7,435 research outputs found
The Durham mint: the control, organization, profits and out put of an ecclesiastical mint
No full textThe university libraries of Durham and Cambridge have been the indispensable foundation of my work. I have spent countless enjoyable and extremely fruitful hours in the Archives and Special Collections department of Durham University Library, and in the Dean and Chapter Library of Durham Cathedral. The archivists and librarians of those two great sources of material and inspiration for Durham historians have always been helpful, often beyond the call of duty. Mr Patrick Musset and Mr Alan Piper helped me with many tricky matters of palaeography, and Ms Linda Drury has been a source of wisdom concerning Weardale mining. Mr Roger Norris has always offered a friendly and tolerant welcome in the Dean and Chapter Library. My greatest debt of gratitude in the Durham fellowship of archivists and librarians is to Mr Martin Snape, who laboriously checked my calendar of documentary evidence, and brought to my attention the mint indenture of 1367. The Public Record Office and the Borthwick Institute, University of York, have also been safe havens of documentary research, and their staffs have been unfailing in their friendly help. Dr Constance Fraser generously provided many transcripts of PRO documents from the reigns of Edward I and Edward, produced for her own research, which have been invaluable. Miss Ethel Stokes deserves an extremely posthumous mention for her excellent transcripts of thirteenth- century PRO documents, made for H.B.E. Fox shortly before the First World War. Mrs Yvonne Harvey and Dr Barrie Cook have provided unpublished information about the dies in the PRO and the British Museum respectively. Miss M.M. Archibald, Mr Christopher Bailey, Mr Edward Besly, Ms Kristin Bornholdt, Dr Cook, Mr Robert Heslip, Mr N.M.McQ. Holmes, Mr D. Lockwood, Mr Nicholas Mayhew, and Mr D. Robinson have very generously provided unpublished hoard data. The corpus of hoards would be much poorer without the contributions of Mr Besly, Dr Cook, and Mr Holmes in particular. Mr Holmes and Mr Keith Sugden have patiently answered onerous enquiries about obscure hoard publications. Dr Sean Miller has provided important data from the Early Medieval Corpus of single finds. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the British Museum, Sunderland Museums, and last but not least my employers the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, have provided coins for illustration. Four collectors have also allowed their coins to be illustrated: Mr Joe Bispham, Mr Denis Martin, Dr Ian Taylor, and Mr Robert Thomas. Professor T.V. Buttrey has read the thesis with great care, saving me from a multitude of errors, although he could not save me from the sin of attempting to estimate mint outputs. Dr Mark Blackburn, Dr Robin Eaglen, Mr Mayhew, Mr Jeffrey North, Dr Peter Spufford, and Lord Stewartby have read parts of the thesis and offered many valuable comments and suggestions. They and others have greatly encouraged me in a seemingly interminable project by their interest in its progress, and Mr David Palmer and Mr Christopher Wren also deserve a particularly honourable mention in that regard. The laurel must go to my supervisor, Mr John Casey, who has shown superhuman endurance in the six years since he first succumbed to the obviously mad idea that a Roman archaeologist could supervise a thesis on a medieval mint. John has been a good supervisor, and a good friend. My greatest regret in completing this thesis is that my mother, Vera, and father, George, did not live to see the end of a project that depended so much upon their love and encouragement
Tithe and agrarian output between the Tyne and Tees, 1350- 1450
No full textThe aim of this thesis is to establish a series of agrarian output indicators, based on tithe receipts, for the period 1350 to 1450 and to interpret this series in the light of current thinking on the medieval economy. Tithe receipts recorded in the accounts of Durham Priory were used for the series. After a broad discussion of the concept of tithe, covering Its origins, significance and historiography, the institution of tithe is examined at the parish and monastic levels. There follows a detailed discussion of the method used to convert the tithe receipts into indicators of agrarian output: this represents a development of methods used by French historians in the 1960s and 1970s. The final two chapters examine the significance of these indicators for our understanding of the economy of the late middle ages. Agrarian output in the parishes between the Tyne and Tees proves to have been comparable to developments on demesne land elsewhere in England. Some significant differences are also observed and discussed
Functional Goods and Fancies: The Production and Consumption of Consumer Goods in Northumberland, Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham c. 1680-1780
No full textThis thesis explores the place of consumer goods in the culturally changing environment of late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain. It specifically focuses on the production and consumption of consumer goods in Northumberland, Newcastle and Durham between c. 1680 to 1780. It places the region in a national context and analyses how the diffusion of national taste encouraged the production and consumption of consumer goods in Newcastle, Northumberland and Durham.
Chapter One outlines the historical context, theoretical problems and research questions that frame this thesis. Chapter Two creates an overview of the regional economy. It maps the establishment of consumer industries and discusses their geographical location. Chapter Three analyses the supply side factors that allowed the development of multiple industries. It considers the use of the region’s natural raw materials, the importation of raw materials, the role of indigenous landowners and merchant-gentry in the consumer industries, and the movement of skilled craftsmen to the region. Chapter Four focuses on the products manufactured in the local industries. It details the cultural changes that encouraged the creation of new types of consumer goods and analyses the markets these products were destined for. Chapter Five analyses Newcastle’s connection to other region’s in Britain through the coasting trade. It details the expansion of vessels destined for the Tyne and variety of products entering Newcastle, especially those from London. Chapter Six focuses on retailing, the lynch-pin connecting production and consumption. It traces the chronological growth of retailing and the gradual transition of facilities in the region in response to the availability of consumer goods. Chapter Seven considers the adoption and ownership of new good by the region’s middling sorts. Chapter Eight analyses ownership and consumption in a more qualitative manner focusing on individuality, debtors and paupers, and consumption of local goods by indigenous gentry
Bill Nicholls
No full textDelissaville Mission. The man in the centre with the white shirt on is the one and only Bill Harney - author and expert on Indigenous history. Photo shows buildings with several people standing around, child on right obviously scared of soldier with gas mask and rifle. Delisaville.Foley, Mike
An exercise in gracious living: the north east new towns 1947-1988
No full textThis thesis examines the history of the North East new towns and how local, regional and national policies and events have impacted upon their respective trajectories. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first is concerned with the social, economic and political developments of Aycliffe in South-West Durham, and Peterlee in East Durham, both of which were designated as new towns within a few months of each other in 1948. The second part of the thesis investigates the development of the new towns from 1963 to the dissolution of the towns' development corporation boards in1988. This is because the economic and industrial priorities of the towns changed following the publication of the Hailsham Report in November 1963. More importantly for the North East region, however, was that in 1963 a further new town was designated at Washington in North-West Durham, which altered the whole dynamic of the region's new town programm
Bill Durham
No full textPortrait of Bill Durham, facing front and smiling.https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/specialcollections_startelegram1950s/26081/thumbnail.jp
Recession and Recovery: the Economic History of Rural Society in Durham, c.1400-1640
No full textThis thesis explores how rural society adapted to the fifteenth-century recession, and how this affected the ability of their sixteenth-century counterparts to respond to inflation. It does so through three primary sections: the first explores how the Bishops of Durham and the monks of Durham Cathedral Priory responded differently to the fifteenth-century recession and analyses the subsequently divergent development of their estates. By the seventeenth century, all of the Dean and Chapter’s lands were consolidated holdings on 21-year leases, whereas a confused mixture of copyhold and leasehold land had developed on the bishops’ estate. The second section explores the balance of landed power in the Palatinate of Durham from the late-fourteenth to the mid-seventeenth century amongst the laity. This further explores whether the ‘crisis of the aristocracy’ and the ‘rise of the gentry’ are misnomers more adequately phrased in terms of land usage as the ‘rise of agricultural producers’ and the ‘crisis of rentier landlords’. The final section explores how the tenantry of the above estates survived this period, with the gradual stratification of landed society and the emergence of the yeomanry as a social group. It especially focuses upon how the divergent development of the two ecclesiastical estates impacted upon the opportunities and challenges facing the tenants of Durham. The overall conclusion reached by this thesis is that estate management and institutional constraints were often crucial factors in the transformation of the English countryside: these two neighbouring ecclesiastical estates faced broadly the same problems and yet the composition of their estates diverged significantly across this period. Institutional constraints had a profound effect not only on levels of rent, but also the tenure of holdings and ultimately their relative size; three of the most important factors in the formation of agrarian capitalism
Accounting, Management and Control at Durham Cathedral Priory c. 1250-c. 1420
No full textThis is the first study to be undertaken with the objective of documenting and analysing the accounting records and systems of Durham Cathedral Priory, from which survives one of the largest collections of medieval accounting material in the United Kingdom. It moves beyond the traditional focus of accounting historians on manorial compoti to examine a network of non-manorial accounts and a range of accounting forms beyond the charge and discharge statement. A substantial body of non-accounting primary material is also used in the investigation including charters, registers, and general chapter and visitation records. This study finds that a culture of accounting permeated the activities of the house at all levels from the controls surrounding the receipt of the hundreds of quarters of grain consumed by the house each year to the issue of the individual daily loaf. It also identifies a complexity in the accounts not always appreciated by historians who have consequently misinterpreted and misquoted figures taken from the account-rolls. In this period the accounts show a responsiveness to changes in the environment and fortunes of the house by the refinement of existing forms and the introduction of new types of financial record. The care given to the preparation of accounts and the detailed investigation of accounting and financial matters in the regular visitations to which the house was subject allow a refutation of general allegations of carelessness and inaccuracy in the preparation and presentation of accounts. The accounting system at Durham was an important and effective control in the functioning of the house and in the exercise and enforcement of its rights
Merrington: land, landlord and tenants 1541 – 1840
No full textThis thesis considers the performance of the Dean and Chapter of Durham as estate managers from 1541-1840, as perceived from the detailed study of one parish. Durham was created as a New Foundation Cathedral in 1541 by Henry VIII and endowed with the lands of the Priory, which had been dissolved in 1539. Durham Chapter administered the same lands until 1840 when central government again intervened with cathedral estates. Cathedral chapters have been described as 'inactive rentier' landlords. Durham Chapter’s management is compared with that of other landlords to see if this description was justified. The Chapter's response to problems and challenges, such as tenant right and inflation in the sixteenth century, civil war and abolition in the seventeenth century and rapidly changing agricultural practices in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is considered. The thesis concludes that by 1626 Durham Chapter had created an effective system of estate management, known as beneficial leasehold, which offered tenants security of tenure and fixed rents, while compensating the Chapter for inflation by regular renewal fines, related to the true value of the land. The Chapter were not inactive rentiers in 1640: they promoted agricultural innovation, especially enclosure of the townships. The work of the Chapter was only interrupted by the Civil War, not fundamentally altered. The Chapter recovered relatively rapidly at the Restoration: their tenants had greater problems because of the costs of war and land purchase. By the nineteenth century, the Chapter were left behind by progressive landlords who controlled their tenants' farming practices and drew a greater financial return from their lands than Durham Chapter achieved. However, progress continued on the Chapter estate, as the security of beneficial leasehold encouraged tenants to invest, for example in restructuring their farms, breeding improved cattle and introducing new field crops and rotations
Bill Berry with rickety ladder
No full textClub Member Bill Berry found a rickety ladder leaning against a water storage tower that would cause an accident if used.https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/specialcollections_startelegram1950s/26698/thumbnail.jp
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