2 - A Conspectus of the Charters of King Edgar, 957–975
from Part I - Documentary Evidence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
Summary
THE standard catalogue of Anglo-Saxon charters, compiled by Peter Sawyer and first published in 1968, now available in a revised, updated and expanded form, registers the existence of about 160 charters in the name of King Edgar, including four ‘new’ charters (dated 958, 962, 963 and 974) which have come to light in more recent years. The corpus comprises about ten charters which purport to have been issued during Edgar's reign as king of the Mercians (957–9), and about 150 charters from Edgar's reign as king of the English (959–75). To these should be added a number of ‘lost’ or incomplete texts, most of which are of uncertain date. The surviving charters were preserved in the archives of about forty religious houses, which establishes an effective cross-archival basis for analysis, comparison and judgement; among them, the archives of Abingdon and Winchester (Old Minster) are especially well represented, in part reflecting the quality of the cartularies from these houses but perhaps also reflecting a predisposition to fabricate charters of Edgar at two places where he was held in especially high esteem. The archives of Glastonbury would also be well represented, were it not for the fact that its eleventh-century Liber Terrarum has not survived.
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- Edgar, King of the English 959–975New Interpretations, pp. 60 - 80Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008