Add this eBook to your basket to receive access to all 2,129 records. Our indexes include entries for the spelling fowler. In the period you have requested, we have the following 2,129 records (displaying 31 to 40): 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. Clerks and Clergy in Herefordshire, Shropshire and Gloucestershire
(1504-1516)
The register of bishop Richard Mayew of Hereford, containing general diocesan business, but also including ordination lists for monks and clergy. Only a small proportion of the clerks went on to acquire benefices and remained celibate. Hereford diocese covered almost all Herefordshire, southern rural Shropshire, a westward arm of Worcestershire, and a northwestern slice of Gloucestershire. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Shropshire Charters
(1510-1519)
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
| Inhabitants of Suffolk
(1524)
The lay subsidy granted by Act of Parliament in 1523 was a tax on the laymen (as opposed to clergy), levied on householders, landowners, those possessing moveable goods worth £1 or more, and all workmen aged 16 or over earning £1 or more per annum. Real estate was taxed at a shilling in the pound; moveable goods worth £1 to £2 at fourpence a pound; £2 to £20 at sixpence a pound; and over £20 at a shilling in the pound. Wages were taxed at fourpence in the pound. Aliens were charged double; aliens not chargeable in the above categories had to pay a poll tax of eightpence. The records of the assessment for the county of Suffolk, mostly made in 1524, survive in 64 rolls in the National Archives. From 42 of these a compilation for the whole shire was printed in 1910 as Suffolk Green Book x. This includes a list of defaulters of 1526 and a subsidy roll of 1534 for Bury St Edmunds. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Taxpayers in Sussex
(1524-1525)
By Act of Parliament of 1523 (14 & 15 Hen. III, c. 16) a general subsidy was raised, spread over four years, from laymen, clergy and peers. In each of the first two years 1s in the £ was raised from annual income from land; 1s in the £ on capital goods worth over £2 and under £20; and a flat payment of 4d on goods worth from £1 to £2, and also by persons aged 16 and upwards in receipt of £1 per annum in wages. In the third year a further shilling in the pound was payable on land worth £50 and upwards a year; and in the fourth year a shilling in the pound on goods worth £50 and upwards. To raise this revenue, returns were required from every hundred, parish or township. In Sussex, the returns for 1524 and 1525 cover the city of Chichester (divided into Estrata, Westrata, Southstrata, North[strata] and Palenta), the borough of Midhurst, and then the rest of the county divided into rapes, within those into hundreds, and within those into boroughs, tithings, liberties, townships or parishes. It is important to note that the cinque ports of Hastings, Rye and Winchelsea were exempt from the subsidy, except for alien inhabitants; and that the town of Westbourne was also exempted 'as the town was lately destroyed by fire'. Aliens are noted as such, sometimes with nationality; and Brighthelmstone (Brighton), which had been burnt by the French in 1514, is only represented fragmentarily. The Sussex Record Society published this transcript and edition by Julian Cornwall of the 1524 and 1525 returns: the 1524 return was used for the main transcript where possible, names peculiar to the 1524 lists being marked with an asterisk, and those with amendments in 1524 with a dagger. At the foot of each 1524 return the new names from 1525 are given. Only the amount of the assessment is printed (m. = marks). Letters prefixed to the sum give the basis of the assessment, no letter (or G) meaning that it was on goods - A, annual wages; D, annual wages of day-labourers; F, fees or salaries of office; L, lands; P, profits; W, wages; x, no basis stated. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Inhabitants of Stratford upon Avon in Warwickshire
(1406-1535)
The Hospital of the Holy Cross was founded in 1269; in time this fraternity became a social and religious gild. 'The Register of the Gild of the Holy Cross, the Blessed Mary and St John the Baptist of Stratford-upon-Avon' was edited by J. Harvey Bloom, rector of Whitchurch, and printed in 1907. The register is a record of admissions to the gild, an account of the fines paid by new members, and the names of those in arrear. Each year's record usually starts on the Monday after Ascension Day (the sixth Thursday after Easter), when the new aldermen, master and proctors of the gild were elected, all duly named. Then follow the admissions to the gild, including payments for prayers and candles (lights) for the faithful dead; and the names of the sureties for these payments. Interspersed with this are occasional proclamations and memoranda concerning the fraternity. A peculiarity of this publication is that the years given at the head of each page (e. g. 1502-3) are those of the regnal year (in that case 18 Henry VII) in which the Monday after Ascension Day fell. The regnal years of Henry IV, Henry VI, Richard III and Henry VII all started after that day in the calendars of 1399, 1422, 1483 and 1485; so the gild registers during those years actually cover the following year to that shown in this printed text (in that case, 1503-4).
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| Murderers sheltering in Beverley Minster: and their victims
(1478-1539)
Criminals could evade pursuit by claiming sanctuary in the church of St John in Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. This liberty of the minster extended a league in every direction from the church door, and was divided into six sections, each giving greater sanctity to the rights of sanctuary, the sixth and innermost section being the presbitery or chancel. Near the altar there was a stone chair called the Frith Stool, seated on which an accused could claim total immunity. The bailiff would receive the oath of the fugitive, and a clerk recorded 'what man he killed, and wher with, and both ther namez'; the bailiff receiving a fee of 2s 4d, the clerk 4d. Sanctuary was afforded for 30 days, with food and lodging, after which the fugitive was protected to the borders of the county. But within 40 days he had to appear before the coroner, clothed in sackcloth, and be branded on his right hand with the sign of the letter A. This signified that he was swearing to abjure the realm: he was then free to leave the country unhindered. At Beverley the clerks kept a separate register of fugitives' petitions, which survives from 1478 to 1539 in Harleian Manuscript 560. It was edited and printed by the Surtees Society in 1837 under the title Sanctuarium Beverlacense. Some of the criminals came from a considerable distance: the great majority were murderers or homicides. Each entry usually gives full name, original address, (often) trade, a brief description of the crime, often with date, and usually the name of the victim. This index covers all the surnames given. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Inhabitants of Calais, and visitors
(1485-1543)
Richard Turpyn, a burgess of Calais, the English enclave on the French coast, compiled (or possessed) a chronicle of events there from 1485 to 1540, a copy of which survived among the Stowe manuscripts in the Harleian collection in the British Museum. This was edited for the Camden Society, together with a number of other papers relating to events in Calais in that period, by John Gough Nichols, and printed in 1846. Many of the persons named in the resulting book are knights and noblemen attending king Henry VII and king Henry VIII when on the Continent on diplomatic or marital business; but there is also a muster roll of the garrison of Calais of 1533 (136-139). | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Wakefield Lay Subsidy: Final Return: Westgate
(1545)
The lay subsidy of Agbrigg wapentake in the West Riding of Yorkshire (207/186) is in two parts: the anticipation and the final return. The subsidy, assessed at 1d in the pound on goods up to £5, 2d in the pound on goods worth £5 and above, and 2d in the pound on land, had been granted by parliament to king Henry VIII for three years. The anticipation, certified by the commissioners 30 April 1545, listed by township the holders of £6 or more in land or £10 or more in goods 'which said persons by virtue of our souerayng lords most jentill request and lovyng desire ar content frankly, quietly and indeladby to pay ther last payment' in advance, by way of anticipation of the third year's payment. The final return, certified 26 October 1545, lists the less wealthy part of the population, again by township, with their full names, assessment of their property, and (right-hand column) the amount due to be collected from them. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Inhabitants of Nottingham
(1485-1547)
The muniments of the borough of Nottingham include extensive mediaeval archives. A selection from these from the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII was prepared and edited by W. H. Stevenson for the Corporation, and printed, with translations of the passages in Latin, in 1885. The principal sources used are the borough Court Books, largely dealing with civil cases, for which an almost complete series survives for this period; Sessions Rolls (92 survive for the two reigns), in which crimes and misdemeanours are recorded; a Mickletorn or Leet jury roll; detailed chamberlains' and bridge-wardens' accounts; and the Hall Books, or council minutes. There are lists of burgesses enrolled; bakers admitted to bake; and fines for licences to trade. A subsidy roll of 1523-4 lists householders by street, and there is an appendix of local deeds, including some material dating back to the 14th century. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Liegemen and Traitors, Pirates and Spies
(1542-1547)
The Privy Council of Henry VIII was responsible for internal security in England and Wales, and dealt with all manner of special and urgent matters
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