ABSTRACT
It is now clearly established that when William the Conqueror ascended the English throne in 1066 he introduced to the royal chancery the then-current Norman practice of issuing charters without dates. This custom continued until the reign of Richard I (1189-1199), when, for the first time, dated charters were regularly issued from the royal chancery. It was not until the early years of the reign of Edward II (1307-1327), however, that dates were commonly included in private charters. It is estimated that at least a million private charters have survived as originals, or as copies in cartularies, from that nearly 250-year period. Of these, approximately 8 percent are dated within the charter, increasingly so with the passage of time, but even at the turn of the fourteenth century the percentage remains modest.
