The (

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for "The Tome of Rochester"), fully titled the ''Textus de Ecclesia Roffensi per Ernulphum episcopum'' ("The Tome of the Church of Rochester up to Bishop Ernulf") and sometimes also known as the Annals of Rochester, is a mediaeval

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

that consists of two separate works written between 1122 and 1124. It is catalogued as "Rochester Cathedral Library, MS A.3.5" and is currently on display in a new exhibition at

Rochester Cathedral Rochester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is in Rochester, Kent, England. The cathedral is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Rochester and seat (''cathedra'') of the Bishop of Rocheste ...

Rochester, Kent Rochester ( ) is a town in the unitary authority of Medway, in Kent, England. It is at the lowest bridging point of the River Medway, about east-southeast of London. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Kent, Chatham, ...

. It is thought that the main text of both manuscripts was written by a single

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of Printing press, automatic printing. The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as ...

, although the English glosses to the two

entries (items 23 and 24 in table below) were made by a second hand. The annotations might indicate that the manuscript was consulted in some post-Conquest trials. However, the glosses are very sparse and just clarify a few uncertain terms. For example, the entry on f. 67r merely explains that the is called in English, ''ofraceth ordel'' (insult ordeal = triple ordeal). There is a clear, digitised version in the Rylands Medieval Collection.

The first part is a collection of laws and other, primarily secular documents, whilst the second is the cartulary of the Cathedral priory. The first part is of fundamental importance to the study of Anglo-Saxon law. It begins with the earliest surviving royal law-code, from King

Æthelberht of Kent Æthelberht (; also Æthelbert, Aethelberht, Aethelbert or Ethelbert; ; 550 – 24 February 616) was Kings of Kent, King of Kingdom of Kent, Kent from about 589 until his death. The eighth-century monk Bede, in his ''Ecclesiastical Hist ...

, dating to c 600, followed by those of two Kentish successors, the joint kings Hlothere and Eadric, c 679–85, and Wihtred, 695. This is the only manuscript source for these three laws, though Wihtred's are heavily reliant on the laws of the contemporary West-Saxon King, Ine (see item 6 below). The full contents of the first part are: The second part of ''Textus Roffensis'' is just over 100 pages long. It consists of the

cartulary A cartulary or chartulary (; Latin: ''cartularium'' or ''chartularium''), also called ''pancarta'' or ''codex diplomaticus'', is a medieval manuscript volume or roll ('' rotulus'') containing transcriptions of original documents relating to the fo ...

for Rochester Cathedral, in Latin. However, its final entry (222r–v) is in English, listing the number of masses to be recited for those institutions in England and Normandy which were in confraternity with Rochester.

Name

A ''textus'' was a book with a decorated cover suitable to be kept in the church by the high

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

. The term does not mean a text concerning

. A ''liber'' was a less decorated book, suitable only for the

cloister A cloister (from Latin , "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open Arcade (architecture), arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle (architecture), quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cat ...

. It is rare that a secular book is a ''textus'', and the name given to the ''Textus Roffensis'' by the cathedral is considered indicative of the book's importance during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

The ''Textus Roffensis'' Scribe

The unknown scribe was remarkable for his knowledge of old forms of English, and was able to transcribe accurately from a range of original manuscripts written in Anglo-Saxon dialects, including the local Kentish used for the laws of the kings of Kent. Two or more generations after the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

, this was distinctly unusual. Few of his records were contemporary and, to read the Laws of Aethelberht, he was looking back at an obsolete dialect of early Anglo-Saxon English, some 500 years old. He followed standard practice of distinguishing between written English and written Latin. The overall aspect is Protogothic with, for example, narrow letter-forms and forked tops to ascenders. However, he used a modified Insular Minuscule for the English and a modified

Caroline Minuscule Carolingian minuscule or Caroline minuscule is a script which developed as a calligraphic standard in the medieval European period so that the Latin alphabet of Jerome's Vulgate Bible could be easily recognized by the literate class from one ...

for the Latin. This was standard practice in the years around 1000, but proficiency in writing Insular Minuscule was in terminal decline by the time of the ''Textus Roffensis''. The double-page opening of f95v and f96r is a good place to examine differences in the two scripts. The left-hand page contains the end of ''Hit becƿæð. ond becƿæl '' in English and the right-hand page the start of Henry I's Coronation Charter, in Latin. It is not only the general letter-shapes which show some differences. In the English, the only abbreviations are the tironian ''et'' for ''ond'' and the suspensions on dative endings e.g. ''beÞinū/ beminū'' for ''–um'' (concerning yours/ - mine). The number of abbreviations, suspensions and ligatures in the Latin give a different look, accentuated by different letter-forms, such as ''g'', ''h'' and ''r'' in ''gehyrde'' (f.95v, line 11) and ''erga uos habeo'' (f.96r, line 9); the ''f'' in ''forðam'' (English, line 10) and in ''facio'' (Latin, line 10) The ''Roffensis'' scribe made remarkably few errors and only some minor edits which lightly modernise the text. This can be seen in the Laws of Ine. The original laws were written in the late seventh century. They were already updated when recorded in Alfred's ''Domboc'' two centuries later. The earliest preserved version is from c. 925. In clause 2, this has ''Cild binnan ðritegum nihta sie gefulwad'' ('a child shall be baptised within thirty days'). The scribe substitutes for the tenth-century term for baptism () the twelfth-century term . Similarly, the scribe substitutes (slave) for Alfred's (wealth). There is some dispute whether this reflects the changing position of slaves after the Conquest or whether it is just correcting the term, since slaves were chattels. Overall, the ''Roffensis'' scribe treated his sources with respect. He did not, for example, make erroneous 'corrections' to the Old English law texts, unlike the "incompetent translations of ''Quadripartitus's'' author".

History

The two manuscripts were bound together in around 1300. The first part is a collection of documents which includes the

Law of Æthelberht The Law of Æthelberht is a set of legal provisions written in Old English, probably dating to the early 7th century. It originates in the kingdom of Kent, and is the first Germanic-language law code. It is also thought to be the earliest exam ...

, attributed to

(c. 560–616), and the 1100

coronation A coronation ceremony marks the formal investiture of a monarch with regal power using a crown. In addition to the crowning, this ceremony may include the presentation of other items of regalia, and other rituals such as the taking of special v ...

charter of

Henry I of England Henry I ( – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in 1087, Henr ...

. The Law of Æthelberht is the oldest surviving

English law English law is the common law list of national legal systems, legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly English criminal law, criminal law and Civil law (common law), civil law, each branch having its own Courts of England and Wales, ...

code and the oldest

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

text in existence. The second part of the ''Textus Roffensis'' is the oldest of the Rochester Cathedral registers. The entire volume consists of 235

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. It is often distinguished from parchment, either by being made from calfskin (rather than the skin of other animals), or simply by being of a higher quality. Vellu ...

leaves.University of Kent, "England’s 'Hidden Treasure'." Over the centuries, the ''Textus Roffensis'' has been loaned, lost and recovered on several occasions and has been in the custody of a variety of different people and places; it was once held at the

Medway Medway is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in the ceremonial county of Kent in South East England. It was formed in 1998 by merging the boroughs of City of Roche ...

Archives Office in

Strood Strood is a town in the unitary authority of Medway in Kent, South East England. Strood forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Kent, Chatham, Rochester, Kent, Rochester, Gillingham, Kent, Gillingham and Rainham, Kent, Rainham. It ...

under reference number DRc/R1 and has since been withdrawn. It is currently held in an airtight case in Rochester Cathedral's Crypt. Sometime between 1708 and 1718 the book was immersed for several hours in either the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...

or the

River Medway The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, West Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a to ...

when the ship transporting it overturned; water damage is apparent on a number of pages. The book was named 'Britain's Hidden Treasure' by the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

, and was the subject of a conference at the

University of Kent The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as UKC) is a Collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. The university was granted its roya ...

in 2010. It has been digitised and published on line by The University of Manchester's Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care. The full digital facsimile is available through

's website. A short film was also produced about the book by Rochester Cathedral about its history and digitization process.

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * (online facsimile)

External links

John Rylands Library ''"The Textus Roffensis"''
- scanned images of each of the pages of the ''Textus Roffensis''. Medieval documents of England 1120s books English-language manuscripts 12th-century manuscripts Legal manuscripts Medieval English law Anglo-Saxon law 12th-century books in Latin Manuscripts about England in Latin

Contents