Our indexes include entries for the spelling balle. In the period you have requested, we have the following 146 records (displaying 81 to 90): 

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Landowners and tenants in Norfolk (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.	Sample scan, click to enlarge
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.	Sample scan, click to enlarge
Landowners and tenants in Warwickshire (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.	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
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
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).	Sample scan, click to enlarge
Inhabitants of Nottingham (1459-1538) There were two ancient religious gilds in the church of St Peter in Nottingham, the gild of St George and that of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The accounts for the former from 1459 to 1546 (pages 17 to 112) and the latter from 1515 to 1538 (112 to 123) survived in a single book; the text was translated by Lieutenant-Colonel R. F. B. Hodgkinson, and published, posthumously, in 1939. Apart from the wardens and chamberlains of the gilds, the individuals mentioned are tenants, workmen, and the dead for whom obits were said.	Sample scan, click to enlarge
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
Leeds Manriding Archers (1539) In anticipation of war with France, Henry VIII ordered a general muster of able-bodied men throughout the kingdom. That for the wapentake of Skyrack, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, took place at Wike (near Leeds) before sir William Gascoigne the elder, sir William Middleton and sir William Maleverer, on 26 March 1539. Skyrack wapentake consisted of the ancient parishes of Aberford, Adel, Bardsey, Barwick in Elmet, Bingley, Collingham, Garforth, Guiseley, Harewood, (part of) Ilkley, Kippax, Otley, Swillington and Thorner, as well as the borough of Leeds. This muster roll listing the archers, billmen and spearmen of the wapentake by township or constablewick, was preserved among the State Papers in the Public Record Office; it was edited by W. Paley Baildon, and printed in three issues of the Miscellanea of the Thoresby Society (volumes 4 and 9) through to 1899. For each township there is a list of archers, divided into those fully and those partly ('parcel') armoured ('harnessed'), and a similar list of billmen; a few spearmen also appear. The weapon of the billmen - the bill or halberd - was a blade with a long wooden handle, sometimes with a hook with a cutting edge added at one side.	Sample scan, click to enlarge
Tenants, founders and incumbents of Yorkshire chantries (1546-1548) 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 from 1546 to 1548 the commissioners produced these certificates giving brief details of the establishment and nature of each foundation, with an inventory of valuables and rental of lands. The individuals named in the certificates are thus the founder, the present incumbent, and the tenants whose rents provided the chantry's income. All the surviving certificates were edited by William Page for the Surtees Society, and published from 1892.	Sample scan, click to enlarge

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