Monasticon Anglicanum

Monasticon Anglicanum
Name	Monasticon Anglicanum
Author	William Dugdale; Roger Dodsworth (compiler)
Country	England
Language	Latin and English
Subject	Ecclesiastical history; monastic houses of England and Wales
Publisher	John Nichols (later editions)
Pub date	1655–1673; 1770–1830 (expanded editions)
Media type	Print

Monasticon Anglicanum is a multivolume compendium documenting the medieval monasterys, abbeys, prioryries, chantries, and religious foundations of England and Wales, assembled from archival records, charters, cartularies, and antiquarian notes. Compiled in the 17th century and expanded in the 18th and early 19th centuries, it became foundational for studies of Dissolution of the Monasteries, ecclesiastical landholding, and local antiquarianism, influencing later antiquaries, historians, and archivists across institutions such as the Bodleian Library, the British Museum, and the Harleian Library.

History and Publication

The project began amid the milieu of 17th‑century English antiquarian networks centered on figures like William Dugdale, Roger Dodsworth, Thomas Tanner, John Leland, Ralph Thoresby, and Anthony à Wood, who exchanged transcripts with repositories including the Public Record Office, the Exchequer, the Court of Chancery, the Cathedral Library, Durham, and the Lincoln Cathedral Library. Initial publication occurred during the reign of Charles II with the first parts appearing between 1655 and 1673 under Dugdale’s supervision, while later substantial expansions and new editions were produced by printers and editors such as John Nichols, Edward Rowe Mores, Samuel Tymms, John Caley, and the Society of Antiquaries of London in the 18th and 19th centuries. The work’s printing history intersects with publishing houses like the Stationers' Company and the networks of leading antiquarian societies including the Royal Society and the Archaeological Institute.

Content and Structure

Monasticon Anglicanum arranges material by diocesan and county provenance, presenting individual entries for houses such as Westminster Abbey, Fountains Abbey, Tewkesbury Abbey, Glastonbury Abbey, St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, Ely Cathedral Priory, St Albans Abbey, Ripon Cathedral, and Battle Abbey, and describing foundations connected to patrons like William the Conqueror, Henry II, Edward I, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Matilda of Scotland, Lanfranc, and St Dunstan. Each entry combines charters, foundation legends, lists of abbots or priors, cartulary excerpts, and plate engravings of seals, tombs, and plans by artists and engravers associated with antiquarian publication such as Wenceslaus Hollar, John Speed, and Joseph Skelton. The volumes interleave Latin prefaces and English translations, cataloguing endowments, advowsons, manorial holdings, papal bulls, royal confirmations, and visitation records linked to institutions like York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral, St Paul's Cathedral, Worcester Cathedral, and Gloucester Cathedral.

Editions and Contributors

Major contributors and editors span generations: early compilers and informants include Roger Dodsworth, Humfrey Wanley, Sir Simon D'Ewes, and Thomas Hearne, while later editorial expansion involved John Nichols, Edward Taylor, Samuel Lysons, Daniel Lysons, George Ormerod, and Henry Petrie. Printers, engravers, and patrons such as John Baskerville, James Granger, Thomas Hearne (antiquary), Philip Morant, and George Vertue provided typographical, illustrative, and bibliographical expertise. Institutional custodians like the Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, Lincoln Cathedral Library, Lambeth Palace Library, and the British Library supplied manuscripts and charters, while collectors including Thomas Phillips (collector), Sir Robert Cotton, Humphrey Prideaux, and Sir William Dugdale (the same Dugdale’s family estate collections) aided compilation.

Sources and Methodology

Dugdale and his collaborators relied on primary sources including episcopal registers from Durham, Exeter, Norwich, Salisbury, and Winchester, manorial rolls from Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cornwall, and Devon, papal registers in the Vatican Archives, royal chancery patents from Westminster Hall, and cartularies preserved at houses like Fountains, Glastonbury, Tewkesbury, Ely, and St Albans. Methodologically, the work synthesizes diplomatic transcription, paleographical collation, heraldic description referencing arms recorded in collections such as the College of Arms, and comparative antiquarian commentary drawing on sources like John Stow, Matthew Paris, Bede, Henry of Huntingdon, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The editors adopted practices of the period in presenting Latin originals alongside English paraphrase, and they reproduced visual evidence including seals, effigies, and cartographic sketches.

Impact and Reception

From its first circulation, Monasticon Anglicanum shaped antiquarian scholarship, informing county histories by William Camden, Nicholas Carlisle, John Aubrey, Robert Plot, Antony Bek, and later county topographers like Francis Grose, Samuel Lysons, and James Dugdale (antiquary). It underpinned 18th‑ and 19th‑century debates on the interpretation of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, influenced legal arguments over advowsons and tithes adjudicated in courts including the Court of Common Pleas and the House of Lords, and became a reference for restoration architects engaged with medieval fabric at sites such as Winchester Cathedral, Worcester Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, and Ripon Cathedral. Reception varied: praised by antiquaries like Thomas Hearne and criticized by revisionists skeptical of transcriptional accuracy, it nonetheless remained a touchstone for historians including Edward Gibbon, Karl Pearson (in historical method), and later medievalists.

Collections and Surviving Manuscripts

Manuscript sources and annotated copies of Monasticon Anglicanum survive across major archives: the British Library (Harleian and Cotton collections), the Bodleian Library (Rawlinson MSS), Lambeth Palace Library (episcopal registers and archiepiscopal collections), the National Archives (United Kingdom) (Exchequer and Chancery rolls), and county record offices in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Devon, Somerset, and Gloucestershire. Private collections and institutional holdings—such as those at St John's College, Cambridge, Magdalene College, Cambridge, Trinity College, Cambridge, Lincoln College, Oxford, and the Ashmolean Museum—preserve draft transcripts, engraved plates, and annotated proofs. Surviving material also includes Dugdale’s diaries, Dodsworth’s cartularies, and associated correspondence among antiquaries now catalogued in the archives of the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Royal Society.

Category:English historical books Category:Antiquarianism