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The Irish Fiants of the Tudor
Sovereigns 1543 - 1603. (4 volumes)
[IRISH FIANTS] The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns 1521-1603. Four volumes. Dublin, by Éamonn de Búrca for Edmund Burke Publisher, 1994. Four volumes. Large octavo. Limited numbered edition of 350 sets only. Bound in full red buckram. Fine in slipcase. €975.00
The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Philip and Mary, Elizabeth I, could be called the single most important source for sixteenth-century Irish History.
Fiants were the warrants issued to command the drawing up of Letters Patent, the formal royal Letters by which grants of land, official appointments, pardons, etc. were made, but in the Tudor period the drawing up of the actual Letters Patent was often neglected, and the Fiants remained the basic record.
The original manuscript Fiants were destroyed with the remainder of the Irish records in 1922. A calendar of the Fiants was published in English in the Reports of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records of Ireland between 1875 and 1890. This calendar, printed in the English language, is of a very high quality, and extremely scarce. Individual parts hardly ever appear in the market-place. This edition is an invaluable aid to all those working in genealogy and place-names, as well as in the general history of the period.
The Fiants for pardons, some of which contain the names of hundreds of individuals, are especially valuable, not only for genealogies but for ascertaining the followings of Irish Chieftains and leaders, and tracing the movements of individuals from place to place. Our facsimile reprint will make this superb historical source widely available to individuals and libraries everywhere. Mr. Kenneth Nicholls, Lecturer in Irish History at University College, Cork, is supplying a new introduction and Thomas Gildea Cannon of Milwaukee, the foreword, therefore enhancing the value of this edition.
Updated: June 26, 2004 © deburca 2002