The official records of England are the focus of this volume - their origin, their use, and what they reveal.
The major theme of this volume is the records of the Anglo-Norman realm, and how they are used separately and in combination to construct the history of England and Normandy. The essays cover all types of written source material,including private charters and the official records of the chancery and Exchequer, chronicles, and personal sources such as letters, while some 100 previously unpublished documents are included in a series of appendices. There arestudies here of particular Anglo-Normans, including a great aristocrat and a seneschal of Normandy; of records relating to Normandy surviving in England; of the Norman and English Exchequers, between them the financial mainstay of the king/dukes; of the controversial origins of the English Chancery records; and of Rosamund Clifford, the King's mistress.
NICHOLAS VINCENT, DAVID CARPENTER, DAVID CROOK, MARK HAGGER, DAVID CROUCH, MARIE LOVATT, DANIEL POWER.
Professor Nicholas Vincent of the University of East Anglia has published a dozen books and some hundred articles on twelfth- and thirteenth-century history for both scholarly and popular audiences, including work on the English and European context of Magna Carta as well as Magna Carta: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2012). When a 1297 issue of Magna Carta recently came up for auction, Professor Vincent was commissioned by Sotheby’s to write the catalogue. During his research he discovered two previously unidentified originals of Magna Carta. For the Magna Carta Project he has been searching archives across Britain, Ireland and France for the charters of King John.