The Metham Family Cartulary
Title Details

384 Pages

23.4 x 15.6 cm

1 map, 4 bw illus.

Series: Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society Record Series

Series Vol. Number: 167

Imprint: Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society

The Metham Family Cartulary

Reconstructed from Antiquarian Transcripts

Edited by David Crouch

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David Crouch presents a reconstruction and edition of the cartulary of the one of Yorkshire's leading medieval families.

The Methams were once a leading gentry family of Yorkshire, whose origins can be traced to a member of the twelfth-century minster community of Howden. By 1405 the family had reached a peak of its influence, with great estates spread across the East Riding and Vale of York acquired through marriage, the rewards of office and also by exploiting the debt market. At that point Sir Alexander Metham commissioned a cartulary, a book in which to register the family's deeds and other documents, of which there were once well over a thousand. The cartulary survived till around 1680 and carried with it a large part of the history of the East Riding. But then it disappeared, though not before it had attracted the attention of two great Yorkshire antiquaries, Dr Nathaniel Johnston and James Torre. Their transcripts from this lost volume allow a reconstruction of over 700 items of its former contents, and with it open a new window on Yorkshire in the middle ages. The edition offers in addition a new biography of Torre and a key to the decoding of Johnston's notorious handwriting, which has frustrated and defeated scholars for over two centuries.
1 Introduction
2 Cartulary
3 Appendix 1: Transcripts
4 Appendix 2: Genealogy
5 Appendix 3: Sybil de Metham
6 Abbreviations

David Crouch is a fellow of the British Academy and author of a number of editions of medieval documents, most recently The Acts and Letters of the Marshal Family (2015) for the Camden Society. He has written extensively on medieval politics and society, and was also editor of Volume 10 (Howden and Howdenshire) of the Victoria History of Yorkshire East Riding.

"The work offers a significant scholarly contribution that will be of use to researchers from a range of disciplines and I heartily recommend it as a resource for future work." NORTHERN HISTORY

Hardcover

9781916506633

December 2022

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Title Details

384 Pages

2.34 x 1.56 cm

1 map, 4 bw illus.

Series: Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society Record Series

Series Vol. Number: 167

Imprint: Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society