The Textus Roffensis (Latin for "The Tome of Rochester"), fully titled the Textus de Ecclesia Roffensi per Ernulphum episcopum ("The Tome of the Church of Rochester up to Bishop Ernulf") and sometimes also known as the Annals of Rochester, is a mediaeval manuscript that consists of two separate works written between 1122 and 1124. It is catalogued as "Rochester Cathedral Library, MS A.3.5" and as of 2023[update][1] is currently on display in a new exhibition at Rochester Cathedral in Rochester, Kent.[2] It is thought that the main text of both manuscripts was written by a single scribe, although the English glosses to the two Latin entries (items 23 and 24 in table below) were made by a second hand.[3] The annotations might indicate that the manuscript was consulted in some post-Conquest trials.[4] However, the glosses are very sparse and just clarify a few uncertain terms. For example, the entry on f. 67r merely explains that the triplex iudiciu(m) is called in English, ofraceth ordel (insult ordeal = triple ordeal).
There is a clear, digitised version in the Rylands Medieval Collection.[5]
- ^ Olley Design. "Textus Roffensis". Rochester Cathedral. Retrieved 28 June 2023.
- ^ It was deposited in the Kent Archives Office in Maidstone in 1969, and was transferred to the Medway office in 1992 following its creation.
- ^ Treharne, Textus Roffensis.
- ^ Nicholas Kar, 'Information and Its Retrieval' in Julia Crick and Elisabeth van Houts (eds.), A Social History of England, 900-–1200, 375
- ^ "Manchester Digital". enriqueta.man.ac.uk. Retrieved 28 July 2018.