Weâre delighted to announce an exciting new phase of the âMaterial Culture of Willsâ project â the launch of our Zooniverse site. We hope that the Zooniverse âcrowdsourcingâ platform will allow us to involve hundreds of new volunteers in the project who will work with us to transcribe our sample of 25,000 English wills made […]
Emily Vine This âWill of the Monthâ post features the will of a man âlocalâ to the University of Exeter: Alderman Thomas Hunte, who died in 1548 in the reign of Edward VI, having been mayor of the city three times.[1] In the first few lines of his will Hunte identified himself as âone of […]
Emily Vine Early modern folk frequently added âconditionsâ to their wills: that a sum of money would not be given until a beneficiary reached the age of twenty-one, got married, or entered a certain profession, or threats to disinherit those who behaved poorly or ignored parental instruction. These caveats and contingencies reflect a key reason […]
Emily Vine In this monthâs post we explore the will of John Tylney, a man who had made his living from writing the wills of others. Tylney had lived and died in Bury St Edmunds, and when his will was proved in 1552, his profession was described as âScrivenerâ: someone who wrote and copied legal […]
Emily Vine Whatâs in an early modern will? On the one hand the answer to this question is straightforward â according to the legal definition a will is the documentary instrument by which a person regulates the rights of others to their property or family after their death. Yet their value as historical records is […]
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