Palaeography
(or Horrible Handwriting for Historians)
a Training Course for the Heritage Volunteers
Members of our Heritage Volunteer Group who meet regularly at
the Chester Record Office where they assist with re-housing 17th
century wills, soon discovered that the handwriting in these documents
can be very difficult to decipher. Hence the great excitement when
we were offered a Palaeography Course which took place in February/
March 2011.
Our Tutors (all Record Office Staff) were Liz Green, Caroline
Picco and Kate Tobias-Buick. After a short introduction to Italic
and secretary hand, how to approach the subject, spellings,
abbreviations and types of material, we set to work on our first
documents. These were exerts from “Lady Stanley’s Recipe
Book (1620-1760)” and “Nantwich Parish Register (1573-1653)”
Recipe Book entries included: “For the eye-sight to keepe it”,
“ A noble white plaister both for healing and drawing for every old sore
or new”, “For the hott gout that swelleth”, “A good drink for the
Pestilence, and “ A medicine for a Bruise”. While entries in the
Nantwich Parish Register included a reference to “Essex’ Raid on Cadiz
1596” and The Gunpowder Plot 1604.
It soon became clear that many of the words had to be read
letter by letter. Spelling was generally phonetic and not
standardised until 18th century, hence the numerous different spellings
of “cushions”. Some letters were interchangeable – u / v and i /
j. The Alphabet we were given showed 6 versions of every letter –
3 for capital letters and 3 for lower case. Abbreviations were
much used as was super script, set phrases, for wills in
particular, Latin script and roman numerals. It was almost like
learning a foreign language.
From that first day we were all hooked and diligently did our
homework.
Then came Wills & Inventories. The Wills
became slightly easier to decipher because of the set phrases
which were easily recognisable. However, Inventories were more difficult
to define. Here we encountered a different vocabulary for some
farm implements and farm animals all of which were unfamiliar.
One entry said “too old maids” now were these old women, a cooking
implement or a type of chair? We never did find out.
The amount of information to be gleaned from these various
document was astonishing. We learnt about families and
relationships, possessions, how estates were divided up and who
inherited from whom. We also realised the importance of everyday
objects such as beds, linen, clothes and other effects and
how carefully they were metered out.
The whole course was a fascinating insight into people’s
lives in the past. It has enhanced our understanding of these
historic documents and given us much food for thought.
We all came away with many samples to work on at home and
wanting to learn more.
