Introduction to Documents
Archive documents come down to us through the ages because they were important and were therefore initially kept securely at a bank or the offices of solicitors or land agents until such time as they had little relevance and were passed on to registered repositories such as The County Records office or museums. At this point, they become available to researchers and can give tremendous insight into the various aspects of life at the time of their origination.
In this section you will find initial examples from two different eras:
- Calverton’s entry under the lands of Hugh de Bolbec in King William’s Domesday Survey – 1068
- The Glebe Terrier of Calverton Parsonage – 1724
Both deal with land and its beneficial owners but closer study can reveal much more – including social conditions at the time, farming practices, and, inevitably, the cost of things.
The approach to presenting documents is similar – firstly showing what the original looked like, and secondly providing a transcription/translation with supporting commentary. Different approaches are being tried with the objective of making the document interactive and hopefully more illuminating.