Gower Surname Ancestry ResultsOur indexes 1000-1999 include entries for the spelling 'gower'. In the period you have requested, we have the following 719 records (displaying 31 to 40): Single Surname Subscription | | | Buying all 719 results of this search individually would cost £3,842.00. But you can have free access to all 719 records for a year, to view, to save and print, for £100. Save £3,742.00. More... |
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. Landowners and tenants in Suffolk
(1345-1485)
Inquisitions ad quod damnum were held by the appropriate sheriff or escheator (or other officer in whose bailiwick the matter in question might lie) to investigate cases in which the royal or public interest might be damaged by proposed alienation or settlement of land (especially alienation to religious uses, into mortmain). The key findings from these inquisitions were as to the tenure of the land and the service due from it; its yearly value; the lands remaining to the grantor, and whether they sufficed to discharge all duties and customs due from him; and whether he can still be put upon juries, assizes and recognitions, so that the country be not burdened by his withdrawal from them. Generally speaking, this process had the makings of a system of licensing such alienations, and raising money in proportion to the valuations. Equally, there are many items that deal with subjects such as the closing of public roads, the felling or inclosing of woods, or the proposed grant of liberties or immunities. A calendar of these inquisitions from the 19th year of the reign of king Edward III to the 2nd year of Richard III was prepared by the Public Record Office and published in 1906. We have now indexed this calendar by surname and county. Most of the individuals appearing in the calendar are either pious individuals seeking to make grants to religious bodies for the sake of their souls; or landowners securing the disposition and settling of their real estate. But some other names do appear - tenants, trustees, chaplains and clerks.GOWER. Cost: £6.00.  | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Yorkshire Testators and Legatees
(1484-1508)
Wills and testaments from the diocese of York (Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Hexhamshire, Lancashire north of the Ribble, and southwest Westmorland) registered at York. Richmond and Southwell archdeaconries had their own lower probate jurisdictions, so the wills registered at York are predominantly from the East and West Ridings and the eastern part of the North Riding of Yorkshire. In theory, wills dealt with real property and testaments with personal property, but the distinction hardly applies in practice: most of these wills are in Latin, but some are in English. Being before the Reformation, they commonly start with benefactions to churches, chantries, chapels, &c., and with provisions for the burning of candles ('lights') and saying of masses. This publication in 1869 by the Surtees Society as Testamenta Eboracensia iv is an edition by James Raine of selected wills from the period. Some additional material is included from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and the York Dean and Chapter archives.GOWER. Cost: £4.00. | 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.GOWER. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Lancashire Feet of Fines
(1377-1509)
Pedes Finium - law suits, or pretended suits, putting on record the ownership of land in Lancashire. These abstracts were prepared by William Farrer for the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society and published in 1905, under the title 'Final Concords of the County of Lancaster, from the Original Chirographs, or Feet of Fines, preserved amongst the Palatinate of Lancaster Records in the Public Record Office'. They cover the period from John duke of Lancaster to the end of the reign of king Henry VII. In addition, there are abstracts of fines paid for various Lancashire writs from 1377 to 1509, and a fine of 1195 that had been discovered during the preparation of the volume.GOWER. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Lichfield Diocese Ordinations: Priests Secular
(1509)
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, 2 June 1509, by Thomas bishop of Panados (Pavados), suffragan of bishop Geoffrey Blythe, in Lichfield cathedral.GOWER. Cost: £8.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Patent Roll 1 Henry VIII
(1509-1510)
Royal grants of all kinds were enrolled on the Patent Rolls of England. Many of these grants originated as signed bills (S. B.) or privy seals (P. S.). J. S. Brewer calendared the rolls for the first year of the reign of king Henry VIII (22 April 1509-21 April 1510) for the Master of the Rolls, including all the surviving signed bills and privy seals (some of which had never led to enrolment), in this volume published in 1862. We have reindexed this: most of the names that occur are of those granted royal offices, or wardships or ecclesiastical preferments that were in the hands of the Crown, and often the names of those whom they superseded. GOWER. Cost: £6.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| 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.GOWER. Cost: £6.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Murderers sheltering in Durham Cathedral: and their victims
(1464-1524)
Criminals could evade pursuit by claiming sanctuary in Durham Cathedral. Persons who took refuge fled to the north door of the cathedral, and knocked for admission. There were two chambers over the door in which men slept, for the purpose of admitting fugitives at any hour of the night. As soon as anyone was so admitted, the Galilee bell was immediately tolled, to give notice that someone had taken sanctuary. The offender was required to declare before witnesses the nature of his offence, and to toll a bell in token of his demanding the privilege of sanctuary. He was then provided with a gown of black cloth with a yellow cross, called St Cuthbert's Cross, upon the left shoulder. A grate was provided near the south door to sleep upon, and for 37 days sufficient provisions and bedding were provided. 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. The petitions for immunity were entered in the diocesan registers, usually with the marginal note 'Peticio Immunitatis': those from 18 June 1464 to 10 September 1524 (the privilege was finally abolished in 1624) were edited and printed by the Surtees Society in 1837 under the title Sanctuarium Dunelmense. 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, as well as the witnesses to the petition. This index covers all the surnames given.GOWER. Cost: £4.00. | 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.GOWER. Cost: £4.00. | 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. GOWER. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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