This document provides information on various legal and ecclesiastical sources that could be used to research lives in 17th century England, including: - Parish records like vestries, churchwardens, and overseers of the poor - Church courts like consistory courts and archdeaconry courts - Manorial courts - Quarter sessions and assize courts - Records of nonconformist groups like Quakers - Parish registers for baptisms, marriages, and burials It also discusses topics that may be found in these records like cohabitation, poverty, the Commonwealth period, civil marriages under Cromwell, and gaps in marriage registers.

1. Researching Before 1700
some sources for the 17th century
Else Churchill
www.sog.org.uk

2. • The Vestry and Parish Officials – incumbent, overseers of the
poor, churchwardens, constable
• The Diocese and Archdeacon – Prerogative (Archbishops),
Consistory (Bishops) & Archdeaconry Church Courts,
proctors, summoners, apparators
• Quarter Session & Assize Courts – criminal courts –
justices of the peace & magistrates
• Manorial Courts – customary lores and laws of the manor –
lord of the manor, steward or reeve, jury, constable
• Equity Courts – courts of chancery, exchequer, requests,
star chamber, wards & liveries
• State - State Papers and taxes
Who governed our ancestors lives in 17th century?

3. Parish Registers
• Baptisms
• Marriages
• Burials
From 1538 in England and
Wales
From c 1660 in Scotland
Originals in local county
record offices
Copies and indexes at
Society of Genealogists
Many indexed in other ways

4. Cohabitation?
• Morgan Percival “one Rebecca to whom he says he was married” and their
daughter were sent back to Oxford from Salisbury in 1599.
• In the same year Thomas Wheler, a wandering vagrant was sent back to Romsey,
Hampshire from Salisbury with Elizabeth Carpenter “ a lewd woman whom he
alleges to be his wife”.
• Humphrey Pearce and Margaret Hooper “living lewdly together and not married”
were sent back to Southampton.
• In 1631 James Groce, wandering with Anne Wooddes, affirmed that she was his
wife (which on examination proved not to be the case) that they had had one child
who had died and that she was pregnant”.
• “Joan Grobbyn is to be whipped openly since she was lately delivered in St
Edmund’s parish Salisbury of a third bastard child , begotten upon her as she
affirms and confesses by one Thomas Whyattt, late a servant to John Voucher of
Salisbury. She says that one Battyn a joiner, deceased, is the father of the first
child, a son yet living but she does not remember the name of the father of the
second child, a daughter because he was a stranger to her. Also she says she had
had no punishment for the same”
Poverty in Early Stuart Salisbury, Wilts RS vol. xxxi [1598-1699 – drawn from local register of passports for vagrants, local project for the relief of the
poor, monthly overseers accounts and papers1635, Workhouse accounts 1627-30.]

5. The Commonwealth Gap?
In time of Warre, people made use of whom they could get,
without minister,clark or bell St Mary’s Reading, PRs 1641-2
“Confused times of war occasioned some confusion in the register”
St Giles Reading, PRs 1646
In the time of the Civil Wars he was, by the power
of the sword, violently kept out of his living from
1646 till Michaelmas 1660, when by Law he was
Restored and in that compass of time the register had
been kept very imperfectly
Memorandum in PRs by Mr Antram, Vicar of Helton, Dorset

6. The Commonwealth Gap
Parish registers of Sholden Kent reconstructed from
1630s
“This book was lost five yeares being carried away
(ut dicit) by Mr Nicols when he was sequestrated
and came nott to our hands till Anno 1662 after my
sequestration and restoration. Witness my hand
Jams Buville Vicar ibid. Divers who were baptized at
Sholden about these years were at Northborn in the
register books there as you may see”

7. New Ideas – Civil Marriages?
• 1653 “act touching
of the marriage and
registering thereof”
appointed a register
(registrar) to record
marriages by JPs –
Civil Registration of
Marriages
The above mentioned Parliament
had no colour of a Parliament,
but a Convention by Oliver Cromwell
when General without a choyce of the
people AD 1653; and soe their act for
a Register in every parish was noe act;
and since made voyde by the soe called
Parliament Cerne Abbas PRs

8. Gaps in Marriage Registers?
Justices Note book of Captain John
Pickering 1656-60 (Thoresby Society vol 11)
Marriage 15 September 1657
Md That Will Barber & Marye Swindell was
this day in the prsence of Will Swindell of
Merefield;Thos Barker of the same;
Edward Barker of the same Clothrs duly
marrid at West Ardsley before me.

9. 1660
On the Restoration of Charles II pre Civil
War legislation was largely reinstated. Old
PRs were brought out of service if they
survived. The entries recorded by
registrars are often retrospectively
recorded into the old PRs 1653-60.
Church courts reinstated

10. Significant Dates
• 1694 Stamp Duty on vellum or parchment which
any licence or certificate of marriage shall be
engrossed or written
• 1695 Duty on registration of marriages (paupers
exempt)
– Many registers annotated with P (Paid? or Pauper?)
– Listed those persons in parish liable for tax together with
names, titles, estates qualifications and sums payable
– Could not marry in a peculiar place without banns or
licence
– Moves against lawless parishes
» E.G. St James Dukes Place, Holy Trinity Minories, Fleet Prison
which deemed themselves duty free areas

11. Results of Marriage duties
• Rise in number of paupers
• Fall in number of entries in registers
• Rise in number of peculiars, extra
parochial or non parochial churches.
• Unbeneficed clergy performing marriages
• Ministers in prisons engaged in unlicenced
matrimonial business

12. Places free of the Bishop of
London
• *St James Dukes Place (1664 -1691 = 40,000
marriages) nb in 1686 the rector of St James Dukes Place was
suspended for three years for marriages without banns or licence*
• *Holy Trinity Minories
• Tower of London
• The Mint
• Liberties of the Fleet Prison
– Taverns, alehouses and brandy shops
– See also list of chapels in J S Burn Registrum Ecclesiae
Parochialis The History of the Parish Registers of England
1842 and History of the Fleet Marriages

13. What else?
Parish Accounts
• Constables
• Church Wardens
• Overseers
• Vestry
• Tudor Poor Law & Settlement
Act 1662
see“All embarqued in one bottom”. An
introduction to sources for soldiers,
administrators, and civilians in civil war
Britain and Ireland. Martin Bennet in the
Genealogists Magazine. vol. 25 no. 8,
Dec. 1996 (contains an overview of
useful sources including constables
accounts [as collectors and compilers of
local tax lists], parish rating lists,
accounts of the parish overseers and
church wardens.)

14. Parish Records

15. Religious Upheavals

16. Quakers
Quaker registers at TNA in RG6 –
ONLINE on BMD Registers 1578-1841
Digests at Friends House and on film
at SoG

17. Compton’s Census 1676
• Ecclesiastical survey of
1676 – “ a telling of
noses” counting
conformists [inhabitants],
nonconformists and
papists (held in the
William Salt and Bodlian
Libraries and in local
CROs) undertaken by
Henry Compton Bishop of
London for archbishop
Gilbert Sheldon.
Occasionally includes
names of nonconformists
but also lists clergy for all
parishes

18. Nonconformity?
According to the Compton Census The Rector of Frittenden in Kent anatomised
nonconformity in his parish in 1676 as:-
Professed Presbyterians wholly refusing
society with the Church of England
Obstinate dissenters
Anabaptists
Quakers
Brownists
Newtralists between Prebysterians and Conformists
Conformists
Licentious or such as profess no religion
Infrequent resorters to their parish
The Curate of Ash reports
“Sectaries of all sects and particular persons that do follow them …
willfully absenting themselves from publike services and communion
of the church”

19. Church Courts
Sin, Sex & Probate
• Probate/Marriage Licences
• Matrimonial Disputes
• Incest/Fornication/Adultery
• Scolding/Unseemly Behaviour
• Heresy/Witchcraft
• Clergy Discipline
• Licensed Midwives, Schoolmasters & Surgeons

20. Making & Breaking a Marriage
Church Courts
Invalid marriages
Marital Disputes
Separation of Bed and Board
Parliamentary Divorces
Civil Divorce 1858

21. Church Courts Matrimonial Test

22. Vicar of Tong’s penance for clandestine marriage
“Dishonoured my ministry by a
constant & habitual course &
practice of marrying all sorts of
people both of my own and other
parishes … Without banns or
licence” Consistory Court of
Canterbury

23. Negligent clergy in Sawley
“hath now absented himself
from amongst us this two
years and dwelleth some foure
myles distant and out of the
parish whereby wee are very
neglected” before Archbishop
of York Exchequer court

24. Morals

25. Personal relationships
in Nottinghamshire
•
Extramarital sexual relationships often came before the court,
which was concerned both about Christian morality and the
social problems of illegitimacy. Salacious details abound:
Elizabeth Smyth of Lound, an alehouse-keeper, was commonly
known as 'Few Clothes' and was reported in 1610 to have
committed adultery with two men - one a wife beater and wizard
- and to have had an illegitimate child by a third (AN/PB
296/1/3).
• Meanwhile, in Normanton-on-Trent in 1626, a Walter Garlick,
who was separated from his wife in Wiltshire, was living
'lasciviously'. He boasted that he could have fourteen women at
his pleasure! (AN/PB 326/10/17)
• Domestic violence and the arguments of neighbours could come
before the church courts. Thus, in 1634 Robert Haslape of
Kelham came home drunk and beat his wife in time of divine
service (AN/PB 328/7/20), while Agnes Ridge of Winthorpe,
rebuked by her mother-in-law in 1624 for receiving disorderly
persons into her house, called her 'old rade' and threw stones at
her (AN/PB 326/6/42).

26. Nothing but occular inspection could enforce a stronger belief of
criminal conversation in Seasalter
“They appear, and deny any criminous
conv. But say she is his hired servant
who lives with him as housekeeper”
Consistory Court of Canterbury

27. Incest and adultery on the Isle of Man
“with his wife’s sister’s daughter”
“To be committed a month in St
Germans Prison and before his release to
give bonds to … make one Sunday’s
penance at the church door of every
parish and at the market cross of every
town within this isle… bare legged and
bare headed covered over with a white
linen sheet”Consistory Court of Sodor &
Man

28. Defamation
The court of scolds
or
bawdy courts

29. In a very base and bawdy
manner
“It being proved by Mary
Fry and Ewen Kissack
that Isabel Kissack
reflected on Alice Kissack
in a very base and bawdy
manner calling her the
wife of him that had the
stone privy member “
Consistory Court of
Sodor & Man

30. 17th century insults
'I pray to god thou mayest lye above ground as
blacke as a toade'
'[he] lied in his throat'
'a very bould impudent and a clamourous woman'
'Thou art a naughtie fellow, thou diddest never anye
good in this town'
'you are a swaggerer'
'dunce asse calfe blockhead and foole'
'villaine and Rascaldy knave'
'scurvie pawtrie knave'
'base rascally preist lowsye slave'
'filthy and scurvy Cockes combe'

31. Ecclesiastical Licences –
Midwives, Schoolmasters, Physicians
and Clergymen licensed by the church

32. Problems
• Locating documents
• Records not easy to use
• Poorly kept
• Inconsistencies diocese to diocese
• Canon Law difficult to interpret
• Pre 1733 often in Latin
• Few powers of punishment
• Lesser courts declined as London grew
important
• Rarely indexed for names apart from wills and
MLS but worth look on www.A2A.org

33. Consistory of Canterbury(East Kent)
Depositions indexed by Duncan Harrington

34. York ecclesiastical courts indexed online

35. London Courts
• PCC for other probate information- accounts etc(records at TNA)
• Consistory of London for matrimonial cases (records at LMA)
• Other courts in Doctors Commons
– Court of Arches (records at Lambeth Palace. Appeals in Province
of Canterbury)
– High Court of Delegates (records at TNA . Appeals from PCC,
PCY, Court of Chivalry, High Court of Admiralty, Courts of
Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge Universities
– Commissary & Archdeaconry of London (records at Guildhall)
– Archdeaconries of Middlesex (records at LMA)
– Consistory & Archdeaconry of Rochester
– Archdeaconry of Surrey
– Consistory of Winchester
– Peculiars of Deaneries of the Arches, Croydon and Shoreham,
Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral
– Faculty Office and Vicar General of the Archbishop of Canterbury

36. London Consistory Depositions
1700-1713 on findmypast

37. Other Probate Documents
Inventories, Accounts,
Tuition and Curation Bonds
• Can accompany wills up to mid 1700s
• Values the contents room by room
• Example of Inventory 1686
on TNA Palaeography course

38. Quarter Sessions
Simon Horne, the reputed father of a
bastard child begotten on the
body of Elizabeth Scarlett, to pay 18d.
weekly and the mother 6d. weekly for
keeping of the said child for 7 years.- It is
ordered that Simon Home, being the
reputed father of a bastard child begotten
of the body of Elizabeth Scarlett, shall pay
eighteen pence weekly towards the
keeping of the said child and the said
Elizabeth shall also pay sixpence weekly
towards the keeping of the same child,
both the said payments to continue for the
space of seven years. And the said Simon
Home is to secure the parish of Tanworth
where the said child was born from the
charge of the said child. And the several
recognisances by them severally
acknowledged are to continue in force for
the performance of this order.

39. Sessions Records

40. • Thomas Clarke, late a trooper under lieutenant Hunt, to have 40s. paid
to him by John Parsons, gentleman, one of the Treasurers etc.-Upon
consideration had of the distressed estate of Thomas Clarke was a
trooper under the command of lieutenant Hunt and who hath received
divers wounds in the service of the Parliament, it is ordered that John
Parsons, gentlemen, one of the Treasurers for the King's Bench and
Marshalsey, shall upon sight hereof pay to the said Thomas Clarke the
sum of 40s. for his present relief and at the next Sessions this court will
faire order for the settling of a pension upon him towards his relief
hereafter and the said Thomas Clarke is to subscribe the receipt of the
same 40s. and leave this order with the said Mr. Chambers for his
discharge herein.
• Edward Wisdoms, a foot soldier, John Greenhill, a trooper, William
Mason, a foot soldier, to have 40s. a piece paid them by the Treasurers
ete.--Upon consideration had of the distressed estate of Edward
Wisdome who was a foot soldier under the command of major Hawford
and who hath received divers wounds in the service of the Parliament,
it is ordered that John Parsons, gentleman, one of the Treasurers etc.,
ut supra for twenty shillings and that Mr. Chambers, the other
Treasurer, shah pay the other 20s.

42. Manorial Records
Court roll showing
Free tenants and jury
& electing
Manorial officials

43. The Court Baron – transfer of the use of land

44. The Court Leet – the police court
And that Juliann Guld widdowe hath
suffered her ditch adjoininge to her
backesyde to remayne unscoured to
the prejudice of the tenants therefore
shee is amerced xivd

45. Manorial wills – peculiar courts

47. 17th Century Chancery Indexes on FMP
Charles I Chancery Index
This unique resource, created by Peter Wilson Coldham makes available for the first time an
index to all 82,000 Chancery Cases launched during the reign of Charles I (1625-49).
Chancery records are a particularly important source of information for descendants of early
migrants to North America.
Proceedings in Chancery were instituted mainly, though not exclusively, by those with money
and property. The aggrieved party (the Plaintiff) would have his lawyer draw up a Bill of
Complaint setting out in stiff, formal language, and always at great length, the substance of
his complaint. This document always begins with the plaintiff’s name, title or occupation, and
place of residence, names the offending parties (the Defendants), and seeks the Court’s
authority to require the Defendants to provide written Answers to a series of specific
questions. So the next document which would appear would be the Answer(s), and the
wheels of law would begin to grind. The Plaintiff might submit objections to the Answers,
called a Replication, which would be followed by further Answers. The Defendants might
enter a Demurrer to the Bill of Complaint, saying that the case was defective in law and
required no Answer.
Bills of Complaint and Answers are often not filed together under the same reference, which
explains, at least partly, why many of the cases have multiple references.
TNA Reference
If you wish to search the source documents yourself at TNA, Kew, they are held in Class C2,
subclass Chas1. The references here give only the piece and folio numbers (eg H77/40),
since the Class & subclass is always the same. The full references would be, for example,
C2/Chas1/H77/40.

48. Sample C2 Chas 1 Abstract
• Abstract of Chancery Case Documents
Provided by Helen Osborn Research Ltd on behalf of The Origins Network
This is an abstract of original documents held in Class C2 at The National Archives, Kew, England
Origins References
Bannister v. Somerscales
B110/27
B110/27
94384_4093101.rtf
Date Abstract Made 7/7/06
Condition & Size of Document(s)
2 membranes parchment, A1 size and A2 size
very good condition
Document Type (bill of complaint, etc)
Bill of complaint
Joint and Several answers
Short Extract of Names and Places together with any date mentioned in the document(s)
29 May 1628
Richard Bannister of Barnoldswicke in the Co. of York, gent.
Richard Frankland of Pasehowse in the Co of York, gent, son and heir of Raphe Frankland,
Margaret and Joan Frankland
Thomas Somerscales of Gisborne, York, uncle to Margaret and Joan, brother to Bridget their
mother
John Bannister
Opinion on Reproduction of Document
These documents give a wealth of detail about the Bannister and Frankland families.

49. Chancery – Bernau Index

50. Commonwealth State Papers
& Parliamentary Committees
Records at TNA – not on State Papers Online
• SP 20 Committee for
Sequestrations 1643-53*
• SP 23 Committee for
Compounding with Delinquents
1643-60*
• SP22 Committee of Plundered
Ministers
• SP 19 Committee for Advance
of Money
Woodcut of a parliamentary committee, take from A
perfect Dirunal of the Passages in parliament. 1643
(PRO, SP 9/245)

53. Victorian Calendars

54. Edward Farnham

55. Deposition signed by Edward Farnham Committee
for Compounding with Delinquents
SP 23/86 p 169

56. Published histories

58. Charges on the Estate
“the records of the
delinquent royalists
and the fortunes lost
in encumbered debt-
ridden estates seized
by Parliament”

61. Many local records published
Robert Barlow of Urmston.
Letter dated at Wigan, 22, May, 1650, signed by
Peter Holt, Robert Cunliffe, and George Pigot,
mentioning that they had received the information
enclosed touching the delinquent, Robert Barlow, of
Urmston, …
The information of Richard Starkey, of Urmston,
gentleman, taken at Wigan, the 22nd of May, 1650,
who informed and said that he had by relation from
James. Heys, of Urmston, and John Shawcrosse,
of Flixton, that Robert Barlowe, of Urmston,
gentleman, at such time as Prince Rupert with his
forces marched through that county joined in arms
with those forces and marched along with them to
the battle at York, and was there at the battle, and
continued a long time after in arms with the said
forces.

62. Heraldic Visitations 16th & 17th Centuries
• Ormerod’s History of Cheshire
drawn from Heraldic Visitation
Pedigrees
• Visitation records at College of
Arms, copies occasionally at BL
often published by the
Harleain Society – eg London
visitations 1568, 1593,1634,
1666 and 1687
London 1634 and others online

63. Marshall
The Genealogist’s
Guide
(To 1903)
Whitmore
A Genealogical Guide
(1903-1953)
Barrow
The Genealogist’s
Guide
(1953-1977)

64. Who to Tax?
Nonconformist Recusants
• Recusant Rolls 1591-1691
• Protestation Returns 1641-2

65. Recusant rolls at TNA (E376 -379). Fines emposed for non attendance at
church. Recorded names, rents, descriptions, date of seizure and payments
or arrears.

66. Protestation Returns
Parliamentary Archives
Census of Adult Males
Thomas Huss who comptemtuously refused it himselfe &
sayd openly in the Churchyard …The next time he came
to church he was forsworne, besydes his wayling in the
church and at service, spoke saying it was stinking ? or
relique of Popery. This man did openlye in the
Morning disrupte the whole Congregation in the middle
of Divine Service at the saying of the Lord’s Prayer

67. Protestation Returns

68. Exchequer Records TNA E179
• The exchequer was traditionally a cloth laid out over a
table on which counters were placed to tally certain
values of payments made. The cloth, later laid out in
squares, resembled a chessboard for counting. Under
Henry I the Treasurer called each Sheriff to give account
of Royal income in their Shire. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer questioned them concerning debts owed by
private individuals.
• The Exchequer, as the department of State having
charge of the collection and management of Royal
Revenues, continued to collect monies until it was
abolished in 1834. The Treasury, of course, continues
today.

69. Taxing Times 17th Century
• Free and Cheerful Gift 1625
• Ship Money 1630-40
• Aid for Distressed Protestants 1641
• Poll Taxes 1641-1697
• Free and Voluntary Present to Chas II 1661
• St Paul’s Cathedral Fund 1677/8 (Guildhall?)
• Hearth Tax 1662-1689

70. Aid for Distressed Protestants
in Ireland
• anti-Catholic propaganda to
encourage payment of
taxes
• 1641
• E 179 & SP 28
• Listed by Cliff Webb in
Genealogists Mag
• Gibson & Dell

71. Graduated poll tax for disbanding the
armies granted by Parliament,
1 1641-1660 (TNA E179) described in
Lists & Index Society Vols. 44, 54, 63,
75, 87. Laid down prescribed sums
from every one over the age of
sixteen and not in receipt of alms
according to status in life. Lowest
contribution six pence, the highest
£100. Catholics paid double, widows
a third. For printed returns see Texts
& Calendars I & II (Mullins). Listed in
Gibson & Dell.
2 This shows the assessment for
Waddesdon “The Ladye Dormer
being rated £20 being a recusant paid
£40”. (TNA, E 179/244/4)
•

72. Hearth Tax TNA. E 179 & CROs• 1662- 1689.
• Collected twice yearly at Michelmas (29 September) and
Lady Day (25 March)
• copies of the returns of payments were sent to the
Exchequer (and are lodged at The National Archives in
E179)
• and to local quarter sessions (which can be found in local
County Record Offices.)
• levied on all houses above 20 shillings rent and whose
occupiers paid poor and church rates.
• poor people in receipt of alms and those who inhabited
houses worth less than twenty shillings a year, were
exempt as were, at the beginning, hospitals, alms houses
and industrial hearths.
• Note therefore that bakers and blacksmiths had to pay the
tax. 2 shillings (24p) was payable on each hearth or
stove.
• Tax was paid by the occupier of the house not the
landlord and was assessed on the occupier’s ability to
pay, but landlords with poor tenants had to pay their tax
for them.
• very unpopular. It was thought to be intrusive as the
inspectors came into your property which from our
modern perspective must seem like a visit from VAT
inspector.
• The Hearth Tax was inefficient. It never raised as much
revenue as had been expected. Collection of the tax was
eventually farmed out to private individuals which might
seem as an early form of privatization and as these “tax
farmers” took their cut, the revenues to the crown
diminished.
• surviving returns are remarkably useful and there also
many lists of those who claimed exemptions from the tax
which are to be found at TNA.
• The British Record Society is publishing at least one earth
tax return for each county and many have been published
by local record societies.

73. TNA E 179 database
(Faversham)

74. Essential Reading
• Tax records at The
National Archives,
Kew in E179
• Catalogue of taxes by
place online on E179
database on TNA
website