The Cartulary of Chatteris Abbey

Takes its place as perhaps the finest available study of a house for women religious. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW

The fifteenth-century cartulary of the Benedictine nunnery of Chatteris Abbey in Cambridgeshire (founded in the early eleventh century) has important implications for the study of women religious, especially in the light of the small number of surviving cartularies from English nunneries, yet until now it has received little attention, perhaps due to its damage in the Cotton Library fire of 1731. This critical edition of the manuscript, which contains documents copied into it from the mid-twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, offers a full transcription, together with historical notes and apparatus. The introduction draws on the cartulary itself, as well as manorial and episcopal records, to analyse the nunnery’s relationship with its patron, the bishop of Ely, and the development and management of its estates; it also examines the location and layout of the abbey, the social and geographical origins of the nuns, and the production and organisation of the cartulary. The edition is accompanied by an annotated listof all known abbesses, prioresses and nuns.

CLAIRE BREAYgained her Ph.D. at the Institute for Historical Research at the University of London; she is currently a curator of medieval manuscripts at the British Library.