Palaeography and forgery: Thomas D.’s Book of the Hartshorn in Southwark

Martha Carlin, ‘Palaeography and forgery: Thomas D.’s Book of theHartshorn in Southwark’, in Medieval Londoners: essays to mark the eightieth birthday of Caroline M. Barron, ed. E. A. New and C. Steer (London, 2019), pp. 71–94. License: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Open Access
https://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=search&query=rid:44646

“The Hartshorn controversy provides insights into how a title conflict might be disputed outside the courts in fifteenth-century England and reveals the extent of archival research and professional expertise that this might entail. It is especially intriguing to find an account of the use of palaeography as well as diplomatic to argue a case in the 1470s, two centuries before Jean Mabillon’s pioneering publication of De re diplomatica in 1681. Thomas D.’s Liber de la Hertys Horne in Suthwerk (Southwark 204) presents an array of evidence, analyses and arguments that reflect its compiler’s exhaustive title search in the muniments collection of Bishop Waynflete, his research on the dates of London’s mayors and sheriffs in the Guildhall archives, his attempted examination of the muniments at Lesnes abbey and his familiarity with the wax, seals, inks and scripts of the thirteenth century.” (p. 88). Thomas D. is Thomas Danvers (p. 83), who died in 1502.

On Forgeries in Archivalia:

https://archivalia.hypotheses.org/9580

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