The Customary

This part of the website provides an introduction to

• the Customary as a medieval book
• the versions of the Customary associated with Salisbury Cathedral
• the ordering of each version of the Sarum Customary included here
• the manuscript sources used for the texts of the Customary
• approaches to editing and translating the Customary texts

Four representative medieval sources of the Customary are discussed:

• OCO: The oldest surviving text of the Old Customary
• OCR: The only known text of a later revision of the Old Customary
• NCC & NCS: Two versions of the New Customary

There is also a brief discussion of the edition of the Customary prepared by W. H. Frere, The Use of Sarum, I (Cambridge, 1898). The divisions of sections and subsections employed in this well-known edition are employed throughout the website.