Early minutes of the trade
The earliest manuscript volume possessed by the Hammermen is one containing the Kirkmaster’s Accounts covering the years 1494 to 1585. It is the oldest such record of any incorporated trade in Scotland as far as the Craft is aware and is of the primary importance in the study of pre-Reformation Edinburgh.
Over a number of years, the minute books of the Craft have been transcribed from the hand written minute books into electronic form, but are still in the dialect of the day. The origional minute books are held by the City Archivist and can be viewed with the approval of the Craft.
Scholars may apply to the Craft for access to the digital
transcripts of the minute books via the Boxmaster. The Contact / About Us
page provides details of the email addresses. The first series of links below
provide six page samples of the minute book transcriptions. In the
second set of links, encrypted and protected PDFs of the complete
archive are available. Also, for approved users,
who have provided appropriate assurances on the use of the data and
have acknowledged ownership of the documents by the craft, passwords
can be given to Microsoft Word versions of single documents in the archive.
Copyright of the digital records is held by the Incorporation of Hammermen of Edinburgh and
written permission is required before these documents can be distributed or used in any publication.
Sample documents
Encrypted documents
Encrypted Archive 1494 to 1585 (Word format) (PDF format)
Encrypted Archive 1583 to 1628 (Word format) (PDF format)
Encrypted Archive 1628 to 1644 (Word format) (PDF format)
Encrypted Archive to 1701 (Word format) (PDF format)
Encrypted Archive to 1732 part 1(Word format) (PDF format)
Encrypted Archive to 1732 part 2(Word format) (PDF format)
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