Out of curiosity, what is the reason for the uncertain dating of early Chancery proceeding? Were they taken out of sequence by a 19th century archivist? This is what happened with the 14th century parliamentary petitions. They were taken out of their original order and arranged by county and alphabetically by the name of petitioner.

The problem is that the bills have no date, so they have to be dated from internal evidence. The most easily accessed evidence is the Chancellor's name in the address at the head, and the cataloguers seldom ventured further into the text, so most bills are dated by reference to the Chancellor's tenure of his office. Though occasionally some additional title can narrow it down a little - eg 'Cardinal' for Wolsey, or a bishopric if the chancellor was translated from one see to another during his tenure. Matt Tompkins ________________________________ From: GEN-MEDIEVAL <[email protected]> on behalf of Vance Mead <[email protected]> Sent: 10 June 2017 12:48 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Early Chancery Proceeding - Help needed with Date Out of curiosity, what is the reason for the uncertain dating of early Chancery proceeding? Were they taken out of sequence by a 19th century archivist? This is what happened with the 14th century parliamentary petitions. They were taken out of their original order and arranged by county and alphabetically by the name of petitioner. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message