First published in 1973, this collection of notes and documents relating to approximately 100 Yorkshire families who held land of the Crown in Yorkshire in the middle ages was compiled by the antiquary Sir Charles Travis Clay (1885–1978). Deeply interested in the history of his home county, he was held in high esteem for his editing of medieval charters, and the ten volumes of Early Yorkshire Charters that he edited between 1935 and 1965 (also reissued in this series as part of the complete thirteen-volume set) were regarded as a masterpiece. In Early Yorkshire Families, Clay's notes on each lineage establish its provenance, its genealogy, the origin of its land tenure (with further illustrative documents contained in the latter part of the work), and how land was held and transmitted. This work is an invaluable source of information for researchers interested in medieval Yorkshire or the feudal system generally.
