The Rolls Series, official title The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, is a major collection of British and Irish historical materials and primary sources, published in the second half of the 19th century. Some 255 volumes, representing 99 separate works, were published. Almost all the great medieval English chronicles were included; most of the existing editions, published by the scholars of the 17th and 18th centuries, were unsatisfactory.

The project

The publication of the series was undertaken by the British Government in accordance with a scheme submitted in 1857 by the Master of the Rolls

Master of the Rolls

The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the second most senior judge in England and Wales, after the Lord Chief Justice. The Master of the Rolls is the presiding officer of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal...

, then Sir John Romilly. A previous undertaking of the same kind, the Monumenta Historica Britannica

Monumenta Historica Britannica

Monumenta Historica Britannica , Or Materials for the History of Britain, From the Earliest Period, is an incomplete work by Keeper of the Records of the Tower of London Henry Petrie, assisted by John Sharpe. Only the first volume covering material prior to the Norman Conquest was printed in 1848...

, had failed after the publication of the first volume (1036 folio pages, London, 1848). The principal editor, Henry Petrie had died, and its form was cumbrous. Representations were made by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, and the scheme of 1857 was the direct outcome of this appeal.

Scope

In the new Series "preference was to be given in the first instance to such materials as were most scarce and valuable", each chronicle was to be edited as if the editor were engaged upon an editio princeps

Editio princeps

In classical scholarship, editio princeps is a term of art. It means, roughly, the first printed edition of a work that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand....

, a brief account was to be provided in a suitable preface of the life and times of the author as well as a description of the manuscripts employed, and the volumes were to be issued in a convenient octavo form.

Works included the edition of the Chronica Majora

Chronica Majora

The Chronica Majora is an important medieval illuminated manuscript chronicle by Matthew Paris, one of a number of redactions of his work on English history.It is currently in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It covers the period 1240-53...

of Matthew Paris

Matthew Paris

Matthew Paris was a Benedictine monk, English chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire...

 by Luard; the Hoveden, Benedict of Peterborough, Ralph de Diceto

Ralph de Diceto

Ralph de Diceto was archdeacon of Middlesex, dean of St Paul's Cathedral , and author of two chronicles, the Abbreviationes Chronicorum and the Ymagines Historiarum.-Early career:...

, Walter of Coventry

Walter of Coventry

Walter of Coventry , English monk and chronicler, who was apparently connected with a religious house in the province of York, is known to us only through the historical compilation which bears his name, the Memoriale fratris Walteri de Coventria....

, and others, edited by William Stubbs

William Stubbs

William Stubbs was an English historian and Bishop of Oxford.The son of William Morley Stubbs, a solicitor, he was born at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, and was educated at Ripon Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1848, obtaining a first-class in classics and a third in...

; the works of Giraldus Cambrensis

Giraldus Cambrensis

Gerald of Wales , also known as Gerallt Gymro in Welsh or Giraldus Cambrensis in Latin, archdeacon of Brecon, was a medieval clergyman and chronicler of his times...

 by Brewer, and the "Materials for the History of St. Thomas Becket" by Canon Robertson.

The scope of the Series is not limited to the English Chroniclers. Legal records and tractates, such as the Year Books, the Black Book of the Admiralty

Black book of the admiralty

The Black Book of the Admiralty is a compilation of English admiralty law created over the course of several English monarchs' reigns, including the most important decisions of the High Court of Admiralty. Its starting point is the Rolls of Oléron, which were promulgated in c. 1160 by Eleanor...

, and Bracton's work De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ, materials of a more or less legendary character relating to Ireland and Scotland, such as Whitley Stokes's edition of The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, or the Icelandic Sagas edited by Guðbrandur Vigfússon

Guðbrandur Vigfússon

Guðbrandur Vigfússon, known in English as Gudbrand Vigfusson, was one of the foremost Scandinavian scholars of the 19th century.-Life:He was born of an Icelandic family in Breiðafjörður...

 and Dasent; rhymed chronicles like those of Robert of Gloucester

Robert of Gloucester (historian)

Robert of Gloucester wrote a chronicle of British, English, and Norman history sometime in the mid- or late-thirteenth century. The Chronicle survives in some 16 manuscripts, ranging in date from the early fourteenth to mid-fifteenth centuries, and was of considerable interest to contemporaries...

 and Robert of Brunne in English, and that of Pierre de Langtoft in French; quasi-philosophical works like those of Friar Roger Bacon

Roger Bacon

Roger Bacon, O.F.M. , also known as Doctor Mirabilis , was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods...

 and Alexander Neckam

Alexander Neckam

Alexander Neckam was an English scholar and teacher.-Biography:Born at St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, Neckam's mother, Hodierna, nursed the prince with her own son, who thus became Richard's foster-brother...

, together with folklore materials like the three volumes of Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Anglo-Saxon times, were included in the Series.

Hagiographical documents, dealing for example with the lives of St. Dunstan, St. Edward the Confessor, St. Hugh of Lincoln, St. Thomas, as well as St. Wilfrid and other northern saints, occupy a prominent place in the collection. The vast bulk of the texts are in Latin, printed without translation. Those in old French, Anglo-Saxon, Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, old Norse, etc. have a translation annexed.

The progress of the Rolls Series may best be traced in the Annual Reports of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records.

External links

• Index to the Rolls Series