Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 81

A multiple boundary ditch and double pit alignment were located on the route of the Oakham bypass construction which provided the opportunity for the investigation of these remains. These were extensively excavated in an attempt to clarify the function, significance and dating of the features. The results of the excavations are described and evidence for the dating, form, function and landscape setting of the monuments is discussed.

This is the first of three papers in which I propose to examine aspects of medieval Rothley, Leicestershire, starting with a paper on a thirteenth-century custumal of the soke of Rothley, originally drawn up when it was held by the Templars. This paper will examine the nature and content of the Rothley custumal, a document which survives as a sixteenth-century copy of a thirteenth-century original in the Records Office for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. The different elements within the custumal will be drawn out and conclusions about the dating of the custumal, first examined over a century ago by Clark, will be made.

Although testamentary evidence has been used to consider numerous important social and cultural issues in early-modern England (household and family size, extended kinship ties, social networks, religious affiliation, literacy rates and so on) the methodological questions of using ‘wills’ have until recently been implicitly and tacitly assumed rather than explicitly addressed. In the spirit of renewed inquiry into the meaning and significance of will-making and survival, an attempt is made here to explain the context of ‘wills’ in the archdeaconry of Leicester between 1522 and 1546 (preparatory to an analysis of religious adherence in this locale during the vicissitudes of the Henrican religious polity).

Aileen Connor and Richard Buckley with contributions from 27 others, Roman and Medieval Occupation in Causeway Lane, Leicester: Excavations 1980 and 1991, Leicester Archaeology Monographs 5 (Leicester, University of Leicester Archaeological Services [ULAS] and Leicester City Museum Service for the Inland Revenue, 1999); Patrick Clay, The Prehistory of the East Midlands Claylands: Aspects of settlement and land-use from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age in central England, Leicester Archaeology Monograph 9 (Leicester, University of Leicester School of Archaeology and Ancient History, 2002); Nicholas J. Cooper, The Archaeology of Rutland Water: Excavations at Empingham in the Gwash Valley, Rutland, 1967–73 and 1990, Leicester Archaeology Monographs 6 (Leicester, University of Leicester, 2000); Bowman, Paul, and Liddle, Peter (ed.), Leicestershire Landscapes, Leicestershire Museums Archaeological Fieldwork Group Monograph 1 (Leicester, Leicestershire Museums Archaeological Fieldwork Group, 2004); Joanna Story, Jill Bourne, and Richard Buckley (eds), Leicester Abbey: Medieval History, Archaeology, and Manuscript Studies (Leicester, The Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, 2006); John Langton and Graham Jones (eds), Forest and Chases of England and Wales c.1500 – c.1850: Towards a Survey and Analysis (Oxford, St John’s College Research Centre, 2005); David Stocker and Paul Everson, Summoning St Michael: Early Romanesque Towers in Lincolnshire (Oxford, Oxbow Books, 2006); Roy Palmer, Folklore of Leicestershire and Rutland (revised edn, Stroud, Tempus, 2002); [R. N. Trubshaw], Leicestershire Legends retold by Black Annis (Wymeswold, Heart of Albion Press, 2004); Mary Essinger, In My Fashion: Starting work in the heyday of Leicester’s knitwear factories (Wymeswold, Heart of Albion Press, 2005).