The Textus Roffensis was compiled at Rochester during the time of
Bishop Ernulf of Bec(1115-1124) in the reign of William I of England .
It is a book created by the monks of the church of Rochester in Kent
containing a register of royal charters and grants to Rochester Cathedral.
The following details
The Textus Roffensis is more properly two distinct books, though written
at about the same time, and largely by the same scribe, which were only bound
together some time after 1300.
The first part contains one of the most important of all surviving collections of
Anglo-Saxon laws, from the conversion of King Aethelberht of Kent to the coronation
charter of King Henry I of 1100.
The second part is the oldest and most precious of the cathedral registers.
It can best be described as a memorandum book, created for ease of reference
and security. Both parts were compiled in part from individual or single sheet
original documents or exemplars, many now lost, in part from the collective
memory of the cathedral community.
Further details and page images are available from the
Medway City Archives - search for Textus Roffensis .