FTP Information


Note from Robert C. Palmer, administrator of the AALT / WAALT (September 18, 2022)

I regrettably find that I must suspend ftp downloads from the AALT for the time being.

From the time I decided to devote myself to building the website in 2006, I considered the ability to download masses of information via ftp a highly desirable feature, since users would often be away from internet access or be charged for the length of use of the internet. I still think that ftp access is highly desirable, but internet access is now more generally assumed. I hope I will be able to restore ftp access at some time in the future, but for now it will be suspended. In the meantime, an inadequate substitute would be that the images of the document (NOT the thumbnails, but the images produced by clicking on the thumbnails) can simply be dragged one by one to your desktop. My experience is that that annoying process can bridge gaps when I know I will be out of contact with the internet: simply drag forty or fifty pictures one by one onto your desktop and then move them into a folder.

In the transfer to a new server, the external IT personnel I needed to hire for the process have strongly advised that under the AALT's current configuration open ftp access presents a very high vulnerability to malicious hacking and thus a danger to the database. Ftp access can be made safe, but it would require a much larger diversion of financial resources to IT personnel, and the current transfer to the new server was nearly three times more expensive than I had projected. Such a diversion would come at the cost of reducing the acquisition of more material and diminishing the resources available for future hardware. Note that renting digital space (an option that would provide the security at the same time as avoiding the problems of physical hardware) would be about six times as expensive as the use of a physical server.



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This website allows for two different modes of access: browsing the documents online or downloading whole volumes or plea rolls to your own computer. Downloading the documents allows you to minimize time on the internet (if you are charged for time online) and to work on the documents in places where you do not have access to the internet. However, downloading documents will also consume significant space on your hard drive.

If you decide to download whole documents, you should download via ftp, and you will need ftp software. Free ftp software is available online; sites can be found by going to Google and searching for "free ftp software."

For ftp purposes, the user name is AALT, the password is Openaccess4u, and the ftp host name is aalt.law.uh.edu. Alternatively, you may try ftp://aalt:openaccess4u@aalt.law.uh.edu.
Although the file structure was fairly intuitive, it has become somewhat more complicated. The first documents were arranged in folders by reign; the relevant folders at the beginning were all in the main folder AALT and were:

E1: Edward I
E2: Edward II
E3: Edward III
R2: Richard II
H4: Henry IV
H5: Henry V
H6: Henry VI
E4: Edward IV
E5: Edward VI
R3: Richard III
H7: Henry VII
H8: Henry VIII
E6: Edward VI
M: Mary and Phillip and Mary
Eliz: Elizabeth
J1: James I
C1: Charles I


For technical reasons, subsequent acquisitions have had to be placed in a different drive that appears as a subfolder of the main AALT folder called AALT1. AALT1 contains another set of folders for most reigns, so that all folders for each reign are not together. Future acquisitions will appear likewise in new drives that will appear as subfolders in the AALT folder called AALT2, AALT3, etc. If you're looking for a particular document to download via ftp, first look for that document online to ascertain whether its address is in AALT or AALT/AALT1. The complications stem from technical issues and the decision to spread acquisitions over the whole period to serve a broader segment of researchers instead of beginning in the earliest year and proceeding forward collecting all material at once.

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