David Taillades’s article advances a comprehensive re-dating and re-ordering of the Old Charges by shifting analysis from the material witness to the textual content. The article consolidates a programme announced in 2020 and delivers a full comparative table aligning copy-dates (Hughan; McLeod) with content-dates (Taillades), then proposes a re-organisation of families/branches to yield a chronological and intelligible map of transmission. The piece belongs to the historiographical tradition of Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, but it reorients that tradition towards internal evidence and procedural clarity.
Thesis and Main Contribution
The thesis is explicit: because the Old Charges are copies, external dating tools (codicology, palaeography) cannot establish when their content was composed; instead, content must be dated from internal textual signals. The principal contribution is twofold: (1) publication of a complete table juxtaposing copy-dates with content-dates for the accessible corpus, and (2) a revised classification that rearranges families/branches by content-horizons, thereby clarifying developmental sequences and exposing misgroupings. The author states that the 2020 article set out the methodology and that in the present study “there was no philological assessment of texts on a word-by-word basis,” pending a later refinement “once my criteria are used” .
Method and Rationale
The method proceeds in three steps. First, the author compiles a corpus-wide table that lists, for each witness, the date of the copy (as per Hughan and McLeod) alongside an independent content-date derived from internal cues (titles such as “King” or “Supreme Governor”; statutory echoes; lexical items; structural developments like the number and phrasing of articles/points). Secondly, he uses the completed table to test whether existing families/branches cohere as historical sequences. Thirdly, he proposes a re-ordering by content-periods (e.g., c.1300–1350; 1460–1481; 1481–1521; 1515–1533; c.1534–1553; 1607–1714), and indicates where branches likely belong to different families than currently assigned. The rationale follows directly: only internal evidence dates the text, while copy-dates organise the support and must not be mistaken for composition.
The article positions itself sharply against nineteenth- and twentieth-century practices. It vindicates Begemann’s philological groupings as necessary and methodologically sound, reminding readers that Begemann “studied copies and not original MSS.” and therefore did not assign content-dates. It identifies as a “fatal mistake” Hughan’s practice of publishing a chronology of copies, criticises Poole for integrating copy-dates into the classificatory tree, and challenges McLeod’s reliance on a hypothetical “standard original,” presented as a manufactured proof that then drives the classification. Prescott is acknowledged for trying to stimulate renewed study. The author’s stance is corrective: he retains the heuristic value of philological families while relocating the evidential burden to internal content and chronological ordering.
Main Arguments
- From tables to a defensible chronology : The article publishes, for the first time, a full comparison of Hughan’s and McLeod’s copy-dates with Taillades’s content-dates across families/branches. The resulting convergence is strong: the author notes that the two processes are “almost completely in accord,” arguing that this mutual reinforcement validates both the philological groupings and the internal dating criteria.
- Clarifying a century of confusion over “dating the copy” : The article attributes long-standing chronological confusion to the habit, inaugurated by Hughan, of presenting a timeline of copy-dates. The author calls this a “fatal mistake,” because it treats copy-chronology as if it indexed composition. He shows, with concrete examples (Melrose No. 2; Wren; Harleian 1942; William Watson), how this practice fragmented the history into misleading sequences and obscured missing antecedents.
- Completeness, scope, and exclusions : Abstracts are not dated in the table if incomplete, inaccessible, or intrinsically un-dateable by content. Three manuscripts (George Grey; Dundee No. 2; Powell) are discussed but not tabulated for these reasons; after excluding seven items that are not, strictly, Old Charges, the accessible corpus consists of “one hundred and nine Old Charges”. This delimitation frames the evidential base for the reclassification.
- Reassigning branches; questioning the family architecture : Using content-dates, the author shows that some branches sit uneasily within current families and proposes that branches such as “Harris” and “Thorp” could warrant family status. Conversely, the presence of a “sundry” family (H) indicates that the family tier is an artificial aggregation likely to mislead chronological inference; he urges treating each H witness as a potential “group” in its own right.
- A chronological re-ordering by content periods : The paper supplies two synthetic tables: (a) McLeod groups arranged by Taillades dates, and (b) the Old Charges arranged by Taillades dates. This yields a stepwise succession—Cooke/Regius (c.1300–1350) → Plot (c.1401–1450) → Tew (c.1450) → early Grand Lodge branches (c.1450–1481) → 1481–1521 clusters (York/Dowland/Lansdowne/Dumfries/Stirling/Sloane) → 1515–1533 (Hope/Embleton) → c.1534–1553 (Devonshire) → 1607–1714 (Roberts/Spencer). The chronology transforms a scrambled family list into a developmental map.
- Consequences for research practice : With families and branches aligned by content-horizons, the author argues, scholars can now ask productive questions: which text is earliest within a group? how do regional styles shift across periods? how do Scottish copies map onto English content-streams? He frames this as an invitation to “reconsider the Sources & Styles of the Old Charges” and to undertake the deferred word-by-word philological refinement.
Strengths of the Approach
- Rigour/Originality : The article moves beyond assertion by offering a complete, auditable table across the corpus, then using it to test and refine classification. The explicit separation of copy-date from content-date is operationalised at scale, not simply argued in principle.
- Methodological Contribution : By showing that internal dating and Begemann-style philology can converge, the study legitimises a hybrid workflow: first classify by shared readings; then plot content-horizons independently; finally reconcile or reassign branches as needed. This dual validation—“almost completely in accord”—is a major procedural gain.
- Clarity of Argumentation : The paper alternates between illustrative cases and synoptic tables, culminating in a chronological re-ordering that immediately clarifies patterns of development. The critique of predecessors is documented with concrete examples rather than generalities.
Limitations and Potential Biases
- Limitation 1 : The author explicitly notes that a “word-by-word analysis is still needed” to refine groupings once the criteria are applied. Until that philological pass is completed, some branch/family reallocations remain provisional, which moderates the finality of the proposed reclassification.
- Limitation 2 : Coverage constraints are acknowledged: several abstracts are excluded as non-dateable or inaccessible, three manuscripts are discussed but not tabulated, and seven items are removed as not strictly Old Charges. These exclusions are methodologically prudent but reduce the completeness of the comparative base.
- Blind spot : None. The article states that the manuscripts “were all copies, not originals” and targets the confusion produced by copy-chronologies; it repeatedly separates the date of the support from the date of the text and structures its method accordingly.
Critical Conclusion
This article delivers what earlier debates lacked: a replicable, corpus-wide implementation of content-dating that is then used to recalibrate the very architecture of classification. By demonstrating alignment between internal dating and inherited philological groups, it rescues the latter from blanket dismissal while exposing where branch-to-family assignments require revision. The practical payoff is immediate: a chronological map that invites targeted philological work, regional style studies, and renewed attention to transmission streams. The author concedes that “errors and omissions” cannot be excluded entirely and invites further correction, but the framework provided is robust enough to guide that work. In sum, the study offers a durable methodological baseline for Old Charges research: date the text, not the paper; use the families, but in chronological order; and refine by close philology where the table indicates pressure-points.