Many medieval Latin documents from Lancashire remain to be translated. These documents are a little-known treasure chest for the medieval history of the region, Chetham’s Library houses many medieval documents in the medieval former manor house of Manchester.
An aerial/map view of Chetham’s is here.
The deeds below are an example of this rich archive, they are reproduced with the permission of Chetham’s Library
These deeds refer to land in Spotland, a township in the north-west of the large medieval Parish of Rochdale, in south-east Lancashire. They are part of the large collection of deeds in the Raines Collection, just one of the many unique collections held at Chetham’s. Special thanks to Fergus for making these scans.
Witnesses
At the bottom of the deeds can be seen the names of the witnesses, usually local landowners. For example, Gilbert de Notton as well as witnesses from Clegg (“de cleg”) and Falinge (“de phalleng”) can be seen in this deed: raines_e45_bundle1_04.jpg.
Note: These are large files, they may take a while to download.
Download scanned deeds relating to Spotland, Rochdale from the Raines Collection, Chetham’s Library
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