The Register of the Goldsmiths’ Company: Deeds and Documents, c. 1190 to c. 1666, ed. and trans. by Lisa Jefferson. 3 vols. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2022, 1,717 pp., 3 color/ 26 b/w ill.

In 1417/8, the wardens of the Goldsmiths’ Company of London ordered the creation of a register to copy important documents and deeds into a 400 volume of vellum leaves, to prevent wear and tear on the originals, and to facilitate easier consultation regarding real estate properties held by the Company and the bequests that accompanied many of the property acquisitions. An anonymous scribe began work on sorting and organizing the originals into groups by physical location, and then copying their contents into folio groupings in mostly chronological order, leaving space for future additions made by additional scribes (though occasionally the allotted space proved insufficient, and cross-references indicate later folios in which the documentary trail was carried forward.) The whole was organized with a list of contents and bookended with other miscellaneous documents of interest to the goldsmiths.