This paper seeks better to understand the status and function of historical studies at Durham cathedral priory during the first quarter of the twelfth century. To do so, it examines the addition of annalistic entries to the Easter tables of one particular manuscript: Durham, Dean and Chapter Library, MS Hunter 100 (hereafter Hunter 100). After first situating these annals in relation to other forms of historiographical composition and study at Durham during the first quarter of the twelfth century I consider the links between this annalistic activity and other cognate areas of learning. This analysis reveals that these annals not only addressed historiographical concerns but also contributed to computistics and, through this, also the development of Durham’s monastic liturgy. This study thus augments and further develops historians’ understanding of historical studies at Durham in the early twelfth century, the wider purposes of historical research during the Middle Ages, and the role and possible functions of annalistic history in Anglo-Norman England.

As it appears today, Hunter 100 is an amalgamation of four previously separate elements containing various astrological, medicinal, and computistical diagrams, tables and treatises. All of its contents are judged to have been copied at Durham between c. 1100 and 1128. The booklet which now provides section one contains various commentaries, including a guide to Computus by Abbo of Fleury, Dionysius Exiguus’ letter on the dating of Easter, and several tables and diagrams on computistical topics. Section two (now fols. 43–84) houses Helperic’s De computo and extracts from Bede’s De temporibus, alongside a variety of astrological materials, including Abbo of Fleury’s De differentia circuli et spherae and a Latin and Old English Glossarium nominum planetarum. Sections three and four (now fols. 85–101 and 102–120, respectively) collect primarily medical commentaries, including tracts on the four humours, De quattor humoribus corporis and on the medicinal properties of herbs, De herbis medicinalibus. The first section (now fols. 1–42) is clearly identifiable as a separate mini-volume, with a definite break of quires and original binding between fols. 42v and 43r. Divisions between sections two, three and four are more difficult to identify, although these are suggested by the presence of a later medieval title page at the beginning of section three (fol. 85r) and the removal of a single leaf between sections three and four, at fols. 101–2.