Ramsey Abbey, Cambridgeshire, was founded in 969 and rapidly became of one the richest and most important Benedictine houses in the country. It was famous for its school and library, and a thriving market town grew up around it, despite its isolated position in the Fens. The cartulary contains a range of legal, financial and ecclesiastical documents dating from 974 to 1436, although the greater part was compiled in the fourteenth century. It is particularly important for the study of manorial and economic history (and the abbey's twelfth-century chronicle is also reissued in this series)....

Ramsey Abbey, Cambridgeshire, was founded in 969 and rapidly became of one the richest and most important Benedictine houses in the country. It was famous for its school and library, and a thriving market town grew up around it, despite its isolated position in the Fens. The cartulary contains a range of legal, financial and ecclesiastical documents dating from 974 to 1436, although the greater part was compiled in the fourteenth century. It is particularly important for the study of manorial and economic history (and the abbey's twelfth-century chronicle is also reissued in this series)....

Ramsey Abbey, Cambridgeshire, was founded in 969 and rapidly became of one the richest and most important Benedictine houses in the country. It was famous for its school and library, and a thriving market town grew up around it, despite its isolated position in the Fens. The cartulary contains a range of legal, financial and ecclesiastical documents dating from 974 to 1436, although the greater part was compiled in the fourteenth century. It is particularly important for the study of manorial and economic history (and the abbey's twelfth-century chronicle is also reissued in this series)....

A monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, and the closest companion of St Anselm, Eadmer (c.1060 c.1126) witnessed the archbishop's disputes with William II and Henry I and accompanied him twice into exile. This edition of Anselm's biography, which Eadmer began to write during those years of exile, was published by the Rolls Series in 1884. With English side-notes to the main Latin text, it includes the Historia novorum, remarkable for its use of direct speech in relating the life of Anselm and his controversial relations with the monarchy. The Vita is a record of his private conversations, to...

John Thomas Gilbert (1829 98), historian and antiquary, was for thirty-four years librarian of the Royal Irish Academy. It was during this time, in 1884, that his two-volume edition of these chartularies, registers and annals was originally published as part of the Rolls Series. Volume 1 comprises the abbey's two chartularies two of only three surviving Cistercian chartularies from Ireland. Of the nearly 600 items, all are in the original Latin except for one (in English). A helpful summary of the contents and English side-notes throughout make the work easier to navigate. In his preface,...

John Thomas Gilbert (1829 98), historian and antiquary, was for thirty-four years librarian of the Royal Irish Academy. It was during this time, in 1884, that his two-volume edition of these chartularies, registers and annals was originally published as part of the Rolls Series. Volume 2 contains two collections of excerpts from the abbey's lost sixteenth-century register. Also included is the register of St Mary's Abbey, Dunbrody, and two portions of the annals of St Mary's Abbey, Dublin (which begin with the birth of Christ and end at the start of the thirteenth century, with the period...

The first volume of this four-volume set of Latin chronicles, edited by Richard Howlett (1841 1917) and published between 1884 and 1889, contains the first four books of the Historia rerum Anglicarum by William of Newburgh (c.1136 c.1198). Newburgh's extensive history, in five books, chronicles events from 1066 up to 1198 and is a valuable source of information on twelfth-century England, especially the so-called period of 'The Anarchy' during King Stephen's reign. The first book begins with William the Conqueror's victory at Hastings, and the fourth book concludes with the return from...

The second volume of this four-volume set of Latin chronicles, edited by Richard Howlett (1841 1917) and published between 1884 and 1889, contains the fifth and final book of the Historia rerum Anglicarum by William of Newburgh (c.1136 c.1198). This book deals with the events of the years 1194 8. The work is continued in a supplement up to the year 1298, compiled by a monk of Furness Abbey. Also included is the Draco Normannicus ('The Norman Standard') of Etienne de Rouen, a monk from Bec Abbey in Normandy. Much of this poem is simply the versification of other sources, but it does possess...

The third volume of this four-volume set of Latin chronicles, edited by Richard Howlett (1841 1917) and published between 1884 and 1889, contains five separate works. The Gesta Stephani regis Anglorum ('Deeds of King Stephen') is a primary source for Stephen's reign and especially his wars with his cousin Maude. This is supplemented by the shorter De gestis regis Stephani by Richard, prior of Hexham, covering the years 1135 9. The treatise Relatio de standardo by St Aelred, abbot of Rievaulx, is a partisan account of the Battle of the Standard in 1138. Jordan Fantosme's long poem (in French,...

The fourth volume of this four-volume set of Latin chronicles, edited by Richard Howlett (1841 1917) and published between 1884 and 1889, contains the work of Robert of Torigni (c.1110 86), abbot of Mont Saint-Michel, whose chronicle is a continuation of the Gesta Normannorum ducum ('Deeds of the Norman dukes') up to the time of Henry II. Despite problems with the chronology of the work, Robert's chronicle remains a valuable source for the early years of Henry II's reign. Howlett's introduction provides historical background as well as an exhaustive survey of both Robert's sources and the...