Add this eBook to your basket to receive access to all 610 records. Our indexes include entries for the spelling beresford. In the period you have requested, we have the following 610 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. Staffordshire entries on the Assize, De Banco and Fine Rolls
(1307-1327)
Extracts of Staffordshire entries from these three series of records for the reign of king Edward II were made by Major-General the Hon. G. Wrottesley, and published by the William Salt Society in 1888. The justices in eyre (itinerant) holding assizes not only tried all civil actions outstanding on their advent, pleas of the crown and common pleas, but also interrogated the juries of each hundred and borough as to the Articles of the Eyre, inquiring into the king's proprietary rights, escheats, wardships, and questions of maladministration. The court of King's Bench (de Banco) sat in Westminster, similarly dealing with court cases brought in from throughout the country. The fine rolls record part of the government administration in England, with orders sent out day by day to individual officers, and commitment of particular responsibilities and duties. Wrottesley's extracts are far from exhaustive, as he confined his attention to those landed gentry families that he considered of importance.
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| Berkshire 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 very general 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 standard 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. He identified a few as forgeries, and these have been omitted from our indexes. The documents relate in the main to England, the Midlands, East Anglia and Yorkshire being particularly well represented, but there are some items from elsewhere in the British Isles and abroad.
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| Lichfield Diocese Ordinations: Deacons Secular
(1508)
The diocese of Coventry and Lichfield at this period included the whole of Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire; all Lancashire south of the Ribble; northern Shropshire (including Shrewsbury); and northern Warwickshire (including Birmingham and Coventry). Ordinations took place on the four Ember Saturdays in the year, and on certain other occasions; lists of ordinands to the degrees of acolyte, subdeacon, deacon and priest were preserved in the ordination registers, a distinction being made between those clerks who were 'regular', i. e., monks, friars, &c., and those who were 'secular', the main body of the clergy. All ordinands were celibate, and those regular, and the secular who obtained benefices, remained so, but only a minority of the secular ordinands ever obtained benefices, and most will doubtless have married later in life. No man might be ordained to subdeacon or higher without proving either that he was of independent means or that he was sponsored by an institution or a gentleman. Most entries in the register of such ordinations therefore have the words 'ad titulum' followed by the name of the religious house that was the sponsor. This is an important indication of the man's origins - boys whose families were monastic tenants, and who were educated by the monks, would naturally be sponsored by the abbey. Only men who were born and bred in the diocese could be ordained by the bishop, unless producing letters dimissory from the bishop of the diocese of their birth. These are the ordinations celebrated on Ember Saturday, 23 September 1508, by Thomas, bishop of Panados (Pavados), suffragan of bishop Geoffrey Blythe, in Lichfield cathedral. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Cecil Manuscripts
(1572-1582)
Letters and papers of William Cecil lord Burghley, Lord Treasurer. Includes some other material as early as 1553. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Cecil Manuscripts
(1583-1589)
Letters and papers of William Cecil lord Burghley, Lord Treasurer of England. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Cecil Manuscripts
(1590-1594)
Letters and papers of William Cecil lord Burghley, Lord Treasurer of England. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Secretary of State's Papers
(1600)
The letters and papers of sir Robert Cecil, Secretary of State, deal with all manner of government business in England, Ireland and abroad. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Lord Willoughby in the Netherlands
(1580-1601)
Mrs S. C. Lomas of the Historical Manuscripts Commission prepared this calendar of the manuscripts of the Earl of Ancaster preserved at Grimsthorpe, published in 1907. The records covered are from 1550 to 1737, but the bulk of this volume is given over to an edition of the correspondence of Peregrine lord Willoughby, who was appointed governor of Bergen-op-Zoom in 1586, and spent the next ten years commanding English and Dutch forces against those of Spain. There are also a few pages (449 to 452) dealing with a scattering of ancient deeds (from c.1160 to 1547); some items from inventories (452-459, c.1522 to after 1742) and household accounts (459-482, 1560-1661) which attracted Mrs Lomas's attention; and notes from a muster roll of Baberg hundred, Suffolk, of about 1522, from which some names are given in the text. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Official Papers
(1603-1610)
The State Papers Domestic cover all manner of business relating to England, Scotland, Ireland and the colonies, conducted in the office of the Secretary of State as well as other miscellaneous records.
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| Cheshire gentry and their ancestors
(1580-1613)
Richard St George, Norroy King of Arms, and Henry St George, Bluemaster Pursuivant of Arms, of the College of Arms, conducted a heraldic visitation of Cheshire in 1612 and 1613, recording pedigrees of gentlemen claiming the right to bear coats of arms. A copy of their visitation was elaborated by the addition of other Cheshire pedigrees in Harleian Manuscript 1535: and this manuscript was edited by sir George J. Armytage and John Paul Rylands for publication by the Harleian Society in 1909. It has a large number of pedigrees of Cheshire gentry, with a few brief abstracts from early documents; and the pedigrees of some offshoots from old Cheshire stocks which had taken root in other counties. The pedigrees largely relate to the period back from 1613 to the previous visitation of 1580, but there is also some older material, particularly back into the 15th century. In most cases each pedigree is prefixed by a heraldic description of the coat of arms. The printed volume also includes (pages 1 to 4) a list of Cheshire men who disclaimed the right to bear a coat of arms at the 1613 visitation, taken from Harleian Manuscript 1070. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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