Jonathan Scott shares the essential online resources for research in the Middle Ages
Although it can be something of a challenge to trace our own kin back to medieval times, there are copious online sources to enlighten research into the history of settlements, buildings, families and names.
The situation is summarised in the website recommended by this month’s expert: “There seems to be a feeling that, for the bulk of the population, any knowledge of medieval ancestry is unattainable. In contrast, a hundred years ago, when genealogy was predominantly an upper-class pursuit – in terms of both the hunters and the hunted – medieval genealogy had pride of place.”
This is the hunting ground of manorial records and heraldic visitations, of archaic legal terms and hard-to-read handwriting. And yet there are many websites that not only host digitised sources and volumes, but also include name-rich databases.
As you dig, you must read the background of each source. This is essential if you are to understand the context of a name – why it appears, how the record was used, why it survived, and how to find further information.
THE SOLDIER IN LATER MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
w medievalsoldier.org Here you can search a free-to-view database of soldiers serving the English crown between 1369 and 1453. It includes those who fought in France during the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), Henry V’s victory at Agincourt in 1415, as well as actions in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Spain. As the website explains, the reason we have so many names is that “soldiers received pay and this had to be audited”. The range of soldiering is also broad, covering standing forces, garrisons and escorts. The site started life as a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), but has been refreshed and updated over the years, now including an expanding series of ‘Soldier Profiles’: medievalsoldier.org/about/soldier-profiles.
PEOPLE OF MEDIEVAL SCOTLAND
w poms.ac.uk This is another vast resource that seeks to bring together all names mentioned in thousands of documents between 1093 and 1314 – essentially between the death of Malcolm III and Robert I’s (Robert the Bruce’s) parliament at Cambuskenneth – although it is currently being extended to 1371. As the bounds of the country changed over that time, the database covers any land that had become part of Scotland by the death of Alexander III in 1286. As a
