New Minster Liber Vitae
The New Minster Liber Vitae is a confraternity book produced in Winchester, in southern England, in 1031. It records the names of visitors to the New Minster, Winchester and contains other information too, as well as a contemporary image of King Cnut the Great and his second wife Queen Emma of Normandy (below right).
![](http://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f2/Canute_and_%C3%86lfgifu.jpg/270px-Canute_and_%C3%86lfgifu.jpg)
The original manuscript is now kept in the British Library in London, as Stowe MS 944.[1] It and the Durham Liber Vitae are the only surviving Anglo-Saxon confraternity books.
On folio 29, a later writer has added the names of King Edward the Confessor, Queen Edith and the aetheling Edgar. In a recent article, Tom Licence has argued this list shows that Edgar was considered as King Edward's legitimate heir before Edward's death in 1066.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ "Digitised Manuscripts". British Library. Retrieved 2018-08-09.
- ^ Licence, Tom (2017). "Edward the Confessor and the Succession Question: a fresh look at the sources". Anglo-Norman Studies. 39: 113-127.
Editions
[edit]- Birch, Walter de Gray, ed. (1892). Liber vitae : register and martyrology of New Minster and Hyde abbey, Winchester (in Latin). London: Simpkin. OCLC 37943147.
- Keynes, Simon, ed. (1996). The Liber vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger. ISBN 9788742305232. (facsimile)
Further reading
[edit]- S. Keynes, 'The Liber Vitae of the New Minster, Winchester', in The Durham Liber Vitae and its context, ed. D. Rollason et al. (Woodbridge, 2004), pp.149-164
- 'The New Minster Liber Vitae', Medieval Manuscripts Blog http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2011/06/the-new-minster-liber-vitae.html