Showing posts with label parish records. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parish records. Show all posts

Sunday, 20 November 2011

Fertility, Marriage and Motherhood: Women of Elizabethan Burnham

                       The Cholomondely sisters, married and delivered on the same day, c1599

Situated on the north bank of the river Crouch in south east Essex, Burnham-on-Crouch had been populated long before the Romans and Saxons settled there and was in the front line during the Danish invasion of the tenth century. By medieval times, a quay had been built to aid the farming of Waynflete oysters and the return of the fishing fleets: a survey of 1565 recorded twenty-one merchant vessels and seventeen fishing boats, a sizeable amount of regular sea traffic. Sheep were the main livestock kept on the marshes; Burnham women would have been involved in the production of the thick, rich ewe’s cheeses made in large huts known as wicks, as well as milk, butter and cream. No doubt they would also be the ones to cook the game brought home by the wildfowlers and the little fish caught at high tide in the traps called keddles, set into the black Essex mud. These women would have been the daughters, wives and mothers of yeomen, husbandmen, farmers, dairymen, wildfowlers and fishermen.
Most of those born in the parish would have been baptised, married and buried at St Mary’s Church, also known as the cathedral of the marshes. A church was first recorded on the site in 1155 although the current building dates from the fourteenth century; Tudor worshippers would still recognise the south porch door carved in linenfold panels and the square Purbeck marble font inside the church today. Wanting to conceive or safely deliver a child, Burnham women might have called on one of the local saints for protection: the missionary St Cedd, who founded the Seventh century chapel at nearby St Bradwell, the pilgrim St Helen of Colchester or St Osyth, a Seventh century abbess beheaded by the Danes. If they survived their ordeal, they would return to St Mary’s for churching and thanks giving and would ultimately be buried there.
Burnham fertility levels are fairly typical of neighbouring Essex parishes of the time. When it came to first babies, the majority of wives conceived within six months, with subsequent children arriving at intervals averaging a year to eighteen months. The widow Bridge married Richard Mannfield on April the twelfth 1559 and conceived at once, giving birth to their first son the following January. Longer gaps, usually of a year or more followed between the arrivals of her next three children, possibly delayed by breastfeeding, although the couple were clearly intimate again very soon after the arrival of their penultimate child William in July 1569, as a final daughter, Jane, was born only nine months after him in March 1570.
Following Agneta Bowman’s marriage to Richard Lund in April 1563, the couple produced their first son in March 1564, indicating a two month conception period, although the boy died a few weeks after his birth. Unless she had then taken in a nurse child, Agneta’s milk supply would have ceased, removing any contraceptive benefits and she was pregnant again six months later. The wife of John Gatton gave birth to Mary in July 1562 and must have fallen pregnant almost straight away in order to deliver twins John and Denis the following March. Her next recorded arrival was December 1563, meaning that she must have conceived again in the same way, barely days after her twins had arrived. An interval of a year elapsed before she fell pregnant with her final daughter Dorothy, born in October 1565. Such a concentrated period of childbearing must have taken its toll on her health and subsequent fertility levels.
Some did take longer to conceive. Grace Putipole was married to Thomas Sharpe in May 1561, although their first child was not christened until 1564 and Alice Harrison did not fall pregnant until more than two years after her wedding to Robert Anderson in 1578. Of course, the parish registers do not record those couples who were actively trying to conceive and failing or those pregnancies that did not go to term or resulted in still births. Long term infertility must have been an issue for some couples: the marriage register is full of unions that have no subsequent offspring, either through accident or design, although it will also include older couples and those who may have left the parish, so infertility statistics are impossible to determine.
                                                            St Mary's, Burnham

The rates of maternal mortality in Elizabethan Burnham were slightly higher than the estimated national averages of around 2.35 percent.[1] In unfortunate cases, it coincided with the slightly higher risk of infant mortality, often with first births. Alice Battle married Mark Wethers at St Mary’s on the thirteenth of September 1562. Neither were listed as having previous spouses so this was probably a first marriage, likely to have been contracted between two young people in their mid-twenties, according to usual ages of their class and time. Within four months Alice had conceived and would have begun to feel confident that she was pregnant by the following spring. The couple would have made preparations for their first child and Alice may have been apprehensive; no doubt she called on her female relatives and friends when her time came close in October 1563. At some time during her labour, things either began to go wrong or she delivered a child and was taken ill afterwards and died. Puerperal fever was common in an age that failed to connect the spread of disease with basis hygiene like hand washing; fevers could rapidly set in or else take days to incubate. Sadly, many mothers may have been infected by germs spread on the midwife’s hands, making the holders of that office the bearers of both life and death. Alice was buried on October the twenty-seventh, just over a year after her marriage; the couple’s son William followed her to the grave on November the fourth. Mark does not appear to have married again in Burnham.
It was a similar story for Annes Bott, who married Thomas Hill on May the twenty-second 1560.  Annes conceived about eighteen months later; the couple must have had their suspicions confirmed around the time of her quickening in February 1562. Five months later she went into labour but neither mother nor child, a boy named John, survived, both being buried at St Mary’s on the same day, the twenty-first of July 1562. Just over three months later, Thomas Hill remarried to Elizabeth Hamon but does not appear to have fathered any more children.
Husbands often found new wives with what appears like indecent haste to the twenty-first century eye, although it seems to have been quite a common practise at the time, following the examples of the Tudor court: Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk remarried three weeks after being widowed and the rapid turnover of Henry VIII’s wives was the subject of national gossip. But marriage was a necessary outlet. For Elizabethan men and women, relationships and casual sexual encounters could lead to charges of fornication, fines and public humiliation. Especially in the latter end of the period, increasing litigiousness gave rise to an explosion of immorality cases in the local Assize courts. Marriage was a safeguard against sin in the eyes of the church, a comfort and support as well as demarcating social standing and advancement. When John Ellis lost his wife Johan and baby son John in June 1562, it only took him until the beginning of October before leading Innocent Kemp to the altar at St Mary’s: she went on to bear him two more children.
The early 1560s saw particularly high rates of infant and maternal mortality in the town: Thomas Fowle lost his wife Annes and son John in April 1561, outliving them by twenty-three years; Thomas Drywood lost his wife Margaret and son in 1563; Thomas Hithe’s wife Johan and son died in the winter of 1560 and Henry Awman’s daughter Margaret was buried on June the thirteenth 1560, followed by his wife Johan two weeks later. By the 1580s, the rate of deaths was still high. Grace Whit died giving birth to her son John, who also died in January 1588 and Josanne Harvie was buried in September 1586, along with her daughter Susan. Agnes King died after having given birth to a daughter in June 1585, who followed her to the grave in early July. Women were not just at risk when having their first child. Elizabeth Medows gave birth to William in 1561, but died soon after the arrival of John in 1563.
In spite of the local proverb: “make haste when you are purchasing a field but when you are to marry a wife be slow,” enough men and women of Burnham married in haste to ensure the growth of the town. Case studies from St Mary’s parish register of baptisms, marriages and burials indicate a community where death was constantly present and unpredictable. Remarriage in the face of this helplessness was one way of reaffirming life. The rate of remarriage was high, with many men taking three or more wives, often only months after bereavement and fathering a string of children over a span of twenty or thirty years. This suggests marriage was less companionate and lasting than today; the romantic notion of a life-long union was rare and many matches were contracted between widows and widowers. Between 1559 and 1568, one in four weddings involved a widow; by the end of the Tudor period it was one in six. Women were less likely to remarry after having children although a large proportion of them did not survive long enough to do so. A significant number died giving birth to their first child but this did not lessen the danger risked with every subsequent delivery. The same sad story recurs through the parish registers.

Heartless as it may seem today, the death of a spouse created an opportunity, subject to timing. The speed of courtship and the ability and readiness of both parties to forge unions suggests marriages were licences for sexual activity, comfort and advancement in a transient world. With many marriages frequently lasting mere months, the concept of “until death do us part” must have been more immediate and relevant. Mathew Hone married the widow Johan Peeke on the thirteenth of October 1564 but when she died the following February, he married Johan Palmer in May, who had in turn been widowed that January. When Alles Munson died only weeks after marrying John Tailor, the six months he waited before remarrying in July to Annes Kenet was long in comparison with his next match; after his new wife died on the twenty first of April 1573, he waited only four months before leading Mary Mabbes to the altar at St Mary’s. It was common for women to die after a string of fairly close pregnancies and leave young children; Margaret Hunt had at least six children living when she died in 1560, the youngest being a girl of six while Alice Redwort, left exactly the same situation when she died in the same year. Widowers must have been looking for a potential stepmother as much as a wife.
Widowhood gave woman a degree of status and freedom in Tudor society; as spouses they and all their worldly goods were the property of a husband but in the event of his death, they could inherit possessions, homes, businesses and wealth, making them an attractive prospect for a new husband. On average, they waited longer than the Burnham men before seeking to become a man’s property again. With many marriages so brief, a Tudor widows did not fit the modern stereotype of women past their prime; many were still young and had not yet born a child; multiple marriages and the decease of spouses allowed some to acquire wealth through fortune and shrewd moves in the marriage market. Others had step children to consider when making a rematch.
One surviving will of the period shows in detail how a widow and surviving children were catered for. Kateryn Hanley became the sixth wife of seafaring man William Nicoll in May 1572, who had fathered his first children before 1559, when the parish records began. Perhaps the marriage or illness prompted him to write his will in November that year, giving a detailed insight into the division of the domestic treasures of his household: clearly his new [i]wife only had a claim of months whilst his children received the largest portion of his goods. To his son Thomas he left a feather bed, with bolster, pair of blankets and a covering of black and white, a brass pot and pewter dishes, platters, saucers and candlesticks. To his daughter Annes, he willed a flock bed that was his before his marriage; carefully ensuring it was not taken by his new wife; along with blankets, bolster, a covering, sheets and bedstead. She also received a number of kettles, pewter dishes, the best skillet with the legs, candle sticks, a salt cellar and linen of Holland cloth. Nicoll requested that his cousin sell his boat and use the money to discharge his debts before paying his daughter a fixed sum before concluding that the remainder “if there be any spare” go to his wife. Nicoll died in July 1573 and Kateryn went on to marry a William Everett the following February.
Elizabethan Burnham’s patterns of fertility, marriage and motherhood can throw up many surprises for a modern reader but serves as a reminder of the fragile and opportunistic nature of life in an era riddled with uncertainties, not least of mortality and medicine.


[1]  Schofield, Roger. “Did The Mothers Really Die? Three Centuries of Maternal Mortality” published in “The World We Have Lost.” Cambridge, 1991





Friday, 21 October 2011

Naughty Tudors: The historical realities of sex outside marriage


 Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon, who displeased her brother, Henry VIII, by marrying for love in 1515.


A Tudor woman’s social status was defined by her performance as a mother and wife. Broadly, this meant being submissive and respectful towards her husband regardless of his behaviour; being industrious and resourceful in the house; moral and devout in character and bringing forth a number of healthy children, preferably male. The scandal of illegitimacy, therefore, was to be avoided at all costs. The strict Catholic line couldn’t have been clearer: fornication and adultery were against the law; intercourse within marriage was acceptable only for the procreation of children and the penalties were harsh and public. Children born out of wedlock could be baptised and even legitimised by subsequent marriage vows but the social stigma of bastardy and its legal implications could not be so easily shaken off. The ramifications of illegitimacy, especially within noble and royal families could be felt for decades or even generations later. Given that those united in dynastic marriages frequently sought love elsewhere and many middle and lower-class couples delayed marriage until a whole decade after the onset of sexual maturity, was the church was relying on an unrealistic sense of people’s self-control ?
The reality of sexual relations and the family unit was far more complex. The majority of young people could not afford to marry until their late twenties, yet often lived and worked together in close proximity. Are we to understand then, that temptation never got the better of them ? At the risk of sounding overly romantic, are we to believe that they never fell hopelessly in love ? Are we really suggesting that human nature has changed so unrecognisably in the intervening centuries ? No; of course young unmarried people in Tudor times had sex, with or without the blessing of church or society, yet it was often the women who were left to deal with the consequential pregnancies. Servants shared rooms with masters, young people disappeared off into the bushes at fairs and adultery was overheard through key holes and windows. Even the most rudimentary forms of contraception were beyond the reach of the majority. “Quondams” appeared in the sixteenth century but would not have been widely available: the rhythm method and coitus interruptus were also notoriously unreliable; folklore offered various unhelpful mixtures of herbs and methods of stopping up the womb using hot wax ! Whilst Katherine Howard famously knew how to “meddle” with a man without getting with child, Tudor records are full of accusations and orders concerning the paternity and maintenance of bastards. In the absence of evidence and flight of those accused, the majority of illegitimate children ended up being cared for by the parish until the age of seven, which was not popular with the tithe payers. It was in a community’s financial interests to closely police their young people.
Inevitably, informal betrothals and alliances arose; temporary relationships were entered into in good faith and broken when the couple moved on or found alternative partners. A verbal promise of marriage or “hand-fasting,” could be enough to licence physical relations, as proved the downfall of Katherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth queen. Less than two years after her marriage, it was discovered that she had enjoyed two lovers in her youth, which she had omitted to mention to her new husband. With one Francis Dereham, she had exchanged promises, gifts and spent many nights together in a shared dormitory as husband and wife. Witnesses famously recalled how they had "hung together" by the belly "like two sparrows." Katherine might still have kept her head at this point but unfortunately for her, these enquiries led to the uncovering of her later adulterous affair and she went to the block in February 1542. Hand-fasting could even override later marriages in church, even if consummation had not taken place, as Henry tried to prove in the case of Anne Boleyn’s precontract to Henry Percy and successfully established to extract himself from an unwanted union with Anne of Cleves. Earlier, Anne Boleyn had conceived Elizabeth in December 1532, before her secret marriage to Henry took place in the new year. Promises could be made any time or any place: bedrooms, kitchens and fields witnessed secret agreements: it wasn’t until 1563 that the Council of Trent declared a marriage was void if not celebrated in front of a priest, although English law did not catch up until the eighteenth century.
 Legal marriages could take place anywhere, so long as the vows were properly made, enabling Catherine Grey and Edward Seymour to wed in secret in his bedroom in 1560 and immediately go on to consummate what became a doomed match. Edward’s sister, their only witness died soon after, Edward went overseas and Catherine found herself trying to conceal her pregnancy under Elizabeth’s watchful eye, unable to prove her marriage was legal. She had already been married once at the age of thirteen, which had been dissolved when it became politically expedient although this did not help her when the angry Queen committed her to the tower. Sometimes, agreements were consummated only for one of the parties to change their mind: in Rye in November 1571, the unmarried Joane Wilkinson found herself pregnant by Peter Greenaway of Hythe, who: “hath not only contracted himself in matrimony with the same Joane but also verie ungodlie hath mysused her bodie and therby gotten hir with child. Upon which complaynt the said Peter… denyed the same.” Pleading her case before the town council, she was aware that her fate lay in the testimony of others and “alleaged that there were divers credible witnesses residant within the town of Rye or near thereabouts that can depose of the same contract.” Justice for Joane would only rest on her ability to summon these witnesses and their willingness to testify and be believed.
Cohabitation was particularly frowned upon. Just how many of couples “living in sin” had been through some sort of hand-fasting or pledge is unclear: again, secrecy appears to lie at the root of the problem, although court records are full of the judgements made by neighbours, based on what they had seen. One Surrey ruling of 1569 decided that to establish paternity, it was “sufficient proof” that the mother and the accused had been discovered together in “suspicious” circumstances by a credible witness. At Midsummer 1589, William Pennocke, a maltman of Elstree in Hertfordshire, was charged with “living incontinently” with Mary Brooke, alias Thayer of Great Baddow, as a result of which she was pregnant. John Saunder, a clothier of Coggeshall, had been previously called to answer a case of adultery when he was resummoned for refusing to honour an order for maintenance of a child born to a Mary Webbe, of which he was also the reputed father. The Canterbury sessions heard in 1601 that one Mary Lawnder of Sittingbourne had lived an “incontinent” life, having born five or six illegitimate children, for which she was committed to a house of correction in Canterbury. 
Provision for illegitimate children, especially those born to the poor, homeless or servants, could be a drain on the parish, into whose care they were frequently entrusted. In Easter 1575, the general sessions at Chelmsford passed an ordinance for the relief of the poor and vagabonds:
“If any woman has a bastard child and any person can be proved or vehemently suspected by reasonable presumptions to be guilty of begetting the child or of incontinency, the justices shall take order with the man and woman for keeping the said child; and they shall take order with the mother to keep and nourish the child without charging the inhabitants and if they forsake the child and refuse to keep and same, they shall find her out and take order with her and if the man suspected to be guilty of begetting the child shall be conveyed away or concealed by his parents or other persons counselled by them to depart the country or his place of abode so he cannot be forthcoming to answer the charges against him, then the justices shall charge the parents and counsellors with the keeping of the said child until the party appear; and the justices shall take order by bond with the begetter of the child, and if he refuse to enter into bond, then they shall commit him to gaol.”
The assize courts took a dim view of those fathers who had failed to maintain their offspring, employing fines and imprisonment to ensure payment. Mariner John Brooke of Burnham had failed to support his daughter by Agnes Nicoll in April 1579 and was ordered by the local court to pay 8d a week to the parish for the keep of the child. At Easter 1591, Robert Barnard of Little Totham was also remanded in custody at Colchester gaol until he was able to support the child he had fathered with single woman Mary Turner of Southminster. In October 1586, John Poole was imprisoned for refusing to pay 8d a week for the upkeep of a child born to Mary Warde, currently maintained by the church wardens of West Hanningfield. Social class was no barrier to reprimand: Robert Noble of Thundersley was summoned in January 1591 for failing to maintain an order, meaning provision, for a child fathered by him on Margaret Nevell, who had been his servant and in March 1603, Elizabeth Bright, the servant of Nicholas Clarke, a painter of Beuchamp Roding bore his child. Marriage was no bar to desertion either: John Curtes of Shopland, husbandman, was to be apprehended in midsummer 1592, for having deserted his pregnant wife, who had passed her child on to the parish for care.  Sometimes costs were split between the parents. Edmund Cheveley of Stock was to contribute 6d weekly and Susan Dates 4d weekly for the maintenance of their child in 1579 but sometimes both parents absconded, like Alice Romboll and Arthur Machin, named and shamed by the constable of Writtle in 1576. In 1602, it was Anne Seayne of Billericay who had “unnaturally” absconded and left her child in the care of the parish and in 1591, Bridget Hammond at the Chelmsford Assize who had left with the consent of the father of her child.
Severe, public punishments for fornication and adultery were intended as deterrents and many many villagers actively denounced each other for transgression. Cases from the Essex assize courts suggest communities were jealously protective of their codes of moral conduct, reluctant to see their neighbours get away with unlawful behaviour. An intolerance of rule-breaking and the financial implication for the parish seem to recur in many statements and letters of complaint: the “whistle-blowing” culture cannot have helped neighbourly feeling, as seen in the swathe of orders made to keep the peace and the high number of physical and verbal clashes that required legal mediation. Denunciations could be supported by oaths of in excess of ten people, travelling to the local court to give witness, who would then provied an audience for the implementation of whippings and other shaming penalties. These were often carried out in market places or outside churches, at the busiest times of day. Yet society could not override biology. In spite of the social stigma and range of deterrents, the Tudors continued to have sex outside marriage and produce illegitimate children. It wasn’t the norm; the average per parish was around 10-12 from 1538 when records began, until the end of the dynasty in March 1603 and the lives of those involved could be very difficult as a result. It must have been very difficult for young people: the social and economic circumstances of their lives was often in direct competition with the rulings of their culture and church. Another four centuries before the stigma would finally be shaken off.


 



Wednesday, 21 September 2011

The naming of Tudor Babies.


Today the naming of babies is a serious business. Parents-to-be can choose from a wealth of books and websites dedicated to the topic and every new celebrity arrival seems to be flagged up on internet search engines. Anything seems acceptable as a name these days: places, food, objects, colours; the field is vast. Parents can choose to endow their offspring with pretty much whatever name they fancy and it can take a while to choose. Yet go back five hundred years and name-giving was a far more simple matter.
Throughout the Tudor dynasty, the same names remained in favour. John, Thomas and William topped the chart for the boys, whilst Elizabeth, Mary and Jone were regularly chosen for girls. Old favourites such as Richard, Henry, Robert and George, Alice, Anne, Margaret and Joanna continued to be murmured over the baptismal font, although the vagaries of Tudor spelling led to a wide range of variation, dependent upon accent and the relative education of parish clerks. Family tradition played a big part too. It was common to find the same name given to fathers and sons or bestowed to honour the memory of a grandparent. The Rayners of Burnham, Essex, regularly named their sons Grene or Green while the Peekes opted for John, usually spelt Jhon. The names of children who succumbed to an early death were reused, so a family might christen two or three Thomases before one survived.
The royal family were not particularly daring with their choices. Henry VII’s first son was named Arthur and born at Winchester, in an attempt to realign the dynasty with traditional legends and Welsh roots. After that, the king bestowed his own name on his second son, with two other short-lived boys named Edmund and Edward, after the Queen’s father. Their first daughter was named Margaret, like the king’s mother, followed by Elizabeth, Mary and Katherine, the absolute staples of early Tudor popularity. Henry VIII lost at least three Henries before the arrival of Edward VI and showed little more originality when it came to his daughters, also choosing Mary and Elizabeth. In this though, he can hardly be blamed. Unlike today, Tudor names were not intended to be original; they spoke of loyalty to family, religion and the monarchy. In the same way, they could go out of favour. In many Essex parishes, Katherine and Anne were popular choices during the 1520s and 30s, with many ladies in waiting at the court naming their daughters after the relevant Queen. Katherine of Aragon’s close friend Maud Parr gave birth to a daughter in 1512, which led to the pleasing symmetry of Henry VIII’s last wife being named after his first. Katherine and Anne suffered a lapse in popularity in the middle of the century though, forever associated with the unhappy fates of Henry’s wives.
Choices would have been affected by family history, dynastic loyalties and geographical location. Favourite names were repeatedly passed down, causing confusion in parish registers where three generations might share the same pair of names. Analyses of baptismal records reveal that communities tended to develop their own name pool, passed on by word of mouth. The more movement and migration a town experienced, the greater access they may have had to unusual names. Thus Burnham on the river Crouch had Barnabe, Lenarde and Jasper, Susan, Annes and Sara while in the nearby city Colchester, the names Winken, George and Ralff, Esther, Prudence and Frances occur more than in other places. Colchester as on the main pilgrimage route towards Walsingham and as with many centres of devotion to the Virgin, Mary remained the favourite choice.  Further up round the coast, Clacton was unusual in throwing up some exotic listings; boys there might find themselves baptised as Clement, Augustine or Bartholomew, although interestingly, the most flamboyant names of Silvester and Hercules were bestowed on illegitimate sons. The Clacton registers also include the names of a large community of Dutch immigrants, ensuring regular new entries into the lists.
Similar names were given among all ranks of Tudor life, although the tradesmen and yeomanry became notably more experimental towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign. In Colchester in the 1540s, only ten female names were reused with regularity; the 1550s saw the introduction of four more, while seven joined the list in the 1560s. After this though, a rapid expansion seemed to take place, with names arriving each month; new trends brought Lettice, Ursula, Faith, Rhoda, Judeth, Stace, Parnell and Thomasine. The same was true of boys’ names, whose initial field was even narrower. In the 1540s, parents in Colchester only used six male names with any regularity but by the 1590s, they could choose from over fifty. In this they were only keeping up with the Sir Joneses. The aristocracy were never averse to throwing something unusual in among their pool of Thomases, Johns, Marys and Annes; Berkshire families used Bartholomew and Marmaduke, Honoria, Coleberry and Frideswide.
Modern parents seeking to bestow their offspring with a Tudor name might follow the Essex trends and opt for the solid, enduring choices favoured by the royal family or else take the plunge with a Martha, Maude or Ursula for their daughters and Raynold, Walter or Gilbert for the boys. It might prove difficult though, to find those on key rings and Christmas stockings. In any case, to avoid embarrassment they should be wary of those which have switched gender. Tudor girls might have been proud to be called Clement, Julian, Bennet, Christian or Dennis but their modern counterparts may not be so appreciative.
Here in full is the Tudor top ten:
 1   Mary/Marie                         John
2    Elizabeth                             Thomas
3    Jone/Jane/Joan                    William
4    Margaret/Margery               Richard
5    Ann/Anne                            Henry
6    Agnes                                  Edward
7   Alice/Alis                             Ralf/Ralff
8   Joanna/Johanna                    George
9   Susan                                    Robert
10 Annis                                    Humfrey