Add this eBook to your basket to receive access to all 1,499 records. Our indexes include entries for the spelling black. In the period you have requested, we have the following 1,499 records (displaying 11 to 20): 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
(1484-1492)
These are abstracts of the entries relating to Great Britain and Ireland from the Lateran and Vatican Regesta of pope Innocent VIII. 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 most of the key government and ecclesiastical records of this period are lost. Innocent VIII was consecrated and crowned 12 September 1484 (the day from which his pontificate is dated) and died at Rome 25 July 1492. The extracts were made by J. A. Twemlow from Vatican Regesta dclxxxii to dcclxxi and Lateran Regesta dcccxxxviii to dcccxl. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Servants of the Scottish crown
(1473-1498)
Under the direction of the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland, the earliest Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, under the series Compota Thesauriorum Regum Scotorum, were abridged and published. This first volume, prepared by Thomas Dickson, curator of the Historical Department of the General Register House, was published in 1877. It contains the earliest surving accounts, from 1473 to 1474 in the reign of king James III, and the next, from 1488 to 1489 in the reign of king James IV. These were printed verbatim; but there then follow (page 166 onwards) accounts through to 1498 'considerably curtailed by the omission of unimportant entries'. These accounts are mostly lists of royal expenditure: many purchases of items for the court do not give the name of the merchants from whom they were bought, so the bulk of the personal names in the text are those of intermediaries, messengers, and various servants of the king. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Inhabitants of Leicester
(1327-1509)
The Corporation of Leicester commissioned the publication (in 1901) of extracts from the borough archives of 1327 to 1509, edited by Mary Bateson. This volume brings together several important sources: a coroner's roll of 1327; the merchant gild rolls; tax returns; court rolls; rentals; mayoral accounts, &c. All the Latin and French texts are accompanied by English translations. Not all the tax rolls surviving for this period are printed: but full lists of names are given for tallages of 1336 (pp. 34-40); 1347-8 (69-71); and 1354 (93-99); subsidy rolls of 1492 (331-334) and 1497 (351-353); and a benevolence roll of 1505 (370-374). There is a calendar of conveyances (388-446), and a list of mayors, bailiffs, and other officials (447-462); and, finally, entrants into the merchant gild
from 1465 to 1510. Membership of the merchant gild was by right of inheritance (s. p. = sede patris, in his father's seat), or by payment of a fee called a 'bull' (taurus). Those marked * paid their bull, and were thus, by implication, not natives, or at least not belonging to gild merchant families. By 1400 membership of the gild merchant had become the equivalent of gaining freedom of the borough (being a free burgess): but thitherto the two were not necessarily the same, and some of the merchant gild members were not resident in the borough, merely traded there. | 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".
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| Able Men of Newbury, Berkshire
(1569)
In the year 1569, when the insurrections in the North caused so much alarm, and levies were raised throughout the country for the service of queen Elizabeth, the commissioners for musters in Berkshire (sir Edward Unton, knt., of Wadley, John Fettiplace of Besils Legh, high sheriff, William Forster of Aldermaston, Edmond Docura of Chamberhouse and Roger Yonge of Basildon) attended at Newbury, when this return was made of men 'able to bear arms and mete for service in the warres' (State Papers Domestic Elizabeth lxiv 5). Full names are given, preceded by the letter a (archer or bowman), b (billman), g (gunner or musqueteer) or p (pikeman). | 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
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| Scottish litigants, rebels and cautioners
(1569-1578)
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 July 1569 to June 1578, in the reign of 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 1878. 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.
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| Scottish litigants, rebels and cautioners: excluded names
(1569-1578)
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 July 1569 to June 1578, in the reign of 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 1878. 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 the first 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". But by this, second, volume, he decided that complete coverage was impractical, with "the crowding in of proper names, all but a few being the names of obscure persons ... Borderers are called up in considerable groups, and ordered to find, or recorded as having found, sureties for giving compensation to persons plundered, or for good conduct for the future. Several burgesses are sometimes entered in a minute about a Corporation quarrel. When the particulars of unimportant private litigations are omitted, the names remain." He therefore devised this 'Index of Names excluded from the Text', giving name, conditions, and date in register.
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| Liegemen and Traitors, Pirates and Spies
(1578-1580)
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
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| Scottish litigants, rebels and cautioners
(1578-1585)
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 17 June 1578 to 31 July 1585, in the reign of king James VI, was edited by David Masson, and published under the direction of the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland in 1880. 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. The main text (to page 762) is from the Acta Secreti Concilii, containing the minutes of the Privy Council, and of occasional Conventions of the Estates. After that are printed some miscellaneous Privy Council documents from the same years. The sources most productive of names, the Acta Cautionis and Registration of Bands, are also the most repetitive in form, and are not transcribed verbatim and literatim: nevertheless, one of the editor's rules was for 'All proper names and names of places occurring in the originals to be preserved in the abstracts without exception, and in the exact original spelling.'
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