Warren C. Brown is Professor of History at the California Institute of Technology. Marios Costambeys is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Liverpool. Matthew Innes is Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London. Adam J. Kosto is Professor of History at Columbia University.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Lay archives in the Late Antique and Byzantine East: the implications of the documentary papyri Peter Sarris; 3. Public administration, private individuals and the written word in Late Antique North Africa, c.284–700 Jonathan P. Conant; 4. Lay documents and archives in early Medieval Spain and Italy, c.400–700 Nicholas Everett; 5. The gesta municipalia and the public validation of documents in Frankish Europe Warren C. Brown; 6. Lay people and documents in the Frankish formula collections Warren C. Brown; 7. Archives, documents and landowners in Carolingian Francia Matthew Innes; 8. The production and preservation of documents in Francia: the evidence of cartularies Hans Hummer; 9. The laity, the clergy, the scribes and their archives: the documentary record of eighth- and ninth-century Italy Marios Costambeys; 10. Sicut mos esse solet: documentary practices in Christian Iberia, c.700–1000 Adam J. Kosto; 11. On the material culture of legal documents: charters and their preservation in the Cluny archive, ninth to eleventh centuries Matthew Innes; 12. Documentary practices, archives and lay people in central Italy (mid-ninth to eleventh centuries) Antonio Sennis; 13. Archives and lay documentary practice in the Anglo-Saxon world Charles Insley; 14. Conclusion.

'Most studies of early medieval literacy have emphasised the role of the Church in the production of written documents. This collection puts the spotlight on the involvement of the laity, and vividly reveals the extent to which laymen played an active role in documentary culture throughout the post-Roman World, from the Eastern Mediterranean to Anglo-Saxon England. In so doing it greatly enriches our understanding of government, administration and estate organisation in the centuries after Rome's fall.' Ian Wood, University of Leeds