Useful websites for medieval research and background reading

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Timothy Lawrence John Wing on August 20, 2009 at 11:46pm

Hi all,

A couple of sited that I have found most useful are as follows.

www.Tudur Place

www.The Peerage.com

Does anyone else use these resources?

Timothy Wing

Permalink Reply by Wendi Beck on August 23, 2009 at 2:21pm

I took a look at Peerage and did not find I don't think any of the family from the Ogle line that I have listed but then again I can't get into my family tree program right now, though it did show me possible distant family that still live in England. SO not a total loss I don't guess.

Permalink Reply by J Leaming on August 10, 2010 at 10:39pm

I have checked both before and the particular lines I checked in each contained serious errors. I would really like to warn you away from using either one. A better source, with fewer errors, is the Directory of Royal Genealogical Data from the University of Hull: http://www3.dcs.hull.ac.uk/genealogy/royal/

JL

Permalink Reply by Louise Garrett on August 28, 2009 at 8:20am

Has anyone found a site, or books, that has the Close Rolls. Not needing to pay for British History Online doc.s

Any suggestions on getting certain parts or bits of Latin doc.s from Google Books translated. May I assume correctly all know about Google Books online? I have found some whole transcriptions of original doc.s as well as quotes from original doc.s that make good citations.

Would like to discuss the wapentakes with some more knowledgeble than I am. I did find out from a librarian that the reason for name of some of the wapentakes is unknown. EX: Wapentake of Morley. Are these gov't divisions, tax divisions??

Thank you for any help. Glenn

Permalink Reply by Christine Gibbins on August 10, 2010 at 2:20pm

The Domesday Book http://www.medievalists.net/2010/08/10/domesday-book

Permalink Reply by J Leaming on August 10, 2010 at 10:26pm

A wapentake is a land division or section, from the time of the Danelaw (viking England) and is roughly equal to the Anglo-Saxon Hundred. See the following article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_(county_subdivision)#wapentake

As for close rolls, quite a few are available online in various forms (e.g. Calendars of Documents). You can also find them in published form in better libraries (sometimes in Latin but most are translated). For which king are you seeking the close rolls? For example, here is a link for the Calendar of Close Rolls of Edward III: http://books.google.com/books?id=tykMAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcov...

Here is one for the Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland (reigns of Henry II, Richard I, John, and Henry III): http://books.google.com/books?id=tykMAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcov...

For an excellent link for explaining and locating various types of older public records, see: http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/index.html Look under the GUIDE tab for information explaining a number of different types of documents, look under the SOURCES tab for various collections of records.

You need some idea of what period you're looking for and find the close rolls for that time period. Use Google search and Google Books to locate them and be aware they are sometimes in several forms. J.H. Round edited a number of them so you can also do an author search. Hope this helps

JL

Permalink Reply by J Leaming on August 11, 2010 at 6:54am

Sorry, the link to the Calendar of Documents Ireland was wrong. Here is the correct link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=DIIMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcov...

JL