Experts from the Universities of Nottingham and Exeter are to ensure that a nationwide survey, commissioned by Henry VIII on the property and wealth of 16th-century England and Wales, be made publicly accessible for the first time.
The survey, known as the Valor Ecclesiasticus, set out to discover the financial state of the Church of which the Tudor king had just made himself head in his Break with Rome.
Valor Ecclesiasticus counted 8,000 parish churches, 650 monasteries, 22 cathedrals and numerous chapels, chantries, colleges, schools, hospitals and poor houses. It took note of their buildings and grounds, their farmland and the commercial, industrial and residential property in which they were invested. And it recorded the names of many of the men and women who lived and worked with these great enterprises and even gave attention to the large number of children, elderly and sick who depended on them for their welfare.
Early drafts of these records have recently come to light in private libraries and, together with the official copies held in the National Archives, it is now possible to trace each step of the surveyors and establish what they saw right across Tudor England.
With a grant of almost £1.5m from the UK Research & Innovation’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the three-year long project – Rediscovering the Tudor Domesday – will present the complete, nationwide survey on a free-to-access website. Users will be able to explore every locality in England and Wales as they were in Tudor times.
The Tudor Domesday is the project of an interdisciplinary team from the University of Nottingham, The National Archives, the University of Reading, the National Trust – as well as community groups in the South, Midlands and North – and is led by the University of Exeter.
Jayne Carroll, Professor in Early English and Name-Studies in the University of Nottingham’s School of English, and Project co-Lead, said “This is a wonderful opportunity for members of Nottingham’s Institute for Name-Studies to work alongside historians, Digital Humanities experts, and community groups on a neglected but hugely informative text. The project will make the text accessible to all and use it to bring the late medieval landscape to life.”
Project Lead, Professor James Clark of the University of Exeter, said: “Valor Ecclesiasticus is second only to Domesday Book as a three-dimensional snapshot of the realm, even surpassing it in the impression it gives of England’s landscape and the lives and occupations of local society. It reveals the men, women, and children who led, laboured for, or benefited from the great institutions of the day; and it offers us a rare glimpse of what they saw on their own horizons, even a hint of the weather they endured.
“The value of this remarkable survey has been locked away for centuries. By bringing together this large, interdisciplinary team from across the country, we can ensure every detail is mapped for each county, city, town, village and area of countryside.”
A digital team led by Exeter’s Dr Charlotte Tupman will transform the 500-year-old Latin manuscripts into modern, searchable records, translated, analysed and in each case linked to current maps using GiS (Geographic Information System) technology so that every location in the survey can be visualised.
The National Archives will lead programmes for schools and regional archives to develop the use of the survey’s data in teaching and researching Tudor local history. National Trust, the British Association for Local History and a range of community groups in counties across England will work with the project team in using the survey to enhance the interpretation of Tudor heritage sites.
Given the survey’s perspective on the historic distribution of wealth, patterns of work and the provision of social welfare, the team will also share its insights with UK government departments currently at work on policy development in these areas.
For more information about the Valor Ecclesiasticus see the National Archives’ Discover the Dissolution site.