The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources has been helped enormously by the numerous learned societies devoted to the publication of documents, some specialising in a particular county or city, others in a particular type of document. They provide very useful editions of histories, monastic rules and liturgies, college statutes, accounts, and other documents, enriching the DMLBS with examples of a wide range of sources.
The Selden Society publishes legal records: this volume contains selections from the coroners’ rolls in the National Archives, including this illustration of ‘neglegentia’ (‘negligence’) taken from 1396, from a case of a mad woman who fell into a well.
The same page includes the cases of a child who drowned in a pan of milk and another who was buried under falling sand in a sandpit. These are typical of the many strange cases of death by misadventure contained in these rolls.
The image is from Select Cases from the Coroners’ Rolls, AD 1265-1413, Selden Soc Vol. IX (1895) p. 50 (image © DMLBS)
↢ Nicholas Upton, De Studio Militari | Anglo-Norman Glossary ↣
