kent, 1220-1540, ed. By Sheila Sweetinburgh, Kent History Project 9 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2010), p. 48; Ramsay, p. 380; M. M.N. Stansfield, ‘Recovering the Past: The Aftermath of Canterbury Cathedral’s Audit House Fire of 1670’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 117 (1997), 37-50 (p. 44).[/fn]
[fn]15|Smith, p. 153.[/fn]
[fn]16|Reg.E, ff.1r-3v, 402v[/fn]
[fn]17|This was first noted by former archivist William Urry in 1965, who wrote in pencil ‘clasp broken. W. U. 8 April 1965’ on the inside of the back board, but the clasp remains broken. A. E. Oakley, Repair and Rebinding of the Monastic Registers 1906-1938 (Canterbury, 1987), p. 7.[/fn]
[fn]18|Rodney M. Thomson and others, ‘Technology of Production of the Manuscript Book’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, ed. by Nigel J. Morgan and Rodney M. Thomson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), II, pp. 76–77; Joanne Filippone Overty, ‘The Cost of Doing Scribal Business: Prices of Manuscript Books in England, 1300-1483’, Book History, 11 (2008), 1–32 (p. 5).[/fn]
[fn]19|Nigel Ramsay, ‘Archives Book’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, ed. by Nigel J. Morgan and Rodney N. Thomson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), II, p. 430.[/fn]
[fn]20|Moon, p. 64.[/fn]
[fn]21|London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero D I, ff.30r-73v, 171r-v[/fn]
[fn]22|The other is found on f.302v, but features no caption.[/fn]
[fn]23|M. B. Parkes, English Book Hands 1250-1500 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2008), pp. xiv-v.[/fn]
[fn]24|Reg.E, ff.335v-366r[/fn]
[fn]25|Reg.E, ff.299v-r[/fn]
[fn]26|For further discussion and examples of the phases and scribes, see Knight, “Great Cartulary”, pp. 19-20.[/fn]
[fn]27|The parishes are also arranged in an anti-clockwise order within the intramural spaces of the city.[/fn]
[fn]28|R. Willis, The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral, Reprint Ed (Richmond: Tiger of the Stripe, 2006), pp. 42-43[/fn]
[fn]29|For a full mapped breakdown, see ‘Appendix 3’ in Knight, “Great Cartulary”, p. 62; An Historical Atlas of Kent, ed. by Terence Lawson and David Killingray (Chichester: Phillimore & Co. Ltd, 2004), p. 59.[/fn]
[fn]30|Eighth Report of the Royal Commission of Historical Manuscripts: Report and Appendix (Part 1), viii, p. 330; Moon, pp. 64–66.[/fn]
[fn]31|For more discussion, see George Knight, ‘The “Great Cartulary” of Christ Church Priory: Manuscript, Muniment and Memory (unpublished Master’s dissertation, University of Kent, 2021), pp.20-21; Reg.E, ff.303r-304v.[/fn]
[fn]32|The latest datable charter from P1 is E1806, a charter from clerk ‘Robert de Middeltone’ exchanging land in Walworth in 1298. It should be noted that this charter is copied in the Walworth sections (ff.358r-363v), near the end of Reg.E, and therefore likely late during P1’s compilation.[/fn]
[fn]33|‘Later cursive’ hand in Fig 3 refers to later insertions, likely middle to late fourteenth century (or later). ‘TL’ refers to the scribes of the Temporal Liberties section, discussed elsewhere.[/fn]
[fn]34|Michael Prestwich, Edward I, Yale English Monarchs Series (London: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 251.[/fn]
[fn]35|Moon, p. 114; M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307, Third Edit (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), pp. 171–73; Decima L. Douie, Archbishop Pecham (London: Clarendon Press, 1952), p. 97.[/fn]
[fn]36|Moon, p. 72.[/fn]
[fn]37|Moon, p. 100.[/fn]
[fn]38|Ernest D. Jones, ‘The Crown, Three Benedictine Houses, and the Statute of Mortmain, 1279- 1348’, Journal of British Studies, 14.2 (1975), 1–28 (pp. 19–20).[/fn]
[fn]39|Mate, ‘Property Investment by Canterbury Cathedral Priory 1250-1400’, p. 10.[/fn]
[fn]40|Sandra Raban, A Second Domesday? The Hundred Rolls of 1279-80 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 58. 229 GEORGE KNIGHT [/fn]
[fn]41|Donald. W. Sutherland, Quo Warranto Proceedings in the Reign of Edward I, 1278-1294 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 14; David Crook, Records of the General Eyre (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1982), p. 1.[/fn]
[fn]42|Foulds, p. 17; Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307, p. 173.[/fn]
[fn]43|Foulds, p. 29; Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307, p. 104; Francesca Tinti, ‘Si Litterali Memorie Commendaretur: Memory and Cartularies in Eleventh-Century Worcester’, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, 1st Edition (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 475–76.[/fn]
[fn]44|Sheila Sweetinburgh, ‘Anglo-Saxon Saints and a Norman Archbishop: “Imaginative Memory” and Institutional Identity at St Gregory’s Priory, Canterbury’, in The Regular Canons in the Medieval British Isles, ed. by J Burton and K Stober (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2012), p. 32; Francis Wormald, ‘The Monastic Library’, in The English Library before 1700, ed. by C. E. Wright and Francis Wormald (London: The Athlone Press, University of London, 1958), pp. 26–27; David Grant Walker, ‘The Organisation of Material in Medieval Cartularies’, in The Study of Medieval Records: Essays in Honour of Kathleen Major, ed. by Donald A. Bullough and R. L. Storey (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 149; Foulds, p. 23.[/fn]
[fn]45|Robin Fleming, ‘Christ Church Canterbury’s Anglo-Norman Cartulary’, in Anglo-Norman Political Culture and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Proceedings of the Borchard Conference on Anglo-Norman History, 1995, ed. by C. Warren Hollister (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1997), pp. 93–94.[/fn]
[fn]46|Jennifer Ward, ‘The Kilwardby Survey of 1273-4: The Demesne Manors of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Later 13th Century’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 128 (2008), pp. 107–28; Kenneth P. Witney, The Survey of Archbishop Pecham’s Kentish Manors 1283-5 (Maidstone: Kent Archaeological Society, 2000), pp. ix–x.[/fn]
[fn]47|Justin P. Croft, ‘The Custumals of the Cinque Ports c.1290- c.1500: Studies in the Cultural Production of the Urban Record’ (University of Kent, 1997), pp. 33–34; Custumals of Battle Abbey, in the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. (1283-1312): From MSS. in the Public Record Office, ed. by S. R. Scargill-Bird (London: Camden Society, 1887); Felix Hull, ‘The Custumal of Kent’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 72 (1958), 148–59 (p. 148); Felix Hull, ‘John de Berwyke and the Consuetudines Kancie’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 96 (1980), 1–16 (pp. 14–15) <https://kentarchaeology.org.uk/arch-cant/ vol/96/john-de-berwyke-and-consuetudines-kancie>.[/fn]
[fn]48|Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church Canterbury Part 1, p. 97.[/fn]
[fn]49|Sheppard, I, p. 295.[/fn]
[fn]50|Jane E. Sayers, ‘The Medieval Care and Custody of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Archives’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 39.99 (1966), 95–107 (p. 105).[/fn]
[fn]51|Crook, p. 220.[/fn]
[fn]52|In Chartham’s case, 12 charters referring to mills precedes the final rents (E1147-1157); unsurprising considering Mate estimated they generated around 10 per cent of the Priory’s annual income. Tim Tatton-Brown, ‘The Parish Church of St. Laurence, Godmersham: A History’, Archaeological Cantiana, 106 (1988), 45-82 (p. 50) <https://kentarchaeology.org.uk/node/12208>; Mate, ‘Property Investment of Canterbury Cathedral Priory’, p. 14[/fn]
[fn]53|Kent Hundred Rolls Project, trans. by Bridgett Jones (Maidstone: Kent Archaeological Society, 2007), p. 49.[/fn]
[fn]54|Bridgett Jones, p. 49.[/fn]
[fn]55|William Illingworth, Placita de Quo Warranto Temporibus Edw. I, II & III. in Curia Receptae Scaacarii Westm. Asservata (London: G. Eyre and A. Strahan, 1818), p. 325.[/fn]
[fn]56|Sutherland, p. 137.[/fn]
[fn]57|Dobson, p. 75; Smith, pp. 84–85.[/fn]
[fn]58|M. T. Clanchy, ‘The Franchises of Return of Writs’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 17 (1967), 59–82 (p. 69).[/fn]
[fn]59|Tucker, p. 21; Foulds, pp. 31–32; Constance B. Bouchard, ‘Monastic Cartularies: Organizing Eternity’, in Charters, Cartularies, and Archives: The Preservation and Transmission of Documents in the Medieval West, ed. by Anders Winroth and Adam J. Kosto, Papers in Mediaeval Studies (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2002), p. 25. 230 REGISTER E: THE ‘GREAT CARTULARY’ OF CHRIST CHURCH PRIORY, CANTERBURY[/fn]
[fn]60|Illingworth, p. 348.[/fn]
[fn]61|CCA-DCc/Register/I, ff.57v-80v, 449r-473v[/fn]
[fn]62|Sayers, pp. 99–100.[/fn]
[fn]63|CCA-DCc/Lit/MS/E/27, f.20r.; For transcription and discussion see: Montague Rhodes James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover. The Catalogues of the Libraries of Christ Church Priory and St. Augustine’s Abbey at Canterbury and of St. Martin’s Priory at Dover (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), pp. 143–45; Moon, p. 95.[/fn]
[fn]64|London, British Library, MS Galba E iv., f.101r; Nicola Coldstream, ‘The Nova Opera of Prior Henry of Eastry’, in Medieval Art, Architecture & Archaeology at Canterbury, ed. by Alixe Bovey, 1st Edition (London: Routledge, 2013), p. 145; Margaret Sparks, Canterbury Cathedral Precincts: A Historical Survey (Canterbury: Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, 2007), pp. 53–54.[/fn]
[fn]65|Another manuscript listed is called ‘Libri qui dicitur Rageman’ (Book called Rageman), which could be a copy of the ‘Ragman Rolls’ in which King Edward exacted fealty from Scotland in the 1290s, or, as Moon, p. 93 believes, the ‘Statute of Rageman’ (1276) which was related to the Hundred Rolls and eyres; CCA-DDc/Lit/MS/E/28, f.20r; Prestwich, p. 97; Helen M. Cam, The Hundred and the Hundred Rolls: An Outline of Local Government in Medieval England (London: The Merlin Press Limited, 1963), pp. 45–46.[/fn]
[fn]66|Sutherland, p. 14.[/fn]
[fn]67|C. N. L. Brooke, ‘The Canterbury Forgeries and Their Author’, The Downside Review, 69.216 (1951), 210–31 (pp. 230–31); R. W. Southern, Saint Anslem: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 359–64; Robert F. Berkhofer III, ‘The Canterbury Forgeries Revisited’, in The Haskins Society Journal 18: 2006. Studies in Medieval History, ed. by Stephen Morillo and Diane Korngiebel, New Edition (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007), pp. 45–46.[/fn]
[fn]68|C. R. Cheney, ‘Magna Carta Beati Thome: Another Canterbury Forgery’, Historical Research, 36.93 (1963), 1–26 (pp. 18–19).[/fn]
[fn]69|CCA-DCc/Lit/MS/E/27, f.20r; R. Flowers, ‘A Manuscript of French Poetry’, The British Museum Quarterly, 12.2 (1938), 40–43 (p. 43).[/fn]
[fn]70|Frederic Clark, The First Pagan Historian: The Fortunes of a Fraud from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 111.[/fn]
[fn]71|Jaclyn Rajsic, ‘The Brut: Legendary British History’, in Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500-1500, ed. by Jennifer Jahner, Emily Steiner, and Elizabeth M. Tyler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), p. 75.[/fn]
[fn]72|T. L. Hogan, ‘The Memorandum Book of Henry of Eastry, Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury’ (London School of Economics and Political Science, 1967), p. 398 <https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails. do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.508059>.[/fn]
[fn]73|Moon, p. 55.[/fn]
[fn]74|Geary, p. 155; Georges Declercq, ‘Originals and Cartularies: The Organisation of Archival Mem- ory (Ninth-Eleventh Centuries)’, in Charters and the Use of the Written Word in Medieval Society, ed. by Karl Heidecker, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2000), pp. 152–55.[/fn]
[fn]75|Sutherland, pp. 107–8, 212–13, 226.[/fn]
[fn]76|Kathryn A Lowe, ‘“As Fre as Thowt”?: Some Medieval Copies and Translations of Old English Wills’, English Manuscript Studies, 1100-1700, 4 (1993), 1–23 (p. 15); Kathryn A Lowe, ‘A New Edit- ion of the Will of Wulfgyth’, Notes and Queries, 36.3 (1989), 295–98 (pp. 295–97).[/fn]
[fn]77|Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church Canterbury Part 1, p. 102.[/fn]
[fn]78|London, British Library, Stowe Charter 27, f.1v. Due to unforseen circumstances at the British Library, an image of the dorse of Stowe Charter 27 could not be acquired and replicated. Please see the charter for the transcribed text.[/fn]
[fn]79|Sayers, pp. 99–100.[/fn]
[fn]80|Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church Canterbury Part 1, p. 102.[/fn]
[fn]81|Bernhard W. Scholz, ‘Eadmer’s Life of Bregwine, Archbishop of Canterbury, 761-764’, Traditio, 22 (1966), 127–48 (p. 144).[/fn]
[fn]82|Ramsay, p. 346; Berkhofer III, pp. 39–45. 231 GEORGE KNIGHT [/fn]
[fn]83|‘Canterbury, D.C., Reg. P’, The Electronic Sawyer, 2010.[/fn]
[fn]84|Fleming, p. 87.[/fn]
[fn]85|Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church Canterbury Part 1, p. 102.[/fn]
[fn]86|Charters of Christ Church Canterbury Part 2, ed. by N. P. Brooks and S. E. Kelly, Anglo-Saxon Charters 18 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 807.[/fn]
[fn]87|Nicholas Brooks, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Cathedral Community, 597-1070’, in A History of Canterbury Cathedral, ed. by Patrick Collinson, Nigel Ramsay, and Margaret Sparks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 19; Nicholas Brooks, The Early History of the Church in Canter- bury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066, Studies in the Early History of Britain, Paperback (London: Leicester University Press, 1996), pp. 171–74.[/fn]
[fn]88|Amy G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France (New York: Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 1–4.[/fn]
[fn]89|Reg.E, f.40r-v; Sarah Foot, Athelstan: The First King of England, Yale English Monarchs Series (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), pp. 26–27; Brooks and Kelly, Charters of Christ Church Canterbury Part 1, pp. 408–9.[/fn]
[fn]90|Bjorn Weiler, ‘Monastic Historical Culture and the Utility of a Remote Past’, in How The Past Was Used: Historical Cultures, c.750-2000, ed. by Peter Lambert and Bjorn Weiler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 94–95; Brooks, The Early History of the Church in Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066, pp. 114–16.[/fn]
[fn]91|Helen Clarke et al, Sandwich: The ‘Completest Medieval Town in England’: A Study of the Town and Port from Its Origins to 1600 (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2010), p. 55.[/fn]
[fn]92|Reg.E, f.45r[/fn]
[fn]93|Reg.E, ff.47r-48v; David Carpenter, ‘Magna Carta 1215’, The Magna Carta Project, 2015 <https://magnacartaresearch.org/read/!inline/magna_carta_copies/Magna_Carta_1215>[accessed 21 October 2023].[/fn]
[fn]94|Emilia Jamroziak, Rievaulx Abbey and Its Social Context, 1132-1300: Memory, Locality, and Networks, Medieval Church Series 8 (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2005), p. 27.[/fn]
[fn]95|Reg.E, ff.173r-174v[/fn]
[fn]96|Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066-1300: Volume 2, Monastic Cathedrals, ed. by Diana E. Greenway (London: Institute of Historical Research, 1971), II, pp. 11–12; Dobson, pp. 73–74.[/fn]
[fn]97|Helen M. Cam, The Hundred and the Hundred Rolls: An Outline of Local Government in Medieval England (London: The Merlin Press Limited, 1963), pp. 45-46[/fn]
[fn]98|Reg.E, ff.232v-r, 235v, 254r.[/fn]
[fn]99|Reg.E, ff.107v, 233v-r.[/fn]
[fn]100|Mavis Mate, ‘The Economy of Kent, 1200-1500: An Age of Expansion, 1200-1348’, in Later Medieval Kent, 1220-1540, ed. by Sheila Sweetinburgh (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2010), pp. 1–2; Hull, ‘John de Berwyke and the Consuetudines Kancie’, pp. 1–4.[/fn]
[fn]101|Reg.E, f.234r.[/fn][pg232]