Gold Seam

Royal Revenue, 1270-1450

The culmination of five years’ work to fully digitise and translate the largest series of late-medieval Irish documents in The National Archives (UK). Curated by Dr Elizabeth Biggs with Dr Paul Dryburgh and Dr Peter Crooks.

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Introduction

The Royal Revenue, 1270–1450, Gold Seam provides access to one of the most significant and underused sources for the history of late-medieval Ireland and its connections with Britain and the wider world—the records of the medieval Irish exchequer. The exchequer was responsible for collecting and spending the king’s money in Ireland. This included rents from land, payments and fines, customs on goods, court fees, and taxes. Royal Revenue, 1270–1450, is a partnership with The National Archives UK and the Irish Manuscripts Commission. Drawing on the work of Dr Philomena Connolly (d. 2002, Senior Archivist, National Archives, Ireland), this Gold Seam was curated by Dr Elizabeth Biggs with Dr Paul Dryburgh and Dr Peter Crooks.

Dating back to the thirteenth century and continuing for nearly 200 years, these records are a treasure trove of information about Irish society, economy and politics in the centuries after Ireland was conquered. They offer fresh insights into many aspects of everyday life across most of the island: wealth and power, war and diplomacy, trade and economic activity, law and landholding, religion and political culture. The records reveal how royal government was financed and how Ireland was administered by—and for—the English crown.

This Gold Seam draws together an extraordinary series of documents created at the Irish and English exchequers between 1250 and 1450. Many of these parchment records (parchment was specially prepared animal skin—usually sheep or goat—used for writing before paper was commonly available), created by clerks working in the Irish exchequer, were written up in triplicate. One copy remained in Ireland, while the others were sent to the English exchequer in Westminster for audit. There they remained for centuries, first at Westminster and later the Tower of London. They are now held at The National Archives (UK), London.

Edward I of England from Westminster Abbey (by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster) Edward I of England (king 1277-1307) is seen here as a young man in a contemporary portrait in Westminster Abbey in lavish clothing, including gold-embroidered gloves. It was during his reign that scandals in the government of Ireland led to the order to audit the treasurers’ accounts at Westminster and so preserved the Royal Revenue Gold Seam documents.

Henry II of England Henry II (king 1154- 1189) led the English invasion of Ireland in 1171, bringing the east of the island under English rule for the next seven hundred years. This brought Ireland into the Angevin empire as Henry ruled large parts of France in addition to England. Henry’s son, John, was made lord of Ireland.

Irish Coins English medieval Ireland used the silver penny as the primary type of coin. There were mints making these pennies in Dublin and Waterford and there was a major new coinage in the 1270s. Payments at the exchequer usually would have been made in pennies, although the records show that sometimes payments were made in other things, such as hawks and drums.

Irish Axeman (The National Archives (UK) E 36/ 274) Medieval officials used little images like this one of an axeman to quickly find records. Axes were stereotypically the weapon used by Gaelic Irish fighters, and so here an axeman is associated with Ireland in the records of the English exchequer.

Westminster; Westminster Hall and the Upper Exchequer (Mairéad McClean) The records survive in London because they were brought to Westminster to be audited by royal officials there between 1293 and 1446. The messengers would have brought them into Westminster Hall with its famous hammerbeam roof and then through into the Upper Exchequer, seen here from the exterior.

What can I find here?

Original Parchment Documents with Translations

At the heart of this Gold Seam is the largest collection of original parchment documents concerning medieval Ireland to survive anywhere in the world. These documents are now held at The National Archives (UK). The collection comprises 400 files, containing around 1,000 individual archival items with approximately 25,000 entries. The documents were mostly written in Ireland by Irish exchequer clerks between 1270 and 1446.

There are three main categories of original records represented here:
Receipt rolls containing details of incoming payments to the Irish exchequer
Issue rolls (also known as payment rolls) recording outgoing payments made by the Irish exchequer

Enrolled accounts (1293 and 1446), created by the English exchequer at Westminster, which provide summaries of audited Irish revenue and payments

The Gold Seam includes a new digital edition in TEI-XML by the project team of the receipt rolls from 1270 to 1315 when English power reached its greatest extent across two-thirds of Ireland. This period is documented by the most consistent and continuous run of receipt rolls to survive. The records cover dramatic political and economic changes in Ireland and the wider world to which the island and its peoples were connected. These translations from the original Latin are interlinked with images of the original manuscript receipt rolls.

The Gold Seam also includes Irish Exchequer Payments, an English-language calendar of the Irish issue rolls edited by Dr Philomena Connolly and published by Irish Manuscripts Commission. This publication is fully text-searchable and interlinked with images of the original payment rolls.