Genealogist Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers runs a great website for genealogists. He suggests ‘Daily Blogging Prompts’ to help inspire bloggers to write genealogical posts. His prompt ‘Thankful Thursday’ is all about expressing gratitude for someone/something connected to your own personal family history.   My own ‘someone’ was Great Dunmow’s 1960s & 70s local historian, Dorothy Dowsett.
No local history of Great Dunmow is complete without reference to her work. She was a lifelong resident of Great Dunmow and had vast knowledge about her home town which she shared in her local history books and articles in the local magazine, Essex Countryside. I owe Dorothy Dowsett’s work a debt of gratitude both for my academic research on my dissertation into Tudor & Reformation Great Dunmow and also for her work on Edwardian and early 1900s Great Dunmow.
Amazingly, in one of her books on Great Dunmow, Through all the changing seasons, I found a photo of my grandfather’s aunt, uncle and their children (my grandfather’s cousins), the Kemps of the White Horse pub and the Royal Oak, Great Dunmow.  She was a contemporary of my grandfather’s cousins, and I would have loved to have sat and talked to her about them. Particularly to hear her memories of Gordon and Harold Kemp, two sons of Great Dunmow, tragically killed in the Great War.
So my own ‘Through all the changing Seasons’ is dedicated to the memory of Great Dunmow’s local historian, Dorothy Dowsett.
Great Dunmow local history books
Dowsett, D., Dunmow Through The Ages (Letchworth, 1968).
Dowsett, D., Through all the changing seasons (1975).
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The post Tudor vicar William Walton’s arrival in Great Dunmow explained how one of the drivers for the 1525-6 collection for the church steeple (and the establishment of the beautiful leather account-book), was the arrival of the new vicar, Master William Walton. Another driver for the parish collection must have been the tax imposed by Henry VIII two years prior to the church steeple collection. This tax, known as the Lay Subsidy, was imposed on England by the king to levy money for his expensive wars with France.
Tent design for the 1520 Field of Cloth of Gold (Henry VIII’s meeting with the king of France) (1)
Each village, town and parish throughout England had to keep meticulous records as to the amount that had been levied on each head-of-household. The tax levied was based on a person’s income from their land or moveable good. John Josselyn, from the nearby parish of High Roding, who also owned a manor within Great Dunmow(2), was responsible for collecting the tax within the Hundred of Dunmow.(3) It is possible that the elite and clergy of Great Dunmow, who probably helped Josselyn administer the parish’s 1523-4 collection of the Lay Subsidy, used methods from this tax’s administration to facilitate their own parish collection in 1525-6.
The returns for Great Dunmow’s 1523-4 Lay Subsidy are in The National Archives (T.N.A.).(4) These returns detail a) the house-holder’s name (first name and surname), b) whether they had been assessed for income based on goods or land, c) the Valor (value assessed), and d) the tax payable. These returns would have been written down and recorded by John Josselyn or one of his men, resulting in the detailed manuscript that is now in the care of the T.N.A. Thus, a list of all the house-holders (and, more importantly, their wealth) could have been made available to vicar Master William Walton when he instigated the collection for the church steeple.
Perhaps, after a service in the church, when the parish clergy, churchwardens and church clerk were collecting each person’s contribution to the church steeple, the returns from the Lay Subsidy were used to assess how much each parishioner should pay towards their new steeple. This would explain the distinct connection between a person’s wealth and the amount they paid to a seemingly voluntary collection. This correlation is demonstrated in the graph below, which illustrates the distribution patterns of amounts paid to the Lay Subsidy compared to the steeple collection: the trends are remarkably similar. According to entries within the churchwarden accounts, the cost of labour per day was 4d, therefore the majority of householders were contributing an amount roughly equal to one day’s pay for both the Lay Subsidy Tax and the church steeple collection.
1523-4 Lay Subsidy versus 1525-6 parish collection
The returns for  the 1523-4 Lay Subsidy records 139 tax-payers, whereas just over 160 house-holders were recorded for the 1525-6 church steeple collection. This discrepancy can be accounted for by the exemption of clergy and paupers from the Lay Subsidy. Therefore, allowing for the parish’s four clerics (as detailed in the post Late medieval clergy), and a small number of deaths which might have occurred between the two events, it can be assumed there were approximately 20 paupers within the parish. With a greater number contributing to the parish collection, some of the poorest residents, exempt from Henry VIII’s tax, had paid the parish church’s informal levy. Perhaps, for the paupers, it was for spiritual, pious and religious reasons that money was paid to their church rather than to their lord sovereign, the King.
The elite of the parish have also been examined by comparing their wealth, according to the Lay Subsidy, against their generosity to the church steeple collection. From this comparison, it is apparent that at least five lords of the manors from Great Dunmow’s medieval manors paid the highest contributions. This comparison also confirms the men listed at the start of church steeple collection were the elite and from the upper echelons of Great Dunmow’s society.  Eamon Duffy has argued that investing in parish projects was one way in which the elite could establish and promote their place in local society.(5)  This self-promotion is apparent in Great Dunmow. The largest contributor to the church steeple collection in 1525-6 was the builder and churchwarden, Thomas Savage, who, at £36s 8d, paid over £1 more then the next closest contribution and, according to the 1523-4 Lay Subsidy, was the tenth wealthiest parishioner. In spite of his wealth and generosity, he was only listed twenty-fourth in the list – his wealth and generous contribution were not enough to push him up the social rank. But, it did win him the contract to assist the building of the church steeple (as documented in a later folio within the churchwarden accounts).
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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Genealogist Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers runs a great website for genealogists. He suggests ‘Daily Blogging Prompts’ to help inspire bloggers to write genealogical posts.  In the spirit of one of his Prompts, Shopping Saturday, my blog today is about shopping (or rather tradesmen) in Tudor Great Dunmow.
The list of names for the 1525-6 collection for the church steeple contains some of the trades of Tudor Great Dunmow. It should be noted that the list is not a census in the modern terms of a census, and so the trade of a person was only recorded if two people had the same name. Thus the three John Parkers had their trade recorded alongside their name distinguish them from each other – John Parker the tiler, John Parker the wheeler and John Parker the fletcher. Trade (and occupations) within the parish, as documented within the 1525-6 collection for the steeple include
– church clerk
– dyer
– wheeler
– fletcher
– parish priest
– vicar
– retired vicar
– haberdasher
– butcher
– glover
(Obviously, this is not a complete list of the occupations of Tudor Great Dunmow, just a list where someone’s occupation had been recorded).
A ‘fletcher’ was an arrow-maker – a trade that evidently made John Parker, the Fletcher, a very wealthy man. His contribution to the church steeple was 26s 8d – a substantial amount of money. In further parish collections he contributed 18s 10d for the Great Bell, and 13s 4d for the church organ. In the 1523-4 Lay Subsidy returns for Great Dunmow, John Parker was assessed as having goods to the value of £105 13s 4d which resulted in him paying tax of 105s 8d. The Lay Subsidy returns show that he was the wealthiest man in the parish. However, despite his great wealth, in the list for the church steeple collection, John Parker, the fletcher, appears below the clergy and two lords of manors. Wealth wasn’t everything in this Tudor parish: the status of the elite meant more than the wealth and piety of tradesmen.
Being a fletcher in Tudor England was a very important trade. Throughout his reign, Henry VIII was, at various times, at war with either France or Scotland. Both Henry, and his father Henry VII, passed legislation to enforce that the men of Tudor England were reasonably proficient at the longbow. In 1515 Henry VIII imposed a Statue that all men, except ‘spiritual’ men, Justices and Barons, should practice shooting long bows. Bows and arrows had to be bought for all male children between the ages of 7 and 17. Henry also dictated that every city and town should have butts so that the men could practice their shooting their long bows at them.
Luttrell Psalter, Psalm 79; Archers practicing at the butts (1325-35) (1)
Throughout the Henrician churchwarden accounts there are numerous receipts for sums of money which was received for ‘shooting’ i.e. shooting longbows and arrows at a target. These ‘shooting’ games held in Great Dunmow and surrounding villages will be discussed in detail in future blog posts.  For John Parker, fletcher of Great Dunmow, business must have been flourishing and profitably. We can only guess at how John Parker sold his arrows to his customers. Did they come ‘shopping’ to his workshop, and if they did, in the spirit of Geneabloggers’ Daily Prompt, was it on a Saturday?
March of the Archers, Moorfields, City of London 1530 (2)
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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Within the 1525-6 collection for Great Dunmow’s church steeple, two vicars and two parish priests are recorded at the start of the list. The two priests can be detected from the suffix ‘Sur’ [Sir] alongside their names. ‘Sir’ was a courtesy title given to medieval parish priests and should not be confused with the title ‘Sir’ as given to knights. This use of ‘Sir’ for the parish priest was widespread throughout pre-Reformation England and only died out during the Elizabethan era with the end of Catholicism as the recognised church within England. Thus, the Tudor parish priest of Eamon Duffy’s The Voices of Morebath was ‘Sir’ Christopher Trychay (pronounced ‘Tricky’).
According to the 1525-6 returns for the church steeple, the two parish priests in Great Dunmow were
– Sur John mylton
– Sur Wyllyem Wree
Other priests are named in the other parish collections as recorded in the church warden accounts between 1526 and 1539:
– Sir Gutfraye [Godfrey]
– Sir George
– Sir Nicholas
– Sir Thomas
Within the churchwarden accounts, both the vicar ‘mayster vycar thatt now ys’ (William Walton) and the retired vicar (Robert Sturton) ‘sumtyme vycar of a late tyme’ have the suffix of an ‘M’. This is not a contraction of ‘Mister’ but is an abbreviation of ‘Master’ i.e. they both had a Master of Arts degree from a university – most likely either Cambridge or Oxford. My own research, as will be explored in later blogs, concluded that they were probably Cambridge men. So the two principal clerics in Great Dunmow were university educated men and Master of Arts.
A previous historian of Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts, W.A. Mepham who was active in the 1930s and 1940s, mis-understood this ‘M’ suffix. He highlighted what he termed a ‘curiosity’ from the corporation records of the Essex town of Maldon(1):
‘11 July 1540, Relick Sunday, Received of Mr. Vykar, by hym gathered
at Moche Dunmowe vjs [6s]’(2)
The puzzle over why the vicar of Great Dunmow gave money to the town of Maldon can only be solved when it is understood that this was not ‘Mister Vicar’ but rather ‘Master Vicar’ and that Master William Walton was the vicar of both Great Dunmow and All Saints, Maldon. Unfortunately, Mepham had totally missed that the vicar of Great Dunmow was William Walton, a pluralist vicar (i.e. he held the living of more than one parish). Walton had gathered money from his flock in one of his parishes (Great Dunmow) and gave this money to the borough of his other parish (Maldon).  The reason behind this will be explored in a later blog.
All four clergy documented in the 1525-6 collection appear as witnesses to various Great Dunmowian wills from the 1520s and 1530s. These clergy, ever present at death-beds, included Robert Sturton,  who had resigned by this time, but was still administering to his flock in his retirement. So, in 1526, Great Dunmow had four religious clerics active in the parish to administer to their flock of at least 165 houses – approximately just under 1,000 parishioners.
 A Priest Administering the Last Rites(3).
 A priest giving communion to a sick man, with an acolyte, carrying a bell and a candle(4).
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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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. Â If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
Between 2009 and 2011, whilst I was researching for my master’s dissertation, on a daily basis I read the Tudor churchwarden accounts from my digital images. This reading of each page over and over again resulted in me hearing the voices of people long dead.  No, not literally! But in my head I started to understand and ‘hear’ the dialect of the Tudor scribe who had written up a particular set of accounts. The scribes wrote their entries exactly as spoken. Thus the nearby city of Cambridge became ‘Camrege’, the parishioner, Thomas Ingram, became ‘Thomas Iggrom’, ‘our’ became ‘owr’, and ‘off’ (meaning ‘from’) became ‘of’.
Eamon Duffy, in his seminal book, The Voices of Morebath, indicated that many Tudor churchwardens read their parish’s accounts out aloud before the congregation gathered within the church. This would have been in a manner similar to a modern-day public meeting and was to ratify the parish’s accounts. Therefore, the language used in many accounts imitates the behaviour of the spoken word.(1)  So, it is likely that the list of all the contributors to the church steeple was read out aloud before the entire parish after the church service on the Dedication Day (feast-day) of St Mary the Virgin 1526. (I wonder what the parishioners thought of those who had contributed ‘nichell’ and those whose amount had not been properly recorded!)
If you are interested in the accents and dialect that our ancestors had, go back through my blog and read all the names of the contributors to the church steeple. Read each name out aloud exactly is it was written by the Tudor scribe (ignore my translations).
For anyone familiar with the accents of England, the scribes of Great Dunmow appear to have had a most definite soft Suffolk ‘burr’!  Hard ‘n’s and hard ‘d’s seemed to have almost totally disappeared from each scribe’s dialect. Hard ‘t’s have become soft ‘d’s – Robard instead of Robert. From now on, if you can’t understand the Tudor text when you read my transcriptions, read the entries out aloud and you will be taken into Tudor Essex and will have the key for unlocking Great Dunmow’s past.
Sadly, today’s Great Dunmowians no longer have the soft Suffolk accent but instead sound more like the characters from EastEnders or The Only Way is Essex (TOWIE).
Miniature of a scribe with a knife,
shears, a pen-case, and an inkpot (2)
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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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. Â If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
The entries detailing the collection for Great Dunmow’s church steeple are a fascinating window into the lives of our ancestors of 500 years ago. This is not only because of the names that are listed but also because the collection gives an amazing opportunity to analyse the administration of a small parish in late medieval/early Tudor England.  The next few blog posts will unpick some of that administration and show how innovative, thorough and diligent our ancestors of 500 years ago were in the management their finances.
The collection was written into the accounts on ‘ye dedicacion day the yere of owre lorde god mcccccxxvi’ [Dedication day, 1526]. The parish church was (is) dedicated to St Mary the Virgin who had several saints days in Catholic Tudor England, so this date could have been one of several days including her two major feasts; the Annunciation (25 March) and the Assumption (15 August).  However, this was not the date that the collection took place but just the date the contributions were formally written into the account-book. The collection must have taken place over a period of time previous to this – perhaps as long as a year. So the true dating of the collection for the parish steeple was 1525-6. It may seem pedantic to clarify the date to such a fine level. However, Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts have been examined by many historians over the last hundred years or so and many of these historians have misdated events that happened in the town. Thus some fascinating connections between Great Dunmow and events that occurred elsewhere in Tudor England and Scotland have been totally ignored or misinterpreted. (These events will be discussed in future blogs.)
The church clerk (named in the list as Robert Sturton), and the churchwardens took great care in documenting each contribution to the church steeple. Maybe at the end of each church service, the clerk set up a table near the church’s exit and collected each parishioners contribution and recorded their contribution in rough within notebooks or on scraps of paper as the parishioners left the church.   Those rough scraps would later have been collated into the list that we see today. This list, as entered into the account-book has been written in strict social-hierarchy order of the parishioners: named first are parish clergy, followed by the elite, and then everyone else (as shown in the table below).
Postcards displayed on this page in the personal collection of The Narrator.
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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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. Â If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
St Mary the Virgin church, Great Dunmow: The tower was built in the fifteenth century.(2)
The opening pages of Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts contains a list of all the house-holders within the parish (165 names) along with the amount each house-holder contributed towards a collection for the parish church’s steeple.  It cannot be coincidence that this, the first of seven parish collections which took place in the 1520s and 1530s, occurred approximately two years after the arrival of a new vicar, William Walton. Walton (vicar 1523-40) was a pluralist who from 1524 also held the larger Essex parish of All Saints, Maldon. It is likely Walton, newly appointed to his second living, decided his parishes should have impressive and admired religious artefacts. Thus the commissioning of the beautiful leather churchwardens’ account-book, to record monies raised for a steeple, was a visible method that demonstrated his authority and piety. It can also be conjectured the laity and clergy cast an envious eye on the magnificent steeple of nearby Thaxted’s church before deciding they too wanted the same. Moreover, Walton’s Maldon parish had an outstanding medieval steeple (as shown in the picture below). It is likely Great Dunmow, under the guidance of Walton, wanted to assert its piety, wealth and importance by building a new steeple and then record its benefactors within the handsome churchwarden account-book under its dedication to ‘Jhesus Maria’. This was a visible method of demonstrating the parish of Great Dunmow’s piety and expressing their community pride. However, the donations were not enough to build a substantial steeple and it has been suggested the work undertaken was merely for repairs, new windows and a wooden spire.(1) The photo above (taken by The Narrator in 2011) demonstrates that indeed the church does not have a steeple, and if a wooden spire was built, it has not survived.
All Saints church, Maldon.(3): The hexagonal steeple was built in the thirteenth century.(4)
St John the Baptist church, Thaxted.(5): The tower was built in the late fifteenth century.(6) This 1776 engraving shows Thaxted’s original spire. The spire was rebuilt after it was hit by lightning in 1814, and remodelled on the original.(7)
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Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1525-6)
1. Item John Sweynge
iiij [4d]
[John Sweeting]
2. Item John Chaplin nichell
[blank]
[John Chaplin, none]
3. Item Thom[a]s Stonam
iiijd [4d]
[Thomas ??]
4. Item wylyem carpent[e]r
iiijd [4d]
[William Carpenter]
5. Item Thom[a]s Smethe
iiijd [4d]
[Thomas Smith]
6. Item Wyllym maggott
iiijd [4d]
[William Maggot]
7. Item John maggott
ijd [2d]
[John Maggot]
8. Item john Whale
iiijd [4d]
[John Whale]
9. Item Wyllem Swetynge
vjd [6d]
[William Sweeting]
10. Item John powll
ijd [2d]
[John Paul]
11. Item Wellem ballett
ijd [2d]
[William ??]
12. Item Wyllem kempe
iiijd [4d]
[William Kemp]
13. Item Robard kempe
iiijd [4d]
[Robert Kemp]
14. Item John Stonerd
iiijd [4d]
[John Stone?]
15. Item Robard Sturton minor
iijd [3d]
[Robert Sturton, minor]
16. Item John prestmery
iiijd [4d]
[John Prestmary]
17. Item Thom[a]s Ramsolde
ijd [2d]
[Thomas Ramsolde]
18. Item Thom[a]s iggrom
id [1d]
[Thomas Ingram]
19. Item John larkyn
iiijd [4d]
[John Larkin]
20. Item Wylem raynold
iiijd [4d]
[William Raynold]
21. Item Thomas bacar
[blank]
[Thomas Baker]
22. Item Wellem Morres
id [2d]
[William Morris]
 [the remaining entries on this page will be transcribed on this blog post fo.4r (bottom)]
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.
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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. Â If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1525-6)
Â
1. Item Thomas chapman
iiijd [4d]
[Thomas Chapman]
cherche end
2. Item Rychard bowyer
xij [12d]
[Richard Bowyer]
Â
3. Item Thom[a]s Dostetur
ijs [2s]
[Thomas Dowsetter/Dowset]
Â
4. Item Robard Mede
ijs [2s]
[Robert Mead]
Â
5. Item Thomas Wolray
ixd [9d]
[Thomas ??]
Â
6. Item Robart kekynge
viijd [8d]
[Robert Keking?]
Â
7. Item Rychard Wales
viijd [8d]
[Richard Wales]
Â
8. Item Mother skylton
iiijd [4d]
[Mother Skilton]
Â
9. Item margarytt Sawlen
iiijd [4d]
[Margaret Sawlen]
Â
10. Item Wyllem phelyp
iiijd [4d]
[William Phillip/Phelp]
Â
11. Item john bokk
[blank]
[John Book]
Â
12. Item John kynge
iiijd [4d]
[John King]
Â
13. Item john Akkynsone
iiijd [4d]
[John Atkinson]
Â
14. Item Robart Aschebye
iiijd [4d]
[Robert Ashby]
Â
15. Item Robard Rolfe
iiijd [4d]
[Robert Rolf]
Â
16. Item Wyllem Aylett
iiijd [4d]
[William Aylett]
Â
17. Item Father braybroke
iiijd [4d]
[Father Braybrook]
Â
18. Item harry rerdlay
ijd [2d]
[Harry ??]
Bygwod quart
19. Item John Matkyn
iiijd [4d]
[John Matkin]
Â
20. Item Thom[a]s More
viijd [8d]
[Thomas Moore]
Â
21. Item Robard Melburne
vid [6d]
[Robert Melbourne]
Â
22. Item Rychard Sanders[o]n
viijd [8d]
[Richard Sanderson]
Â
23. Item henry sharpe
viijd [8d]
[Henry Sharpe]
Â
24. Item John Carver
ijd [2d]
[John Carver]
hywode qter
25. Item Wyllem longe
iiijd [4d]
[William Long]
Â
26. Item \John/ playell
iiijd [4d]
[John Playel]
Â
27. Item Robard p[ar]car att caunare
iiijd [4d]
[Robert Parker at ??]
Â
28. Item Jone glascokke
viijd [8d]
[Joan/Jane Glascock]
Â
29. Item father howchy[n]
viijd [8d]
[Father Hutchinson?]
Â
30. Item Robard hochyn
viiijd [8d]
[Robert Huchinson?]
Â
31. Item John hankyn
iiijd [4d]
[John Hankin]
Â
32. Item Rychartt P[ar]car
iiijd [4d]
[Richard Parker]
bosshopwode qter
33. Item John longe junior
xxd [20d]
[John Long, junior]
Â
34. Item Henry longe
ijs [2s]
[Henry Long]
Â
35. Item John Nyghtyngale
iiijd [4d]
[John Nightingale]
Â
36. Item Rychartt carpentr
vjd [6d]
[Richard Carpenter]
Â
37. Item Thom[a]s kyunt[o]n
iiijd [4d]
[Thomas ??]
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.
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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. Â If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1525-6)
1. Item Wyllem barcar
viijd [8d]
[William Barker]
2. Item John hrady(??)
iiijd [4d]
[John ??]
3. Item mother hotte
iiijd [4d]
[Mother Hot]
4. Item John Maryou
iiijd [4d]
[John Mayor]
5. Item Thom[a]s myllett
ijd [2d]
[Thomas Millet]
6. Item John Scoryar \nichell/
[blank]
[John Scoryar]
7. Item Cateryn Lott
viijd [8d]
[Catherine Lot]
8. Item Wyllem Davy
iiijd [4d]
[William Davy]
9. Item Mother Longe
xxd [20d]
[Mother Long]
10. Item Jone palgrave wedow
id [1d]
[Jane/Joan Palgrave, widow]
11. Item Wyllem baysy
xijd [12d]
[William Bass?]
12. Item Robard Fest
iiijd [4d]
[Robert Fest]
13. Item baldwyn tyler nichell
[blank]
[Baldwin Tyler]
14. Item Thomas Farethe[??]
iiijd [4d]
[Thomas ??]
15. Wyllem Nyghttyngale
iiijd [4d]
[William Nightingale]
16. Item Robard bothe
ijd [2d]
[Robert Both]
17. Item Stevyn Sturt[o]n
ijd [2d]
[Steven Sturton]
18. Item Wyllem Sewerd
viijd [8d]
[William Seward]
19. Item Edmund Fuller
iiijd [4d]
[Edmund Fuller]
20. Item Nycolas Aylett
xvid [16d]
[Nicholas Aylett]
21. Item Nycolas parcar
viijd [8d]
[Nicholas Parker]
22. Item Wyllem p[ar]son
iiijd [4d]
[William Parson]
23. Item John Exylby
iiijd [4d]
[John Exilby?]
24. Item Jamys Stowte
iiijd [4d]
[James Stout]
25. Item Wyllem mede
iiijd [4d]
[William Mead]
26. Item Rychard Cokke
xijd [4d]
[Richard Cook]
27. Item Wyllem tayler glover
viijd [8d]
[William Tayler, glover]
p[ar]sonage downe
28. Item Thomas Dygby
iiijd [4d]
[Thomas Digby]
29. Item John Alyn
iiijd [4d]
[John Allen]
30. Item Thom[a]s kyng
iiijd [4d]
[Thomas King]
31. Item George owr nychell
[blank]
[George Ower?, none]
32. Item John Weste
iiijd [4d]
[John West]
33. Item Thom[a]s Thake
ijd [2d]
[Thomas Thake]
34. Item John Harvy
iiijd [4d]
[John Harvey]
35. Item Robard mason
iiijd [4d]
[Robert Mason]
36. Item Rychard storyer
iiijd [4d]
[Richard Story?]
37. Item mother bowyer
iiijd [4d]
[Mother Bowyer]
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. Â If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
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St Mary the Virgin and Church End, Great Dunmow,
Dr’s Pond, Great Dunmow,
Lime Tree Hill, leading down to Church End, Great Dunmow,
Overlooking Merks Hall and Stebbing, from The Causeway, Great Dunmow,
St Mary the Virgin, Great Dunmow,
On the road between Bigods and the church at Church End, Great Dunmow,
Bigods (Alfrestons) Farmhouse and spring lambs, Great Dunmow,
 A Priest Administering the Last Rites(3).
 A priest giving communion to a sick man,
