Notes on the Histories of Recordkeeping
1534 seems to be a transitional period for the manner in which Thomas Cromwell’s incoming correspondence was managed. Investigating starts at the back of these letters, the thicket of signs acquired over 500 years: folio numbering, dating, annotations of subjects, names and matters. At the bottom layer of this thicket is the letter-writer’s superscription, and
I will be adding new categories: Classification, Registration and Manuals.
I am finishing up an essay which I will post about when I am done: “A Prospetto of 1803: Records Classification by Materie from Habsburg Lombardy to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy.”