Liber Eliensis - Influence

Influence

The Liber was familiar to the 13th-century chronicler Matthew Paris, who used it along with the Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis of Ramsey Abbey in his own historical works. Another 13th-century English writer, Roger of Wendover, was also aware of the Liber.

Some of the information contained in the Liber is important to historians. It is in the Liber that the first statement that Æthelwold translated the Benedictine Rule into Old English is made. The Liber is the longest of the local histories produced in England during the 12th century, and it contains a description of the royal chancery, which might be the earliest evidence for the existence of that office in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom. The Liber describes how King Edgar (d. 975) granted the abbey the office of chancellor (head of the chancery), but the authenticity of the passage is unclear. The existence of a formal chancery office in Anglo-Saxon England before the Norman Conquest is a matter of some debate amongst historians.

The historian Dorothy Whitelock says of the work that it is "unique among post-Conquest monastic histories". It was written to help buttress the claims of Ely to a judicial liberty, or the exercise of all the royal rights within a hundred. To do this, the Liber collected together earlier sources used to help the abbey evade episcopal control, prior to the abbey becoming a bishopric. These documents may have been forged or had their contents doctored to help the abbey's cause. Because of the tendentious nature of the collection, the work is used by historians with great caution. Despite the untrustworthy nature of the Liber and the documents preserved therein, it remains a valuable source for the history of the time period it covers, as well as the internal history of the abbey and bishopric. The historian Antonia Gransden characterises the Liber as "valuable for general history", but qualifies by saying that "the whole lacks unity and has errors and confusing repetitions".