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Includes 'Calendar of the Roll of the Justices on Eyre, 1247', G. Herbert Fowler. The commission for the Eyre was issued on 25 May 1247 to hear the pleas of the counties of Northampton, Rutland, Bedford, Buckingham and seven others. Four justices sat for four weeks, from late September to late October, at Bedford and two of them spent two days in Dunstable on 29 and 30 September. The book's introduction explains the procedure of the Eyre and the type of cases heard by the court. The roll has 873 entries which have been abstracted in English. The cases include civil (e.g. property) cases, ecclesiastical matters, sudden death, theft and crime generally. Jurors of the hundreds also presented crimes and there is a list of the presenting juries.
Contains 'Jacobean Household Inventories,' by F. G. Emmison (The editor claims that this is the first collection of inventories to be published with analytical notes. A 50-page introduction and analysis of the inventories under the headings houses, furniture, domestic life, farmyard and valuations is followed by transcriptions of all 166 inventories for the period 1617 to 1619/20. These are full text transcriptions with the original spelling, only lacking the names of appraisers.).
'Recusancy and Nonconformity in Bedfordshire, Illustrated by Select Documents between 1622 and 1842,' edited by W. M. Wigfield (The statistical analysis of the population of Bedfordshire parishes is based on the Liber Cleri of 1603 in Lincoln diocesan records (published in Lincoln Record Society vol. 23, 1926), the hearth tax returns of 1671, the Compton census of 1676, and returns to episcopal visitations of 1717-1720. Population tables are broken down into nonconformists and Roman Catholics. The documents illustrating recusancy and nonconformity include extracts from assize and quarter session records, archdeacons' visitations, Quaker records, returns of recusants in 1628 and 1679, manorial court records, presentment of dissenters in 1666 and administrative instructions (e.g. for the search for suitable parliamentary candidates in 1687)).
This is a calendar in English of the coroners' rolls for c. 1265-1317 and 1378-1380, held respectively in The National Archives and Gonville and Caius College Cambridge. The introduction explains coroners' duties (which could be varied) and court procedure before focusing on the work of the Bedfordshire coroners. Included are lists of the medieval coroners for Bedfordshire (1230-1478), Bedford (1240-1456), Dunstable (1228-1411) and the Bedfordshire liberties of the Abbot of St. Albans (1287-1326) and Eton College (1451).
The rolls contain cases of murder, assaults and thefts and tragic accidents such as that of five-year-old Joan in 1274 who 'went through Riseley to beg for bread, came to a bridge called Fordebrugge and, as she tried to cross it, fell into the water and drowned.'
Aside from crime, the rolls reveal the conditions of daily life at the poorer level of society, agriculture and the countryside.
This second volume of BHRS's series of late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century poll books continues the story of Bedfordshire voting in the context of local and national politics up to the election in 1734. It contains transcriptions of the poll books for four Bedford borough elections and three county elections held between 1722 and 1734. Except for the 1722 county election, the poll books are taken from hitherto unpublished manuscripts.
Much of the political and local background to voting is recounted in Volume 1. For this volume, each chapter has an introduction which draws upon letters to provide an insight into the political alliances and manoeuvres which occurred in selecting candidates, including the part played by the Duchess of Marlborough.
The poll books themselves are a mine of local information about Bedfordshire. The 10,000 names in this volume (fully indexed), added to the 8,500 names in the first volume, provide evidence for in-depth study of people, places and landholding in Bedfordshire. They will also help family historians find ancestors between the 1671 Hearth Tax and the 1841 Census.
This is the first volume of BHRS's series of late seventeenth and early eighteenth century poll books. Poll books tell the story of local people and their link with national history. This book is the first in a series by BHRS containing transcripts of the poll books for the county and borough seats of Bedford, and also includes some election accounts showing candidates' expenditure.
The introductory commentary gives an insight into political influences in Bedfordshire during the seminal period of English history from the Glorious Revolution to the accession of George I. It enables comparisons and political trends to be detected, including allegiances of regions of the county and parishes, the survival of the Tory party, the political allegiance of Anglican clergy and the role of Protestant nonconformists. Major landowners were important in Bedfordshire politics, but not dominant, and local gentry played a crucial role.
The transcriptions list all those who voted in four county and one borough election. The 8,500 names, fully indexed, will give unparalleled information on local landholding and help family historians find ancestors between the 1671 Hearth Tax and the 1841 Census.
Religious guilds or fraternities proliferated throughout England until their dissolution in the late 1540s, yet remarkably few of their records have survived.
This is an edition of the official war diary of the 2nd Battalion, the Bedfordshire Regiment and complements BHRS's 2004 volume The Shiny Seventh: the 7th (Service) Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment at War 1915-1918, also edited by Martin Deacon.
A radical re-examination of the rise of the largest popular movement in early nineteenth-century Britain draws on a wide range of evidence to give a bottom-up account of the growth, life and impact of early Methodism in Bedfordshire, an unlikely stronghold.
Drawing on documentary evidence dating between 1382 and 1522, this volume examines a single manor parish that was dominated by the powerful Mowbray family, the Dukes of Norfolk, and by Katherine Neville, widow of the second Duke, as part of her dower 1432-c.1482.