Even More Continuing Collation

I've made some serious progress on George's court list since last week, and am nearing completion on his section of the Establishment Books. I hope to finish with this process by the end of this week or fairly early next week, so that I can pick up the next (and final, I believe) source(s) I'll be using to compile these court lists, the Magna Britanniae Notitiae, which I've described in an earlier post. Once I've finished collating the sources for George's court list, I'm planning on putting up a post comparing the courts of George and Caroline, in terms of size, differences in offices, etc...and I hope to have that up within the next week or so. For now, however, still plugging away!
This week's Interesting Historical Tidbit!!! is actually unrelated to my project, but it's a big example of British History in the news, so I figured I'd throw it in! This is a really fascinating find, and hopefully the archaeologists and researchers who will investigate the site and bodies will be able to learn more about life (and death) in medieval London!
British Experts find Plague Cemetery in Downtown London
Also, an interesting related article:
Apparently Black Death may have been airborne, rather than flea-borne.
Also, as a HUGE admirer of Greater London's Rail Infrastructure, I'm going to shamelessly include a link to the absolutely awesome Crossrail project. The tunneling for this project is what unearthed the skeletons, so its definitely related to British History. Right? Right. (No, but seriously, this is a pretty good source for more info on the find and the ongoing excavations).

Nothing too exciting to report at the moment. I'm still going through George's court officials, continuing to rely on the Establishment Books, which will ideally (time permitting!) be collated with information from Chamberlayne. I hope to have a meatier post midweek with more details on my research, and hopefully a few interesting facts or people I've come across. So, until midweek!

Midweek Update

As I hoped, I've been able to keep making some good progress on the research this week...not having midterms to deal with makes this much easier! I've moved into compiling the list for Prince George, using the Establishment Books to get a sense of some of the nobles and commoners who could be found at his court. Beyond that, though, there's not much of interest to report on the research front, so I thought I'd devote this weeks post mainly to our...
Interesting Historical Tidbit of the Week!
Our tidbit this week will deal with an important aspect of English record keeping I've had to deal with fairly extensively while going through the Establishment Books: the English fiscal calendar.
Like modern businesses and financial systems, the English used a fiscal calender that did not correspond with the regular calendar. The English fiscal calendar was, like modern fiscal years, divided into quarters. These quarters were based on the traditional liturgical year, and the dates were reckoned by the old Julian Calendar, since the new Gregorian Calendar would not be implemented in Britain until the 1750s. The four days that marked the quarters of the year were the following:

• Lady Day-March 25th. The traditional feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, "Our Lady's Day"...hence "Lady Day". This day marked the beginning of the ecclesiastical and fiscal year.
• Midsummer Day-June 24th
• Michelmas- September 29th. The feast of St. Michael the Archangel. As the midpoint of the fiscal year, it is fairly common in the Establishment Books for terms of service to begin or end on this day.
• Christmas Day- December 25th

Creeping towards Completion of the Continuing Collation of Caroline's Courtiers

In some ways I got a bit ahead of myself with my post two weeks ago. I had hoped to post several updates over the last two weeks, but unfortunately I underestimated the drain midterms would make on my research time, and so didn't get nearly as much as I might have liked done over that week. Fortunately, however, I did get a good amount of research done over Spring Break, and look forward to biting off some more big chunks of the project in the coming weeks now that I'm not weighed down with three different papers every night.
Today's post is going to be a brief update on what I got done over break, and a preview of what I plan on taking care of this week. I've just about finished going through the lists for the court of Princess/Queen Caroline and collating the information in the Establishment Books with the information in Sir John's lists. I've found the Establishment Books to be rather more comprehensive in terms of sheer numbers of names, which Prof. Bucholz told me was likely to be the case, while Sir John tends to have more information on the terms of the officeholders. I suppose it's fairly unsurprising that the Establishment Books are more complete, though, since they are essentially financial records...when in doubt, follow the money!
This week I'll be moving on to Prince/King George II and his court, doing the same thing I've been doing for Caroline, but in this case relying exclusively on the Establishment books. Hopefully, my next step will be to procure .pdf scans of Magna Britannia Notitiae, a series of contemporary lists of court officials compiled by John Chamberlayne.
I look forward to adding a few additional posts this later this week as my research continues to progress!
Interesting Historical Tidbit/Courtier of the Week!
I think this week I'll forgo an interesting tidbit, and instead provide some information about a selected courtier (or, in this case, pair of courtiers) I came across in my research this week: Thomas Fermor, the Earl of Pomfret, and his wife Henrietta. Henrietta Louisa Fermor (1698-1761) served Princess Caroline as a Lady of the Bed Chamber and continued in the same post after Caroline's Coronation, while Thomas (1698-1753) served as Master of the Horse after Caroline's coronation. Although Thomas was born a Lord, he was elevated to Earl of Pomfret, a town in Yorkshire today known as Pontefract, in 1721. Here's a picture of the First Earl of Pomfret:

"My Title is Earl"