Browsable Indexes

The side menu lists the several forms of index which are provided here to facilitate access to the surviving corpus of Anglo-Saxon charters:

  • Sawyer Catalogue – this page shows the overall structure of Sawyer’s catalogue, for ease of reference. For an explanation of the scope and form of the separate entries, see About on the Home page.
  • Sawyer number – a continuous list of Sawyer numbers, incorporating several charters which have come to light since 1968 and have been inserted at their appropriate points in the series (e.g. 65a, 65b, 103a, 103b, 136a, 342a, 343a, 418a, 517a, 517b, 522a, 676a, 705a, 712a, 794a, 832a, 931a, 931b)
  • Charter date – lists of dated charters, for each century from the 7th to the 11th, followed by a list of undated texts (this feature requires further development)
  • Number of manuscripts – the drop-down menu allows the user to see which charters survive in a single manuscript copy, which charters survive in two manuscript copies, and so on (to over 40 manuscript copies), which might serve as a basis for a study of patterns of transmission and dissemination
  • King – an alphabetical index which provides the user with an easy way to browse through the charters of a particular king (e.g. Offa, Alfred, Edgar, or Harold)
  • King date – chronological list of royal charters, organized century by century, which enables the user to view, for example, the charters issued by various kings in the ninth century, or by successive kings in the tenth century
  • Kingdoms – chronological lists of royal charters, organized kingdom by kingdom
  • Archives – the user may select a particular religious house from the drop-down menu, and see a list in chronological order of all the charters preserved from the archives of that house; the user will also see a list of the manuscripts in which the charters have been preserved.
  • Manuscripts – allows browsing the contents of manuscripts in a particular repository (including ‘Lost’), or the contents of a particular manuscript, by manuscript classmark
  • Manuscript date – the user can select a century (from the 7th to the 19th, or ‘unspecified’) from a drop-down menu, and then browse manuscripts (single sheets, as well as cartularies or later transcripts) by the date assigned to them in the database; for further details about single sheets, including facsimiles, see the relevant section of the ‘Kemble’ website
  • Bibliography – alphabetical list, by author’s name, with ‘See cited charters’ after each item (leading if one clicks the button at the beginning of the item to a list of charters cited in that item)
  • Bibliography date – chronological list, organized century by century, with publications of each century listed chronologically, also with ‘See cited charters’ after each item
  • Translated charters – lists all charters which contain translated texts. Eventually all the charters will have translations, but in the meantime this list will allow you to find all the ones that have been translated so far. The charters are grouped by Sawyer number hundreds, so S 1-99, S 100-199 and so on. In many cases, the availability of a published translation, not yet incorporated in the ‘Revised Sawyer’ database (and so not yet visible in the 'Electronic Sawyer'), is indicated in the catalogue entries for other charters. It is intended that more translations will be added to the 'Revised Sawyer', and uploaded to the 'Electronic Sawyer' on a regular basis.

Note. All manuscripts appear in the classmark list, and all charters appear in the Sawyer number list. It is the case, however, that certain charters or manuscripts do not appear in certain indexes; they appear only in the indexes to which they are relevant. Some charters have no date and are not roughly datable, and so do not appear in the list by ‘charter date’; some manuscripts, for example antiquarian transcripts, are not associated with any archive.