Add this eBook to your basket to receive access to all 241 records. Our indexes include entries for the spelling portman. In the period you have requested, we have the following 241 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. Somerset testators and legatees
(1501-1530)
Somerset was almost coextensive with the diocese of Bath and Wells, which exercised local probate jurisdiction through its consistory and archdeaconry courts: but superior to the diocese was the province of Canterbury. Somerset testators who also had property outside the county had their wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC). The Somerset Record Society embarked on a program of publishing genealogical abstracts of the registered copy wills of Somerset testators in the PCC archives, and in 1903 (volume xvi) printed abstracts edited by the Reverend F. W. Weaver from the PCC registers 1501-1503 (register Blamyr), 1504-1506 (Holgrave), 1506-1508 (Adeane), 1508-1511 (Bennett), 1511-1514 (Fetiplace), 1514-1517 (Holder), 1517-1520 (Ayloffe), 1520-1522 (Maynwaryng), 1523-1525 (Bodfelde), 1525-1528 (Porch) and 1529-1530 (Jankyn). In addition, the volume includes abstracts of 48 Somerset copy wills in the registers of the Archbishops of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace Library from 1363 to 1491. The heading of each abstract gives the year of making the will (not the year of probate) and the testator's name in bold. Below that is the quire number and name of the PCC register. Date and details of probate are given at the foot of each abstract. Spellings of surnames are preserved as they appear in the registered copy wills, and may vary within a single document. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Liegemen and traitors, diplomats and spies
(1540-1542)
The Privy Council of England dealt with many delicate and important matters of state. The surviving records date back as early as the 14th century, but Henry VIII on 10 August 1540, with the advice of the council, ordered that the council should have its own clerk 'to write, entre and registre all such decrees, determinacons, lettres and other such things as he shuld be appoynted to entre in a booke, to remayne alwayes as a leger, aswell for the dischardge of the sayd counsaillours touching such things as they shuld passe from tyme to tyme, as alsoo for a memoriall unto theim of their owne procedings'. The register from that date to 8 April 1542 was transcribed for the Commissioners of the Public Records by sir Harris Nicolas, and published in 1837. Although the council often dealt with petitions from aggrieved subjects, its main function was to oversee internal and external security. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Tenants of Somerset chantries
(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 in 1548 the commissioners in Somerset produced this survey and rental. The individuals named are the tenants whose rents provided the chantry's income: occasionally an incumbent is named. The survey was edited by Emanuel Green for the Somerset Record Society, and published in 1888. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Liegemen and Traitors, Pirates and Spies
(1547-1550)
The Privy Council of Edward VI was responsible for internal security in England and Wales, and dealt with all manner of special and urgent matters
| Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Liegemen and Traitors, Pirates and Spies
(1552-1554)
The Privy Council of Edward VI and queen Mary was responsible for internal security in England and Wales, and dealt with all manner of special and urgent matters
| Sample scan, click to enlarge
| London funerals and other news
(1550-1563)
Henry Machyn was a citizen and merchant-taylor of London. He had a professional interest in the lavish funerals of his fellow citizens, and in October 1550 started a note book giving brief details of these occasions. Soon he added political news, and (in an age before newspapers) he had a journalist's eye for accidents, hangings, the preachings and suppression of heretics, and the fortunes and misfortunes of dissidents. He lived in interesting times; the early death of Edward VI; the failed attempt to install Jane on the throne; the succession of queen Mary, and a lurch towards Catholicism; her marriage to Philip of Spain; her death, and the accession of queen Elizabeth. Machyn's humble journal, written for his own amusement and with a resolute indifference to orthography, became in its time an important historical source, used by Strype, and then edited by John Gough Nichols for the Camden Society and published in 1848. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| London and Middlesex Feet of Fines
(1485-1569)
Pedes Finium - law suits, or pretended suits, putting on record the ownership of land in London and Middlesex. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Liegemen and Traitors, Pirates and Spies
(1558-1570)
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
| Sample scan, click to enlarge
| 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
| Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Liegemen and Traitors, Pirates and Spies
(1580-1581)
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
| Sample scan, click to enlarge
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