Athelstan, Edmund, and Ethelred are known only in the form of this Latin version Bk. ii. is a collection of state papers, comprising the coronation charter of Henry I., his enactment concerning the hundred and shire courts, and various documents regarding the investiture struggle (mainly in defence of Gerard of York). Bk. iii., on legal procedure, and bk. iv., on theft, are not extant, and perhaps were never written as planned by the author.

$37. CHARTERS AND OTHER DIPLOMATA.

The diplomata include public and private instruments which often pass under the general name of charters. They were introduced into Anglo-Saxon England by the clergy soon after the coming of St. Augustine, and comprise land-books, or donations of land (chiefly to churches), grants of privileges or immunities, wills, manumissions, acquittances, marriage contracts, and minutes of transactions (mainly regarding lands) which took place in witenagemots, synods, and shire courts. They are of great value for the study of the early history of institutions; they throw light upon the law of real property, classes of society, the nature of tenures and services, the functions of the witan and local public courts, the powers of royalty, and the relations of the crown to the church and to the nobles; they often elucidate the royal dooms, and supplement the annals. Their importance for the study of English history is well illustrated by the deductions recently drawn from them by Maitland in his Domesday Book and Beyond.

The chief repositories of these documents are the libraries of the British Museum, the universities, and the various cathedrals. Some of them are extant in their original form; many are later copies which have been preserved in monastic chartularies or episcopal registers (§§ 34, 57); others survive in the form of enrolments and exemplifications in the 'cartæ antiquæ' and confirmation rolls of the Public Record Office (No. 1413). About a quarter of them are written in Anglo-Saxon; the rest are either in Latin or partly in each language. Most of the wills, the earliest of which date from the first half of the ninth century, are in Anglo-Saxon. Kemble, Brunner, Aronius, and Giry (No. 233) contend that the charters and other legal documents were not drawn up by official chancery scribes before the time of Edward the Confessor; but W. H. Stevenson, in the English Historical Review, 1896, xi. 731-44, believes that the Anglo-Saxon kings had an organised body of royal clerks corresponding to the chancery of the continent.

The systematic study of the Anglo-Saxon diplomata was begun by George Hickes in his Dissertatio Epistolaris, 1703 (No. 234), and he deserves much credit for what he accomplished. The next great

investigator in this field was Kemble, whose Codex, with all its defects, still remains the most comprehensive collection. Birch's Cartularium is more complete (to A.D. 975), and in some respects it is superior to Kemble's Codex; but it is far from being a satisfactory or an ideal edition. The seven volumes of facsimiles issued by the British Museum and the Ordnance Survey (Nos. 257-8) are of considerable value. The useful collections of Earle and Thorpe are largely selections from Kemble. The third volume of Haddan and Stubbs's Councils (No. 1424) contains many charters taken from Kemble's Codex and Dugdale's Monasticon, with valuable notes. Some interesting donations of lands to Welsh monasteries, from the sixth century onward, are printed in chapter vii. of F. Seebohm's Tribal System in Wales, London, 1895; and many early charters relating to the bishopric of Llandaff will be found in Liber Landavensis (No. 2674).

The best general account of the charters is furnished by Kemble (No. 1419). See also Aronius, Brunner, and Earle (Nos. 1410, 1412, 1416); F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book, 2nd essay; Palgrave, English Commonwealth, ii. 204-26.

1410. ARONIUS, JULIUS. Diplomatische Studien über die älteren angelsächsischen Urkunden [to A.D. 839]. Königsberg, [1883]. pp. 90.

Criticises Kemble's Codex and analyses the structure of the charters. Agrees with Kemble and Brunner in believing that there was no royal chancery in England before the time of Edward the Confessor. Valuable.

1411. *BIRCH, W. DE GRAY. Cartularium Saxonicum: a collection of charters relating to Anglo-Saxon history. Vols. i.-iii., A.D. 430-975. London, 1885 [1883]-93. Index Saxonicus: an index to the names of persons in Cartularium Saxonicum, 1899.

Contains 1354 documents, many of which are not in Kemble's Codex. Includes pieces not of a strictly diplomatic character, such as professions of obedience made by newly-elected bishops, papal correspondence, etc. The two documents anterior to A.D. 604 are a charter and a letter of St. Patrick. Birch adheres more closely to the text of the MSS. than Kemble does, but his critical apparatus of notes, etc., is very meagre : he does not profess to be 'the critical expositor' of the contents of the charters. See also his paper, The Anglo-Saxon Charters of Worcester Cathedral (a calendar, etc., of the charters), British Archæol. Assoc., Journal, 1882, xxxviii. 24-54.

1412. BRUNNer, HEINRICH. römischen und germanischen Urkunde.

Das angelsächsische Landbuch, 149-208. charters, etc. Valuable.

Zur

Rechtsgeschichte der

Vol. i. Berlin, 1880. Examines the structure of the

1413. Calendar of royal charters which occur in letters of inspeximus, exemplification, or confirmation, and in cartularies, in the public record office. Pt. i., from Æthelbert of Kent to William II. Deputy Keeper's Reports, xxix. 7-48. London, 1868.

Contains an abstract of their contents.

1414. Cartularium Saxonicum Malmesburiense. [By Thomas Phillipps. Middle Hill Press, 1831.] pp. 25.

Twenty-nine Latin charters; most of them are earlier than 1066, and are printed in Kemble's Codex.

1415. DAVIDSON, J. B. On some Anglo-Saxon charters at Exeter. British Archæol. Assoc., Journal, xxxix. 259-303. London, 1883.

Edits fifteen documents, A.D. 938-1069, five of them never before printed; only four of the fifteen are in Kemble's Codex. See also his paper, On the Charters of King Ine, Somersetsh. Archæol. and Nat. Hist. Soc., Proceedings, 1885 [1884], xxx. pt. ii. 1-31.

1416. EARLE, JOHN.

other Saxonic documents.

A hand-book to the land-charters and
Oxford, 1888.

A selection of about 250 well-edited documents, some of which are not printed by Kemble or Birch. An elaborate introduction deals with the structure and language of the charters, and with the origin of the manor; much attention is devoted to gesiths and laenland. Earle believes that at the time of the Conquest the military chiefs or captains were placed over the conquered villages, thus becoming manorial lords with police and military functions; he identifies them with the gesiths. See W. H. Stevenson's criticism in English Historical Review, 1889, iv. 353-9.

1417. HEMING.

Hemingi Chartularium ecclesiæ Wigorniensis,

ed. Thomas Hearne. 2 vols. Oxford, 1723.

Heming was sub-prior of Worcester while Wulfstan (d. 1095), at whose command he compiled this precious chartulary, was bishop. Most of the charters are royal grants of the 9th and 10th centuries, which are reprinted in Kemble's Codex.

1418. HOARE, R. C. Registrum Wiltunense, Saxonicum et Latinum, A.D. 892-1045. London, 1827.

A chartulary of Wilton abbey, in the British Museum. Contains thirty-four documents, all printed in Kemble's Codex.

1419. *KEMBLE, J. M. English Hist. Soc. 6 vols.

1369 documents, from A.D.

Codex diplomaticus ævi Saxonici. London, 1839-48.

604 to about 1061. Some of them are inac

curately printed, either because they were not collated with the originals or with

the oldest copies, or because an attempt was made to construct a composite text based upon various MSS. The elaborate introduction in vol. i. deals with the origin of charters, their structure, and their contents; see also the prefaces in vols. iii. and vi.

1420. NAPIER, A. S., and STEVENSON, W. H. The Crawford collection of early charters and documents now in the Bodleian library. Oxford, 1895. .

Nineteen documents, A. D. 739-1150, eight of them never before published; with elaborate notes. A model edition.

1421. STEVENSON, W. H. The Anglo-Saxon chancery: a history of the charters of the old English kings. In preparation.

1422. THORPE, BENJAMIN. Diplomatarium Anglicum ævi Saxonici: a collection of English charters, from A.D. 605 to William the Conqueror, with a translation of the Anglo-Saxon. London, 1865.

About 325 documents, in large part a selection from Kemble's Codex, arranged under four heads: (1) miscellaneous charters, excluding simple grants of land; (2) wills; (3) gilds; (4) manumissions and acquittances. About twenty pieces in the Diplomatarium (including three of the four collections of gild statutes) were not printed by Kemble.

$ 38. ECCLESIASTICAL SOURCES.

a. Canons, Penitentials, etc., Nos. 1423-9.

b. Homilies, Nos. 1430-33.

c. Monastic Rules, Nos. 1434-40.

d. Vitæ et Epistolæ, Nos. 1441-71.

The materials relating to church history may be classified as follows:

1. The chronicles, laws, and charters included in §§ 34, 36, 37. Among the chronicles Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica is the most important; Elmham and the monastic histories of Abingdon, Ely, Hyde, and Ramsey are also useful. See C. W. Schoell, De Ecclesiasticæ Britonum Scotorumque Historia Fontibus, Berlin, 1851, pp. 80; he treats of Gildas, Bede, Nennius, Annales Cambriæ, Tigernach, etc., especially as sources for the history of the Celtic church. Among the dooms of the Anglo-Saxon kings (§ 36) we find many ecclesiastical laws, and separate collections of these were made by the witan under Edmund, Edgar, Ethelred, and Cnut; they are printed in the editions of the Anglo-Saxon laws mentioned

in § 36. churches.

Most of the charters (§ 37) are grants of lands to

2. Various lists of bishops which accompany the royal genealogies. See No. 1368.

3. The four categories of sources considered below, in this section. Of these the most valuable for historical purposes are the canons and the 'vitæ et epistolæ.'

By far the most important collection of materials to A.D. 870 is that of Haddan and Stubbs (No. 1424). For other general collections of records, see § 16 c. The modern literature relating to the Anglo-Saxon church will be found in § 47.

a. CANONS, PENITENTIALS, ETC.

The canons and other records of the transactions of church councils to A.D. 870 are set forth by Haddan and Stubbs (No. 1424), and those from 870 to 1066 by Johnson, Wilkins, and Thorpe (Nos. 621, 631, 1427). The penitential books are collections of Latin penitential canons issued under the authority of some eminent prelate for the purpose of establishing the uniform administration of discipline in the church; they prescribe specific penances for certain sins, such as drunkenness, perjury, avarice, homicide, fornication, etc. The earliest penitentials, those of Ireland and Wales, belong to the fifth and sixth centuries, and are printed by Haddan and Stubbs and Wasserschleben, who also edit the penitential books of Theodore of Tarsus, Bede, and Egbert, archbishop of York (d. 766). See Haddan and Stubbs, i. 117–20, iii. 173-213, 326-34, 413-31. Theodore's book was compiled under his direction by one of his disciples. There is a good short account of penitentials in Smith and Cheetham's Dictionary of Church Antiquities (London, 1880), ii. 160816.

The Regula Canonicorum of Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, A.D. 742-66, is printed in Luc d'Achery's Spicilegium, 1723, i. 565-83, and in Migne's Patrologia, 1850, lxxxix. 1057-1120; it was based on the Benedictine rule, and was adopted by some churches of England.

1423. [GREENWELL, WILLIAM.] The pontifical of Egbert, archbishop of York, A.D. 732-766. Surtees Soc. Durham, etc., 1853.

A pontifical is a service-book containing the offices performed by a bishop, such as those for the consecration of bishops and churches, the coronation of kings, etc. The coronation services are on pp. 100-105 of Greenwell's edition; for lists of MS. pontificals, see ibid., pp. vii.-xi., and No. 2215.