An Inventory of the Worldly Goods and Assets of Roger Hill

Roger Hill was a Lowestoft merchant of the second half of the sixteenth century, whose burial was recorded in the parish registers on 13 September 1588. He had made his will (Norfolk Record Office, 296 Homes) on 20 August and the inventory of his possessions (NRO INV 4/45) was taken on 16 September. He lived in what is now 31-32 High Street (not at No. 30, as I wrote in error in the LA&LHS Annual Report No. 45) – a house whose subdivided nineteenth-century brick exterior (on the right), together with left hand, ground-floor, former shop window, gives no hint of the sumptuous timber-framing to be found within this latter section and whose basic plan can be ascertained from the document transcribed below. The details serve to give some idea of the life-style and domestic arrangements of a person at the top of the social and economic order, in a provincial town, during the late Tudor period. The structure and layout of the original document have been retained (apart from the introduction, which is damaged and incomplete and has therefore been omitted), but all spelling has been given in modern form. Bullet-pointed end-notes and a detailed Glossary follow on from the transcription - both aimed at assisting the reader with appreciation and understanding of the inventory.

CREDIT:David Butcher

In the hall

In the parlour

In the parlour chamber

In the chamber over the kitchen

In the chamber over the hall

In the shop chamber

(All this in the said coffer)

(This pertaining to the said coffer)

(Women’s apparel)

(His apparel)

In the Buttery

In the kitchen

In the backhouse

In the backhouse chamber

In the salt-house

In the brewhouse

In the flag-house

In the barn

In the stable

In the fish-houses above the cliff

In the yard at home

In the house called “The Chapel”

In the houses beneath the cliff

In plate

In debts good and bad

One obligation of Thomas Blithe of Lound & John Blithe of Blundeston of 20 marks [£13 6s 8d] for the payment of 30 coombs of barley

An obligation of Richard Selling of Reydon of £40 for the De [debt or delivery?] of 30,000 billets

One obligation of Miles Winson of Blundeston & John Blith[e] of sixteen pounds for the payment of eight pounds

One obligation of William Marcon & Matthew Ward of Yarmouth of £20 for the payment of £14 6s 0d

One obligation of James Bungay of Beccles & Thomas Hill of Shadingfield of 100 marks [£66 13s 4d] for the payment of £54

One obligation of Godfrey Kirspe [Crisp] of Weston & John Wolnell [Woolnough] of the same town of £20 for the payment of £10 13s 4d

One obligation of the said Godfrey Kirspe & John Wolnell of £20 for the payment of £10

Due from Mr. Walles 10s upon an account

Due from William Crowe & William [unreadable] of Yarmouth for their obligation of their debt [sum unreadable]

Wyllm Frenche

Rychard Bery Stephen Phillipp

John Starff 

• The signatories above were the men who had carried out the valuation of Roger Hill’s possessions. William French was a merchant (who owned The Crown inn), Richard Berry a yeoman, Stephen Phillips an ordained clergyman and master of Annot’s Free Grammar School, and John Staff a draper. Phillips was also the person who wrote the inventory. The trades and occupations of the four men provided the necessary range of experience and skills to enable accurate appraisal of Hill’s estate and creation of the inventory – a document that was intended to accompany his will and assist with its honest and correct execution. 
• Hill’s last will and testament had been written by Edmond Walle and was proved in the Norwich Diocese consistory court. It is possible that Walle was the same person as the Mr. Walles referred to above in the inventory’s penultimate entry. Wills at this time were usually made when the testator was in a state of serious ill health – a fact borne out by the interval of just over three weeks between the document being drawn up and Hill’s burial in St. Margaret’s churchyard.
• When compiling an inventory, the assessors usually began their work in the downstairs rooms, before going upstairs. It was then customary to go out into the yard and inspect any outbuildings that existed. Roger Hill’s house was a typical lobby-entry dwelling of the period, with three principal downstairs rooms (hall, parlour and kitchen-buttery) and three bedrooms above (hall chamber, parlour chamber and kitchen chamber). There was a two-storey backhouse annex somewhere to the rear and mention is also made of a shop chamber – but not the shop itself. The latter was possibly a workshop of some kind, perhaps with a tenant occupying it. On the cliff-face terraces to the rear of the dwelling (including the street-level area itself) was a range of buildings that serviced Hill’s mixed and varying business interests, with even the curing of herrings being carried out there. 
• The procedure revealed in the document here was appraisal of the objects in the hall and parlour, then ascent to four chambers (or bedrooms), followed by descent to the buttery and kitchen – the former almost certainly part of the latter, but partitioned off from it. After this came inspection of the various specialist outbuildings and storage-areas. One thing that will strike the reader regarding the house itself is the mixed use of many of the rooms, with varying combinations of sitting, sleeping, eating and storage – a feature that was typical at the time across a wide spectrum of society.
• The hall was the principal downstairs room, with the parlour being a smaller space for more private use. The buttery was originally a service-room in larger medieval houses which stored drink (mainly able and wine) and was situated next to the pantry (where bread and dry food was kept). By Early Modern times, it had effectively become part of the kitchen. The word derives from the Old French boterie (itself from medieval Latin botaria), meaning “bottle” and/or (possibly) “butt” – giving the connection with drinkable liquids. Pantry derived directly from pain – the French word for bread.
• The vessel, Gift of God, could quite easily have been at sea somewhere when the inventory was compiled. Craft at this time were of dual use, converting from trading to fishing and back again. Categorising the vessel among the items found in the uppermost yard was simply done for convenience. The same is true of the three ferry-boats, which would have been kept down on the beach, above high-water level. 
• The debts listed at the end of the document are mainly sums of money owed by the deceased to people with whom he did business (specifically, in the first two cases, for malting-barley and for the coppiced oak or ash rods used in curing red herrings), followed by sums owed to him. The five transactions coming after first two appear to refer to long-term loans taken out with the parties named (and with both the principal and accumulated sum stated after added interest). The last two entries are definitely to do with money owed to Hill himself.   
• The reference to money owed to Richard Selling of Reydon perhaps refers to oak and ash billets produced in Reydon Wood – a notable local area of managed woodland, part of which survives to this day under the management of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.  
• As can be seen from the detailed account of Roger Hill’s earthly possessions, probate inventories are an invaluable source for promoting an understanding of a person’s economic activities and the life-style resulting from it.
• The amount of weaponry listed in Roger Hill’s hall – as well as the gunpowder present in the kitchen chamber – probably reflects both his involvement in maritime activity and the country’s state of readiness for invasion by Spain. It may also mirror the behaviour of members of the gentry and nobility, who customarily displayed arms in the halls of their houses. In the Muster Roll, taken for the Island of Lothingland in January 1584 (E. Powell, Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, vol. xix - 1925 - p. 65), Hill is shown as having a caliver (see below), an almain rivet (see below), a bow and a sheaf of arrows. Three of the assessors are listed as well. William French had a corselet (a metal “shell” that protected the torso), a coat of plate (body-armour with individual metal plates sewn inside a leather or fabric jacket), a bow and a sheaf of arrows; Richard Berry had a corselet and caliver; and John Staff had a morion (steel helmet, with brim and optional crest) and a pike. Stephen Phillips is not listed. 
• The Lay Subsidy of 1568 shows Roger Hill as paying 8s 4d on £10 worth of goods (trade material), which places him in the middle range of Lowestoft merchants. His inventory of twenty years later shows that he had prospered in business enterprise and become established among the upper levels of local society through being involved in fishing, curing activity (especially herrings) and maritime trade. The contents of his house show a comfortable life-style, with a variety of luxury goods at hand – something which was way above the domestic level of ordinary working people, with a craftsman’s weekly wage (six working days ) being in the range of 3s. or so.
• He is likely to have been the son of Edmond Hill, a tradesman of some kind who is listed in the 1524-5 Lay Subsidy and who paid 6d. tax on goods worth £1. Roger Hill had a son of his own, named Edmond, baptised on 20 December 1565, while the daughter Faith (referred to in the Shop Chamber section above) is recorded for 17 December 1570. Three other daughters, Elizabeth, Anne and Marye, also feature in the parish register on  27 September 1562, 2 May 1568 and 19 October 1572. The burial of a son named John, whose birth had preceded those of the other children (the first of the Lowestoft parish registers dating from 25 March 1561), is recorded on 14 October 1564, while Margaret (Roger Hill’s wife) was laid to rest on 24 November 1584.
• Faith Hill features further in her father’s disposal of  valuables (appearing, perhaps, to have been his favourite child) – and so do the other four children. Edmond has already been referred to, but the other three are there as well. Elizabeth had married George Britaine (parish register spelling) on 12 September 1580, just short of her eighteenth birthday – he being a local mariner – and Ann Hill is almost certainly the Agnes Wilkinson referred to with that particular Christian name often being interchangeable with Ann. There is, however, no record of her marriage, which may have taken place out of parish – though, again, she would have been younger than the average age for wedlock, like her older sister. Mary Hill had not reached the age of sixteen when her father died, but she too was not forgotten in the gifting of valuables.
• It is interesting to note the large silver salt-dish, the parcel-gilt goblet and five silver spoons being in pawn for a total sum of £9. There were no pawnshops, as such, at the time in England – so, this means of raising cash with valuables as security was probably carried out by certain members of the merchant class, with deals negotiated among themselves. Roger Hill was obviously using loans and pawning valuables to raise funds for business activity, with the only other way of doing this being the mortgaging of real estate. A regular banking system was a long, long time away in the future. 
• It is hard to estimate the age at death of Roger Hill and his wife, but if the mid-forties are taken as the point at which the last child baptism (and therefore birth) took place – and if the couple each married at the age of about twenty-four to twenty-five (average for the time) – then approximate ages for both of them can be arrived at: fifty-seven or so for Margaret Hill and about sixty-one for Roger.

CREDIT:David Butcher

Glossary

Almain rivet: light body-armour, originally made in Germany, consisting of overlapping metal plates given movement by slots and rivets. The first word is a corruption of the French allemande.

Andirons: a pair of horizontal, footed iron bars (each with one upright member), used to support burning logs on a hearth. 

Beer-stage: a stout wooden frame used for supporting beer barrels, when full.

Billets: coppiced oak or ash pieces (the latter being most favoured), used for smoking red herrings.

Blanket: undyed, loosely-woven woollen cloth.

Board-cloths: coverings for a table used at meal-times.

Bolting-tub: a wooden container used for sieving flour.

Branch: a horizontal metal arm fitted to an interior wall of a house.

Brazen: made of brass.

Buffet stool: a foot-stool.

Bushel: a basket of eight gallons, dry-measure, capacity.

Buttery: a service-room in a medieval house, which stored the drink (wine and ale, largely). It was originally situated next to the pantry (which stored bread and dry food), but increasingly became associated with the kitchen. 

Caliver: a light type of arquebus [musket], fired without the use of a rest. 

Carpet: thick woollen fabric used to cover tables – not floors.

Cart-saddle: a thick leather pad, placed on a horse’s back as part of the harness securing it to cart or plough. 

Chafing-dish: a brass vessel made to hold burning material, in order to heat anything placed above it.

Chaldron: a variable quantity of coal, reckoned at about 36 bushels and weighing c. 1½-2 tons.

Coat of plate: steel body-armour.

Coffer: a lockable chest for the safe-keeping of valuables.

Cooler: wooden vat in which fermented beer cooled down.

Coomb: a dry measure for grain and other seed, equal to 4 bushels; a comb of barley weighed out at 16 stones.

Counter: a table used for the counting-out of money.

Dansk chest: a softwood chest, made of spruce or pine and of Scandinavian origins (Dansk meaning Danish).

Dansk trenchers: wooden platters made of spruce or pine.

Diaper: a linen fabric, with a patterned surface consisting of opposing diagonal lines and decorative inter-spaces. 

Doublet: a close-fitting upper body garment for men, with or without sleeves.

Drug: a hard-wearing fabric made of wool mixed with linen or silk.

Durance: a tough, long-lasting cloth.

Ell: a length of 45 inches – sometimes known as the “cloth-yard” because of its use in measuring out woollen stuffs.

Fan: an instrument for winnowing grain (either a shallow basket or a light wooden shovel).

Ferry-boat: a light craft propelled by oars and used for carrying goods to and from the shore.

Fir-deal plank: softwood timber imported from the Baltic. 

Fire-fork: implement for putting faggot-wood onto a fire.

Fire-pan: a metal tray, which (depending on size) either held the fire in a hearth or could be used for carrying burning material from room to room.

Flag-house: a place for storing pieces of dried peat, which had probably been cut from around the margins of Lake Lothing. “Flags” was the name name used for these - a popular household fuel of the time and one which burnt without a great deal of smoke and produced a good level of heat.

Flags: pieces of cut, dried peat.

Flasket: a powder-flask used for loading firearms.

Flock: coarse pieces of waste wool, used for stuffing cushions and mattresses.

Frieze: a coarse woollen cloth, napped on one side.

Furzes: bundles of gorse, mainly used to fire bread-ovens.

Fustian: a coarse, twilled cloth made from cotton and flax. It took its name from Fostat, a district of Cairo, where it was produced – and it was often used to make servants’ working-clothes.

Gyle-vat: a large wooden fermenting vessel, used in the production of beer. In this case, both for household use and for consumption by employees - especially crew members of the Gift of God.

Hakes: serrated horizontal iron bars, set into the wall of a fire-place and used to suspend cooking-pots above the blaze.

Halberd: a pole-weapon, with long handle, combining axe and spear at the killing-end (still carried ceremonially by the Vatican’s Swiss guards). 

Half-pint: volume measure.

Heckle: wooden, brush-like tools, with metal teeth, which was used for dressing hemp fibre prior to its being spun into linen yarn.

Hogsheads: beer barrels of fifty-four gallons capacity.

Homilies: sermons.

Joined table, stools:  furniture whose components had been secured by mortise-and-tenon joints rather than by iron nails.

Keeler: a shallow vessel for cooling down warm liquids.

Kettle: a metal pot for heating water or cooking with – not the spouted utensil of today.

Kirtle: a woman’s skirt or outer petticoat.

Langles: fetters used for hobbling horses.

Latch-pan: a shallow metal container, used to catch the grease dripping from meat as it was roasted.

Laten: a metal alloy formed from brass and tin.

Laver: basin, often of large size.

Lectern: a reading-stand, especially one associated with Scripture.

Limbeck: a still, mainly used in households to produce rose-water and other scented agents to sweeten the internal aroma. The word is a variation of alembic.

Mark(s): sum(s) of money worth 13s 4d – not a coin.

Mash-vat: a large wooden vessel, used in brewing beer, in which the crushed malt is mixed with boiling water.

Mazer: a shallow wooden cup or drinking-bowl, often made of maple-wood.

Meslin: mixed grain – usually wheat and rye, or barley and rye. The word also applied to the meal or flour made from such combinations.

Minging-trough: a wooden vessel in which dough was kneaded, prior to being baked into bread.

Missins: soft, white, woven mats worn on the lap as protection, when sitting down. The word is a variant of messan, meaning a lap-dog. 

Mould: a steel helmet.

Moulding-board: a square or rectangular wooden board, on which dough was shaped into loaves.  

Net-rock: a distaff used for spinning hemp fibre into twine (which was then used to make fishing-nets). 

North Sea fish: dried, salted cod (or ling).

Painted cloths: Wall-hangings similar to stained cloths, but with scenes depicted.

Pantofles: slippers or over-shoes.

Parcel gilt: a term applied to silver vessels that had a gilded inner surface.

Partisan: a pole weapon, with long handle, headed by a broad spear with projecting spurs at the base (still carried ceremonially by the Yeomen of the Guard).

Peck: a basket of two gallons, dry-measure, capacity (a quarter the size of a bushel).

Peel: a long-handled, shovel-like tool used for putting loaves into an oven and for removing them.  

Pillowbere: pillowcase.

Posnet: a small metal pot for boiling water, having a handle and three feet.

Press: a linen-press.

Pullen work: raised embroidery.

Qr.: quarter.

Quarter-cloths: possibly, quarter-size woollen broadcloths (the full length varying from 24-30 yards, with a width of 1¼).

Querns: hand-mills, in which the upper stone rotates above the fixed lower one.

Rails: women’s neckerchiefs.

Rash: a fine textile made of silk or worsted, or of a mixture of the two.

Riving-board: a wooden surface on which fish were split.

Roar: to salt.

Rug: coarse woollen material not unlike frieze. 

Runlet: a cask or barrel of varying capacity.

Scammel: thin material (probably linen, of some kind).

Seeled: enclosed.

Seelings of oak: oak panels, used to cover walls. A valuable, movable item of interior décor and sometimes found forming bequests in wills.

Sheaf: quiver.

Silver salt: salt-dish made of silver, for use at table.

Skillet: a metal cooking-pot, with long handle and three or four feet. 

Skimmers: perforated, metal, shallow, spoon-like implements for taking fat and grease off the top of stews etc.

Speets: slender wooden rods (usually made of coppiced hazel), onto which herrings were threaded through mouth and gill and hung in the smokehouse for curing into “reds”.

Stained cloths: panels of linen or canvas, which had been dyed for use as wall-hangings (much cheaper than tapestry!).

Still: a closed vessel, or retort, for producing essences used in the house – not alcoholic liquors.

Stone: probably imported German stoneware pottery (Westerwald and Frechen), both of these types being popular at the time.

Straw bed: palliasse.  

Strike: a piece of wood, used to level off the uppermost surface of grain placed in a bushel measure.

Strops: loops of rope or leather, used as fastenings around pulleys of some kind.

Swill: a double-handled basket, used for rinsing fish that had been salted.

Tablecloths: coverings sometimes intended for display rather than utility (see board-cloth).

Tester: the canopy or “roof” of a posted bedstead.

Thill-bells: bells that were fixed to the shaft(s) of a cart.

Thrummed: a term used to describe material with the thread-ends left untrimmed, so as to produce a shaggy effect.

Tick: a mattress-cover, often made of coarse linen.

Touch-box: a box containing the gunpowder used for priming firearms.

Traces: the ropes, chains or leather straps which attached the horse-collar to the equipment being pulled.

Transom: the back-board of a posted bedstead.

Traying-platter: wooden tray, possibly with raised edges.

Trencher: a wooden platter used at table - often square in shape (hence, the term “a square meal”).

Trendle bedstead: a small movable bed (often used by children and servants), which could be pushed under a posted bed.

Tub-chair: of rounded shape.

Tunner: a large container or vat used to temporarily store beer after fermentation, before it was drawn off into smaller casks for transportation or use.

Tunning-kettle: a metal vessel used to fill barrels with fermented beer, prior to use.

Wainscot: oak panelling.

Water-chafer: A metal utensil used for heating water.

Wey: a quantity of salt measuring 40 bushels (a ton by weight, when dry).

White trenchers: square wooden platters made (usually) of sycamore.

Women’s apparel: the four items of clothing in the Shop Chamber had probably belonged to Roger Hill’s late wife, Margaret.

Wort: unfermented beer, before yeast or hops had been added to it.