Farming in the Isles

I found another book that may be of future interest entitled English Farming, Past & Present by Rowland E Prothero (1917).  If my quick perusal is correct, it appears to start sometime just before the 14th century and goes on to describe how farming has changed and morphed over time.

Ireland & the Normans

I found a review (which I uploaded to my Box.net account) published in 1912 of the books Ireland Under the Normans (4 volumes) by Goddard Henry Orpen.  Mr. Orpen's books were published in 1911 and can be found at Internet Archive, a positively awesome source for public domain books.  In any case, the review inspired me to read Mr. Orpen's books, but they will have to go into the list of "Books I Need to Read".  If anyone has read these books and would care to comment, I would appreciate if they are actually worth reading after all. :D

For a glimpse into how and what he writes, Mr. Orpen also wrote "The Effects of Norman Rule in Ireland, 1169-1333", which I have, you guessed it, uploaded to my Box.net account.  Happy reading!

Tudor Constitutional Documents, 1485-1603

I found the Tudor Constitutional Documents, 1485-1603 as I was wandering around the net earlier today and I thought I would post a reminder blurb.

I find the actual laws and treatise of the time period to be fascinating.  I grant that much law verbage is dry and not worth the paper upon which it is written, but every now and then you find a unique and rather interesting bit at random that makes you question long held assumptions.  As I go through this book, I may post pieces that are pertinent to Irish research.

Maritime Ireland

Another book to add to my future reading list is The King's Customs, Vol 1 by Atton & Holland published in 1908.  It is supposed to be "an account of maritime revenue & contraband traffic in England, Scotland and Ireland, from the earliest times to the year 1800."  I have yet to challenge this claim, but for now a reminder is set in this post that I need to do so.  A quick perusal indicates that the information in the book may start around the time of Edward I or the late 13th century.

Chaucer & Ireland

I was perusing a few random sites today and I ran across an article that caught my fancy, so I wanted to share it.  The article I found references a late 14th century work (approximately 1370s) by Geoffrey Chaucer entitled 'Anelida and Arcite' (original text & modern translation).  What caught my interest was the title of the article, namely 'Chaucer's Tale of Ireland'.  I have uploaded the file to my Box.net account so that anyone else might read the article as well.  It's somewhat lengthy in how the author came to the conclusion that he made, but he does give a lot of information on the actual people of the late 14th century.