Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T22:37:23.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Priests of the King's Reliquary in Anglo-Saxon England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2016

JAMES LLOYD
JAMES LLOYD*
Affiliation:
Green Leas, Orchard Way, Cranbrook, Kent TN17 3LN; e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

That the priests of the Anglo-Saxon royal household functioned as a primitive chancery is a popular and reasonable hypothesis, corroborated both by contemporary continental practice and by the overlap between chancery and chapel evident from the twelfth century to the fourteenth. Evidence for an Anglo-Saxon chancellorship as such, however, remains frustratingly elusive. This paper argues for the existence of a special tier of priests entrusted with the king's reliquary and archive. It examines their role in the royal household, resolving conflicts in the evidence, to argue that the later office of chancellor evolved from their office.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 265 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Attempts include Stevenson, W. H., ‘An Old-English charter of William the Conqueror in favour of St Martin's-le-Grand, London, A. D. 1068’, EHR xi (1896), 731–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 731–5; Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066–1154, i, ed. H. W. C. Davis and R. J. Whitwell, 1st edn, Oxford 1913, pp. xi–xv; T. F. Tout, Chapters in the administrative history of England, Manchester 1920–33, i. 121–39, esp. pp. 127–31; N. Underhill, The lord chancellor, Lavenham 1978, 1–7; H. R. Loyn, The governance of Anglo-Saxon England, 500–1087, London 1984, 106–18; Keynes, S. D., ‘Regenbald the chancellor (sic)’, Anglo-Norman Studies x (1987), 185–222 Google Scholar; and Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum: the acta of William i (1066–1087), ed. D. Bates, Oxford 1998, 96–8, 107–9. The whole of S. D. Keynes, The diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ 978–1016, Cambridge 1980, is a vindication of the Anglo-Saxon chancery, with a glance at an Anglo-Saxon chancellor at pp. 149–51.

2 E. B. Fryde, D. E. Greenway, S. Porter and I. Roy (eds), Handbook of British chronology, 3rd edn, London 1986, 83.

3 D. Bates, Normandy before 1066, London 1982, 154. This does not necessarily preclude a Norman chancery, since a chancellor's function might simply be to authenticate a document, rather than to organise its production himself, but there is no evidence for this procedure in Normandy either: Klewitz, H. W., ‘ Cancellaria: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des geistlichen Hofdienstes’, Deutsches Archiv i (1937), 42–79 Google Scholar at p. 51.

4 V. H. Galbraith, Studies in the public records, London 1948, 38; C. H. Haskins, Norman institutions, Cambridge, Ma 1918, 52–4. In Duke Richard ii's reign (996–1026), there are several references to a chancellor and four charters of 1025, each for a different beneficiary, have a common style and form: Recueil des actes des ducs de Normandie de 911 à 1066, ed. M. Fauroux, Caen 1961, nos 7, 13, 18, 34. This, however, proved to be a false start: Bates, Normandy before 1066, 155.

5 Bates, Normandy before 1066, 248.

6 Richard Sharpe distinguishes between writs (that is, ordinary letters) and ‘writ–charters’, that is ‘a writ addressed by the king to the officers and suitors of the shire court … granting or confirming tenure of land or of rights’: ‘The use of writs in the eleventh century’, Anglo–Saxon England xxxii (2003), 247–91Google Scholar at p. 250. Most historians do not make this distinction but simply use the word ‘writ’ for both kinds: R. Sharpe, ‘Address and delivery in Anglo-Norman royal charters’, in M. T. Flanagan and J. A. Green (eds), Charters and charter scholarship in Britain and Ireland, Basingstoke 2005, 32–52 at p. 32. That kings had long been using sealed writs to convey announcements or instructions is hinted by a comment in King Alfred's version of Augustine's Soliloquies, where Reason asks Augustine whether, having received his lord's ‘ærendgewrit and his insygel’ (business-letter and seal), he could not perceive his will therein: King Alfred's version of St Augustine's ‘Soliloquies’, ed. T. A. Carnicelli, Cambridge, Ma 1969, 62. See also Keynes, Diplomas, 136.

7 The seal was altered only slightly. Edward the Confessor's seal had depicted the king enthroned on both sides. William replaced one side with the equestrian image which would become the customary reverse: Anglo-Saxon writs, ed. F. E. Harmer, Manchester 1952, 94, 100. The language of writs continued to be English until around 1070: Bates, Regesta regum, 50.

8 Stevenson, ‘Old-English charter’, 731.

9 A succession of lay chancellors between 1340 and 1345 broke the clerical monopoly on the office: B. Wilkinson, The chancery under Edward III, Manchester 1929, 113–17.

10 Mediae Latinitatis lexicon minus, ed. J. F. Niermeyer and C. van de Kieft, Leiden 2002, i. 165.

11 Klewitz, ‘Cancellaria’, 51.

12 On this office and its functions see Hincmarus de ordine palatii, ch. 16, in Legum sectio II: capitularia regum Francorum, ed. A. Boretius and V. Krause, MGH, Hanover 1883–97, ii. 518–30 at p. 523; and comments in Klewitz, ‘Cancellaria’, 53.

13 Klewitz, ‘Cancellaria’, 54.

14 R. McKitterick, The Frankish kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751–987, London 1983, 84.

15 Ibid. 80.

16 Klewitz, ‘Cancellaria’, 66.

17 Ibid. 68.

18 Ibid. 69.

19 Ibid. 73.

20 Ibid. 54–5.

21 Ibid. 57–8.

22 Ibid. 58.

23 Ibid. 59.

24 Ibid. 64–5.

25 By the eleventh century, the archbishop of Mainz was ex officio archchancellor of Germany and the equivalent position in France was held (inconsistently) by the archbishop of Rheims: ibid. 67. The archchancellor in Italy too was, from the tenth century, always a bishop, though the office was not attached to a particular see: ibid. 67–8.

26 Regenbald, allegedly chancellor to Edward the Confessor and Harold ii, around whom a certain amount of consensus has gathered, was granted the status in law of a diocesan bishop but remained in priest's orders: Keynes, ‘Regenbald’; P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters: an annotated list and bibliography, London 1968, no. 1097; Anglo-Saxon writs, 211–12. The earliest (confirmed) chancellors to be appointed to bishoprics thereupon resigned the seal. T. F. Tout considered it an ‘ancient tradition’ for the chancellor to resign the seal on being promoted to a bishopric, though one which was rapidly disintegrating by the end of the twelfth century: Chapters, i. 184. For more on the humble status of the early chancellors see H. R. Loyn, The making of the English nation from the Anglo-Saxons to Edward I, London 1991, 103. Loyn, however, does have the office assume magnate status under Roger of Salisbury, which is too early.

27 Loyn, Making of the English nation, 127.

28 For example, ‘cancellaria emenda non est’ (‘the cancellaria cannot be bought’): Vita Sancti Thomæ Cantuariensis archiepiscopi et martyris, in Materials for the history of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, ed. J. C. Robertson and J. B. Sheppard (Rolls Series lxviii, 1875–85), iii. 18; my translation. This statement is made at the end of a list of the chancellor's functions, which makes no other reference to the cancellaria. See also Klewitz, ‘Cancellaria’, 72.

29 Klewitz, ‘Cancellaria’, 74.

30 See Anglo-Saxon writs, 58; Galbraith, Studies, 36–7; S. D. Keynes, ‘Royal government and the written word in late Anglo–Saxon England’, in R. McKitterick (ed.), The uses of literacy in early mediaeval Europe, Cambridge 1990, 226–57 at p. 257.

31 Constitutio domus regis, ed. S. D. Church, Oxford 2007, pp. xxxviii–xliv.

32 ‘Capellanus custos capelle et reliquiarum corridium duorum hominum et quatuor seruientes capelle unusquisque duplicem cibum’: ibid. 196–7.

33 ‘ut capella regis in ipsius sit dispositione et cura’: Materials, 18; my translation.

34 See pp. 267–8 above.

35 Klewitz, ‘Cancellaria’, 75.

36 D. Baldwin, The Chapel Royal ancient and modern, London 1990, 16.

37 Ibid. 17.

38 Ibid. 225.

39 J. Fleckenstein, Die Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige, I: Grundlegung: die karolingische Hofkapelle, MGH, SS xvi/1, Stuttgart 1959, 6–8. For the education of Carolingian scribes at court see Klewitz, ‘Cancellaria’, 57.

40 Fleckenstein, Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige, 8–10. For the laity of late Roman and early Frankish scribes see P. Classen, Kaiserreskript und Königsurkunde: diplomatische Studien zum Problem der Kontinuität zwischen Altertum und Mittelalter, Thessalonika 1977, 188.

41 On Aachen's importance to Charlemagne see Falkenstein, L., ‘Charlemagne et Aix-la-Chapelle’, Byzantion lxi (1991), 230–89Google Scholar at pp. 235–6.

42 Ibid. 237–9, 253, 259. The inhabitants of Aachen, including the royal family, worshipped in the upper part of the church and the college worshipped in the lower part: ibid. 257, 259.

43 Schieffer, R., ‘Hofkapelle und Aachener Marienstift bis in staufische Zeit’, Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter li (1987), 1–21 Google Scholar at pp. 1–2.

44 Ibid. 7–13; Falkenstein, ‘Charlemagne et Aix–la–Chapelle’, 266.

45 Schieffer, ‘Hofkapelle und Aachener Marienstift’, 3–4.

46 ‘quae semper eum ubique comitabantur’: Asser, Vita Ælfredi regis, ch. 104: Asser's life of Alfred, ed. W. H. Stevenson, Oxford 1904, 90, trans. in S. D. Keynes and M. Lapidge, Asser's life of Alfred and other contemporary sources, Harmondsworth 1986, 108.

47 There seems to be an echo of this in the Constitutio, in which the chaplain-keeper of the relics had to light ‘every night one wax candle to stand before the relics’ (‘unaquaque nocte .i. cereum coram reliquiis’): Constitutio, 196–7.

48 Schieffer, ‘Hofkapelle und Aachener Marienstift’, 4–5; Fleckenstein, Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige, 11–13, 23–4, 27–8; cf. Asser's life of Alfred (Stevenson edn, 305). ‘Capella’ could also be used for the eucharistic vessels and sometimes books: Fleckenstein, Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige, 15. As a term for a building, it was initially restricted to the royal oratoria but was extended to private proprietary churches in general in the ninth century: Fleckenstein, Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige, 19–21.

49 Asser, Vita Ælfredi regis, ch. 77: Asser's life of Alfred (Stevenson edn, 62–3), trans. in Keynes and Lapidge, Asser's life of Alfred, 93.

50 ‘ælcan minra messepreosta, þe ic gesette hæbbe in to minum reliquium, fiftyg mancusa goldes, and fif pund penenga. And ælcan þæra oþerran preosta fif pund.’: The charters of the New Minster, Winchester, ed. S. Miller, Oxford 2001, no. 17 at p. 77, trans. in English Historical Documents, I: c. 500–1042, ed. D. Whitelock, 2nd edn, London 1979, 555–6. F. E. Harmer suggested that ‘pund’ may be an error for ‘hund’, thus reducing the disparity between the gifts: Select English historical documents of the ninth and tenth centuries, Cambridge 1914, 122.

51 Loyn, Governance of Anglo-Saxon England, 112–13.

52 Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, no. 1438 (838).

53 ‘cum telligraphis ecclesiæ Christi’: Cartularium Saxonicum: a collection of charters relating to Anglo-Saxon history, ed. W. G. Birch, London 1885–93, no. 421; my translation.

54 ‘cum hereditatis eorum scripturis’.

55 Charlemagne had stored documents ‘in sacri palacii capella’ (Fleckenstein, Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige, 17) and Egbert had served Charlemagne as a mercenary before becoming king of Wessex. This congruence of facts may simply be coincidental but it does raise the possibility that it was Egbert himself who inaugurated the Anglo-Saxon royal archive and housed it in the reliquary, in imitation of his erstwhile patron.

56 M. T. Clanchy, From memory to written record: England, 1066–1307, 2nd edn, Oxford 1993, 155.

57 Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, no. 939 (c. 995 x 999).

58 ‘the second at the king's sanctuary’: Anglo-Saxon wills, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, London 1930, no. xvi(ii).

59 Purportedly of 1032, one of its three copies was kept ‘inne mid ðæs kynges halidome’: Codex diplomaticus aevi Saxonici, ed. J. M. Kemble, London, 1839–48, no. 1327.

60 Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, no. 1521 (c. 1035 x 1044); Anglo-Saxon wills, no. xxix.

61 Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, no. 1478 (c. 1053 x 1055); Anglo-Saxon charters, ed. A. J. Robertson, 2nd edn, London 1956, no. cxv.

62 This was written in about 1170 from earlier material: Macray, Chronicon, p. xxii; L. N. Roach, ‘Meetings of the witan in Anglo–Saxon England, 871–978’, unpubl. PhD diss. Cambridge 2011, 129.

63 ‘una pars scripti, jubente rege, in ejus capella cum reliquiis quas habebat sanctorum remansit’: Liber benefactorum ecclesiæ Ramesiensis, in Chronicon abbatiæ Rameseiensis, a sæc. x. usque ad an. circiter 1200: in quatuor partibus, iii. 105, ed. W. D. Macray (Rolls Series lxxxiii, 1886), 72; my translation.

64 BL, ms Add. 32246, fo. 21v. This is discussed N. R. Ker, Catalogue of manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon, Oxford 1957, repr. with supplement 1990, 1–3.

65 The Notitia dignitatum mentions the scrinium memoriae, the scrinium epistularum and the scrinium libellorum et cognitionum. There was also a scrinium dispositionum. Each scrinium was headed by a magister: Classen, Kaiserreskript und Königsurkunde, 84.

66 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. G. Kotzor, Munich 1981, i. 235.

67 Klaeber's Beowulf and the fight and Finnsburg, ed. R. D. Fulk, R. E. Bjork and J. D. Niles, 4th edn, Toronto 2008, 33, line 921a.

68 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle s. a. 755 (= 786): The Anglo-Saxon chronicle: a collaborative edition, III: MS A, ed. J. Bately, Cambridge 1983, 36; The Anglo-Saxon chronicle: a collaborative edition, VI: MS D, ed. G. P. Cubbin, Cambridge 1983, 13; The Anglo-Saxon chronicle: a collaborative edition, VII: MS E, ed. S. Irvine, Cambridge 2004, 38. Alternatively, mss B and C locate the mistress in the ‘burh’ (fortified residence): The Anglo–Saxon chronicle: a collaborative edition, IV: MS B, ed. S. Taylor, Cambridge 1983, 26, and The Anglo–Saxon chronicle: a collaborative edition, V: MS C, ed. K. O'Brien O'Keeffe, Cambridge 2001, 47.

69 Ælfric's Catholic homilies: the first series: text, ed. P. Clemoes (EETS s.s. xviii, 1997), 441.

70 M. Godden, Ælfric's Catholic homilies: introduction, commentary and glossary (EETS s.s. xviii, 2000), 260. On the cubiculum as that part of the palatium reserved for the king's accommodation see Falkenstein, ‘Charlemagne et Aix-la-Chapelle’, 244.

71 On the date of the manuscript, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, ms 201, pp. 131–45, see P. Goolden, The Old English ‘Apollonius of Tyre’, Oxford 1958, pp. xxxii–xxxiv.

72 Goolden, The Old English ‘Apollonius of Tyre’, 2–3.

73 Ibid. 34.

74 Anglo-Saxon vocabularies and Old-English vocabularies, ed. T. Wright and R. P. Wülcker, 2nd edn, London 1884, 124.17–18.

75 BL, ms Harleian 3376 (s. x/xi).

76 Anglo-Saxon vocabularies, 198.6; 216.21.

77 Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, nos 706 (Cartularium Saxonicum, no. 1083 [962]), 789 (Cartularium Saxonicum, no. 1286 [972]).

78 Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, no. 719 (963).

79 Ibid. no. 713.

80 Ibid. no. 1215 (968).

81 The battle of Maldon, ed. D. G. Scragg, Manchester, 1981, 61, line 121a.

82 Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, no. 1492 (1008 x 1012): The Crawford collection of early charters and documents now in the Bodleian Library, ed. A. S. Napier and W. H. Stevenson, Oxford 1895, no. x, trans. in English historial documents, i. 581.

83 This was compiled c. 1131 x 1174: Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake (Camden 3rd ser. xcii, 1962), pp. xlviii–xlix.

84 ‘Hec scripto tripliciter consignantur. Unum est apud Ely, aliud in thesauris regis, tertium Leofleda habet’: Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, no. 1520: Liber Eliensis ii. 88, pp. 157–8, trans. in J. Fairweather, Liber Eliensis: a history of the Isle of Ely, Woodbridge 2005, 187.

85 ‘decrevit rex omnia, ordine quo gesta sunt vel relata, literis Anglicis … declarari, ejusdemque scripti medietatem in gazophilacio, ab Hugelino cubiculario diligenter conservari’: Liber benefactorum ecclesiæ Ramesiensis, iii.103, pp. 170–1; my translation.

86 Domesday, Berkshire, §56.1, ed. P. Morgan and A. Hawkins, Chichester 1979 (Exchequer Domesday, fo. 63a); Oxfordshire, §15.3, ed. J. Morris and C. Caldwell, Chichester 1978 (Exchequer Domesday, fo. 157b); Huntingdonshire, §D.1, ed. J. Morris and S. Harvey, Chichester 1975 (Exchequer Domesday, fo. 208a); Warwickshire, §13.1, ed. J. Morris and J. Plaister, Chichester 1976 (Exchequer Domesday, fo. 239b).

87 Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, no. 1033 (Codex diplomaticus aevi Saxonici, no. 810 [1061]). This is of dubious authenticity.

88 Liber benefactorum ecclesiæ Ramesiensis, iii.102, p. 169 (Latin); Anglo-Saxon writs, no. lxii (Old English). Although the writs (which involve a serious dating discrepancy) are spurious, the terminology may still be genuine: Anglo-Saxon writs, 252–6.

89 Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, nos 939, 1521.

90 Ibid. no. 1478.

91 Liber benefactorum ecclesiæ Ramesiensis, iii.105.

92 Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, no. 1520, and Liber benefactorum ecclesiæ Ramesiensis, iii.103.

93 Cyril Hart, developing the arguments of H. P. R. Finberg, recommended the Old Minster, Winchester, as the repository of West Saxon kings’ records, possibly from as early as 854: ‘The Codex Wintoniensis and the king's haligdom’, in J. Thirsk (ed.), Land, Church and people: essays presented to Professor H. P. R. Finberg, Reading 1970, 7–38, esp. pp. 7–19; cf. the use of proprietary churches as archives by wealthy families: A. Williams, ‘An introduction to the Gloucestershire domesday’, in The Gloucestershire Domesday, ed. A. Williams and F. Thorn, London 1989, 1–39 at pp. 11–12.

94 ‘optima quaeque suorum suppellectilium, quam plures scilicet rurales cartulas, etiam ueteres precedentium regum thesaurus, necnon et diuersas propriae adeptionis suae gazas’: B., Vita S. Dunstani 19.2, ed. and trans. in The early Lives of St Dunstan, ed. M. Winterbottom and M. Lapidge, Oxford 2012, 60–1.

95 B., Vita S. Dunstani 20.4 at p. 64.

96 Vita Columbae, ii.33, in Adomnán's life of Columba, ed. A. O. Anderson and M. O. Anderson, Oxford 1991, 142.

97 ‘de luminaribus et de aliis omnibus quæ ad ecclesiæ honestatem, utilitatem, atque salvationem et ad suum ministerium pertinent, providentiam gerat’: PL cxxv. 533A; my translation.

98 The will is not in the Libellus Æthelwoldi but would have been among the monastery's records: Fairweather, Liber Eliensis, 187 n. 403. Unless the compiler of the Liber Eliensis used an earlier translation, the present text must date from the time of his own project, so 1131 x 1174.

99 Clanchy, From memory to written record, 162–4.

100 ‘Statuit … atque concessit quatenus ecclesia de Ely … in regis curia cancellarii ageret dignitatem … cum sanctuariis et ceteris ornatibus altaris ministrando’: Liber Eliensis ii.78, pp. 146–7, trans. in Fairweather, Liber Eliensis, 174.

101 This tradition is recorded at neither St Augustine's nor Glastonbury, with whom Ely was supposed to share the rotating office: Liber Eliensis, 146 n. 1.

102 This is admitted even by that trenchant enemy of the Anglo–Saxon chancellor Pierre Chaplais in ‘Review of The diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ 978–1016’, this Journal xxxv (1984), 262–5 at p. 263.

103 Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, no. 981 (Codex diplomaticus aevi Saxonici, no. 1327 [1032]).

104 ‘Then he went down into the king's house, into the scribe's chamber’ (all biblical translations are taken from the Authorised Version).

105 Definitions and usages in the Old Testament are listed in F. Brown, S. R. Driver and C. A. Briggs (eds), The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English lexicon, Oxford 1906, 545.

106 ‘having the oversight of the chamber of the house of our God’.

107 ‘gazofilacium in quo reponerentur ea quae … in usus ministrantium necessaria erant’: Bede, De tabernaculo; De templo; In Ezram et Neemiam, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL cxixA, Turnhout 1969, 388, lines 1947–9 (In Ezram et Neemiam iii); my translation.

108 R. E. Latham and D. R. Howlett (eds), Dictionary of medieval Latin from British sources, I: A–L, Oxford 1975–97, 1056, sub gazophylacium 2.

109 Fleckenstein, Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige, 18.

110 E. Carpenter, Cantuar: the archbishops in their office, 2nd edn, Oxford 1988, 79.

111 B., Vita S. Dunstani 20.4, p. 64.

112 See p. 272 above.

113 ‘per ecclesiarum ostia et fenestrarum, maceriarum quoque atque tabularum, vel frequentes parietum rumulas, nec non et tentoriorum tenuitates’: Asser, Vita Ælfredi regis, ch. 104: Asser's life of Alfred, 90, trans. in Keynes and Lapidge, Asser's life of Alfred, 108.

114 Such was certainly the practice in contemporary Germany: Schieffer, ‘Hofkapelle und Aachener Marienstift’, 15–16.

115 Vita Ælfredi regis, ch. 37: Asser's life of Alfred, 29. On the occasion in question, the king was on campaign against the Danes. The situation is paralleled by eighth-century Frankish practice, which allowed the capellani to go to war (something proscribed to most clergy) in order to maintain worship in the camp and keep the relics which were taken on campaign, including St Martin's cappa (a military cloak, so a fitting mascot on such occasions): Fleckenstein, Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige, 11, 13.

116 Be Hester, ed. B. Assmann, in Angelsächsische Homilien und Heiligenleben, Kassel 1889, 92–101 at pp. 93 (line 35), 100 (lines 275, 278).

117 Esther, i.10. Coincidentally, the Authorised Version also translates them as chamberlains.

118 Homily on Judith, in Assmann, Angelsächsische Homilien, 102–16 at p. 111, lines 284, 298.

119 A major document of the Benedictine reform, it was compiled 970 x 973 by Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester: Wulfstan of Winchester: the life of St Æthelwold, ed. M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom, Oxford 1991, pp. lviii–lx.

120 ‘Infantibus autem aecclesiam intrantibus, edituus primum sonet signum’: ‘De consuetudine monachorum’, ed. W. S. Logeman, Anglia xiii (1891), 365–454 at p. 384; my translation.

121 Ibid.

122 ‘mansionarii functus officio deserviebat’: PL lxx.177C; my translation.

123 ‘who there enjoyed and served the church-ward's service’: Bischofs Wærferth von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des grossen, ed. H. Hecht, Leipzig 1900, 43–4; my translation.

124 BL, ms Stowe 944 (New Minster, Winchester), fo. 58v. The Liber was compiled in 1031 from earlier material: The liber vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey Winchester, ed. S. D. Keynes, Copenhagen 1996, 38.

125 The ‘sermones Catholicae’, or homilies of Ælfric, ed. B. Thorpe, London 1844–6, i. 452. Mercurius was a third-century Scythian soldier, martyred in the Diocletian Persecution.

126 See Keynes, Diplomas of King Æthelred, 158–62.

127 Anglo-Saxon vocabularies, 126.22.

128 Homilies of Ælfric, ii (Thorpe edn), 214.

129 Homilies of Ælfric: a supplementary collection, ed. J. C. Pope (EETS s.s. cclix–cclx, 1967–8), ii. 675–712.

130 Ibid. 688–92, based on 1 Samuel iv–vii.

131 ‘the arc of the Lord … that is, the Lord's scrin’: ibid. 688; my translation.

132 ‘heavenly relics’: ibid. 689.

133 ‘her shrine with her relics’: Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon charters, no. 1484 (c. 966 x 975), ed. and trans. in Anglo-Saxon wills, no. viii.

134 ms Stowe 944, fo. 58r–v.

135 The Northamptonshire Geld Roll of c. 1075 calls Osmund, the contemporary chancellor, ‘þes kynges writere’: Anglo–Saxon charters (Robertson edn), app. i, no. iii. However, this appears to be a direct translation of ‘regis cancellarius’, the use of which title before the Norman Conquest is uncertain. This evidence therefore does not prove that the office's Anglo–Saxon incarnation bore the title ‘writere’. On the contrary, since, as this paper has shown, the Anglo–Saxon proto-chancellor's functions were heavily ecclesiastical in nature, a title that emphasised his scribal role would have been inappropriate.

136 This process deserves an extensive discussion but to hold one here would upset the thematic balance of this paper. As a brief, provisional answer, Keynes's arguments in ‘Regenbald’ recommend the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–66) as the likeliest period.