Early modern history (British & W European c. 1500-c. 1800): English sources

The "Darnley Portrait" of Elizabeth I of England. c 1575.

[See also the Parliamentary Guide.]

Tudor economic documents : being select documents illustrating the economic and social history of Tudor England / edited by R.H. Tawney and Eileen Power.3 vols. London, 1924

List & Index Society (Series) on open shelves in Duke Humfrey's Library, Old Bodleian Library, under shelfmark L&ISoc. Check SOLO for some 240+ titles. Aims to provide photographic copies of unprinted lists and indexes kept in the Public Record Office, London, and of other unprinted guides and aids to the use of public archives in the British Isles. Publications include lists, texts, editions and tabulations of historical manuscripts. Also continues publication of some of the key series of government documents, notably the Calendar of Patent Rolls. Recent publications include medieval royal witness lists and itineraries, and gazetteers of early Tudor taxation and medieval markets and fairs. Index of publications available online at:

Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts: Publications kept in the Upper Reading Room, Old Bodleian Library - the Guide to Reports can be found at shelfmark K3.550. Includes Index of Places and Index of Persons. In its earlier days the Commission's work consisted in surveying and publishing reports on collections mainly in private hands - those of individuals, families, estates, corporations and other bodies. These reports, published as parliamentary papers, were supplemented from 1885 by a series of octavo calendars, such as those of the Cecil papers at Hatfield House or the records of the House of Lords. These reports and calendars, together with their published indexes, are, despite their fairly obvious limitations and deficiencies, still in regular and frequent use by historians, and particularly by political historians of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For more information on the Commission see:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

King James VI and I, Political writings / edited by Johann P. Sommerville. Cambridge, 1994

Thurloe State Papers, ed. T. Birch (1742). Available online via ECCO:

T. Carlyle, Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, eds. S. C. Lomas. 3 vols. (London, 1904).

The diary of Samuel Pepys : a new and complete transcription / edited by Robert Latham and William Matthews. 11 vols. London, 1970-1983

The diary of John Evelyn : now printed in full from the manuscripts belonging to Mr. John Evelyn / ed. by E.S. de Beer. 6 vols. Oxford, 2000

The entring book of Roger Morrice, 1677-1691 / [Mark Goldie, general editor]. 6 vols. Woodbridge, 2007

Tip - consult the relevant research guide on how best to find specific pre-1800 printed English newspapers in Oxford:

Bodleian Library:

• Quarto catalogues [SpColl RR R.Ref.722]
• A summary catalogue of western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford which have not hitherto been catalogued in the Quarto series. 7 vols. (Oxford, 1895-1953)  [SpColl RR X.Cat.1]

British Library

• Manuscript catalogue (Western mss): currently unavailable in aftermath of 2023 Cyberattack
• Catalogue of illuminated manuscripts: currently unavailable in aftermath of 2023 Cyberattack

Cambridge University Library:

Catalogues of manuscripts of other libraries (e.g. Bibliothèque Nationale, Folger, etc.) [to be found at Weston Library: R.Cat.]

Archives