Dear List Members,
This is a request directed in the first instance, I suppose, to REED
editors but also to anyone else on the list who might be able to help.
I'm working on an article concerning the waits of Lincolnshire (growing
out of a paper for the upcoming Leeds Congress). One of my major
concerns is to see how much I can reconstruct of their travel patterns.
So far, I have found substantial evidence (in the aggregate) of travel
by the waits of Barton-on-Humber, Boston, Grantham, Lincoln, and
Stamford (none for Grimsby or Louth). Part of the problem, as we all
know, is the fragmentary nature of the published records, though it does
appear that Lincolnshire waits were essentially regional, traveling in a
rough arc from Cambridge through Nottingham to the north as far as
Carlisle and York. Woodfill, for example, says that the Boston waits
visited Nottingham as many as 14 times, but he gives few usable details!
Anyway, my question to list members is: would any of you who happen to
have come across documentary evidence of travel by any Lincolnshire
waits, or of the existence of waits in other than the seven towns in
which I have found them, be willing to share that information with me?
Guaranteed copious acknowledgments, of course along with undying or
nearly undying gratitude? Thanks for any help that you might be able to
give, or paths that you might suggest. Goes without saying that I'd be
glad to share anything of interest with you as well.
Jim Stokes
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