Cartularium Saxonicum


Cartularium Saxonicum is a three-volume collection of Anglo-Saxon charters published from 1885 to 1893 by Walter de Gray Birch, then working in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library. It built on the work of the earlier Codex [Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici], expanding its scope.

Background and Scope

Birch conceived of the work as an update to Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici some four decades earlier. He explains:
"... the remarkable anomaly became very prominently fixed before my mind that, while the justly celebrated Codex Diplomaticus of the late Mr. J. M. Kemble occupies a position in literature achieved by no other collection of historical evidence in the world, the texts themselves are in a large proportion of cases edited incorrectly, and that, in some instances, to a serious extent."
Birch's work formed the basis of William George Searle's Onomasticon and, most recently, projects such as the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England.
VolDate PublishedCharter DatesNumber of ChartersCharter Numbers
11885430-8394271-427
21887840-925412428-839
31893925-959512840-1354

In total, Birch published 1354 charters covering the years 430-959 AD.