About Oxfordshire Wills Index

Introduction to BRS Volumes 93 & 94
Volume 93: Published 1981
Volume 94: Published 1985

The Oxfordshire probate records indexed here comprise all the registers, act books, original wills, administration bonds, inventories and other loose documents that have survived from the period down to 1732 for the courts of the bishop and the archdeacon of Oxford; and a few similar records which have strayed into these collections from other jurisdictions. The bishop and the archdeacon exercised concurrent probate jurisdiction over most of the old (pre-1974) county of Oxford until 1857. The archdeacon's court has a longer history than that of the bishop, and the earliest surviving archdeaconry will to be registered is one of 1516, although regular registration does not begin until 1528. The records of the bishop's court, the consistory series, only begin in 1542 because the diocese of Oxford was only established in that year when Oxford archdeaconry was removed from Lincoln diocese to form one of Henry VIII's six new sees.

Most of these probate records were moved from the diocesan and archidiaconal registries in Oxford to the Principal Probate Registry at Somerset House in 1858 in accordance with the Courts of Probate Act of 1857. In 1955 they were transferred from Somerset House to the Bodleian Library, which by then already held the other non-probate records of Oxford diocese and archdeaconry. The transfer included a detailed, beautifully written, index of all the records to 1732 which had been compiled by Ernest Cheyne in two large volumes while they were at Somerset House. Cheyne completed this index in 1902. Soon after the collection came to the Bodleian all the loose documents to 1800 were numbered, and Bodleian reference numbers were added to Cheyne's volumes, mainly by Miss Maude Wheeler. These two volumes have now been in use in the Bodleian for twenty-five years, and it has been proved many times over that the work of both Cheyne and Miss Wheeler was exceptionally accurate. This published index is just a revision of those annotated volumes, adapting them to British Record Society conventions.

The records of the courts of the bishop and archdeacon of Oxford cannot be completely separated from each other during this period because the same men acted simultaneously as officials of both jurisdictions. The collections which have survived are evidently not complete from 1528 to 1732, but the confusion caused by the intermingling of the records of the two jurisdictions (which also occurs in other non-probate court papers) makes it difficult to define precisely what gaps now exist in the various series.

The bishop's probate jurisdiction was normally delegated to his vicar- general (also known less formally as his chancellor) or during the long periods when the see was vacant between 1557 and 1603 to 'guardians of the spiritualities'. 1  The archdeaconry court was usually presided over by the archdeacon's offcial, although many sixteenth century wills were proved by the archdeacon in person, especially during his visitations of the archdeaconry. William Wright, Archdeacon of Oxford from 1543 to 1561, was also vicar-general of the diocese till 1557 and then a guardian of the spiritualities, and he was succeeded in both offices by John Kennall, Archdeacon from 1561 to 1592. Anthony Blincowe (1592-1618) and Hugh Barker (1618-32) held both the office first of 'guardian' and then of bishop's chancellor and that of archdeacon's official. After 1632 the offices of chancellor and official were held by different men, but each often acted as a 'substitute' for the other. The judge proving a will is often described by both his diocesan and his archidiaconal office in the record of probate, a style referred to as 'in both their names' in a legal dispute of 1735-37 about the limits of the archdeacon's jurisdiction. 2  Sometimes wills are said to be proved or administrations granted by an official described just in the form, for example, 'Anthony Blincow &c.'. During most of the period covered by the index the bishop or the 'guardian' and the archdeacon employed the same registrar and both courts regularly met on the same day. In fact when the offices of chancellor and official were first separated in 1632, Richard Zouch and Giles Sweit, the new holders of these offices, formally agreed that 'for the quiet and ease of the country and to avoyde dissentions that theyre courtes for ecclesiasticall jurisdicion shall be kept together at the usuall tyme and place and that other businesses shall passe and bee dispatched indifferently betweene them.' 3 It is thus hardly surprising that the records of the two jurisdictions are now mixed together, and that it is often difficult to decide whether a particular probate or grant of administration is a consistory or an archidiaconal act.

There is now only one series of registers of wills up to 1650 comprising 24 volumes (MSS. Wills Oxon. 178-191, 193-202). These begin as registers of wills proved in the name of the archdeacon from 1528 onwards. Most of the volumes, however, also contain copies of wills proved by the vicar-general or the guardian of the spiritualities, or/and by an official described either 'in both names' or just as '&c.' The earlier volumes include administration acts down to 1603, and also a few copies of administrators' accounts and probate inventories. The chancellor and the official and their registrar were often also employed as the officials and registrars of the various peculiar jurisdictions in and around Oxfordshire. A number of wills proved and administrations granted in the courts of these peculiars have therefore come to be registered in this so-called archdeaconry series of registers. The largest groups of these are from the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln's peculiars of Banbury, Cropredy, Horley and Hornton and King's Sutton (Northants.) and Thame and Great Milton, mainly of the period c.1550 to 1570; and from Dorchester peculiar scattered more evenly over a longer period, about 1555 to 1610. Most volumes contain some items entered out of chronological order so that the outside dates of each volume overlap. One volume (MS. Wills Oxon. 189) is not a register; it is a collection of original wills and inventories and lists of administration acts for the years 1591-4 which were all bound together probably soon after they had accumulated.

While they were at Somerset House these volumes were rebound and divided at 1603 into series I and II. Series I, 1528-1603, comprises 14 volumes (MSS. Wills Oxon. 178-191). The last pre-Restoration volume (11.10, MS. Wills Oxon. 202) containing wills of 1648-50 also contains archidiaconal wills of 1672-75 and a few of 1664. All the later registers of mainly archdeaconry wills from 1678 to 1857 were numbered at Somerset House as a continuation of this series, that is as 11.11-35 (MSS. Wills Oxon. 203-227). A separate series known as registers of consistory wills begins with a slim volume containing a few wills of 1672-74 and then comprises 15 more volumes containing entries of 1677-1710, 1724-1857 (MSS. Wills Oxon. 90-105). This series was labelled AA, A-C, E-I, K-Q at Somerset House and does seem to contain almost entirely wills proved by the chancellor or 'in both names'. Between 1677 find 1732 however other additional consistory wills continue to be registered in the so-called archdeaconry series. One volume there, 11.16 (MS. Wills Oxon. 208), contains many more consistory than archidiaconal wills, 1714-24. This exactly fills a gap in the consistory series between C and E, and it seems that this volume should have been labelled 'D* rather than '11.16*. When the two series of registers are examined together, the main gaps in registration, probably indicating missing volumes, are seen to be the periods 1621-34 and 1640-78, although there are a few surviving entries for most of these years except those between 1651 and 1663.

The records of grants of administration of the goods of persons dying intestate appear to be more complete. As mentioned above administration acts are included in the registers of so-called archdeaconry wills to 1603. These acts are continued in two act books which contain both consistory and archdeaconry administrations in one sequence covering the years 1603-30 and 1630-1732 (with a Commonwealth gap) respectively. On the first 29 leaves of the second of these volumes covering the years 1630-34 each of the entries was marked by a contemporary clerk as either 'A* or 'B' for Archdeacon or Bishop, another indicaton of the intermingling of the records of the two courts. Cheyne noted in the front of this volume that it contains nearly 6,000 acts.

The only other volume partially indexed here, in addition to these registers and act books, is a caveat book of 1643 to 1677 (MS. Wills Oxon. 307). This contains warnings against granting particular probates, administrations, licences, faculties and admissions to benefices. All the probate material in the volume was included by Cheyne in his index.

In contrast to the single series of registers and act books used for both jurisdictions loose wills and administration bonds are from the beginning filed in separate consistory and archdeaconry series. Wills and bonds are also filed separately from each other so that there are in all four main series of loose documents all beginning in the sixteenth century. All four series are now arranged under the initial letter of the deceased person's surname and only chronologically within each letter of the alphabet. As the strayed inventories mentioned below were evidently similarly arranged it seems likely that this is how all the loose papers were originally filed. There are many loose wills for the periods of the seventeenth century where there are gaps in registration. This alphabetical filing makes it difficult however to compare the quantities of documents which have survived for different decades and therefore difficult to assess how complete the files are. There are however over the whole period noticeably more documents filed as 'consistory' than as 'archdeaconry'; almost all the wills proved 'in both names' appear to be included in the former series.

The consistory series of loose wills begins in about 1578 and there are no obvious big gaps except for the Commonwealth period when of course the local probate courts ceased to function. The archdeaconry series of wills include a few documents of the 1580's, but are only a reasonably continuous series from about 1630 onwards with the usual Commonwealth gap. There are a few consistory administration bonds of the 1540's and that series appears to be reasonably complete from about 1587. Archdeaconry administration bonds appear to be a fairly complete series from 1578 onwards.

Comparatively few probate inventories have survived for the sixteenth century. As mentioned above copies of a few are entered in the registers of wills. Others are filed with the loose wills or bonds to which they relate in gradually increasing numbers from about 1580 onwards. 4  Between about 1620 and 1710 most consistory and archdeaconry wills and bonds have inventories filed with them. Some administrators' accounts are filed with bonds but these are few in number by comparison with those which have survived amongst the probate records of the adjacent archdeaconry of Berkshire. A few court papers from testamentary cases are filed with the will, bond or inventory to which the case relates; and there are also a few renunciations of the office of executor or administrator filed with wills and bonds. Filed separately from these four main series of loose documents are six boxes of additional inventories and administrators' accounts (MSS. Wills Oxon. 295-300). These extend from 1540 to 1732 but most of them belong to the seventeenth century. Many of them concern the property of persons for whom no wills or bonds have survived, so there evidently have been some losses of loose documents as well as of registers. Finally there are a few loose probate documents among the Oxford diocesan records which were presumably overlooked when these collections were transferred to the Principal Probate Registry in 1858. These are mainly stray inventories of the goods of persons with surnames beginning with the letters G, H, N and T, 1602-1743 (MSS. Oxf. dioc. papers b. 69,100; c. 142*, 144-5); and renunciations from 1665 onwards (MSS. Oxf. dioc. papers c. 140, c. 2087).

All the records described above earlier than 1733 are indexed here, but this index does not, of course, list all Oxfordshire persons of this period for whom it may be possible to find a will or an administration. As Oxford archdeaconry was in Lincoln diocese until 1542 a few early Oxfordshire wills are among Lincoln records now in the Lincolnshire Archives Office. 5  Throughout the period many Oxfordshire wills and administrations, especially for persons of gentry status, are among the records of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Prerogative Court (the P.C.C.) now in the Public Record Office. From 1653 to 1660 all probate jurisdiction was transferred to the Commonwealth Judges for probate whose records are included amongst those of the P.C.C., and so the searcher must look there for any will of that period.

Some Oxfordshire parishes were 'peculiars' exempt from the jurisdiction of the bishop and archdeacon, and separate probate courts were held for these areas in the names of the owners of the jurisdictions. The positions of these within the county are shown on a map reproduced from Mr. J. S. W. Gibson's Wills and Where to Find Them (1974) by kind permission of the author. The whole Dean and Chapter of Lincoln had jurisdiction over the peculiars of Banbury, Cropredy (including Great and Little Bourton, Claydon, Mollington and Wardington), Horley and Hornton, Great Milton and Thame (including Sydenham and Tetsworth, and Towersey in Buckinghamshire). A court for Langford was held in the name of the prebendary of Lincoln cathedral who occupied that stall. After the dissolution of Dorchester Abbey jurisdiction over Dorchester peculiar (including Marsh and Toot Baldon, Benson, Chiselhampton, Clifton Hampden, Drayton St. Leonard, Nettlebed, Stadhampton and Warborough) passed into private hands. Newington (including Britwell Prior) was the Oxfordshire part of the Archbishop of Canterbury's peculiar of Monk's Risborough, the remainder of which was in Buckinghamshire. Persons from Sibford Gower and Sibford Ferris, a 'manorial' peculiar, had wills proved in the court of the lord of the manor there. There are separate sets of probate records until the first half of the nineteenth century for each of these courts, and all of them were transferred to the Bodleian Library from the Principal Probate Registry in 1959 with the records of other Berkshire and Buckinghamshire peculiars. This transfer included another index by Cheyne which covers all these Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire peculiars for the whole period of the surviving records. 6  As mentioned above some sixteenth and early seventeenth century probate documents for these peculiars have strayed from these separate collections into the records indexed here. Finally members of Oxford University and other 'privileged persons' employed by or otherwise connected with the University were exempt from the bishop's jurisdiction, and proved their wills in the court of the Chancellor of the University. These University probate records are part of the University archives and an index of most of them by John Griffiths was published in 1862.

The index retains most of the information given by Ernest Cheyne and his arrangement of it. Surnames are grouped under the most usual spelling of the name and cross-references given from all variants. Persons of the same surname are listed chronologically (not alphabetically by Christian name) under that surname. Where an 'alias' surname is given the entry is listed in full under both names, so some persons are listed here twice (an entry for Smith alias Jones for example will appear in full under both mith and Jones). Cheyne retained the spelling of the original for all person and place names. Here all common Christian names have been abbreviated but the original spelling retained for those not abbreviated. All details of places of residence given in the documents were recorded by Cheyne and are retained here. The spelling of place names has been standardised using the forms given in Margaret Gelling, The Place-Names of Oxfordshire, English Place Name Society, volumes 23-24 (1971). Unidentifiable minor place names are given in inverted commas. The parishes of which hamlets and chapelries formed part are only given (in the form, for example, 'Wheatley, Cuddesdon') if this is specified in the will or administration itself, or if the testator names his parish church as the place where he wishes to be buried (which Cheyne always recorded). A few places which are normally regarded as ancient parishes are sometimes described here in sixteenth century wills as parts of other parishes; Noke for example is often described as 'in the parish of Islip' and Nether Worton as 'in the parish of Great Tew'. This is recorded here in this same form whenever it occurs (that is as 'Noke, Islip'). Sometimes a person is described as of one place or of one occupation or status in a will or bond and of a different one in an inventory. This is recorded as, for example, 'Wheatley & Islip', or 'yeo. & miller'. Dates were given in full by Cheyne but only the year is specified here, not the day and the month. Dates of wills are the dates of probate unless otherwise specified. In accordance with contemporary usage literally transcribed by Cheyne all dates are in 'old style'. Thus the documents listed as 1600 run from 25 March 1600 to 24 March 1600/1. A very few loose documents listed by Cheyne are now missing; these are marked with an asterisk here.

Cheyne's form of reference to volumes was the series numbers and letters mentioned above. He could only indicate whether loose documents occurred in the consistory or the archdeaconry series (which he abbreviated to C and A) as these documents were not numbered when he listed them. Abbreviated Bodleian reference numbers are now given for all entries in the index. The following summary of the material indexed gives the full I Bodleian shelfmarks and shows the relation of these to Cheyne's means of reference. It also serves as a key whereby the first number in any reference can be used to discover to which series the item indexed belongs.

[MSS. Wills Oxon.]	1 - 75	Filed consistory (C) wills and inventories.
[MSS. Wills Oxon.)	76 - 89	Filed consistory (C) administration bonds and inventories.
[MSS. Wills Oxon.]	90 - 95	Registers of consistory wills, volumes AA, A-C, E-F.
[MSS. Wills Oxon.]	106 - 107	Administration act books, "A" and "B"
[MSS. Wills Oxon.]	113 - 159	Filed archdeaconry (A) wills and inventories.
[MSS. Wills Oxon.]	160 - 177	Filed archdeaconry (A) administration bonds and inventories.
[MSS. Wills Oxon.]	178 - 191	Registers of archdeaconry wills, 193 - 210 series I, volumes 1-14, and series II, volumes 1-18.
[MSS. Wills Oxon.]	295 - 300	Additional inventories and administrators' accounts.
[MSS. Wills Oxon.]	307	Caveat book.
[MSS. Oxf. dioc. papers] b. 3		Strayed loose documents, mainly 26, 69; c. 139-141, 142*, inventories and renunciations, not 144-5, 2087 listed by Cheyne.

All loose documents are numbered in the form 1/1/1. With the aid of the above key this reference can thus be interpreted as the first document in the first bundle from the first box of the consistory series of filed wills and inventories, MS. Wills Oxon. 1. Items in volumes are listed in the form '178.1' which indicates that the entry indexed occurs on folio 1 of the volume MS. Wills Oxon. 178 shown by the key to be the first register of archdeaconry wills. All references to registers of wills are to copies of wills unless some other class of document is specified in brackets after the folio number.

This publication was planned many years ago by Dr. Marc Fitch and Dr. W. O. Hassall, and I am very much indebted to them for all the practical help they gave in the early stages of the work. Thanks are also due to Dr. Fitch and the other members of the British Record Society's editorial committee for more recent advice and encouragement, and especially to Mr. Jeremy Gibson for help during the production stages of these volumes. Numerous past and present members of the staff of the Bodleian Library have worked in different ways on preparing the index for publication and their labours are gratefully acknowledged here although they cannot all be named. Much of the work of standardising abbreviations and spellings was done by Mr. Jim Brister and later by Mr. David Vaisey. Miss Wheeler's very accurate numbering of the loose documents has already been mentioned; much of the work of converting Cheyne's volume references to Bodleian shelfmarks was done by Mrs. Lynda Tomlinson. All the typing of the camera copy was done by Mrs. Jean Ibbitson and I am especially indebted to her for the correction of numerous minor inconsistencies and slips which I had missed in editing earlier typescripts. The British Record Society gratefully acknowledges grants made towards the cost of publication by the Bodleian Library, the Greening Lamborn Trust and the British Academy.

Bodleian Library, Oxford
D. M. Barratt


Notes

1. This account is based partly on the actual records of probate and court papers in the diocesan and archidiaconal records, and partly on evidence collected in the dispute about the archdeacon's jurisdiction mentioned below (MS. Archd. papers Oxon. c.127 and MS. Oxf. dioc. papers c.266, fols. 34-43v). See also Martin D. W. Jones, 'The Ecclesiastical Courts before and after the Civil War: the office jurisdiction in the Dioceses of Oxford and Peterborough, 1630-1675', Oxford B. Litt. thesis, 1977, especially pp. 239-243.
2. MS. Archd. papers Oxon. c.127, fol. 57.
3. MS. Archd. papers Oxon. b.20, fol. 603.
4. Most of the earlier examples are printed with inventories for Oxfordshire peculiar jurisdictions of the same period in Household and Farm Inventories in Oxfordshire, 1550-1590, ed. M. A. Havinden, Oxfordshire Record Soc., vol. XLIV, 1965. The revision of this index has however brought to light some further examples earlier than 1591 which were overlooked and not included in this edition.
5. Cf. C. P. C. Johnson, 'Some Oxfordshire Genealogical Sources at the Lincolnshire Archives Office', The Oxfordshire Family Historian, vol. 2, no. 4, 1981, pp. 104-6.
6. An index of all the probate records of the Banbury, Cropredy, Horley and Hornton, King's Sutton (Northants.) and Sibford peculiars (including the strays mentioned above) by J. S. W. Gibson was published jointly as Oxfordshire Record Society, vol. 40, and Banbury Historical Society, vol. 1 (1959).

Volume 94 Prefatory Note

All the Oxfordshire probate records indexed here were transferred from the Bodleian Library to the Oxfordshire County Record Office in March 1984. The reference numbers given here and explained in the introduction to volume I of the index published in 1981 (page xii) will continue in use in the Record Office, and should be quoted as before by students requesting the records or referring to them in publications.

The British Record Society is very much indebted to Mrs. Mary Clapinson of the Department of Western MSS. in the Bodleian Library who undertook the laborious task of compiling the supplementary indexes of places and occupations and gave very helpful advice on their formats. Mrs. Jean Ibbitson has typed all the camera copy and again, as with volume I, I am very grateful to her for the correction of inconsistencies and slips I missed in editing earlier typescripts. The British Record Society gratefully acknowledges generous grants made towards the cost of publication by the Bodleian Library and the Greening Lamborn Trust.

D. M. Barratt