Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Bedfordshire Probate Inventories Before 1660

Bedfordshire Probate Inventories Before 1660

Tearle, Barbara

Hardcover

Series: Publications Bedfordshire Hist Rec Soc, Book 98

EconomicsGenealogy & HeraldryBritish History

ISBN10: 0851550851
ISBN13: 9780851550855
Publisher: Bedfordshire Historical Record Society
Published: Mar 12 2024
Pages: 824
Weight: 4.30
Height: 2.50 Width: 6.20 Depth: 9.40
Language: English
Fewer than two hundred probate inventories were thought to have survived for Bedfordshire and most were published in Bedfordshire Historical Record Society volumes 20 and 32. Recently more came to light, bringing the total of known pre-1660 inventories to almost six hundred. These additional 432 inventories are published here and provide evidence of the home environment of the minor gentry, clergy, middling sort, tradesmen and the poor of Bedfordshire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While most inventories are for men, almost sixty are for widows and single women, whose circumstances mirror those of the men. The detailed listings of agricultural equipment, livestock and crops and the comfortable domestic life-style of the farming community, confirm what is already known of the agricultural prosperity of the county. Surviving inventories for shopkeepers and tradesmen are sparse, but the few inventories listing trades, services and manufacturing equipment (for malting, brewing and dyeing) provide a glimpse of thriving industry with links beyond the county. Several inventories stand out including a luxuriously furnished inn and two exceptionally wealthy gentry who were part of the county administration during the Commonwealth period. Not everyone was well-off and the inventories also include many people whose goods reveal them to be poor or living in near poverty.

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