This long-awaited study of the early acta of the bishops of Worcester includes full editions of the surviving documents of eight bishops, from the saintly Wulfstan to the future archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin. The 265 documents or references to lost acta, include indulgences, confirmations and grants, settlements of disputes and some of the earliest surviving inspeximuses. Accompanying the documents is a comprehensive introduction, providing brief biographies of the bishops as well as considerations of their households and of the diplomatic of their documents.

This volume reproduces at full size 190 original charters produced for English bishops between 1085 and 1300. Full transcriptions face each plate, with a brief English summary and bibliographical note.
The documents are drawn from every diocese, and are taken from fifty-five archives in England, France and Belgium. The selection includes representative examples of all the commoner types of document - solemn charters, judgments, mandates, indulgences, administrative or personal correspondence and formal notifications to the crown. A few cases of drafts, and several of forgery, are also included.
The volume indicates the ways in which these documents, as the scribe prepared them, contain information--in punctuation, lay-out and physical appearance - which cannot be shown in even the most scrupulous printed edition. The introduction gives a broad outline of the evolution of the forms and script, and of methods of sealing.