{"id":8265,"date":"2026-05-12T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/?p=8265"},"modified":"2026-05-11T13:58:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:58:22","slug":"what-to-do-with-30000-wills-three-approaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/2026\/05\/12\/what-to-do-with-30000-wills-three-approaches\/","title":{"rendered":"What to do with 30,000 wills? Three Approaches"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jane Whittle<\/em>, Wills Project Principal Investigator<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wills project has now successfully transcribed more than 30,000 early modern wills from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, with at least 5000 from each of the sample periods evenly spaced between the 1540s and the 1780s. We also have a prototype database that allows us to search by type of bequest and testator. But what are the best ways of using these riches for academic research? At the end of March the wills project team went on a research retreat to Elton House in Bath \u2013 generously funded by the wonderful Landmark Trust Futures scheme. We each presented our research in progress for discussion, and it got me thinking about the main ways we\u2019ve used the wills as a research resource: there seem to be three main approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The wills project team standing outside Elton House in Bath, where they spent a week on a research retreat. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

When I designed the project, I envisaged a quantitative survey showing change over time in types of bequests \u2013 and that is now possible, as I discuss below. But the availability of the searchable text of so many wills also opens up two other approaches that have been particularly exciting, both originating from basic wordsearches. These can be characterised as \u2018chasing words\u2019 and finding \u2018needles in the haystack\u2019. This blog discusses each of these approaches in turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quantitative surveys<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 1 is an example of what a quantitative survey offers. Compiled from the database, it shows how bequests change over time across the five sample periods. The headlines are that that in the sixteenth century the most common bequests were specified goods (that is, individually itemized goods), a type of bequest that declined thereafter. In its place the proportion of cash bequests grew, as did the proportion of bequests of unspecified goods (\u2018goods and chattels\u2019 or \u2018household stuff and plate\u2019 etc.). From the late seventeenth century \u2013 as we would expect from discussions of the \u2018financial revolution\u2019, bequests mentioning financial devices (annuities, rents, stocks) begin to increase. As well as this, bequests of real property form a steady background \u2013 a relatively small proportion of gifts, but much more significant in terms of value.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

So, yes \u2013 our approach does allow changing testamentary behaviour to be tracked in a way that has never before been possible. We can generate graphs showing numbers of bequests, clusters of bequest-types, goods bequeathed, and varieties of financial devices used \u2013 all significant findings. But the transcriptions have also opened up other exciting avenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chasing words<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By chasing a word I mean the process of following how a particular word is used in wills across the whole sample. This approach has been much used by historians and literary scholars working with digitized printed texts. Large-scale transcriptions now make it possible for manuscript documents such as wills. It can be done just with a key word search with the transcriptions themselves, although the database makes it quicker, churning out all the phrases within wills that contain a particular word or phrase.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The team hard at work chasing words in Elton House. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

My favourite example so far is \u2018stock\u2019 \u2013 an unglamorous but multifaceted word. Stock is a word of many meanings, although at its core a stock is almost always something that has the ability to generate something else. If we set aside the placenames and surnames with \u2018stock\u2019 elements, and also items of clothing (stockings, nether stocks), searching for stock in wills turns up a variety of economic terms: livestock, farmstock, but also stock of trade, and of course, stocks and shares. In the sixteenth century stock was frequently used to refer to farm stock (livestock, stock of bees), but it also appears in bequests left to orphaned children in order to provide an income to support them, and in relation to charitable funds (parish stock). By the late eighteenth century farming assets had become less common in wills, as had charitable parish stocks. Instead stock now commonly referred to capital stock that generated an income (bank stocks, government stocks, stocks in trading companies), although \u2018stock of trade\u2019 of small businesses also appears frequently. Interestingly the idea of stock to support orphaned children continued across the whole period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is just one example, and members of the team have been chasing a whole range of words for different reasons. You can trace materials (pearls, calico), sentiments (friendship, remembrance), adjectives (wrought, workday), and concepts (heirloom) \u2013 all with fascinating results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Needles in the haystack<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But our favourite achievements have revolved around identifying the needles in the haystack \u2013 the interesting, detailed and revealing wills amongst the mass of often formulaic and repetitive documents. Some of these have been highlighted in Emily\u2019s wonderful will of month blog posts<\/a>. I\u2019ve been looking for wills with detailed descriptions of textiles for the chapter I\u2019m writing for our edited volume and now have a list of over a hundred interesting wills. Amongst them are the following: the 1547 will of Eme Beton, a widow who described herself as a \u2018draper woman\u2019 from St Ives in Huntingdonshire (the site of international fair in the medieval period) and who bequeathed textiles from her shop; Thomas Adams, a London lawyer, who in 1606 left provision of his niece\u2019s education, hoping that she could be apprenticed to defend her against poverty and so that \u2018she live not idly\u2019. Elizabeth Peyto, a Warwickshire widow who in 1664 left a herbal to one daughter, and \u2018my work box, silks and all my works’ to another. The will of Elizabeth Buckeridge, a spinster from Middlesex in 1725 left her niece Sarah \u2018my India Japan Cabinet with the China upon it\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The team learnt a lot on a city tour led Graham, one of The Mayor of Bath’s Honorary Guides – the tours are highly recommended, and free!<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Laura, Kit and Jane T examine material culture in Holburne Museum.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

This last example opened up investigation into a fascinating family with strong connections to the East India Company and many Japan Cabinets. Elizabeth was also the sister of Bainbridge Buckeridge, the pioneering art historian who left many named works of art in his will. From our final period, Ann Ellington of Hotwells near Bristol left a 1785 will which described her self-made needlework, bequeathed her poetry papers and manuscripts, and also mentioned ‘my silver egg purchased with money saved at school by shopkeeping’. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could go on, but the point is made: there a great riches in the archive \u2013 difficult to locate through conventional research methods, which having a great body of searchable transcribed wills now opens up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jane Whittle, Wills Project Principal Investigator The wills project has now successfully transcribed more than 30,000 early modern wills from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, with at least 5000 from each of the sample periods evenly spaced between the 1540s and the 1780s. We also have a prototype database that allows us to search by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1473,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,39],"tags":[91,111,67],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat to do with 30,000 wills? 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