Transcription Services Ltd Blog

I have only recently stumbled upon the Henry III Fine Rolls project, and what an amazing work it is.  Started in 2005 and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council the project is making available to everyone what had previously only been accessible to a very few, and opening up primary source material of a fascinating period in English history, from 1216 to 1272, from Magna Carta to the development of the parliamentary state.

The project can be found at

http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk

and the blog is at

http://blogs.cch.kcl.ac.uk/frh3/

both sites are fascinating and I look forward to following the blog over the coming months/years.

But when I first happened on the site serendipity brought me to:

Fine Roll C 60/9, 2 HENRY III (1217–1218)

and in particular to membrane 8, where reading down the page I came across this:

“[No date]. Yorkshire. Cumberland. Nicholas de Stuteville has made fine by 1000 m. for his ransom, to be rendered at four terms, namely 250 m. at mid-Lent in the second year, 250 m. at Pentecost following, 250 m. at St. Peter in Chains and 250 m. at Martinmas in the third year, namely so that if he does not keep the first term, he has bound his manors of Kirkbymoorside and Liddel under this form, that if he does not keep the first term, 50 librates of land are to be forfeited from the said manors. Similarly, if he does not keep the second term, 50 librates of land are to be forfeited from the same manors. Similarly, if he does not keep the third term, 50 librates of land are to be forfeited in the same manors. Similarly, if he does not keep to the fourth term, 50 librates of land are to be forfeited in the same manors. If the said two manors do not suffice to make good 200 librates of land, he will supplement the default from his other manors. Robert de Stuteville and Walter of Sowerby have mainperned for this fine in that if he does not keep a term, all of their lands are to be forfeited.”

Now this sparked my curiosity, who was Nicholas de Stuteville and why was he being ransomed for 1000 marks, a huge sum.  I did various internet searches and found plenty of sites that mention Nicholas, and many and varied dates of his demise, but none of them actually mention him being ransomed.  For this I should have stuck to the Fine Roll project, for there, in the ‘Fine of the Month’ for May 2007 all is revealed.  Nicholas had been amongst the barons who had forced the Magna Carta on King John, Henry III’s father.  John reneged on the charter in late summer of 1215 and the barons offered the throne to Louis, eldest son of the King of France.

John died in October 1216 by which time Louis had control of over half the kingdom.  Young Henry, aged just 9, was facing a very short reign indeed.  Louis supporters and Henry’s met at the Battle of Lincoln in May 2017, where the young King’s forces shattered those of Louis.  By the end of the year the war was ended and Henry was secure.  Had things gone otherwise at Lincoln England and France would have been united under French rule, and who knows how the future would have developed.

Henry’s forces at Lincoln were led by William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, a man who seems to have carried his seventy years lightly.  During this battle William captured Nicholas de Stuteville, and it was with William Marshal that the fine (an agreement for payment) was made, though very unusually this is not made clear in the fine rolls, and is only clarified in a royal letter of 1224.  The ransom was indeed a huge sum of money, a rough equivalent of £6.6 million.  How much of this ransom William received is unclear, following his death in 1219 there were further entries into fine rolls which had the effect of requiring Nicholas to pay the fine twice.  However this was protested before the King and council and Nicholas succeeded in having the second fine removed from the rolls of the exchequer.

The tale is given in far more detail on the websites I mention above.  I’ve enjoyed dipping my toe into this small pool of history, and have learnt a great deal.

The Egypt Exploration Society and Oxford University have launched a joint project in which they hope to recruit help with transcription of some of the many papyri found during excavation of the the site at Oxyrhynchus, which translates as the “City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish”.

The papyri were found during excavation of the site in 1896 by Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, both Fellows of Queens College, Oxford.  A huge number of documents and scraps of documents were recovered from what appears to have been a rubbish dump.  The city was built with a series of canals, but as the water table lowered the ‘dump’ became buried in the sands, preserving these fascinating artefacts.

Many of these papyri have not been look at since the day they were recovered from the site, but have been kept in storage waiting for someone to unlock their treasures.  Now Oxford University are asking members of the public to collaborate in transcription of some of these documents which have been scanned and entered into an interactive database.   Visitors to the website (http://ancientlives.org/) will find they are presented with an image of an extract of a scanned papyrus.  They can then click on a character on that image and link it with a corresponding Greek character at the bottom of the screen, thus piecing together character by character the words on the page.

This looks to be a fascinating project, with papyri already yielding up a note from a sausage maker, an anatomy of the eye and a re-telling of the Trojan war story.  Each contribution may only be very small, but working together this project may well present scholars and the interested general public with an insight into all manner of aspects of life in Egypt under Greek and Roman settlers.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my work transcribing old documents, and in particular wills, is the variety that are encountered;  variety of script certainly, but also variety of style.  Sometimes when working on a will I get a picture in my head of the person behind it.  There are some that remind me strongly of Sir Walter Elliott in Jane Austen’s Persuasion, a man very full of his own importance.  The flowery hyperbole and inordinate length of their wills flatter the pretensions of what sometimes appears to me to be a small mind.  I have to wonder too whether they are being duped by lawyers or clerks paid on a per word basis.  Others are brief, terse and matter of fact, either with little to be bequeathed or the bequests dealt with efficiently.  And then there are the occasional gems, the wills that open the door and invite you in with descriptions of objects, and sometimes even of the rooms in which they are to be found.

We recently worked on one such gem, from the fourth year of the reign of James 1^st (1606).  This was the will of a maiden aunt with no land or buildings to bequeath, but a lady who took care in the bestowal of her money and personal effects.  Through her will I felt Frances beckoning me from her sick bed.

Frances was a spinster, ‘sicke in bodie but of good and perfect remembrance’ .  There is no indication of her age, or her ailment, but the will was not proved until two and a half years after she wrote it.  I wonder did she linger in illness for those years, or did she recover from whatever illness troubled her and succumb to a second illness later?  Whatever the case she would have been aware of the uncertainties of life and the need to set her house in order and have her wishes noted down in good time.

She begins by making a contribution to the poor of the parish, half now, half on Christmas Day, and a generous sum to the vicar for his sermon at her funeral;  no doubt he had was equally kind to her when called upon to deliver his sermon.   She also makes provision for a donation towards the costs of repairing the old stone bridge and the house on top of it, a good citizen of her community helping with the burden of keeping communal assets in good condition.

Then as a devoted aunt she turns her thoughts to her nephews, two  specified as minors for whom the money is to be ‘put out’ by their respective fathers ‘for him to the best use during his minority’.  The third nephew’s portion is to be kept for him for when he ‘comes out of his yeares of Apprentiship.’   Her niece is also remembered, though with a much smaller bequest, but still 10 shillings ‘for her own use’ will have been very welcome to a young girl in those days I imagine.

Her brothers each get 10 shillings with which to have made a ring by which to remember her.  The practice of bequeathing a ring for remembrance was known from the Middle Ages, and by the seventeenth century it had become customary to engrave rings with the name and the dates of the deceased, with the decorative design on a ground of black enamel. People would leave instructions in their wills for specific sums of money to be used by the executors to buy rings, and the recipients would be named.

© Trustees of the British Museum

example of a mourning ring from the collection of the British Museum

What makes Frances so special is the detail she gives of the items she bequeaths to her sisters/sisters in law.  We can stand by her bedside where she is sitting in her bed, propped up against the bolsters peering myopically around the room while she looks at her possessions and decides which member of her family should have them.

“Let’s start with my sister in law Mary.  She is to have two smocks, two bands, one black coif wrought with rosemary stitch, one petticoat (that one there with the three white laces) and the gown that I used of late to wear on a Sunday.  Oh she’d better have the kirtle which is worn with that gown too.

Now then for Elizabeth, oh yes, she shall have 10 shillings to have a ring made, but she can have the new petticoat that’s being made at the moment at the tailor’s, and the best smock, six night ‘Rayles’, the blackwork stomacher and the gloves that were a present to me from my dear friend.

Mary my sister, she too shall have 10 shillings for a ring, and she shall have the new gown that is being made at the tailor’s and the black coif wrought with pearl stitch.”

So let’s see what these articles might have looked like….

smock – also called a shift.  This innermost layer of clothing, worn by all women of all classes, was a basic undergarment worn to protect outer clothing from sweat and body oils.

some are cut close to the body with a low, square neck and close-fitting, ungathered sleeves.  Others have puffy sleeves gathered to cuffs and a body gathered to a close-fitting neckband.

kirtle – one piece underdress

bands – ???

coif – A coif is a close fitting cap that covers the top, back, and sides of the head.  They were often beautifully ornamented with embroidery.

http://www.elizabethancostume.net/headwear/coifpics.html

In Frances’ case she had two to give to her sisters, one worked in rosemary stitch and the other with pearl stitch.

<—< examples of rosemary stitch

petticoat – The word “petticoat” was a very all-encompassing term during Elizabethan times. It could signify an underskirt worn for warmth, for decorative purposes, to add bulk underneath the kirtle or outer skirts, or all three.  In the earlier 16th century it also referred to a type of jacket worn by men (and women) for warmth, adding to the confusion.
Petticoats became more popular during the 1580s and 1590s.  During Tudor & early Elizabethan times, the kirtle –an underdress with a flaring skirt– served the same purpose as a petticoat, but as skirts became wider and more gathered at the top, gathered petticoats were more often worn.

night rayle – The equivalent to the modern night gown

stomacher – A decorated triangular panel that fills in the front opening of a woman’s gown or bodice.  The stomacher may be boned, as part of a corset, or may cover the triangular front of a corset.  If simply decorative, the stomacher lies over the triangular front panel of the stays, being either stitched or pinned into place, or held in place by the lacings of the gown’s bodice.

  Nicholas Hilliard’s Unknow Woman wears a cutwork cartwheel ruff.
Her stomacher and wired heart-shaped coif are decorated with blackwork embroidery, 1585–90

 English woman wears a fashion seen in many formal portraits of Puritan women in the 1590s, characterized by a black gown worn with a blackwork stomacher and a small French farthingale or half-roll, with a fine linen ruff and moderate use of lace and other trim.  She wears a tall black hat called a capotain over a sheer linen cap and simple jewelry.

Blackwork embroidery is a very old form of counted-thread embroidery.  Because many of the designs are geometric it is most often stitched on an even-weave fabric.  Despite the name “Blackwork” it was also done in blue, green, gold or silver.  Linen or cotton was the primary fabrics since the original purpose of Blackwork was for costume adornment.

By the time of her death Frances’ new gown and petticoat ‘at the Taylors’ would have had some wear, and perhaps she was no longer wont to wear that gown of a Sunday, but we leave her now with thanks for the detail she gave us and for opening a window into the past.

For anyone interested in looking further at clothing of the period I found these two websites well presented and useful.

http://www.tudorlinks.com/textiles.html

http://www.elizabethancostume.net/bath/index.html

© Linda Watson 2011

Richard II

Relics from the tomb of the medieval King Richard II have been found by an archivist researching the papers of the National Portrait Gallery’s first director George Scharf.

Among hundreds of diaries and notebooks left in boxes not opened for years were contents from the coffin of the ill-fated monarch and sketches of his skull and bones.

The contents of a cigarette box dated August 31, 1871 were only identified as relics from a royal tomb when it was possible to cross reference the date on the box with diary entries and sketches made on the same day.

The box contained fragments of wood possibly from the coffin itself and some fabric.

Records from this date show Scharf was present at an opening of the royal graves at Westminster Abbey, and a piece of leather corresponds with his sketch of a glove contained in the coffin.

According to the National Portrait Gallery, a full account of the event was recorded by the Very Reverend Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster. His account was published in 1879.

Scharf, who also witnessed the opening of the graves of Richard II, Edward VI, Henry VII, James I and Elizabeth of York, made careful sketches of Richard II’s skull and bones, including detailed measurements.

“It was a very exciting discovery and one that reveals the hidden potential of Scharf’s papers,” said Krzysztof Adamiec, National Portrait Gallery assistant archivist who was working on the Scharf papers.

The gallery said that King Richard II’s tomb was opened in 1871 for cleaning, and that so many individuals were present at the event probably because they wanted to determine whether the king was killed by the blow of an axe.

The skull showed no evidence of this, however.

Richard II ruled from 1377 to 1399 when he was succeeded by Henry IV. Many historians believed he died of starvation while in captivity in 1400.

Sir George Scharf

The National Portrait Gallery have completed the project undertaken to catalogue the papers of George Scharf and this catalogue, running to some 524 records, is available online at  http://bit.ly/fwiOh1

The Scharf papers are one of the most significant collections held in the National Portrait Gallery’s Heinz Archive & Library and they comprise business, personal and family records. The huge range of material – diaries, letters, research notes, notebooks and sketchbooks, tracings and printed material, reflect not only the history of the Gallery, but also the wider social history of Victorian England.

The records he bequeathed to the Gallery are also an exceptional resource for the study of portraits and portraiture.  Scharf was educated as a draughtsman and art historian, and portraits and portraiture became an essential part of his career. In 1857, he became Secretary of the newly founded National Portrait Gallery. One of his most important duties in this role was picture research, which involved identifying genuine works of art of suitable significance for acquisition by the Gallery.

Henry VI groat

When transcribing old wills my colleagues and I at Transcription Services Ltd (TSL)  frequently come across amounts of money bequeathed, and the denominations used are not always well known common coins.  So I thought it might be useful to write a little bit about old British coin denominations.

As a unit of currency, the term pound originates from the value of one pound Tower weight of high purity silver known as sterling silver. Sterling silver is an alloy containing 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% other metals, usually copper. The word sterling is believed to come from the Old Norman French esterlin (meaning little star), the name of a silver coin, with reference to the little star on some of the mintages

The pre-decimalisation currency was £ s d – pounds, shillings and pence which denominations come from librae, solidi, denarii (libra was the basic Roman unit of weight; solidus and denarius were Roman coins).

 
 1 farthing (the lowest value coin) = 1/4 penny

A ha’penny (Half penny) = 1/2 penny

1 penny = one of the basic units (1d)

Threepence or Thruppenny Bit = 3 pence

1 groat = 4 pence

Sixpence (also known as a tanner) = 6 pence

1 shilling = 12 pence (1s)

1 florin = 2 shillings

A half-crown = 2 shillings and 6 pence

1 crown = 5 shillings = 1/4 pound

1 soverign = 1 pound = £1 = a gold coin of about .24 ounces of 22 carat gold

1799 half penny reverse

The smallest unit of currency was a penny, the plural of which was pence (orpennies). There were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. The pound came as a paper banknote or a gold coin, called a sovereign.

Before 1279, if change smaller than a penny was needed, it had become common to divide the silver penny into two halves, or four quarters. This could have been called halving and fourthing. It certainly appears that the name farthing is derived from fourthing or feorling.

Although a round halfpenny had been issued as early as 886 for Alfred the Great, and they continued to be produced under most monarchs, they were never issued in large quantities. The cross on the reverse of silver pennies helped make it easier to cut pennies for change.  The first round farthing was issued from 1279 under Edward I, also made of silver. During his reign the silver groat was issued for the first time. Farthings continued to be produced in small quantities for most monarchs up to Edward VI in about 1553, when the last silver farthing was produced.

In later times the penny, halfpenny and farthing were often called coppers denoting the metal they were minted from.

The name crown comes from the French gold couronne, the denier à la couronne, issued by Philip of Valois about 1339, which featured as its obverse design a large crown; and the écu à la couronne issued by Charles VI of France about 1384, which had a shield surmounted by a crown.

1602 Elizabethan crown

The first crown (that of the double rose) of Henry VIII had a reverse similar design to the “ecu d’or au soleil”, a shield topped by a large crown, and for its obverse, had a double rose also topped by a large crown. This was a gold coin with a value of five shillings.

1695 guinea

The guinea, first issued as a coin on February 6th, 1663, was also commonly used as a unit of account. The guinea was a gold coin, first made using gold from the Guinea coast of Africa, worth 21 shillings (1pound 1 shilling) in old British money. A guinea was considered a more gentlemanly amount than £1. A gentleman paid his tailor in shillings, but his barrister in guineas.

The old slang term for a shilling was ‘bob‘ and for a guinea – ‘yellow-boy‘.

Other slang terms:Fiver = £5, Lady Godiva (Cockney rhyming slang for a fiver) = £5, Tenner = £10, Pony = £25, Half a ton = £50, Ton = £100, Monkey= £500, Grand = £1000.

Although it never existed in England as a coin, the mark was widely used as a unit of money of account, equal to 13s 4d (i.e. 2/3 of £1).  In account books, probate inventories, etc an amount in money could appear written e.g. as “5 marks” but more often the 5 marks would be written as the currency equivalent, £3 6s 8d.  This is the reason so many inventory valuations end in either 6s 8d (1/2 mark) or 13s 4d (1 mark). Only accountants could have devised such a system, but one reason it survived so long is that 6s 8d (1/2 mark) was often used as the standard professional fee.

Although the mark did not exist as a coin in England,  the gold noble when first issued under Edward III in 1344-46 was valued at 6s 8d (= 1/2 mark), later increased to 8s 4d. The gold angel when introduced under Edward IV in 1464-70 was also worth 6s 8d, but the value of all gold coins tended to change over time.

The Ryal was an English gold coin of 15 shillings, issued under both Mary (1553-1554) and Elizabeth I (1558-1603), a development from an earlier 10 shilling Ryal or Rose Noble first minted under Edward IV in 1465.  There was also an half ryal during Edward IV’s reign worth 5 shillings.

The gold coin presently known to numismatists as a Spur-Ryal was minted during James I’s second coinage (1604-19) and third coinage (1619-25).  Initially it had a value of 15shillings but, as with all gold coins, in 1612 its value was raised by 10% to 16s 6d.  It appears the term Spur-Ryal was already in use as a nickname for the Ryal under Elizabeth, at an earlier date than numismatists would have us believe, as at TSL we have seen it mentioned in an English Will of 1581.  The name derives from the “rose on a sun” design that appears on the reverse of these coins, this having the appearance of the “wheel” of a horse-rider’s spur, such as is shown in this detail from a 15th century monumental brass at Barsham in Suffolk:

1550 and the reign of Edward VI saw the issue of the fine sovereign worth £1 10 shillings.

The broad was a new denomination of coin issued only in the single year 1656 for Oliver Cromwell. It had a value of twenty shillings, replacing the gold unite, and could also be considered as the model and forerunner of the gold guinea, and eventually the gold sovereign.

The time of Edward III saw the issue of a coin to the value of 1 shilling known as a leopard,  a double leopard worth 2 shillings, and a helm was worth 6 pence.  Edward IV’s reign saw the introduction of the angel, a coin worth 6 shillings and 8 pence, and the half angel (angelet) worth, reasonably enough, 3 shillings and 4 pence.

The gold sovereign came into existence in 1489 under King Henry VII.  The pound sterling had been a unit of account for centuries, as had the mark. Now for the first time a coin denomination was issued with a value of one pound sterling.  The obverse design showed the King seated facing on a throne, a very majestic image. It is from this image of the monarch or sovereign that the new coin gained its name – the sovereign. The reverse type is a shield on a large double Tudor rose.

Under Henry VII the testoon worth 1 shilling was struck, also a double sovereign of the value of £2. In the reign of James I a double crown, 10 shillings, was issued.  Queen Victoria’s reign brought the florin, value two shillings (an early attempt at decimal currency, being 1/10 of a pound) and the double florin, 4 shillings in value.

A halfcrown was first issued in the reign of Henry VIII, as a gold coin.  Further gold halfcrowns were produced during the  reigns of Edward VI, Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I.  The first silver halfcrowns were struck under Edward VI in 1551, these being one of the first British coins to bear a date.

© Linda Watson 2011

Irish Archives Resource

There’s some really good news for those with an interest in Ireland, genealogists, historians and simply those with a fondness for the country.  There’s a new website just up and running which “contains information about archival collections open for public research in Ireland.   Its purpose is to aid researchers in finding collections relevant to their studies.”  Some of the collections featured include the Irish Film Archive, the Guinness family archives, archives from UCC’s Boole Library and a large number of city and county council archives.

This site will become the repository of archive collections from around the country, and will make available to us all documents which hitherto will only have been available to a handful of people.  Given the parlous state of Ireland’s financial situation at the moment we must all be very grateful that the state has funded archiving in the recent past and that this source has become available.

There’s a good article about it at

http://www.thejournal.ie/irelands-archive-collections-go-online-2011-3/

and the site itself is at

http://www.iar.ie/

“Brian McGee, archivist at the Cork City and County Archives, says one of his personal favourite archives referenced on the site is a recent collection of deeds on properties in Cork city dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries. These deeds were found lying in a skip in the Netherlands.”   Wouldn’t you love to know the story of these deeds, how they travelled from Cork to that skip in the Netherlands?  I know I would.

Perhaps Transcription Services Ltd will be called upon at some time in the future to transcribe some of these documents.

I really like twitter.  I never thought I would hear myself saying those words, but it is undeniable.  For years I thought twitter a place where people told anyone who was listening the minutiae of their day, and that was of no interest to me at all.  However, I am converted.  Not because I want to listen to those people who feel the need to share every cup of coffee they drink, but because I have found it a gold mine of links to web sites and blogs with fascinating information on them.

I wanted a twitter account for Transcription Services Ltd to increase our online presence, hopeful that it would raise the profile of the company in online search listings.  Having set up the account I then needed to find people to ‘follow’, and lo and behold my eyes were opened to what an amazing resource it can be.  I now follow many, many people, those interested in genealogy and history, or museums and archives around the world,  and through their tweets am led on a voyage of discovery each and every time I log on.  Our twitter name is old_documents (i.e. old_documents).

Today I stumbled upon the following:

The Centro di Studi Papirologici of Lecce University is organizing the Sixth Papyrus Restoration Course, that will take place from 4^th to 8^th July, 2011.  The Course will consist of both theoretical lectures (in the Italian language) and practical exercises on papyri.  The Course is open to anyone interested in conservation, treatment and restoration of papyri in ancient and modern times.
http://papyrology.blogspot.com/2011/02/sixth-papyrus-restoration-course-lecce.html

At no time would I have come across this topic through my own undirected surfing of the net, and yet what a wonderful idea, a course in restoration of Papyrus, and how relevant to  Transcription Services work of transcribing old documents – would that we had the skills to transcribe ancient papyri !

So, I am now an unapologetic advocate of twitter.  There is so much out there on the web that, without the tweets of others with similar interests, would remain for me undiscovered.

A word of warning though, it can be all too absorbing, new tweets coming in so fast and ‘little gems’ catching your eye so often it can severely limit your time to do anything else.  Sometimes you have to be strong and sign out.

In a recent report from Library and Archives Canada, it was announced that over the next seven years the records of Canada’s heritage will be going completely digital.

While this might not sound wildly exciting to you at first, it does come with some perks for anyone who might have ancestors to be found in Canada. Going digital means it will be easier than ever to discover your roots because all of the information held by LAC (like all of the census forms) will be available in searchable databases. In fact, LAC partnered with Ancestry.ca a few years back and over the next year, LAC plans to double the volume of its online content, bringing millions of genealogy images to genealogist and family historians.

As part of the agreement, Ancestry.ca will digitize and index microfilm and original records held by LAC and make these available to Ancestry.ca members. All of the digitized records will eventually be available free of charge to users of the LAC website.

Another benefit of storing the information in digital form, is it reduces the impact to our environment. LAC currently sends out about 750,000 photocopies each year and hopes to completely phase out paper copies by April 2011.

How to search your genealogy today

As things stand today, there are a number of census forms that are already working with databases, capable of allowing users to search people by region and name. And, if you’ve ever tried to research your genealogy, you’ll know how valuable that is.

Unfortunately, the extent of what the LAC has done is uploading the census forms as images. However, as we’d mentioned there are working databases, they’re just not available from the LAC site.   You may have to search around the internet and in particular sites similar to Ancestry.com to find them.

LAC states on its site, that by the summer of 2011, all digital images and indexes to those census returns will be available on the Library and Archives Canada website.  “Taking advantage of new digital information technologies will change not only the way we acquire and preserve our collection but also how we make it accessible to Canadians.” – Dr. Daniel J. Caron, Librarian and Archivist of Canada.  Those of us in the rest of the world will be very thankful for access to the information too, perhaps more so as going to search for the records themselves would be extremely time consuming and expensive, though an excuse to travel to Canada has appeal too.

Two previously unknown violin sonatas by Antonio Vivaldi have been uncovered after lying hidden in a collection of manuscripts for 270 years.

The works, thought to have been written for amateur musicians, were found in a 180-page portfolio after it was donated to the Foundling Museum in London.

The anthology of manuscripts was compiled between 1715 and 1725, with Vivaldi’s sonatas filed alongside works by Handel, Corelli and Purcell.

It was acquired by the late businessman Gerald Coke, whose collection was handed to the Foundling Museum in 2008.

The sonatas were credited to Vivaldi in the anthology, but only became known to experts after being catalogued by the museum.

They have recently been investigated and authenticated by Vivaldi expert Michael Talbot, Liverpool Hope University’s visiting professor of music.

“From their relatively simple technical demands, it appears the two sonatas were written by Vivaldi for amateurs,” he said.

The Italian composer, best known for The Four Seasons, was a prolific writer who penned almost 50 operas, more than 500 concertos and around 90 sonatas.

In the current issue of the magazine “History Today” is an article about the opening up of some of China’s archives, records which belong not to the people but to the Party.  Over the past decade increasing quantities of documents older that 30 years have become available for consultation but to access these documents you must be a professional historian with a letter of recommendation, presumably from the Party.

Though access is thus restricted and the archives vary in quantity and quality from region to region, the documents being examined are transforming ideas about Mao and his era.

Every detail of life, from the secret meetings of the Public Security Bureau to the letters of complaint written by ordinary people have been preserved and stored, often in special buildings on the local party committee premises.  These documents are revealing horrors on an unimaginable scale.  It is thought that up to 45 million people died prematurely, from famine, torture or summary execution, between 1958 and 1962.

As small, closely knit communities were dismantled and their land and homes seized the people were forced into giant people’s communes.  Large scale poorly planned projects such as the building of dams were undertaken with forced labour, while fields lay untended and the food needed by the population was not produced.  Those who were too weak to work, the sick, the elderly and vulnerable, were denied access to the canteens, the only source of food, and thus starved to death, with Mao himself announcing at a meeting ‘When there is not enough to eat people starve to death.  It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.’  One particularly tragic story reported was that of a boy who stole a handful of grain.  His punishment?  His father was forced to bury him alive.  The father died of grief a few days later.

There remain vast numbers of documents still to be released to view, and still to be read, assessed and assimilated by those researchers looking into the troubled history being revealed.  This, I can say with certainty, is not a task I would want to have to undertake.  But as the Spanish philosopher, George Santayana famously said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  We must all depend upon these researchers to ensure that we remember such a past lest we be condemned to repeat it.

© Linda Watson 2010