A Calendar of Wills Proved in the Consistory Court of the Bishop of Gloucester Vol. 1 - 1541-1650

With an appendix of dispersed wills, and wills proved in the peculiar courts of Bibury and Bishop's Cleeve.    

Price:  £9.79

A Calendar of Wills Proved in the Consistory Court of the Bishop of Gloucester Vol. 2 - 1660-1800

With an appendix of dispersed wills, and wills proved in the peculiar courts of Bibury and Bishop's Cleeve.    

Price:  £9.79

Abstracts of PCC Wills 1620 "Soame"

Abstracts of all of the wills from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury for 1620.    

Price:  £12.13

Abstracts of PCC Wills 1630 "Scroope"

Abstracts of all of the wills from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury for 1630.    

Price:  £12.13

Abstracts of PCC Wills 1658 "Wootton"

Abstracts of all of the wills from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury for 1658.    

Price:  £9.79

Bedfordshire Wills 1484-1533

Continuing from the local wills already published by the Society (in Vols.37 and 45 - both now out of print), this volume makes a further 298 wills accessible to the local historian. The PCC wills to 1548 have also been publishedin Vol.58 (still available).   paperback   ISBN 978-0-851-55059-6

Price:  £15.00

Darlington Wills and Inventories, 1600-1625

Forty-six deathbed wills and fifty-seven inventories of fifty-eight persons, seven of whom were women. Introduction covers areas such as the documents, the making of the wills and inventories, family and executors, the religiouspreamble, charitable bequests, valuations, the house and its contents, occupations, the clergy, the land and its occupiers and funerals. Includes glossary and list of the books of Isaac Lowden (priest, d. 1612).   hardback   ISBN 978-0-854-44058-0

Price:  £25.00

Dougal's Unclaimed Money Register

This book contains about 70,000 names of people who have been advertised for to claim property and money.    

Price:  £9.79

Gloucester Wills - Vol 1

The books contain complete name indexes, and also place indexes, and in volume 1, there are references to approximately 23,000 wills.    

Price:  £9.79

Gloucester Wills - Vol 2

Volume 2 covers the period 1660-1800    

Price:  £9.79

Index of Bristol Wills 1572-1792

Also includes wills in Great Orphan Books 1379-1674.    

Price:  £9.79

Inward Purity and Outward Splendour

Reads like a medieval detective story. A splendid book... should be treated as a companion volume to The Stripping of the Altars. JULIAN LITTEN, CHURCH TIMES

In the late medieval churches of the former deanery of Dunwich there are many features which were provided by testamentary gifts; this study of three thousand wills from fifty-two Suffolk parishes, written between 1370 and 1547, records such material and spiritual bequests. Many purchased prayer (the prayers of the poor being particularly sought), vital for the swift passage of the soul through Purgatory; other testators left instructions for the acquisition of liturgical books, church plate and embroidered vestments. Gifts and outright donations also provided stained glass, seven-sacrament fonts and rood-screens which have survived. The wills give no hint of the destruction that was to come - a medieval chancel with vacant niches and whitewashed walls says more than the wills are prepared to tell - but the pennies and shillings which had helped towards building expenses in this coastal district of East Anglia produced at least two of the finest parish churches in the country within a few decades of the Reformation.
JUDITH MIDDLETON-STEWART is a tutor for the Board of Continuing Education for the universities of Cambridge and East Anglia.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15820-4

Price:  £70.00

Lincoln Wills, 1532-1534

Lincolnshire has an extensive archive of sixteenth-century probate material, preserved in the registers of the consistory and archdeaconry courts of Lincoln, the peculiar court of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln Cathedral, and the archdeaconry court of Stow. Unlike the wills proved by the archiepiscopal probate courts of Canterbury and York, those from Lincolnshire reflect a population of lower social status. The overwhelming majority come from the ranks of husbandmen, yeomen, or tradesmen, rather than the gentry. In this respect the wills offer a valuable source for the cultural and religious preoccupations of the 'middling sort' and those lower in the social spectrum on the eve of the Reformation. Equally, the detailed bequests of property, livestock and land provide an insight into the material culture and prosperity of the testators, as well as extensive genealogical and topographical information of interest to local, regional and family historians.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-901-50366-4

Price:  £50.00

Probate Inventories of Lincoln Citizens, 1661-1714

Sixty inventories selected from the 590 that survive for the thirteen parishes of the City and County of Lincoln between 1661 and 1714. The parishes chosen are those in which urban occupations and residences rather than agricultural predominate. Probate inventories were drawn up to protect the heirs to an estate and to facilitate the distribution of bequests. This selection, together with an comprehensive introduction which includes a survey of the City of Lincoln and chapters on a wide range of occupations - butchers, farmers, gardeners, millers, bakers, goldsmiths etc., as well as a glossary of terms and an index of people and place names, makes fascinating reading, bothfor the serious scholar and for the armchair social historian. There is much here to study and to dip into.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-901-50353-4

Price:  £25.00

Swaledale Wills and Inventories 1522-1600

210 16th-century wills from the Archdeaconry of Richmond , giving information on houses and their contents, clothes, food, farming, leadmining, the woollen industry and other trades; also property-holding, status and rights of women, upbringing of children, charitable bequests and the settlement of disputes - all against the background of great religious and social change.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-902-12286-4

Price:  £50.00

Testamenta Eboracensia

A Selection of Wills from the Registry at York (part 2) A collection of 232 transcripts of wills at the York Registry covering a period of twenty eight years from 1429 to 1467 which will have great appeal to those studying medieval history and genealogy.    

Price:  £12.13

Testamenta Vetusta

A collection of 803 wills from the late 12th to 16th centuries. Wills were collected and edited by Nicholas Harris Nicholas from the British Museum, private collections, Dugdale's Baronage, Collins' Peerage, County histories, Memoirs of Families, and more. A priceless resource for genealogists.    

Price:  £12.13

Wills and Inventories from the Registry at Durham. Part II.

Documents dating 1580-1599, with several earlier examples omitted from Part I. Includes some documents from the York Registry. Much information on the great traders of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in this prosperous period, as well as the unsettled conditions of the border region. Generally transcribed in full, in English. Indexes of names and places for Parts I and II.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-854-44012-2

Price:  £25.00

Wills and Inventories from the Registry at Durham. Part III.

Documents dating 1543-1602. Expands the selection in previous parts by covering gentry, clergy, yeomen and merchants. Indexes of wills and inventories, names and places. See volumes 2, 38, 142.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-854-44014-6

Price:  £25.00

Wills and Inventories from the Registry at Durham. Part IV.

Documents dating 1603-1649. Indexes of wills and inventories, names and places. See volumes 2, 38, 112.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-854-44020-7

Price:  £25.00

Wills and Inventories Illustrative of the History, Manners, Language, Statistics &c. of the Northern Counties of England from the Eleventh Century Downwards. Part I.

Durham diocesan registry documents until 1580. Some Latin, mainly English, transcribed in full with occasional explanatory notes. Concludes with an account and Annual Report of the Surtees Society. See volumes 38, 112, 142.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-854-44010-8

Price:  £25.00

Wills of the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, 1439-1474

ARCHIVES: The making and registering of wills by ordinary people became widespread in East Anglia a century earlier than parts of midland and western England. It is of enormous value therefore to have one of the earliest surviving registers from an archdeaconry made available. [The volume] provides us with a window into rural society in mid-fifteenth-century East Anglia. It was a society bustling with small farmers, craftsmen involved in the cloth industry, and other artisans and traders. The wills record their concern for religion, the local community and the future welfare of wives, children, godchildren and even servants. There is a wealth of information here for the historianof religion, the family, material culture, agriculture and industry. This volume contains abstracts, in English, of nearly nine hundred wills made by residents of the western part of Suffolk in the mid-fifteenth century, together with a further five hundred 'probate sentences' - details of the granting of probate, without the associated wills. These are the earliest surviving wills of ordinary inhabitants of that part of Suffolk, excluding the titled, the wealthy and the clergy. They illustrate in considerable detail the social conditions of the time, including housing and household possessions, landholding and farming patterns, and provision for the poor. They are especially rich in references to the religious practices of the day. The introduction outlines the probate system of the area at that time and examines the form and content of a medieval will.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15811-2

Price:  £25.00

Wills of the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, 1630-1635

Wills of nearly 900 people, rich in detail, both personal and specific, as in old place names and geographical references.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15492-3

Price:  £25.00

Wills of the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, 1636-1638

-To wife Elizabeth, tenement where testator now dwells; on her death, same to go to grandchild Robert Large & heirs. To go to daughter Frances Miller, pair of sheets & stock of bees in the orchard-Early wills make compulsive reading and supply invaluable   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15345-2

Price:  £25.00

Wills of the Archdeaconry of Suffolk, 1625-6

Here are very full abstracts, fully indexed, of wills proved in the courts of the Archdeacon of Suffolk in the early seventeenth century. Early wills make compulsive reading, and also supply invaluable information for social and economic historians, local historians and genealogists. This edition brings out indications of the religious and political beliefs of the testator, and also evidence of personal relationships - `refractory' son, for instance -and commitments to learning and to apprenticeships. Household goods, often listed with an intensity of feeling, furnish the mind's eye with early Stuart interiors, and place-names reveal old customs and associations. Several bequests for education, religious instruction and the relief of the poor also illuminate the preoccupations of the local society of the period.   hardback   ISBN 978-0-851-15644-6

Price:  £25.00

York Clergy Wills 1520-1600: I MinsterClergy

One of the Borthwick Texts & Studies series. These volumes explore the Borthwick Institute's rich sources for the history of Yorkshire and the north of England.     ISBN 0-903857-20-0

Price:  £5.50

York Clergy Wills 1520-1600: II City Clergy

One of the Borthwick Texts & Studies series. These volumes explore the Borthwick Institute's rich sources for the history of Yorkshire and the north of England.   pp.126.   ISBN 0-903857-55-3

Price:  £7.00