This month’s post has been inspired by conversations with the project’s Creative Fellow, composer, arranger, performer and lyricist Chris Hoban. Chris has recently been analysing the wills of sextons and thinking about the symbolism of the body being laid to rest. This is a longstanding interest of his – you can listen to one of his […]
This month’s featured testament belongs to John Pooke, a citizen and haberdasher of London who made his will in 1607. It was only once I sat down to read Pooke’s will carefully, from start to finish, that it suddenly unfolded like a little novella before me, complete with knotty little plot twists. Perhaps this enlightenment […]
This month’s post analyses the will of John Huggens or Huggyns, a ‘Capper’ or cap-maker who died in Gloucester in 1544.[1] Huggens’ will shows how just one type of object, the humble woollen cap, could underpin personal relationships and have multiple meanings within an individual’s life. Caps were a big part of Huggens’ world: making […]
Emily Vine This ‘Will of the Month’ post features the will of a man ‘local’ 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 ‘one of […]
Emily Vine Thanks to all participants at our recent workshops at The National Archives and the University of Exeter, where we discussed this will. I have drawn on these discussions when writing this post. In this month’s post we’re thinking not just about the ‘content’ of a will – the details of the bequests it […]
Emily Vine Our first blog post introduced the different features of early modern wills, and provided some examples of how we can determine the ‘meaning’ ascribed to some of the objects and possessions listed in them. This blog post is the first in our ‘Will of the Month’ series. Each month we will put a […]
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