Viewing posts by mholford
Winchester Research Apprenticeship Scheme (WRAP)
Posted by: mholford in News and events 10 years, 10 months ago
Three Winchester undergraduates have been awarded Winchester Research Apprenticeships to work on the inquisitions. WRAPs involve a week of funded work in support of staff projects: others relate to the New Victoria County History of Hampshire, the Winchester Project, and Scottish chantries. These three involve modernising the dates in the first two calendars of IPMs. These are accessed on British History Online, compared with Cheney's Handbook of Dates, and the results are entered into a machine-readable template devised by Matthew Holford and Gordon McKelvie , so that the results can (after checking) be entered into the texts online. The inquisition process was not so sophisticated early on – there were fewer dates and fewer capable of checking and modernising – and it is not clear how rapidly the students can work. Two are working on vol 1 (from the beginning and the end) and one on vol 2. If they do not finish, as expected, further WRAPs will be awarded in 2014. There are numerous other minor projects that could improve the published text: from 1399 all dates are modernised – but some researchers, interested in the cult of saints, would like the original dates restored.
The escheator: a short introduction
Posted by: mholford in Featured inquisition 10 years, 11 months ago
Wara terre: an obscure Staffordshire landholding unit in Margaret de Bromley's Assignment of Dower, 1420
Posted by: mholford in Economy and society, Law and administration 10 years, 11 months ago
The 1420 assignment of dower to Margaret, widow of Thomas de Bromley, esquire, has been calendared in CIPM xxi, as document 173, but with a number of gaps. The head and foot of the original inquisition are damaged and parts of the rest were too faded to read. However the faded sections can mostly be made out with effort, especially with the aid of an ultra-violet lamp, and they have been added to the updated calendar text below, which is now complete save for the introduction and a part of the final section lost from the original. Additionally, a mistranslation of the name of an uncommon landholding unit, the wara terre, has been corrected.
Entail in Tail Male: The Earldom of Salisbury 1337-1428
Posted by: mholford in Featured inquisition 10 years, 11 months ago
Michael Hicks explores the complicated history of the earldom of Salisbury as revealed in CIPM xxiii.262-85.
Unpublished IPMs: Proof of Age for Sibyl, wife of Thomas Bekyngham, esquire, 1418
Posted by: mholford in Unpublished inquisitions 11 years ago
This document is the proof of age of Sibyl, wife of Thomas Bekyngham, esquire, of Berkshire. It appears in CIPM xxi as document 146, but the evidence of nine of the twelve jurors is omitted there, and that of the other three is truncated: the full text is given here. It is of particular interest because the memory of seven of the jurors is stated to derive from the dates of written documents created on the day of the baptism, one of them a record of the baptism entered in the parish missal book.