Tag Archives: deeds

Thomas Baker of Fobbing and the Peasants’ Revolt

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The Essex Record Office recently hosted the launch for the database of ‘The People of 1381’ (an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project). As part of the launch
Katharine Schofield and Diane Taylor curated a surprise pop-up exhibition of relevant sources kept at the ERO. In this blog Dr Herbert Eiden (Research Assistant for ‘The People of 1381’ project) reflects on why one of these documents holds particular interest.

Amongst the documents on display at the launch event– mainly manorial court rolls – was this rather inconspicuous property deed dating from four years before the revolt.

Grant of lands in Basildon, Laindon, Ramsden Crays, Nevendon and Fobbing, 25 October 1377 (D/DHf T41/56)

In the list of witnesses in the otherwise unremarkable grant of lands and tenements in Laindon, Ramsden Crays, Nevendon and Fobbing is one Thomas Baker. This is very likely the Thomas Baker who was named by the contemporary chronicler Henry Knighton as the ‘first mover’ of the rebellion.

In several inquests after the rising Baker was accused of having been present at Brentwood on 30 May 1381, when a royal commission enquiring into non-payment of the third poll tax was put to rout. Afterwards he ordered messengers to proclaim the uprising in south-Essex and probably beyond the Thames in Kent.

He was also charged with taking part in the attack on Cressing Temple and Coggeshall. He was found guilty as charged and drawn and hanged in Chelmsford on 4 July 1381.

It is known from an escheator inquisition taken eight years after the rising that, at the time of his death, Thomas held of the abbot of Waltham Holy Cross a croft called ‘Bakerescroft’ containing 6 acres of land in Fobbing as well as a messuage with garden of Joan de Bohun, countess of Hereford, and lady of the manor of Fobbing.

Map of estate of Thomas Drew in Fobbing and Corringham, 1781 (D/DCx P1)

This map, dated four hundred years after the Peasants’ Revolt, shows Bakers Croft in Fobbing: a smallholding of more than 6 acres of land. It has been identified as possibly being the land of the rebel Thomas Baker.

Yet, nothing is known about his life up to 1381.

The manorial documents of Fobbing in the second half of the 14th century are lost. This is where this snippet of information from the deed fits in nicely. Witnesses to medieval deeds were trustworthy local men of some standing. We can therefore infer that Thomas Baker was prominent in his area before he assumed a leading role in the repulsion of the tax commission.

A final twist is revealed by the presence of two other witness names. One, Geoffrey Darsham, or Dersham, who was the Earl of Oxford’s steward in south-east Essex, had his manor house of Barnhall in Downham destroyed and livestock stolen, and John Onywand, another of the deed’s witnesses, was a member of the jury presenting this allegation in 1381.

It is intriguing that three of the six people coming together in October 1377 to witness a land transaction found themselves on different sides of the divide only four years later: a rebel, a victim of the rebels, and a juror.

For more about the Peasants’ Revolt visit http://www.1381.online/

Wading into a Polystyrene Sea

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After our recent posts on how to run a manor, what a manor was, and the records produced by manorial courts today we had an exciting package which arrived from Professor Lawrence Poos all the way from America. It’s another manorial document for our collection! You can find out more about manorial records and how you can use them in your own research from Professor Poos and others at Essex through the ages: tracing the past using manorial records on Saturday 12 July 2014.

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ERO Archivist Katharine Schofield and Public Service Team Manager Neil Wiffen eagerly anticipating opening the package!

We thought we’d provide a little photo story of the unboxing. I think the pictures below will give you some idea of the lengths people go to to transport the documents they want to deposit with us. Documents arrive with us in all sorts of forms and conditions and it is always exciting to unwrap them for the first time.  As always, stay tuned for more details about this new document! 

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Don’t worry, Neil is a fully trained knife wielder.

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Nearly there!

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Hey Presto! One new Copyhold Deed for the Essex Record Office Collection.

Hey Presto! One new Copyhold Deed for the Essex Record Office Collection.

 Whether you are interested in using manorial records in your own research, or just want to enjoy hearing experts talk about them, join us for Essex through the ages: tracing the past using manorial records on Saturday 12 July 2014 to find out how you can discover centuries of Essex life using these fascinating documents. There are more details, including how to book, here.

ERO @ 75: The Open Day

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Well, colour me exhausted!

After a thoroughly enjoyable Heritage Open Day on Saturday, I am sure you will forgive us a brief hiatus in the social media sphere. We all had a great time and we hope you did too. It was great to see so many people, roughly more than 500 came through the door by our closest estimates and every tour was packed. In fact, in the the end we had to lay on a few additional tours to ensure as many people could enjoy a guided tour of our searchroom or a visit to our conservation studio (from which one of my friends returned green with envy, saying “Some of the kit in there…fantastic!” He may have had too much blue icing though.

Our thanks must also go out to all our lovely volunteers without whom the day would not have been possible.

I thought I should share with you a few of the photos from the day, there are many more to follow.

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Lord Petre, Lord Lieutenant of Essex, Councillor Kay Twitchen, Chairman of Essex County Council and Stephen Dixon, Archive Services Manager, cutting our 75th Anniversary cake.

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Married women’s property in the Victorian age

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Edward Harris, Archives Assistant, writes for us about a rare document which gives us an insight into Victorian married life…

One of the advantages of working in the Searchroom is that you often find interesting items from our collections passing through your hands. One document which caught our eye recently is this ‘Certificate of Acknowledgement of Deeds by Married Women’, something which we have only a few examples of (D/DC 27/680/A).

These are to Certify, that on the twenty fifth day of June in the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty Six before us John Mayhew and William Sparling Two of the perpetual Commissioners appointed for the County of Essex for taking the acknowledgements of Deeds by Married Women, pursuant to an Act passed in the Third and Fourth Years of the Reign of His Majesty King William the Fourth, intituled, “An Act for the Abolition of Fines and Recoveries, and for the Substitution of more simple modes of Assurance,” appeared personally Ann the wife of Henry Skingley and produced a certain Indenture marked B bearing date the twenty fourth day of June one thousand eight hundred and thirty six and made between the said Henry Skingley and Ann his wife of the one part and Thomas Batt on the other part and acknowledged the same to be her Act and Deed And We do hereby certify that the said Ann Skingley was at the time of her acknowledging the said Deed of full age and competent understanding, and that she was examined by us apart from her Husband touching her knowledge of the contents of the said Deed and that she freely and voluntarily consented to the same. (D/DC 27/680/A)

These certificates, the earliest dating to 1833, are sometimes found attached to the deed to which they refer. They were created in a half attempt to right the centuries old wrong whereby on marriage all the property belonging to the wife became the property of the husband, meaning she effectively lost all control over its disposition or sale. Despite a common law requirement that she be a party to the deed of sale, it was generally held that the husband’s will always prevailed and abuses of that position were thought to be common.

In 1833 a clause in the Fines and Recoveries Act required that a woman selling property jointly with her husband would have to be interviewed separately by a public official, known as a commissioner, to certify that she was ‘of full age and competent understanding’, to confirm that she was not being forced into agreeing to the sale. The example above relates to the mortgaging of a property by Mr Henry Skingley and his wife Ann to one Thomas Batt. It was also noted on the original deed (D/DC 27/680) that this examination had taken place.

A note on the original deed that Ann Skingley had agreed to the mortgaging of the land which had belonged to her before her marriage (D/DC 27/680)

The Married Women’s Property Act of 1882 finally granted equal rights in property ownership to married women and simultaneously brought to an end the production of the certificates of Acknowledgement.

We have a small number of original certificates amidst our vast collection of deeds and lists of the commissioners for Essexcan be found in Q/RDm 3.

Conservation project: conserving the Takeley deeds

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Conservation is a vital part of our work at ERO. Our conservators work to protect and conserve documents, to ensure their survival for years to come.

One recent project has conserved a collection of 42 early medieval deeds relating to the manor of Colchester Hall in Takeley (document references D/DRu T1/1-42). These deeds are special for many reasons; they all date to before 1250, many have intact seals, and notes made in Arabic numerals on the back of the deeds are an early example of the use of this numbering system in England.

In the last line of this note, it is possible to make out an 8 and a 3 – an early example of the use of Arabic numerals in England. The 4 is from a later cataloguing system.

Unusually for such early deeds, over half still have their original seals attached, and the cleaning has made it possible to pick out detail on the seals which had been lost beneath accumulated dirt.

One of the seals half-way through the cleaning process

Tears in the parchment have been repaired using patches of goldbeater’s skin (a membrane made from calves intestine), applied with a gelatine adhesive. The patches are applied with a tissue backing, which is then removed, leaving an invisible repair.

Removing the tissue backing from a parchment repair

The deeds were stored in cramped and damaging conditions, folded up in acidic envelopes, and even in an old manicure set box. The deeds have now been stored flat, with each being treated to its own custom-made board. 

A deed in its former storage, folded up in an acidic envelope. Left for long enough the acid in the paper would damage the deed.

 

A deed in its former storage in an old manicure set box

The newly-conserved deeds are on display for the next three months in our brand-new cases in the Searchroom.

The conservation project was possible thanks to the Newton Bequest, made by Ken Newton, former County Archivist and medieval historian, and his wife Mildred.