The multi-year HTFE project concluding in 2016 saw the Crypt redeveloped into an exhibition area housing the Textus Roffensis, the Cathedral’s most important medieval book recognised as ‘Britain’s greatest hidden treasure’.

Textus Roffensis is more properly two distinct books, though written at about the same time and largely by the same scribe. They were only bound together some time after 1300. The first part contains one of the most important of all surviving collections of Anglo-Saxon laws, from the conversion of King Aethelberht of Kent to the coronation charter of King Henry I of 1100. The second part is the oldest and most precious of the cathedral registers. It can best be described as a memorandum book, created for ease of reference and security. Both parts were compiled in part from individual or single sheet original documents or exemplars, many now lost, in part from the collective memory of the cathedral community.

Introduction to Textus and Hidden Treasures, Fresh Expressions by Dean of Rochester Philip Hesketh, Dr Alixe Bovey of the University of Kent and historian and broadcaster Michael Wood.

The Textus compilation represents the first documentary evidence of the compromises made between the new Norman rulers and their indigenous English subjects, hinting at a convergence rather than a collision between the English language and English laws on the one hand and Romance laws and language on the other. The book contains two foundation charters of Rochester Cathedral and Diocese of 604 (DRc/R1 f.119r - f.119v and f.177r), two pre-Conquest and pre-Domesday Book lists of Kent parishes and copies of the earliest English law codes to survive (contained in part i of the book). The compilation dates from the episcopate of Ernulf of Bec (1115–1124) and more specifically from the period 1122–1123 (Hough, 2001) or 1123–1124 (Wormald, 2001).

Ernulf's involvement is commemorated on the first folio. Both parts were written by a single scribe. Flight surmises it was the prior of the day, Ordwine. Wormald suggests he was a trusted servant of Bishop Ernulf (talk transcript, 2004). Whoever he was, he was no ordinary scribe and possessed advanced scholarly and editorial powers and was responsible for seeking out and ordering as well as transcribing the book's contents.

An important element of the Hidden Treasures, Fresh Expressions Project was to explore Textus as an artefact of the priory, not just a historical manuscript.

Dr Christopher Monk explores the scribal practice in Textus and what it can reveal about the scriptorium of the medieval priory.

Another important aspect of the project was the make Textus accessible to a wider audience. While Textus currently resides in its airtight case in the Cathedral’s Crypt, a digital facsimile was produced by the University of Manchester Library. This facsimile can be explored online here.

The facsimile has significantly aided research and translation work. Around the same time, study and handling copies were produced for the Chapter Library and are used by academics and during Show and Tell events by the library volunteers.

Gwen Riley Jones of the Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care at the University of Manchester discusses the project to digitise Textus.

The Crypt exhibition space opened in 2016 with Textus as the star of the show. The exhibits within change regularly but there is now always a suitable and accessible home for our previously most hidden treasure, freshly expressed.

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