{"id":2273,"date":"2025-01-28T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/?p=2273"},"modified":"2026-02-21T15:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T15:32:14","slug":"will-of-the-month-a-berkshire-gentleman-and-his-object-histories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/2025\/01\/28\/will-of-the-month-a-berkshire-gentleman-and-his-object-histories\/","title":{"rendered":"Will of the Month: A Berkshire Gentleman and his object histories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

**This will inspired a Chris Hoban song! Read his lyrics at the end of the post.**<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many thanks to the Zooniverse users who contributed to conversations about this will on our talkboards, including Will and Barbara, and @sk001, @studentius, @Tearle, @ManyHeaded, and @HJSmith .You can view the discussion of this will here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To join in with reading and transcribing early modern wills, have a look at our Zooniverse site here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This month\u2019s blog post concerns a will that is so filled with rich detail about objects that it\u2019s almost impossible to narrow the focus to highlight just a few bequests. It\u2019s the will of the gentleman William Denton of Chiveley, Berkshire, proved in June 1604.[1]<\/a> His will is c.3000 words long and mentions at least fifty-one distinct bequests of objects. Some of these bequests contain multiples of the same or similar items, for example \u2018two round silver boles\u2019, \u2018half a dozen of the better sort of silver spoones\u2019, \u2018all my bookes\u2019. Others deal with a cluster of related objects, for example \u2018the feather bed and bolster and two pillowes and the blanckettes and coverledd that usually lieth thereon\u2019. Thus while there are at least fifty-one bequests of objects in William\u2019s will, the number of individual items he bequeathed was far higher.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A composite image showing a range of different early modern objects – similar to the wide range of objects found in Denton’s will. Individual images \u00a9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2024 and \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Object histories and family histories<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sheer number of objects mentioned in Denton\u2019s will is enough to make it notable. But it is the detail with which these objects are described that makes the will even more valuable as an insight into one man\u2019s belongings and what they might have meant. Denton recorded not only what the objects listed in his will looked like or were made of, for example, \u2018the best Cubboord cloth of greene broad cloth\u2019 and \u2018the testerne and valence of blew and white Damaske\u2019, but very unusually he also included the circumstances in which many of these objects were made or purchased. For example he referenced \u2018six other needle wrought Cushions of the better sort whereof one of them I bought my selfe from Newberye by William Philliman\u2019, \u2018two new wainscott Coffers that I bought of Thomas Lucas\u2019, and \u2018the Curtaines of blew and white leven Taffata that I bought my self at Charelton\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denton recorded the provenance or the histories of the objects that filled his home, and his own role or the role of his family members in purchasing or crafting them. Some of these objects were linked to important events in his family life. He described \u2018the needle wrote chayre wrought with the honysuckles in yt made sithence my marriage\u2019. The story of Denton\u2019s household goods and furnishings was closely intertwined with the story of his family or life cycle, and this could be linked to Tara Hamling\u2019s suggestion that \u2018domestic fixtures and furniture\u2019 could represent a testators\u2019 \u2018achievements in founding or consolidating a \u201chouse\u201d\u2019.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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A cushion cover with embroidered flower design, including honeysuckle. About 1600, English; Metal threads and strip on red satin. https:\/\/collections.vam.ac.uk\/item\/O317798\/cushion-cover-unknown\/<\/a> \u00a9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u2018The Material Culture of Lineage\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The construction of the \u2018House\u2019 of Denton, with its established past and promising future, appears to have been important to William. His methodical recording of objects\u2019 histories was closely linked to his interest in family heirlooms, and the sentimental value attached to items that had belonged to his deceased parents. Accordingly, William gave \u2018unto John Denton my sonne [\u2026] my Ringe wth<\/sup> a Turques [turquoise] that was my ffathers\u2019, and to \u2018my sonne Thomas Denton [\u2026] the ringe wth<\/sup> the seale of my mothers Comnizance [cognizance]\u2019. These two rings had duly been passed down from grandparent, to parent, to child. Catherine Richardson has shown that the objects bequeathed by testators underpinned \u2018the transfer of a notion of \u201chousehold\u201d [\u2026] from one generation to the next\u2019.[3]<\/a> In acknowledging their provenance and history within the formal legal instrument of the will, Denton perhaps hoped that that connection would be enshrined in family memory, and the rings transferred down future envisaged lines, for many decades to come.  <\/p>\n\n\n

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A ring that was perhaps similar to Denton\u2019s \u2018Ringe wth<\/sup> a Turques\u2019. Enamelled gold ring with a hexagonal bezel with a turquoise in a cusped setting, West Europe, 16th century https:\/\/collections.vam.ac.uk\/item\/O118844\/ring-unknown\/<\/a> \u00a9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

William Denton\u2019s pride in his family name and \u2018House\u2019 extended to his identification of items adorned with his coat of arms. He left to his son John, who had also received William\u2019s father\u2019s turquoise ring, \u2018my Ringe of gold wth <\/sup>my seale of Armes thereon\u2019, and \u2018the two Cushions of needle worke wrought on the frame wth<\/sup> my Armes in them\u2019. These bequests can be associated with \u2018the material culture of lineage\u2019 \u2013 a fashion for things decorated with heraldic imagery that flourished in gentry households in late Tudor and early Stuart England, the exact point at which Denton was making his will.[4]<\/a> It is notable that these heraldic items were passed directly down the line of Denton\u2019s eldest son, while the second son, as mentioned above, received the ring with Denton\u2019s mother\u2019s seal. In contrast the bequests made to Denton\u2019s daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, were not family heirlooms, but sums of money.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A steel knife with a coat of arms on the handle, c.1550 https:\/\/collections.vam.ac.uk\/item\/O109908\/knife-unknown\/<\/a> \u00a9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2024<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u2018Remember the dead\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as explicit references to the family coat of arms or seal, Denton\u2019s will mentioned items engraved with family names or initials. John, the eldest son, was left \u2018the two round silver boles newlye bought which have ye  <\/sup>letters for my name on them, and the silver bole that hath the letters for his owne name\u2019. If Denton\u2019s wife, younger son, or daughters had also had silverware inscribed with their initials, these were not mentioned in the will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John was named the executor of the will, tasked, alongside his mother Mary, with carefully distributing William\u2019s personal possessions and family heirlooms \u2013 the bulk of which were designed to pass to John himself. William made a final material bequest to the men charged with overseeing the will, who were given \u2018Ringes of the value of fortie shillinges a peece made and given wth <\/sup>this poesie ingraved remember the dead\u2019. This inscription, unlike the personalised decoration that adorned several of Denton\u2019s possessions, is uncharacteristically general. Seventeenth-century mourning rings would often be inscribed with the name or initials of the person that they were made to commemorate, or occasionally engraved with a more bespoke motto. Perhaps Denton\u2019s final act, in urging those who survived him to remember all the dead, was tied to his broader desire to preserve the legacy and memory of not just an individual, but also of those that came before him – of a family, a name, and a \u2018House\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/a> PROB 11\/104\/219, Will of William Denton of Chieveley, Berkshire, 22 June 1604<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Tara Hamling, \u2018 “An Arelome To This Hous For Ever”: Monumental Fixtures and Furnishings in the English Domestic Interior, c.1560\u2013c.1660\u2019, in Andrew Gordon and Thomas Rist eds. The Arts of Remembrance In Early Modern England: Memorial Cultures of The Post Reformation<\/em> (Routledge, 2013). p.83.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Catherine Richardson, Domestic Life and Domestic Tragedy: The Material Life of the Household<\/em>, (Manchester, 2006) p.76.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Richard Cust, \u2018The Material Culture of Lineage in Late Tudor and Early Stuart England\u2019, in Catherine Richardson, Tara Hamling, David Gaimster<\/em> eds. The Routledge Handbook of Material Culture in Early Modern Europe <\/em>(Routledge, 2006)<\/p>\n\n\n