4 - Forgeries and Histories at Christ Church, Canterbury

Summary

THE LOST ANGLO-NORMAN CARTULARY

In 1067, a fire ravaged the monastery and cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury. Coming soon after the Norman Conquest of 1066, this fire allegedly destroyed many documents in the archives. In 1070, a Norman abbot, Lanfranc, was installed as archbishop and embarked on an ambitious reform program. Occurring in rapid succession, these three events provoked rethinking the monastic past for new purposes. The rebuilding efforts over the next two decades – including the scriptorium which had been one of the most productive in early medieval England – transformed Canterbury. The change of regime and even changes to the physical structure of the church all influenced the post-Conquest generation. Unfortunately, no manuscript survives from this time comparable to the Liber Traditionum of Saint-Peter’s, Ghent for the 1030s or the dossier of Saint-Denis for the 1060s. However, an Anglo-Norman cartulary was compiled at Christ Church from the mid-1070s. This cartulary was written in Latin, the language of royal documents after 1070, though it relied on earlier sources in both Latin and Old English. Reconstructing this book alongside surviving charters reveals that the late eleventh century proved a fruitful time for rewriting the past at Christ Church.

A post-Conquest “story” of Christ Church can be gleaned from the lost Anglo-Norman cartulary, a book of charter copies arranged in chronological order. However, understanding its implied narrative (it contained few overt narratives so far as can be determined), requires being aware of an important pre-history, which lay outside the text. In particular, Augustine's mission to England, as related in book one of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, was crucial. Key events from Bede provided a “backstory” for Christ Church. Such events included Pope Gregory the Great sending the mission headed by Augustine to England directly from Rome (ch. 23); the arrival of Saint Augustine on the Isle of Thanet in 597 and King Æthelberht's granting the missionaries a dwelling in the city of Durovernon, described as the metropolis of his realm (ch. 25); and more missionaries arriving from Rome in 601 with a pallium and a letter explaining how the Church in Britain should be organized – in two provinces based at London and York, though all bishops in Britain were to be subject to Augustine's authority (ch. 29).