Archives containing Anglo-Saxon charters
Anglo-Saxon charters owe their survival, whether in their 'original' single-sheet form or in cartulary copies, to the fact that they came to be preserved among the muniments of medieval religious houses (mainly Benedictine abbeys, and cathedral churches), generally (though by no means invariably) as title-deeds for estates belonging to the religious house in question. In the case of the abbeys, the muniments were dispersed following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s; some of the muniments (whether single-sheet charters, or cartularies) passed into the aristocratic hands of those who acquired the estates of the dissolved houses (continuing, in effect, to serve as title-deeds for the estates, and in several cases still preserved in the same secular archive) and others were exposed to more uncertain fates. In the case of the cathedrals, the muniments might have survived more or less intact into the seventeenth century; some were then dispersed when churches were ransacked during the Civil Wars of the 1640s, and others were given away or sold by their custodians to anyone with a reason to want them (including collectors and antiquaries). The dispersal of monastic and episcopal muniments, the formation of the major collections in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the development of scholarly interest in Anglo-Saxon charters throughout this period, constitute an important area of study; for the subject is interesting in its own right, and is the context in which most discoveries of 'new' charters are likely to be made.
The 'archives' which contain charters are largely notional, in the sense that the charters formerly preserved in one archive or another are now scattered in libraries, museums, record offices and stately homes throughout the county (and in a few libraries overseas). The four largest 'archives' (Abingdon, Christ Church, Canterbury, the Old Minster, Winchester, and Worcester) contain between 160 and 275 texts apiece; four other archives (Bury St Edmunds, St Augustine's, Canterbury, Glastonbury, and Westminster) contain between 50 and 60 charters; about twelve archives contain between 20 and 50 charters; about fourteen archives contain between 5 and 20 charters; and the rest contain 5 or less. A rough analysis of the complete corpus of charters, archive by archive, is presented below. The analysis shows, incidentally, what material is available for the study of each of the houses in question, and gives an idea how the charters will be distributed among the constituent 'archival' volumes of the series published under the auspices of the Joint Committee on Anglo-Saxon Charters.
List of archives containing Anglo-Saxon charters
Short accounts or profiles of each archive, with a list of charters in the archive and a select bibliography, will be mounted on the website (and made accessible by links from the list below) when more space is available on the server. It should be emphasised that the information is not yet in its final form, and that it remains subject to revision and refinement. It will be incorporated in S. D. Keynes, Anglo-Saxon Charters: Archives and Single Sheets, Anglo-Saxon Charters Supplementary Series 2 (Oxford, forthcoming).
Continental archives
Charters of uncertain provenance
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