The records are of considerable importance for the local history of Peterborough and its region, but also have wider significance, for more survives from Peterborough Abbey than from most comparable institutions. Moreover, nowhere else has anyone attempted to put into print the whole range of surviving records from a major medieval monastery.  It has never been possible before to view in print the complete surviving archive of any one major institution, or to benefit from the advantages brought by editions, in terms of easy reference between categories and classes made possible through indexes and so forth.

Many of the volumes published so far are still in print and are available for purchase; please contact the series editor for further details (see below).

It is hoped that those volumes listed below as being in preparation might be published within, approximately, the next five years, and that thereafter work will begin on the other volumes listed in the Mellows bequest. Anyone interested in working on or contributing to these projected volumes should contact the series editor for further information.

Publication List

Already published:

• The Book of William Morton, Almoner of Peterborough Monastery, 1448–1467, transcribed and annotated by W. T. Mellows, edited by P. I. King, with an introduction by C. N. L. Brooke, Northamptonshire Record Society 16, Anthony Mellows Memorial volume 1, 1954.
• Carte Nativorum: A Peterborough Abbey Cartulary of the Fourteenth Century, ed. C.N.L. Brooke and M.M. Postan, Northamptonshire Record Society 20 (1960)
• The Cartularies and Registers of Peterborough Abbey, by Janet D. Martin Northamptonshire Record Society 28, Anthony Mellows Memorial Trust 1, 1978.
• The Court and Account Rolls of Peterborough Abbey: A Handlist, by Janet D. Martin, University of Leicester History Department Occasional Publication Number 2, 1980.
• Account Rolls of the Obedientiaries of Peterborough, edited by Joan Greatrex, Northamptonshire Record Society 33, 1984.
• The White Book of Peterborough:  The Registers of Abbot William of Woodford, 1295– 99, and Abbot Godfrey of Crowland, 1299–1321, edited by Sandra Raban and transcribed by Claire de Trafford and Sandra Raban, Northamptonshire Record Society 41, Anthony Mellows Memorial Trust 3, 2001.
• The Pilsgate Manor of the Sacrist of Peterborough Abbey: Part B of the Register of George Fraunceys, c. 1404, edited by Margaret E. Briston and Timothy M. Halliday, Northamptonshire Record Society 43, 2009.
• The Accounts of Godfrey of Crowland, Abbot of Peterborough, 1299–1321, edited and translated by Sandra Raban, Northamptonshire Record Society 45, Anthony Mellows Memorial Trust 5, 2011.

In preparation:

• The Court Rolls of the Town of Peterborough, 1320–1538, translated by Margaret E. Briston.
• The Register of George Fraunceys, part A, edited by Timothy Halliday.    
• The Registers of Abbot Richard Ashton, 1438–71, and Abbot William Ramsey, 1471–96/'The Book of Roger Bird', edited by Adam Chapman and Alan Rogers.
• The Peterborough Chronicle (combining the Chronicle of Hugh Candidus with the narrative portions of the Registers of Robert of Swaffham and Walter of Whittlesey), edited and translated by Edmund King.
• The Book of Robert of Swaffham (combining also the charter material in the other cartularies), edited and translated by Nicholas Karn.
• The Accounts of the abbot's manors from the 1290s, edited by Sandra Raban

Other titles listed in the Mellows Bequest:

• The Greater Book of John of Achurch.
• The Red Book of John of Achurch.
• The Register of Abbots William Gyenge and John Deeping.
• The Early Records of the Parliamentary Borough of Peterborough.
• The Register of Adam of Boothby.
• Bishop Cosin’s Peterborough Letters and Documents.
• Henry of Pytchley’s Book of Fees, second volume.

The Anthony Mellows Memorial Trust

The Anthony Mellows Memorial Trust was founded by William Mellows, Chapter Clerk of Peterborough Cathedral, as a memorial to his only and eponymous son, who had died in France in 1944. The publication of the records continued the work of William Mellows himself, who had published a great deal on the history of the Cathedral and town of Peterborough.

William Thomas Mellows (1882-1950) was a country solicitor in the family firm founded by his father. He also followed his father in becoming Town Clerk of Peterborough. In 1930 he relinquished the clerkship, but was immediately elected to the Soke of Peterborough County Council, of which he was a member for one year.

In 1907 he married Beatrice Edith, daughter of William Alfred Pitt, and from 1937 onwards he was Chapter Clerk for Peterborough Cathedral and its first lay Treasurer. Three years later he also became the Cathedral Librarian. Around this time he moved his family into the Precincts, to a house called the Vineyard.

In 1944, Anthony Mellows, one of William's sons, was killed while on special service with the Maquis in the south of France.

More about William and Anthony Mellows and the establishment of the Trust can be read in:
'Records of the Past: William Mellows and the Monks of Peterborough', Northamptonshire Past and Present 58 (2005), 7–16.

Further information

For further information, the series editor's contact details are:

Dr Nicholas Karn,
Dept. of History,
Faculty of Humanities,
University of Southampton,
Highfield,
Southampton
SO17 1BJ

n.e.karn@soton.ac.uk

A full set of published works by the Trust can also be consulted at Northamptonshire Record Office.