The scope, arrangement, and purpose of the 'Classified List'
The 'Classified List' provides a comprehensive list of all Anglo-Saxon charters which survive in single-sheet form: not only those written in script judged to be contemporary with the given date, but also those which on the basis of script or other internal features are judged to be 'later copies', or 'forgeries', made before the end of the Anglo-Saxon period (c. 1100), as well as some written later. Needless to say, the distinctions are often hard to draw, and would not always be easy to defend or to explain.
The majority of the items in the list are Latin diplomas, issued in the names of kings, or other ruling authorities, from Hlothhere, king of Kent (673-85), to Edward the Confessor (1042-66). Also included, however, are royal writs, episcopal leases, wills, and other documents, whether written in Latin, or in the vernacular, or in a combination of both.
Single-sheet documents written before c. 1100 are listed in Sections I-II (nos. 1-294). Some purportedly 'Anglo-Saxon' charters, preserved in single-sheet form but written in the twelfth century or later, are listed in Section III (nos. 295-315); it should be noted that this section makes no claim to be complete (though it should be found to contain most twelfth- and thirteenth-century examples). These are followed in turn by some very interesting examples of script-facsimiles, or transcripts (nos. 316-18), made in the early modern period.
The main purpose of the list is to provide a convenient form of access, and reference, to a substantial body of material which is not as accessible as it might be, yet which is fundamental to our knowledge and understanding of many different aspects of the Anglo-Saxon past. The significance of this material can be summarized under several inter-related headings.
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General
Most Anglo-Saxon charters are preserved only as copies of originals now lost, entered in the cartularies of religious houses compiled at different times between the eleventh and the sixteenth century. Medieval copyists often took liberties with the texts, by abbreviating, modernizing, or in other ways tampering with their exemplars; and the result is that in their transmitted form charters can owe as much to the agencies of their preservation as to the agencies of their production. The significance of charters still extant in single-sheet form is, of course, that they preserve the text as originally written, whether copied from a written source (an earlier charter, or a memorandum used for some part of the main text, or for the boundary clause, or for the witness-list), or whether composed de novo by the scribe. But there is more to it than that. The survival of a charter in its original single-sheet form affords a special opportunity for the close examination of its script, and for the appreciation of other 'physical' or external features of a kind which are lost in the process of copying: e.g. the preparation of the parchment; the design of the pictorial invocation (cross, chrismon, or other device); the layout of the main text, bounds, dating-clause, and witness-list; the relationship between writing and folding; the occurrence of alterations and additions, made by the main or by other scribes; the form and positioning of any contemporary endorsements; traces of a wrapping-tie, seal, or other feature bearing on the production, use, or treatment of the document; and indications of later ownership, ranging from archival endorsements to marks of ownership in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. -
Methodology
It has long been a basic principle of diplomatic (the study of charters) that priority should be given to charters extant in their original single-sheet form, and that such charters should constitute the basis on which to assess the authenticity of charters preserved only in later copies. The principle is sound, in principle; but in reality it is desirable from the outset to look beyond the single sheets, and to recognize that agreement between charters preserved only in later copies, but independently of each other (i.e. in the archives of different religious houses), can be no less important in establishing some basic truths about the charters of a given period. The danger lies in arguing that a charter is authentic simply because it is written in script judged to be of the appropriate kind for the given date: (a) because palaeography is not an exact science, and does not admit such close dating of script; (b) because it might turn out that the basis for judging the script to be contemporary would prove to be its occurrence in this charter. The authenticity of a charter preserved in single-sheet form cannot be taken for granted; the matter will turn not only on close examination of the script, but also on the examination of other external features, and on assessment of the text in relation to the corpus of charters as a whole. -
Palaeography and diplomatic
The corpus of charters which can be identified as 'original' and authentic forms the basis for our knowledge of the development of the charter in the Anglo-Saxon period, providing dated and in certain respects localised specimens of script from the late seventh to the late eleventh century, and throwing light on changing circumstances in the production of charters throughout the same period.
Language and literature. In the same way, the corpus of charters judged to be 'original' constitutes a quantity of dated and to some extent localised specimens of Latin and vernacular texts, and thus provides material which can serve as a basis for linguistic and literary analysis. These charters can be set beside the corpus of charters preserved in non-contemporary forms, acting as a control when deploying charter evidence as a whole. They give rise in themselves to numerous matters of interest, such as the quality of Latin learning displayed by a particular scribe, or scriptorium, at a particular period, or the treatment of 'local' spellings or vocabulary in the boundary clauses (which might have originated in the locality and been copied elsewhere). -
Ritual and ceremonial
Charters and law-codes form the basis of almost all that is known about the periodic meetings of the king and his councillors, and of the procedures and ceremonial involved. Close examination of charters, in particular, reveals much about the composition of the king's 'council', and about attendance at these meetings; and it is possible to derive useful information from charters about the way in which business was conducted. Close examination of charters preserved in their original single-sheet form can reveal traces of successive stages in the production of a charter, which might be consistent with the use of the document in a ceremony of conveyance, or with interesting procedures or complications in the production process. For example, special interest attaches to the detection of apparent 'stages' in the insertion of operative details (e.g. the name of the beneficiary, or of the place concerned), or in the insertion of the vernacular boundary clause, or in the provision of names for the witness-list. -
Political, ecclesiastical, administrative and economic history
Charters lie at the heart of our knowledge of many different aspects of Anglo-Saxon history, for what they can tell us about contemporary nomenclature, aspects of royal government and administration, dealings with religious houses and secular society, and the use of land, money, and other resources. Special interest must attach to those charters which are preserved in their original form, though it would be hazardous ever to take them in isolation from charters preserved only in the form of cartulary copies. Charters which can be shown to have been altered, or fabricated, whether before or after the Norman Conquest, are naturally of interest in their own right, whether as evidence of the use of the written word for nefarious purposes, or as evidence of aspirations entertained on behalf of individuals or religious communities. -
The Anglo-Saxon landscape
Boundary clauses occur in Anglo-Saxon charters from the late seventh century onwards, cast initially in Latin, in a relatively simple format, but from the mid-ninth century cast generally if not invariably in the vernacular. A 'classic' tenth-century vernacular boundary clause, delineating the outer perimeter of a rural (or in some cases an urban) estate, has much to offer, not least in presenting a puzzle for the local historian to 'solve', often providing evidence of extraordinary continuities in land usage. Yet beyond that, the boundary clause can rise to considerable heights as a description of the landscape, replete with interesting features (roads, rivers, hills, woods, barrows, or other people's boundaries), and affording considerable scope for further analysis (e.g. linguistic usage, regional variation, changes with the passage of time). Yet boundary clauses were susceptible, in the process of copying, to modernization and adaptation; so it is especially valuable to be able to see what they look like in their 'original' form, and to ponder how they originated and were then transmitted to the scribe of the charter. -
The use of the written word
The majority of the charters in the list are royal diplomas; but of course the diplomas should not be allowed to deflect all due attention from the wide variety of other forms of documentation which proliferated in the Anglo-Saxon period (even if we lack so much of what must once have existed). Vernacular documents have much to suggest about the use of the written word in the ninth century, and provide a background for the proliferation of wills, records, and other agreements in the tenth and eleventh centuries, as well as a context for the emergence into view of the vernacular royal writ, towards the middle of the eleventh century. Episcopal leases, in Latin and in the vernacular, were perhaps once more common than the incidence of surviving examples would suggest. -
Archival factors
In considering the evidence of single sheets, it is always important to bear in mind how the evidence has been distorted by the supposed or so-called 'accidents' of survival. It is not of course the case that other things were ever equal; so that the unusually large number of single sheets from Canterbury, for example, means not that its archives necessarily contained more charters by the end of the Anglo-Saxon period than archives elsewhere, but that circumstances happened to be conducive at Canterbury to the survival of its single sheets, for reasons to be sought in its history between the ninth and the seventeenth centuries. We have to imagine that archives of religious houses, and even of laymen, were once abundant, and that what has chanced to survive from each ecclesiastical archive is but a poor reflection of what once existed.
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