Medieval Writing
Paleography Exercises
Petition to the king of 1449 (London, National Archives, E.28/79/30). All images by permission of the National Archives.

This petition is from the abbot and convent of Tewkesbury, requesting letters patent under the great seal. Unfortunately, we do not know why, as the details of the matter were in an attached document. The script is a chancery hand of the bastarda type. The language is English, although the spelling is not what we are used to today. Try reading aloud if a word looks a bit funny.

Images on this and the text page have been updated from scans of old photocopies to colour images derived from National Archives downloads to give you a better idea of what the document actually looks like.

| overview | text | alphabet | abbreviations | structure | exercises |

| transcript | modern paraphrase |

Click on each of the above to walk your way through the text. The transcript will appear in a separate window so that you can use it for reference at any time. These exercises are designed to guide you through the text, not test you, so you can cheat as much as you like.
Script sample for this example
Index of Exercises
Index of Scripts

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This site is created and maintained by Dr Dianne Tillotson, freelance researcher and compulsive multimedia and web author. Comments are welcome. Material on this web site is copyright, but some parts more so than others. Please check here for copyright status and usage before you start making free with it. This page last modified 12/3/2008.