This volume offers a comprehensive guide to the heraldry of Suffolk over more than six centuries, covering around 8,000 names and acting as a companion to the earlier Dictionary of Suffolk Arms(1965).   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15554-8

Price:  £30.00

A vivid picture of East Anglian provincial life. Franois de la Rochefoucauld, spent the whole of 1784 in Suffolk with his brother Alexandre and their tutor. This journal wonderfully conveys the atmosphere of the county in the 18th century. The three travelled widely throughout the region, and their comments contrast English and French life, where the events which were to lead to the French Revolution in 1789 were already in train.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15508-1

Price:  £25.00

St Edmund's Abbey was one of the most highly privileged and wealthiest religious houses in medieval England, one closely involved with the central government; its history is an integral part of English history. This book (the first of two volumes) offers a magisterial and comprehensive account of the Abbey during the thirteenth century, based primarily on evidence in the abbey's records [over 40 registers survive]. The careers of the abbots, beginning withthe great Samson, provide the chronological structure; separate chapters study various aspects of their rule, such as their relations with the convent, the abbey's internal and external administration and its relations with itstenants and neighbours, with the king and the central government. Chapters are also devoted to the monks' religious, cultural and intellectual life, to their writings, book collection and archives. Appendices focus on the mid-thirteenth century accounts which give a unique and detailed picture of the organisation and economy of St Edmunds' estates in West Suffolk, and on the abbey's watermills and windmills. Professor ANTONIA GRANSDEN is former Reader at the University of Nottingham.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83324-6

Price:  £60.00

This volume is the result of nearly fifteen years' work since the idea of such a bibliography was first considered by the Suffolk Records Society in 1964. It is designed as a practical working bibliography, and gives a comprehensive guide to the literature on almost every aspect of Suffolk.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15115-1

Price:  £30.00

In 1569, thirty years after its abbey had been dissolved, the large town of Bury St Edmunds remained unincorporated. These accounts show how the feoffees (still essentially the medieval Candlemas guild) experimented with town government. The pre-Reformation landed endowments were increased throughout the period. This enabled the feoffees to address many aspects of town life. In addition to payments for housing and clothing the poor, and the provision of medical care, they also contributed to the cost of providing clergy (whose theology was akin to their own) for the two town churches. To encourage trade, they built the town's first covered Market Cross, while the acquisition of theShire House enabled the assizes and quarter sessions to move into the town. After the turn of the century, the Charitable Uses Act of 1601 was used to recover land which had long ago been alienated. At the same time some of the up and coming men successfully petitioned for a charter of incorporation for Bury St Edmunds, so that in 1606 the town acquired the borough status which had eluded it for centuries. Unless new sources are discovered, these accounts, though inevitably slanted to the feoffees' activities, are the most revealing source for the work of the new corporation in its early years.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15921-8

Price:  £35.00

Published by the Harleian Society 1918-1921 in four volumes. The four books are arranged in date order and are fully indexed for names.    

Price:  £17.87

A superb and very ancient book published in 1631 - gravestone & monumental inscriptions in churches in East Anglia, London, the home counties and the south east. Transcribed as they appeared in 1631 !!    

Price:  £13.62

The Benedictine priory of St Bartholomew outside Sudbury was a cell of Westminster Abbey founded in the reign of Henry I by Wulfric the moneyer. Although a small and poorly-endowed establishment, it has nevertheless, and unusually, left over 130 original documents in the muniments at Westminster, enabling this volume in the Suffolk Charters series to be the first to be devoted to a group of original documents rather than medieval transcriptions. Dating mostly from the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the collection illustrates the lower levels of local society and the government of the town, providing a wealth of evidence for trades and occupations, place names and personal names in the Sudbury area, including the earliest known reeves and mayors of Sudbury. Of particular interest are a late-fourteenth century inventory of the priory which brings alive the physical surroundings of the monks, and the quantities of seals attached to the charters, including an unusual number of women's seals.
RICHARD MORTIMER has been Keeper of the Muniments, Westminster Abbey, since 1986; he has edited four previous volumes in the Suffolk Charters series.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15574-6

Price:  £25.00

This volume contains over 250 charters and other documents relating to four of the six hospitals established in medieval Bury. The core of the collection is the cartulary of St John's hospital, the domus Dei, but documents relating to the hospitals of St Nicholas, St Peter and St Saviour are also included.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15558-6

Price:  £25.00

The Chorography of Suffolk reconstructed in this volume is one of the first attempts of a county survey of Suffolk. It has remained almost unknown and unconsidered by antiquaries since it was compiled, at the end of the reign of Elizabeth I, for no county antiquarian tradition comparable to those in Essex and Warwickshire ever emerged in Suffolk. The unknown author of the Chorography intended his work to be a village-by-village survey of the county, including descriptions of church monuments, other antiquities, local ecclesiastical and manorial customs, and property ownership as he found them in his own day. The resulting work, although never completed, is an invaluable gazetteer of Suffolk as it was in the first five years of the seventeenth century. The manuscript passed into the library of the eminent doctor Sir Thomas Browne, before its acquisition by Peter Le Neve, the indefatigable but eccentric eighteenth century antiquary. It was Le Neve who was responsible for the dismemberment of the Suffolk Chorography manuscript into several hundred fragments, so that from the dispersal of his collections in the 1780s until the present day, the pieces of the Suffolk manuscript have become scattered through at least six different English archive collections, and some of it remains lost. The present volume forms the fruits of a great academic jigsaw puzzle following the first chance rediscovery of a large number of the fragments, and it represents about 95 per cent of the text as it existed before Le Neve's vandalism.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15069-7

Price:  £25.00

The rare set of churchwardens' accounts edited here offers a detailed view of life in an East Anglian village during the English civil wars. Their survival is unusual in a time which is considered by many to have experienced a wide-spread breakdown of local government, and they reveal many aspects of early modern life: of particular interest are the costs of war in a village which committed both men and money to Parliament's cause. The introduction recreates the demographic, economic and social structure of early modern Cratfield, and the volume is completed with a number of appendices, including short biographies of those named in the accounts.
LYNN A. BOTELHO is in the Department of History at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15759-7

Price:  £30.00

This collection of twenty East Anglian essays celebrates Hassell Smith's seventieth birthday. It has been written and edited by former colleagues, friends and post-graduate students who have been connected, in various ways, with his work at the Centre of East Anglian Studies at the University of East Anglia during the past thirty years. They cover a wide variety of topics from the thirteenth century through to the eighteenth century and make a valuable contribution to the understanding of the history of Suffolk and Norfolk.   paperback   ISBN 978-0-906-21943-0

Price:  £15.00

For several years, the author has been gathering information concerning domestic plant remedies used within living memory in rural East Anglia. Informants have been for the most part elderly country people, and in almost every instance, this information has never been written down, but has been preserved orally from one generation to the next. A surprisingly large number of these native plant remedies has come to light, and an analysis of them brings out many interesting points, including the apparent accuracy of oral testimony, when compared with written information on the subject of plant remedies. Another perhaps surprising point to emerge is that new plant remedies are still being developed, some involving the use of widely grown food vegetables. The author was fortunate enough to come across manuscript material of work done by Dr Mark Taylor, a regional health officer in Norwich in the 1920's, who carried out a similar study of East Anglian domestic medicine seventy years ago. However, although he presented some of his results to the Folklore Society, most of it was never published. The present author's information, presented against the background of Dr Taylor's work some seventy years ago, provides an interesting picture of the continuity and change in the use of plant remedies in rural East Anglia. This book won the Michaelis-Jean Ratcliff prize for significant contributions to the study of folklore in 1993.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15563-0

Price:  £18.99

The history of Dodnash Priory, one of numerous Augustinian priories founded in East Anglia in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, has hitherto been totally obscure. The two hundred original charters edited here now show that it was founded by Wimer the chaplain, sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk and a prominent servant of Henry II, and that although always small it played a disproportionately large part in the economic and social life of south-east Suffolk for the next three centuries. The early charters include the first known references to Flatford Mill at East Bergholt; later documents relate to serious flooding at the end of the thirteenth century, and soon thereafter to the leasing of estates in order to adapt to new economic conditions. As always, the charters provide much information about local lay society as well as the canons themselves.
CHRISTOPHER HARPER-BILL is Professor of English History at the University of East Anglia.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15372-8

Price:  £25.00

East Anglia's political and economic importance in the middle ages is plain for all to see, stemming initially from its crucial position on the eastern shores of the North Sea and its participation in the successive patterns of invasion and settlement of England. Archaeological evidence abounds: burial mounds, castles, great churches deriving from the wealth created by sheep, yeoman farmhouses, and market towns of eighteenth-century elegance. Behind thesevisible manifestations of the march of centuries lie particular histories, and these seventeen studies from the region's best scholars reveal some of those jigsaw puzzles of time, ranging from the Domesday herring industry by wayof monasteries, memorials, wills, Gainsborough and garden history to the growing passion for natural history and science in the mid nineteenth century. They make a serious contribution to an understanding of the region, and at thesame time honour Norman Scarfe, whose own studies have played a notable part in the interpretation of East Anglia's history.
Contributors JOHN BLATCHLY, JAMES CAMPBELL, CHRISTOPHER HARPER-BILL, CAROLE RAWCLIFFE, DAVID DYMOND, PETER NORTHEAST, COLIN RICHMOND, JUDITH MIDDLETON-STEWART, DIARMAID MacCULLOCH, HASSELL SMITH, TOM WILLIAMSON, EDWARD MARTIN, JONATHAN THEOBALD, RICHARD WILSON, HUGH BELSEY, STEVEN PLUNKETT, GEOFFREY MARTIN, MICHAEL HOWARD.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15878-5

Price:  £50.00

Pedigrees of Norfolk and Suffolk families that for the large part do not appear in the Heralds Visitations of the counties, although there a few exceptions to this.    

Price:  £15.11

The essays and articles produced by Roger Virgoe (1932-1996) over a period of thirty-five years make a notable contribution to the study of political life in late medieval England, and to our knowledge of the workings of East Anglian gentry society.   paperback   ISBN 978-0-906-21944-7

Price:  £15.00

A little gem of a directory, amazing lists of residents with their address which will make makes a search of the 1851 census that little bit easier.    

Price:  £12.13

Eye priory, founded in the late 1080s by Robert Malet as a cell of the abbey of Bernay in Normandy, was the first house of Benedictine monks to be established in Suffolk after the Norman Conquest, to be followed shortly afterwardsby Stoke-by-Clare. The two share similarities; both were cells of great Norman abbeys and both were established in the centre of feudal lordships or `honours'. The heartlands of the honour, given by William the Conqueror to Robert's father, lay around Eye itself, stretching from there across the north of the county eastward to the sea and to Dunwich. The development of this port in the early 12th century and its slow decline therafter, is reflectedin the loss and decline of many of the churches the priory held there. The charters contained in the mid-thirteenth century cartulary provide valuable information about the lordship of the honour as well as other religious, social and economic matters of interest to medieval historians of the local and wider world of the 12th and 13th centuries.
VIVIEN BROWN worked on Eye priory material with her husband, R. Allen Brown, the initiator and first General editor of the series. [East Anglian] Eye priory, founded in the late 1080s by Robert Malet as a cell of the abbey of Bernay in Normandy, was the first house of Benedictine monks to be established in Suffolk after the Norman Conquest. The charters contained in its mid-thirteenth century cartulary provide valuable information about religious, social and economic matters of interest to medieval historians of both the local and wider world of the 12th and13th centuries.
VIVIEN BROWN worked on Eye priory material with her husband, R. Allen Brown, the initiator and first General editor of the series.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15322-3

Price:  £30.00

This second volume of the charters of the Benedictine priory of Eye, a cell of the Abbey of Bernay in Normandy, comprises an introduction to the charters and completes the text of the thirteenth-century cartulary edited in the first volume, together with certain other charters from a fourteenth-century rental and custumary and the very few original deeds which survive. As well as being of interest to those studying ecclesiastical and social history, the charters are important in casting light on the history of the `honor' of Eye itself, in particular the succession of its lords in the twelfth century. Interesting links can be made to earlier volumes in the Suffolk Chartersseries. As an alien priory in the centre of an `honor', Eye has affinities with Stoke by Clare, and the evidence which the charters of Eye provide for local history and genealogy is all the more comprehensive in the light of other charters, particularly those of Sibton, Leiston and Blythburgh.
VIVIEN BROWN worked on Eye priory material with her husband, R. Allen Brown, the initiator and first General editor of the series.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15347-6

Price:  £25.00

[East Anglian] Detailed survey of two Suffolk manors, revealing details of country life in the sixteenth century.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-900-71616-4

Price:  £25.00

When Henry Tooley drew up his will shortly before his death in 1551 he ensured the survival of two monuments to his career as a merchant in Ipswich: the almshouses which still stand in the town, and an account book which the Corporation originally acquired to administer his bequest and now hold in their archives.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-900-71610-2

Price:  £25.00

The parish and the guild were the two poles round which social and religious life revolved in late medieval England. This study, drawing freely on East Anglian records, shows how influential they were in the lives of their communities in the years before the break with Rome - and provides an implicit commentary on the impact of the Henrician Reformation at parish level. The records of many of the guilds (or fraternities) of East Anglia in the years 1470-1550 are examined for evidence of their form, function and popularity; the spread of fraternities across East Anglia, the size of individual guilds, types of member, and the benefits of guild membership are all studied in detail. The social and religious functions of the fraternities are then compared with the parish, through a study of the records of two Norfolk market towns (Wymondham and Swaffham) and two Suffolk villages (Bardwell and Cratfield). A final chapter studies the fortunes of the guilds during the early years of the Reformation, up to their dissolution in 1548. KEN FARNHILL is research associate at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-903-15305-5

Price:  £55.00

Published in 1892, a wonderful description of all of the towns and villages in the four counties.    

Price:  £15.11

Published in 1892, a wonderful description of all of the towns and villages in the four counties.    

Price:  £15.11

Reads like a medieval detective story. A splendid book... should be treated as a companion volume to The Stripping of the Altars. JULIAN LITTEN, CHURCH TIMES

In the late medieval churches of the former deanery of Dunwich there are many features which were provided by testamentary gifts; this study of three thousand wills from fifty-two Suffolk parishes, written between 1370 and 1547, records such material and spiritual bequests. Many purchased prayer (the prayers of the poor being particularly sought), vital for the swift passage of the soul through Purgatory; other testators left instructions for the acquisition of liturgical books, church plate and embroidered vestments. Gifts and outright donations also provided stained glass, seven-sacrament fonts and rood-screens which have survived. The wills give no hint of the destruction that was to come - a medieval chancel with vacant niches and whitewashed walls says more than the wills are prepared to tell - but the pennies and shillings which had helped towards building expenses in this coastal district of East Anglia produced at least two of the finest parish churches in the country within a few decades of the Reformation.
JUDITH MIDDLETON-STEWART is a tutor for the Board of Continuing Education for the universities of Cambridge and East Anglia.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15820-4

Price:  £70.00

Published in 1889. An historical account of Ipswich as it was in 1689.    

Price:  £9.79

Ipswich received its first charter from King John in 1200; the Corporation records survive from 1255, placing the borough archive among the earliest in England, antedated only by Leicester, Shrewsbury, Wallingford, London and Exeter. The archive is particularly rich in records of the medieval courts, most notably perhaps those of the Court of Petty Pleas, whose cases touched almost every aspect of town life, and those of the Petty Court of Recognizances -in effect a register of deeds furnishing a detailed record of transactions involving burgage tenements. The financial records of Treasurer and Chamberlains are particularly detailed for the Elizabethan and Stuart periods, and much social history is contained in the records of various town charities. This catalogue, published to celebrate the 800th anniversary of John's charter, includes all the surviving records of the old Corporation down to its dissolution in 1835, thus facilitating access to an unjustly neglected major source for the history of Suffolk. Also two contextual essays: The Government of Ipswich from its Origins to c. 1550 by GEOFFREY MARTIN (former Keeper of the Rolls) and The Government of Ipswich from c. 1550-1835 by FRANK GRACE (Lecturer, Suffolk College). Dr DAVID ALLEN is on the staff of the Suffolk Record Office in Ipswich and editor of the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15772-6

Price:  £45.00

The recognizance rolls of Ipswich are a register of titles to property in the borough and are among the most varied and interesting of the courts records. They begin in the late thirteenth century and extend, in a series of filesand leger-books, through to the Victorian age. Their texts comprise abstracts and copies of private deeds, testaments proved in the borough court, and grants of common soil. The careful description of properties, including ownership of neighbouring tenements, and the naming of parishes, streets, and landmarks, makes them a source of great historical and topographical interest. The early part of the series is well preserved, and its continuity allows us tofollow the fortunes of individuals and of families in some detail. We can observe in these gifts, bequests, and exchanges the recruitment of the burghal community and the affiliations of its members. It also offers a varied picture of the borough court at work, both as a tribunal and as an administrative office. The contents of the first twenty-one rolls are presented in an English paraphrase that takes account of all significant variations in the originalLatin, and also indicates the clerk's marginal notes and memoranda.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-900-71614-0

Price:  £25.00

Monastic studies usually focus upon the post-Conquest period; here, in valuable contrast, the focus is on pre-Conquest monastic foundations, in the present-day counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Tim Pestell considers the place of the monastery in wider landscapes - topographical, social, economic and political.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83062-7

Price:  £50.00

The Bacon family fortunes were founded by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal to Elizabeth I, and father to the philosopher Francis Bacon; among their properties was the now-vanished Suffolk mansion of Redgrave Hall,and it is from here that this fascinating collection of letters originates. The correspondence centres on Francis's half-brother Nicholas, Premier Baronet of England, one of the Puritan gentry who ran the government of Elizabethan and Jacobean Suffolk, and touches on many of the most important issues and events of the period. One important component is a fascinating run of letters describing a failed marriage negotiation for young Nicholas's sister between the Protestant Lord Keeper and the wily guardians of a young Catholic, William Yaxley, in the fragile opening years of Elizabeth I's Protestant religious settlement. It also includes papers of the flamboyant courtier and diplomat Sir Robert Drury, a Bacon relative by marriage [and original inhabitant of 'Drury Lane' in London]: he was friend and patron to John Donne, who features in the correspondence. Later letters touch on the Civil War in East Anglia. Overall, the letters reveal a wealth of detail about the lives and preoccupations of English provincial magnates and their often uneasy relationship to the great political figures of the realm.
DIARMAID MACCULLOCH is Professor of the History of the Church, University of Oxford.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83286-7

Price:  £35.00

The period between the late tenth and late twelfth centuries saw many changes in the structure and composition of the European and English aristocracy. One of the most important is the growth in local power bases and patrimonies at the expense of wider property and kinship ties. In this volume, the author uses the organisation of aristocracy in East Anglia as a case-study to explore the issue as a whole, considering the extent to which local families adopted national and European values, and investigating the role of local circumstances in the formulation of regional patterns and frameworks. The book is interdisciplinary in approach, using anthropological, economic and prosopographical research to analyse themes such as marriage and kinship, social mobility, relations between secular and ecclesiastical lords, ethnic groups, and patterns of economic growth amongst social groupings; there is a particular focus too on how different landscapes - fenland, upland, coastal and urban - affected the pattern of aristocratic experience. Dr ANDREW WAREHAM is a Research Associate at the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at King's College London.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83155-6

Price:  £45.00

An incredibly useful resource! Really high quality digitised maps that you can zoom in and in to see the finest detail.    

Price:  £9.79

East Anglia was the most prosperous region of medieval England; far from being an isolated backwater, it had strong economic, religious and cultural connections with continental Europe, with Norwich for a time England's second city. The essays in this volume bring out the importance of the region during the middle ages. Spanning the late eleventh to the fifteenth century, they offer a broad coverage of East Anglia's history and culture; particular topics examined include its landscape, urban history, buildings, government and society, religion and rich culture.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83151-8

Price:  £45.00

Six medieval texts transcribed in full form the core of this book. They cover the Bigod, Brotherton and Howard eras and include a survey of Framlingham made in the late 13th century, an account of household expenses (mostly food and drink) compiled by the steward of the castle for the year 1385-6, and a large and detailed inventory of Framlingham castle drawn up (in English) in 1524. These documents illuminate the social and economic life of Framlingham within and without the castle walls during a period when the power and wealth of the lords of Framlingham castle greatly influenced the outcome of both regional and national events. Short descriptions of each text have been provided, which include translations of some of the most interesting items. John Ridgard's book begins with a short history of Framlingham in the middle ages. In addition to the historical material contained in the six transcribed texts, he has drawn widely on other documentary sources of the period, such as the recently rediscovered Survey of Framlingham made in 1547 and owned by Pembroke College, Cambridge. Short studies of four aspects of Framlingham's medieval history for which there is particularly interesting documentary evidence - hunting, milling, the provision of wine and spices, and the market - have been included in this volume as appendices.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15432-9

Price:  £25.00

Suffolk was one of the most important regions of England in the middle ages. Even by 1200 it was wealthy, densely populated, highly commercialised and urbanised; and it survived the impact of three of the most tumultuous events ofthe last millennium, the Great Famine [1315-22], the Black Death [1349] and the Peasants' Revolt [1381], to become by 1500 one of the richest and most industrialised regions of England, based on cloth manufacture, fishing and tanning. This first volume in a series which will become the definitive History of Suffolk describes, documents and analyses these events. It combines an accessible and readable summary of the current state of knowledge with fresh insights drawn from extensive investigations of primary sources. Overall, it offers a guide to and re-evaluation of the history of late medieval Suffolk.
MARK BAILEY is Senior Visiting Lecturer at the University of Leeds and Headmaster of The Grammar School at Leeds.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83315-4

Price:  £25.00

This study is a test-case of the old poor law. In its exploration of the virtually unknown world of the aged poor in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, it asks how the elderly poor managed to survive in a pre-industrial economy, and answers through focusing on the many factors that make up the experience of old age - status, health, wealth, and local culture - in two Suffolk villages.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83094-8

Price:  £50.00

Superb and rare topography and gazetteer of; Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kent, Middlesex, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex and Wiltshire.    

Price:  £15.11

The records in this book provide one of the most illuminating social studies of an Elizabethan town ever undertaken. Ipswich suffered severely from the economic dislocations of the mid-sixteenth century and here we see the townsmen's response. One of the principal benefactors of the town was the merchant Henry Tooley who, when he died in 1551, left most of his fortune to the poor of the borough. The first part of this volume records the work of the Tooley Foundation, the experience gained in establishing the Foundation led on to a complementary system of public charity, with a municipal poorhouse and Christ's Hospital, records of which provide the second part of the book. The third part is a register of the Ipswich poor over the years 1569-83. The fourth part lists the poor rate assessments of 1574, provides a directory of all the well-to-do inhabitants, catalogues relief in time of plague and ends with an elaborate cenSus of the poor in 1597. The whole work is a vivid picture of a period and problem often discussed, but rarely illustrated in so striking a way.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-900-71603-4

Price:  £25.00

Sibton Abbey, founded in 1150, was the only Cistercian house in Suffolk. Its substantial remains include two cartularies and a large number of original charters. Of particular interest is the proportion of later documents runningup to the Reformation, thus providing an unusually comprehensive survey of the house, its properties, tenants and patrons.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15443-5

Price:  £25.00

Sibton Abbey, founded in 1150, was the only Cistercian house in Suffolk: of particular interest is the proportion of later documents running up to the Reformation, thus providing an unusually comprehensive survey of the house, itsproperties, tenants and patrons.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15474-9

Price:  £25.00

[East Anglian] A wealth of surviving documents provide an unusually comprehensive overview of the only Cistercian house in Suffolk.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15499-2

Price:  £25.00

The first two volumes make available all the existing pre-Reformation charter material, the third consists of an introduction and index. Taken together the three volumes illuminate the social and economic as well as the ecclesiastical organisation of the Suffolk-Essex border in the 12th and 13th Centuries.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15198-4

Price:  £25.00

[East Anglian]Three volumes illuminating the social, economic and ecclesiastical organisation of the Suffolk-Essex border in the 12th and 13th centuries.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15165-6

Price:  £25.00

The first two volumes make available all the existing pre-Reformation charter material, the third consists of an introduction and index. Taken together the three volumes illuminate the social and economic as well as the ecclesiastical organisation of the Suffolk-Essex border in the 12th and 13th Centuries.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15179-3

Price:  £25.00

Thousands upon thousands of people listed in this transcript of ancient documents. Subsidy returns are of very great value to genealogists and historians, since they show the residence of persons, the value of their assessment, and the amount of tax contributed by each, whether on their land or their goods.    

Price:  £12.13

More than 16,000 people are listed in this transcript of ancient documents. Practically the whole of the male population of Suffolk with a small sprinkling of women too, from wealthy landowners down to their servants. Effectively a partial census in 1568 with an excellent index as well.    

Price:  £12.13

One of the most important sources of early information for family historians, the Hearth Tax Returns lists every householder in the county in 1674.    

Price:  £9.79

One of the earliest directories, this one covers the whole of the county, with descriptions of all of the towns and main villages, churches, schools, etc. and a listing of people with trades. Everything from doctors to candle makers, dress makers working from home to chimney sweeps, butchers, bakers and bricklayers, etc. A huge amount of early 19th century information of interest to historians and genealogists.    

Price:  £9.79

By the late 1830s, the Pigot's directories were becoming more detailed. This one is particularly useful as it was published just before the first census of 1841, and is an invaluable aid to tracking down those elusive ancestors as well as giving detailed information about the towns and villages in the county.    

Price:  £9.79

An extremely comprehensive county directory typical of the White's directories. This one includes lots of information on the history of the county and its places, plus the county gazetteer and extensive trades directory. These are the best of the early directories without doubt. Book kindly loaned to the Archive CD Books Project by The Family Records Centre (the PRO) in London.    

Price:  £15.11

Another superb William White directory. Incredibly detailed descriptions of each place in Suffolk, along with lists of tradesmens' names and occupations. The White's directories are widely acknowledged as being the very finest available. In comparison to other publishers' directories of a similar period they usually contain about eight times more pages and hence a great deal more detail    

Price:  £15.11

Lists every person in the county who owned 1 acre of land or more, with name, place, extent of land and its value.    

Price:  £8.94

A later White's Directory. The White's are always the very best, and this is no exception, having a tremendous amount of detail about the county and its history, and the history and current facilities of every town, village and hamlet within the county. Churches, schools, hospitals, carriers and coaches, etc. and of course an extremely comprehensive listing of all residents with trades. This is without doubt one of the most important sources of information for those interested in the county.    

Price:  £15.11

An excellent resource for genealogists and family historians. This very comprehensive directory describes each place in the county in great detail with information about schools, churches, hospitals and other institutions. Each town, village and hamlet has lists of private residents and commercial traders plus there is excellent court directory (an alphabetical list of private individuals in the county) and a classified trades directory.    

Price:  £15.11

A very comprehensive directory of every town, village and hamlet in Suffolk. Each place is described in great detail and has lists of people with their trades. In the larger towns and villages there are lists of private residents with their occupation and address.    

Price:  £15.11

An incredibly detailed directory of Suffolk. Every place is described in minute detail and has a list of people with their occupations The larger towns and villages have alphabetical lists of private residents and the description of Ipswich includes a street by street, house by house directory of residents. There is also an alphabetical directory of trades with the names and addresses of the people with those occupations. This not just a list of 'professional' people though, it inncludes the ordinary people such as farmers, bootmakers, shopkeepers and bricklayers.    

Price:  £15.11

Both of the 1892 directories as shown above and below.    

Price:  £21.70

A comprehensive description of every town, village and hamlet in the county along with lists of private residents and commercial traders. Using this wonderful resource you can build up a picture of where and how your ancestors lived their daily lives. Also included is a Court Directory (an alphabetical list of private individuals in the county) and a classified Trades Directory which lists the types of trades and the names and adddresses of those who performed those occupations.    

Price:  £12.13

As with all these late directories, this one is comprehensive and contains in alphabetical order, lists of places, names and trades. Very easy to use and since it's fully searchable you should be able to locate your ancestors in no time at all.    

Price:  £12.13

A comprehensive directory of the tradespeople of each place in the county along with wonderful descriptions of the local facilities such as churches, schools and hospitals. An added bonus is a full street by street directory of the county town, Ipswich. Also included is a county-wide court directory (private residents and their addresses) plus a classified trades directory    

Price:  £15.11

A very comprehensive county directory with details of each town, village and hamlet such as their schools, churches and other institutions. There are also lists of private residents and commercial traders in those places. There is also a separate alphabetical directory of private residents which covers the whole county, plus a classifed trades directory and an excellent county map.    

Price:  £15.11

In the 1640s Parliament intervened against clergymen with Royalist sympathies, and in the political jargon of the time they were referred to as 'Scandalous Ministers'. As the Civil War developed two Suffolk committees were empowered to hear evidence against any minister (or schoolmaster) who was 'scandalous' in either life or doctrine, or in any way 'malignant' (ill-affected to Parliament).   hardback   ISBN 978-0-900-71600-3

Price:  £25.00

The modern landscape of Suffolk is still essentially a medieval one, though much of it is even earlier: the five hundred medieval churches and ten thousand 'listed' houses 'of historic or architectural interest', and the 'Hundred' lanes going back at least to the tenth century, are often found to be set in a landscape created before the Roman conquest. Scarfe reveals a past few could have guessed at.   paperback   ISBN 978-1-843-83068-9

Price:  £16.99

ARCHIVE CD BOOKS PARISH REGISTER SERIES The complete set of 4 volumes for the county of Suffolk. Transcripts of marriages from the very earliest preserved parish registers (1500s) through to 1812. #    

Price:  £9.79

The reader is in John Clare's world... Every county should publish its Census and see that it is done as excellently as that for Suffolk.
RONALD BLYTHE, CHURCH TIMES The census returns edited in this volume provide a unique sample of mid nineteenth-century religious life.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15577-7

Price:  £25.00

The abbey of Bury St Edmunds, shrine of St Edmund, was one of the greatest monasteries in medieval England, richly endowed with estates and widely known for its intellectual and artistic life. The surviving manuscripts from its library have been well catalogued, but its extensive archives, which are now to be found scattered on libraries throughout England, with an important group in the United States, have never been properly listed. Dr Thomson provides not only a valuable tool for the researcher, but also, in his introduction, discusses the way in which such an archive was formed, maintained and used. He applies principles familiar to students of medieval libraries, but which have rarely been used in connection with medieval records, to show how the archive worked in practice. Although the 1335 items listed are primarily of local interest, the book as a whole will be valuable to all those interested in the administrative and economic life of medieval monasteries.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15087-1

Price:  £25.00

The original book was written in 1618 by Robert Reyce and this is a transcription from the original manuscript by Lord Francis Hervey. A superb topographical description and history of the county with genalogies of noteworthy familes, the names of the lords of the manors, knights, justices etc. Hervey also took the time to compile an excellent index which is included here.    

Price:  £12.13

These full scale colour plates will come as a revelation to most viewers. Thomson has provided an excellent introduction... both the reproductions and the text do full justice to this hitherto undervalued monument of English art and it is much to be hoped that it will be acquired by librarians as well as by bibliophiles. BURLINGTON MAGAZINE [C.M.Kauffmann]   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15855-6

Price:  £495.00

The Augustinian friary of Clare is one of the very few medieval religious houses to have been re-occupied, in the present century, by its original inhabitants. This late medieval cartulary contains a multitude of deeds relating to Clare and its immediate neighbourhood recording the endowment of the friary in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the countess Matilda and numerous local inhabitants. The text is presented in the form of a full English calendar, with notes and an introduction.
CHRISTOPHER HARPER-BILL is principal lecturer in history, St Mary's College, Strawberry Hill. He is general editor of Boydell & Brewer's new series, `Studies in History of the Medieval Church', following the death of R. ALLEN BROWN he has also assumed the editorship of the Suffolk Charters Series. He has edited several volumes of records of the medieval church.[East Anglian] The late medieval cartulary of the Augustinian friary of Clare -one of the very few medieval religious houses to have been re-occupied, in the present century, by its original inhabitants -contains a multitude of deeds relating to Clare and its immediate neighbourhood, recording the endowment of the friary in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the countess Matilda and numerous local inhabitants. Of wider interest are documents relating to the furnishing of a chapel, violation of the right of sanctuary, indulgences and the friars' library and begging limits. The text is presented in the form of a full English calendar, with notes and an introduction.
CHRISTOPHER HARPER-BILL is principal lecturer in history, St Mary's College, Strawberry Hill. He is general editor of Boydell & Brewer's new series, `Studies in History of the Medieval Church'; following the death of R. ALLEN BROWN he has also assumed the editorship of the Suffolk Charters Series. He has edited several volumes of records of the medieval church.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15295-0

Price:  £25.00

These records of the proceedings of the one hundred and fifty-five courts for the two manors of Walsham le Willows, Suffolk, provide a wealth of evidence of a sophisticated system of local administration and justice, operating ina populous and prosperous community. The rolls were designed to be used as working documents, and, being accessible to all, they protected the interest of the ordinary man and woman as well as that of the lord of the manor. Examples of tenants or claimants using the rolls to settle disputes over title show that there was a flourishing land market in Walsham; and the frequent cases of damage by domestic animals reveal details of agriculture, crops grown andanimals kept. The rolls cover two contrasting periods, marked by political unrest and the advent of the Black Death; dramatic evidence of its terrible virulence, and the resilience of the stricken population, survives in these rolls.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15616-3

Price:  £30.00

The court rolls of the two manors of Walsham le Willows provide detailed evidence of the workings of local administration and justice in the fourteenth century, and were themselves working documents designed to be accessible to all. As Roy Lock says of the documents edited in the first volume, 'they protected the interest of the ordinary man and woman as well as that of the lord of the manor.' This second volume completes the transcription of all surviving court rolls for the fourteenth century manors of Walsham le Willows, covering the proceedings of ninety-nine courts after the Black Death had tragically reduced the local population. Serious difficulties still had to be overcome: for example, two successive reeves of Walsham manor were heavily fined for gross dereliction of duty, and in 1353 a large number of tenants refused to perform services for their lord. In general, however, these rolls give ample evidence of increased prosperity as land-holdings grew in size, and as the land and labour markets quickly stabilised.
RAY LOCK is a retired civil servant who has become immersed in the study of local history since his move to Suffolk. He edited the first volume of Walsham le Willows court rolls for the Suffolk Records Society (published in 1998), and has written on the local effects of the Black Death in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15846-4

Price:  £30.00

Samuel Rogers began his diary just before his twenty-first birthday. He was a godly minister from godly stock - his grandfather, father and uncle were all part of the Puritan Movement - and his diary begins as Samuel finishes his education at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.   hardback   ISBN 978-1-843-83043-6

Price:  £55.00

The original Gentleman's Magazine contained articles on a vast array of subjects, including lots of wonderful topographical pieces. In 1891 George Gomme republished all of these topograhical articles but edited and indexed them into county specific order. Each of Gomme's works contains between two and four separate counties, except for the London volumes. An absolute goldmine of information about the county, its people and its places. SEE BELOW FOR A VERY SPECIAL OFFER FOR ALL OF THE VOLUMES.    

Price:  £12.13

A huge volume published in 1902 which is incredibly detailed. The contents include transcripts from the parish register from 1558, court rolls, and early wills, plus details of free and copyhold tenants, topographical and historical information. Also included are twenty four full plate illustrations and a very large map of lands in the parish.    

Price:  £17.87

During the Civil War, in late 1643 and 1644, the Suffolk puritan William Dowsing visited some hundred parish churches in Cambridgeshire, and about a hundred and fifty in Suffolk, smashing stained glass and other 'superstitious' imagery, ripping up monumental brass inscriptions, destroying altar rails and steps, and pulling down crucifixes and crosses.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15833-4

Price:  £50.00

The Pakenham cartulary for the manor of Ixworth Thorpe in Suffolk is one of the few secular medieval cartularies to survive. It is especially deserving of attention for its demonstration of the importance families of the Pakenhamclass attached to the provision of inheritances for their younger sons. Thomas of Pakenham, the man for whom the cartulary was composed, was the second son of the knight Sir William of Pakenham; his elder brother Edmund was the main beneficiary of their father's estate, but it is clear that Sir William wished to provide for all his sons: the manor of Ixworth Thorpe was Thomas's inheritance. The charters collected in this cartulary represent the assets of Sir William in the vill, accumulated over a period of about fifty years, plus acquisitions made by Thomas after his father's death.
Dr S.D. CHURCH is Senior Lecturer in History, University of East Anglia.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15835-8

Price:  £25.00

Printed trancripts of the registers. Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1560-1778    

Price:  £9.79

Printed transcripts of the register. Baptisms 1565-1716, Marriages 1558-1715 and Burials 1572-1715.    

Price:  £9.79

James Maggs [1797-1890] of Southwold, schoolmaster, auctioneer and general factotum, was ideally placed to know practically everything that happened in the little Suffolk port. From 1818 to 1876 he kept a chronicle of local events, recording with scrupulous accuracy the fortunes and (more often) misfortunes of the seafarers, small tradesmen and others who were his fellow townsmen.   paperback   ISBN 978-1-843-83327-7

Price:  £17.99

A miscellany of anecdotes, romantic ballads, descriptive poems and songs, historical and biographical notices and statistical returns relating to the county of Suffolk. Collected and compiled by John Glyde and published in 1866, this book will prove of great interest to those with ancestors in Suffolk. A great way to find out about life in by-gone times is through the tales people tell, this book in many ways contains the oral history of Suffolk    

Price:  £12.13

The author took surveys of the whole of Suffolk in the years 1732, 1733 and 1734. This publications contains his observations regarding the places he visited including; A section devoted to Ipswich which gives accounts of the Churches, Religious Houses, and the Trades of the Town as well as providing a translation of the Charter of King Henry VI to the Burgess of Ipswich. Lists of the High Sherriffs and Knights of the Shire. 4 road maps. See More info for place names.    

Price:  £9.79

The treasurers' and chamberlains' accounts of Elizabethan Ipswich are a detailed record of the annual income and expenditure of the town's ruling body during one of the most fascinating periods of its history. A major source for any detailed study of the Suffolk borough at a time when it was among the country's ten richest provincial towns, the entries selected from the accounts not only shed light on sixteenth-century urban administration but also providevivid insights into the social and economic life of the period: the equipping of soldiers, ducking of scolds, and performances of town minstrels and itinerant players.
JOHN WEBB was formerly Principal Lecturer in History at Portsmouth Polytechnic.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15643-9

Price:  £25.00

Detailed study and catalogue of a collection of about one thousand books published between 1474 and 1760, initially provided for the use of the Ipswich town preachers in 1599, which throws light upon the history of Ipswich School and its own 17th century library.
JOHN BLATCHLY is Headmaster of Ipswich School, and the Library, housed in the school, is in his care.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15517-3

Price:  £40.00

  hardback   ISBN 978-0-712-90648-7

Price:  £60.00

Pedigrees of Suffolk families in 1561.    

Price:  £15.11

Pedigrees of Suffolk families in 1664-8.    

Price:  £12.13

ARCHIVES: The making and registering of wills by ordinary people became widespread in East Anglia a century earlier than parts of midland and western England. It is of enormous value therefore to have one of the earliest surviving registers from an archdeaconry made available. [The volume] provides us with a window into rural society in mid-fifteenth-century East Anglia. It was a society bustling with small farmers, craftsmen involved in the cloth industry, and other artisans and traders. The wills record their concern for religion, the local community and the future welfare of wives, children, godchildren and even servants. There is a wealth of information here for the historianof religion, the family, material culture, agriculture and industry. This volume contains abstracts, in English, of nearly nine hundred wills made by residents of the western part of Suffolk in the mid-fifteenth century, together with a further five hundred 'probate sentences' - details of the granting of probate, without the associated wills. These are the earliest surviving wills of ordinary inhabitants of that part of Suffolk, excluding the titled, the wealthy and the clergy. They illustrate in considerable detail the social conditions of the time, including housing and household possessions, landholding and farming patterns, and provision for the poor. They are especially rich in references to the religious practices of the day. The introduction outlines the probate system of the area at that time and examines the form and content of a medieval will.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15811-2

Price:  £25.00

Wills of nearly 900 people, rich in detail, both personal and specific, as in old place names and geographical references.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15492-3

Price:  £25.00

-To wife Elizabeth, tenement where testator now dwells; on her death, same to go to grandchild Robert Large & heirs. To go to daughter Frances Miller, pair of sheets & stock of bees in the orchard-Early wills make compulsive reading and supply invaluable   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15345-2

Price:  £25.00

Here are very full abstracts, fully indexed, of wills proved in the courts of the Archdeacon of Suffolk in the early seventeenth century. Early wills make compulsive reading, and also supply invaluable information for social and economic historians, local historians and genealogists. This edition brings out indications of the religious and political beliefs of the testator, and also evidence of personal relationships - `refractory' son, for instance -and commitments to learning and to apprenticeships. Household goods, often listed with an intensity of feeling, furnish the mind's eye with early Stuart interiors, and place-names reveal old customs and associations. Several bequests for education, religious instruction and the relief of the poor also illuminate the preoccupations of the local society of the period.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15644-6

Price:  £25.00