English History In The Fifteenth And Sixteenth Centuries

By Author: Porter Black
Total Articles: 54
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The industrious researches of Charles Leth Bridge Kingsford made a notable mark on studies in English history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He is credited with contributing over 400 entries to the Dictionary of National Biography, and later prepared reports on manuscripts for the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts. The first of his major publications was Chronicles of London, Oxford, 1905. His edition of Stow's Survey of London followed in 1908. Five years later English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century31 was published after Kingsford relinquished his position with the Board of Education to pursue full-time research. His survey of 'historical literature', from biographies and chronicles, 'correspondence: private and official' to 'poetry and ballads' with a 120-page appendix of texts and extracts, remains a useful and influential source-book, despite the Replica Cartier Pasha corrections that later scholars inevitably introduced. For example, it is no longer thought that William Worcester was the author of the Annales ...
... Rerum Anglicarum. The validity of Kingsford's long-accepted views on the authorship of the 'second continuation of the Crowland chronicles' and the relative dating of John Hardyng's chronicles for Henry VI and Richard, duke of York, will be examined below.

In his section on correspondence Kingsford naturally devoted much attention to the Pastons and their letters, with particular emphasis on their value for the political history that was still a leading concern of historians of the time. By contrast, 'The political importance of the Stonor Letters is perhaps less than might have been expected from a family of such long standing and position. A few of the unprinted letters contain useful political references; but most of Omega Replica Watches them relate to family affairs and businesses. 'The collection begins... in the reign of Richard II, and includes some of the oldest private letters written in English, though most of the early documents are in Latin or in French'. Plainly, Kingsford had already set about identifying items of the Stonor correspondence in the Public Record Office category of Ancient Correspondence, and other documents in the Calendar of Ancient Deeds. If the implication is that he had already started work on preparing a complete edition of the letters and papers, he may have suffered a setback with the onset of war in 1914. Kingsford served as a special constable, and also returned to the civil service with temporary employment at the Ministry of Pensions.

That the holdings of the Public Record Office were unavailable for consultation during that period may partially account for the very numerous inaccuracies in the two volumes of Stonor Letters and Papers that eventually appeared in 1919. These were followed in 1923 by the 'Supplementary Letters and Papers' that had come to light as the work of sorting and conserving by the Public Record Office continued.