Account Roll

Document that records revenues and/or expenses. Includes accounts not specified under the specific Account Roll headings.

Account Roll - Bailiff/Reeve

Document that records payments made under the bailiff's or reeve's (a local peasant chosen or elected to supervise the agricultural work on the manor) authority in a manor or agricultural settlement.

Account Roll - Building

Document that records expenses incurred in construction of a building, particularly castles, town walls, churches, and ships.

Account Roll - Estate

Document that records the revenues and expenses of a manorial estate as a whole (rather than just one part of the estate, such as a reeve's account roll). It usually includes the reeve's accounts from individual manors, or other properties (such as fishponds, mines, forests, markets, and fairs) owned by a lord.

Account Roll - Household

Document that records the expenses of a household. Includes large royal, seigneurial, and ecclesiastical (monastic, Episcopal) households, as well as accounts imbedded in ricordi (Memoirs).

Account Roll - Obedientiary

Accounts produced by a monastic officer (such as the cellarer, sacristan, abbot, etc.) that details the revenues coming into his department (often from manors, in which case also add Account . Bailiff/Reeve or Account . Estate) and, more importantly, the expenses of this officer.

Account Roll - Port Customs

An account of port customs or tolls paid to the king, lord, or port town listing the names of ships and their cargoes.

Biography

A narrative document describing the life of someone other than the author. Does not include hagiography.

Cartulary

A collection of charters which register the acquisitions of a lord, monastery, or other institution, record successful lawsuits, and otherwise document the institution's rights to its properties.

Charters, Deeds

Documents recording grants and purchases, usually of land, but sometimes of other property or rights.

Chronicle, Annals

Both of these are works of history. Annals are arranged by year, and comprise lists of events during each year. Chronicles have a more narrative form. Sometimes, medieval historical works are more literary than factual, but if a work claims to be history, it is put in this category.

Commentary / Gloss / Exegesis

A medieval text that provides commentary, glosses, or annotations on another text; works discussing and expounding upon the meaning of specific biblical passages or books.

Contract

A binding agreement between two or more people or entities, including contracts for construction, dowry, loans, apprenticeship, etc. Includes contracts in notarial registers.

Coroner's Roll

Records kept by a coroner about the deceased, the cause of an individual's death, and any information witnesses of the death could provide, including suspected murder and accidental deaths.

Councils - Church

Proceedings of a formal assembly of clergy; can include their discussions, legislation, and inquisitions, although these separate types of records, if present in sufficient numbers, should also be included in Record Type if this option is chosen.

Councils - Secular

Proceedings of a formal assembly of laity called together by a secular authority; can include their discussions, legislation, and inquisitions, as well as petitions to their assembly, although these separate types of records, if present in sufficient numbers, should also be included in Record Type if this option is chosen.

Court Roll

Records of court proceedings, usually recorded by a clerk during court sessions. Includes government officials' investigations of wrongdoing.

Court Roll - Ecclesiastical

Charges, depositions, and other records of litigation in church courts governed by canon law (including marriage litigation, defamation, clerical disputes, tithes, and even debt).

Court Roll - Eyre

Court rolls from eyre courts, which were royal itinerant courts in pre-plague England.

Court Roll - Gaol Delivery

Court rolls recording indictments and trials of felons in medieval England.

Court Roll - Sessions of the Peace

Court rolls from courts presided over by justices of the peace in England, who adjudicated minor assaults and thefts, trespasses, breaches of statute legislation (such as labor laws), and many other cases. The scope of their jurisdiction grew to include felonies and more major crimes by the very end of the middle ages.

Custumal

A document which records "how things have always been done." Custom was often the basis for medieval laws and systems of government, but as people saw a need for laws to be codified, they wrote custumals to record what the laws have previously been in a village or town. Often includes information on inheritance, procedures for choosing officials, bylaws on managing local agriculture, and services or taxes due to the lord. Most often used for manors, villages, and towns, but there are also regional examples, such as the Sachenspiegal.

Dialogue

A classical genre used by many authors as an instructional technique, usually involving questions and answers between a pupil and teacher, but sometimes between two people on opposing sides of an issue. If the dialogue is philosophical in nature, then also add Philosophic Work as a Record Type.

Disputation - Philosophical/Theologicale

Texts written in format of an oral scholastic disputation (using the dialectical method of opposing arguments) on particular philosophical or theological questions which are furnished by participants, and where the master must come to a doctrinal solution by an act of determination which confirms him in his function as master. Can include quodlibetal questions (quodlibet = any whatever) which were brought forward by students rather than masters and often reflect contemporary controversies.

Extents and Surveys

Surveys of tenements, field, and other properties and rights, including ponds, rivers, woods, and markets owned by a lord or estate. Often have custumals attached.

Formulary

Collection of sample documents (charters, letters, contracts, account rolls) meant to serve as a model for clerks. If the collection is largely made up of one type of document (e.g., letters), enter that Record Type as well.

Genealogy

Records of people's ancestry and lineage.

Glossary/Dictionary

Word list or translations/explanations of words into different languages, composed in the middle ages.

Guild Records

Any type of record generated by or about a formal trade or merchant guild, including their membership lists, charters, ordinances, court proceedings, and dealings with other guilds. Does not include parish guilds or confraternities.

Hagiography

Includes several different types of sources, but primarily narratives about the life of holy men and women written to celebrate their devout life, ascetic practices, good deeds, and miracles. Can be composed after someone was declared a saint, or to help the canonization process along. Includes martyrologies, miracle stories, canonization proceedings (which can include depositions from people who witnessed the divine intervention of the person up for sainthood), descriptions of relics of or monuments to particular saints, accounts of pilgrimages to holy sites (if the focus is on the religious aspects of the pilgrimage), and devotional tales about the intercession of the Virgin Mary.

Inquisition - Heresy

Records of inquisition trials (including depositions from witnesses and accused person), in which a religious authority tries people for heresy (when Record Type: Courts - Ecclesiastical is also used), and other inquisitorial records, including handbooks for inquisitors (when Record Type: Theology - Instructional is also used) and descriptions of heresy and witchcraft.

Inscription

Anything written or engraved on a surface other than paper/parchment, such as a coin, medal, monuments, rock, seals, tree, tombstone, furniture, etc. Usually quite brief.

Inventory

A list of items in a place, such as a house or monastery, or owned by an individual taken at a person's death, or because of forfeiture. Includes clothing, furniture, tools, and other possessions.

Law - Canon Law

Includes church legislation promulgated in synods or councils, large compilations of church law (such as Gratian), and any legal process (petitions, depositions, church courts) that is adjudicated by church law.

Law - Legislation

Laws promulgated by a king or state as statute legislation, royal charter, or letters patent, or issued under the authority of a monarch, duke, or count, by himself or with the advice of his council. Includes early law codes.

Law - Local Ordinances

Regulations, by-laws, and ordinances issued by a local authority such as towns and villages. Can sometimes be embedded in other records, such as Court Rolls or Custumals.

Law - Treatise/Commentary

Learned discussions of points of law, interpretations of legislation, such as Bracton, Glanvill and others.

Letter

Correspondence written from one person to another, although the category also includes letters meant to be read by wide audiences. Includes formulary books of sample letters. Letters written as petitions are classified as Record Type: Petition.

Literature - Drama

Scripts of plays, can be either prose or verse, sometimes consist more of stage directions than spoken text.

Literature - Verse

Any literary work that has a verse structure (with a particular metrical structure or rhyming pattern), including verse chronicles, songs and poetry. Often overlaps with other record types.

Literature - Prose

Any literary work that is written in prose, without a particular metrical structure or rhyme. Often overlaps with other record types.

Liturgy

Instructions for carrying out public rites of worship or private devotional practices, including specific music and prayers that follow a liturgical formula. Also includes calendars of feast days, prayers, blessings, and instructions for saying mass or other worship ceremonies.

Memoir

Texts that include narratives of personal experiences, accounts of events at which the author was involved and present, personal accounts of pilgrimages or religious experiences, or any first-hand account of events. Often overlaps with other record types.

Memoir - Family

Includes French livres de raison and Italian ricordi or ricordanze, which are personal diaries that record both family matters (births, marriages, and deaths of family members, the selection of godparents) and business matters. Can also include English common-place books that record family matters.

Miscellany

Medieval collections of texts that intentionally contained diverse and often unrelated writings, such as florilegia (an anthology or "flowering" of writings).

Monastic Rule

Monastic rules (such as the Benedictine Rule) as well as rules for laypeople who wish to lead a religious life, such as Ancrene Wisse.

Muster

Records of who is eligible to join the army and what weapons and equipment they have.

Oration

Any speech, transcription of a speech, or text that is written for the purpose of being spoken aloud in public, excluding sermons.

Other

Temporarily used as a catch-all term for items that don.t fit anywhere else. Most will eventually be reclassified under an existing or new record type.

Papal Bull

Formal letters from the pope, sealed with the papal bulla. They are often included in cartularies or as part of ecclesiastical disputes.

Petition

A letter written by an individual or a group of individuals to a higher power asking for them to take some action, usually to right a wrong.

Philosophic Work

Any work of a philosophical nature, including epistemology, logic, and metaphysics. Can sometimes overlap with Theology - Doctrine.

Prophecy

A work that purports to predict the future. Some prophecies focus primarily on political events; some focus on religious events; some discuss the millennium or the end of the world.

Proverbs

Collection of maxims or brief popular epigrams

Register - Bishop

Records kept by ecclesiastical authorities to record proceedings of visitations to monastic institutions, ordinations, and other events which fall under bishops. jurisdiction.

Register - Notarial

Records kept by notaries recording all of the documents they witness, such as contracts, charters, and wills.

Scripture

Bibles in all languages, Psalters, Books of Hours, picture bibles, and other biblical texts.

Sermons

Religious instructional speeches, intended to be delivered in public, often as part of a worship service. Also includes sermons circulated in handbooks or formularies for priests to use as models, and commemorative orations (panegyrics) or sermons delivered as eulogies.

Taxes

Documents relating to the imposition and collection of taxes. Includes tolls, which are lists of taxes or customs assessed on goods coming in and out of a settlement or country (these can often be part of another record, such as Charters or Law - Legislation).

Taxes - Clerical

Documents relating to the imposition and collection of taxes on clergy.

Taxes - Lay

Documents relating to the imposition and collection of taxes on laypeople by the state, town, or local lord.

Taxes - Poll Tax

Documents relating to the imposition and collection of "head" taxes, or taxes levied on every individual; mostly relates to England, 1377-81.

Theology

Writings that focus on religious doctrine and issues. [Used only if one of the other Theological categories does not fit.]

Theology - Devotional

Guides to pious living, works (such as books of hours, ladders of salvation) for private devotional purposes, literary works meant to stimulate religious contemplation. Can include mystical works meant to be read during meditation or contemplation. Penitential works meant for the clergy are entered under Theology - Practical unless there is evidence they were used by lay people for devotional purposes, in which case they are entered under both Record Types.

Theology - Doctrine

Theological works written by learned men (and a few women), including the church fathers, schoolmen, and university masters, which discuss the principles, laws, and beliefs established by the Church as official dogma on such matters as the nature of the Trinity, the sacraments, and salvation. Includes summas, glosses on summas, quodlibets, and questiones.

Theology - Mystical Work

Descriptions of mystical visions, treatises about mysticism, and other works relating to mystical experiences.

Theology - Practical/Instructional

Instructions for priests, penitentials (manuals for priests to use during confession, which lists sins parishioners might commit and the proper penance for each), and other works (such as ladders of salvation) meant as prescriptive guides for priests and other religious leaders. Such literature could also be read by lay people, in which case the item is entered under both Record Types.

Theology - Summal

Systematic overview of the Christian faith written in a scholastic format. It includes a systematic arrangement of all possible arguments for a given position and against its contrary. Can be similar to a disputation, but in an abbreviated form not tied to an actual oral debate.

Translation

A work translated from one language to another in the middle ages.

Treatise - Instruction/Advice

Cookbooks, grammars, books of courtesy, military handbooks, and other "how to" works.

Treatise - Political

Mirrors for princes, treatises about laws and governments. Mirrors for princes can overlap with the Treatises - Instruction/Advice.

Treatise - Scientific/Medical

Treatises about medicine, astrology, alchemy, and other scientific works such as bestiaries and herbals.

Treatise - Other

A temporary category for treatises that don't fit elsewhere.

Visitations

Records (usually a set of questions followed by the answers of individuals) generated when bishops or other higher authorities visited a monastery or other institution to investigate the state of the institution or wrongdoing.

Will

A document stating what should be done with a person's possessions upon his or her death.