The Maltonian Website - for Malton School

Malton Grammar School

Foundation Charter

1547

The foundation document, written in 1547, still exists and is archived in the University of York's Borthwick Institute, York.  It had some conservation work done to it following my visit to see it in 2003, and it is possible to view it, by arrangement, by contacting the Borthwick Institute. Their website gives contact details.

The document is in Latin, written in ink on parchment, and would not score 10 out of 10 on a handwriting assessment!  It was kept in a Charity Commission  envelope until I visited the archive in 2003, hence the deterioration where the corners of the folds would be.  It is now mounted on linen to prevent further deterioration. It is approximately A3 size. A framed, scanned, full size copy hangs in the foyer at Malton School, and a reasonable scan of the document is available on this site.

A full translation is also available - the school has a book in its archive, written in clear copperplate writing, with the whole charter, plus various other copies of old documents (for example, the original land sale document for land at the old priory.) I must say that the translation always looks much longer than the original, but I am not a Latin scholar so cannot verify how exact the translation is. The translation text also appears in Nigel Hudleston's 1962 book A History of Malton and Norton.