The Canons of Edgar are a set of early eleventh-century ecclesiastical regulations produced in Anglo-Saxon England by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York.^[1]

According to Fowler, the Canons of Edgar "was central in Wulfstan's programme of reform; it also demonstrates better than any other of his works the deliberateness with which he familiarized himself with the best canonical writings to provide a basis of accepted authority for [these] reforms."^[2]

Manuscripts

One version of the Canons — labelled version "D" — can be found in an eleventh-century manuscript, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS. 201, where it has been copied out by hand on pages 97 to 101.^[3]

Editions and translations

• Thorpe, Benjamin, ed. (1840). "Canons enacted under King Edgar.". Ancient laws and institutes of England. pp. 395–402 – via Biblioteca europea di informazione e cultura.
• Fowler, Roger (1972). Wulfstan's Canons of Edgar. London: Oxford University Press.
• Translation: Andrew Rabin, The Political Writings of Archbishop Wulfstan of York (Manchester, 2015), pp. 85-100