A deeper look at British History Online

The name British History Online is not very evocative of the wealth of resources the website provides. In fact, as their homepage boasts, the website contains many of the “core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles”.  Resources include texts, images, maps and datasets, the majority of which can be grouped into four categories. Highlights are presented for each category, but please note that this is only a small sampling of the documents that are actually available.

• State Papers:

Calendar of Close Rolls – Sixty-two volumes covering three centuries (1244 to 1509) from the reigns of Henry III to Henry VII. The rolls of letters close, held in the National Archives, are a fundamental source for the history of medieval government in England, and cover the period from the accession of Henry III in 1227 to the death of Henry VII in 1509.

Calendar of  State Papers Domestic – Ninety-one  volumes covering the reigns of all English monarchs from Edward VI to Anne (1547 to 1704), and including the interregnum.

Calendar of State Papers, Ireland – Covers the years 1586 to 1601.

Calendar of State Papers, Scotland – Covers the years 1547 to 1586.

Other notable state papers collections include the Calendar of the Committee for the Advance of Money, the Calendar of Border Papers, the Calendar of the Committee for Compounding and the Calendar of Home Office Papers.

• Parliamentary History:

House of Lords, Journal

House of Commons, Journal

House of Commons, Debates

Statutes of the Realm

The Journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth

House of Commons, History and Proceedings of (Chandler)

Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660

Parliament Rolls of Medieval England – Transcriptions from the manuscript rolls of all parliaments which survive for the period 1275 to 1504. Translations into modern English accompany the original entries.

• Local History:

Victoria History of the Counties of England- An encyclopedic history of each of the historic counties of England. There a large multi-volume sets for each country totaling 165 volumes.

Survey of London- A forty-one volume project studying London’s architecture and topography that began in 1894. There is an additional seventeen-volume monograph series dedicated to architectural histories of notable buildings.

• Ecclesiastical and Religious History:

Higher Clergy of the Church of England [Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae] – Covering the years 1300 to 1541, these are three different collections of records of the bishops and higher clergy for the dioceses of England and Wales.

Papal Documents- Seventeen volumes of papal documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, covering the years 1198 to 1578