Of the 120 Anglo-Saxon writs printed here (to which has been added the letter of the monk Edwin, no. 113), ranging (ostensibly) in date from King Æthelred II to King Harold II (or possibly later with nos. 6, 72), and comprising writs of non-royal persons as well as of kings and queens, three at least, nos. 33 (in part), 55 and 96 (P), are probably on all grounds actual products of the royal clerks, with the royal seal; one or two others, without a seal, probably no. 115, possibly no. 11, might be added to this select group.

Preface.

The 'Anglo-Saxon writ' was a letter on administrative business to which a seal was appended, and the protocol (or opening clauses) of which named the sender of the letter and the person or persons to whom it was addressed, and contained a greeting.

General introduction.

In the introduction to his valuable Short Catalogue of Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (London, 1957 Mr G. R. C. Davis remarks that in the survival to our own day of individual cartularies (i.e. registers of charters or muniments) much has been due to chance - to the good fortune whereby some texts have remained undisturbed, and often unnoticed, among the archives or other places of safe-keeping, where they were placed in the past by those who made them, often centuries ago.

A Bromfield and a Coventry writ of King Edward the Confessor.