The Archives of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds: 21

The abbey of Bury St Edmunds, shrine of St Edmund, was one of the greatest monasteries in medieval England, richly endowed with estates and widely known for its intellectual and artistic life. The surviving manuscripts from its library have been well catalogued, but its extensive archives, which are now to be found scattered on libraries throughout England, with an important group in the United States, have never been properly listed. Dr Thomson provides not only a valuable tool for the researcher, but also, in his introduction, discusses the way in which such an archive was formed, maintained and used. He applies principles familiar to students of medieval libraries, but which have rarely been used in connection with medieval records, to show how the archive worked in practice. Although the 1335 items listed are primarily of local interest, the book as a whole will be valuable to all those interested in the administrative and economic life of medieval monasteries.