The Durham Liber Vitae: Introductory essays, edition, commentary on the edition and indexes

Book excerpt: The Durham Liber Vitae, a sumptuous manuscript created in ninth-century Northumbria containing lists of 3,000 names of royalty, aristocracy, and churchmen, is one of only three books of its type to survive from medieval Britain. Updated sporadically in the tenth and eleventh centuries, it became a repository for the names of monks at Durham Cathedral Priory up until the Dissolution, and later included the names of lay persons through the Middle Ages--some from the royalty and aristocracy, but many from much humbler levels of society. Durham Liber Vitae: The Complete Edition brings the Liber Vitae to life, unlocking its considerable potential for a range of studies in linguistics, religious history, and paleaeography. Supported by a high-resolution digital facsimile on CD-ROM, introductions to the manuscript, extensive indexes, and full linguistic commentaries on absolutely all recorded names, Durham Liber Vitae: The Complete Edition is an essential volume for scholars of medieval English history.