A Catalogue of Manuscripts in the College of Arms: Records Volume 1

The College of Arms is delighted to announce the publication of an important new volume, which provides a detailed catalogue and index to this key series of official record manuscripts, created by the heralds in the sixteenth century and preserved at the College ever since. 

The visitation manuscripts are one of the main classes of record, and have long been recognised as of vital significance for genealogical, heraldic and other areas of historical research. The volumes preserve records of periodic surveys of the arms and pedigrees of the gentry of England and Wales, carried out by the heralds between 1530 and the end of the seventeenth century.

The first part of this substantial 805-page volume catalogues the College’s Tudor visitation manuscripts in detail, describing their content, relation to each other and to other manuscripts, and also their physical make-up. The Tudor manuscripts are much more heterogenous than the Stuart ones, and include considerable amounts of interesting non-visitation material. All the main family names occurring in the visitations are listed.

The second part of the volume consists of a complete analytical list of all Tudor visitation manuscripts, both in the College and in other repositories, arranged by county and giving the published editions. The general apparatus includes four appendices; one of these is a chronological list of visitations and another a biographical list of heralds and others connected with the visitations. A lengthy introduction discusses all aspects of the manuscripts catalogued and also looks at the process of visitation in the Tudor period. 

There are thirty-two colour plates illustrating the types of manuscript and the principal hands occurring, and comprehensive indexes of family and personal names, places and subjects.

The Author
The compiler of the Catalogue is Robert Yorke FSA, Archivist of the College of Arms between 1978 and 2011.

Price
£60 plus postage and packing

TO ORDER

•  by e-mail to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
•  by telephone to: 0207 248 2762
•  by post to: Catalogue of Manuscripts, College of Arms, 130 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4BT

ISBN 978 0 9506 980 3 8