原始文献|British History Online再次开放资源

2020年3月30日至7月31日，British History Online（BHO）开放过一次Preminum资源（开放前需要购买或学校订阅）。随着2021年1月英国进入封锁状态，BHO决定再次开放Preminum内容，阅览期限至2021年4月30日。

新开放的两大原始文献

The extra 200 volumes now available are predominantly made up of two important series:

• the Calendar of Close Rolls, covering the reigns of Henry III to Henry VII (1244 to 1509)

• the Calendar of State Papers Domestic, covering the reigns of Edward VI to Anne (1547 to 1704)

Close Rolls record ‘Letters close’ which were issued by the Chancery in the name of the Crown. These letters were ‘usually of an executive nature conveying orders and instructions, and, therefore of a private and personal nature’ (The National Archives, 2020). Because of their nature, letters were ‘issued folded and “closed” by the application of the great seal’ (TNA).

The Close Rolls are records of these letters, initiated by Chancery to create a master version of the letters sent. BHO’s collection covers closed letters issued between 1244 and 1509 in a total of 61 volumes.

The State Papers Domestic are the accumulated papers of the secretaries of state relating to national home (domestic) affairs. They contain information on every facet of early modern government. State Papers took many formats: ‘including private and official letters, musters, reports, commissions and instructions, council orders and correspondence, proclamations, memoranda and draft parliamentary bills’ (TNA, 2020).

BHO’s collection covers State Papers Domestic for the period 1547 to 1704 in a total of 92 volumes.

In both cases, British History Online offers the Calendar of the original records, not the original records. These Calendars were created in the late Victorian period. They provide researchers with a full summary of the contents of the original document. For nearly all purposes these summaries are wholly sufficient for research.

其他正在开放的原始文献

 The remainder of the now free BHO content comprises the following eight series:

• Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, covering the period 1586-1606, in 13 volumes

• Calendar of State Papers, Scotland, covering the period 1547-1588, in 11 volumes

• Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, in 1 volume

• Calendar of Home Office Papers, George III, covering the period 1760-1775, in 4 volumes

• Calendar of Border Papers, covering the period 1560-1603, in 2 volumes

• Calendar of the Committee for the Advance of Money, covering the period 1642-55, in 4 volumes

• Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, covering the period 1643-60, in 5 volumes

A final series is the Calendar of Patent Rolls, covering the reigns of Henry III, Edward I and Edward II, and the early reign of Edward III (1216 to 1343), which appear in 20 volumes. The Patent Rolls are closely linked to the Close Rolls, being the records of Letters patent (or ‘open’). Volumes for Edward III’s reign are new to BHO and were added in December 2020.

Letters patent were unsealed letters expressing the sovereign’s will on a variety of matters of public interest. BHO’s 20 volumes are the first output in a new project to digitise and publish the Calendar of Patent Rolls up to and including the reign of Henry VII (1509); this project is ongoing.

For more on the Patent (and Close) Rolls, and their usefulness for medieval historians, see this earlier IHR blog post from Dr Adam Chapman of the IHR. （https://blog.history.ac.uk/2018/09/patent-rolls/）

Using all of British History Online for research

If you’re looking to undertake remote research, there’s much on BHO in addition to the newly released Premium Content. Notable collections—of private and secondary sources—that remain permanently free include:

 Within our Primary sources collection 

• House of Commons Journals, 1527-1699, in 13 volumes

• House of Lords journals, 1509-1793, in 42 volumes

• 41 volumes of primary works edited and published by the London Record Society – a particularly rich collection (including diaries and correspondence) on London history from the 15th to the 19th century

• Petitions from English Quarter Sessions and House of Lords: transcripts of 2526 petitions covering the period 1577-1799: a series in association with The Power of Petitioning research project at Birkbeck and University College London. Read more about the completed project here (November 2020).

• Privy Council Acts, 1552-1631, in 46 volumes

Within our Secondary sources collection

• 175 volumes of the Victoria County History, covering selected English counties from Bedfordshire to Yorkshire – an essential record for local and regional historians

• 60 volumes of the Survey of London which, at parish level, provides detailed architectural and topographical studies of the capital’s built environment.

• 32 volumes of the Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae: the standard authority for identifying the higher clergy of the Church of England from 1066 to 1857

• Listings of 30,000 History PhD and other theses awarded by UK and Irish universities between 1901 and 2014. Two sets of records cover History Theses, 1901-1970 and Theses, 1971-2014. A recent guide to using Theses for research is available here; from November 2020, 10,000 Theses (1971-2014) link to the British Library’s EThOS catalogue of digitised theses.（https://blog.history.ac.uk/2020/07/theses-completed-making-the-data-available/）

Within our Datasets collection 

• The Cromwell Association Directory of Parliamentarian Army Officers: a born-digital dictionary of over 4,000 officers who served in the armies of Parliament during the first English civil war (1642-6)

• The returns of the Hearth Tax assessment, covering the City of London (1662), Westminster (1664) and the City of London and Middlesex (1666), in 3 volumes

Within our Maps collection 

• Single volume maps of London created between 1561 and 1676

• Over 100 volumes of the Victorian Ordnance Survey series, including the complete 1:10,560 series and selected areas of the 1:2,500 maps

(Detail of Leake’s Survey of the City After the Great Fire of 1666. One of the scalable maps available on BHO.)

 Within our Guides and Calendars collection

• Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and the West Indies, covering 1574 to 1734 in 41 volumes

• Calendar of State Papers, Venice, covering British diplomatic reports from Venice between 1202 and 1675, in 38 volumes

• Calendar of the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, covering the period 1509-1547, in 28 volumes

Subject guides to British History Online

We’ve currently a small but growing set of subject guides to using BHO for the following, written for us by external users of the resource:

• Parliamentary History in BHO

• Urban History in BHO

• Religious History in BHO

• Local History in BHO

• Biographical History in BHO

We’d love to add some more subject guides to BHO, especially as more people come to the resource for first time. If you’re a historian working in an appropriate field of medieval or early modern British history—and would like to write us something on the following, or something else—please do get in touch: [e-mail]:

• Key documentary sources, such as State Papers Domestic, Foreign, Close Rolls, and others

• Scottish History

• Irish History

• Colonial History and the British Atlantic

• History of the built environment

• Legal History

• Britain’s territories and influence overseas

• Government or other aspects of life during specific periods or reigns

原文网址：https://blog.history.ac.uk/2020/03/british-history-online-makes-all-research-content-free-to-individual-users/

British History Online网址：https://www.british-history.ac.uk/

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