Royal Depositions and the ‘Canterbury Roll’

As the only fifteenth-century genealogical chronicle roll known to be in Australasia, the ‘Canterbury Roll’ is unique among New Zealand manuscript collections. The roll traces the ancestry of the British and English kings from Noah until the Wars of the Roses, raising issues of the significance of dynasty, myth, and ancestry for medieval kingship. Furthermore, although it appears to be a glorified ‘family tree’, examining the presentation of royal depositions on this manuscript offers new insights into political ideas about English kingship and reveals another facet of the cultural context of the House of Lancaster in late medieval England.