This book draws together a collection of essays looking at the ways in which charters and charter scholarship in different areas of Britain and Ireland, highlighting comparisons and contrasts in charter production and use. The book shows the crucial importance of charters as sources for understanding the history of royal administration and, more broadly, the perceptions and portrayals of kingly power, as well as developments in written culture.

DAVID BATES Professor of History and Director of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, UK DAUVIT BROUN Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Glasgow University, UK MICHAEL HAREN Editor of the Calendars of Papal Registers for the Irish Manuscripts Commission MAIRE HERBERT Associate Professor, Department of Early and Medieval Irish, University College, Cork, REPUBLIC OF IRELAND CHARLES INSLEY Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Canterbury Christ Church University College, UK HUW PRICE Reader in History, Department of History and Welsh History, University of Wales, Bangor, UK RICHARD SHARPE Professor of Diplomatic History, University of Oxford, UK NICHOLAS VINCENT Professor of Medieval History, School of History, University of East Anglia, UK