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Close Rolls (1441-1447)
The close rolls of the 20th to 25th years of the reign of king Henry VI record the main artery of government administration in England, the orders sent out day by day to individual officers, especially sheriffs of shires: they are an exceptionally rich source for so early a period. There is also some material relating to Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the English possessions in France.
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Close Rolls
 (1441-1447)
Close Rolls (1447-1454)
The close rolls of the 26th to 32nd years of the reign of king Henry VI record the main artery of government administration in England, the orders sent out day by day to individual officers, especially sheriffs of shires: they are an exceptionally rich source for so early a period. There is also some material relating to Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the English possessions in France.
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Close Rolls
 (1447-1454)
Ablemen of Norwich (1457)
The Old Free Book of the city of Norwich includes this muster roll of about 1457. Able-bodied men are listed subleet by subleet, with a note of the armour furnished or sum of money raised towards buying armour. About 600 persons are assessed, 80 of whom assessed for money only appear to be additions to the original list. A total of 480 jacks were assigned: a 'jack' being a jacket similar to a gambeson or doublet.
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Ablemen of Norwich
 (1457)
Suffolk Charters (1460-1469)
A large accumulation of documents preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, formerly constituted the antiquarian collections of Anthony a Wood, Roger Dodsworth, Ralph Thoresby, Thomas Martin of Palgrave, Thomas Tanner bishop of St Asaph, Dr Richard Rawlinson, Richard Furney archdeacon of Surrey, and Richard Gough. A calendar of these was prepared by William H. Turner and published in 1878 under the title 'Calendar of Charters and Rolls preserved in the Bodleian Library'. The word 'charters' is here used in a rather loose sense, including virtually any manuscript or copy of a manuscript, but the bulk of the contents consists of mediaeval deeds of conveyance. Turner's calendar deals with each briefly, naming the principal parties and the nature of the deed, but hardly ever lists the witnesses. Many of these charters were undated (dating of deeds did not become general until around 1350) or so damaged or defective ('mutilated' is Turner's usual description) as no longer to display a legible date. However, he contrived, from the style of the script and/or the nature of the contents, to estimate dates in such cases. The sample scan is from the start of the Bedfordshire list.
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Suffolk Charters
 (1460-1469)
Clergy, the religious and the faithful in Britain and Ireland (1471-1484)
These are abstracts of the entries relating to Great Britain and Ireland from the Lateran and Vatican Regesta of pope Sixtus IV. Many of these entries relate to clerical appointments and disputes, but there are also indults to devout laymen and women for portable altars, remission of sins, &c. This source is particularly valuable for Ireland, for which many of the key government records of this period are lost. Many of the names in the text were clearly a puzzle to the scribes in Rome, and spelling of British and Irish placenames and surnames is chaotic. Sixtus IV was consecrated and crowned 25 August 1471 (the day from which his pontificate is dated) and died at Rome 12 August 1484. The extracts were made by J. A. Twemlow from Vatican Regesta dxlvi to dclxxxi and Lateran Regesta dccxiii to dcccxxxviii, and published in 1955. Not all the Lateran registers survive from this pontificate, but were still in existence in the 18th century, when indexes were compiled giving rubricelle, or brief summaries of the papal bulls; nor, indeed, have all these indexes now survived, but Twemlow added an appendix listing all the rubricelle relating to the British Isles extant for the reign of Sixtus IV.
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Clergy, the religious and the faithful in Britain and Ireland
 (1471-1484)
Norfolk Feet of Fines (1307-1485)
Pedes Finium - law suits, or pretended suits, putting on record the ownership of land in Norfolk. These abstracts were prepared by Walter Rye.
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Norfolk Feet of Fines
 (1307-1485)
Early records of Wells cathedral, in Somerset (1001-1500)
Three early registers of the dean and chapter of Wells - the Liber Albus I (White Book; R I), Liber Albus II (R III), and Liber Ruber (Red Book; R II, section i) - were edited by W. H. B. Bird for the Historical Manuscripts Commissioners and published in 1907. These three books comprise, with some repetition, a cartulary of possessions of the cathedral, with grants of land dating back as early as the 8th century, well before the development of hereditary surnames in England; acts of the dean and chapter; and surveys of their estates, mostly in Somerset.
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Early records of Wells cathedral, in Somerset
 (1001-1500)
Lichfield Diocese Ordinations: Subdeacons Secular (1504)
The diocese of Coventry and Lichfield at this period included the whole of Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire; all Lancashire south of the Ribble; northern Shropshire (including Shrewsbury); and northern Warwickshire (including Birmingham and Coventry). Ordinations took place on the four Ember Saturdays in the year, and on certain other occasions; lists of ordinands to the degrees of acolyte, subdeacon, deacon and priest were preserved in the ordination registers, a distinction being made between those clerks who were 'regular', i. e., monks, friars, &c., and those who were 'secular', the main body of the clergy. All ordinands were celibate, and those regular, and the secular who obtained benefices, remained so, but only a minority of the secular ordinands ever obtained benefices, and most will doubtless have married later in life. No man might be ordained to subdeacon or higher without proving either that he was of independent means or that he was sponsored by an institution or a gentleman. Most entries in the register of such ordinations therefore have the words 'ad titulum' followed by the name of the religious house that was the sponsor. This is an important indication of the man's origins - boys whose families were monastic tenants, and who were educated by the monks, would naturally be sponsored by the abbey. Only men who were born and bred in the diocese could be ordained by the bishop, unless producing letters dimissory from the bishop of the diocese of their birth. These are the ordinations celebrated on Ember Saturday, 21 September 1504 by Thomas bishop of Panados (Pavados), suffragan of bishop Geoffrey Blythe, in Eccleshall church.
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Lichfield Diocese Ordinations: Subdeacons Secular
 (1504)
Lichfield Diocese Ordinations: Priests Secular (1505)
The diocese of Coventry and Lichfield at this period included the whole of Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire; all Lancashire south of the Ribble; northern Shropshire (including Shrewsbury); and northern Warwickshire (including Birmingham and Coventry). Ordinations took place on the four Ember Saturdays in the year, and on certain other occasions; lists of ordinands to the degrees of acolyte, subdeacon, deacon and priest were preserved in the ordination registers, a distinction being made between those clerks who were 'regular', i. e., monks, friars, &c., and those who were 'secular', the main body of the clergy. All ordinands were celibate, and those regular, and the secular who obtained benefices, remained so, but only a minority of the secular ordinands ever obtained benefices, and most will doubtless have married later in life. No man might be ordained to subdeacon or higher without proving either that he was of independent means or that he was sponsored by an institution or a gentleman. Most entries in the register of such ordinations therefore have the words 'ad titulum' followed by the name of the religious house that was the sponsor. This is an important indication of the man's origins - boys whose families were monastic tenants, and who were educated by the monks, would naturally be sponsored by the abbey. Only men who were born and bred in the diocese could be ordained by the bishop, unless producing letters dimissory from the bishop of the diocese of their birth. These are the ordinations celebrated on Ember Saturday, 17 May 1505 by Thomas bishop of Panados (Pavados), suffragan of bishop Geoffrey Blythe, in Lichfield cathedral.
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Lichfield Diocese Ordinations: Priests Secular
 (1505)
Inhabitants of Leicester (1327-1509)
The Corporation of Leicester commissioned the publication (in 1901) of extracts from the borough archives of 1327 to 1509, edited by Mary Bateson. This volume brings together several important sources: a coroner's roll of 1327; the merchant gild rolls; tax returns; court rolls; rentals; mayoral accounts, &c. All the Latin and French texts are accompanied by English translations. Not all the tax rolls surviving for this period are printed: but full lists of names are given for tallages of 1336 (pp. 34-40); 1347-8 (69-71); and 1354 (93-99); subsidy rolls of 1492 (331-334) and 1497 (351-353); and a benevolence roll of 1505 (370-374). There is a calendar of conveyances (388-446), and a list of mayors, bailiffs, and other officials (447-462); and, finally, entrants into the merchant gild from 1465 to 1510. Membership of the merchant gild was by right of inheritance (s. p. = sede patris, in his father's seat), or by payment of a fee called a 'bull' (taurus). Those marked * paid their bull, and were thus, by implication, not natives, or at least not belonging to gild merchant families. By 1400 membership of the gild merchant had become the equivalent of gaining freedom of the borough (being a free burgess): but thitherto the two were not necessarily the same, and some of the merchant gild members were not resident in the borough, merely traded there.
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Inhabitants of Leicester
 (1327-1509)
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