Making books for pastoral care in late eleventh-century Worcester

During the episcopate of St Wulfstan of Worcester a large number of books, many in English, were produced by Worcester scribes; some related to efforts to record the Worcester community’s Anglo-Saxon past; others were connected with Worcester’s spiritual, theological and practical needs. The Worcester volumes therefore allow an exploration not only of how pastoral care and episcopal duties were performed, but also of the detailed decisions about the planning and production of books for these tasks. Later glossators include the ‘Tremulous Hand’, suggesting that both volumes were in Worcester in the thirteenth century, and other thirteenth-and fourteenth-century hands which attest to the continuing interest in Worcester books. The analysis of the manuscripts and texts shows that the two volumes which are Junius MS 121 and Hatton MSS 113 + 114 were carefully and deliberately constructed, based on perceived needs in late eleventh-century Worcester.