In the popular imagination the streets of sixteenth and seventeenth century villages and towns were littered with people dying horribly from plague. The archives from Hope and Castleton do not tell us a great deal to counter this impression, but there is some information to throw light on the issue.

The wills from 1547-1650 show that, not surprisingly, more people died in February and March than at other times of the year.  Why was this?  Most people lived at or below subsistence level.  Nationally, in the Tudor period, there was starvation roughly every four years with the worst famine in 1594 after four years of poor crop yields.  Late winter and spring were notoriously the leanest times of year, the so-called hungry gap.  Added to this, winter temperatures were particularly low in the early seventeenth century.  There is no doubt that many died every year from starvation and cold.

Examination of the Hope Parish register of deaths shows there were several years when there were spikes in the death rate.  In most years there were 30-40 deaths but in 1624 the rate doubled.  This coincided with a similar rise in death rates around the north-west of the country, known to be caused by a drop in the price of wool together with a steep rise in the price of grain over the previous two years.  Starvation was again the likely cause.

The next terrible year was 1636 when, again, the death rate nearly doubled.  The Parish Records noted that there “…beganne the great death of many children & others by a contagious disease called the childrens pocke:  & Purple Pocke:  & whyt hives with blysters”.  This probably describes smallpox but an epidemic of meningococcal meningitis cannot be excluded, particularly as children were prominently affected. 

There were no records of plague in these villages.  It predominantly affected towns:  Chesterfield in 1586 and Derby in 1646, despite the appalling experience in Eyam in 1665.  However, everyone was affected by these epidemics as the access to markets and employment was severely affected. 

Other more mysterious causes included the sweating sickness, probably influenza, and gastroenteritis.  There was another spike in the death rate in 1617, perhaps from one of these causes.

Many records are missing.  We have little understanding of people’s age when they died.  It emphasises how important it is to preserve our archives.

The Lottery funded project in the Hope Valley was intended to throw light on ordinary people.  Studies of the wills and inventories from 1547-1650 illuminate something of ordinary lives but often in a negative way.

Inventories were required if the estate was worth £5 or more, and did not deal with houses and land holdings but goods, chattels and animals.  Although there were 6 inventories whose worth was less than £5, the owners formed only a tiny proportion of the numbers known to have died in the period.  The Parish Records in Hope from 1620-1650 recorded that 687 people died, and this despite the fact that in this period 19 years are missing from the record.  Yet we have documents from only 28 people during this time.  Who were the rest?

We must conclude that they were too poor to have personal records.  The High Peak was one of the poorest areas in the country.  A tourist would have seen an industrial landscape, with evidence of lead mining and smelting wherever he looked.  Although the inventories show that farming was a universal occupation for the testators, with only the Castleton schoolmaster having no livestock, this was presumably not the case for the majority.  Miners made and possessed very little, even though the district was a magnet for impoverished men seeking to make a living underground.

Of the 105 people of Hope and Castleton that left documents, there was only one recorded miner and another 5 that possessed lead or lead ore at his death.  The division between those mining lead and the rest seems clear.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to read those inventories that are available. Edward Spencer, who died in Hope in 1629, had an inventory valued at only £4 6s 0d and owned a mare, furniture with chairs and cushions and 2 “boards” or table tops, a cart, saddle and yoke, and various bits of iron ware with pewter and brass. In contrast, Roger Harrison was valued in 1614 at £300 15s 2d, including his debts. He owned sheep, horses, oxen with other cattle and a large quantity or oats and barley, as well as wool and yarn. In his house, he had luxuries such as an hour glass, a mirror and a “venice” glass. Imagination lets us speculate what a local miner would think about either of these two men.

Most people with wills and inventories recorded between 1547 and 1650 owned livestock.  Perhaps surprisingly, the most frequently held animals were cattle.  88% had cows or calves and 30% had oxen or bullocks.

These animals were not described in the documents but it is known that the common type in this region was black with large horns, and much admired by contemporary writers.  Gervase Markham, in the 17^th century, noted that a good milker should have “a crumpled horn, a thin neck, a hairy dewlap” and a large white udder.

Predictably, more cattle were owned by those with relatively wealthy inventories.  Usually the herd was small, with a maximum of 16.  Only 10 had more than 10 cattle, whereas 16 had only one or two and the numbers held were steady throughout the period.  These figures were consistent with national surveys.  Their value rose through the hundred years in line with general inflation from around £0.16.0 in 1547 to £2.10.0 in 1650.

Oxen were castrated bulls, notable for their great strength and docility.  By the time of this survey, oxen were beginning to be supplanted by horses for ploughing and as draught animals.  Contemporary roads were very poor and wagons required great pulling power.  Often, in the winter, they were impassable.  In this area, there is minor evidence of old ridge-and-furrow ploughing on the landscape, as the ground is relatively light.  This old technique was particularly valuable in heavy, wet ground where deep ploughing allowed better water drainage.

Oxen were owned by the relatively wealthy testators.  They were probably shared within the community and it is notable that two Castleton vicars had them in their inventories; it might be imagined they felt it was their duty to provide this service to their parishioners.  They were the most valuable of all animals, ranging from £1.0.6 to £5.0.0 from the beginning to the end of the period.  However, even though they kept their worth in line with inflation, the numbers dropped sharply, with 40% fewer in the 17^th compared to the second half of the 16^th century.

Milking and the manufacture of butter and cheese was women’s work.  Only 8 “milke basens” were recorded although milking must have been a universal task.  Butter and cheese were always found together in inventories, but were listed only 3 times. 

Until it is remembered that they were the only means of transport in the period 1547 – 1650 as recorded in Wills and Inventories, it may be a surprise that 72% of the documents listed horses.  After all, men and women from Hope and Castleton were far from wealthy.  Of these 62 people, 20 listed only one horse, with a maximum of 6 in one inventory.

Frustratingly, there are few indications as to the breed or even function of the horses, whether they were beasts of burden, for pulling the plough, or for riding.  However, inventories did list 11 pack saddles, 4 cart saddles, 3 hackney saddles and one side saddle.  The hackney horse was for riding, and the side saddle belonged to the wealthiest inventory, that of Jane Savage from Castleton, who died in 1604. 

By this time, horses were supplanting oxen for ploughing and pulling heavy loads, although some contemporary writers firmly opposed this trend.  Fitzherbert, writing in 1534, noted that “the ploughe of oxen is moche more profytable than the ploughe of horses” and then listed many disadvantages of horses, even concluding that at the end of the animal’s life the horse was “but caryen”, unlike oxen which became “mannes meate, and as good or better than ever he was.”  Gervase Markham, in 1613, noted that plough teams could consist of both horses and oxen.

The Rev. William Harrison, writing in Hollinshed’s ‘Chronicles’ in 1577, claimed that English draught horses “are commonly so strong that fyve (or six) of them (at the most) will draw three thousand weight” or 1½ tons.

Whilst there are few clues as to the horses’ breeds, active development of horses was taking place by this time.  As noted, the hackney horse was widely used for riding, although it was smaller than modern animals.  The Suffolk Punch had also been selectively bred by this time.  Markham, in 1617, recommended that the best horses for husbandmen came from “Freeseland, Holland, and Artoys”.  However, working horses in the Derbyshire lead mines were probably bred in Lincolnshire.

Horses in these inventories rose in value throughout the period by a multiple of 3½, the greatest inflation in price for any animal except pigs.  The rise from £2 to £3 10s (£3.50) was particularly marked in the last decade, the 1640s, when suddenly they became strategically essential during the Civil War.

10. Pigs and Poultry

11. Corn and Hay

We have seen already that there were more cattle than any other animal in inventories from the period 1547 – 1650.  Surprisingly, therefore, very few listed equipment for milking or for making butter or cheese.  Thomas Marshall from Castleton, who died in 1649, listed “8 milke basens” and only three inventories contained butter and cheese, always together.  The likelihood is that its production was such a routine task, allotted to women, that the equipment was not regarded as worth listing, or that other vessels in inventories were used for the purpose but not specifically named as such.  In this context, it is worth noting that 2 of the 7 widows with inventories owned a single cow which must have been for their milk.

Gervase Markham, in his 1635 book “The English Housewife” devoted pages to milking.  It is noteworthy that  he insisted that hygiene in the dairy was essential:  “not the least mote of any filth by any means appear.”  The same applied to the containers “which must be scalded once a day … and set in the open air to sweeten.”  Milk was routinely “siled” or sieved through a “very clean washed fine linen cloth.”  Barnaby Googe in 1614 reckoned that the best milk came from goats which was “the most comfortable to the stomacke” but no goats appeared in any of these documents.  He added that “sheep’s Milke is sweeter, and nourisheth more, but is not so good for the stomacke, by reason it is fatter and grosser.”

Cream could not be kept for longer than two days in the summer, and four in the winter.  The cream had to be churned for butter, and Markham gave specific advice as to timing, to fit with usual market days.

Rennet was needed for making cheese, and there were lengthy instructions as to how to make a rennet bag from the stomach of a suckling calf.  In Markham’s opinion, the best cheese was “morning cheese” made from that morning’s milk together with cream from the evening before.  He also recommended “nettle cheese” as the “finest summer cheese which can be eaten”  He described “eddish cheese” made from milk from cows fed on the eddish or grass that grew after the harvest.  As it was produced in winter and could not be dried and hardened in the warmth of summer, it was a soft cheese. 

13. Wool and Wool Cloth

14. Flax and Hemp

It may seem strange to relate that manure, or “meaner” as it was usually called, was important enough to be recorded in inventories from 1547-1650.  Although it was not valuable in monetary terms, 12 appraisers saw fit to list it.  The range of values was only 12 pence to 10 shillings, presumably dependent on quantity, which was never specified.

The science of fertilisers was unknown at this time but it was recognised that additives improved soil fertility and productivity. The number of bushels per acre of corn increased by around 100% between the 13^th and the 16^th centuries.

Barnaby Googe graded manure in 1614:  “The first of Poultry, the next of Men, the third of Cattell”.  Human waste had to be mixed with household rubbish, otherwise it was “too hot, and burnes the ground.”  Urine was kept for six months before being used on vines and apple trees when it  “bringeth great fruitfulness to the trees, and giveth a pleasant taste to the fruit.”   In 1534, Fitzherbert preferred cow dung to that of horses whilst noting that doves’ dung was the best “but it must be layde upon the grounde verye thynne.”  Others agreed that “Pigion or Pullen-dung”, but specifically excluding goose dung, “… is the best of all other”.

Googe noted that “the dung that hath line a yeere, is best for Corne, for it both is of sufficient strength, and breedeth lesse weeds”.

It is possible that the term “manure” included other soil conditioners such as wood ash, lime and marl, which is a mudstone containing lime.  In 1613, Gervase Markham noted that “if you finde this soile to be subiect to extraordinary wet and coldnesse, you shall then know that the ashes eyther of wood, coale, or straw, is a very good manure for it”.  Further, “if then you take Lime and sow it upon your land … and then sow your corne after it, you shall finde great profit to come thereon.”   Importantly, he also said  “…pulses, which both bring forth commoditie, and also out of their owne natures doe manure and inrich your ground, making it more apt and fit to receive much better Seede”.  The importance of nitrogen fixing legumes such as clover in crop rotations was not fully recognised until after 1650, although clover had been imported from the Low Countries as early as 1620.

The Wills and Inventories from 1547 to 1650 listed a wide range of tools although the numbers were often surprisingly small, considering that almost every testator was involved in agriculture in one way or another.  There were 31 types of tool, mostly agricultural implements but some may have been for lead mining, notably augers, sieves and pickaxes.

The commonest tools for cultivation were spades (7), pitchforks (5), shovels (5), scythes (4), and mattocks (3), along with sickles, pickaxes, crowbars, wimbles, hoes, forks and rakes.  Slightly more common were axes which were listed 7 times, with 2 hatchets.  A wimble was probably a tool for twisting corn into a coarse rope for tying corn sheaves.  The lack of tools for turf or peat cutting is consistent with the infrequency of peat and sleds in the inventories.

Spades came in many varieties with different functions, from a straightforward delving spade to turf and peat spades.  The function of a pricking spade is obscure, but possibly was used for pricking out seedlings.  Spade handles were usually made from ash and the blade from iron or wood with an iron sleeve.  There was considerable regional variation as to their precise form.

Tools that were used by women, particularly those used for harvesting, such as rakes, were often lightly built.  They were usually made from softwood and lightened further by bevelling or rounding the wood, even though iron tines might have been used to make the tool hard-wearing.  Early pitchforks were also wooden, with the end of a pole split and held open with a wedge, before being superseded by iron.

The scarcity of scythes and sickles may have reflected their low value, but it is possible that their rarity reflected a shift away from arable to pastoral farming.

Also often listed were hand tools, the commonest of which was a nogar (auger) (6), but also hammers, mallets, chisels, saws and adzes.  There were four inventories with ladders and one with a wheelbarrow.

Fitzherbert in 1534 was dogmatic as to the tools a husbandman should possess:  “Also an husbande must have an axe, a hatchet, a hedgyngebyll, a pyn-awgur, a rest-awgur, a flayle, a spade and a shovell.”  He acknowledged that these tools might have different names around the country.  He also recognised the cost of buying tools and that the husbandman should “learn to make his yokes, oxe-bowes, stooles, and all maner of plough-geare”.

At the time of the wills and inventories from 1547-1650, North West Derbyshire was heavily industrialised and, despite the evidence here of an agrarian community, lead mining has been described as the only employment for many poor people.  It is, therefore, one of the most striking facts to emerge from the study of these papers that documentary evidence of lead mining was rare. 

Five left quantities of lead and the owners probably dealt in lead, or were directly concerned with mining.  Only John Bramall, who died in Castleton in 1640, was identified as a miner.  Thomas Bocking, who died in 1615, also from Castleton, had an estate that was owed a fooder of lead (also foother or 19½ cwt) as well as 2 debts of “dishes” of “owre”.  A dish was about 65 lb. of lead ore.  All the others owned, owed or were owed pieces, piggs (ingots, usually 1/8 of a foother) and spiggets of lead.

John Needham, from Castleton and dying in1615, had these items consecutively in his inventory:  “One grove & meare of ground, one washinge sieve w^th other toules, thertaine owre.”  A grove was a lead mine and a meer was an ancient unit of length for mining a lead vein, locally 32 yards long.  It could be of any width or depth.  The sieve, in this context, was for sieving ore before washing or buddling.  Sieving for this purpose is said to have been introduced in 1565 and was also used for scavenging small quantities of ore from spoil heaps.  Needham also owned:  “three kyne, one heyffer & ii Calves, three horses & mares & one fole, xxv sheepe.”  The dearth of inventory items associated with mining and the almost invariable inclusion of livestock suggests that in this segment of society most led an agrarian lifestyle with only a suggestion that it was combined with mining.   Documented disputes arose between miners and farmers and there is no doubt that mining coexisted with, and went on beneath, the farmers’ fields. Local Justices did not have to make provision under the Poor Laws for those employed in lead mining.  These documents reflect the economy only of a relatively well-off segment of society and their number is small.  The bulk of those that died, as identified in the Parish Registers, did not leave wills and inventories, and these certainly included many impoverished miners.

The wills and inventories of 1547-1650, particularly in the second half of that period, included a good deal of information about the furniture in people’s houses.

It might have been hoped that these documents, as elsewhere in the country, would inform us about their houses themselves.  However, here this is not the case.  Even so, some suggestion as to the sizes of their houses can be extrapolated from the amount of furniture they owned.  For instance, the wealthy Roger Harrison from Castleton, who died in 1614, owned 4 featherbeds as well as 6 pairs of bedstocks (bed frames), 7 coffers, 3 tables and numerous other large items.  Presumably his house had not less than 4 bedrooms, at least one parlour and a dining room, probably more.  John Bockinge of Hope, who died in 1630, had 2 featherbeds and furniture for at least 2 living rooms.  At the other end of the scale, although she was well-off financially, Elizabeth Saunderson of  Hope, who died in 1636, had a chaff bed, a coffer and a dishboard, probably in just one or two rooms.

This period saw many changes in the construction of furniture.  The craft of joinery started in the late mediaeval period, whereby furniture was no longer put together with nails but with pegged mortice-and-tenon joints.  Carpenters, who made the early simple furniture, were excluded from making joined furniture from 1632 onwards.   Joiners had the exclusive use of glue and the right to make dovetail joints.

Turners also were separately identified through their livery company in 1604.  The range of turned articles extended from treen tableware to limited varieties of furniture, especially chairs.  They would have used either a treadle or a pole lathe and their work overlapped with that of wheelwrights.

Cabinet makers were joiners who constructed large pieces of box-shaped furniture, such as chests, from dovetailed boards without a jointed frame.  Such work, initially introduced by immigrant craftsmen, was often lavishly decorated with veneers  and marquetry.

In 1577, William Harrison noted that hitherto expensive furniture “now it is descended yet lower, even unto the inferiour artificers and manie farmers, who (by virtue of their old and not of their new leases) have (for the most part) learned also to garnish their cupboards with plate, their (ioined) beds with tapistrie and silke hangings, and their tables with (carpets &) fine naperie …”

Fifty seven of the inventories from 1547 to 1650 listed some form of bed or bedding, ranging from featherbeds to chaff beds, together with bedstocks or bed frames.  There was one flock bed, whose mattress was made of pieces of wool.  Elaborate beds were not listed in Hope and Castleton although Thomas Eyre of Highlow Hall (died 1633) had “in the whyte chamber one hye bed, & one lowe bed w^th furniture thereunto belonging” and “a trindle bed w^th furniture thereunto belonging in the nether parlor.”  It is likely that some had no beds and they slept on the floor, and presumably this was also the fate of many of those who were too poor to have inventories.

A bedstock was a simple wooden frame with a row of holes through which a mesh of rope could be strung.  Over this was laid a canvas sheet and then a mattress or rush mat.  On top of this was laid the feather, flock or chaff bed.  The incumbent was supported by pillows or a bolster and covered by sheets, blankets and quilts. 

16 had featherbeds and, not surprisingly, these were owned by the wealthier people.  Roger Harrison of Castleton (1614), whose net worth was £300.15.2, had four.  Featherbeds were estimated at £1.0.0 to £1.13.4 but were often listed with mattresses, bolsters and blankets, making valuation difficult. 

Chaff beds were made of waste material, or possibly straw, and were  listed in 12 estates, but, of these, only 3 were listed as the only form of bed.  In all the rest, other beds, sometimes only bedstocks, were also listed.  Of these three there were two relatively small estates but a third belonged to Elizabeth Saunderson (1636 Hope), one of the wealthiest of all.  Chaff beds also were rarely listed separately but were of low value, varying between 8 pence to 2s 8d.  

There was a change in bedding with time.  In 1577 William Harrison described the old ways:  “… for (said they) our fathers (yea and we our selves also) have lien full oft upon straw pallets, (on rough mats) covered onlie with a sheet, under coverlets made of dagswain or hopharlots (I use their own termes), and a good round log under their heads in steed of a bolster (or a pillow)”.   Dagswain was a coarse fabric or carpet made from wool refuse, and hopharlot a coarse coverlet.

In the inventories from 1547 to 1650, tables were surprisingly rarely listed, occurring in only 12 cases, but boards, supported by trestles, were commoner (26).  Tables themselves tended to be listed in the wealthier households, although this was far from consistent, and the earliest was from 1613.  It should be noted that either tables, boards or both were listed in a minority of households (35 of 72), less than items used for storage.

The trestle table was the usual type in the sixteenth century and before.  The top, or board, was made from large planks held together with cross-battens underneath or made with tongue and groove joints.  The trestles, or dormants, were either separate or joined by a cross rail, and usually plain, the whole construction theoretically being able to be dismantled. 

It was the practice earlier for people to sit on only one side of the table, with their backs to a wall, and served from the front.  The tables were often correspondingly narrow and this also explains why stools and forms were acceptable seating as people could lean against the wall.  Only later, as the table moved to the centre of the room, was it necessary to provide back-stools or chairs . 

The joined table started to appear around 1550, with a top that was usually fixed to the underlying frame and supported by legs that were sometimes turned and carved.  In the seventeenth century, smaller tables were developed with folding leaves that took up less space when not in use.  There is no hint in these inventories of any distinction between types of joined tables.

One joined table from around 1600 – 1650 has been found in Castleton.  It is a side table, higher than a conventional dining table, with 33 small roundels carved in the rail along one side and confirming that it was designed to stand against a wall.  It is known as an apostle table from its similarity to depictions of the table in paintings of the Last Supper, and may have been an altar, although it is too large, at 7 feet long, to have fitted into Castleton church.

Tables were sometimes covered by a boardcloth (13) or even a table carpet (1), in the latter case in one of the most luxurious homes in this series, that of Roger Harrison from Castleton, who died in 1614.

In the inventories from 1547 to 1650, chairs were listed in 32 (with one back-stool in 1635), stools in 27 and forms (benches) in 20 inventories, frequently occurring together.  In all, half of the households listed some form of seating. 

Stools and forms were essentially of the same construction.  Early stools were of a boarded type, simply made by a carpenter out of five planks of wood and held together with pegs or nails.  They were superseded by joined stools in the middle of the sixteenth century and, by the next century, together with chests, were the most common items of furniture.  There were often found in sets of six, although not in these documents, and together with forms and chairs were placed around a table. 

Nowhere in these papers is there any description of the type of chair used.  Chairs or back-stools are ancient forms of furniture but early survivors are rare, giving rise to the mistaken belief that they appeared for the first time in 1600.  Early chairs were as tall as stools, to suit the height of contemporary tables, with a low front stretcher.  Non-upholstered chairs appeared after 1630.  The earliest mention of chairs in this series of inventories was from 1627.   In the seventeenth century chairs became lower to fit under the table and often took a regional form.  The Yorkshire-Derbyshire type had an open arcaded back and, in South Yorkshire, the back had crescent shaped cross splats.  These types first appeared in around 1620.  Cromwellian chairs were plain with an unstuffed leather cover to the seat and turned stretchers or legs; later the pattern persisted but with stuffed seats.

No great chairs or armchairs were mentioned, presumably as these were grand and expensive items of furniture, often lavishly decorated with carving.  Examples can be dated to the sixteenth century.

Stools were probably always used with cushions (“cussions, cushens, cushings ” etc.).  Found in 29 inventories, these were high status items.  They were made of luxurious materials such as leather or woven fabric, stuffed with feathers or hair and perhaps embroidered.  They were carefully listed and counted in many cases, and sometimes valued separately.  The number of cushions varied with the wealth of the inventory.  John Hall who died in Castleton in 1604 and whose net worth was £199.19.7 had 28, the most of any of these inventories.

In the wills and inventories from 1547 to 1650, furniture for storage was given priority, even among the poorer households.

Arks were found in 54 estates.  Arks, named after their shape were made originally by arkwrights.  They were chests with lids and hinges or which could be lifted off, and came in different sizes, as is evident from the frequent references to great and little arks.  Typically the lid was domed or with canted sides and where it could be lifted off, turned upside down and fitted with poles, it could be used for carrying. The ark’s principal use was for storing grain or meal.

Chests and coffers were also common, numbering 16 and 34 respectively.  Here, the terms appeared interchangeable as in no case did both occur.  However, strictly a coffer was a box covered in leather, although the case was often made from cheap wood such as pine or beech.  They were often elaborately decorated with gilding or nail work. 

Early chests were either made of five nailed planks with a hinged lid, or of a clamped-front construction, the earliest form of joined work.  In the latter, the boards of the long side of the chest were joined with tongue and groove joints and clamped between vertical boards or stiles at each end.  More commonly in the second half of this study period, the chest front had vertical panels between stiles, or muntins.  After 1660 these panels were sometimes chamfered.  The panels, rails and muntins were often decorated.

Less common were aumbries (in 3), presses (1) and cupboards (11) probably also signifying the same thing in this context as, again, the terms did not overlap in inventories.  Properly, an aumbry was a cupboard either wholly or partly enclosed by a door and often pierced, used for food storage.  It was sometimes also called a dole cupboard, particularly when found in a church.  Other food cupboards were hutches that often had doors made from turned spindles, also known as livery cupboards.  A press was a cupboard enclosed by a varying arrangement of doors for storage of clothes, cloth and other textiles.  The cupboard itself was a generic term used for a range of storage furniture, although originally simply a stand or shelf for plates and cups.

Crockery and valuables were stored, or sometimes shown off, on shelves (4) and dishboards (12).

25. Lighting

We have no information about the layout of Hope Valley houses in the period 1547-1650, although in all but the wealthiest we can be sure that there were no separate kitchens.  In other words, people had to use their fires for their cooking needs.

Pots (22) and pans (20) were often of brass, carefully enumerated and presumably used mostly for cooking, as were frying pans (10), skellets (skillets) (11) and chafing dishes (5) for keeping food warm.  Frying pans often had very long handles, maybe as much as three feet long and others had hoop handles so that they could be suspended over the fire.  Skillets, the equivalent of saucepans today, were pans on three short legs with handles.  The legs, which enabled the vessel to sit over the embers of a fire, were either integral with the bronze bowl or made of iron and welded to the vessel.  The handle was sometimes decorated or inscribed with the maker’s or owner’s name.

A total of 37 different items can be identified as containers and care was taken to list a large range, from kimnels (12), loomes (20), barrels (4) tubs (6) and vats (6) at the top end of sizes, through kitts (9) to piggins (7).  Kimnels were large wooden tubs with a variety of uses such as salting meat or brewing and Gervase Markham in 1623 identified them as good for the storage of cheese.  A loome was any large open vessel.  Some, such as vats and churns (11), had a specific use for brewing and butter making respectively, and dacions (dashens) (7) were used for the preparation of oatmeal.  Kimnels had a variety of uses but.

Vessels for milk could be wooden, which were best for keeping milk in a cold vault, “earthen vessels principal for long keeping and the leaden vessels for yielding of much cream”.  Kitts (kits) were wooden milk pails with a capacity of around 6 gallons .  As this was more than could be carried easily by hand, a yoke was often used to carry them in pairs.  Churns were either for storing milk, with a capacity of around 10 gallons, or for butter making.   In 2 inventories, Ticknall ware was mentioned.  This was a coarse earthenware pottery, often with slip decoration, made in and around Ticknall in Derbyshire, where a pottery had been established by at least the sixteenth century.

Writing in 1534, Fitzherbert was dogmatic as to the tools a husbandman should possess:  “An husbande must have an axe, a hatchet, a hedgyngebyll, a pyn-awgur, a rest-awgur, a flayle, a spade and a shovell.”  He recognised the cost of buying tools and that the husbandman should “learn to make his yokes, oxe-bowes, stooles, and all maner of plough-geare”.

In the inventories of 1547-1650, there were 31 types of tool with a range of functions.  These were almost all agricultural implements but some may have been for lead mining, notably augers, sieves and pickaxes.

The commonest tools for cultivation were spades (7), pitchforks (5), shovels (5), scythes (4), mattocks (3), along with sickles, pickaxes, crowbars, wimbles, hoes, forks and rakes.  Slightly more common were axes which were listed 7 times, with 2 hatchets.  A wimble was a tool for twisting corn into a coarse rope for tying corn sheaves, but could also have been an auger.  The lack of tools for turf or peat cutting is consistent with the dearth of peat and sleds in the inventories.

Tools that were used by women, particularly those used for harvesting such as rakes, were often lightly built.  They were usually made from softwood and lightened further by bevelling or rounding the wood, even though iron tines might have been used to make the tool hard-wearing. 

The scarcity of scythes and sickles is notable.  Probably this reflected their low value, but it is possible that their rarity was a symptom of a shift away from arable to pastoral farming.

Also often listed were hand tools, the commonest of which was an auger (nogar) (6), but also hammers, mallets, chisels, saws and adzes.  There were 4 inventories with ladders and one with a wheelbarrow.

There were 21 inventories with tongs, although it is likely that tongs were used for other purposes than only for fires.  The tongs in these inventories were, from the context, plainly made of iron but, as Fitzherbert pointed out:  “the cheyfe instrument to wede with is a paire of tonges made of wode, and in the farther ende it is nycked, to hold the wed faster”. 

There were few obviously professional tools other than the smithy tools belonging to Andrew and Richard Hallam or Hallom (dying in 1591 and 1599 respectively) whose family were blacksmiths in Castleton.  They possessed smithy tools: a smithy hammer and an anvil or stythie.

One of the disappointments when reading the wills and inventories (1547-1650) is the lack of information about land ownership.  This arises because it was not a requirement to describe the ownership of either houses or land in these documents.  However, it must be recalled that only 10% of the testators were yeomen, a tiny proportion compared to the national average.  To qualify for this status, a yeoman had to own land that was worth at least £6 per year.  In other words, apart from two gentlemen, the rest were husbandmen or labourers and either possessed no land or very little.  Robert Mellor (1610 Castleton) owned “the Right & tytle of all suche grounds as he heyld”.  John Needham’s inventory separately listed “ground” and the “Rendition of a lease” both worth £5.0.0.  Thurstan Nall’s (1591 Castleton) inventory detailed his farms worth £13.6.8, without any mention of a lease. 

Leases were listed in 28 inventories and, as far as can be judged, were valued on the basis of the length left to run.  No leases were mentioned before 1590.  They were often of considerable value, forming the bulk of the estate.  The largest by far, “the Reversion of A Lease beinge the kings farme”, belonged to Jane Savage who died in Castleton in 1604, with a valuation of £220.0.0 out of a total estate of £320.84.  At the other end of the scale “one lease of towe (two) Landes in Marstons” by Thomas Morten of Hope was valued at £1.0.0 in 1629, out of an estate with a net worth of £6.0.6.

Copyhold leases were remnants of a mediaeval system of land tenure.  The conditions under which the leaseholder held the land were recorded in the local manorial court rolls, and the leaseholder held a copy of the agreement.  There were only two mentions of a copyhold: George Grant (1631 Hope) had in his inventory the “Reverssion of one coppie” at £1.10.0, as well as the reversion of a lease at £2.0.0, and the wealthy Ottiwell Smith (1638 Hope) listed both copyholds and freeholds in his will.  The terms of such leases varied greatly but, in general, copyhold leases were held for a small annual rent, usually divided between Lady Day and Michaelmas.   Often a large entry fine was imposed on taking over the lease at, say, inheritance, and at the end of the tenancy a heriot had to be paid, often of the leaseholder’s best beast.

We are accustomed to debt through mortgages, payday loans, hire purchase and so forth.  It may be a surprise that the habit was well established by the time of the wills and inventories of 1545-1650.  Debts were listed in inventories as an important part of the estate of the deceased although some authorities doubt that all outgoing debts were listed in every case..

Overall, 69% of inventories listed debts, either owed or owing to their estates, or both.  In the large majority these debts were recorded as cash.  In a very few instances, physical items, usually lead, were recorded as being owed, and sometimes not valued.  There was a more entrepreneurial spirit in Castleton than in Hope with almost 50% more estates that owed or were owed money than in Hope, and with greater amounts involved in Castleton.

Some individuals were prominent money dealers, either or both lending or borrowing, and small-scale banking should be regarded as an occupation in some cases.  Rates of interest were never recorded either in wills or in inventories, although it can be assumed that interest was payable.  From 1571, the maximum rate of interest allowed was 10% per annum but this was reduced to 8% in 1624, although charging any interest at all was regarded as a matter of conscience and remained an ethical issue.

Both borrowing and lending were commoner in the winter and spring than in the summer and autumn.  This reflected the cash flow through the agricultural cycle with the need to buy seed in the spring and, perhaps, livestock, combined with the well recognised dearth of resources in the spring.

Substantial outgoing debts meant that several estates were in overall debt at the testators’ death.  Of all the inventories, 5 ended in that state with two that were left in serious negative balance.  Thomas Furnice of Hope, who died in 1620, left £42.0.0 of debt, with little in the way of personal possessions (£5.18.0).  The outstandingly indebted estate was that of Robert Hallam of Castleton who died in 1621 and who left an estate in overall negative balance of at least £261.17.0.  One senses the frustration of his appraisers who were unable to quantify the extent of his debt; after a very detailed inventory it merely states:  “And his debts are £400 and upwards.”  This sum would be of the order of £120,000 nowadays.