A volume of collected Libri Vastarum

The following is an image of the volume containing the bound Liber Vastarum bundles for 1655-1699. Originally the Libri Vastarum were produced and stored as individual bundles, each covering one year. At some point in the past four hundred years these were bound together in the form shown here. Similar bindings exist for other periods and record types. Whilst the Libri Vastarum tend to be in almost perfect chronological order the same cannot be said for some other bound records such as certain Libri Assedationis volumes. The five Composition books consist of a tidy concatenation of a very disparate and unordered set of documents which broadly relate to the same subject. Many record bundles (particularly for the sixteenth century) have survived loose, whilst others have got mixed in amongst other records.

This volume shown here is open to the start of a set of Liber Vastarum entries for Kirk Michael. The folio number (28) which appears in the top right corner relates to the page within the volume. Such numbers were added for most bound volumes and are useful for indexing the documents. As indicated above however they may bear no relation to the original ordering of the records.

This image by courtesy of Manx National Heritage.

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