Description
Book SynopsisThe records of Queen Elizabeth''s New Year''s gift exchanges convey a wealth of information about the late Tudor court. Records of twenty-four exchanges survive from the forty-five years of Elizabeth''s reign, naming more than 1,200 participants. The vellum rolls record what was given to the Queen and what she gave in return. The gift rolls convey important information on a broad range of topics, including Elizabethan biography, language, and social and economic conditions, as well as the age''s costume, jewellery, and plate, yet they remain largely unstudied by scholars in the many disciplines that would benefit from such evidence. A. Jeffries Collins, the first scholar to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the rolls, lamented more than a half-century ago how little use had been made of them by professional historians. Elizabethan studies rarely cite the substantial and varied information found in these documents, and even that use has been almost wholly restricted to the seven New
Trade ReviewLawson's book is replete with enticing goodies * Gerit Quealy, Huffington Post *
admirable ... Jane Lawson's edition of all the surviving gift rolls kept by the Elizabethan Jewel House to record gifts received and given by the Crown at New Year provides a fascinating journey through the plate, jewels, clothing and scribal books that reflect the brilliance of the late-sixteenth-century court. * Felicity Heal, English Historical Review *
a work of consummate scholarly endeavor that should be consulted by any academic active in research on Elizabeth's court - the likelihood that one will find a reference relevant to one's research is high. * Samuel Morrison Gallacher, Sixteenth Century Journal *
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