Before the Merchant Adventuers: building the hall An account books of the fraternity of Jesus and Mary York 1357-69
York Printed for the Latin Project 2022
107 pp., 11 colour illustrations, 4to. Decorated wrappers. New. ISBN 9781527299870 The publication It details the rich merchants who contributed to the cost of the building; the workmen - carpenters, masons, tilers and daubers (plasterers) - who carried out the work; and the materials which were used. The book is essentially a transcript of a remarkable document: the account book of the 'Fraternity of Jesus and Mary, York', the religious fraternity which originally built the hall 660 years ago as a hospital for the poor and needy. Maud Seller, the first woman to ever be a member of the Merchant Adventurers produced a book on the first group of papers in the late 1940s which constituted a translation of some of the accounts but this is the firsts complete transcription. English translations assist the non medieval Latin reader to understand the scale of the building project. A short amount of accounts are also transcribed on the charitable works of the Fraternity and also on the feasts and festivities that they held. Text in Latin and English.