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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
page 62 note 1 With regard to these lists and to similar ones in the pages which follow, it is, of course, true that the documents are by no means all of equal authority. For the purposes of the present enquiry, however, this is not of prime importance, for forgers and modifiers of charters usually had documents before them, which provided models for lists of signatures, and, although they often produce impossible lists, if chronological details are considered, their products, considered in bulk, are not likely to be misleading on broad questions such as, Did the queen usually sign immediately after the king in a given period ? In deciding such a question, quantity rather than quality of evidence is called for: one document, though extant in a fine contemporary copy, may be abnormal, but the agreement of ten, even if they are known only from cartularies, and include some forgeries, provided they are derived from a variety of sources, will point to a norm. I omit from the enquiry, however, documents which are palpably absurd, usually mentioning the omission in a footnote.
page 62 note 2 Except B. 972, an O.E. abstract of a document of uncertain value belonging to the politically abnormal period of the ascendency of Eadwig's wife and her mother. In the text of K. 404 printed in Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey (Rolls Series, i. 340–1) the name of Ælfgifu, wife of Eadmund I, is added at the top of the list of signatures with the title regina (in itself suspicious at that date). No doubt a scribe has ‘ improved ’ this document.
page 63 note 1 See Stevenson's Asser, p. 201.
page 63 note 2 B. 589 is signed by Eadweard the Elder's wife and mother after the king, but there are no other witnesses above the rank of minister.
page 63 note 3 I disregard B. 883, 909, 911, as their lists of signatures have been hopelessly garbled.
page 63 note 4 Birch has misunderstood the arrangement of the signatures: cf. the reproduction in Ordnance Survey Facsimiles, ii, Charter in Record Office.
page 63 note 5 See B.M. Facsimiles, iv. Corrigenda.
page 64 note 1 leave out of consideration the ridiculous forgery, K. 643.
page 64 note 2 I omit K. 720, where there are no ecclesiastical signatories in the extant text, the wild forgery K. 723, the highly abnormal 1309, where the princes follow the duces, and 706, where they are inserted among the bishops.
page 65 note 1 I omit the abnormal K. 709, where the royal family, headed by the queen, come after the archbishops and one bishop, and the rest of the bishops follow, them (the document is in any event a forgery), and K. 1304 (= Crawford Collection, 11), where the queen comes between, and the princes follow, the archbishops. In the next reign,, Emma signs between the archbishops again once (K. 727), but the division of the royal group is confined to K. 1304 in the eleventh century, so the document is to be regarded as abnormal.
page 65 note 2 This is confirmed by an interesting group of unpublished charters of Æthelred in MS. Hengwrt 150 (Burton Register). In seven documents with dates running from 1007 to 1012 the members of the royal family present sign immediately after the king. Emma signs only one of these seven documents; her signature precedes those of the princes.
page 65 note 3 See above, pp. 59–60.
page 65 note 4 This has a joint signature of the king and queen, see above, p. 58.
page 65 note 5 See above, p. 60.
page 65 note 6 See above, p. 59.