The Gascon Rolls Project

The Gascon Rolls, held in the U.K. National Archives (C 61) are important to the study of the twelfth century acquisition of the great duchy of Aquitaine by the Plantagenet kings of England. This project will make the unpublished Gascon Rolls available in electronic form for both the research project itself, and for the international research community. The final version of the edition of the Gascon Rolls will be available in a mixture of text and translation, and calendar (summary translation) online. It will be available alongside high quality digital images of the original rolls provided by The National Archives (TNA). There will also be extensive indexes which will be fully searchable and a full historical introduction. The rolls shed considerable light on English government in the last major continental possession of the English Crown, and reveal the relationship between the king, and his English administration, with his officers in the duchy, and with his subjects in his lordship of Aquitaine. They also provide one of the principal primary sources for any study of Anglo-French relations at a time when tensions were growing between the English and French crowns culminating in the outbreak of the Hundred Years War. The project is participating in the TEXTvre project.