Tag: medieval treasure

Riches Revealed: introducing the medieval archives in the collections of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society

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The Whixley cartulary, showing pages from the extent of Whixley manor, early 15th century.

Sylvia Thomas, our speaker for the October lecture, kindly sent the following notes about her talk at Swarthmore Education Centre this Saturday:

Since its foundation in 1863 the Society has accumulated significant archive collections from all over Yorkshire, many of them records of major families, some of which date back as far as the thirteenth century. Highlights are the enormous series of surviving court rolls of the manor of Wakefield (1274 – 1925), the fifteenth-century stock book and sixteenth-century lease book of Fountains Abbey, the secular cartulary of Whixley, North Yorkshire (1430), numerous early Yorkshire charters, and much more.

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Initial from the Fountains Abbey stock book (late 15th century).

In 2015 all these collections were deposited by the Society for safe-keeping in the University of Leeds, Brotherton Library Special Collections, where they are again available for use by the public.

Sylvia Thomas is the former archivist and a past president of the YAHS, and a retired County Archivist of West Yorkshire. She is Joint Editor of the West Riding and Derbyshire volumes of Records of Early English Drama.