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This article examines the relationship between writing, record keeping, and legal development in the period from c. 870 to c. 1220. It argues that there was a significant use of writing in late Anglo-Saxon England, for example for legislation and communication. However, there is no evidence for routine record keeping arising from litigation. Use of writing may have continued in similar fashion in Anglo-Norman England, while contemporary developments, for example, in the form of canon law collections show a growing awareness of the possibilities of literate technologies. It was in the Angevin period that use of writing in legal contexts shows the real start of bureaucratisation, with the standardisation and multiplication of written forms for communication and for record keeping. Such developments themselves encouraged greater legal standardisation.