What is the nature of the archive in the 21st century? What is the role of the archivist in a postmodern, electronic environment? To attain any absolute answers would be beyond the ability, or diplomacy, of any individual. Yet there are some questions, and subsequent dividing lines, which can be brought to the fore: • Is the archive a resting place for non-current records, a repository that provides the connection between inscription and preservation in order to ensure the veracity of the record as an authentic and reliability piece of evidence? • Should the archivist be distinct from the records manager? • Is the historical canon, if permitted to even use the term, a construct of the archive? If the answer is in the affirmative then does this legitimise the archivist in imparting overt value to a record/collection? • Is the archivist a custodian and keeper? • Should the archivist interact with wider societal needs and concerns? The ideal and idea of the archive and the archivist has become virtually unrecognisable from its early 20th century construct as questions such as these have been debated in the journals of archival science. The antiquated Jenkinsonian world-view has been dispensed with. The moral and physical defence of the archive is unsubstantial. Ensuring the preservation of the record and making it available to the public does not provide the archivist with a presence. Rather, the authority of archival beginnings has become the dominant, over-arching ideology. Through the advocacy of records continuum theorists and the proponents of postmodernism, we are to “stop rowing, start steering”. In order to be accountable, transparent, open, and representative, the archival profession is to control context and master reality. The archive is to define its own truth criteria. The archivist is an agent of accountability. The archivist is to openly negate his/her independent, neutral, non-political, non-ideological role: (1) There is an archive fever of audit culture. This is in response to the rise of the ‘consumer’ – “There is a risk, we’ll take care of it”. Continual monitoring, evaluation, and targets results in the record being a self-reflexive construct. Audit trails create a sense of truthfulness to the facts and of closeness to past reality. These perspectives have entered the archive. Perceived recordkeeping failures have made the archive unaccountable to wider society. The ‘right’ records are not reaching the archive. Records therefore must be programmed in advance by archivists working as records managers to produce acceptable outcomes. The archivist shapes the creation of the record. Archiving is auditing the recordkeeping systems of a record creating body. Archiving is the “active production of objectively truthful documents”. (2) Postmodernism sanctions a creative reconstruction of the past. The archive is to “fabricate metaphors…[tell] imaginings of history”. The archive overtly interprets the record and creates interfaces that reflect this interpretation and subjectivity, reifying cultural essentialism to appear representative of all elements of society. The archivist becomes a conscious participant in the construction and advancement of meaning. The perception of the user towards the records is moulded. The archive becomes a means of memory rather than memory itself. This thesis takes on what the author perceives as certain often rhetorical excesses of the records continuum theory and those of postmodernism. It engages on their terms, with their arguments, and with the interdisciplinary nature of today’s archival thinking. It shows that ‘traditional’ archival concepts and values are just as necessary and relevant today as in the supposedly homogenous and positivist society in which they arose. This thesis thus upholds the Jenkinsonian ideals for archives. However, it recognises the difficulty of achieving them, and that the proponents of postmodernism examined here do not intend to dispense with rigorous reasoning, balanced analysis, and truth seeking in favour of unrestrained ‘anything goes’ interpretations of records and archival concepts. Indeed, the author himself draws on leading postmodern thinkers such as Foucault and Derrida to develop his own socio-political analysis of audit records produced in the ‘audit culture’ of the past few decades. In so doing, the author hopes to show how postmodern analysis can be done in the spirit of the Jenkinsonian commitment to protection of evidential values through truth seeking. That said, the author believes that the archivist does not create life but holds the materials within its institution in a coma, awaiting the user to awake them from their perpetual slumber. This is a true re-assertion of archival value and responsibility. In caring more for a record’s corroborative power and transformative effect we have got too interested in the way we deliver what we do at the expense of what we deliver – engineering over content. Yet by acting responsibly the archive broadens perspectives and enlightens the individual. This is the responsible archival performance worth pursuing.

The English Reformation was undeniably a period of change; this thesis seeks to consider how that change was managed by those who were responsible for its realisation and by individuals it affected directly, principally during the reign of Edward VI. It also considers how the methodology adopted contributes to the historiography of the period and where else it might be applied. Central to this study is the 1548 Dissolution of the Chantries, the related activities of the Court of Augmentations and the careers of clerics from five Midland counties for whom this meant lost employment. In addition to the quantitative analysis of original documentation from the Court, counties and dioceses, the modern understanding of change management for organisations and individuals has been drawn upon to extrapolate and consider further the Reformation experience. The conclusions show how clerical lives and careers were or were not continued, while emphasising that continuation requires an enabling psychological management of change which must not be overlooked. The evidence for the state demonstrates that its realisation of its immediate aims contained enough of formal change management requirements for success, up to a point, while adding to the longer-term formation of the state in ways unimagined.

This thesis provides a history of squeeze making in the discipline of Egyptology from its beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century to the continued use of tin squeezes in modern archaeological practice. The difference in approach to squeezes between the Egyptological and the Mediterranean disciplines will also be discussed. The analysis of the on-going value of squeezes produced more than a century ago highlights their importance for conservation and archival work as well as historical interpretation of the monuments of ancient Egypt. Using squeezes from seven archival collections in the UK as case studies, the accompanying catalogue and discussion highlights the information that can be obtained from the study of paper squeezes taken of Egyptian monuments in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The squeezes studied highlight a number of inscriptions which have disappeared or have been extremely damaged since the squeezes were taken, demonstrating the value of these documents in reconstructing the monuments of the past. The overall objective is to encourage scholars to identify the importance these squeezes hold for epigraphic, social and conservation disciplines which acknowledging the damage caused in their production should not define how they are studied (or indeed not studied) in the modern world.

Reducing the time spent by experts on the process of cuneiform fragment reconstruction means that more time can be spent on the translation and interpretation of the information that the cuneiform fragments contain. Modern computers and ancillary technologies such as 3D printing have the power to simplify the process of cuneiform reconstruction, and open up the field of reconstruction to non-experts through the use of virtual fragments and new reconstruction methods. In order for computers to be effective in this context, it is important to understand the current state of available technology, and to understand the behaviours and strategies of individuals attempting to reconstruct cuneiform fragments. This thesis presents the results of experiments to determine the behaviours and actions of participants reconstructing cuneiform tablets in the real and virtual world, and then assesses tools developed specifically to facilitate the virtual reconstruction process. The thesis also explores the contemporary and historical state of relevant technologies. The results of experiments show several interesting behaviours and strategies that participants use when reconstructing cuneiform fragments. The experiments include an analysis of the ratio between rotation and movement that show a significant difference between the actions of successful and unsuccessful participants, and an unexpected behaviour that the majority of participants adopted to work with the largest fragments first. It was also observed that the areas of the virtual workspace used by successful participants was different from the areas used by unsuccessful participants. The work further contributes to the field of reconstruction through the development of appropriate tools that have been experimentally proved to dramatically increase the number of potential joins that an individual is able to make over period of time.

Medieval cartularies have been the focus of many studies in the past few decades. Rather than simply repositories for charter texts, cartularies are now regarded by those who study them as carefully curated collections of texts whose contents and arrangement reflect the immediate concerns and archival environment of the communities that created them. One feature of cartularies which has not received attention is the ‘growth’ of their manuscripts beyond the initial phase of creation. This growth refers not only to the addition of fresh gatherings but also to the piecemeal addition of texts into the available spaces, often in a haphazard order and by many scribes working across a number of decades. ‘Manuscript growth’ is not an uncommon feature of cartularies from the central middle ages, particularly from the thirteenth century onwards. As a phenomenon, however, it has not been recognised or studied, for the good reason that it is difficult to discuss haphazard manuscript growth in a systematic way. This thesis offers a new methodology which engages with multi-scribe contributions to ‘active’ cartularies. It takes a holistic approach which integrates the textual and ‘physical’ evidence of cartularies, and embraces all forms of scribal activity. By studying the growth of cartulary manuscripts, we can gain significant insights into the contemporary use and perception of these valuable objects. This thesis therefore takes a fresh look at the ‘genre’ of medieval cartularies through the eyes of the manuscript evidence itself, and what this can reveal about its medieval scribes and readers. Two manuscripts are taken as the basis of this study: the older cartulary of Glasgow Cathedral (AUL SCA MS JB 1/3) and the older cartulary of Lindores Abbey (in private ownership in Caprington Castle). Chapter 1 introduces the field of cartulary studies, with reference to new work in this area (particularly in relation to cartularies in France and England). Central questions in this field are introduced, such as the definition of a cartulary, their creation and function. It also discusses approaches to analysing complex codices and multi-scribe activity within other manuscript genres. In Chapter 2, a new methodology will be introduced for analysing manuscript growth. This involves rethinking our approach to some familiar elements of manuscripts: their codicology, binding history, the scribes, as well as the challenge of dating the various contributions to the cartularies. New concepts and terminology will be introduced (such as ‘relative dating’ and ‘series’) that have been developed in response to these two complex cartularies. By applying this new methodology, the creation and subsequent growth of each manuscript can be examined in detail in Chapter 3 (for Glasgow Cathedral’s cartulary) and Chapter 4 (for Lindores Abbey’s). It is shown that the contemporary experience of these two cartularies was as a collection of simultaneously ‘active’ units (either unbound or in temporary bindings), offering new scribes a choice of where to place their material. Chapter 5 draws together the analysis, and focuses on the initial creation of the cartularies, the nature of their growth by piecemeal additions, and the reasons for this growth. This reveals two communities that took an active approach to reading and extending their cartularies, treating these manuscripts as a shared space. The vexed question of ‘repeated’ texts within cartularies is reconsidered in this light. The analysis allows us to develop a deeper understanding of the cartularies’ function and the role of their scribes as primarily readers, whose interactions with the manuscript were responsive and dynamic. The institutional setting is also discussed. The thesis concludes by considering the implications of this study for our understanding of the function and typology of cartularies, their relationship to archives of single-sheet documents, and as sources for institutional identity, as well as the potential of the methodology to act as a starting point for studying scribal interactions and scribes as readers in other manuscript genres with multi-scribe growth.