Add this eBook to your basket to receive access to all 1,985 records. Our indexes include entries for the spelling armstrong. In the period you have requested, we have the following 1,985 records (displaying 1 to 10): These sample scans are from the original record. You will get scans of the full pages or articles where the surname you searched for has been found. Your web browser may prevent the sample windows from opening; in this case please change your browser settings to allow pop-up windows from this site. Clergy, the religious and the faithful in Britain and Ireland
(1342-1362)
These are abstracts of the entries relating to Great Britain and Ireland from the Regesta of popes Clement VI and Innocent VI, from the period when the papal court was resident at Avignon. Many of these entries relate to clerical appointments and disputes, but there are also indults to devout laymen and women for portable altars, remission of sins, &c. This source is particularly valuable for Ireland, for which many of the key government records of this period are lost. Clement VI was consecrated and crowned 19 May 1342 (the day from which his pontificate is dated); Innocent VI was crowned 18 December 1352 and died 12 September 1362. The extracts were made by W. H. Bliss and C. Johnson from Regesta cxxxvii to ccxliv, and published in 1897. The registers are almost complete for these two pontificates. At his accession, Clement VI promised to grant benefices to all poor clerks who should come to Avignon and claim them within two months of his coronation. As many as 100,000 are said to have come, and the register for the first year of his pontificate runs to twelve volumes. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Staffordshire Charters
(1360-1369)
A large accumulation of documents preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, formerly constituted the antiquarian collections of Anthony a Wood, Roger Dodsworth, Ralph Thoresby, Thomas Martin of Palgrave, Thomas Tanner bishop of St Asaph, Dr Richard Rawlinson, Richard Furney archdeacon of Surrey, and Richard Gough. A calendar of these was prepared by William H. Turner and published in 1878 under the title 'Calendar of Charters and Rolls preserved in the Bodleian Library'. The word 'charters' is here used in a rather loose sense, including virtually any manuscript or copy of a manuscript, but the bulk of the contents consists of mediaeval deeds of conveyance. Turner's calendar deals with each briefly, naming the principal parties and the nature of the deed, but hardly ever lists the witnesses. Many of these charters were undated (dating of deeds did not become general until around 1350) or so damaged or defective ('mutilated' is Turner's usual description) as no longer to display a legible date. However, he contrived, from the style of the script and/or the nature of the contents, to estimate dates in such cases. The sample scan is from the start of the Bedfordshire list. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Clergy, the religious and the faithful in Britain and Ireland
(1362-1404)
These are abstracts of the entries relating to Great Britain and Ireland from the Regesta of popes Urban V, Gregory XI, (Anti-Pope) Clement VII, Urban VI and Boniface IX, and the Lateran Regesta of Boniface IX. Many of these entries relate to clerical appointments and disputes, but there are also indults to devout laymen and women for portable altars, remission of sins, &c. This source is particularly valuable for Ireland, for which many of the key government records of this period are lost. Urban V was consecrated and crowned 6 November 1362 (the day from which his pontificate is dated); Gregory XI was crowned 5 January 1371; Clement VII 31 October 1378; Urban VI 18 April 1378; Boniface IX 9 November 1389 and died 1 October 1404. Until 1376 the papacy was in exile at Avignon. The extracts were made by W. H. Bliss from Regesta ccxlv to cccxx and Lateran Regesta i to xliii, and published in 1902. Bliss remarked that 'although the writing of the Papal Registers of the 14th century is clearer than that of many contemporary English MSS., the entries in them were for the most part founded upon petitions or letters from different countries, and the scribes in the Papal Chancery must have experienced even greater difficulty in copying English proper names than English students experience nowadays in reading the early Chancery Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. Not having local or personal knowledge, they constantly misread doubtful letters.' | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Tenants of Somerset chantries
(1548)
Chantries were established to perform services for the souls of their founders and other faithful dead, including annual obits and anniversaries at which alms were usually distributed. The chantries could be at an existing altar in a parish church, a new altar in a side chapel of an existing church, in a new chapel in the churchyard or some miles from an existing church: few were founded before 1300, and most date from 1450 to 1500. Hospitals were places provided by similar foundations to receive the poor and weak; there were also religious guilds, brotherhoods and fraternities, and colleges (like large chantries at which three or more secular priests lived in common). An Act of Parliament of 1545 gave king Henry VIII the power to dissolve such chantries, chapels, &c., the proceeds to be devoted to the expenses of the wars in France and Scotland. Commissioners were appointed 14 February 1546 to survey the chantries and seize their property, and in 1548 the commissioners in Somerset produced this survey and rental. The individuals named are the tenants whose rents provided the chantry's income: occasionally an incumbent is named. The survey was edited by Emanuel Green for the Somerset Record Society, and published in 1888. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Freemen of London
(1540-1550)
The long series of mediaeval registers and books of admission of the freemen of London was destroyed by fire in 1786. Thirty surviving charred leaves were gathered together and rebound, becoming Egerton MS 2408 in the British Museum. The order is jumbled and generally speaking none can be dated with certainty, although all belong to the very end of the reign of Henry VIII and the start of the reign of his son, Edward VI. These are pages from the admission books. Each entry here usually gives the name of the person admitted to the freedom; his father's name, address and occupation; his entitlement to the freedom, usually by having served out an apprenticeship to a citizen, naming the master and his trade. Then there may follow a cross-reference to M. or N., being two volumes of another set of official books denoted by the letters of the alphabet, and following each other in chronological sequence, which evidently gave details of entries into apprenticeships. These other books no longer exist: but the dates given for entry do identify the start of the apprenticeship, and so give by implication a date for the eventual admission to freedom. In the margin is the name of the city ward and the total of the fee and fine paid on admission. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Liegemen and Traitors, Pirates and Spies
(1547-1550)
The Privy Council of Edward VI was responsible for internal security in England and Wales, and dealt with all manner of special and urgent matters
| Sample scan, click to enlarge
| London and Middlesex Feet of Fines
(1485-1569)
Pedes Finium - law suits, or pretended suits, putting on record the ownership of land in London and Middlesex. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Scottish litigants, rebels and cautioners
(1545-1569)
The Privy Council of Scotland exercised a superior judicial authority in the kingdom, and consequently received and dealt with a constant stream of petitions, as well as dealing with the internal security of the state. This register of the council from June 1545 to July 1569, in the reigns of Mary queen of Scots and king James VI, was edited by John Hill Burton, Historiographer Royal for Scotland, and published under the direction of the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland in 1877. Some of the individuals mentioned are the complainants, those of whom they complained, and the sureties on both sides: at this period, some of the complainants are alleging serious attacks, often of a feuding nature. Many of the bonds entered into by the cautioners are promises to keep the peace towards such enemies. Failure to answer to the council when summoned was a serious contempt, leading to being denounced a rebel, with serious consequences. But 'horning' was also used in the pursuit of debts: there was no imprisonment for debt in Scotland, but a creditor could have an obstinate debtor ordered, in the sovereign's name, to pay what was due, failing which, the debtor could be put to the horn, denounced as a rebel, and imprisoned as a rebel. In his preface to this volume, Burton remarked that "There might perhaps be objections to the abundance of names of persons and places unknown to fame; but it was considered that in such a work the proper names of all persons and places occurring in the Register should be preserved, to be at the service of genealogical as well as historical investigators".
| Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Cecil Manuscripts
(1540-1571)
Letters and papers of the Earl of Hertford and (1551-1571) sir William Cecil, Secretary of State. Also includes some miscellaneous material as early as 1306. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Liegemen and Traitors, Pirates and Spies
(1571-1575)
The Privy Council of queen Elizabeth was responsible for internal security in England and Wales, and dealt with all manner of special and urgent matters
| Sample scan, click to enlarge
|
Research your ancestry, family history, genealogy and one-name study by direct access to original records and archives indexed by surname.
|
