This section of the website provides information on the separate ‘archives’ in which the surviving charters came to be preserved. The reference is not to modern repositories, such as the British Library, but to the religious houses (episcopal sees, monasteries, nunneries, etc.) among whose muniments or in whose cartularies and registers the documents were preserved in the middle ages. The charters from any one such archive, whether an episcopal see or any other form of religious house, have come to be preserved since then in a number of different modern libraries, museums, collections, or institutions.

The section reflects the basic principle upon which the ‘Anglo-Saxon Charters’ project is organised. It was recognised from the outset that surviving texts have to be edited, criticised and understood within their respective ‘archival’ contexts. It is also recognised, however, that the charters preserved in any one ‘archive’ have to be understood within the wider context of all other documents of the same kind, of the same region, or of the same period. Indeed, the archival principle is a key element in the modern criticism of charters: with a few significant and interesting exceptions, observed connections (e.g. unusual features, or details of formulation) between charters of the same apparent date, yet preserved in different archives, are most likely to represent a connection between the charters at the point of production in the Anglo-Saxon period, which can become an important consideration in the editing and criticism of the texts, as well as a valuable tool in the assessment of their wider significance. In effect, distinctive features which seem to be confined to charters preserved in a single archive might have to be explained in terms which applied within the religious house in question, whereas features seen to occur in charters of, say, a particular period, preserved across two or more archives, might be explained more naturally in terms of a common denominator, which might have been the agency of production.

Each of the archival ‘profiles’ accessible from the side menu serves as a brief introduction to the archive in question, comprising some general information on the religious house in question, and basic details of the composition of the archive (single sheets, cartularies, etc.), sometimes with additional information on any other records which happen in each case to be available (house chronicles, collections of obits, lists of benefactors, etc.). The separate introductions in any published or forthcoming archival volume will naturally take matters further, including an extended account of the history of the religious house in question from its foundation onwards, information on its endowment (as first recorded in the Domesday survey), and so on.

The archival profiles originated in 1991-3, as part of a survey of all ‘archives’ from which charters have been preserved. The profiles are made available here as work in progress, for general information. They remain subject to correction, modification, and updating.