Talk:Red Book of Worcester

Questions
Dumelow, this seems quite obscure, can I query some details
 * Date of survey: reference 2 says around 1299, which I think is safer than 1299
 * Manuscript does not survive: "it survives as a faulty eighteenth-century transcription of a lost manuscript which was loosely edited and published by Marjory Hollings in two volumes in 1934."
 * Language: this seems to be Latin based on reference 5 "Transcript, Latin, of copy made by Dr. Wiliam Thomas, ob. 1738." Also Thomas died in 1738, it is not the date of the transcript. Ref 3 quotes the book in Latin in its footnote 10. TSventon (talk) 13:29, 3 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi TSventon, thanks for the info and corrections. It is beyond my usual area of work and I seem to have made a few mistakes in my interpretation of the sources!  I've made some changes to the article and incorporated your new source.  I'd appreciate if you could review the changes and make sure I got them right - Dumelow (talk) 16:24, 3 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi Dumelow, I don't know much about the middle ages, but it is easier to spot someone else's mistakes than my own. Thank you for the changes, however the lead still says that the Red Book has been translated into English, but I have only found references saying that Hollings edited rather than translated it. The Commissioning section still says 1299 rather than circa 1299.
 * I think a sentence about William Thomas would be useful, he has an Oxford DNB article.
 * I have skimmed Day's thesis and villani and bordarii seem to relate to 1086 rather than 1299, so I would change
 * References pages 2 and 259.
 * to something like References pages 244, 259 and 260.
 * The lower class peasants were villeins, discussed on page 294. TSventon (talk) 01:43, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks TSventon, changes made as per your recommendations. I have been working on an article for Thomas for the past few days.  Hopefully I'll move it to mainspace today - Dumelow (talk) 07:44, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks again, I have found an interesting footnote: "60 Hollings, Red Book of Worcester. 61 These figures omit the ambiguous Osbert, by far the most popular nomen amongst male peasant tenants in the survey. It should be pointed out here that although the editor of the Red Book (Hollings) assigned these surveys to 1182, Christopher Dyer suggests an earlier date of c. 1170 (Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society: The Estates of the Bishopric of Worcester, 680-1540 [Cambridge, 1980], 3)." TSventon (talk) 10:00, 4 March 2022 (UTC)