Rochester Cathedral Foundation Charter, 604 CE*
The foundation charter of Rochester Cathedral, written primarily in Latin, though preserving its land boundary clause in Old English, announces that King Æthelberht grants land and privileges to the Church of St Andrew (the early name of the cathedral) in the year 604.
Transcription
119r (select folio number to open facsimile)
INcipiunt8 priuilegia aecclesię sancti9
Andreae Hrofensis concessa a tempore Ęthil-
berhti regis, qui fide Christiana a beato Au-
gustino suscepta, eandem ęcclesiam con-
strui fecit.10
REGNANTE11
IN PERPETVVM DOMINO
nostro Iesu Christo saluatore,
mense Aprilio, sub die
iiii kalendas Maias, indictione
vii ego Æthelberhtus12 rex
filio meo Eadbaldo admo-
nitionem catholice fidei
optabilem. Nobis est13
aptum semper inquirere,
qualiter per loca sanctorum
pro animę remedio
uel stabilitate salutis nostrę aliquid de portione
terrę nostrę in subsidiis seruorum Dei deuotissi-
mam uoluntatem debeamus offerre. Ideoque tibi
Sancte Andrea tuęque ęcclesiae quę est constitu-
ta in ciuitate Hrofibreui ubi pręesse uidetur
Iustus episcopus, trado aliquantulum telluris mei. hic est terminus mei doni.14 Fram Suðgeate
west andlanges wealles oð Norðlanan to
Stræte, ⁊ swa east fram St>aerte oð Dodding-
hyrnan ongean Bradgeat. Siquis uero au-
gere uoluerit hanc ipsam donationem, auge-
at illi Dominus dies bonos. Et si presumpserit
minuere aut contradicere, in conspectu
Dei sit damnatus et sanctorum eius hic et in ęterna
secula, nisi emendauerit ante eius transitum
quod inique gessit contra Christianitatem nostram. hoc cum consilio Laurentii episcopi et omnium princi-
pum meorum signo sanctę crucis confirmaui, eosque
iussi ut mecum idem facerent. AMEN.15
Translation
Here begin the privileges granted to the Church of Saint Andrew at Rochester, from the time of King Æthelberht who, having received the christian faith from the blessed Augustine, caused the same church to the built:
By our Lord Saviour Jesus Christ reigning perpetually, in the month of April, on the 4th day before the May calends [28th April],3 in the 7th year of the indiction [604],4 I King Æthelberht to my son Eadbald, a desired reminder of the Catholic faith. To us it is always proper to examine how, by means of holy places, for the remedy of the soul and the steadfastness of our salvation, we ought to offer, a most devout wish, something from the share of our land for the relief of the servants of God. And, therefore, to thee Saint Andrew and thy church, which is located in the city of Rochester and where Bishop Justus is seen to be head, I do hand over a small part of my land. Here is the boundary of my gift: from South Gate, west along the wall as far as North Lane, to Street,5 and so east from Street as far as Doddinghyrne6 opposite Broad Gate. If any man wishes to increase this very gift, may the Lord increase good days to him. And if he presumes to diminish or oppose it, may he be damned in the sight of God and his saints, here and on into the worlds everlasting, unless he repents that which he has done unjustly against our Christian faith.
This, in counsel with bishop Laurence and all my principal men,7 I have confirmed by the sign of the holy cross and have commanded them in order that they might with me accomplish the same. Amen.
Footnotes
1 King Æthelberht of Kent, often spelt Ethelbert, r. c.590–616.
2 This is a fraudulent document; see Nicholas Brooks, ‘Rochester, A.D. 400–1066’, in Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology at Rochester, ed. Tim Ayers and Tim Tatton-Brown (Maney, 2006), pp. 6–21, at pp. 8–10. The purported date is 28th April, 604 (see notes 3 and 4 below). 604 is the date for the foundation of Rochester Cathedral assigned by the monk-historian Bede: ‘In the year of our Lord 604 […] Augustine also consecrated Justus as bishop of a Kentish city which the English call Hrofescaestir [Rochester] after an early chieftain named Hrof. This lies nearly twenty-four miles west of Canterbury, and a church in honour of Saint Andrew the Apostle was built here by King Ethelbert’. Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, trans. Leo Sherley-Price, revised R. E. Latham (Penguin, revised ed., 1990), pp. 107–08. The document, as it appears in Textus Roffensis (penned by the principal scribe about 1123), is a copy of an earlier forgery which was possibly written a few years after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The forger may have modelled the forgery on a much older charter, for it is skilfully crafted, but inserted the boundary clause to correspond exactly to land that was seized by William I to build Rochester Cathedral. Therefore, as Brook suggests, the cathedral would have been able to use this charter to claim compensation for their lost land.
3 ‘May calends’, i.e. the first of May; the fourth day before the May calends is therefore April 28th .
4 i.e. in the year 604. The indiction refers to cycles of 15-year periods related to the Roman fiscal year. The indiction year referred to here is that beginning September 597 through to September 598. The seventh year of this particular indiction runs therefore from September 603 to September 604. As the date already given is the 28th April, it follows that the year must be 604. For more information on indiction years, see: https://www.britannica.com/topic/indiction [accessed 30.04.2018].
5 The main thoroughfare at that time through the city, from Westgate to Eastgate, continuing on to Canterbury, and corresponding to the present-day (old) High Street in Rochester (not the bypass of the same name). See Tim TattonBrown, ‘The topography and buildings of Medieval Rochester’, in Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology at Rochester, ed. Ayers and Tatton-Brown, pp. 22-37, at p. 23, fig. 1. 6 ‘Dodda’s corner/horn’, located at the crossroads in the centre of Rochester. See Brook, ‘Rochester, A.D. 400–1066’, p. 10, and Fig. 1
6 ‘Dodda’s corner/horn’, located at the crossroads in the centre of Rochester. See Brook, ‘Rochester, A.D. 400–1066’, p. 10, and Fig. 1
7 Bishop Laurence, archbishop of Canterbury, c.604–619. He was part of the Gregorian mission sent to Kent to convert the English peoples and was, unusually, consecrated by his predecessor Augustine before the latter died.
8 A Latin annotation in a non-medieval hand appears above the rubric; it is not fully legible.
9 The bar of the letter ‘t’ is extended.
10 The bar of the letter ‘t’ is extended.
11 ‘REGNANTE…’. To the right, in the margin, there is a faint manicule (a pointing finger).
12 A later hand, probably early-modern, has underlined the date and the king’s name and made an annotation, perhaps in Latin, in the right margin; however, it is not fully legible.
13 The bar of the letter ‘t’ is extended.
14 A later hand has inserted an asterisk with a corresponding annotation in the left margin, translating into earlymodern English the boundary clause: ‘[…] from Southgate West & along […] wal[l]s to north lane to street. & so east from street to dodinghorn lane and then to brod gate.’ The last word of the boundary clause, ‘Brad[-]geat’, has also been underlined.
15 The letter ‘N’ is stretched.
