The Anglo-Saxon Chancery: The History, Language and Production of Anglo-Saxon Charters from Alfred to Edgar by Ben Snook (review)

In The Anglo-Saxon Chancery, Ben Snook takes an innovative approach to examining the stylistic development of the Anglo-Saxon charter from the reign of Alfred through to the reign of Edgar. In discussions of charters, the word "style" can refer not only to literary style but also to certain specific features of the charter, such as dating, styling of the king's address, and boundary clauses (possibly in the vernacular), to name a few. Separating literary style from the other stylistic features is an important intervention since it allows commonalities to appear even when they might otherwise be obscured by some very idiosyncratic voices of those who penned the charters, such as Æthelstan A (who preferred rare words and difficult syntax) or the author of the so-called alliterative charters. Despite the literary styles of many Anglo-Saxon scribes being so divergent, Snook argues that many other features are strikingly consistent from Alfred to Edgar, showing an effort at centralized charter production at the royal court throughout the period, most strongly visible in the charters of Edgar. In short, he argues for the existence of an Anglo-Saxon chancery and even a cancellarius (chancellor) long before the eleventh-century use of that word.

For the literary scholar, this book adds a valuable contribution in its extension of literary style into nonliterary texts, since some of the more unusual charters interact with contemporary literary productions. For instance, Æthelstan A, the most distinctive creator of Anglo-Saxon charters, is often cited as an early example of the hermeneutic style, a particularly esoteric Latin style that rose to prominence in late tenth century in the writings of Benedictine reformers. Since Æthelstan's court had so many continental scholars, Mechthild Gretsch and Michael Lapidge have wondered aloud if Æthelstan A was a foreign scholar imported into the court, perhaps Israel the Grammarian. If he were foreign and not English, this fact would explain the sudden appearance of this style and its equally sudden disappearance from charter writing despite something similar reappearing a few decades later in the literary works of Anglo-Saxon England. Snook, however, sees Æthelstan A not as a foreign innovation but as a continuous development of an English tradition of charter creation based in Worcester, as evidenced by Aldhelmian references in two charters of Alfred's reign. He even goes so far as to argue that Æthelstan A is Ælfwine, the bishop of Lichfield.

The Aldhelmian and bombastic tendencies of Æthelstan A are not repeated to this extent in later charter writing, but they do reappear in the literary context, in the writings of Benedictine Reformers led by Dunstan (archbishop of Canterbury, 959-88) and Æthelwold (bishop of Winchester, 963-84). Both priests were present in Æthelstan's court as young men and were likely personal acquaintances of Æthelstan A. They continued the study of Aldhelm in Glastonbury, along with other Continental texts like the Bella Parisicae urbis by Abbo of Saint Germain-des-Prés. These studies coupled with other intellectual exchanges with the Continent blossomed into a particular Latin style that came to be called the hermeneutic style. Thus, the kernel of Aldhelmian study begun in Æthelstan's cosmopolitan court reflected, and possibly encouraged, by Æthelstan A continues to have resonances throughout Anglo-Latin literary history through the social networks of Dunstan and Æthelwold. This book makes a significant intervention in setting the charter context alongside these literary developments.

Sometimes too much attention to the literary context also creates problems for Snook, however, as he is rather enthusiastic to identify specific known authors as the true creators of Anglo-Saxon charters. For instance, he would like to identify Dunstan as the author of the Dunstan B charters, which are produced intermittently over a span of time...