Notes on the Histories of Recordkeeping
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A Minor Inventory
“We have here greit nede of clerkes…” William Brabazon in Ireland to Thomas Cromwell, via William Body, October 1536 (SP 60/3 203v) This communication, from one servant of the king to another, carried by one in private service, reflects a larger mid-sixteenth century need for secretarial labour. Projecting sovereign power by the written word was…
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Chaucer’s Customs Petition: Introduction
Read more: Chaucer’s Customs Petition: IntroductionIn 1385 Geoffrey Chaucer, who held the office of controller of wool customs at London, requested permission from the king to appoint a sufficient deputy for as long as he held the office. The following is the text of his petition to Richard II preserved in the UK National Archives [C81/1394/87], published in Life-Records of…
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Chaucer’s Customs Petition: (part 2) the Writers
Read more: Chaucer’s Customs Petition: (part 2) the WritersAdam A reproduction of Chaucer’s 1385 petition is published in The British Inheritance: A Treasury of Historic Documents, from which the following images were made. The caption to the reproduction states in part: “It is probable that one of these hands is Chaucer’s, but it is impossible to say which.” (p.31) This is clearly mistaken.…
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1292 Bills in Eyre
Read more: 1292 Bills in EyreIn 1292 the English king’s justices at Shrewsbury in Shropshire heard the complaint of Thomas Colle of Shropshire against his brother who owed him money. He brought his legal action before the itinerant and omni-competent Justices of the General Eyre. Since the 12th century English kings had intermittently sent judges out on these visitations to…
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1259 – An Early (and Late) Bill in Eyre
Read more: 1259 – An Early (and Late) Bill in EyreIn the mid-thirteenth century, the foolishness of a king of England, heavily in debt and obligated to the pope for a military adventure in Sicily, forced him to bargain away his domestic power in the hopes of financial relief. Thus, in 1258, a group of peeved magnates with the support of the nobility took over…
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The Peasants’ Revolt
Read more: The Peasants’ RevoltThe English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 has a continuously re-envisioned history. An event with the appeal of an extraordinary and dramatic social revolution cannot hide from interpretation and narration. The story was once solely reliant on a handful of narratives written by contemporary or near-contemporary writers, but since the 19th century historians have relied also…
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Cranmer’s letter to Henry VIII
Read more: Cranmer’s letter to Henry VIIIThere are two extant letters handwritten by Archbishop Cranmer to Henry VIII which are worded almost the same, addressed, sealed and delivered on the same day in 1533.¹ The appearance of these two near clones in the King’s secretary’s record-keeping system is a strange sight and can seem somewhat bewildering. However, a comparison of the…
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Cromwell’s Records – Incoming Correspondence to 1535
Read more: Cromwell’s Records – Incoming Correspondence to 1535If one had an interest in the government record-keeping practices of Tudor England the documentary source one would naturally turn to is the collection of State Papers housed in the National Archives.* The nature of their present organization however, an artificial collection of chronological order from a variety of records creators, frustrates any understanding. The…
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Cromwell’s Records – Filing Annotations
Read more: Cromwell’s Records – Filing Annotations1534 seems to be a transitional period for the manner in which Thomas Cromwell’s incoming correspondence was managed. Investigating starts at the back of these letters, the thicket of signs acquired over 500 years: folio numbering, dating, annotations of subjects, names and matters. At the bottom layer of this thicket is the letter-writer’s superscription, and…
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Lists and Inventories
Read more: Lists and InventoriesMy introduction to document listing practices in Thomas Cromwell’s office can be found at Postcards from the Past – The National Archives published as part of the International Conference on the History of Records and Archives (ICHORA) 2022.
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A Minor Inventory
Read more: A Minor Inventory“We have here greit nede of clerkes…” William Brabazon in Ireland to Thomas Cromwell, via William Body, October 1536 (SP 60/3 203v) This communication, from one servant of the king to another, carried by one in private service, reflects a larger mid-sixteenth century need for secretarial labour. Projecting sovereign power by the written word was…
What is a Petition? 