Author: Yorkist History Trust

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Mapping a Medieval Guild: Forging Fraternity in Late Medieval Society by Rachael Harkes

Dr Rachael Harkes, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, was awarded a research grant by the Yorkist History Trust to employ a cartographer to create a series of maps for her new monograph, Forging Fraternity in Late Medieval Society: The Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow (London, 2025), published open access by the University of London Press and the Royal Historical Society in their New Historical Perspectives series. Here, she explains how the funding from the Trust aided her research and the importance of the maps to the book’s historiographical intervention.

In 1438, Richard, duke of York, and Cecily Neville, his wife, joined the Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow, a voluntary religious association located in the parish church of St Laurence in the Marcher town of Ludlow [Fig. 1]. They gave £16 13s. 14d. for admission – £16 more than the standard rate for a couple. Through his Mortimer inheritance, York oversaw substantial estates on the Anglo-Welsh border, including the formidable castle at Ludlow which acted as a local power base. Later in the fifteenth century – after York’s death at Wakefield in 1460 and the coronation of his eldest son and heir as Edward IV the next year – their children followed their lead and joined fraternities close to their own estates: George, duke of Clarence, joined the Holy Cross Guild at Stratford, while Richard, duke of Gloucester, joined the Corpus Christi Guild in York. King Edward enrolled in the Palmers’ Guild himself in the 1470s [Fig. 2].

In doing so, these royal brothers acted like other great magnates of the period by associating with a prestigious fraternity close to the heart of their landed power bases; and there was nothing unusual about their actions. What was unique, however, was that the Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow was an extraordinarily inclusive and wide-ranging association, with members running the medieval gamut from beggars all the way through to the king, recruiting people from across Wales, England, Ireland, Iberia, and France. During the late Middle Ages, over 18,000 people are recorded as joining the Palmers. My new monograph, Forging Fraternity in Late Medieval Society, explores why people chose to join this particular guild, either instead of or alongside more conveniently located guilds that were available to them. What influenced an individual’s decision to become a Palmer? Forging Fraternity scrutinises the life-stages, political circumstances, and social pressures that were incumbent on individuals as they chose to join a religious guild.

One of the main classes of documentary sources that survive for the Palmers’ Guild are membership lists, which – as the name might suggest – record people who signed up and provide identifying details: their occupation, marital status, and residency (parish, manor, village, town, or city). This information is mainly collected in a homogeneous series of ten manuscripts dating between 1497 and 1508 and 1515 to 1516, each with anywhere from twenty to over one hundred folios. Additional members are recorded for other dates on rolls and loose paper pages, but with less consistency. My idea to create maps, showing where recruits originated from, grew out of a need to able to take this enormous volume of written information and to picture it differently – quite literally. I was very fortunate to receive a grant from the Yorkist History Trust to collaborate with a cartographer to create a series of maps for Forging Fraternity [Map 1].

In order to achieve this, I recorded the places found in the ten membership lists from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and the number of new recruits from each respective location. The next step was to locate and record the Easting and Northing coordinates for each location in a simple database. Craig Asquith, FRGS, was able to take this data and use it to create maps that were integral to my research process.

The purpose of these maps is two-fold. First, they act as an analytical tool to understand how the geography of Wales and England influenced who became a Palmer and the subsequent geographical trends in the guild’s popularity. Mapping the recruitment allows us to see how the terrain influenced engagement with the guild: the guild stewards embarked on recruitment rides by following established routes cutting through the hilly terrain of Wales, for example. Consistently, we see stewards making the same annual journey from Shropshire to Aberystwyth, via Welshpool and Machynlleth.

Likewise, the map for new recruitment between 1497 and 1501 revealed particular concentrations of membership from certain cities: London, Coventry, Bristol, Gloucester and Worcester [Map 2]. This map, then, prompted me to question why membership might be popular within those locations. Chapter Three in Forging Fraternity considers the relationship between the guild and local urban power structures. It reveals that the Palmers’ Guild was in some towns a proving ground for aspiring members of the urban elite, attracting men at the early state of their political careers despite often significant distances to Ludlow, and that membership was bound up with notions of civic piety and moral probity. London, however, presented a different and more diverse story, with membership of the Palmers being associated more closely with patterns within specific livery companies and master-apprentice relations.

Second, the maps serve to support one of the main tenets of Forging Fraternity: that membership of this organisation was unusually widespread in the late Middle Ages. Mapping locations of recruitment immediately demonstrates the geographical range of the guild which, when translated into human terms, represents an extraordinary undertaking on the part of the guild’s officers who travelled far and wide to enrol people and collect their fees. With membership spilling out far beyond the confines of the Welsh Marches in an age which is commonly (if inaccurately) thought to have been one of limited mobility and circumscribed world views, the guild’s stewards certainly travelled across much of mainland Britain as well as to Tournai and Rome. Members recruited from Troyes, Ireland, and Iberia may, on the other hand, represent movement in the other direction. The maps are also able to show variations in the numbers recruited in different locations at different times, through the use of proportional symbols – coloured circles of varying sizes relative to the data collected [compare maps 2 and 3]. It is therefore possible to discern trends in recruitment for individual places, which might be tied to local circumstances or external pressures. Maps provide a starting point from which to investigate the root causes of these observations, teasing out their implications for our understanding of many aspects of medieval society.

Readers therefore benefit from voluminous data extracted from the sources being instead rendered graphically. The maps help to distil complex historical research into an immediately cognisable form and in a way that is visually impactful and also serve to disseminate research effectively and increase comprehension of the significance of the Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow. For historians dealing with large datasets which often cannot be directly translated onto the printed (or digital) page, thinking in alternative, visual ways is an important tool that aids not only the reader, but also the author, promoting them to reconsider their research and findings in a new light. The maps became integral to understanding and writing about this extraordinary guild. Viewing the data in this way transformed my analysis and proffered new research questions.

Although the enrolment of the duke and duchess of York and Edward IV was an important moment in the guild’s story, these maps are one tool that allows us to see their actions in context and as part of a complex and rich tapestry through which is woven all ranks of society across an extraordinarily wide geographical catchment. In many ways, the Palmers’ Guild during the Yorkist and Tudor periods offers a rare glimpse of medieval society in its broadest sense.

I am very grateful to the Yorkist History Trust for the award of a grant, and to Craig Asquith for working with complicated and vast data to create a series of clear and striking maps.

Rachael Harkes, Forging Fraternity in Late Medieval Society: The Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow, Royal Historical Society and University of London Press, New Historical Perspectives series (London, 2025). Available open access or to purchase in paperback (£29.99/$39.99), hardback (£90.00/$120.00), and as an EPUB (£29.99) from www.uolpress.co.uk/book/forging-fraternity-in-late-medieval-society.

To apply for a grant to support your research on late medieval England, submit a grant application form or get in touch for more information.

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New publication: The Post-Mortem Accounts and Inventories of Sir Thomas Charlton (d.1465), ed. Claire Martin

The Yorkist History Trust is delighted to announce the publication of its latest volume, The Post-Mortem Accounts and Inventories of Sir Thomas Charlton (d. 1465), edited by Claire Martin. This important source edition presents in translation the post-mortem accounts and related documentation pertaining to the death of Sir Thomas Charlton, Speaker of the House of Commons in the fifteenth century, for the first time. The edition is accompanied by a critical introduction by the editor.

A scion of one of the wealthiest families in Middlesex, Sir Thomas Charlton (c.1417–1465) could claim relatives among London’s mercantile elite as well as kinship with Alice, countess of Salisbury, and her son, the earl of Warwick. Over the course of his life he served his country diligently. From his position on the Middlesex bench of J.P.s and on local commissions, to years of parliamentary industry and, eventually, the speaker’s chair. In many respects he was an ‘everyman’ for the lives of England’s greater gentry and when he died, following a short illness, in February 1465 his story, like so many others, would have come to an end were it not for the remarkable survival of an extensive collection of inventories and associated post-mortem accounts. In life, Sir Thomas Charlton’s story would have been familiar to many members of medieval gentry society. In death he left behind a collection of documents that would have been equally commonplace in their day but which are remarkable in their survival and, as such, invaluable to the historian.

£25.00 plus postage and packaging – £5 (UK), £15 (overseas). To order from Shaun Tyas Publishing, please complete an order form on our Publications page.

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A Road Map of the Yorkist Age

In a slight departure from our normal blogposts, here we present a guest post: Dr David Harrison discussing his fascinating new publication, Historic Ways: Road Map of England and Wales in the Late Middle Ages. This authoritative map beautifully presents for the first time all major roads and bridges in England and Wales as they existed in the fifteenth century. Its relevance to the work of the Trust is evident, and here Dr Harrison explains the process that went into researching and producing the map and just some of the interesting ways it can be put to use.

This summer, I published something rather old-fashioned: a paper map. It’s called Road Map of England and Wales in the Late Middle Ages, and it seeks to capture the essence of the Yorkist Age.

Inspired by the medieval Gough Map, the map marks the main highways, bridges, towns and cities, battlefields, inns, and significant sacred and secular buildings of the later fifteenth century. It’s a visual guide to England and Wales, particularly focused on the transport infrastructure, which linked the key destinations. 

From Bridges to Roads
My interest began in the 1970s with bridges. I’ve spent years seeking them out—tramping along riverbanks in wellies, dragging my patient family with me, and admiring the play of light on medieval stone arches. My study of them led to a doctoral thesis, later published by Oxford University Press as The Bridges of Medieval England: Transport and Society 400–1800.

In 2019, Professor Caroline Barron suggested I offer a paper for the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium on Medieval Travel. That prompted a shift in focus—from bridges to the roads they carried. To my surprise, I found that no scholarly map of the main roads of medieval England had ever been made.

Could we even identify the major highways of the period? The answer, as it turned out, was a resounding yes.

Finding the Medieval Highways
The documentary evidence is surprisingly rich. In the fourteenth century, the bridge at Huntingdon was described as “the public passage from north to south.” Edward II wrote of “the high road via Ware, Royston and Huntingdon.” In Devon, the antiquary John Leland called Honiton a “fair, long through fare in the highway to London.”

Consider one major route—the London to Exeter road—which can be traced across centuries. The Gough Map shows it running from London through Salisbury, Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Yeovil, Chard, and Honiton to Exeter. Around 1400, an itinerary made at Titchfield Abbey in Hampshire outlined exactly the same route for a journey to Torre Abbey in Devon. In the 1470s, the traveller William Worcester recorded a journey by Thomas Clerk of Ware who followed that same road. Worcester himself rode into Cornwall, noting rather touchingly that his horse stumbled as they crossed Bodmin Moor. The road is recorded again in the earliest list of Highways dating from the 1540s. And today the A30 passes through the same towns west of Shaftesbury. It is notable that the medieval route is completely different from the Roman road to Exeter.

When the same route appears again and again—on maps, in documents, and in travel notes—we can be confident that it was a major highway. And we are not looking at a list of vague directions—the roads were the physical arteries of medieval England, and large sums of money were spent on their maintenance.

Roads and Battlefields
The map also reveals how the great battles of the Wars of the Roses clustered around these roads.

The Great North Road (a term not coined until the 18th century), linking London to York and beyond, saw the bloodiest battle of them all: Towton (1461). Edward IV’s army marched north, crossing the River Aire at Ferrybridge, before meeting and defeating the Lancastrians south of Tadcaster. A few years later, Losecoat Field (1470) was fought on the same route, near Stamford.

Farther south, three key battles—St Albans (1455 and 1461) and Barnet (1471) )—all took place on or near the main highway north-west from London. Armies relied on these roads to move troops, wagons, and artillery. They were the backbone of war as much as trade.

Bridges Along the Way
Where there were roads, there were bridges—and my map marks hundreds of them.

Although many have been demolished, most between 1770 and 1820, around 200 medieval bridges survive, at least in part. Some still carry modern traffic. On the Great North Road, you can still cross the medieval bridges at Huntingdon, Croft (River Tees), Sunderland Bridge, and two in Durham, including Framwellgate Bridge, whose twin spans stretch an astonishing 90 feet each.

Other surviving bridges vary from the mile long causeway across the floodplain at Swarkestone, the estuarine crossings at Barnstaple, Bideford, and Wadebridge, to the tiny packhorse bridge at Fifehead Neville in Devon.

Many were immortalised by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artists. Two of my favourites are the bridges at Rochester and York, whose arches were sketched and painted long after the medieval masons had finished their work.

The Towns and Monasteries of the Fifteenth Century
The map also charts the urban network of late medieval England. Only eight towns had populations over 5,000: London, Bristol, Coventry, Exeter, Norwich, Newcastle, York, and Salisbury.

Almost all the 50 biggest towns with populations over 2,000 were linked by the main highways shown on the map. London was as dominant then as it is today, but the rest of the landscape looked very different. The future industrial giants—Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, and Sheffield—were mere villages of under 2,000 people.

Monasteries form another striking feature. Using data from the Valor Ecclesiasticus (Henry VIII’s survey of monastic wealth), I plotted those with annual incomes over £500. What stands out is how many wealthy houses were urban, such as Gloucester and Peterborough which became cathedrals at the Reformation, and how many were concentrated in London.

Castles, Palaces, and Power
Mapping castles and great houses proved trickier. There was no single list of which ones were occupied, fortified, or administrative centres in the late fifteenth century, so I examined them case by case.

Some, like Raglan, were new and magnificent. Others, like Eltham Palace, were transformed by ambitious building projects (Edward IV’s Great Hall still impresses). The map also includes the other royal residences around London—Westminster, the Tower, Windsor, Greenwich, and Richmond (then Sheen)—as well as key properties of the Duchy of Lancaster at Hertford, Kenilworth, Leicester, Pontefract, and of York at Ludlow, Fotheringhay, Sandal. Standing today on the banks of the Nene at Fotheringhay, it’s hard to believe that only a mound and the church tower remain of one of the greatest palaces of the fifteenth century.

The map also plots the far-flung estates of the nobility and bishops: the Nevilles possessed mighty castles at Warwick, Sheriff Hutton, Middleham, Barnard Castle, and Penrith; the Percys’ castles ranged from Sussex to Northumberland; the Dukes of Buckingham’s from Staffordshire to South Wales; and the Bishops of Winchester, whose many properties included Esher, and Farnham provided comfortable waystations on the road to London.

Castles guarded major crossings too. Tonbridge stands by the Medway; Newark by the Trent; Rochester above its great bridge; Alnwick and Warkworth above the rivers Aln and Coquet. 

Seeing the Past Through Roads
On the back of the map, I have included illustrated essays on the map’s features and on the nature of roads and medieval transport—its modes, speeds, and peculiarities. The former Director of the London Transport Museum kindly described the accompanying text as “masterful in its compaction and clarity.”

I hope the same might be said of the map itself—that it reveals how connected, and how sophisticated, this society was. You see a road system, which supported a nation of travellers, administrators, traders, soldiers and pilgrims. 

The map is available for £14.99 from Stanfords in Covent Garden and from various online outlets.

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The Late Medieval Archives of the Venerable English College, Rome

Philip Muijtjens, a postdoctoral researcher at the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium), was awarded a research grant by the Yorkist History Trust last year to spend three months in Rome to investigate the archives of the Venerable English College (VEC), an institutional descendant of the medieval English Hospice of Saint Thomas of Canterbury. For more information about the grants offered by the Trust, please click here.

Not far from the world-famous Palazzo Farnese is a small, ancient square which has seen the organised presence of a number of non-Italian nations in Rome since the mid-fourteenth century. Today we find in this small piazza the Venerable English College, a seminary which has as its primary aim to house and educate Catholic priests who hail from England. Importantly, the English College (simply known as Collegio Inglese in Italian) was founded in 1579 on the physical and institutional remains of a much older institute which had served and represented the English nation in Rome for centuries already, namely the Hospice of Saint Thomas of Canterbury.

In 1362, directly next to the house of Saint Bridget of Sweden (d.1373) and the aforementioned square, a hospice was founded to cater to the needs of the increasing numbers of individuals belonging to the English nation, who found their way to Rome for pilgrimage, business, or other reasons. Dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity and Saint Thomas Canterbury, the hospice quickly expanded its real estate portfolio in the neighbourhood where it was located, the ancient rione (Roman neighbourhood) of Regola. The foundation of the English Hospice of Saint Thomas was part of a larger tendency which saw the rise of nation-oriented institutes being founded in Rome and other parts of the Italian peninsula from the mid-fourteenth century onwards. Often simply called natio in Latin at this time, a nation is here understood as a group of individuals who, within the international context of Rome, maintained certain cultural traits to identify themselves as a separate group based on their origins from a country outside Italy. Like most of these so-called nations in medieval Italy, the English nation was a narrowly yet vaguely demarcated group which, depending on political and social factors, included individuals from modern-day England, Wales, Scotland, and (parts of) Ireland.

The Venerable English College is still thriving and active on the original location of the former Hospice of Saint Thomas in Rome, even carrying the same dedication. As the institutional descendant of the medieval Hospice, the College preserves a considerable archive dating back to the medieval period. With generous support from the Yorkist History Trust, I was able to spend three months in the archive of the Venerable English College in Rome to prepare for a preliminary list/catalogue of the medieval (i.e. pre-1540) material.

As such, I worked in the archive almost every workday in autumn 2024, always with the excellent support of College Archivist Prof. Maurice Whitehead and Librarian Renaud Milazzo. As expected, much of the surviving medieval material in the College’s archives relates primarily to the Yorkist period  and the decades leading up to the Reformation. My work consisted of consulting all the volumes of the medieval period, most of which contain collections of financial, administrative, biographical, and other material. Within the VEC archives, this collection is called the Libri (Liber in singular). I decided to consult all the Libri covering the period of ca.1340-1540, as there is no consistent overview of their content and a lot of the information was spread across the volumes in question.

In addition, the large and very numerous financial accounts on the daily running of the Hospital have yielded very important documents which give further insight into the role which the Hospital played in international relations between Rome and the British Isles and beyond. While the English Hospice archives are unique compared with other medieval, nation-oriented hospital archives in Rome in terms of their preservation and scope, the records which are of interest to the project are scattered throughout the aforementioned volumes.

The Libri give the very clear impression that they were repositories of knowledge regarding the management of the Hospice of Saint Thomas in medieval Rome and of its wealth but also of the many individuals and groups who were involved in the daily running of the Hospice. For instance, we find ample references to the daily acquisition of foodstuffs in the late fifteenth century, often paired with the recording of English pilgrims who showed up at the Hospice on those days. The surviving records also contain long lists of individuals renting real estate from the Hospice in Rome, which often contain important details on foreigners (including English) who had already been settled in Rome for decades around 1500. This great level of detail is really quite unusual to find in Italian hospice archives, as the suppression of medieval institutes often led to the division of archives according to more modern notions of administrative bodies. As such, the medieval Hospice archives cover in one place more aspects of life in medieval Rome than most surviving archives in the same city. By bringing together sources discussing the networks and running of the Hospice, this archive is a prime candidate to allow for valuable insights into the many aspects of society and life in Rome and in England. Yet the range and extent of the medieval archival material in the College is not only very rich, but also very much overlooked.

As of yet, there is still no reliable edition of any part of the medieval Hospice archives. A comparison of known, printed source material with the original material from the VEC archives has indeed shown that the few extant printed transcriptions are incomplete and not reliable. Significant parts of this medieval material have never been studied in great detail. The only publications which makes sources from the Hospice archives more or less accessible remain the 1962 (reprinted in 2005) publication The English Hospice in Rome by John Allen et al., and Margaret Harvey’s The English in Rome 1362-1420 (Cambridge, 1999) which is the only systematic study of the Membranae (parchment charters) in the College Archives. While these and other studies remain relevant, they do not comprise exhaustive editions of sources from the Hospice archives, which have the potential to tell us much more about the networks between Rome and England that existed in the later Middle Ages.

This extended research, which was only possible because of the generous support provided by the Yorkist History Trust, will result into a number of academic publications which will come out in the following two years. Currently, I am preparing an academic edition of those parts of the Libri contained in the VEC archives, to be published by the Trust, which shed more light on the life and networks of the English Hospice of Saint Thomas in the period of ca.1362-1540. The ultimate purpose of this edition will be to make the records of this rare, Roman archive accessible to those with an interest in the many international dimensions of medieval English society.

My heartfelt thanks go out to the Yorkist History Trust and to the Venerable English College for their fantastic support and encouragement which have been so valuable in this formative stage of my academic career.

The Trust On…
Ruby Anniversary Celebration at St George’s Chapel, Windsor

For the final event of the Trust’s Ruby Anniversary celebrations, we invited friends and supporters of the Trust to an evening event at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, the ‘spiritual home’ of the Yorkist dynasty. Here, Dr Joshua Ravenhill recounts this very special event that celebrated the past forty years of Trust activity.

As the crowning jewel of its Ruby Anniversary celebrations, the Yorkist History Trust ran a celebration event on Friday 3 October in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. Battling both a combination of wind and rain that defeated even the sturdiest of umbrellas, the attendees entered the castle through the Henry VIII gate and proceeded towards the chapel. Whilst walking through the courtyard, I mused to myself that this might be the only medievalist gathering hosted in a venue guarded by armed police. Thankfully, no medievalist was arrested, and the guests successfully gained access to the Dean’s Cloister and waited to be admitted into the Chapel.   

Gathered here, the full range of attendees who had come to celebrate the Trust became clear: 80 guests with various specialisms and connections with the Trust had all come together to share an evening of late medieval splendour.

They would not be disappointed: they were soon let into the Chapel and walked down an aisle with the tomb of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville on the left-hand side and the memorial to Anne, duchess of Exeter and sister to Edward IV, and her husband Sir Thomas St Leger, on the right. The guests sat in the nave and were able to admire the chapel’s fan vaulted ceiling, which people with much more knowledge about architecture than myself have called the best example of English Perpendicular Gothic design. The whole chapel is certainly a herald’s dream, boasting various arms and symbols of royal and aristocratic families that could be (and potentially have been!) the topic of multiple doctoral theses themselves.

After feasting with their eyes, guests were treated to the prayers of Evensong sung by the choir of choristers and lay clerks. The acoustics of the nave and the quality of the choir made this an incredible experience and reminded us of the continued spirituality of the site. After guests had lined up at the back of the nave for the obligatory all-attendee photo, the lead volunteer gave us a short introduction to the chapel, explaining that it was commissioned by Edward IV in 1475 and was intended as a mausoleum for the House of York but was only completed in 1528 in the reign of Henry VIII. Realising that this was not an audience that needed reminding why the Yorkist mausoleum plan failed, the volunteer skimmed over that, instead pointing out the notable parts of the nave and choir and inviting the guests to explore.

After an hour walking around this late medievalists’ paradise, guests were invited to the Dean’s Cloister for canapes and some celebratory fizz. By happy coincidence, 3 October was also the birthday of Christian Steer – the Trust’s Chairman – meaning we all enjoyed plenty of cake and Christian had an appropriately scholarly birthday party. He gave a wonderful speech about the forty years of the Trust and, most poignantly, about absent friends. He gave special mention to the late Anne F. Sutton who had done so much for the Trust, and the crowd was audibly appreciative when Christian announced that the editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography had agreed to publish an entry for Anne in a future edition.

This set the tone for a lovely drinks reception where people talked about their research, the Trust’s achievements over the past forty years, and what the Trust will be doing in the next four decades. It was a wonderful evening, and I am sure I speak for all guests when I say that we are extremely thankful to the trustees and officers of the Trust, the choir of St George’s Chapel, and the staff of Windsor Castle for making it happen. The only problem I can see is how the Trust can ever find a better venue for its next event!

The Trust would like to thank the Dean and Canons of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and especially Patricia Birdseye for helping to organise the event.

The Trust On…
YHT Scholars at the 2025 Harlaxton Medieval Symposium

The Yorkist History Trust was delighted to be able to offer five scholarship grants for PGRs and ECRs to attend the 2025 Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, as part of the celebrations marking our Ruby Anniversary year. The theme of the Symposium was The Medieval City, and scholars were chosen based on academic merit and the relevance of the theme to their research. The Trust also sponsored a drinks reception on the first evening of the Symposium, which preceded the PGR/ECR presentation competition, in which all five YHT scholars (and four others researchers) gave a five-minute presentation of their current research in a convivial academic setting. The evening was a great success, and gave the YHT scholars the opportunity to share their work while opening discussions with the Symposium’s attendees.

Here, all five YHT scholars share their thoughts on their experiences at Harlaxton:

Amy Hopkins, PhD candidate, University of St Andrews
Thanks to the generous scholarship awarded by the Yorkist History Trust, I was able to attend the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium for the first time, and it was an exceptional four days, full of stimulating papers and engaging discussions on the theme, The Medieval City. As part of the scholarship, we were asked to present on a new aspect of our research, and I tried to fit some of the research questions of my forthcoming thesis chapter into the 5-minute limit, which I hope I did with some success! It was exhilarating to present even a small part of my research to so many experts in the field of Medieval Studies, and the resulting conversations were dynamic and have already helped with the development of my chapter. The award of the scholarship by the Yorkist History Trust has enabled me to engage with current research, contribute to ongoing and engaging discussions of the medieval city, and meet individuals whose work has informed my own, and I am immensely grateful! 

Lucy Beall Lott, PhD candidate, University of St Andrews
I had long heard stories of the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium; but never thought I’d attend, let alone as a Yorkist History Trust Scholar. The symposium, set against the glorious backdrop of Madingley Hall,  was the most welcoming academic environment I have ever encountered. The attendees were interested to hear the research being conducted by our cohort of PGRs and ECRs, even providing us with invaluable feedback or insight. Not only were we able to learn from other scholars during the lectures, which were enthralling, but our cohort was also able to present our own ongoing research on the first night. It was incredible to see the authors lining my bookshelves looking back at me from the audience, listening while I described how their research shaped my own. While the academic aspect of the symposium was inspiring, my favourite part of the experience were the times when we could all socialise together, over a meal or perhaps a glass of wine. The hall was often filled with laughter, friendly debates, and words of encouragement. I have left the symposium with new friends and cannot wait to attend in the future. I am so grateful for the Yorkist History Trust for giving me such a wonderful opportunity and an experience that I will always remember.

Dr Sarah McKeagney, postdoctoral research fellow, Humanities Research Centre, University of York
I would like to extend my gratitude to the Yorkist History Trust for the opportunity to present new postdoctoral research to an engaged audience at the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium. The symposium offered fertile ground to share and generate ideas in a supportive and rigorous atmosphere. Although many attendees come annually, they were so welcoming to new PhD students and ECRs, offering us the chance to build both personal and professional connections with world-class researchers. This year’s topic on the Medieval City brought together an amazing range of symbiotic papers which will undoubtedly shape my own research moving forward. I look forward to returning to the beautiful Madingley Hall in the future.

Ana Roda Sanchez, PhD candidate, Queen Mary, University of London
Joining the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium 2025 was an amazing experience. It was a real challenge to present my research in five minutes, but very helpful in prompting me to think about the core ideas of my thesis and how to present them in an attractive yet academically rigorous way. I also thoroughly enjoyed meeting the other postgraduate research students, as well as senior scholars, and getting to know about their work. I couldn’t have joined the conference without the Yorkist History Trust grant – I think they do a great job in giving young scholars the chance to engage with the broader academic community!

Dr Jinming Yi, postdoctoral research fellow, Fudan University
This was my first time attending the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, and the experience was absolutely wonderful. Over four days, I joined more than seventy scholars in listening to nearly twenty presentations. At Madingley Hall, I also had many opportunities to engage in stimulating conversations with researchers in the field of medieval urban history. Although my own presentation was not long, the feedback I received has convinced me that it made a strong impression on the participants. I am deeply grateful to the Yorkist History Trust for providing financial support. The cost of a return ticket between China and the UK alone would have strained my budget considerably, so the savings on conference expenses brought immense relief.

The Trust On…
Child Saints and Henry V’s Chantry Chapel

Lucy Beall Lott, a PhD researcher at the University of St Andrews, was recently awarded a grant by the Yorkist History Trust to fund a trip to London to investigate the decorative carving scheme that adorns the chantry chapel of Henry V in Westminster Abbey. These statues form an important aspect of her research into representations of child saints in medieval Britain. Here she recounts her experience, sharing some of her tantalising discoveries and outlining the difficulties in what might at first glance appear to be a straightforward attribution of an image of a child saint. For more information about the grants offered by the Trust, please click here.

Above the footfall of Westminster Abbey’s ambulatory, sculptures of unnamed saints line every available surface of the Henry V Chantry Chapel (fig. 1). The act of climbing up to view them feels like its own pilgrimage: accessed through a tiny door in the Confessor’s Chapel which cuts through the foot of Eleanor of Castile’s tomb chest, one must climb up a slick, steep stone staircase, so narrow that one’s shoulders touch the walls. After surviving the climb, the pilgrim is greeted by a magnificent bridge spanning across the ambulatory. The shrill cacophony of the abbey’s tourists falls silent in this space.

The eye is immediately drawn upwards to the statues that stand in niches above the High Altar (fig. 2). Besides Henry himself, who is depicted at the moment of his coronation on the outer wall of the structure, there are some familiar faces identified by previous scholars. They dominate the sequence, their importance indicated by their size: St George, St Edmund, Edward the Confessor, St Mary, and St Denys.

These figures, though undeniably fascinating, are not, however, the ones that interest me. My research draws me to the thirty-four damaged sculptures of saints which stand in pillars of microarchitecture, striking in their multitudes, and intriguing in their lack of identification. Unremarkable at first glance, art historians who have examined the chapel before me have stated that these figures may simply be placeholders. This is possible but, if so, why does each figure adopt a unique pose and hold differentiated attributes? And, most vital to my own research, why are some of these figures children?

These unidentified sculptures of children in the Henry V Chantry Chapel are important case studies in my ongoing PhD research. My thesis, Child Thou Art but a Pilgrim: an Art Historical Investigation of the Relationship between Youth and Sanctity in Medieval Britain, will be the first study to identify the visual language used by medieval artists to portray child saints. Though an understudied phenomenon, child saints were popular figures of veneration in the Middle Ages: the Canterbury Tales demonstrates that even Chaucer’s chicken, Chantecler, knows the vita of the seven-year-old Saint Kenelm, a ninth-century Mercian prince. Hagiographies like that of Saint Kenelm also serve to highlight the long history of child saints within the pedigrees of ruling families, something that makes them undeniably British (as told and understood by medieval chroniclers such as Geoffrey of Monmouth) and therefore popular choices for royal patrons. Kenelm is far from the only prince, or princess, martyred and worshiped in the ‘Conversion Period’ of Britain’s Christian history. We know that Henry V found great personal fulfilment in the veneration of child saints, owing his victory in Agincourt to the Welsh maiden saint Winifred. These holy children can be found in abbeys, manuscripts, and sculptures across Britain, if one only knows how to identify them. Could they be present in the Chapel of Henry V as well? For a space that seems tailored to reflect an idea of national pride, I believe we may be able to find at least one.

I was granted access to view the chapel twice in thanks to the generosity of the Yorkist History Trust. In July 2025, I returned with a camera so that I may capture the details of the statues. They are far overhead, and it is not possible to climb up to them with a ladder due to the delicate nature of the space they occupy. I enjoyed an even more private audience on that morning; gaining entry before the abbey itself opened. Summer light fell against the sculptures, igniting the carved figures with a warmth and movement that made goosebumps prickle across my skin. I found myself unprepared for the effect the space had on me in that instance, and it took me a moment to remember that I had a job to do. My task is as monumental as the space itself: can I reunite any of these figures with their names? First, we must attempt to establish that some of these figures are indeed children. Lucky for us, adult figures stand next to youthful ones, allowing the visual indicators of youth that I have established in my thesis to become clear (figs 3 and 4).

The figure on the left is at once made venerable by the presence of a bushy beard. Dense lines are carved into his face beginning at either side of his nose, moving upwards to the sides of his face and connecting with what hair he has left on the sides of his head. His beard is so thick, in fact, that his neck is not visible. The figure on the right, meanwhile, is much more delicate. While he, like his older counterpart, has draped robes, the slightness of the body is visible. The fabric of his cloak is gathered at his neck, under his beardless chin, and draped around his shoulders. His bent arms are raised, hands exposed to reveal that the figure holds something. It would be tempting to suggest that he holds a book. But upon closer inspection, we can see this may not be true:

Unfortunately, due to the damage this statue has suffered post-Reformation, it is difficult to identify whatever this thing may be (I would very much like it to be a dove). Perhaps one day it would be possible to take a closer look. For now, we can see that the attribute is unique, and the adult figure does not carry it. In the most striking contrast to the first figure analysed, the face of this figure is beardless and the curly hair cropped short, characteristics evocative of youth.

This figure carries the pre-determined attributes of youth we have seen in the previous two sculptures. Though the angle at which one must view the figure is, to put it lightly, not ideal, we can see that the face of the figure is smooth and beardless. The curved lines of the chin sweep downwards, with no sign of facial hair. The nose and eyes are somewhat visible, and we do not see the triangular carvings on either side of the cheeks that the artist previously used to denote the beard. The uninterrupted lines of the bare chin continue to be visible around the lip of the chalice the figure holds. This cup is one of the few surviving attributes held by any of the figures in the sequence, and it is one that is instantly recognisable. It is unlikely that it would be Mary Magdalen, with her alabaster jar of ointment, as she is represented already in the chapel and the figure does not have the same body type or hair as the sculpture we have tentatively described as female. The other option is St John the Evangelist, who is also represented elsewhere in the chapel according to William Richard Lethaby and William Henry St. John Hope. The chalice also lacks the tell-tale snakes that fit the legend of St John and the poisoned chalice. I would like to suggest this fresh-faced youth may be a different saint, following the trend of ‘Britishness’ so visible throughout the artistic programme. Edward, king and martyr, may therefore be a worthy candidate, an identification reinforced by the strong presence of royal saints such as Edmund and Edward the Confessor. At just sixteen years of age in 978 Edward the Martyr was famously stabbed upon his horse whilst drinking from a chalice at the gates of Corfe Castle in Dorset, in a murder organised by his stepmother. Her own son, Ethelred the Unready, assumed the throne. Edward’s cult flourished, partly in thanks to his half-brother. Edward the Martyr is thus usually represented with a chalice, from manuscript illuminations to portraits on Opus Anglicanum embroidery (fig 9).

If you’re undertaking research on any aspect of late medieval England, the Trust provides grants that can assist with expenses such as travel costs and archival photography permits. Please see our grants page for more information and for details on how to apply.

YHT Call for Papers: 2026 Leeds International Medieval Congress

The Long Fifteenth Century
Leeds IMC 6-9 July 2026

Proposals are sought for 20-minute papers on new research on the period 1399-1525. Topics within the IMC 2026 theme of ‘Temporalities’ are encouraged, but any subject within the relevant time frame is welcome.

Bursaries of £300 are available for scholars without institutional funding (at any stage of their career). Please note the IMC’s proposal criteria at www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/proposals/criteria.

Please send a 150-200 word abstract and short biography to Dr Joanna Laynesmith at j.l.laynesmith@reading.ac.uk by 18th September 2025 stating whether you wish to apply for a bursary or just to propose a paper.

The Trust On…
The Yorkist History Trust at Leeds International Medieval Congress 2025

Continuing our Ruby Anniversary celebrations, on Tuesday 8th July the Yorkist History Trust sponsored a day of fascinating papers at Leeds International Medieval Congress. Under the very broad heading of “the Wars of the Roses”, scholars from a range of career stages and disciplines gathered to ensure that fifteenth-century studies were richly represented. Laura Rosenheim opened the first session – ‘Stories of the Death of Princes’ – with discussion of Thomas of Woodstock’s reburials at Westminster Abbey and what these might tell us about Richard II’s and Henry IV’s attitudes to cadet branches of the royal family. Gabriella Williams then demonstrated the evolution of rumours about the death of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, suggesting that members of his household contributed to speculations of murder that were sensationalised by Continental authors whose tales were later imported back into English chronicles. Finally, Joanna Laynesmith examined two royal genealogical rolls which, unusually, omit the reign of Edward V from England’s story.

Session two considered the more immediate consequences of fifteenth-century warfare, starting with Gordon McKelvie’s assessment of the principles behind ‘Victors’ Justice’, from the consequences of outrage over the earl of Salisbury’s execution to the unprecedented post battle executions at Tewkesbury. Julie Bungey used Christine de Pisan’s advice to widows as a framework for considering the fates of noble war widows in this period. Then, moving back to those suffering on the field, Tig Lang unpacked the practical and ideological implications of the complicated ingredients of John Bradmore’s Potus Magistralis – a wound potion with more than a hundred ingredients. 

After lunch, Virginia Bainbridge drew on her YHT funded research into patrons of Syon Abbey in considering Yorkist support for Oxbridge foundations: members of London’s mercantile elite proved keen to follow royal fashion in their generosity to these educational establishments. Antony Musson took the session’s theme of devotion and identity a few decades further on as he revealed the rivalry between early Tudor royal chapels, including a ‘sing-off’ between Henry VIII’s and Wolsey’s chapels as well as complaints from King’s College about Lady Margaret Beaufort poaching their choristers. Weiliang Xu completed the session with the multiple layers of purpose and meaning in the exquisite microarchitecture of the 6-metre-high font cover at Ufford Church (Suff.).

The final session focused on documentary culture and memory, beginning with Adele Ryan Sykes’s explanation of London’s 1370s revolutionary Jubilee Book of laws and customs, and how that shaped the more lasting culture of the 1419 Liber Albus. Staying in London, Richard Asquith outlined the processes and purposes of parishes and companies of late medieval London who kept copies of wills and testaments, arguing that these were ‘living’ documents that had afterlives long after they were composed. Finally, Nicholas Babich focussed on a Yorkshire manuscript, the work of Robert Thornton, and specifically his intriguing glosses to the popular devotional poem Erthe.

The Yorkist History Trust’s contributions to the IMC concluded with a well-attended wine reception at which the refreshments included a splendid Ruby Anniversary cake.

By Joanna Laynesmith

The Trust On…
The Yorkist History Trust at ICMS Kalamazoo 2025

The impeccably organised event comprised 448 sessions across the three days along with stalls, sales, performances, demonstrations and installations designed to keep attendees wholly entertained throughout their visit. Highlights included: a demonstration of reproduction medieval musical instruments; a virtual reality installation in the Waldo Library allowing delegates to ‘enter a medieval chapel’ and ‘handle medieval relics’, and the aforementioned *dangerous* book sale with representatives from numerous publishing houses specialising in medieval studies. Also, to the delight of the YHT delegation there was much medieval themed swag to peruse, including various Yorkist-themed souvenirs like ‘Team York’ tote bags and white rose badges.

The two sessions hosted by the Trust attracted a crowd of over forty interested participants both virtual and in-person, who came to listen to the papers, and buy Yorkist History Trust publications on display.

Our speakers kicked off on the Saturday morning with an ‘In-person only’ session entitled ‘England in the Later Fifteenth Century (1): Culture and Society’ introduced and presided over by Dr Ted Westervelt, Independent Scholar and Trust supporter, who joined from Washington DC.

The first paper delivered by the Trust’s Chairman Dr Christian Steer was entitled ‘Dying to be Remembered: The Mercers of London (1479-86)’. It included a compelling look at the efforts this most wealthy set of London merchants went to, to expedite their exit from Purgatory to Paradise. They made charitable donations on an enormous scale, and arranged provision for a much longer period of remembrance for themselves than the standard London will-maker. Steer argued that they had many fingers in many pies and the detailed arrangements for their post-mortem care served to highlight this, both in the city and beyond.

The second paper delivered by trustee Dr Philip Muijtjens from the Université Catholique de Louvain concerned his Trust-commissioned work on the archive of the English Hospice in Rome in the later medieval period. It was entitled ‘English Politicians, Pilgrims and Refugees in Late Medieval Rome: The Confraternity of St. Thomas (ca 1440-1540)’, and gave an evocative account of the myriad lives intertwined with the hospice. Dr Muijtjens showed that St Thomas’ was not just a place of refuge for English visitors to the city but a home to a variety of visitors of varying nationalities. Moreover, owing to relations with similar institutions across the city, the hospice played an integral part in a fascinating wider international social, political and religious milieu in Rome, which Dr Muijtjens hopes to further illuminate in his future studies. His edition of the material in the archives, relating to the English and Welsh in Rome in the late Middle Ages, will be published by the Trust in 2027/8.

After an obligatory lunch of freshly stone-baked pizza in the Student Center (Centre!), the afternoon session entitled ‘England in the Later Fifteenth Century (2): Politics, Diplomacy and Historiography’ began, presided over by Yorkist History Trust Chairman Dr Christian Steer.

As well as in-person, this hybrid session had a number of delegates attending virtually. In fact, the absorbing first paper entitled ‘Richard, Duke of York: From Royalist to Rebel’ was delivered online from London by trustee Dr James Ross of the University of Winchester. Arguably, the duke of York was Henry VI’s greatest subject and Dr Ross firstly sought to bridge the gap between the duke’s private and public concerns. These concerns meshed most closely when finances were under consideration, and Ross argued persuasively that monies owed to the duke by Henry VI’s government were a critical bone of contention. The final part of Ross’s paper refocused attention on 1451 rather than 1450, a period which he argues, is essential in understanding York’s actions in his journey from loyal subject, to critic, and finally to rebel.

The second paper was undertaken by supporter of the Trust, Professor A. Compton Reeves and focussed on historian Paul Murray Kendall. It was entitled ‘Paul Murray Kendall and The Yorkist Age’. Reeves enlightened us on Kendall’s background and journey as a medievalist, explaining how in his expressive and occasionally florid writing, Kendall was endeavouring to ‘catch people in action’. A successor to Kendall at the University of Ohio, Reeves also explained Kendall’s admiration of Edward IV in his book ‘The Yorkist Age’ for the King’s openness to learning and his people management skills, and how he felt that Kendall should be celebrated for the influence he has had on subsequent historians of the period.

And lastly, the session concluded with a paper by Dr Edward Meek, Independent Scholar, concerning his Trust-commissioned research on rarely seen diplomatic letters at the archives in Lille. Entitled ‘English Diplomatic Documents and Letters at the Archives Départementales du Nord at Lille (1461-85)’ Meek gave a startling insight into the sense of awe and privilege he experienced working with these documents, illuminating how it felt to essentially be one item away from the individuals (including the king) he has studied for so long. The documentary evidence at Lille he argued, is of critical importance to a full understanding of the relations with England at the time, including the politics, diplomacy and wider literary and visual culture of the Yorkist period. It was a tantalising glimpse at what can be expected in his future work, especially as a lot of these treasures will subsequently become more accessible for future scholars as a result of his Trust-funded research.

After a lively discussion, this wrapped up a fantastic few days at the ‘Zoo’ where the Yorkist History Trust gained real traction in raising the profile of its core aim – to ‘further, education, learning and research related to the history of late medieval England and to disseminate the results of such education, learning and research’.

Exciting discussions on future endeavours were undertaken, friendships and connections were made, collaborations were discussed, new work was considered and multiple books were sold and purchased! Hopefully, further successful visits to this highly organised, influential, and enjoyable medieval conference can be undertaken by Trust delegates in the years to come.

Ben Fortune