Read Forging Communities: Memory and Identity in Post-Conquest England by Jennifer PaxtonJennifer Paxton (Haskins Society Journal (2002))

Physical print sent by the author and not available in digital format (at least that I can currently find.)

This isn’t the sort of essay I was initially hoping for, but it does touch on the idea of forged church documents as a means of providing a power base for certain churches versus others as well as versus other leaders. Without an oral society with memory methods spread among various constituencies, the power structure was based solely on written (or forged) documents.