Cartularium Saxonicum

Cartularium Saxonicum Synopsis

Walter de Gray Birch (1842–1924) worked in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Museum from 1864 to 1902 and published extensively in Anglo-Saxon studies. He is best known for this collection of over 1300 charters, in Latin and Old English, originally published in thirty-two parts between 1883 and 1893 and now reissued in three volumes. The funding for Birch's project eventually ran out, and the work ends at 975 CE. However, for the period covered, Birch's edition, which drew extensively on recent Victorian scholarship, superseded John Mitchell Kemble's 1839–48 Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici (also reissued in this series), which had been the first attempt to publish all the surviving Anglo-Saxon charter texts. Like Kemble, Birch organised his collection chronologically. Volume 1 covers the fifth to the mid-ninth century, and includes an introduction describing developments in Anglo-Saxon studies since Kemble's day and the resources available to Birch.