Session delivered by Dr. Adam Chapman on 25/10/12 for Urban Archaeology module. http://urbarch.wordpress.com/

1. Historical Archives Part 2:
The Historian’s Perspective
Adam Chapman

2. Aims and Objectives
• How are archives and their content
created?
• How do the contents of archives end up
there? Who decides?
• What sort of material might be expected?
• Approaches to documents
• Applications in archaeology

3. The ‘whys’ of archives
• ‘Institutional memory’ – in this sense, a
medieval cartulary and the minute book of a
nineteenth century shipyard perform exactly
the same function – though what they can tell
us about urban landscapes may be rather
different.
• Legal or financial expediency or, ‘it might be
useful one day’.

4. The ‘whys’ of archives
• Audit – do not underestimate this: a vast
amount of the surviving documents of
central and local government survive
because someone, somewhere thought
that others would come and check up on
how something was done or how money
was spent.
• Recording an event or sequence of events –
anything from a medieval court roll to a
football match report.

5. The ‘whys’ of archives
And finally:
• Conscious safeguarding of items of historical
significance – preservation and conservation.
This has been happening for longer than you
might think.

6. Approaches to Documents
• Texts – dealing strictly with the content, the way in
which language is deployed the assumptions behind it
and the processes which shape authorial choice.
• The Document as Object – Material Culture. This
approach considers documents within their physical
context. How does it appear? Is care taken in its
preparation and display? What function does the
document perform? How does it signify ownership?
• Omission – what does a document not do and why?

7. Types of Archive:
• Public
• Private and Personal – correspondence, clubs
and societies, family, legal or financial
• Corporate – Trade and Industry or even
University
• Governmental (National and Local)
• Church
• Community

9. Archival Material: Medieval

10. Archival Material: Medieval
• Very ‘process-driven’ and probably in Latin
• Dominated by Church and State – but this
covers an enormous amount of ground
• Of particular use, from an archaeological
perspective, are building accounts, rentals and
inventories – note these refer primarily to
buildings and plots
• Limited survival of private documents

11. Archival Material : ‘Modern’
(i.e. post 1500)
• Stands a good chance of being in English.
• More varied in origin, content and purpose.
• Greater survival of private documents.
• More pictorial and mapping evidence.
• The closer to the present you get, the more
there is – a positive and a negative
• Not necessarily historic – the HER and similar
datasets can be regarded as archives

15. Following that reference:
What does TNA E 101/18/1 actually mean? How
can this help?
• TNA = The National Archives (formerly the
Public Record Office)
• E = Records of the Exchequer
• E 101 = King's Remembrancer: Accounts
Various (sub-series: records of the army and
navy)
• 18/1 = The specific document

16. Recording, Transcription
and
Note-taking

17. Recording and Note-keeping
Photography
• Pros – Quick, cost-effective and you
can enlarge it when you get home.
• Cons – copyright, institutional
policies, keeping track of data,
limitations.
• It does not save taking notes. Sorry.
• IF IN DOUBT ASK

19. General points
• What information do you want
from the document?
• Do you need to transcribe it all?
• Is this a good use of your time?

20. • Record what is there and not what
you think is there – note alternative
spellings for example:
• Is ‘Dinfor’ the same as ‘Dinefwr’ or
‘Dynafor’?
• Beware different languages in the
same document

23. Applications of Archival
Material

24. Research Archives
• Often available online having been assembled
as part of research projects
• Synthesise archival sources in more accessible
forms (potentially, this does not always work)
• May well include items not easily or accessibly
documented to a lay audience – this is
especially true of medieval documents

26. Footbridge over railway line from Waterloo to the old
Terminus Station and Docks, connecting Marsh Lane (W
side) with Chantry Road (E side), City of Southampton.

27. Historic Mapping: John Speed
Southampton 1611 – the earliest extant
street plan of the city

28. Reconstructive mapping based on archives
and archaeology: Medieval Southampton

29. Southampton c. 1454 (3D render based
on 1454 Terrier and archaeological
data)