Creating and curating an archive: Bury St Edmunds and its Anglo-Saxon past

This contribution explores the mechanisms by which the Benedictine foundation of Bury St Edmunds sought to legitimise and preserve their spurious pre-Conquest privileges and holdings throughout the Middle Ages. The archive is extraordinary in terms of the large number of surviving registers and cartularies which contain copies of Anglo-Saxon charters, many of which are wholly or partly in Old English. The essay charts the changing use to which these ancient documents were put in response to threats to the foundation's continued enjoyment of its liberties. The focus throughout the essay is to demonstrate how pragmatic considerations at every stage affects the development of the archive and the ways in which these linguistically challenging texts were presented, re-presented, and represented during the Abbey’s history

Batman vppon Bartholome, His Booke De Proprietatibus Rerum, Newly corrected, enlarged and amended: with such Additions as are requisite, vnto euery seuerall Booke: Taken foorth of the most approued Authors, the like heretofore not translated in English. Profitable for all Estates, as well for the benefite of the Mind as the Bodie. 1582.

John of Trevisa's English translation made from the Latin original, and first published by Wynkyn de Worde about 1495. The Latin text was first published in Basle about 1470. cf. Dict. nat. biog.Many errors in foliation.Mode of access: Internet.Lithoprinted; each leaf of the facsimile represents one page of the original; facsimile of numbered recto is followed by that of its unnumbered verso.Title within ornamental border. Black letter. Coat of arms (of Batman?) on 2d prelim. leaf. Printer's device at end