Collecting Historical Documents

Historical documents are the ordinary paperwork of extraordinary times: the grant that conveyed an estate, the warrant that appointed an officer, the indenture that bound an apprentice. They are frequently more affordable than literary manuscripts and, for a collector interested in how societies actually functioned, more informative.

The principal categories

Charters and grants record the conveyance of land, rights or privileges, often with a seal appended. Medieval English charters survive in considerable numbers and remain among the most accessible early manuscript material.

Deeds and indentures record private transactions. The indenture takes its name from its wavy cut edge, made so the two halves could be matched to prove authenticity — an early and elegant security device.

Royal and state documents include letters patent, warrants, commissions and signed instruments. A document signed by a monarch or a minister of consequence commands a premium, though the signature is only part of what makes it interesting.

Legal and administrative records — court rolls, manorial records, muster rolls, accounts — carry dense evidence about ordinary life and are undervalued relative to their content.

Commercial and maritime papers such as bills of lading, ships' papers and merchants' ledgers document trade, and increasingly are collected as evidence of the histories they record.

Reading and dating

Dating conventions are a trap for the unwary. Regnal years — the third year of the reign of a named sovereign — remain in use for centuries. The legal year in England began on 25 March until 1752, so a document dated February 1720 in its own terms falls in 1721 by modern reckoning. Britain's adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1752 removed eleven days. Where a document requires it, an independent specialist can translate these terms; a collector should know they exist.

Latin is standard in English legal documents until 1733, in a heavily abbreviated form. Do not assume an untranslated document is unimportant.

Seals

Seals authenticate, and they are often the most vulnerable part of the object. Wax seals may be pendant on a tag or tongue, or applied directly. Look for completeness, legibility of the device, and whether the seal remains attached by its original tag: a detached seal loses much of its evidential force.

Seals are fragile, sensitive to warmth and pressure, and easily crushed in transit. They require housing that supports them independently of the document.

Condition

Parchment is durable but responds to humidity by cockling. Look for splits along fold lines, which is where most damage occurs, and for the effects of iron-gall ink corrosion, where the ink darkens, then cracks, then eats through the support. Damp-staining and mould, historic or active, should be assessed by a conservator.

Documents folded for centuries should be opened carefully or not at all, and never forced flat.

Title: the essential question

More than any other category, historical documents raise questions of ownership. Public records, court records and parish registers are frequently the property of the state or the church in perpetuity, and cannot pass into private hands however long ago they were removed. Manorial documents in England and Wales are subject to statutory oversight. Institutional and diocesan archives are similarly protected.

We check these questions before offering material, and we decline where the position is unclear. A collector should ask the same question of any document bearing an official mark, and should expect a considered answer rather than reassurance.

Building a collection

Coherence rewards the collector here as elsewhere. One parish, one estate, one office of state, one trade, followed across three centuries, becomes a resource. An unrelated group of documents with impressive signatures is merely a set of signatures.