Charles George Crump

“ The publications of the Record Office are of three kinds: reports, lists and indexes, and calendars. The reports are the annual reports of the Deputy Keeper, and now deal merely with the administrative work of the office; up to 1889 they also contained, in the form of appendices, inventories and detailed descriptions of various classes of records. In the present article these reports are referred to by number. The lists and indexes are either inventories of special classes with more or less detail, or indexes to the contents of certain documents grouped for that purpose ”

“ The most important financial records of this branch of the Exchequer are the class known as “Exchequer K. R, accounts, &c.,” which comprise vouchers and audited accounts of expenditure. Of similar accounts relating to receipts, the Escheator’s accounts have been listed in the 10th Report; but the inquisitions there described as filed with the accounts as vouchers are now kept separately, and are described with the Chancery Inquisitions in the calendars. Accounts and vouchers relating to Subsidies and Customs are at present only described in manuscript (see below under Special Collections) . ”

“ There are repositories of government records at Vienna, Budapest and Prague, and ten provincial places of deposit. Even at Vienna there is nothing resembling the English Public Record Office; the Kaiserliches und königliches Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv contains the papers of the imperial family and the records of imperial administration and of that of foreign affairs. Of other departmental papers those at the Ministry of War are the most important. There is no complete inventory of all these records. ”

“ The records of the congregations of the Index, the Holy Office and the Propaganda are not usually accessible to students.
Since 1881 the importance of the archives has attracted to Rome many bands of students. Most European governments have arranged for the publication of records dealing with their own countries. The classes of documents that have received most attention are the Regesta, or registers of bulls and briefs, issued by the papal chancery ”

“ The collection suffered much during the earthquake of 1755. It includes the registers of the Chancery since the 13th century, and a large number of documents subsidiary to them. In addition to this repository there are collections at the various ministries; from the records of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Borges de Castro, and afterwards Judice Biker, published their Collecção dos Tratados . . . entre a Corona de Portugal e as mais potentias. There are three volumes of transcripts from Portuguese records in the English Public Record Office. ”

“ Canada has recently centralized its records, of which a large part so far consists of transcripts made in Europe. For an account see E. C. Burnett’s List of printed guides to and descriptions of Archives and other repositories of Historical Manuscripts (American Historical Manuscripts Commission Report, 1897) . The Dominion Archivist submits yearly to the Minister for Agriculture a report, in which (in Appendices) are given many lists and accounts of records. ”

“ There exist, however, masses of records where this path is now inaccessible; these have been formed by putting together records of a similar nature either in ignorance of their history or without regarding it; the justification of this course of action must be found in the special circumstances of each case. These collections are as follows:—
Ministers Accounts are the accounts of bailiffs, receivers, and other officers managing estates, including, first, those of the duchy of Lancaster; second, accounts of crown lands filed as vouchers in the King’s Remembrancer’s Office ”

“ The rolls for the reign of Henry VIII. are calendared in the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. The Close Rolls (6 John to the present time) contain the enrolments of letters directed to specified persons and also enrolments of deeds made according to statute or for safe custody. The Record Commission published two volumes folio containing a transcript of the rolls for the period from 6 John to II Henry III. The Record Office has also published several volumes of rolls for the reign of Henry III. From the.reign of Edward I. eighteen volumes of a calendar have appeared. ”

“ Scottish Documents.—Five rolls relating to the policy of Edward I. towards Scotland. The first two contain the proceedings touching the claims to the crown of Scotland and are printed in Foedera, vol. ii. p. 762 (Record edition) ; the remaining three, known as Ragman Rolls, contain in triplicate the submissions of the Scottish nobility to Edward I., and were printed by the Bannatyne Club in 1834. Other chancery documents relating to Scotland are described in J. Bain’s Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland. ”

“ State Papers.—This class contains the documents belonging to the offices of the secretaries of state, formerly deposited in the place of custody called the State Paper Office. This office was established about the year 1578, but the first attempt to arrange its contents seems to have been due to Sir Thomas Wilson, who in the reign of James I. divided the papers into two classes, Domestic and Foreign, to which at a later date the class of Colonial Papers was added. These. series all come to an end at the year 1782, at which date the modern history of the office of Secretary of State begins. ”

“ No student can afford to neglect C. Gross’s Sources and Literature of English History from the Earliest Times to about 1485, which contains much information as to books and articles based upon English records. We may now turn to the documents themselves, under the following heads:—
Exchequer Records.—The records of the administrative and judicial sides of the Exchequer (q.v.) are here described under its several divisions.
(1) Upper Exchequer, er Exchequer of Audit.— (a) Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer’s Office, or office of final audit. ”

“ A great many publications have been based on these: there are for instance an inventory, Middlelanden fran Svenska Rigsarchivet; a work bearing generally on Scandinavian history, Handlingar rörande Scandinnaviens historia; and the Diplomotarium Suecicum, which is still in progress. The English Record Office has seven volumes of transcripts from the Stockholm archives, with a report.
Private collections are numerous and valuable, and a society for exploring and publishing such records is supported by the state. ”

“ No distinction is made between documents that have been technically “ records ” and others. The whole collection is divided technically into Manuscripts, by which are meant volumes, and Charters and Rolls, meaning detached documents. To the latter class an Index locorum, compiled by H. F. Ellis and F. B. Bickley, has been printed. ”

“ Originalia Rolls (20 Henry III. to 1837) , or extracts from the Chancery Rolls communicated to the Exchequer for its information and guidance. Latin abstracts of the rolls from Henry III. to Edward III. were printed by the Record Commission as Abbreviatio Rotulorum Originolium (2 vols. folio) .
Lord Treasurer’s Remembrance’s Memoranda Rolls.—These contain the letters received and issued by the Exchequer and notes of the general business of the department. They run from I Henry III. to 1848. Edward Jones’s Index to the Records contains a few scattered references to them ”

“ First Fruits and Tenths.—After the breach with Rome, the crown obtained a new source of revenue in the first fruits due to the pope from every holder of a benefice upon appointment, and from the tenths payable during his tenure of it. ”

“ A calendar of the earlier Treasury Papers, which extends from 1660 to 1668 and 1720 to 1745 has been published; also a list of the Admiralty Records (No. XVII.) . For each department a limiting date is fixed from time to time; documents before that time are open to students; later ones are only accessible under special conditions.
Subordoinate and Independent Jurisdictions.—Palatinate of Durham:-For the earlier records see G. T. Lapsley’s County Palatine of Durham (Harvard Historical Series, vol. viii.) ”

“ This collection occupies a special building, and includes the records of Foreign Affairs, classed under the countries to which they relate, and certain documents acquired from the collection of Sir Thomas Phillips. There are many printed and manuscript lists, and access to the documents is easy. This is also the case with the other provincial archives, of which the most important are those at Arnheim, Hertogenbosch, Groningen, Haarlem, Maastricht, Middelburg and Utrecht.
Town archives are for the most part well preserved. Printed inventories generally exist, and in some cases, e.g. ”