A genealogical roll is a type of manuscript
scroll
A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing.
Structure
A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyru ...
, designed to illustrate genealogical information, particularly in a royal or noble family. Such rolls evolved in the second half of the thirteenth century in England, starting from a style of visual representation of a simplified
family tree
A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social work, are known as genograms.
Representations of ...
in works of
Matthew Paris
Matthew Paris, also known as Matthew of Paris (; 1200 – 1259), was an English people, English Benedictine monk, English historians in the Middle Ages, chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts, and cartographer who was based at St A ...
, where they supplemented the main text and were paginated. The type of representation in Paris, which had occasionally involved fold-outs for convenience, was transferred to scrolls of lengths that eventually reached over 40 feet (10 metres). More than 30 examples survive that relate to the English royal families. Genealogical rolls became very popular during the period of the
Wars of the Roses
The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of armed confrontations, machinations, battles and campaigns fought over control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The conflict was fo ...
, when they could show the dynastic claims at the centre of the conflict.
[Jonathan Hughes, ''Arthurian Myths and Alchemy: The Kingship of Edward IV'' (2002), p. 117.]
Notes
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Manuscripts by type