| Description | On recto, lives of the popes from St Peter to John XII [955-964]. Section for popes from Felix IV [526-530] to Benedict II [684-685] on verso. Includes, in their chronological place in the text, lives of the archbishops of Canterbury from Augustine [597-604x609] to Dunstan [959-988]. Includes lines of verse and various historical details. Includes account of the Third Council of Constantinople and notes on the previous five General Councils of the Church.
Also on verso, list of privileges to the cathedral priory from popes. Grouped together by pope, beginning with Alexander III and ending with Urban IV, with separate heading of 'Pontificalia Maiora'.
Also archiepiscopal charters listed under heading of 'Episcopalia'. From Anselm, Theobald, Hubert Walter and Edmund of Abingdon.
Also on verso, historical account beginning with Brute [legendary founder of the British race], son of Silvius, and his descendants. Continues through until King Lear and his descendants. [Geoffrey of Monmouth gives a more detailed account of this tale in his History, which begins with Brute.] Further lines of deleted text.
Also incomplete account of trial on Penenden Heath [in Boxley, Kent], held before William the Conqueror and the shire court of Kent. Trial concerned the lands and liberties of the Church of Canterbury. Date given as 1072. [This date is problematic, and present historical opinion is that the event took place in 1072 or 1075x1076. For a translation of one account of the trial and a general discussion of the event, see D C Douglas and G W Greenaway (eds), English historical documents 1042-1189 (London, 1953), pp449-51.]
Written in various late 13th cent hands. |
| Publication Note | Noted in N R Kerr, Medieval manuscripts in British Libraries, vol 2 (Oxford, 1977), p312
Discussed, with extracts (mostly material on popes), in W Levison, 'Eine Geschichte der Papste aus Canterbury', in Neues Archiv, vol 38, no 3 (1913), pp645-64
Transcribed and discussed (material on Penenden Heath) in J le Patourel, 'The reports of the trial on Penenden Heath', in R W Hunt, W A Pantin and R W Southern (eds), Studies in Medieval History presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke (Oxford, 1948), pp15-26
Noted in Historical Manuscripts Commission Fifth Report (London, 1876), Appendix, p462 |