Medieval cartularies are one of the most significant sources for a
historian of the Middle Ages. Once viewed as simply repositories of
charters, cartularies are now regarded as carefully curated collections
of texts whose contents and arrangement reflect the immediate concerns
and archival environment of the communities that created them. One
feature of the cartulary in particular that has not been studied so
fully is its materiality: the fact that it is a manuscript.
Consequently, it has not been recognised that many cartularies are
multi-scribe manuscripts which "grew" for many decades after their
initial creation, both physically and textually.
This book offers a new methodology which engages with multi-scribe
contributions in two cartulary manuscripts: the oldest cartularies of
Glasgow Cathedral and Lindores Abbey. It integrates the physical and
textual features of the manuscripts in order to analyse how and why they
grew in stages across time. Applying this methodology reveals two
communities that took an active approach to reading and shaping their
cartularies, treating these manuscripts as a shared space. This raises
fundamental questions about the definition of cartularies and how they
functioned, their relationship to archives of single-sheet documents,
and as sources for institutional identity. It therefore takes a fresh
look at the "genre" of medieval cartularies through the eyes of the
manuscripts themselves, and what this can reveal about their medieval
scribes and readers.
JOANNA TUCKER gained her PhD from the University of Glasgow.