Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837

by Jonathan Oates

  Central government was very minimal and it was also very itinerant; the monarch moved about the country and his government moved with him. Yet, despite the growth in officials, there were still relatively few of what we would call civil servants. By the end of the fifteenth century government had become fixed at Westminster. Far more of the day-to-day administration was in the hands of urban corporations and manorial courts. Health and education were not the province of government.

  Law and order was a major preoccupation of the monarch and his government. In the twelfth century, Henry II instituted the assizes system of courts which was to endure until 1971. These resulted in itinerant judges touring circuits, each made up of a number of adjacent counties, twice a year, to hear cases of serious crime.

  England’s major wars were with the Welsh in the thirteenth century, resulting in the conquest of Wales, then less successfully with the Scots, then with the French in the Hundred Years War of 1337–1453. There were also civil wars, such as that in Stephen’s reign, Simon de Montfort’s baronial wars in the next century, and the wars between York and Lancaster in the fifteenth, not to mention rebellions against Henry II, Edward II and Henry IV. All these resulted in demands for financial subsidies as well as levies of men to fight either at home or abroad. Troops were raised when needed and disbanded when wars were over; there was no standing army or navy.

  Parliament emerged in the thirteenth century, but was primarily a court of law rather than a fiscal institution. Taxation was not required on an annual basis, but for extraordinary expenditure, which usually meant paying for war. In peacetime, the monarch was expected to live using his resources such as Crown lands, customs dues, feudal incidents and the profits of justice, and these provided the bulk of his revenue. Parliament had brief sittings and in the second half of the fifteenth century only met once every three years.

  Map of Britain, 1250. Paul Lang’s collection.

  England’s population fluctuated greatly. With between 1 and 2 million inhabitants in 1066, it then grew steadily in the next centuries, perhaps reaching 5–7 million by 1300, but was cut savagely in the fourteenth century due to the Black Death. Possibly a third or half of the population died. By the end of the Middle Ages, numbers had only reached about 2.5 million. The population was becoming increasingly literate and French, the language of government since the Conquest, was replaced by English in the fourteenth century.

  Medieval peasants harvesting. Paul Lang’s collection

  By the end of the Middle Ages the English state had incorporated Wales as a principality and claimed sovereignty over Ireland and Scotland, though most of the French possessions of the Norman and Plantagenet monarchies of the eleventh and twelfth centuries had been lost. It was an increasingly self-confident, though small, nation.

  Tudor and Stuart England, 1485–1714

  Henry VII, the first of the Tudor monarchs, following his decisive victory at Bosworth and the death in battle of his predecessor, Richard III, continued the attempts of Edward IV to strengthen the monarchy, both financially and judicially, though there was still no standing army or police force. Henry introduced legal and judicial methods such as the Court of Star Chamber to rule England and to make the Crown stronger and richer than the chief landowners. Tudor government saw a shift from the medieval towards the more bureaucratic form of government which we are more accustomed to now, but we should not exaggerate this revolution as much stayed the same.

  The key change was the relation between church and state which culminated in the Dissolution of the monastic houses in the 1530s and made the monarch rather than the Pope the head of the church. This led to the same individual being at the head of both church and state. At the bottom level of both was the parish, and its powers rose throughout the century. It also led to a major redistribution of landed power as monastic land was bought or given to the nobility and the gentry, the latter becoming increasingly an important force in politics.

  Henry VIII was the head of a Catholic Church; however, he was his own ‘Pope’. It was during his son’s brief reign that the Protestant Reformation made state-sponsored progress. Although this was interrupted by his Catholic sister Mary’s equally brief reign, a compromise of sorts was reached under Elizabeth. The Church of England became Protestant, though not of a radical brand as desired by some. Equally, the Catholic faith was under attack. This was increasingly the case as the century drew on and England became involved in wars with foreign Catholic powers, chiefly Spain.

  Religious radicalism had helped lead to the Reformation, but was also a result of it, too. There were many Protestants who refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of the monarchy. Initially these were termed Puritans. Their fortunes waxed and waned over this period and perhaps reached their zenith in the 1650s when the Anglican Church, deprived of monarch and bishops, was at its weakest. Yet the Restoration of 1660 resulted in Nonconformists being penalized, as they had been since 1559. They could not worship legally and faced fines and imprisonment. The Bill of Rights of 1689 led to a limited toleration of Nonconformist worship, though full political, educational and civil equality was not achieved until the early nineteenth century. Not everyone turned towards Protestantism in any form. There were minorities who clung to Catholicism, especially in parts of northern England. As with Nonconformists, their political and civic rights were limited, as were their religious ones.

  Parliament grew in strength as a political entity in these centuries, though this was not pre-ordained as monarchs had ruled without it in 1629–1640, 1681–5 and 1685–8, and it was, ironically, much reduced in power during the Commonwealth years. Parliament’s importance was not merely legislative but fiscal. The monarch could no longer live without direct taxation as the cost of government had risen, especially if he or she wanted to maintain a standing army and conduct an interventionist foreign policy. By 1689 it was an indispensable political institution.

  This is not to say that the monarchy’s powers were vastly reduced. They were still expected to rule as well as reign. They could declare war or conduct diplomacy. They could choose their own ministers. They had an immense amount of patronage at their disposal. However they had to work in partnership with Parliament; not always an easy task, but by the time of William III (1689–1702), they could do so without the major quarrels which had been the case under the earlier Stuarts and which had led to civil war in 1642.

  Local administration increasingly passed into the hands of the quarter sessions and the parish and away from the sheriff and the manor, though these institutions remained. Social and economic legislation was entrusted to these bodies, for the Crown had no paid centralized bureaucracy. Relief of the poor became a foremost priority of this legislation. All this gave immense local power to the gentry.

  The chief secular figure in the counties was the Lord Lieutenant, a politically reliable nobleman, who replaced the sheriff, whose office became more ceremonial than practical. He was the monarch’s representative and an important link between the counties and the court. He was also a key military figure, for it was he who was responsible for the militia, the country’s military force for home defence.

  Britain was not a major European power in this period, except in the 1650s and from 1689. Because of this, there was no standing army in England until the later seventeenth century. Men were raised to fight wars and then were disbanded after they were over, as had always been the case. However, after England’s most devastating wars – the Civil Wars of 1642–51 – a permanent army was created. Charles II disbanded most of the Commonwealth forces, but retained a few regiments, and these, added to the troops he brought from exile, became Britain’s first regular army kept in being in peacetime, chiefly as garrisons at home and abroad.

  Henry VIII (1509–1547). Paul Lang’s collection.

  The post-1660 army was small by Continental standards, but once England joined the struggle of the great powers there from 1689 onwards, it grew. Officers became increasingly professional and long-servin
g, especially under the Hanoverians. Troops served overseas at an increasing level in garrisons in Britain’s expanding Empire, though forces were also employed at home, especially as there was no national police force. The Royal Navy increasingly became both larger and more professional, especially from the mid-seventeenth century.

  Population rapidly increased, from 2.25 million in 1526 to 4.1 million in 1603; a large increase indeed, which led to strain on resources, mounting prices and an increase in poverty in the late sixteenth century. Yet most survived plague and war and by 1700, England’s population stood at 5 million. This was still a rural society, with few towns of any significant size outside London, and communication was still basic.

  Britain was becoming a united political entity in these centuries. England and Wales were formally joined in 1536, following the medieval dynastic link. England and Scotland shared a monarch from 1603, and in 1707, the Act of Union brought Scotland’s existence as an independent political entity to an end. Successful wars resulted, by 1713, in Britain being recognized as one of the great powers of Europe as well as one of the world’s leading maritime and colonial nations.

  Hanoverian England, 1714–1837

  The Elector of Hanover became George I in 1714. There was a question over his dynasty’s survival in the face of threats from the exiled Stuarts. This led to major rebellions in both England and Scotland in 1715, but these were defeated within months. Unlike the previous century the country then enjoyed internal peace, apart from the Jacobite rebellion of 1745.

  Major changes were occurring in society and economy, too. The ‘Agricultural Revolution’ accelerated change in the rural economy, with increasing amounts of arable land being enclosed by Acts of Parliament, and thus changing the face of the countryside forever. Farmers began to experiment with innovative methods of growing crops, resulting in higher yields. Elsewhere, industrial growth was being seen, especially in the West Riding of Yorkshire and in the Midlands as industry became less concentrated in small-scale operations and began to be big business as factories were first created. The impact of these developments should not be exaggerated as they took decades to become widespread.

  Communication also underwent a lengthy revolution in the Georgian period, and this facilitated industrial growth, too. Roads were improved by turnpike trusts and so travel was quicker. Canals were dug in the latter half of the eighteenth century, thus easing the transportation of goods. Finally, just as our period was ending, steam power was harnessed to bring about the world’s first railways. All these developments assisted in the process known to historians as the Industrial Revolution which was transforming Britain into the ‘Workshop of the World’ and thus into the modern age. The textile industry was the most important, with cotton becoming dominant by 1810. Coal and iron production also soared, thanks to improved techniques and inventions.

  Population increased, from about 5 million in 1700, to 8.3 million a century later and then to 13.1 million in 1831. London’s population topped one million. Death rates were falling and birth rates rose. Yet in 1801, only 30% of the population lived in towns, and most of these in towns with less than 10,000 people. Most of these towns were not industrialized, but maritime or dockyard towns, or regional centres.

  Politically and constitutionally, the authority of Parliament rose relative to that of the Crown, albeit by evolutionary means. Royal patronage declined in the later eighteenth century. Under George IV the prestige of the monarchy declined, too. The Reform Act of 1832 led to a redistribution of seats as well as an increase in the electorate; the first such changes to the constitution since the experiments of the Commonwealth. Political parties began to become more recognizable, with the Whigs and Tories being more than abusive labels for the factions of the late seventeenth century. New towns became constituencies in their own right. Radicalism emerged as a political force in the 1760s, and continued as a major extra-parliamentary force from thereon, partly aided by the growth of national and local newspapers.

  England had several forms of Protestantism in 1714, and their number grew in the century. The Wesley brothers founded Methodism which became the largest Nonconformist grouping. Despite popular fears about Catholicism, the decline of Jacobitism as a political danger eventually led to anti-Catholic legislation being repealed, so that by the end of the eighteenth century Catholics could worship in peace and Catholic priests no longer feared legal prosecution. This led to a reduction in the influence of the established Anglican Church, yet this institution remained a powerful force into the nineteenth century.

  Much remained the same. The counties continued to be ruled by the quarter sessions. However, central government grew in power relative to them, with the creation of the New Poor Law in 1834, which led to a decline in the administrative importance of the parishes. In 1833 the first government educational grant was made and in 1829 the Metropolitan Police was formed. The old order was changing, but at an evolutionary pace.

  By 1815 Britain had emerged as the world’s greatest power by virtue of its financial, economic, military and naval strength. The American colonies had been lost in 1781, but much had been retained, including Canada and islands in the West Indies. There had been new acquisitions elsewhere, and Britain, through the East India Company, had become the leading power in India, having ousted the French.

  Generally speaking there were several key differences between the centuries between 1066 and 1837 and the twenty-first century. England was far less densely populated and the majority of its residents lived in the countryside and earned their living from agriculture. The authority of the monarch and the church, as well as the nobility and the gentry was far greater. Most people had at best a fairly rudimentary education and led shorter lives. Central government had a far more limited role in most peoples’ lives. This, then, was the England of 1066–1837, centuries of great change, in which your ancestors lived. It is now time to investigate how you can discover who they were and what they did.

  Chapter 2

  ARCHEPISCOPAL AND EPISCOPAL RECORDS

  The role of the church in our ancestors’ lives up until the nineteenth century is difficult to overestimate and was on a scale unthinkable to most now living in more secular times. Much of this power in educational and legal affairs was transferred to the state in the nineteenth century. We shall examine the higher echelons of the church in this chapter; the lower levels will be dealt with in the next.

  With the reintroduction of Christianity to England in 597, the Church established itself slowly across the country. England was divided into two provinces with a total of seventeen dioceses. These were the province of York with four dioceses, which included the northern counties of Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Cumberland, Westmorland, Lancashire, Cheshire and Nottinghamshire. The larger province, was that of Canterbury, which included the remainder of the country. Each was headed by an archbishop and that of Canterbury was the senior of the two. Neither was head of the church in England; up to the Henrican reformation of the sixteenth century this was the Pope, then the monarch thereafter when church and state fused and changed from Catholic to Protestant.

  Beneath the level of the province was the diocese, which was headed by a bishop. Diocese was not the same as county. Thus the diocese of Durham included Northumberland as well as Durham, and the diocese of Carlisle consisted of Cumberland and Westmorland. At the Reformation, six more dioceses were created but one, Westminster, only lasted a few years; a more permanent one was Chester, created in 1542 out of part of the diocese of Lichfield and it included Lancashire, Cheshire and part of Westmorland. Dioceses varied considerably in size and income. Durham was one of the richest in the eighteenth century, Carlisle and Rochester two of the poorest. Archbishops and bishops sat in the House of Lords and were important territorial and political figures with access to the monarch, as well as being key figures in the ecclesiastical world. They were appointed by the monarch, though the government took an increasing interest especially from the eighteenth century
.

  The next tier of administration was the archdeaconry; there were a number of these in each diocese, totalling fifty-eight in the country in the Middle Ages, and this number varied enormously with Lincoln possessing eight, York five and Carlisle one. Archdeacons had to inspect the parishes in order to ensure that they were well run. Provinces, dioceses and archdeaconries all ran their own religious courts. The lowest level was the parish.

  Statue of George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, 2011. Author.

  Ecclesiastical Courts

  Ordinary people came under the jurisdiction of these institutions. Church courts were established in Saxon times, but their role was more sharply defined under the Normans, clearly separating their and the Crown’s judicial authority. Until 1858 (apart from a brief interlude under the Commonwealth), authority over probate was in the hands of the clerical courts. Secondly, these courts dealt with a variety of offences relating to religion and morals, if the two could be seen as separate, up to 1860.

  These courts dealt with a variety of matters, though these tend to be less well known now. The Church was concerned, naturally enough, with Christian morality and was empowered to deal with those who transgressed its boundaries. Because these courts dealt with sexual matters, such as adultery, fornication, divorce and incest, they have been named the bawdy courts. Other offences included slander, the refusal to pay tithes, non-attendance at church and Easter offerings. Witchcraft was dealt with by the church courts up to the sixteenth century when it became a civil criminal offence. Suits could be brought against clergymen, too, by both the laity and fellow clergy. Those damaging church property also fell into their orbit. It has been estimated that about a tenth of our medieval ancestors were brought before these courts.