b'A Survey of the Possessions of the Archbishopric of YorkMike & Kate PrattThe National Archives with a grasp of the documents contents, we found that there were chunks that we couldnt decipher and W e knew that we would need to visit the Nationalwhat we had deciphered and translated we couldnt Archives in Kew at some stage as part of ourfit together grammatically. We realised we needed local history research but the pressure increased whenhelp 3and we found someone on the internet who, we found a translated extract from a document datedfor a modest fee and one and a half hours work, was 1340 at the Hull University Archives which mentionedprepared to take our sketchy outline, fill in the gaps Wilton but stopped short of including the relevantand fit it all together.details. Feeling sure that wed find the complete original document along with other treasures at KewThe Documentwe arranged a visit and started to prepare by usingThe translated document, described as a survey the search facilities on the National Archives website 1 . of the possessions of the Archbishopric of York, was Once at Kew it was exciting to order items, wait forproduced during the reign of Henry VIII. The extract them to be found in the archives and pick them up infor Wilton doesnt contain a specific date but it can expectation of making new discoveries. For the olderbe narrowed down to the period between 1519 and items it was something of an anticlimax to find oneself1547. The fact that Richard Rokeby had died and his looking at a dusty, possibly faded or even damagedaffairs were in the hands of his executor is a further piece of parchment with writing on it that was almostpointer.indecipherable to the untrained eye! But it didnt take long to be able to spot that one telltale word, Wilton,Rebuilding of the Churchand know that the scribble that followed might be ofOne key thing the document tells us is that the interest and that it was worth copying for later study. church had been burnt by fire and that the tenants It was a welcome revelation to find that the use ofof the lord of Wilton had rebuilt it and presumably digital cameras (without flash) was allowed at Kew forborne the cost for which certain rents were respited or unlimited personal copying of documents but to be onsuspended for the year. It is especially interesting as the safe side we also requested copies of the moresome of the current stonework has been observed to promising items. be reddened, a possible sign of it having been in a fire.The Hard Work Begins! Pasture & Meadow NamesAfter two and half days of scrutiny of oldIt is interesting to see how the names of pasture documents we left Kew with copies of about fourteen of them with a range of dates from 1267 to 1627 2 .and meadow land were represented in the 16th Unfortunately we didnt realise how difficult it wasCentury. Some of the names, although somewhat going to be to transcribe and translate them! Thechanged, have continued in use. Others have first problem is that the documents are hand-writtendisappeared from the map although they continued to in a medieval script using a kind of shorthand andbe used in documents until relatively recent times.this needs to be deciphered before the underlyingOf the names we can just about recognise, four language, Latin, can be translated. The secondstand out:problem is that although a rudimentary understanding1.Manygrenrigs we now know as Manna Green of secondary school Latin helps it doesnt reallyalthough the Wolds farm of that name has prepare one for Medieval Latin especially as it tendedbeen levelled. The older name helps us with to change in form from century to century.a possible derivation. Many green rigs (or It was disappointing to find ourselves with fourteenridges) accurately describes the ancient documents that promised so much but couldnt beearthworks in the vicinity. 2.Similarly, Cottenable, or Cot Nab as we read! But we got over that and amassed enough reference material to make a start on one documentnow know it, could be descriptive of its linear with the aim of going through it letter by letter andearthworks with nab being Old Norse for knoll word by word. Even then, after hours of work andor hillock and cot meaning shelter (e.g. for sheep).1The National Archives website address is www.nationalarchives.gov.uk2The document dated 1340 that we had hoped to find eluded us!3Thanks are due to Maurice Beresford who gave of his time whilst visiting Wendy and Peter Gilding andwith his well trained eye filled in some of the key gaps; and to Hilary Marshall of London who correctedand completed the final document.160 BULLETIN 10'