From archae to archives

Acknowledgments of debt, made to the Jews of England between 1194 and 1290, have long been known to historians. The two largest collections of acknowledgements, stored in the Westminster Abbey Muniments and The National Archives, have been utilised in very different ways. There is no substantive difference in the nature of the records themselves and, as such, it is to the archival history of these documents that one must look in order to account for that discrepancy. Thus, this paper is concerned with establishing the custodial history of the acknowledgements and determining the impact that this has had upon their use. Equally, it uses this later history in order to cast new light upon the origins of the documents.