Medieval source material on the internet: Charters
Charters
For a brief guide to charters,
click here
For some medieval records in Ancestry's UK and Ireland Collection,
click here
- DEEDS (Michael Gervers, University of Toronto)
Searchable collection of the Latin texts of more than 8000 charters extracted from 170 published cartularies,
mainly from the 12th and 13th centuries. The original emphasis was on Essex (the acronym stands for
Documents of Essex England Data Set), but the collection also covers
other parts of England and Wales. The largest numbers of charters come from
Lincoln Cathedral, the Order of the Knights of the Hospital of St John, and the abbeys of Oseney, Cirencester and Eynsham.
Normally a scan of the printed source - often including an abstract in
English - can also be viewed
- Harvard Law School Library has a large collection of medieval and early modern English deeds.
There are two ways of consulting the abstracts of these deeds online:
There is also an "online exhibition", entitled
History in Deed:
Medieval Society & the Law in England, 1100-1600, including many English abstracts arranged by theme or
locality (unfortunately not illustrated)
- Four English Land Grants
Images, Latin transcriptions and English translations;
three from Yorkshire, another of unknown origin; 13th-15th centuries
- A descriptive catalogue of ancient deeds in the Public Record Office:
- Anglo-Saxon Charters web site.
This site contains many listings and texts of Anglo-Saxon charters, as well as much background material.
Among the main collections are:
- Anglo-Saxon:
Cartularium Saxonicum (Oxford Text Archive)
Latin text from Walter de Gray Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum : a collection of charters relation to Anglo-Saxon history
(1885-1887)
-
Charters of Barking Abbey
(Sean Miller, Joint Committee on Anglo-Saxon Charters)
Provisional Latin texts
- William H. Turner, ed., Calendar of charters and rolls preserved in the Bodleian Library. (1878) (Internet Archive - Text Archive)
- William Thomas Lancaster, Abstracts of the charters and other documents contained in the chartulary of the priory of Bridlington in the East Riding of the county of York (1912) (Internet Archive - Text Archive)
- Henry J. Ellis and Francis B. Bickley, eds, Index to the charters and rolls in the Department of Manuscripts, British Museum. Volume 1. Index Locorum. (1900) (Internet Archive - Text Archive)
- Henry J. Ellis, ed., Index to the charters and rolls in the Department of Manuscripts, British Museum. Volume 2. Religious houses and other corporations, and Index locorum for acquisitions from 1882 to 1900. (1912) (Internet Archive - Text Archive)
- Index to Catalogue of Buxton Deeds (to 1517)
(The Buxton Papers, Cambridge University Library)
Index of names and places mentioned in medieval charters and title deeds among the papers of the
Buxton family of Norfolk; the index refers to a catalogue held at Cambridge University Library.
See also Index to Catalogue of Buxton Papers,
Index to Calendar of Buxton Letters, and
List of wills in the Buxton Papers
- Canterbury Cathedral Charters (Kent Archives Service)
Searchable abstracts of over 7000 medieval charters.
-
Colchester Deeds of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries from The Archives of the Mercers' Company of London, Cartulary of Dean John Colet
(Richard Britnell, Medieval Colchester)
Calendar in English
- Congleton
[Cheshire] Borough Charters (David Roffe)
Online transcript, in progress, of the 19th-century abstracts of a large collection
of charters (13th century and later), in preparation for the publication of a calendar.
A preliminary analysis of the charters is also available
- Isaac Herbert Jeayes, compiler, Descriptive Catalogue of Derbyshire Charters in Public and Private Libraries and Muniment Rooms (1906) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
- Isaac H. Jeayes,
Descriptive Catalogue of Derbyshire Charters (1906)
(David Blackwell, United States Internet Genealogical Society)
Images; in progress
- Some deeds of the county of Dorset (Historical Manuscripts, Kenneth Jacob)
- Medieval
Charters and the Landscape: Between Durham and the Sea, 1100-1500
[Haswell, county Durham] (Richard Britnell)
A discussion of the evolution of field patterns, 12th-14th centuries, from the evidence of
charters, illustrated by aerial photographs - with links to images, transcripts and
English abstracts of 15 charters
- Fowle family:
Deeds of various properties in ... Sandhurst in Kent (Bodiam Mill: Sources in Genealogy
and Local History for Sandhurst in Kent and nearby villages)
Abstracts of deeds at the East Sussex Record Office, 14th century and later, mainly relating to the Fowle family and the
manor of Betherinden in Sandhurst, Kent; now available by paid subscription only
- Some Kent Deeds (Historical Manuscripts, Kenneth Jacob)
- Some deeds of the county of Lancashire (Historical Manuscripts, Kenneth Jacob)
- Some deeds of the county of Lincolnshire (Historical Manuscripts, Kenneth Jacob)
- Charter concerning the manor of Loveden, Lincolnshire, 1378
(Guy Vincent, this site)
Images, translation and notes on heraldic seals.
- Nottinghamshire: Manuscripts Online Catalogue (University of Nottingham)
Provides access to a large collection of records, including family and estate collections for the Mellish family of Hodsock, the Newcastle family of Clumber Park, the Middleton Collection and the Portland (London) Collection.
- Parkham-related deeds [Devon]
(Elizabeth Glover Howard, GENUKI)
Extracted items (mainly from the 16th century)
from J. C. Tingay, Calendar of Deeds Enrolled Within the County of Devon 1536 - 1673 (1930)
- Walter de Gray Birch Cartularium saxonicum: a collection of charters relating to Anglo-Saxon history. Vol. 1, A.D. 430-839 (1885) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
- Sir Archibald Campbell Lawrie, ed., Early Scottish Charters prior to A.D. 1153 (1905) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
- Tybotot/Chaworth: Real and False Crusading Charters (Nat Taylor)
Image of a contract dated 1270, by which Robert Tybotot [d. 1298] and Payn de Chaworth [d. 1279] agree to accompany the Lord Edward on crusade. Large jpg file (1.8MB) from a photograph of British Library, Additional Charter 19829, in Jonathan Riley-Smith, ed., Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, p. 63 (Oxford, 1995). With an image of a 19th-century fake crusading contract from France.
- [J. C. Atkinson, ed.] Cartularium abbathiae de Whitby, ordinis S. Benedicti, fundatae anno MLXXVIII. (1879) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
Surtees Society, volume 69. Part 1 (continued in volume 72). Latin transcript.
- [J. C. Atkinson, ed.] Cartularium abbathiae de Whitby, ordinis S. Benedicti, fundatae anno MLXXVIII. (1881) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
Surtees Society, volume 72. Part 2 (continued from volume 69). Latin transcript.
- Catalogue
of Wolley Charters (British Library/Royal Holloway College, University of London)
Searchable catalogue of a collection of 1039 charters, mainly from the 13th and 14th centuries,
relating to Derbyshire, neighbouring counties, and the North of England.
- Worcester: Early Medieval Record-Keeping and the Nero-Middleton Cartulary (Jonathan Herold, University of Toronto)
Transcripts and images of a late 11th-century cartulary from Worcester, with corresponding material from an earlier cartulary, the Liber Wigornensis. The site also includes discussion and bibliography.
- William Farrer, ed., Early Yorkshire charters, volume 1 (1914) (Internet Archive - Text Archive)
- William Farrer, ed., Early Yorkshire charters, volume 2 (1915) (Internet Archive - Text Archive)
- William Farrer, ed., Early Yorkshire charters, volume 3 (1915) (Internet Archive - Text Archive)