Research is what we came for. So Monday morning, bright and early, we headed for the archive. As we walked up to the archive we found ourselves a few feet behind a person who had to be the archivist. He looked exactly the part. And he was. He was Allen Piper -- head of the archives. One should not think of this as too grand a job. His staff was one young assistant working there to find out if she would like to do archive work for the rest of her life.

Once past the locked door the room was large, bright and cheery  -- and empty of other persons. Mr. Piper was excited about the prospect of an eight year old occupying space in the archive, but we assured him that she would be leaving very shortly. So he relented and let Anna stay long enough to look at some of the documents. We had contacted him by email telling about our interest in the materials in the archive, and he had done a search of his data base and prepared the way for us. His young staff assistant was primed to help us with a printed list of relevant documents.

We are here for two things. One, they have an impressive collection of seals -- beginning with seals of the 12th century. Ingram, William, Thomas and Christopher have seals in the collection. When do you get to see anything from the 13th century? -- Especially something from which you can draw a line from then to now? We wanted to see the seals. And we did. And John Robert spent several hours taking pictures of them. The seals are attached to documents that have been folded up for storage for centuries. You have to unfold them, use the irons to hold down the edges, get the light just right [as best you can next to the window], and snap the picture. The most remarkable thing -- of course -- is that they would let us touch them. These pieces of vellum are 700 years old.

The second objective was finding new information about Boyntons. We knew that Thomas, the father, and Christopher, the son, had been heavily involved in Durham public life. Thomas was sheriff for more than a decade. Christopher was member of the commissions of peace, assize, and goal delivery for a couple of decades. We hoped to find bits and pieces of information that would help us understand what they were doing as sheriff and commission member.

Nothing about sheriff Boynton, but we did find that Thomas served as the bishop's real estate manager [escheator] in the early 1390s, as well as sheriff. We found some examples of Christopher's legal work -- he was a lawyer. And he did legal work for the prior of Durham priory before he did work for the Bishop of Durham. He received a letter of attorney to represent the prior as early as 1413. He was commissioned to represent the prior at parliament in 1417. He was described as the bishop's justice as early as 1430 [before Robert Neville became bishop]. And he was given the rent from land held by the bishop and prior for services rendered in 1439.

The most interesting new material was a description of the installation of bishop Robert Neville -- at which Christopher served as witness. It is a nice two page description of the ceremony and list of witnesses. We already have a Christopher story [a Robert, his son and godson of the bishop, story actually] that includes the installation. So it is nice to have the "official" description of the ceremony. And there are two cases heard by the commission of assize. This is Christopher at work -- with description in detail that we have very little of.

Research did not stop on Monday. Tuesday was research, too -- rather different, but equally successful, in its own way.

Tuesday morning I went off to the search room of the library on the green. They have the complete list [such as it is] of the documents extant for the bishops of Durham. They also have microfilm copies of all the records. Until now I have known that there are 105 sheriff rolls from 1335 to 16--. That is not enough rolls for a continuous series, but that was all the detail I could find. Well, there is a sheriff roll for 1335. They then skip to 1412. If you want to know about the work of the sheriff from 1391 to 1401 [Thomas] you are out of luck. Those rolls do not exist -- or if they do exist no one knows where they are. For several of the series I wanted the answer was -- not there. That is disappointing, but at least we know. There were several series which were there. Now we have to see if we can get a better description than how many rolls in a given year. But that awaits our week in London.

In the afternoon I talked with Virginia Murphey. She is a medieval latin researcher. She is well versed in the latin of the day and the handwriting of the day -- having just finished a two year project producing a paragraph by paragraph summary of a series of records of the prior of Durham for the 15th and 16th centuries. We had a long and very pleasant conversation about all sorts of things -- including her vote in the 2000 U.S. presidential election. She is an American living abroad for roughly 20 years. And I learned about the mudslide that had robbed her of a back yard, her early teenage daughter on the internet, etc. It was a very nice conversation, and she is going to do a small bit of translating for us so we can estimate the speed at which she can go through materials for us. We will finally find out about the cases Walter judged as temporary member of the king's court in 1208.

That was the research. We might try to find the county public record office today. But we are planning a day of castles.