General Chat

I'll certainly watch it, Rollo, thank you.

The earliest family document I have (a copy of) is a land document written in English and it begins 'To All Xpian People' and mentions Mary the Queen Dowager. It is perfectly legible if not a little archaic in wording and with a sliver of one side torn off.

It has the seals of four people along the bottom of it and ends with 'William the Third by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith ..... (and the date). (France! - that was a surprise.)

I know more of our family documents are held but my cousins and I are still checking everything before we request sight of them - but a 1326 one in English is something I'd love to have.

Edit: the document is dated 1696 - I forgot to put in the date.

Thank you Rollo. I’ll watch it on iPlayer sometime in the next few days. It sounds interesting

Will this spark an ephemeral medieval interest in you as well, Rollo?

Oh what interesting conversations we can have

Especially for Dermot
BBC4 are reshowing this rivetting program first shown 2016.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07l6bd0

available on iPlayer

I was quite surprised that written English was up and running as early as 1326.