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Community, Piety, and Family in Yorkshire Wills Between the Reformation and the Restoration
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2016
Extract
IN 1974 Margaret Spufford was able to describe wills as ‘largely unused by local historians’. Over the last quarter of a century this situation has changed radically, and wills have been called upon to provide evidence on subjects as diverse as popular piety, charity, literacy, economics, demography, and familial ties. In this process a divide has developed between religious historians, who have largely been concerned with the preambles of wills, and social historians, who have confined themselves to the content. This paper attempts to bridge that gap by examining the relationship of geography, status, and the life course, with the form and content of the wills.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History Subsidia , Volume 12: Life and Thought in the Northern Church , 1999 , pp. 511 - 531
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1999
References
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6 Ibid.; Wakefield, West Yorkshire Archives [hereafter WYA], West Riding Hearth Tax Returns, 1672, 3590/31537, fols 361-362r 369r York, York City Archives, 1665 Hearth Tax Returns (Lady Day) M30:22; 1665 Account of the Number of Hearths (Michaelmas) M30:23; List of the Hearths and Stoves 1671 M30:25; 1674 Hearth Tax Returns M33:26.
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10 The parish of Bilton-in-Ainsty was also a prebendai peculiar of the dean and chapter of York, and thus parishioners should have had their wills proved in the peculiar court and filed separately. However, as with almost all peculiars at York, there are no significant records extant before 1660; it appears that wills from this parish were simply recorded (or perhaps processed) with those of the Exchequer court, since they have been copied into the Exchequer and Prerogative register beside those for the rest of the diocese.
11 The disruption of the Civil War and Interregnum meant that wills from this year to 1660 were never copied up into the registers.
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