A Revised Chronological Scope for the National Archives' Probate Inventory Series
A Revised Chronological Scope for the National Archives' Probate Inventory Series
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国家档案馆遗嘱认证库存系列的修订时间范围
DOI：
10.1093/notesj/gjac088
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发表时间：
2022
影响因子：
0.1
通讯作者：
Hinds S
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hinds S
伦敦国家档案馆收藏了800多份现代前遗嘱认证清单，这些清单来自坎特伯雷预审法院及其相关司法管辖区的记录。1本系列中的遗嘱认证清单是在户主去世时创建的，以记录和评估其显著的动产，作为其遗产分割的一部分。它们记录了死者拥有的财产，通常是通过他们在房子里的位置来记录的，因此对于研究前现代消费、物质文化和家庭环境的历史学家来说，它们是一个宝贵的来源。据信，英国档案中现存的遗嘱认证库存有100多万份，产生于16世纪、17世纪和18世纪，但从15世纪幸存下来的相对较少，从14世纪几乎没有。3有大约200个库存，这些库存的日期早于1500年，Prob 2系列是中世纪晚期仅有的两个重要遗嘱认证库存语料库中较大的一个，这两个语料库至今仍存续至今。4因此，历史学家分析这些文件以说明中世纪后期消费或社会文化结构变化的广泛模式所依赖的证据相对较少。那么，也许更迫切的是，关于遗嘱认证库存的目录信息尽可能准确。误差的余地很小，否则可以通过对大样本的定量分析来减轻误差。之前，Prob 2的库存被认为是从1417年开始的，Prob 2/1是来自Soham的牧羊人John Reder的库存，编目为1417年制造。然而，对Prob 2系列中的库存进行的全面研究表明，这个日期是不正确的。约翰·里德的盘点实际上是在1497年完成的。1455年由兰贝斯宫图书馆保存的奇切斯特正典沃尔特·埃斯顿的库存，实际上是坎特伯雷特权管辖下被证实的最早幸存的遗嘱认证库存。国家档案馆Prob 2系列中最早的库存现在是国王林恩的牧师约翰·巴克的1464年库存。6因此，该系列的范围必须按时间顺序订正近50年，从1417-1668年改为1464-1668年。遗嘱认证清单几乎总是以标准的序言开头，其中包括死者的姓名、评估师的姓名和编制清单的日期，而Prob 2/1遵循这种典型的结构。然而，在问题2/1的情况下，羊皮纸受到损坏，部分遮盖了本序言的一些案文。有背景的色素和变色的霉菌或水损坏，使文本的一些部分难以阅读，并有大约12个小孔和撕裂，导致一些字符丢失。尽管如此，总体来说，文本基本上是可读的。例如，评估师的名字被羊皮纸上的孔部分遮住了，但‘O[.]可以清楚地看到“公证公证”的字样.Prob 2的编目员在1971年出版时，可能是由于这种损坏，将Prob 2/1的日期从句中的C误读为与号。因此，‘Anno Domini Millesimo CCCC XC Septimo’(1497)被解释为‘Anno Domini Millesimo CCCC X&
The National Archives, London, houses a collection of over 800 pre-modern probate inventories originating from the records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and its related jurisdictions. 1 The probate inventories in this series were created at the death of head of household in order to document and value their notable moveable goods as part of the division of their estate. They record the possessions owned by the deceased, often by their location in the house, and are therefore an invaluable source for historians of pre-modern consumption, material culture, and the domestic environment. 2 There are believed to be over one million extant probate inventories produced in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries in English archives, but comparatively few have survived from the fifteenth century, and almost none from the fourteenth. 3 With around 200 inventories which pre-date 1500, the PROB 2 series is the larger of just two significant probate inventory corpora from the later Middle Ages which survive to us today. 4 Historians analysing these documents in order to illustrate broad patterns in consumption or changes in socio-cultural structures in the later Middle Ages are therefore relying on a relatively small pool of evidence. It is perhaps then even more imperative that the catalogue information about probate inventories is as accurate at it can be. There is very little room for errors, which might otherwise be mitigated by the quantitative analysis of large samples. The PROB 2 inventories were previously thought to date from 1417 onwards with PROB 2/1, the inventory of John Reder, a shepherd from Soham, catalogued as made in 1417. A comprehensive study of the inventories within the PROB 2 series has revealed, however, that this date is incorrect. The inventory of John Reder was in fact made in 1497. The 1455 inventory of canon Walter Eston of Chichester, held by Lambeth Palace library, is actually the earliest surviving probate inventory proved under the prerogative jurisdictions of Canterbury. 5 The earliest inventory in The National Archives’ PROB 2 series is now the 1464 inventory of chaplain John Barker of King’s Lynn. 6 The scope of the series must therefore be revised chronologically by almost 50 years, from 1417–1668 to 1464–1668. Probate inventories almost always open with a standard preamble which includes the name of the deceased, the name of the appraiser, and the date the inventory was made, and PROB 2/1 follows this typical structure. In the case of PROB 2/1, however, there is damage to the parchment which partially obscures some of the text of this preamble. There is background pigmentation and discolouration from either mould or water damage which makes some portions of text difficult to read, and there are around a dozen small holes and tears resulting in the loss of some characters. Despite this, on the whole the text is mostly legible. For instance, the name of the appraiser is partially occluded by holes in the parchment, but ‘O [.] erum Scalys notarium publicum’is clearly visible. The cataloguer of the PROB 2 inventories at the time of their publication in 1971, likely as a result of this damage, misread a C in the dating clause of PROB 2/1 as an ampersand. Consequently,‘Anno domini millesimo CCCC XC Septimo’(1497) was interpreted as ‘Anno domini millesimo CCCC X&