What does cartulary mean?
A cartulary is a collection or register of charters, deeds, grants, and other official records. The term is especially associated with medieval institutions, particularly monasteries and cathedral chapters, which preserved cartularies documenting ownership, privileges, donations, and legal rights. A cartulary could contain full copies of documents, summaries of their contents, or lists and references to them, so it was both an archive and an administrative index. The word has a scholarly and historical character and is uncommon in everyday speech. In older usage, it could also refer to the official responsible for maintaining such records. Although cartularies remain important sources for historians, genealogists, and legal researchers, the word is not confined to surviving medieval manuscripts; it can describe analogous collections of official documents more generally. Its value lies in showing how institutions organized, protected, and retrieved the records on which their authority depended.
nounA collection or register of charters, deeds, and other official records, especially one preserved by a medieval religious or secular institution. In historical usage, it can also refer to the official responsible for keeping such records.
- A collection of charters, deeds, or other official records.
- A book or register in which such documents are copied, summarized, or recorded.
- Historically, an official charged with keeping a cartulary or maintaining institutional records.
"The abbey cartulary preserves evidence of several disputed grants of land."
"Historians used the cartulary to reconstruct the abbey's ownership of surrounding land."
"A newly discovered cartulary contains copies of charters not found in the surviving royal records."
The standard plural adds -ies to the final -y.
"Several monastic cartularies preserve copies of the disputed grant."
A medieval cartulary was often the closest thing its monastery had to a searchable database of property, privileges, and obligations.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does cartulary come from?
Cartulary entered English from Medieval Latin cartularium, meaning a collection of charters. Its deeper root is Latin cartula, a diminutive of carta, a word for paper or written material, which also underlies English charter, chart, cartel, and cartography. The medieval Latin form was especially associated with collections of deeds and institutional records maintained by religious houses and other authorities.
Related word forms
How cartulary is actually used
Cartulary is chiefly used in historical, legal, and archival scholarship. It has a formal, specialist tone, while the additional sense of a record keeper is rare and mainly historical.
Easily confused with cartulary
Cartulary is the standard and most common term, while cartular is a rarer older form that can denote the same collection.