School of History

Research Interests

I am a retired former Assistant Keeper of Public Records at the Public Record Office/The National Archives, with a continuing interest in the records of English medieval government, finance and law, the history of the departments and courts that produced them, and particularly in the use of legal records for political, social and local history.  I combined my job with private historical writing on both national and local subjects, based mainly on sources in The National Archives, and the editing of record sources for publication.  I also became involved in a number of projects to provide electronic access to historical sources, including tax records 1200-1700, medieval petitions, Chancery pleadings, records of immigration into Britain 1800-2000, 13th century Chancery enrolments and common law records 1250-1650, some of which continue. 

I am currently a director of the project to provide both electronic and traditionally-published editions of the Chancery fine rolls of the reign of Henry III, which is being carried out at King’s College London, and I am an advisor to several other projects in various universities.  I am general editor of the Pipe Roll Society, and a member of the councils of the Selden Society and several local record and historical societies in the East Midlands.

My continuing interests are mainly in English history c1100-1400, the principal areas being: forests and forest law, parks and warrens, and the political geography of forests; national and local politics and the relationship between them; local history of the East Midlands, especially Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire, with special interests in Mansfield before 1700 and Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire gentry families; the history, officials and records of the courts of common law and the Exchequer; the genesis of the Robin Hood legend; and the reign of Henry III.  I am currently working on a cooperative edition of the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem for the years 1432 to 1437, being produced by the University of Cambridge, and a co-authored volume for the Selden Society Supplementary Series, King’s Bench and Common Bench in the Reign of Henry III.  I am also researching material for a book on the origins of the Robin Hood legend, with the provisional title ‘Outlaw and Evildoer of our Land’: The Original Robin Hood.

Publications

Scholarly editions

Indexes to N Barratt, ed., Receipt Rolls 1223-1224, Pipe Roll Society, New Series, LV (2007) (with Laura Napran)

Curia Regis Rolls, XX (1250) (Boydell and Brewer, 2006)

Indexes to N Barratt, ed., Receipt Rolls 1220-1222, Pipe Roll Society, New Series, LII (2003) (with Laura Napran)

Curia Regis Rolls, XIX (1249-50)  (Boydell and Brewer, 2002)

'Jordan Castle and the Foliot family of Grimston, 1225-1330', Transactions of the Thoroton Society, CXII (2008), pp. 143-58

‘Water corn mills in Mansfield before 1700’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, CXI (2007), pp. 89-93

‘The exemption of Nottingham from the forest laws in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, CIX (2005), pp. 69-73

‘The widowhood of Annora de Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont, Nottinghamshire, 1290-1297, Nottingham Medieval Studies, XLIX(2005), pp. 67-82

‘The disgrace of Sir Richard de Willoughby, chief justice of King’s Bench’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, XLVIII(2004), pp. 15-36

‘The ‘lands of the Normans’ in thirteenth century Nottinghamshire: Bingham and Wheatley’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, CVIII (2004), pp. 1-7 

‘The mysterious death of a Nottinghamshire knight in 1292’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, CVII (2003), pp. 95-103

‘The development of private parks in medieval Nottinghamshire’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, CVI (2002), pp. 73-80

‘The foundation of Bestwood Lodge, 1284’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, CVI (2002), pp. 71-2

‘The development of private hunting rights in Nottinghamshire, c. 1100-1258’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, CV (2001), pp. 101-109

‘The development of private hunting rights in Derbyshire, 1189-1258’, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, CXXI (2001), pp. 232-243

Essays in edited collections

'A petition from the prisoners in Nottingham gaol, c1330', in Medieval Petitions: Grace and Grievance, ed. W Mark Ormrod, Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson (2009), pp. 206-21

‘Dynastic conflict in thirteenth-century Laxton’, in Thirteenth Century England XI, ed. B Weiler, J Burton, P Schofield and K Stober (Boydell and Brewer, 2007), pp. 193-214

‘The warren charter of the earl of Derby, 1251’, in Essays in Derbyshire History presented to Gladwyn Turbutt, ed. P Riden and D G Edwards (2007), pp. 23-34

‘Clipstone Peel: fortification and politics from Bannockburn to the treaty of Leake, 1314-1318’, in Thirteenth Century England X, ed. R Frame, M Prestwich and R H Britnell (2005), pp. 187-195

Contributions of biographies of twelfth and thirteenth century judges and administrators (William of York, Robert of Lexington, Henry of Bath, Roger of Thirkleby, William Ralegh, Hugh de Neville, Roger of Whitchester, Jeremy of Caxton, Alan de Neville, Alexander of Swereford and Roger Lestrange) and of the Reverend Joseph Hunter (d. 1861) for the New Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004)

‘King and lord: the monarch and his demesne tenants in central Nottinghamshire, 1163-1363’, in English Government in the Thirteenth Century, ed. A Jobson (2004), pp. 125-139

‘The early history of Wollaton Park and its owners, 1283-1345’, in Nottinghamshire Past, ed. J V Beckett (Nottinghamshire County Council, 2003), pp. 7-20

‘Churches and chapels on a fifteenth century monastic map of the Lincolnshire fenland’, in The Church and Learning in Late Medieval Society: Studies in Honour of Professor R B Dobson, ed. Caroline Barron and Jenny Stratford, Harlaxton Symposium 1999 papers (Sean Tyas, Donington), 2002, pp. 41-50

Articles published on the Web

'The Inheritance of Richard Foliot of Grimston, Nottinghamshire, 1236', Henry III Fine Rolls project, Fine of the Month for February 2009 (http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/)

‘Adam de St Martin and the king’s tenants of Mansfield 1217-1222’, Henry III Fine Rolls project, Fine of the Month for October 2006 (http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/)

‘Maud de Caux and the custody of the forests of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire’, Henry III Fine Rolls project, Fine of the Month for January 2006 (http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/)

Conferences (all organised at The National Archives)

The First Edwardian Age: The Achievement of Edward Longshanks, 1265-1307 (2007)

Medieval Petitions: Government, People and Complaint (2006)

Records, Bureaucracy and Power in the Anglo-Norman Realm, 1066-1204 (2004)

Lay taxes in England and Wales, c1200-1700 (2002)

Conferences papers

‘The Oh So Fine Rolls: The Records of Henry III’s Reign’, at the Henry III 800 Years celebration symposium, Kings College London, 2007

‘The Fine Rolls of the Reign of Henry III’, Leeds International Medieval Congress, 2006

Full pre-2001 publication list