Anyone interested in medieval history will undoubtedly come across the Rotuli Litterarum Patentium, the outstanding collection of letters patent written by English Kings. I am currently interested in King John, and the patent rolls have enabled an accurate timeline of his travels to be constructed and given insight into the workings of his regency.
The main problem with John’s patent rolls is that there does not appear to be a complete translation accessible to non-academic historians. They are written in 13th-century Latin and transcribed using abbreviations that at first appear unintelligible. To help with my research, I developed a method for translating the letters. Each letter is relatively short, so it is a manageable task. Sharing how I do it may help other amateur historians and horrify academics.
To be transparent, I do not speak Latin and am not a student of medieval manuscripts. My approach to translating these texts is pragmatic and logical. They may be flawed, but I capture the critical subject matter in an understandable format.
The language used in the letters is not grammatically correct classical Latin. The transcribed content includes abbreviations, non-standard letters, shortened names, etc. Simple concepts are described using many words, and complex matters are abbreviated. The structure of the sentences is not familiar to us today. Once a satisfactory literal translation has been achieved, it is necessary to reword sentences to convey the intended meaning in a comfortable format for a modern reader.
Overall, it is a challenging task but rewarding if you are motivated by a puzzles.
What doesn’t work?
First, I tried technology, capturing an image of the text from my computer screen with my phone and using Google’s optical character recognition to read and translate it. The results are not satisfactory.
This a letter dated 12th October 1216:
The following is the output of this method using Google image translation.
The output of this method is not acceptable. The app struggles to read the text, translates what it can read poorly, and overall makes no sense. There is little point in trying this.
What works better?
The following was my first method that gave reasonable results. Using technology again, but using human input rather than relying on AI to identify the transcription. First, go to the web page Google Translate. Once there, set the language of the input box to Latin, and the output to English (or whatever language you prefer).
I started typing the text as close to the original as possible into Google Translate. I typed the letters and words just as they appeared, ignoring the squiggles and additional marks.
I found better methods than entering the whole letter in one go. Abbreviations and unknown words confuse the system. Instead, I would try single words, groups of words, and entire sentences. Each approach gives alternative meanings for words and helps build an understanding of the intended meaning.
After entering text to be processed and getting a decent output, I copy both and keep a record. It helps to work through the content in order; stacking up alternative translations enables direct comparisons and the intended meaning is easier to identify this way.
I have tried changing spellings and leaving what appear to be abbreviations out. I am wary of straying far from the original and guessing spellings as it might corrupt the intended meaning. Generally, complete sentences give more explicit outputs, but abbreviations and names can prevent good translation. That is when fragments of sentences or individual words can help. Having a set of different options enables the construction of meaningful sentences. Putting sentences together gives an overall outline of the purpose of the letter. Once understood, the sentences can be rewritten as close to the original in a way that makes sense.
Below is an example breaking down of a letter dated 3rd October 1216:
To begin with, I know Rex means King and Robto de Dunewic is an abbreviated name.
Then, I started entering text into Google Translate. These are only some of the combinations I tried. Ones that give nonsense results I just ignore:
custodibz portus maris circa ptes de Scarborough = the custodians of the port of Scarborough
custodibz portus maris circa ptes de Scarborough psentes littas inspturis salt = custodians of the port of the sea around the gates of Scarborough.
Mandam vob qd duas naves = I will send you two ships
q venunt de Grimesby = they come from Grimsby
P…….tn ? = missing text
Nseutes = you are
secure p vos tensire = you can tighten it securely
secure vos tensire pmittatis hac vice = You will be able to tighten your grip securely this time
Cu Rebz = This is not recognised, so I tried alternatives
Cu reb = with the King
Cu rebes = with whom
Cu rebus = with things
mcandisis suis nullu eis mallu facientis = no one doing them any favors to his followers
mcandisis suis nullu eis mallu facientis nec fi pmittetes n eos impedientes in aliq qmin ad ptes suas secure psint redire = do not allow anyone to harm them, nor prevent them from returning safely to their homes in any way
nos eni securos fecerut qd nullas mcandisas suas ppas = they made us sure that there were no swindles of their own
et in huj rei testimoniu has littas tc eis fi fecim = and in testimony of this fact I have made these litts(?) for them.
I found the last sentence frustrating. Littas does not translate. As an alternative, I asked Bing AI to translate the sentence for me. Its response was:
Bing AI gave me an excellent sentence translation, which seemed very appropriate. It appears Littas was used for letters. Checking an English to Latin translation, ‘letter’ is actually ‘littera’, and then in Latin to English, I checked whether adding an s to the end is OK and ‘litteras’ is ‘letters’. So, ‘littas’ is probably a shortening of ‘litteras’.
All the above enabled me to construct my translation:
From the King to Roberto de Dunwich, custodian of the port of Scarborough. I will send you two ships of Basse Hurgod of Norway from Grimsby. You will be able to tighten your grip securely this time for the King. Do not allow anyone to harm them nor prevent them from returning safely to their homes in any way. They assured us that they would be loyal, and as a testimony to this matter, we have made these letters and sealed them with our seal. I am at Grimsby, 3rd October, in the 18th year of my reign.
It takes a few rewrites to get it to a point I am happy with. This one has turned out well. Compare it to the leter translation that I did when I had learnt more about how the abbreviations work
Overall, doing it this way gets results, is reasonably straightforward, and is not too time-consuming. However, with a bit of extra work, it is possible to get better results quicker.
Expanding the abbreviations
The best way to get good translations is to input text into Google Translate with the abbreviations expanded to whole words. That way, the translation engine has a better chance of outputting sensible text. To expand words, it is necessary to learn what the marks made by the transcriber mean. To make things worse, the system of abbreviations used does not appear to be a standard one.
The study of ancient writing is called palaeography. The squiggles and flourishes in the texts are abbreviations and contractions used to make it easier for the scribe. These symbols appear throughout the patent letters we are interested in but have been used widely by scribes and printers over centuries. Whilst there are some common standards, the meanings have changed over time. Those employed in the letters of John appear similar but with some unique features to widely accepted norms.
I tried guessing what some shortened words might mean. As I previously stated, I do not speak Latin and have never been taught Latin. So, although I am a logical person and can have a go at guessing, it is not a sensible way forward. It is a slow process and the results are not great. Therefore, I started looking for available resources that might give me some clues or information, and I have found the following so far:
The National Archives set up a fabulous resource that was an introduction to palaeography for beginners. Unfortunately, the interactive parts of the site no longer work. I guess the web content itself was written in an archaic language. Possibly an early version of Javascript, which is quite ironic. The number of users probably did not justify the cost of updating it. After all, it is a very niche area of interest. However, you can download documents like the one linked above and access fixed content pages that help from the site The National Archives | Latin Palaeography.
This document is also helpful as it introduces some more obscure or less often-used marks.
This document is less valuable but still worth having a look through.
Most recently, I have acquired a book “The record interpreter : a collection of abbreviations, Latin words and names used in English historical manuscripts and records” by Charles Trice Martin. This is interesting as it contains a very comprehensive list of abbreviated words. However, many of the abbreviations included inthe letters of John are not featured in the list. This is frustrating. It does, though, confirm many of the expansions I have used and enable the deduction of some others. Using the book solely as my guide, I did a translation of the 3rd of October letter to compare against the one that I had already done above. It can be seen below.
It is worth looking through the resources above and any other resources you can find (please do share if you find any). However, if your interest is the patent letters of King John, and you want a shortcut, then I have worked through many of the abbreviations and given their meaning below.
But first, a quick note on numbers. If you do not understand Roman numerals, you can use Google to turn them into modern numbers. Simply go to the Google search page and type, for example, “what is xviii in english numbers”. However, it helps to know that the final i’s in the numbers written in the patent letters were replaced with a j. So 18, usually written as xviii, is written xviij. If you leave the j on the end when you use Google, it assumes it was a typo and gives you the number as it should be written.
The abbreviations of King John’s patent letters
This section is a work in progress and will develop over time. I have captured images of words and letters to give examples and then provide an explanation.
A ‘t’ with an additional left-hand squiggle from the top of the letter should have an ‘e’ placed before it. This letter t with the squiggle is a word that appears regularly throughout the patent letters. It should be read as ‘et’, which means ‘and’ in English.
This is a two-for-one and another full word.
A horizontal straight line above a vowel indicates that an ‘m’ or an ‘n’ need adding usually after. When it is over a consonant, it can be either before or after, and it can be more than one letter missing.
The 3 at the end of the word in this context represents ‘us’. It can in other texts also represent ‘m’ or ‘et’ but I haven’t yet found anywhere in John’s letters that would apply.
So, this word should be written om[n]ib[us] or omnibus, which means ‘to all’. This word appears most regularly at the beginning of letters as part of the greeting. If the 3 at the end represented ‘et’, then the word would be omnibet, which means everywhere. So, it is possible that meaning of the word could appear in the letters.
Writing the word with the square brackets - om[n]ib[us] - is the proper way to do it. That way it shows how you have extended the word and would, I guess, make it easier to check your work later on. I will try to use that format throughout.
A bar or horizontal line across a long ascending or descending line in the letters h,l,p,d, means that either an ‘e’ or ‘er’ are missing after the letter. In the examples above:
ht should be h[e]t or het, which means ‘he has’. In this instance ‘er’ does not create a translatable word.
p should be p[er] or per, which means ‘through’.
The last example is a word pquirend, which should be p[er]quirend[er], which means ‘searching’.
Similar to the last example when an f has an extra bar an ‘a’ should be placed after. This makes fi become f[a]i or fai, which means ‘do’
A spiral shape represents the missing letters ‘us’.
h (with a bar, see above) followed by the spiral is h[er][us] or herus, which means ‘heir’.
p spiral t is p[us]t or pust, which translates as ‘let’s’ in Google which I am unsure about as it doesn’t translate back from English to Latin.
psint is p[us]sint or pussint, which means ‘they put’.
A spiral on top of a letter p, as in the example above, indicates that ‘re’ should be placed after. So, the above word is p[re]buim[us] or prebuimus, which means ‘we provided’.
A similar spiral or bubble on top of a t seems to indicate ‘er’ should be placed after it. The word above appears very frequently as it is litt[er]as or litteras, which means ‘letters’.
The p with a lower loop and bar is a shortening of pro. The letters ro being removed. In the example above, which appears often, if you look closely the i does not have a dot above it but a short horizontal bar. This means that the i should be followed by an m. The word therefore is p[ro]xi[m]a or proxima, which means next as in nearest or subsequent.
A t with a little 7 on top of it represents the letters ‘ur’ removed after. The example above has an l (L) with a bar before it, so it is sal[er]t[ur] or salertur, which means ‘be sold’.
The q with an extra squiggle on the tail shows the letters ‘ue’ are missing after. The word shown is therefore usq[ue] or usque, which means ‘until’.
This is the one that I struggle the most with. It is very difficult to pin down. The wavy line, or tilde, above a letter such as ñ. It appears to be used for the letters o or u and can indicate letters missing before or after. It can also represent multiple letters missing, not just the o or u. This does make it very difficult. There may be a rule I am missing here.
Adp is ap[u]d or apud, which means ‘at’.
q is likely q[uo] or quo, which means ‘where’. Or, possibly q[ui] or qui, which means ‘who’. It needs context to be certain.
dni is d[o]ni or doni, which means ‘gift’.
Reg is reg[us] or regus, which means ‘king’.
Finally ipo which is very difficult. It appears regularly in the sign-off to letters. In this case, I believe it represents the word ip[s]o or ipso, which means ‘himself’. A part sentence that regularly appears is “T. me ipo apud”. This usually prefaces the name of the town that John was staying when writing the letter. The best translation I can make is “I am at” as in “I am myself at”. But that doesn't seem quite correct.
Interesting abbreviated words
This word is Abb[at]em or Abbatem, the Abbot.
This word means people. It has straight lines above the o and the i, so it is ho[m]i[n]es or homines.
This word is interesting. It refers to crossbow - balistar. The tilde over the final r shows something is missing. I think it is likely a double i, so balistar[ii] or balistarii, which means crossbowmen. In the context it was taken from, this would make sense. In other contexts perhaps not.
Translation by the book
Once I got hold of the book “The Record Interpreter: a collection of abbreviations, Latin words and Names Used in English historical manuscripts and records” by Charles Trice Martin, I wanted to see how much better I would be at getting good translations. To get a comparison, I translated the letter of October the 3rd, which I had already translated. These are the results:
First, I extended the abbreviations:
Rex Rob[er]to de Dunewic[e] [e]t custodib[us] portus maris circa p[or]tes de Scarborough p[rae]sentes litt[er]as insp[ec]turis sal[u]t[em]. Mandam[us] vob[isare] q[uo]d duas naves Basse [e]t Hurgod[er] Norway q[ue] ven[er]unt de Grimsby p[er] t[ra]nse[n]utes: secure p[er] vos t[ra]nsire p[er]mittatis hac vice cu[m] reb[us] [e]t m[er]candisis suis nullu[m] eis malu[m] facientes nec f[ier]i p[er]mitte[n]tes n[ee] eos impedientes in aliq[uo] q[uo]min[us] ad p[er]tes suas secure pr[ae]sint redire. Nos eni securos feceru[n]t q[ui]d[em] nullas m[er]candisas suas p[ro]p[ri]as. Et in huj[us] rei testimoniu[m] has litt[er]as [e]tc eis f[ier]i fecim[us]. T[estata] me ip[s]o ap[u]d Grimsby.
I felt happier that the extended words were more likely accurate. Then I pasted the text (without the brackets) into Google Translate and this is the result that I got:
King Robert of Dunewice and the porters of the sea about the ports of Scarborough present letters of inspection of the safety. We command you that the two ships Basse and Hurgoder of Norway, which came from Grimsby, have passed by you: you have allowed them to pass safely this time with their goods and merchandise, doing them no harm, nor allowing them to be done, nor hindering them in any way from which they may safely return to their ships. Indeed, they made us safe with no merchandise of their own. And in testimony of this we caused these letters, etc., to be made to them. Witnessed by myself at Grimsby.
This output is somewhat different from my original, which was:
From the King to Roberto de Dunwich, custodian of the port of Scarborough. I will send you two ships of Basse Hurgod of Norway from Grimsby. You will be able to tighten your grip securely this time for the King. Do not allow anyone to harm them nor prevent them from returning safely to their homes in any way. They assured us that they would be loyal, and as a testimony to this matter, we have made these letters and sealed them with our seal. I am at Grimsby, 3rd October, in the 18th year of my reign.
It is obvious that some of my original translation is incorrect. The differences are caused by my not expanding abbreviated words or guessing at the expansions and getting them wrong. The obvious example is where I guessed t3nsire (the 3 is above the t) to be tensire (to tighten), whereas it should have been transire (to pass). My mistake gave a completely erroneous sentence and overall meaning to the letter. It is a shame that the correct translation is a quite mundane letter of protection rather than the command to get a grip of the port for the king that I originally thought it was.
Tidying up the new version of the letter I get:
From the King to Robert of Dunwich, custodian of the port of Scarborough. We present for your inspection letters of safe passage. We command you that the two ships Basse and Hurgoder of Norway, which came from Grimsby, shall be allowed to pass safely this time with their goods and merchandise, doing them no harm, nor allowing nor allowing any harm to be done, nor hindering them in any way so they may safely return to their ships. Indeed, they made us safe with no merchandise of their own. They assured us that they would be loyal, and as a testimony to this matter, we have made these letters and sealed them with our seal. Witnessed by myself at Grimsby.
This final translation and rewording is, I believe, close to the meaning intended at the time written in a modern style.
Conclusion
Translating the letters of King John is not a simple task. In order to get to an understanding of the content of the letters it is essential to know the shorthand squiggles and contractions that were used by the original scribes and the later transcribers. This is not as straightforward as you may think if you read a book on the subject of medieval Latin. The abbreviations used in John's letters are not standard. Therefore, it is necessary to learn the specific notations. This is not as onerous a task as you may think. With a crib sheet to hand, it is quite straightforward to decipher most of a letter. A little more research and checking should get the rest. Then, thanks to technology, copying and pasting into Google Translate gives a very quick translation. That is not the end though. Some creative writing is required to craft a version of the letter that conveys the intended meaning in a comprehensible way to a modern reader.
If you are interested in John's letters, I hope this helps in a small way and encourages you to have a go at translating them. It was written as much as an aide memoire as I worked through the challenge. So, I hope it makes sense to others.
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