Volunteers wanted to read Flodden’s secret histories
Archivist Linda Bankier with a 16th centuary guild book
AMATEUR historians from both sides of the border have been invited to lend their skills to a new project detailing the circumstances around the Battle of Flodden.
As part of the heritage and lottery funding towards Flodden 500, the commemoration of the battle in this its 500th anniversary year, a volunteer service is being set up to study medieval documents pertaining to the build-up and aftermath of Flodden, as well as the battle itself.
Volunteers are asked to attend a six week course at the Berwick Record Office, where archivist Linda Bankier will teach them the skills of basic palaeography - reading old handwriting.
The aim, says Linda, is to build up a database of sources that have been transcribed - not translated. “We want to keep the original spellings and phrasings,” she says, because even in the 1500s there was a recognisable border dialect.
“We want to give people the skills to do research like this on their own,” she said, “and after two years we should have the information to go out and show people in the area the history they might not even suspect.”
In preparation, Linda and Rachel Hosker of the Heritage Hub at Hawick visited archives in Durham and Edinburgh, as well as the National Archives and British Library in London.
Pertinent sources, in particular financial accounts from both England and Scotland, have been digitalised, so that volunteers can read them at their leisure at home.
The first meeting of the project is on January 22, in Berwick’s Records Office, Wallace Green, at 2pm. For more information, contact Linda on (01289) 301865 or at lbankier@woodhorn.org.uk.
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Weather for Berwick-Upon-Tweed
Wednesday 22 May 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 3 C to 15 C
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