more of a medieval society question
Tom LaPorte
Hello
I'm new to understanding the ways of medieval society and could use someone's more informed opinion regarding the relationships and relative positions in medieval society that the Bowles family I've been researching may have had with their Lord, Sir Matthew Arundel of Wardour Castle, Wiltshire in the late 1500's.
Sir Matthew's mother was Margaret Howard, sister of Catherine Howard, therefore he was a Step Cousin of Queen Elizabeth's (if there is any such thing). In any case he was of that level of peerage.
Sir Matthew bought Wardour Castle in 1540 and then bought up most of the manors around it to create a huge estate which included the Manors of Tisbury, East Knoyle, Fovant and Mere which were the closest to the Wardour estate plus many others over time.
I have found Bowles b/m/d entries in the registers of the parish churches of all 4 of the above manors right from the first pages of each register. There were many, many Bowles throughout that area. At the parish churches for the above 4 manors between 1538 (the earliest church register) and 1599 I found 31 Bowles baptisms at Mere and East Knoyle alone plus 19 Bowles marriages and 17 burials between the four. That is a lot of Bowles. They must have been there for many years before they started recording the b/m/d events in those churches.
I've gone over a lot of their Wills obtained from the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives and the Bowles seem to be generally small sheep farmers with perhaps 40 or 50 sheep, a bullock and a heifer, from 1 to 4 bushels of wheat and barley, and their next most treasured items worth specifying in a Will were their crocks and pans. They left bequests to family members in terms of shillings and pence.
One Will only, that of Roland Bowles of South Newton from 1570, left bequests in pounds and one sylven spoon. South Newton is just a bit further East of Fovant near Salisbury.
During this time Sir Matthew had also
been patron for a William Bolls as Curate for the parish church of Mere from
1569 to 1572 and for a John Bowles as Perpetual Curate of Tisbury since 1583
(until John Bowles d. in 1610). As Sir Matthew was buried at the Tisbury
chuch in January 1599, I imagine John Bowles could have performed the burial service,
probably along with higher church officials who would have come from Salisbury
for such an occasion.
Finally, Sir Matthew died in 1599 and in his Will he left bequests for his family and associates including an unheard of 2000 pounds to the poor of his estate, his favorite cloaks and coats went individually to Lords, Gents and Esquires and "all other wearing apparel to be divided between Scipio Coriton and Willyam Boules my servant". He then divided up his stable assigning 9 individual mares, horses, colts and geldings to Lords, Knights etc. and "to Scipio Coriton my nagge called Knapton and to Willyam Booles my nagge called Vudall and 10 pounds".
So what kind of clues can be picked out of there about these Bowles? Anything? Would Sir Matthew's servant William Bowles have been from the small sheep farmer Bowles living right around the castle or from the South Newton family with a bit more money? From what level of society did a servant of a very rich man come from?
I suppose I'm asking a lot but any insight would be helpful.
Thanks in advanceTom
Chris Dickinson
<snip>
> I'm new to understanding the ways of medieval society and could use someone's more informed opinion regarding the relationships and relative positions in medieval society that the Bowles family I've been researching may have had with their Lord, Sir Matthew Arundel of Wardour Castle, Wiltshire in the late 1500's.
> Sir Matthew's mother was Margaret Howard, sister of Catherine Howard, therefore he was a Step Cousin of Queen Elizabeth's (if there is any such thing). In any case he was of that level of peerage.
> Sir Matthew bought Wardour Castle in 1540 and then bought up most of the manors around it to create a huge estate which included the Manors of Tisbury, East Knoyle, Fovant and Mere which were the closest to the Wardour estate plus many others over time.
> I have found Bowles b/m/d entries in the registers of the parish churches of all 4 of the above manors right from the first pages of each register. There were many, many Bowles throughout that area. At the parish churches for the above 4 manors between 1538 (the earliest church register) and 1599 I found 31 Bowles baptisms at Mere and East Knoyle alone plus 19 Bowles marriages and 17 burials between the four. That is a lot of Bowles. They must have been there for many years before they started recording the b/m/d events in those churches.
> I've gone over a lot of their Wills obtained from the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives and the Bowles seem to be generally small sheep farmers with perhaps 40 or 50 sheep, a bullock and a heifer, from 1 to 4 bushels of wheat and barley, and their next most treasured items worth specifying in a Will were their crocks and pans. They left bequests to family members in terms of shillings and pence.
> One Will only, that of Roland Bowles of South Newton from 1570, left bequests in pounds and one sylven spoon. South Newton is just a bit further East of Fovant near Salisbury.
> During this time Sir Matthew had also been patron for a William Bolls as Curate for the parish church of Mere from 1569 to 1572 and for a John Bowles as Perpetual Curate of Tisbury since 1583 (until John Bowles d. in 1610).
> Finally, Sir Matthew died in 1599 and in his Will he left bequests for his family and associates including an unheard of 2000 pounds to the poor of his estate, his favorite cloaks and coats went individually to Lords, Gents and Esquires and "all other wearing apparel to be divided between Scipio Coriton and Willyam Boules my servant". He then divided up his stable assigning 9 individual mares, horses, colts and geldings to Lords, Knights etc. and "to Scipio Coriton my nagge called Knapton and to Willyam Booles my nagge called Vudall and 10 pounds".
> So what kind of clues can be picked out of there about these Bowles? Anything? Would Sir Matthew's servant William Bowles have been from the small sheep farmer Bowles living right around the castle or from the South Newton family with a bit more money? From what level of society did a servant of a very rich man come from?
I'm not sure that the number of Bowles BMD is particularly high when spread across four manors or parishes. In the very rural parishes that I study, you would expect to have clusters of surnames within the manor, and so a large number of BMD events for each surname. One thing that you might want to check is whether the parish and the manor cover the same area - my experience is that surname clusters follow the manor rather than the parish. But, certainly, a surname occupying a number of separate properties would suggest that it had been around a few generations.
I wouldn't describe the sixteenth century as 'medieval' in England, rather 'Early Modern'. That's not nitpicking, because the change from medieval to modern involved all sorts of things which are maybe relevant here - land tenure, social attitudes, education, sources of wealth, etc..
Be careful about the use of the word 'servant' in this time period. A servant might have the same usage as today, but it could mean something much more important. It might, for instance, indicate what became known as a 'steward' in the seventeenth/eighteenth centuries (someone running the estate, liaising with tenants, running commercial ventures). A steward for a man as substantial as Sir Matthew by c1700 would certainly have been a gentleman in his own right, but I don't know whether that would have been the case 150 years earlier. William Bowles seems to have done well out of the 1599 will - clothing. £10 and a horse. Was this the same William Bowles who had been a curate?
Chris
Richard Carruthers
Bampfylde (Lord Poltimore)
My Turkey horse called Ottoman is clearly a pun. Raughley could I
suppose be a variant of Raleigh at a pinch. Perhaps these were all in
jokes. I know my plantation owning kin used all sorts of Wiltshire and
family names to name their slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Fovant and Knapton are definitely West Country place names.
On 28/03/2014, Tom LaPorte <tlap...@mymts.net> wrote:
> These are the horses he bequeathed: my Turkey horse called Otoman, my
> nagge called Bamfield , my nagge called Knapton, my nagge called Vuedall, my
> grey nagge called Raughley, my
> nagge called Fovent, my
> bay nagge called Raughley.
> Otoman would be a good name for a horse from Turkey. Fovent is Fovant just
> east of Tisbury. The rest all sound like family names.
>
>> Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 16:54:41 -0700
>> Subject: Re: more of a medieval society question
>> From: leli...@gmail.com
>> To: tlap...@mymts.net
>>
>> Interesting that the nag he gave to William Booles his servant
>> (presumably a kinsman) was named Vudall. Odd as it may seem, it is one
>> of the many variant spellings of the ancient gentry surname, Uvedale.
>> So it may be that there was a family connexion to them. For the
>> variants see "Notices of the family of Uvedale" at
>> http://books.google.ca/books/about/Notices_of_the_Family_of_Uvedale_of_Tits.html?id=0xoXAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y
>>
>> or obtain a full copy via a blind proxy server search.
>>
>> Good luck with your research.
>>
>> Richard
>> researching all instances of the name ERNLE and variants in Wiltshire,
>> Sussex, and elsewhere in England.
>>
>>
>
>
On 28/03/2014, Tom LaPorte <tlap...@mymts.net> wrote:
> These are the horses he bequeathed: my Turkey horse called Otoman, my
> nagge called Bamfield , my nagge called Knapton, my nagge called Vuedall, my
> grey nagge called Raughley, my
> nagge called Fovent, my
> bay nagge called Raughley.
> Otoman would be a good name for a horse from Turkey. Fovent is Fovant just
> east of Tisbury. The rest all sound like family names.
>
>> Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 16:54:41 -0700
>> Subject: Re: more of a medieval society question
>> From: leli...@gmail.com
>> To: tlap...@mymts.net
>>
>> Interesting that the nag he gave to William Booles his servant
>> (presumably a kinsman) was named Vudall. Odd as it may seem, it is one
>> of the many variant spellings of the ancient gentry surname, Uvedale.
>> So it may be that there was a family connexion to them. For the
>> variants see "Notices of the family of Uvedale" at
>> http://books.google.ca/books/about/Notices_of_the_Family_of_Uvedale_of_Tits.html?id=0xoXAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y
>>
>> or obtain a full copy via a blind proxy server search.
>>
>> Good luck with your research.
>>
>> Richard
>> researching all instances of the name ERNLE and variants in Wiltshire,
>> Sussex, and elsewhere in England.
>>
>>
>
>