The following is excerpted from a an article in the February 10, 2009 edition of Technology.net.
Important unpublished records of the Hundred Years War are to be made available online in an innovative new project led by the University of Oxford and assisted by The National Archives.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council has awarded almost £750,000 to the Universities of Oxford and Liverpool to digitise and edit the Gascon Rolls. These consist of 113 unpublished manuscripts which cover the era 1317 to 1468.
The rolls, currently held at The National Archives, comprise administrative records relating to English rule in medieval Gascony. These include writs and grants, but also contain enrolments of diplomatic and official material.
The project, led by Dr Malcolm Vale (University of Oxford) and Mr Paul Booth (University of Liverpool), will result in both a searchable online version and a printed edition of the Gascon Rolls. The aim is to make this rich but underused resource on England’s long and turbulent history with France, including that of the notorious Hundred Years War (1337-1453), more accessible to a wider audience.