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Coventry Priory Register is a precious survivor from the rich records that once existed of the Benedictine monastery which lay at the heart of the city of Coventry. As such it is an invaluable source for the social and economic history of medieval England. Compiled by an unknown monk and completed around 1419, it includes the rentals made by Brother William Haloughton, the priory’s treasurer, of property in Coventry and extents of the priory’s estates in Warwickshire and Leicestershire in the years 1410-11. The purpose of these was to produce an up-to-date survey of the priory’s income, in order to manage it more effectively and stem its decline. The rentals provide an extraordinary level of detail about the city of Coventry, in particular, in the early fifteenth century and before. Also included in the Register are early charters, both forged and genuine, additional rentals, licences in mortmain, and full details of the events round 1334-7 which resulted in the prior’s lordship over Coventry being wrested from him in favour of an oligarchy of merchants. These records are significant not only in terms of urban history and in terms of the study of the rural estates of an important monastic foundation but also in terms of the relations between the two. Although the manuscript has been utilised by historians it has never been available in edited form and can now be drawn on with greater confidence and with a fuller understanding of the contexts in which it was produced.

The manuscript comprises 262 folios, recto and verso. Most items are in Latin, although there are entries in both French and English. The edition is a full calendar, with every effort being made to include the maximum information and with entries given in the original language where the sense is unclear or ambiguous or where the language/material is deemed to be of extraordinary significance. The preliminary text provided by Mrs Lancaster Lewis was used as a base and then re-edited. The production of the text involved the deployment of a range of editorial skills and judgements and there is full scholarly apparatus including three substantial indices. A full introduction analyses the contents of the manuscript in relation to the history of the city and the monastery, re-examining and making considerable contributions to both. The process by which the manuscript was compiled is also analysed as are the attitudes of its monk-compiler. A series of reconstructed street plans of Coventry in 1411 is contributed by Dr N. Alcock.

In producing the final scholarly edition of the Coventry Priory Register, Coss inherited a rough and incomplete draft produced by Lancaster Lewis. Coss is responsible for 85% of the edition, which includes the lengthy introduction, editing, and all the scholarly apparatus for the production of the edition.