Osbert of Clare

Osbert of Clare (died in or after 1158) was a monk, elected prior of Westminster Abbey and briefly abbot. He was a prolific writer of letters, a hagiographer and a forger of charters.

Works

By 1138, he had reworked the vita Ædwardi regis of Westminster Abbey. He himself composed a Life of St Eadburh of Winchester for Pershore Abbey and a Life of St Æthelberht of East Anglia, dedicated to Gilbert Foliot sometime after 1148.

• Letters, ed. E.W. Williamson, The letters of Osbert of Clare, prior of Westminster. Oxford, 1929. Reprinted in 1998.
• Charters, ed. by E. Mason, J. Bray, and D. J. Murphy (eds.). Westminster Abbey charters, 1066–c.1214. RS 25. London, 1988.
• Vita Edburgae, MS. Laud Misc. 114, f. 85–120 (Bodleian, Oxford), ed. S.J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England. A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought 4. Cambridge, 2008. 253 ff (Appendix).
• Some extracts are printed in Vita Ædwardi regis "The Life of King Edward", ed. and tr. F. Barlow, The Life of King Edward who Rests at Westminster Attributed to a Monk of Saint-Bertin. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1992. The full text was edited by Marc Bloch, "La vie de S. Édouard le Confesseur par Osbert de Clare." Analecta Bollandiana 41 (1923): 5–131;

Further reading

• Barlow, Frank. “Osbert of Clare:”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 30 Jan 2008.