The Thoresby Society

PREFACE .

This volume of wills is extracted from the 14th, 15th, 1 6th and 17th books of the registered copies at the York Probate Registry, extending from the year 1553 to the year 1561. It is the result of numerous visits to York during the last seventeen years.

The earlier wills, contained in vol. xix, published in 1913, numbered 547.

This volume contains 543 wills of testators residing in Leeds and the adjacent towns and villages. The inhabitants had much in common in professions and trades, in intercourse and kinship.

As stated in the preface to vol. xix, the wills were copied in the register books from dictation, and the peculiarity of spelling, repeated in successive wills, indicates that they were written by the same clerk, and in addition, apparently there was no accurate collation.

The preface contains remarks on the distribution of the estates of deceased persons, and other matters to which reference is recommended, and therefore are not repeated here.

The thanks of the Society are due to Mr. Jesse A. Myers for kindly undertaking the laborious work of preparing the indexes, and to Mr. W. B. Crump, M.A., for explanatory notes in the index of subjects.

G. D. L.
Leeds, April, 1930.

 

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