The majority of the charters in this collection were once owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps (d. 1872), famed English antiquarian and bibliophile. Phillipps, a self-proclaimed “vello-maniac” (someone obsessed with vellum, i.e., parchment), was an avid collector of manuscript material in the 19th century. In fact, at the time of his death, the Phillipps collection was the largest collection of manuscript material in the 19th century at 60,000 manuscripts (including codices, fragments, and documents on both paper and parchment). According to A. N. L. Munby, Phillipps’ biographer, Phillipps likely spent up to a quarter of a million pounds (a quarter of a billion pounds in today’s money) on books over the course of his lifetime, often at the expense of his and his family’s well being. The Phillipps Collection was so extensive, in fact, that its dispersal took 61 years (1885-1950). Today, countless libraries across the world hold portions of the collection, though tracing the provenance of the massive collection - in particular its former documentary holdings - has proven difficult.

Many charters in this collection are labeled with “Phillipps numbers,” which record the numerical accession of that item into the Phillipps collection. Since the earliest accessioned charter in this collection is Ch_ang_01_01 (Phillipps no. 27,606), however, none of the charters in this collection are catalogued in the Catalogues librorum manuscriptorum in bibliotheca D. Thomae Phillipps (which ended with item number 23,837), nor in the three inventories made upon Phillipps’ death after 1872 (which go up to Phillipps No. 26,365 and do not list the “very large collections of uncatalogued deeds” which were later numbered by Phillipps’ grandson, Thomas FitzRoy Fenwick; Munby, Phillipps Studies 4, 166). Neither, moreover, are any of the charters in this collection indexed or mentioned in Munby’s five-volume study of Phillipps and his collection (Phillipps Studies [5 vols., Cambridge, 1951-60]; available for reference in the Rare Books and Special Collections reading room [Special Coll. Reg. Z 997 .P55 M8 no.1-5]).

The exact provenance and development of the collection is therefore uncertain, though there are a few hints. One of the charters, Ch_ang_01_43, concerns a transaction between the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, George Talbot, and a London goldsmith, Robert Sharpe. George Talbot (d. 1590), is the direct descendent of Thomas Furnival (fl. 1250-1279) of Ch_ang_01_05. Talbot and his descendents may have at one point held Ch_ang_01_05 and the other Sheffield charters in this collection, perhaps at Sheffield Castle, which Furnival was given permission to build in 1270 and Talbot used to house Mary, Queen of Scots, between 1570 and 1584. Regarding the items of a definite Phillipps provenance, however, it is unclear exactly how and when Phillipps acquired them. Still, given Phillipps’ habit of purchasing archives en masse from local auctions and the interconnectivity of many of the charters in this collection, it does not seem unlikely that he purchased multiple archives from Yorkshire and Lancashire at around the same time. There are also several items in the collection which do not bear Phillipps numbers, which may suggest that they were added to an established collection of Phillipps manuscripts by a later collector. At some point, however, the collection - either in its entirety or in a few groups later combined - was purchased by Les Enluminures and, in turn, sold as a single unit in 2003 (lot TM 429).

Included with the collection are modern (20th century) manuscript transcriptions on ruled paper in an unidentified hand, which were included in the lot as sold by Les Enluminures. In several instances, these transcriptions include a corresponding Phillipps number which was not transcribed on the medieval charter itself. Although these transcriptions contain some errors, they have been included in the folder with their corresponding charter to maintain archival integrity. Corrected transcriptions by Dr. Anne Elise Crafton have been included at item-level description in this finding aid.