Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1525-6)

The Voice of Great Dunmow’s scribe
This blog has many readers from the North Essex and Suffolk area.  To them (and, of course, to my other readers too) I say… can’t you just hear the Suffolk accent shining through this folio!  Say the names of the following villages and towns out loud and you will hear that scribe from five-hundred years ago!  Remember, the scribe was writing phonetically, so pronounce each word out-loud phonetically and you will hear our long-dead, invisible, but always present, scribe.

• Ayston (ie Great Easton or Little Easton)
• Camrege (ie Cambridge – I love saying this one out loud… to start with, a nice hard ‘cAM’ and then growl out that ‘r’ to get the soft Suffolk burr to the ‘rege’!  Wonderful!)
• Dyttun (ie Duton Hill)
• Tayclay (ie Takeley. This town is now pronounced ‘Take-Leigh’. So try out you best Tudor accent: try the ‘Tay’ and then sound out that ‘clay’!)
• Thaxsted (ie Thaxted, everyone I know still pronounces this town’s name as Thaxsted, despite its modern day spelling! Thaxted is one of Essex’s jewels-in-the-crown of beautiful villages.  The town has many medieval buildings still standing including the beautiful medieval church (pictured below) which is more like a cathedral in its dramatic size and dimensions and the town’s medieval guildhall.  This town is well worth a visit to tourists visiting Great Britain.  If anyone is visiting this area during June or July, then I strongly recommend the Thaxted Festival for an evening of beautiful music in a remarkable location.

The beautiful Thaxted church, home of the yearly Thaxted Festival.
© Essex Voices Past 2012.

Being able to ‘hear’ the sound of our Tudor scribe is the very reason why this blog is called Essex Voices Past and also why my pseudonym is ‘The Narrator’.  I can only merely narrate the stories from Great Dunmow’s past, the Tudor scribe can speak perfectly well for himself.

Unwitting Testimony
There are several items on this folio that we can use unwitting testimony to interpret the entry.  For example:

• Line 3: ‘paid for the rest of the gilding of Our Lady’s Tabernacle’.  Although we are now five folios into the leather-bound churchwardens’ book, we are still on in the first year of the accounts recorded within it.  Therefore, this entry implies a couple of things, firstly the initial gilding was done (or paid for) prior to the start of the account-book (so perhaps in the years 1524-5), and secondly that the tabernacle must have been large because the payment was in (at least) two parts and this instalment was for 12s 4d (a significant sum).
• Line 6: ‘New work’.  What new work?  It’s not itemised in the accounts and so must have occurred prior to the start of the churchwardens’ accounts in 1525-6.  The very way it’s described implies that this was an area of the church that everyone knew as the ‘new work’.
• Line 20: the crossed out ‘my’.  This is intriguing.  Was Thomas Savage the unknown scribe?  Unlikely, as he was the churchwarden.  Also, the entries on this folio imply that he was the builder commissioned to build the steeple (and the person who contributed the largest amount towards the same steeple!)  Maybe the scribe was copying entries into the leather-bound account-book from various people’s loose receipts and he was busy word-for-word copying Thomas Savage’s receipt and accidently wrote ‘my’.

Church Steeple
Finally we are into the expenses for the building of the new church steeple.  Anyone who has seen Great Dunmow’s beautiful church will know that there is certainly not a steeple in existence now (and the church hasn’t had one in living memory).  However, here we have costs for the timber, the scaffolding, stones and limes.  Perhaps the Victorian vicar of Great Dunmow, W. T. Scott, was correct in his assessment that this merely for repairs, new windows and a wooden spire.

The steeple-less tower at St Mary the Virgin, Great Dunmow.
© Essex Voices Past 2012.

 
Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Index to each folio in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Medieval Essex dialect

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1525-6)

Commentary
Yet another fascinating page from Great Dunmow’s history with so many interesting items.  On this folio, all the items are all expenses i.e. items purchased by the churchwardens on behalf of Great Dunmow’s parish church, as they were ‘Layde owte for ye cherche’.

Great Dunmow’s Black Morris Coat
One of the most important items on this folio is the entry 2^nd from bottom.

• An expense of 12d for ‘a blakk morres coatt’.

This can be transcribed as being a ‘Black Morris Coat’.  At some points in my research, I did wonder if this entry was actually a ‘Black Mores Coat’.  However, the entry very definitely shows a double ‘r’ and reading the accounts in their entirety many times over helped me hear the voice of the scribe and understand the dialect of Tudor Essex.  The double ‘r’ was meant to be pronounced, and this entry was certainly for a ‘Mor-ris’ coat, not a ‘Mores’ coat.

This entry for Great Dunmow’s Morris Coat has been much cited by historians of medieval and early-modern English drama, Morris Dancing, the Catholic ritual year, as well as English folklore.  If you have read any of the secondary literature on these topics and themes, then you will invariable find reference to Great Dunmow’s ‘Black Morris’ coat.  And this is the primary source entry for it!  However, this is the one and only documented reference to ‘Morris’ or ‘Black Morris’ in the entire hundred years of the surviving churchwardens’ accounts.  There are no other mentions.

The entry is very short and concise, so by using ‘Unwitting Testimony’, it could be surmised that the coat was not an extraordinary purchase but its cost was significant.  According to Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, a man’s labour for one day cost 4d.  Therefore, the purchase of this coat for 12d was a noteworthy sum of money.  Moreover, the accounts were very precise that this was just one coat: ‘a blakk morres coat’ (in the singular).  This coat must have been quite a spectacular item – full of finery and regalia. Today’s East Anglian modern revival of Molly Dancing is a thought to be a throw-back from English traditions performed at May Day and Plough Monday.  Perhaps Great Dunmow’s early-modern Black Morris coat was a very early version of the magnificent robes that now adorn the modern-day Molly Dancers of East Anglia.  On the previous folio of the churchwardens’ accounts (fol.4r), both May Day and the Plough-fest were itemised as bringing in revenue into the church.  Therefore, it was more than likely that this magnificent Black Morris Coat costing 12d was worn at either (or both) festivities.

Below are photos my son took of the Molly Dancers on New Years Day 2012 at The Hythe, Maldon.

Other items of interest on this folio

• Rood and Rood Loft;
• All Hallows Evening (the modern-day contraction of these words is ‘Halloween’);
• The image of Our Lady of Bedlam (Bethlehem);
• Sanctus bell (small hand-held bells)
• Lamp – whatever this lamp was, it must have been large as there was a substantial yearly maintenance cost for this particular year (1525-6).  This folio documents the purchase of 4 gallons of oil for it, 3 glasses (or panes of glass) to go in it, and the mending of its furnace.
• Lights – several ‘lights’ (ie candles) are documented on this folio.  These ‘lights’ (or candles) were all placed in front of a religious image or artefact.  Henry VIII’s increasingly attacked traditional (Catholic) religion throughout the 1530s and eventually lights were banned before almost all sacred images.  In Henry VIII’s 1538 Royal Injunctions (orchestrated by Thomas Cromwell), there were decrees against candles, tapers, and images of wax placed before any image or picture.  Lights were only allowed before the rood, sepulchre, and sacrament of the altar.(1)  Later folios of Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts show that the church had complied with those Injunctions as there are fewer expenses for ‘lights’.

Footnotes
1) Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England,1400-1580, (2nd Edition, 2005), p407.

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Index to each folio in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Pre-Reformation English church clergy
– Medieval Essex dialect
– Pre-Reformation Catholic Ritual Year

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1525-6)
The top part of this folio has been transcribed here Collection for the church steeple (part 5).

Commentary
There are many interesting pages within the churchwardens’ account-book and this page has to rank high up the list of intriguing pages – not for what it says, but more what it doesn’t say!

The entries on this page are directly after the parish collection for the church steeple so cover the period 1525-6. Therefore, they are the first receipts for money received by Great Dunmow’s church recorded in the leather account-book. Churchwarden accounts or church records for Great Dunmow prior to 1525-6 have not survived. However, several entries on this folio indicate that the previous churchwardens had also kept careful accounts prior to 1525-6.

Churchwardens – Line 24/25:
fo.2r recorded that the current (ie 1525-6) churchwardens were Thomas Savage, John Skylton, John Nyghtyngale and John Clerke. This folio records that before them, the previous churchwardens were William Saud[e]r (probably ‘Saunder(s)’ – the churchwardens’ scribe had a soft Suffolk-like accent and didn’t pronounce hard ‘n’s , see  The dialect of Tudor Essex), Robert Parker, Raff/Ralph Melbourne, and Thomas Hervy (Harvey?). As Medieval and Tudor churchwardens were often in office for two years, it is likely that these men were churchwardens for the periods 1523-4 and 1524-5. The 14 shillings which the old churchwardens handed over to the 1525-6 set was either their cash-in-hand money left over from their tenure or their own money to make up shortfall in the accounts (or a mixture of both). Medieval and Tudor churchwardens were personally liable for any shortfall in their church’s finances at the end of their period in office. It is because of this personal liability that the accounts of Medieval and Tudor churches were so meticulously documented and recorded.

Plough Monday – Line 26:
The plough-feast was celebrated on the first Monday after the Epiphany (Twelfth Day) in January and was the traditional start to the new agricultural year. The young men of the town dragged a plough from door to door in the parish collecting money. If people did not hand-over money, then a ‘trick’ would have been played on the unlucky house-holder (an event similar to today’s Halloween Trick or Treating). This ‘trick’ was likely to have involved the young men ploughing a furrow across the offender’s land. Money received from Great Dunmow’s plough-feast activities was recorded throughout the Henrician churchwarden accounts. It was likely that this was already a well-established money-making activity for the church within Great Dunmow before this first recording of the event within the leather account-book in 1526. This can be determined by the brevity of this entry which could be interpreted that the churchwardens did not need a full and complete explanation about this particular activity. This was the yearly Plough-Feast – so therefore everyone knew what happened – all that needed to be accounted for was the money received! The churchwardens’ accounts do not record what happened to the money raised from Plough Monday. However, it is likely that the money was used to maintain a ‘plough light’ (candle) within the church. The plough light was one of the many ‘lights’ banned and extinguished by Henry VIII in 1538.

The Wikipedia Plough Monday entry suggests that the Plough Monday customs were revived in the 20^th century in the East of England and are associated with Molly Dancers.  Below are photographs my son took of the Molly Dancers on New Year’s Day 2012 at The Hythe, Maldon.  He’s only aged 8 so the photos are a bit blurry!  All photos are copyright of  The Narrator, 2012.

Dancing money – Line 27:
Unknown what this ‘dancing money’ was for.  Nicholas Parker was one of many Parkers in Great Dunmow but there was only one Parker with the Christian name of Nicholas. In the 1523-4 Lay Subsidy, Nicholas Parker was assessed as having goods to the value of 23s 4d.  In the parish collection for the church steeple, he was recorded as living in Bullock Row and paid 8d towards the collection for the church steeple (fo.2v–fo.3r).  It was likely that Nicholas Parker collected money on behalf of Great Dunmow’s parish church for ‘dancing’ and gave that money to the churchwardens.  The churchwardens were scrupulously thorough in recording which of the many Catholic feast-days money was collected in for the church. Thus, there are receipts for ‘the plough-feast’, ‘Corpus Christi’ and ‘May Day’ on the same page as this entry.  As the entry does not specify a precise feast-day or event, it is possible that this was money collected at some type of ‘general’ dance which was associated with the parish church but not connected with any feast-days within the regular Catholic ritual-year.

Old Hall – Line 28:
Unknown what the ‘old hall’ was.  It is possible that this was a bequest in the will of a William Sweeting.  Unfortunately not many Great Dunmow wills from this period have survived and there is no trace of William Sweeting’s will from this date, so it cannot be established if this was a bequest. (A later blog will explain the reason why there are so few surviving wills in Great Dunmow.)  The only William Sweeting to be assessed in the 1523-4 Lay Subsidy had goods to the value of 40s (so was of moderate wealth).  However, it is possible that this 1525-6 entry was a gift, rather than a bequest because a William Sweeting is documented regularly in parish collections after this date in the churchwardens’ accounts.
– 1525-6 church steeple collection: William Sweeting lived in Bishopswood and contributed 6d.
– 1527-9 church bell collection: William Sweeting lived in Bishopswood and contributed 5d.
– 1529-30 church organ collection: William Sweeting contributed 2d (dwelling-places not recorded).
– 1532-3 new gild collection: William Sweeting contributed 2d (dwelling-places not recorded).
– 1537-8 great latten candlestick collection: William Sweeting contributed 1d (dwelling-places not recorded).
A William Sweeting, ‘the elder’, was the witness to the 1552 will of Robert Grene(1).

May day – Line 29:
May money 28s 4d. This money received for ‘activities’ held on May-day is a significant amount of money.  Records in Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts show that an average daily wage for a labourer was 4d – thus the money raised for May-day equalled approximately 85 days from a labourer.  This was a much larger event than the yearly Plough-Feast and received more money.  From these scant pieces of evidence, it can be interpreted that the May-day money was collected from possibly the entire parish of Great Dunmow (and probably also other nearby towns and villages – as discussed in later blogs).   Again, the shortness of the entry demonstrates that receiving money from May-day was a well-established practice in Great Dunmow by the time of its first entry in the new leather account book of 1526.

This entry does not explain what happened in Great Dunmow on May Day.  Wikipedia suggests some of the activities that might have taken place at May Day.

Corpus Christi – Line 30:
Corpus Christi feast 23s.  The shortness of this entry is both intriguing and annoying in equal measures!  Once again, this was a substantial amount of money, and the briefness of the entry implies that Corpus Christi was a well established feast within Tudor Great Dunmow.  Regular Corpus Christi entries are documented throughout the rest of the Henrician Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts.  These other entries are much more detailed and thorough, allowing the modern-day reader the most amazing insight into the world of Tudor Great Dunmow and the hierarchical relationship between this small parish and their neighbouring towns and villages.  Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi feast, as documented in the churchwarden accounts, has been greatly studied throughout secondary literature on medieval English drama and late medieval religious practices.  My own Cambridge University’s master’s dissertation spent over half of the word count discussing and analysing what actually happened during Tudor Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi feast-day.  My own account provides an alternative narrative to the explanation provided by other historians (most of whom do not appear to have consulted directly with the original churchwarden accounts nor have walked the streets of the town).  As this was such a critical part of my masters’ dissertation, my interpretation of Great Dunmow’s Corpus Christi plays will be discussed in detail in a later blog.

Detail of a miniature of a bishop carrying a monstrance in a
Corpus Christi procession under an canopy carried by four clerics
The Lovell Lectionary. Harley 7026, f13 (England, c1400-c1410),
© British Library Board

Rent of church land – Line 33:
Total rent received in for various church lands.  In later years, church rent is fully itemised along with the name of each tenant.

Building materials – Line 34-39:
This part of the accounts is still the receipts (money in) for the period 1525-6.  These entries demonstrate that the church (and the churchwardens) were selling items of building materials to some of the townsfolk of Great Dunmow.  John Atkinson bought a few bricks and a small amount of wet lime.  Mr Fyche (Fitch?) bought some rope, and Thomas Savage bought some scaffolding.  This last item by Thomas Savage is interesting for several reasons: firstly Thomas Savage was the man who made the largest contribution towards the church steeple and was ultimately awarded the contract for building the steeple (Henry VIII’s 1523-4 Lay Subsidy Tax).  Secondly, this entry demonstrates that there were items of scaffolding within the parish church in 1525-6.  Either this scaffolding was in the church in the years prior to the building steeple or its existence was because of the construction of the new church steeple.  The Victorian vicar of Great Dunmow, W. T. Scott, in his 1873 history of Great Dunmow narrated that there was extensive building work in the church in the years before the church steeple was rebuilt in 1525-6.(2)  So there were plenty of reasons for scaffolding to be within the church.

The significance of Thomas Savage’s scaffolding will be discussed in a later blog post.

Footnotes and Further reading
1) Will of Robert Grene, husbandman (March 1552), Essex Record Office, D/ABW 16/83.
2) Scott. W.T., Antiquities of an Essex Parish: Or pages from the history of Great Dunmow (London, 1873) p.20.

For further information on the Catholic religious ritual-year in late medieval/Tudor England, see
– Hutton, R., The rise and fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year 1400-1700 (Oxford, 1994).

For further information on the Plough-feast, see the following websites
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plough_Monday
– http://www.ploughmonday.co.uk/

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Index to each folio in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Pre-Reformation English church clergy
– Medieval Plough Monday
– Pre-Reformation Catholic Ritual Year

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1525-6)

Commentary
Line 2: Nichell – Latin for ‘none’ ie this household did not contribute any money towards the collection.

Notes
Text in square [brackets] are The Narrator’s transcriptions.  Line numbers are merely to assist the reader find their place on the digital image.

The early-modern spellings of the inhabitants of Great Dunmow have been transcribed into modern English so that family historians and other researchers can pick up these names via internet search engines.  Please leave a comment if you can improve the modern-day spelling or transcribe any of my question marks.  The other hundred or so names written within this list will appear over the next few days, followed by an analysis of the names on the list and the reason for the church collection.

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Index to each folio in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Building a medieval church steeple

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1525-6)

Commentary
Line 17 & 29: Father = ‘old man’ ie a local aged man

Line 8: Mother = ‘old woman’ ie local aged woman, probably a widow as this is a list of heads of households.

Line 2: Church End, the area of the parish where the parish church is located (nearly one mile from the main town)

Line 19: Bigods Quarter – an area in the north of the parish.  Bigods was one of Great Dunmow’s medieval manors.

Line 33: Bishopswood Quarter – an area to the south of the parish.

Notes
Text in square [brackets] are The Narrator’s transcriptions.  Line numbers are merely to assist the reader find their place on the digital image.

The early-modern spellings of the inhabitants of Great Dunmow have been transcribed into modern English so that genealogists, family historians and other researchers can pick up these names via internet search engines.  Please leave a comment if you can improve the modern-day spelling.  The other hundred or so names written within this list will appear over the next few days, followed by an analysis of the names on the list and the reason for the church collection.

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Index to each folio in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Building a medieval church steeple

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1525-6)

Commentary
Line 3, 9, & 37: Mother = ‘old woman’ ie local aged woman, probably a widow as this is a list of heads of households.

Line 6, 13, & 31: Nichell – Latin for ‘none’ ie this household did not contribute any money towards the collection.

Line 28: Parsonage Down, an area of the parish next to St Mary the Virgin parish church.

Notes
Text in square [brackets] are The Narrator’s transcriptions.  Line numbers are merely to assist the reader find their place on the digital image.

The early-modern spellings of the inhabitants of Great Dunmow have been transcribed into modern English so that family historians and other researchers can pick up these names via internet search engines.  Please leave a comment if you can improve the modern-day spelling or transcribe any of my question marks.  The other hundred or so names written within this list will appear over the next few days, followed by an analysis of the names on the list and the reason for the church collection.

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Index to each folio in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Building a medieval church steeple

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1525-6)

Commentary
Line 14 & 19: Father = ‘old man’ ie a local aged man

Line 23 & 30: Mother = ‘old woman’ ie local aged woman, probably a widow or spinster as this is a list of heads of households.

Line 14 & 32: Nichell – Latin for ‘none’ ie this household did not contribute any money towards the collection.

Line 15: The High Street, an area of the town about one mile away from the parish church.

Line 34: Bullock Row, a street in the town behind the area of the High Street.

Notes
Text in square [brackets] are The Narrator’s transcriptions.  Line numbers are merely to assist the reader find their place on the digital image.

The early-modern spellings of the inhabitants of Great Dunmow have been transcribed into modern English so that family historians and other researchers can pick up these names via internet search engines.  Please leave a comment if you can improve the modern-day spelling.  The other hundred or so names written within this list will appear over the next few days, followed by an analysis of the names on the list and the reason for the church collection.

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Index to each folio in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Building a medieval church steeple

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1525-6)

Notes
Text in square [brackets] are The Narrator’s transcriptions.  Line numbers are merely to assist the reader find their place on the digital image.

The early-modern spellings of the inhabitants of Great Dunmow have been transcribed into modern English so that family historians and other researchers can pick up these names via internet search engines.  Please leave a comment if you can improve the modern-day spelling.  The other hundred or so names written within this list will appear over the next few days, followed by an analysis of the names on the list and the reason for the church collection.

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

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Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Index to each folio in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Building a medieval church steeple

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
(late 1520s)
1. Thys ye the cownte of Thomas Savage John
[large gap]
2. The churche \yard/ Fence
3. Imprimis on the sowthe syde begynnyng at the tenement of John keme
4. downe est ward ij p[er]che to be made bye clapton hall and bumstede hall
5. Next olyves makes one p[er]che
6. the next mynchyn dit[to] p[er]che
7. the next martelle motrelle makes dit[to] p[er]che
8. the next portery makes dit[to] p[er]che
9. the next byrde \howse/ that Garrett dwellythyed makes dit[to] p[er]che
10. the northe syde the fence
11. Fyrst the parsonage begyns at the vykaryge wall one p[er]che
12. the next Newton hall makes one p[er]che
13. the next lynllsaw one a p[er]che
14. the next John long for hys hawse and land called brodegoes one p[er]che
15. the next younges so called makes dit[to] p[er]che
16. the next Mr Raymond for ?olys dit[to] p[er]che
17. the next Mr Joyner for frestone hall otherwyse called byggood ij p[er]che
18. the next John mylbarne for markes hall & ij p[er]che
19. all the Fence from the fence of marke downe to
20. the mede ys comonly made bye the p[ar]ysshe besyde

Commentary
The first line of this folio is the start of a heading for the churchwardens’ yearly return. The rest of the page (in a different handwriting) appears to have been written at a later date and is a list of some of Great Dunmow’s manors. This was possibly written in 1528-9 around the same time that there was a collection within the parish church for a church fence. However, the handwriting on this folio is not the same as handwriting on the page where the collection for the fence is detailed (fo.7r).  The names of the men written on this folio can be cross-referenced to other entries in the churchwarden accounts to date this folio to the late 1520s.

The medieval manors mentioned on this folio were:
Line 4: Clopton Hall (also known as Southall)
Line 5: Olaves (also known as Shingle Hall, in modern times known as Olives)
Line 6: Minchins
Line 7: Martels (also known as Martins)
Line 12: Newton Hall
Line 17: Bigods (also known as Alfrestons)
Line 18: Merks Hall

(Two of Great Dunmow’s other medieval manors were not mentioned in this list – the manors of Great Dunmow and Little Garnetts)

Today the majority of the original medieval buildings have long since gone but the legacy of Great Dunmow’s medieval heritage remain within the names of farms, roads and areas of Great Dunmow. The manor-house of Newton Hall was rebuilt in the nineteenth century but the majority of its land is now taken up by the sprawl of the local Helena Romanes secondary school. Merks Hall has been rebuilt in recent years and is now the home of today’s new generation of wealthy landowners – popstars; The Prodigy’s Liam Howlett and his wife Natalie Appleton of All Saints are its current incumbents.

Terminology
perch: a unit of measure used for measuring length, area and volume
imprimis: (line 3) ‘In the first place’. Used at the start of a list of items.

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Index to each folio in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Great Dunmow’s Medieval manors

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.