Exploring the lives of women through the instructions they left for their deaths
Wills can provide a tangible sense of the personalities of, the people and possession that were important to, ordinary people from the past.
It’s estimated that just 1-5% of records from a nation’s major institutions – or as little as 1-2%, when considering digital files – will be designated ‘archival’ and selected for long-term preservation. With such small fractions saved for posterity, existing inequalities and under-representation are likely to be exacerbated.
But, as Alexandra Walsham has written, researchers of marginalised people and communities have “become particularly adept at reading the gaps and silences in sources”. Judicial and legal records can be particularly useful for recovering the voices of ordinary citizens via their testimony as witnesses or the accused. Parish records, marriage contracts, and wills are another valuable source.
Using wills as source material isn’t without its challenges. They contain a bias for people of a certain age, class, and gender, they follow a standard format, and were rarely written by the people whose property they dealt with. But nevertheless, they can provide a wealth of information about family and friendship networks, insight into the personality of the will maker, and a sense of their place in society. And, under-represented and mediated though their presence may be, wills are one of the few ways that the lives of ordinary women are observable in the historic record.
I recently took a deep dive into a portion of wills transcribed by volunteers from The Oxfordshire Family History Society (OFHS). Its database contains 7,661 wills ranging from the 15th to 20th centuries, of which 1,612, or 21%, are from women. (This proportion is in line with other collections, including the Prerogative Court of Canterbury will registers held by The National Archives.)
Until the 1880s and amendments to the Married Women’s Property Act, wives didn’t have the right to make a will without their husband's permission. As such, just 38, or 2% of, women's wills in the OFHS database are by married women. One of the few is Ann Field, who in 1720 specified that her will was written “with the consent of my said Husband and haveing liberty by my Marriage settlem't soe to doe”.
Widows make up the majority of women will makers in the OFHS database (1,158, or 72%). Also among the women are 225 spinsters (14%).
The term 'spinster' originally meant a woman who spun thread or yarn, but by the 16th Century, it had taken on a legal connotation to designate an unmarried woman, a meaning it retains today.
As Amy Louise Erickson (among others) has written, spinsters are some of the “least visible” women from the past and deserve to be further explored. It’s for that reason my study of the OFHS database focused on the 79 spinster wills that fell within the early modern period (specifically, those dated between 1609 – the earliest spinster will – and 1750).
It's interesting to note at this point that while there was an expectation in the early modern period that women would marry and have children, the extent to which this happened wasn’t as high as you might expect. In an analysis of data from multiple English communities, A. M. Froide found that at least one third of adult women were single in 17th Century England, and the majority of these (3:2 in Southampton, for example) were unmarried rather than widowed. This suggests the assumption that all single women were ‘wives in waiting’ was not entirely accurate. Nor, we shall see, were all unmarried women destined to forever be a burden on their fathers or brothers.
Here’s the three most interesting insights I found in my examination of OFHS wills:
Spinsters enjoyed financial independence from men and sought to support the women in their lives to maintain or achieve a level of independence of their own
29% of spinsters owned or leased a home and/or land, and/or had money invested in stocks. At least 16% of spinsters left evidence they’d lent money to others. And 34% stipulated that financial bequests be invested for the benefit of the recipient. This indicates that not only did a notable number of these single women control their own assets and finances, but they understood the importance of, and were actively involved in, money management.
What is particularly revealing are the at least 13% of spinsters who left explicit instructions in their wills that financial bequests were for the use of women only. Also, the 19% who left (sometimes quite considerable) bequests to maids and servants (who were overwhelmingly women), ensuring these people were taken care of after their employer’s death.
For example, Ann Walker stipulated in her 1659/60 will that £30 she left to her aunt “be at her sole Dispose without her husband”. In 1697, Elizabeth Hacker was explicit that bequests to multiple married women “bee paid unto her for her sole sep'ate & p'ticular use”. And in 1723, Mary Luckett stated that £20 and £10 left to two kinswomen be “at her own disposal”.
Meanwhile, in 1725, Ann Langston bequeathed “half part of [my] house to my servant Maid Katherine” and asked that her sister did the same if “the said Katherine Wait surviveth her”. And in a 1739 codicil to her 1737 will, Elizabeth Eyans increased the bequest to her “trusty Servant Elizabeth Edwards” from £5 to £20 in recognition of the “Services she has done me in my late Illness”.
Spinsters had clear intentions about what should happen to them and their possessions after death
Wills were rarely written by the person they’re made for. Most were written by parish clergy, legal advisors, scriveners, or other educated men. As such, women’s voices are at least one step removed from the wills that bear their names. However, women’s intentions – and in turn, their personalities – clearly shine through in many cases.
My favourite is Hannah Withers, who specified in her 1716 will the two women who should “lay me out in my own clothes [not] a suit bought readymade as the usual manner is”, exactly who should transport her to her funeral, and the four people who should carry her to the grave. She also specified the type and amount of drink (“six bottles of Sack”) that should be enjoyed at her wake, and the 22 people who should share in the 12d loaf she provided for.
In other wills, specifications variously include, for example, that money be used to purchase bibles for siblings at 10s-a-piece, a new suit of clothes for a nephew, and in the 1743 will of Silence Tibbets, “a pair of the best kid gloves each” for her three nieces and their husbands. Perhaps most intriguing is the direction in Mary Fettiplace’s 1692 will to her two executrixes: “what Gold they find wrapt up in a piece of paper that they deliver it to the party whose name is subscribed upon”.
The average value of cash bequests in the spinster wills that featured them was £176, which is around £33,000-£37,000 in today's money. But equally important – or, perhaps even more so, for those who had little money – was the distribution of a vast array of personal items, where, again, there is both evident care and clear intentions in the spinsters’ detailed bequests. This included specifying who would get the highest quality possessions.
In her 1718 will, Darnigold Vivers listed that seven of the many household items and pieces of clothing she bequeathed were her “best” – five of them went to her “Kinswoman Mary Strank Sean'r”, including “my best pair of Stayes, my best Mantua & Petticote (the mantua being lined w'th a Shagareen Silk), […] Two shutes of my best small linen, Two of my best shifts & Two of my best Night Rales”. In 1626/27, Mary Busbie was clear that “the best sharne [shorn/sheared?] of my eight sheepe” go to her mother, with the rest divided between her siblings and another recipient. While Jane Cuin, in her 1749 will, bequeathed to one of her three sisters “my largest Gold Ring”.
It is less clear what to make of the instances where bequests were explicitly low quality. Such as Hannah Copland’s 1736 will specifying that her “Old Gowns and Petticoats and course shifts” go to a former maid, and all her mother’s “course home made Shifts” to a cousin. Or Hannah Withers dividing “the worst of my wearing apparel” among two women. Is this an indication of less favourable relations, or simply a determined effort by the spinster to ensure no item that still had some use left it in (and therefore, some value) should go to waste?
Spinsters considered and made provision for the preservation of their memory
Perhaps most poignant among all the bequests of personal items are the 16% of spinsters who made provisions 'for mourning' or, more specifically, rings to remember them by. Joanne Winchester, for example, allocated money in her 1684 will to buy rings for 44 people.
While these were a common feature of wills in the early modern period, Lucinda M. Becker found they were most often left by men. But when they were seen in women’s wills, those women were predominantly spinsters.
Whether the spinsters in question specifically chose not to pursue marriage and children – or not – is almost impossible to know. But what we can see through the provision of mourning rings in their wills is evidence of a conscious effort to create a legacy; to ensure that the memory of their life was preserved after their death.
My exploration of the OFHS database is a mere snapshot of a segment of the population from a single place during a narrow period. But limited though it may be, it shows the potential for legal records such as wills to provide a tangible sense of the lives and the personalities, the people and possession that were important to, ordinary people – such as women – who are so hidden (or sometimes entirely absent) from most other parts of the historic record.
Wills are fascinating documents, even today. And thanks for telling us about the database!
The OFHS database is going straight to my evening reading list, thanks for flagging it :-) I like how you've turned these legal records into actual human stories. There's something deeply satisfying about making overlooked fragments speak... the so-called "minor" sources are usually goldmines to the curious eye.