This note is intended to supplement a previous article on the ‘annuary’, presented at Norwich in 2010, and published in ANS 33. Returning to Normandy after many years devoted to the study of other regions in the twelfth century, I had noticed that the forty-nine records (or acta) that occupy folios 112v to 117r (see Fig. 1) in Avranches MS 210 have a collective identity; that they represent a deliberate departure by their author, Robert of Torigni, from the cartulary preceding. Moreover, they bear witness to the new abbot's recognition that accountability in a monastic lordship entailed something other (something more) than a collection of proofs of patrimonial right; it required a record of hands-on engagement with fiscal management in the localities. I argued that, when taken together, these acta, as written, amounted to an experimental fiscal accountability altogether comparable with those undertaken by Robert's contemporaries Suger in Saint-Denis and Bertran de Castellet in Catalonia.

Upon further study of the manuscripts of Le Mont Saint-Michel, I find much of this confirmed, if not quite all. It no longer seems possible to attribute the great romanesque cartulary in MS 210 to Robert of Torigni. That the cartulary pre-dates his abbacy is a major discovery that we owe entirely to Katharine Keats-Rohan, in persuasive codicological research. My own research since 2010 not only confirms her finding, but is pointing ever more strongly to Abbot Bernard (1131–49) as the originator-patron of this incomparable witness to life in Le Mont Saint-Michel before 1150. To my knowledge, moreover, no new work on manuscript illumination and decoration seems contrary to this finding. François Avril, in his work of fifty years ago, allowed for the possibility of a single artist working in Le Bec as well as in Le Mont Saint-Michel before 1154.

As for Abbot Robert's acta, my appellation ‘annuary’ lies mute in deafening silence. So I hasten to add that I make no defence of the term, except to plead convenience and pertinence. A better term would be welcome indeed; what matters is our recognition that these multiple records stem from a single impulse. Each one opens with the words eodem anno, and this is what induced me to associate the acta with Robert's other historical writings.