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Two Distinguished Medievalists — Nellie Neilson and Bertha Putnam*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2014

Margaret Hastings  and
Elisabeth G. Kimball
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , Spring 1979 , pp. 142 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1979

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Footnotes

*

The authors were encouraged to write this article by Professor Bryce Lyon of Brown University and wish to acknowledge his assistance.

References

1. One thinks of Haskins, McIlwain, Willard, Baldwin, Lunt, Gras, and many others.

2. Holmes-Pollock Letters, ed. Howe, M. deW. (2nd. edn.; Cambridge, 1961)Google Scholar.

3. The Letters of Frederic William Maitland, ed. Fifoot, C. H. S. [Selden Society, Supplementary Series, I] (Cambridge, Eng. and London, 1965)Google Scholar, No.

4. Ibid., No. 124, 14 Aug. 1893.

5. Ibid., No. 500. This last letter addressed to R. Lane Poole was written on 5 Dec. 1906. He died before the end of December.

6. Humphreys, R. A., The Royal Historical Society, 1868-1968 (London, 1969)Google Scholar.

7. Baldwin, J. F., The King's Council in England during the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1913)Google Scholar.

8. Select Pleas of the Crown A.D. 1200-1225, ed. Maitland, F. W. [Selden Society, I] (London, 1888)Google Scholar.

9. Select Cases from the Coroners' Rolls A.D. 1265-1415, ed. Gross, C. [Selden Society, IX ] (London, 1896)Google Scholar; Select Cases concerning the Law Merchant A.D. 1270-1638, I, ed. Gross, C. [Selden Society, XXII ] (London, 1908). Volumes II (1929) and III (1932)Google Scholar were edited by H. Hall.

10. Gross, C., The Sources and Literature of English History from the Earliest Times to about 1485 (New York, 1900)Google Scholar. A second edition was published in 1915 by a committee consisting of E. Emerton, C. H. Haskins, and E. F. Gay, based on materials collected by Gross before his death in 1909.

11. Andrews is best known as a scholar and teacher in the field of American Colonial history, but during his early years as a scholar he was much engaged in the study and teaching of English history.

12. Neilson, N., Economic Conditions on the Manors of Ramsey Abbey (Philadelphia, 1899)Google Scholar. This work has been largely superseded by the more complete study by Raftis, J. A., The Estates of Ramsey Abbey: A Study in Economic Growth and Organization (Toronto, 1957)Google Scholar.

13. Maitland, F. W., Domesday Book and Beyond (Cambridge, Eng., 1897)Google Scholar.

14. While in England, Putnam also came under the influence of Maitland. For example, Cameron, J. R., Frederick William Maitland and the History of English Law (Norman, 1961)Google Scholar, dedicated to “Bertha Haven Putnam an early disciple of Frederick [sic] William Maitland who in her own books complemented his great studies in the legal history of Great Britain in the Middle Ages.”

15. Cole, A. C., A Hundred Years of Mount Holyoke College (New Haven, 1940)Google Scholar.

16. Neilson, N., “A Generation of History at Mount Holyoke,” Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly (May, 1939)Google Scholar.

17. The manscript based on her transcription has been published by the Dugdale Society, The Stoneleigh Leger Book, ed. Hilton, R. H. [Dugdale Society, Publications, XXIV] (Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar.

18. Neilson, N., Customary Rents [Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, II, ed. Vinogradoff, P.] (Oxford, 1910)Google Scholar.

19. Survey of the Honour of Denbigh, 1334, eds. Vinogradoff, P. and Morgan, F. [British Academy Records of the Social and Economic History of England and Wales, I] (London, 1914)Google Scholar.

20. A Terrier of Fleet, Lincolnshire, ed. Neilson, N. [British Academy Records of the Social and Economic History of England and Wales, IV] (London, 1920)Google Scholar.

21. The Cartulary and Terrier of the Priory of Bilsington, Kent, ed. Neilson, N. [British Academy Records of the Social and Economic History of England and Wales, VII] (London, 1928)Google Scholar.

22. Victoria County History, Kent, III (London, 1932), 177–269Google Scholar.

23. Neilson, N., “Custom and the Common Law in Kent,” Harvard Law Review, XXXVIII (Feb., 1925), 482–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. Neilson, N., “English Manorial Forms,” American Historical Review (hereafter, A.H.R.), XXXIV (July, 1928), 725–39Google Scholar.

25. Neilson, N., Medieval Agrarian Economy [The Berkshire Studies in European History] (New York, 1936)Google Scholar.

26. The Cambridge Economic History of Europe from the Decline of the Roman Empire, I, ed. Clapham, J. H. (Cambridge, Eng., 1941), 448–66Google Scholar.

27. The English Government at Work, 1327-1336, I, eds. Willard, J. F. and Morris, W. A. (Cambridge, 1940)Google Scholar, Ch. IX.

28. Neihon, N., “Early English Woodland and Waste,” Journal of Economic History, II (May, 1942), 54–62Google Scholar.

29. Year Books of Edward IV; 10 Edward IV and 49 Henry VI A.D. 1470, ed. Neilson, N. [Selden Society, XLVII] (London, 1931)Google Scholar. The volume was rather harshly reviewed by Richardson, H. G. in the Law Quarterly Review, XLVIII (Jan., 1932), 111–16Google Scholar.

30. The English Government at Work, 1327-1336, III, eds. Willard, J. F., Morris, W. A., and Dunham, W. H. Jr. (Cambridge, 1950)Google Scholar, Ch. VIII.

31. Neilson, N., “The Early Pattern of the Common Law,” A.H.R., XLIX (Jan., 1944), 201Google Scholar.

32. Ibid., LIII (Oct., 1947), 219-20, author not cited.

33. Putnam, B. H., The Enforcement of the Statutes of Labourers During the First Decade after the Black Death 1349-1359 [Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, XXXII] (New York, 1908)Google Scholar. Related to this general topic was a paper Putnam read before the American Historical Association in 1915, “Maximum Wage-Laws for Priests after the Black Death, 1348-1381,” A.H.R., XXI (Oct., 1915), 12–32Google Scholar. Using chiefly ecclesiastical sources, she surveyed the effects of the plague on the unbeneficed secular clergy and concluded that their dissatisfaction at the time of the Peasants' Revolt was the result of the restrictive measures imposed on them arbitrarily by their wealthy superiors.

34. Putnam, B. H., Early Treatises on the Practice of the Justices of the Peace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries [Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, VII, ed. Vinogradoff, P.] (Oxford, 1924)Google Scholar. In a note, “The Earliest Form of Lambard's ‘Eirenarcha’ and a Kent Wage Assessment of 1563,” English Historical Review (hereafter, E.H.R.), XLI (April, 1926), 260–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Putnam reported that a catalogue of a sale of books listed a work referred to by William Lambard which she had previously been unable to locate. Identification of additional manuscripts led to the publication of a revised bibliography of early treatises: Putnam, B. H., “Sixteenth-Century Treatises for Justices of the Peace,” University of Toronto Law Journal, VII (No. 1, Lent term, 1947), 137–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. Putnam, B. H., “The Transformation of the Keepers of the Peace into the Justices of the Peace, 1327-1380,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fourth Series, XII (London, 1929), 19–48Google Scholar. Changes in the peace commission were analyzed by a student of Putnam: Sillem, R., “Commissions of the Peace, 1380-1485,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, X (Nov., 1932), 81–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. Putnam, B. H., “Records of the Keepers of the Peace and their Supervisors, 1307-27,” E. H. R., XLV (July, 1930), 435–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37. Kent Keepers of the Peace, 1316-1317, ed. Putnam, B. H. [Kent Archaeological Society, Records Branch, XIII] (Ashford, 1933)Google Scholar.

38. Rolls of the Northamptonshire Sessions of the Peace, ed. Gollancz, M. [Northamptonshire Record Society, Publications, XI] (Kettering, 1940)Google Scholar.

39. The English Government at Work, 1327-1336, III, Ch. VI.

40. Proceedings before the Justices of the Peace in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries Edward III to Richard III, edited for the Ames Foundation by Putnam, B. H. (London, 1938)Google Scholar. Each roll is followed by addenda that provide the dates and places of the sessions, a description of the roll, a classification of the offenses presented, information about subsequent action on offenders in the king's bench or before the justices of gaol delivery, a summary of the results of the proceedings, a summary of the provisions of the commission or commissions under which the justices were acting, and lastly brief biographies of the men appointed to the commissions followed by the names of the working justices. A commentary on the indictments was contributed by T. F. T. Plucknett, and a variety of aids are provided in the form of texts of the peace commissions of 1327 and 1447, a list of commissions in print in 1938, two versions of the oath of the justices, the justices' charge to the jurors, c. 1403, a table of clerks of the peace for certain counties, c. 1427-37, and a list of known peace rolls with the identification of those in print in this volume and elsewhere. There is an analytical index to indictments and lists of statutes and commissions cited. For a list of peace rolls, medieval and subsequent, in print in 1946, see Kimball, E. G., “A Bibliography of the Printed Records of the Justices of the Peace for Counties,” University of Toronto Law Journal, VI, No. 2 (1946), 401–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for publications since 1946, see below, notes 43, 46.

41. Speculum, XV (July, 1940), 378Google Scholar.

42. Yorkshire Sessions of the Peace, 1316-1364, ed. Putnam, B. H. [Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, C.] (Wakefield, 1939)Google Scholar.

43. Sessions of the Peace for Bedfordshire 1355-1359, 1363-1364, ed. Kimball, E. G. [Historical Manuscripts Commission, JP16, Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, Publications, 48] (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Some Sessions of the Peace in Cambridgeshire in the Fourteenth Century 1340, 1380-83, ed. Taylor, M. M. [Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Publications, octavo series, LV] (Cambridge, Eng., 1942)Google Scholar; Essex Sessions of the Peace 1351, 1377-1379, ed. Furber, E. C. [Essex Archaeological Society, Occasional Publications, 3] (Colchester, 1953)Google Scholar; Rolls of the Gloucestershire Sessions of the Peace 1361-1398, ed. Kimball, E. G. [Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Transactions, 62] (Kendal, 1942)Google Scholar; Records of Some Sessions of the Peace in Lincolnshire 1360-1375, ed. R. Sillem; Records of Some Sessions of the Peace in Lincolnshire, 1381-1396, 2 vols., ed. Kimball, E. G. [Lincoln Record Society, Publications, 30, 49, 56] (Hereford, 1937, 1955, 1962)Google Scholar; Sessions of the Peace for Oxfordshire, 1387-1398, ed. Kimball, E. G. [Oxfordshire Record Society, 51]Google Scholar (in press); Rolls of the Warwickshire and Coventry Sessions of the Peace 1377-1397, ed. Kimball, E. G. [Dugdale Society, Publications, XVI] (London, 1939)Google Scholar; The Shropshire Peace Roll, 1400-1414, ed. Kimball, E. G. (Shrewsbury, 1959)Google Scholar. Some of the rolls throw light on economic conditions in times of unrest, e.g., those for Essex; others contain items of local interest although rarely anything as lurid as the Cantilupe murder in Lincolnshire in 1375.

44. For a recent reinterpretation of a clause in the peace commission of 1382, see Post, J. B., “The Peace Commissions of 1382,” E. H. R., XCI (Jan., 1976), 98–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45. Medieval Archives of the University of Oxford, II, ed. Salter, H. E. [Oxford Historical Society, LXXIII] (Oxford, 1921), ix–xvGoogle Scholar.

46. For the Coventry records, see above, note 43. See also Records of Some Sessions of the Peace in the City of Lincoln 1351-1354 and the Borough of Stamford 1351, ed. Kimball, E. G. [Lincoln Record Society, Publications, 65] (Lincoln, 1971)Google Scholar; Kimball, E. G., “Commissions of the Peace for Urban Jurisdictions in England, 1327-1485,” American Philosophical Society, Proceedings, 121, No. 6 (Dec., 1977), 448–74Google Scholar.

47. B. H. Putnam, “Records of Courts of Common Law, especially of the Sessions of the Justices of the Peace,” ibid., 91, No. 3 (1947), 258-73.

48. Putnam, B. H., The Place in Legal History of Sir William Shareshull Chief Justice of the King's Bench 1350-1361 [Cambridge Studies in English Legal History, ed. Hollond, H. A.] (Cambridge, Eng., 1950)Google Scholar. Putnam first published “Chief Justice Shareshull and the Economic and Legal Codes of 1351-1352,” University of Toronto Law Journal, V, No. 2 (1944), 251–81Google Scholar.

49. The number of majors in history who had taken advanced degrees by 1939 comes from Neilson's article cited in note 16. A former chairman of the department remembers that 38 was the number who had taken Ph.D's listed in the department files (which are no longer in existence). By now the number would have increased. Furthermore, Neilson and Putnam undoubtedly influenced many students to take advanced degrees in medieval literature and other related subjects.