As 1988 approached I wondered what life was like for people in Cornwall in 1588 at the time of the Spanish Armadas. Peter Pool recommended the St. Just Easter Book and I was delighted to discover one of the treasures of the Morrab Library (1).

 

I was given a royal blue box containing a book 17 inches tall, 6½ inches wide and 1½ inches thick.

With excitement and awe I turned the 184 pages that were four hundred years old. It is called the St. Just Easter Book because in 1588 William Drake, the vicar, wrote in it the names of his adult parishioners and the offerings they paid him on Easter Day. For most of the accounts he turned the book sideways and on the left listed the inhabitants under their addresses. Across the pages he recorded the tithes they owed (see p 8-9). The accounts cover nine years but time has eaten away many pages leaving 1590 and 1593 the most complete. This amazing and comprehensive account is quite unique for a Cornish parish of its time. How has it survived?

 

William Drake became vicar of St. Just in 1582 and was succeeded by his son who died in 1636. Amos Mason was next and in 1637 paid the second Mr. Drake’s widow 40s for the book. He was given an even older paper of Laudable Customs which he kept near the middle by page 100. After him came James Millet in 1678, and then his son. The Easter Book passed to the next incumbent, Dr. William Borlase (1696-1772) and was eventually inherited by his great-grandson William Copeland Borlase.

 

He had the book rebound with a cover of blue marbled paper boards. The loose paper of Laudable Customs, now ragged and only 9½ inches by 8½ inches, was bound in at the end. His books were sold in 1887 when William Bolitho bought the Easter Book for 30 shillings, 25% less than before, and gave it to the Morrab Library. 

 

The hand writing is difficult to read and the spelling often phonetic but with the help of Canon Taylor’s article I gradually deciphered it (2). I found it fascinating to study the tithes paid and probe into the life of St. Just 400 years ago.

 

According to the ‘Laudable Custom 16’ on the tattered piece of paper, 536 parishioners paid 1d or 2d in 1593. Single people over sixteen years paid 1d (3). The 136 husbands paid 4d each for themselves and their wives. The 36 widows and 16 widowers paid 2d so were obviously considered wealthier than single people, which is not usually the case today.

 

St. Just parish consisted of forty-eight settlements but eighteen had only one house. It stretched from Keigwin in the east with its tin miners to Tregiffian with its fishermen just two miles short of Land's End. Forty-four adults inhabited the ten dwellings around the parish church. The four largest hamlets, with six to eight houses, were Truthwall, Bojewyan, Trewellard and Kenidjack. If there were half as many children as adults the population was about 804. With 150 homes in St. Just the average household was 5.36 persons. Unmarried sons and daughters lived at home if their parents could afford to keep them, but many are listed as servants with neighbouring families. Of the thirty-one servants only five received wages.

 

I have studied the tithes they paid. Amos Mason thought the paper of Laudable Customs older than the Easter Book. His writing is much easier to read and he explains that the paper was, ‘not first written by him [William Drake] but by some of the parishioners before…’. The 8^th and 9^th customs on one side, and the 19^th and 20^th on the other side were missing from ‘the bottom of this rotten paper’. He acquired another copy from the second Mr. Drake and in 1637 wrote the lost customs into the Easter Book on page 101. He added, ‘…I wish that the next vicar may have these and the book to keep peace in the parish as I have endeavoured.’ Another note written in 1667 bemoans the 40 shillings Mrs. Catherine Drake made him pay for the Easter Book.

 

Tithes were an ancient way of supporting the church from pre-Norman times. As parson, Mr. Drake received one tenth of all farm produce, which he listed across the top of his new book. After ewes, goats, gardens, colts, kine and calves, there is an empty column and then hemp, honey, pigs, geese, eggs, lambs and fleeces (see transcript below). The first group is mostly for cash payments while products in the second group were usually received in kind.

           

Cottages were built of granite, probably without chimneys.  The thatched roof is secured with a net of ropes and weighted with stones.

©Steph Haxton 2005

 

The Customs are not in a particular order but number 1 is: ‘Whitesoule To be brought to the chaunsler [chancel] at two severall Sandayes, that is to say Sondaye next after mydsomar and Sonday next after o^r ladye daye in August’[15^th]. Whitesoule is spelt in many ways including witsul and means the white products made from milk such as butter and cheese. Only those with four cows or more made whitsole because the 11^th custom stated, ‘For tyth mylke Our Lawdable Custome is to pay at Easter for 3 key [kine], and so under, iiijd. [4d] a peece and not above.’ Thomas Matthew paid 8d so only milked two cows (see transcript below).

 

In the smaller, nearby parish of Zennor the custom is described more fully in its 1727 Glebe Terrier. There milk was kept for nine days before Midsummer Day, the cream made into ‘good and wholesome butter’ and the milk into cheese. This was left in the vicar’s chancel on the following Sunday forenoon. From the same amount of milk four cheeses were made and taken to the vicar on August 29^th, a fortnight after St. Just.

 

For Feock, on the Fal Estuary, the 1727 terrier tells us of customs in 1603 which is much nearer the sixteenth-century date for St. Just. Farmers with less than five cows paid only 1d a cow, not 4d. Those with five or more cows made ‘whitsoole’ from nine-days milk. This produced five cheeses at Midsummer and, for August 1^st, another four cheeses and a loaf of butter. The cheese was to be salted, but not the butter. Surprisingly, Ludgvan, on the more sheltered south coast of Penwith, made butter and cheese from less milk, just five days in Rogation week, and then from the last two days in July and the first two days in August.

 

In St. Just in 1590 William Drake received 196 cheeses and 240 pounds of butter, all the butter being paid in August. Zennor made only cheese in August but both in June. The butter sold for 4d a pound and the cheeses were 3¼d each so probably weighed one pound. Unlike St. Just, Feock produced more cheese than butter. Three hundred years earlier only cheese was mentioned in the tithe regulations of 1287 (4). However, in 1768 the vicar of Zennor, another William Borlase, wrote in his tithe book that the inhabitants made more cheese than butter for themselves (5). He also complained that the ‘good and wholesome butter’ was left in the porch to go rancid when certain of his parishioners paid in kind instead of cash.

 

Cheese was more useful than butter as it kept longer but butter sold for a better price and in Elizabethan times a trade was developing. For example, Nicholas Andrews of Zennor, yeoman, died in March 1618 leaving 3 firkins of butter, about 336 pounds, valued at 3d a pound. This was a usual price for salted butter at the end of winter. He had the same amount in Plymouth and one wonders if he was buying the tithe butter in Penwith. At the beginning and end of summer, April and September, fresh butter could double to 6d a pound. In December 1619 David Rablett’s inventory included 5 cheeses worth 10d, suggesting they were five at 2d a pound (6). Cheese, like butter, varied in price according to availability, and sold from 2d to 4d a pound.

 

 

Certayne Articles of o’r Lawdable Costums tyme oute of mynde’

By kind permission of Morrab Library (St Just Easter Book insert B/63)

 

‘12. Yooes mylke They that be comonly molke of them that doe not make white soule is to pay to the vicar or his depute [deputy] for evry yoes mylke a farthing a peece at easter.’ (see image above)

John Otes and his wife up at Boswedden were kept busy milking sixteen ewes and two cows because they paid 4d and 8d respectively. Not all ewes were milked but at least sixty of the 150 households milked them, most paying 1d for four or 2d for eight. About thirty farmers had larger flocks and paid with cheese. At Feock the tithe was also a farthing each ‘unless mixed with cows’ milk to make cheese’. By 1728 in St. Just the payment was still a farthing per ewe but the tithe for a cow had increased threefold to 1 shilling, unless whitsole was made. The parishioners at Lanreath in East Cornwall had a better deal. In 1726 they paid 2s 6d for the milk of a cow and 1s 6d for that of a heifer, but then their calves were exempt (7). However, in Sancreed all tithes were generally paid in cash and other parishes were following suit during the 18^th century.

 

‘13. Rearing calves To be kepte by their dames viij weekes - Leaving half their mylke with them and then it is tythable.’ ‘14. Kylling Calves To be kepte by their dames iiij weekes, leaving their whole mylke with them and so to be tythable.’ ‘8. [Tith Lambs, Calves and Kids] A house alwayes to be provided by the vicar or his deputy in the Church towne on St. Mark's Day for the receiving of the tyth lambs calves and kids.’

In 1590 on St. Mark’s Day, April 25^th, 26 calves arrived in the townplace with 102 tithe lambs and two kids. Perhaps they were housed in temporary pens and a market held the same day. The calves sold for 3s 4d each but in 1593 Martin Trahar paid 4s for his tithe calf (see transcript below).

 

Mr. Drake listed about 488 calves in his book which may be explained by Bishop Quivil’s regulations 300 years earlier in 1287 (8). ‘Seeing it is sometimes doubtful what and how much should be given for tithes when there are so few cows and sheep that no cheese can be made from their milk, or when in like manner there are too few calves, lambs, kids, chickens, piglings, geese or fleeces, to be divided by ten…’ a farthing was paid tithe for each lamb, kid or pigling below the number of seven; if seven, one was given for tithe and the following year this was taken into account. If no cheese was made a penny was paid for each cow, a halfpenny for each she-goat and a farthing for each milch-ewe. ‘[Those] who maliciously bring the milk itself to church, – and what is more wicked still – finding there no man to receive it, pour it out before the altar in contumely to God and his church…’ were excommunicated. The bishop also complained of the behaviour of laymen towards clergy ‘in these modern times’.

 

Today a goat may milk twice as much as a sheep but cows produce fifteen times more. This was reflected by an increase from 1d to 4d for a cow in St. Just by the 1580s. We do not know whether cows had improved in that time or whether the church just caught up with more realistic prices. In 1603 in Feock the rate was still 1d at Easter unless whitsole was made.  Anyone with 6 calves or less paid 1d for every killed calf and ½d for every rearer. If he had 7 calves or more he paid a tithing calf and the vicar repaid 1d for each calf under ten. Henry Benett of St. Just (see p 8-9) paid a tithe kid as he had seven and the vicar owed him for three. By 1728 calves had risen to 6d and fatlings 1s.

 

 Five one-pound cheeses

©Steph Haxton 2005

Mr. Drake’s notes on calves may refer to the numbers above or below seven, with a different category for killed calves. As shown in the transcript below, Thomas Matthewe has 10 in the calves’ column, a debt of 10 in the next column and paid 4s for a tithe calf. It seems he had achieved the total of 10 so paid for one. John Cock has 5 calves and in the next column ‘3 vituli [calves] this year and his wife’s 2 calves’. It is not plain why Mr. Drake sometimes used Latin terms.

 

More than half the families were recorded with calves and the income from cattle was only exceeded by wool. A calf for veal thrived on all its mother’s milk for four weeks and was then slaughtered. A calf to be reared was allowed only half the cow’s milk but for eight weeks. It could suckle for a short time and was then taken away protesting while the cow was milked by hand. Cows were probably turned up on the downs for winter, and brought in for calving in the spring.

 

James Whetter (9) studied inventories from 1600-1620 and gives an average herd for West Cornwall. Using his figures the average farmer in St. Just milked four cows and they were his breeding stock. He had an ox which was his main draught animal until killed for beef. He had three steers coming along to replace the ox in turn, and two heifers to replace the cows. One of his calves was sold during the summer leaving him with two. He had two yearlings but shared a bull.

 

Thorold Rogers (10) analysed records from 1259 to 1793 of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, as well as Eton and a few from Winchester. All food was seasonal and prices fluctuated so much throughout the year, and from year to year, that he worked out averages. For the period of the St. Just Easter Book, 1587 & ’88 were good years for farmers, with bumper harvests. The bad harvests of 1595 & ’96 meant wheat doubled in price and all other food prices increased. Even in a good year the poor had a lean time and at the end of winter were looking forward to the first crops of summer.

 

In November 1587 a farmer paid £5 for a yoke of oxen and £3 for two milch cows. Bulls were becoming more important but the first one he found was in 1616 at £6. A pair of oxen trained to work together was the most valued. Although these were premium prices, in 1613 in Zennor John Davye died leaving a pair of oxen also worth £5. In 1618 Nicholas Andrews left a bull for £1 10s and his cows were the normal price of £2 (11).

 

Saving hay for winter feed

©Steph Haxton 2005

 

Thorold Rogers wrote that calves not wanted for rearing were fattened to 94 pounds which would be at 2-3 months old. They were sold for 11s at Midsummer and Michaelmas Fairs.  In St. Just the sale was April 25^th and the price 3s 4d. In the second half of the 16^th century beef animals increased in weight from 4cwt to 5cwt but today they are twice that. In the autumn farmers thinned out their herds as there was little keep for cattle in winter. Meat was salted down and beef cost 1½d a pound. The price increased to 3d by Lent when fish was eaten. Suet was always more expensive at 3d or 4d a pound as living was too sparse in those days for man and beast to put on much fat. At the end of the century prices were increasing slowly.

 

Salt for preserving was imported in the calmer weather of summer. In 1585 & ’86 the price was low but storms in 1596-98 put the price up from 5½d a pound to nearly 7d. In Cornwall the tax was often avoided. Beef became more important as the population grew and mining prospered. Sea trade expanded and ships needed victualling.

 

Thorold Rogers found lambs sold for slaughter at 4s each and sheep at 7s. Lamb was eaten at Easter. In 1588 sheep weighed 80-88 pounds and killed out at 36-42 pounds, but today lambs weigh that. There was little difference in the price of beef and mutton so they must have been in equal supply. The average price was 3d a pound making meat cheaper than butter. Today the average price for beef and lamb is £3 a pound, nearly twice the price of butter. Pork was eaten at Christmas and St Ives still holds its Fair Mo (pig fair) on the Saturday after December 3^rd. Pork was 1¼d a pound and bacon 2¾d. Today we forget the adage 'never eat pork unless there is an R in the month' but in those days meat became tainted quickly in hot weather.

 

‘15. For horse colts and mare Colts. A horse colte a penny for tyth and A mare colte a half penny for tyth and not above.’

About thirteen people paid 1d for a colt except John Bosvargus who paid 3d. As well as farming at Bosvargus he had a tin stamping mill at Tregeseal and used his horses in the tin trade. Farmers found oxen had more uses and were thriftier.

 

By 1727 in Zennor all colts were a penny but in St. Just the tithe had increased to 6d. The use of horses increased in the tin industry but, like cars today, they varied in value. Interesting comparisons are drawn from inventories in the parish of Zennor. In 1610 Bawldon James left 9 horses and 6 mares worth £6, average a bare 8s each. Henry Hoskin, who died the year before, left 2 old mares valued at £3 but his ‘gray’ nag was a superior £2 (12).

 

‘6. Tith geese and pyggs. To be brought to the churche yeard bound wath som Cord the vicar or his depute to be warned.’

Their feet were bound together to prevent them running away. In St. Just only one in ten paid a tithe pig and one in twenty paid for geese. Most people probably kept less than ten so did not pay every year. The vicar received twelve piglets in 1590 which sold at 4d. In Ludgvan tithe piglets were taken at a month old but today they are weaned at two months.

 

Mr. Drake sold his fifteen young geese also at 4d each. When fattened on the stubble after harvest a fat goose cost 1s in November 1588, but 2s 6d after the poor harvest of 1592. Thorold Rogers found prices for poultry varied considerably depending on the weather, the time of year and any natural disasters. In 1588 prices were low so a capon cost 1s and a hen 5d. In 1595 prices were very high after the bad harvest, making a capon 1s 9½d and a hen 1s. Ducks were rarely sold but made 5¾d in 1588 and 7¼d in 1595.

 

‘7. Tith Eggs. To be brought alwayes in the Easter weeke to the Chaunsler leaving the same there geving no knowledg to the vicar or his depute.’

One hopes little boys did not find them before the vicar! Tithe eggs were any number from 1 to 41 and the total for 1590 was 47 dozen. If the tithe was one egg per hen that made 564 hens in St. Just.

 

Thorold Rogers found eggs were 2d a dozen at Easter but rose to 4d a dozen as the hens went off lay in the autumn. Most people kept poultry as can be seen from a study of Zennor inventories. Richard Gregory in 1608 had only one hen, but in March she was valued at 3d. Prices were quite different in May that year when John Holla had 5 hens and 2 cocks assessed at 9d (1¼d each) (13). These prices are not quite as much as the selling prices quoted by Thorold Rogers.

 

 

‘2. Tith honye. To be brought upon the Vannte stone in the churche and the vicar or his depute to be gyven knowledge who brought it.’

The vannte was the font and 25 tenements in St. Just produced honey.

 

The honey tithe was paid in kind well into the 18^th century. It was the chief sweetener in Elizabethan times as sugar was expensive. In 1598 in St. Ives there was a most interesting case of smuggling salt, wine, green ginger and sugar which sold for 1s a pound. Although many were involved, including the local gentry, only Peter Newman and William Mabbe were ‘publicklie punisshed’ (14). Honey was rarely mentioned in inventories but in her will of 1639 Alice Pellamounter, a well-to-do Zennor widow, left her daughters Zebole (Sybel), Mary and Margaret, all a ‘but of bees’ (15).

 

 A straw ‘butt of bees’

©Steph Haxton 2005

‘4. Tith hempt and flaxe. To be brought to the churche porche and the vicar or his deputye to be warned.’

Twenty eight tenements grew hemp and flax, in small gardens or quillets, which the parishioners made into rope, sacks, canvas and linen. Hemp and flax were still paid in kind in the 18^th century in St. Just, Zennor and Feock.

 

Some idea of the high value of hemp is found in early 17^th century inventories for Zennor. In November 1609 Henry Hoskin left hemp and hemp seed worth 1s 6d. In January 1613 John Davye husbandman, left hemp worth 2s, a spinning turn and ropes. David Rablett left 2 sacks 1s, 3 pieces of rope 2d, 1 pair of canvas sheets 4s and hemp. In John Holla’s inventory of 1608 his third share in a pound of twine thread was 4d. As well as sheets used on beds there were winnowing sheets. When not everyone had sheets and very few had linen sheets, Agnes Lynch in 1621/2 left 7 pairs of sheets, presumably canvas. Perhaps they were made for sale (16).

 

‘3. Tith Leeks and Unnyons. To be brought in the cheare by the Vann stone or there aboutes and the vicar or his depute to be warned.’

Leeks and onions were the only titheable vegetables in St. Just and, like other products, were brought to the church. They were put in the chair by the font.

 

‘18. Gardens or Garden. Every man that hath a garden or gardens is to pay but a penny, Leekes and Unnyons to be tythed as is aforesaid and no otherwyse.’

 

About 40% paid 1d for a garden, the only exception was John Bosvargus who had nine gardens.

The terrier for St. Neot in 1735 specifies ‘Herb garden 1d’. In Feock it was; ‘For Leeks, Onyons, Garlike the Tenth, and for all other Herbes and Roots of Gardens one Penny.’ For Zennor the definition was for all gardens, present or future, that were cultivated with a spade.

 

‘9. [Tyth fish] The fishermen, whenas they come a land to devide their shares, shall first take out the tith fish leaving it in the same place, the vicar or his deputy to give their attendance without any warning.

 

10. Fishing at the Rocke or Stone Att Easter a man that useth to feshe at the Rock or Stone commonly is to pay ijd. at Easter to the vicar or his depute and no more.’

 

Mr Drake only recorded 1d for fishing from the cliff although 2d is stated in Custom 10. The terrier for Feock was more detailed. Every fishing boat paid the tenth fish but from June 1^st to the end of August the vicar allowed a tenth of the price of the bait. Barks were allowed a tenth of the bait and salt for preserving as they sailed outside the harbour. A tithe was paid for fish taken at weirs. For barges that carried sand 4d a noble (6s 8d) was paid on the clear profit. Sailors in merchant ships paid the same on their wages. This was a twentieth and the standard rate as given for servants in Custom 19 at St. Just. The ferry boat paid 1s a year but the vicar and his family could pass free.

 

The fishermen of St. Just sailed from various little beaches along the coast and in 1590 the fish tithe brought in £1. Richard Carew (17) wrote about fishing from the shore in his time at the end of the 16^th century. A weir was a wattle fence that trapped fish as the tide receded. He described nets pegged out at low water to catch fish at the ebb. Pilchards, however, were caught in seine nets about forty fathoms long, and hauled in from the shore. On the north coast, he said, where there was a lack of good harbours, fishing was done with long lines from which hung many hooks. These could be left out all night and pulled in next day. Carew said fish were preserved in three ways: smoking, pressing and salting. Pilchards were smoked for the export market which increased greatly at the end of the 16^th century. Larger fish were dried in the sun and some were pickled in barrels with salt.

 

‘5. Tithe Woll To be brought to the churche porche and the vicar or his deputy to be warned to fetch the same woll so brought.

[Probably added by Amos Mason in 1637]: ‘The fetching of the wool by the vicar or his deputy from the houses of the owners of the sheep was so ordered by the court after false tith brought to the porch as I was informed.’

 

With over 3000 sheep in St.Just wool was the most important of all the tithes and accounted for a quarter of the vicar’s income. In 1590 Mr. Drake received 102 lambs which he sold at 12d or 13d each. This means there were about 1000 ewes in St. Just, 1000 wethers and 1000 hoggets at the beginning of the year. The ewes would lamb in the spring and hoggets were last year’s lambs. Ram lambs were castrated to prevent them becoming aggressive and were known as wethers. In 1591 the vicar of St. Just received 71 black fleeces and 250 white which sold at 9½d each. He received less in 1590, about 267 fleeces. Today black fleeces are worth more than white.

 

Lambs are not sheared the first summer so there was no tithe for their wool. Sheep were kept chiefly for their wool but we can imagine mutton was a common dish. In St. Just 60% of all families had flocks but 20% had less than ten lambs. More than half the sheep, 1600, were owned by Martin Thomas of Bosavern as his tithe was 160 fleeces and 55 lambs. The figures for Martin Trahar (see p 8-9) show he paid 2 black lambs and 16 white and was left with 4 for next year. He also paid 3 black fleeces and 31 white, and the vicar owed him for two. John Waldon was in debt by 5 fleeces. John Cock paid 4 black and 41 white fleeces so owned 450 sheep plus 200 lambs born that year.

 

 

Cottage with thatch pegged on with spars

©Steph Haxton 2005

The biggest flock James Whetter (18) found was James Bassett’s of Tehidy (Illogan parish) with 832 sheep and lambs in 1604. At least half a dozen farmers in St.Just had bigger flocks in 1590. Whetter compared investment in different branches of agriculture from 1600-1620. In Penwith 42% of the total farm investment was in cattle, 25% in corn, 17% in sheep, 16% in horses and 2% for pigs (19). In the rest of Cornwall these were all very similar except horses which were only 10%. During the 17^th century the number of sheep halved in Penwith but all other categories increased slightly.

 

Carew (20) wrote that during the 16^th century sheep had improved greatly and were shorn during June and July. In Penwith they were grazed on the downs and cliffs, just being brought in for lambing and shearing. The average flock in St. Just was thirty but a century later an average farm in Zennor included ‘commons of pasture for sixty sheep’.

 

Not all early 17^th century inventories for Zennor included sheep but John Pellamounter had more than average. In March 1632/3 he had 26 lambs and 28 hoggets worth £7; as well as 70 wethers and yewes (sic) valued at £13.2s 8d. John Holla in 1608 and Bawldon James in 1610 both left a spinning turn and cards (used for carding wool). Thomas Mering in 1621 left 11 wool fleeces worth 9s 3d while Mathew Phillips in 1628 left wool and woollen cloth worth £2.

 

St. Just was one of the wealthiest parishes in Penwith and Mr. Drake’s income included:

                                                      

 £   s   d

26 calves  @  3s 4d                  =   4   6   8

12 pigs     @  4d                       =        4   0

15 geese  @  4d                      =        5   0

102 lambs  @  12d or 13d) 

              and 2 kids  @  8d)             =   5  16   8

321 fleeces                              = 12  16   8

Whitsoul                                 =   6  13   4

47 dozen eggs @ 4d               =       15   8

Fish                                          =   1   0   0

Offerings                                 =   3   6   10

Church duties                          =   1   8   6

Glebe and house                     =   3   0   0 .

Total                                        £39  13   4                                           

 

Then there were mill fines, wages, colts, gardens, honey and hemp etc.

 

Of the produce Mr. Drake kept what he needed for himself and sold the rest, some to his parishioners. Some went to local markets and there was a fair somewhere in Penwith every month with larger gatherings. Travelling merchants visited the sixty two markets and fairs throughout Cornwall buying and selling. St Ives was a flourishing fishing port with a market house built in 1490. Mousehole and Marazion held weekly markets but their trade suffered when Penzance started an unofficial market on Wednesdays.

 

As well as paying tithes, people suffered taxes. In 1588 Elizabeth doubled her tax from two fifteenths to four fifteenths and when another Armada threatened in 1592 she asked for six fifteenths. Then in 1595 the Spaniards burnt Mousehole, Paul and Penzance, terrifying the local population. A bad harvest followed and everyone felt the squeeze when prices rose before the start of winter.

 

 Wayside cross

©Jean Nankervis 2005

 

This article has covered tithes but more could be learnt from a study of the tin industry in St. Just and the forty wage earners mentioned in the Easter Book. However, it is amazing how much is revealed about life in the 1590s by the raggedy paper of Laudable Customs.

 

                                              

 

 

References:

 

Easter Book MOR/B/63

 

1. Jean’s 1988 article: ‘St Just in Penwith in 1588’, Cornwall Association of Local Historians, News Magazine, October 1988, pp 12-15

 

2. Canon Taylor ‘The Easter Book of St Just in Penwith 1588-1596’ Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall vol 20 (XX) parts 3-4 1917-1919 pp 213-294

 

3. Richard Potts (ed.) A Calendar of Cornish Glebe Terriers 1673-1735, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, New Series Vol 19, (1974) p xxi

 

1. James Whetter Cornwall in the 13^th Century (Lyfrow Trelyspen, Gorran 1998) p 163    

 

1. Cornwall Record Office DDX/110/23  Zennor Tithe Book 1768

 

1. Cornwall Record Office, Probate Records A107 and R307

 

7. ‘Lanreath Church, Terriers No. 1 and 2’ Old Cornwall Vol 5 (V), Number 11, (The Federation of Old Cornwall Societies 1960) p 494

 

8. James Whetter Cornwall in the 13^th Century (Lyfrow Trelyspen, Gorran 1998) p 163

 

9. James Whetter, Cornwall in the 17th Century (Lodenek Press, Padstow 1974) pp 26-31

 

1. James E Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Vol 5 (V) 1583-1702, (Oxford University Press 1887)

 

11. Cornwall Record Office, Probate Records D106, A107

 

12. Cornwall Record Office, Probate Records J126, H215

 

13. Cornwall Record Office, Probate Records G106, H194

 

14. H. Matthews, A History of St. Ives, Lelant,Towednack and Zennor,(London 1892) pp 127-132

 

15. Cornwall Record Office, Probate Records P750

 

16. Cornwall Record Office, Probate Records H215, D106, R307, H194, L232

 

1. F.E.Halliday (ed) Richard Carew of Antony (Melrose London 1953) pp 115-120

 

18. Whetter, Cornwall in the 17th Century op cit p 33

 

19. Whetter, Cornwall in the 17th Century op cit p 24

 

20. F E Halliday op cit p 106

 

21. Cornwall Record Office, Probate Records P650, H194, J126, M348, P577-8

 

 

 

 

Jean Nankervis

 

Originally published 2005 - slightly re-edited for web publication April 2022

 

Grateful thanks to the late Carlene Harry for transcribing the MS below

 

St Just Easter Book p 29

By kind permission of the Morrab Library

 

Transcript

Transcript Carlene Harry 2005

 

 

 

The Penwith Papers:
Bench Ends of St Ia   (July 2025) Charles C Ross The Man Behind the Bridge   (December 2024) The Extraordinary Lives of Richard Rodda, 1743-1815, and his family   (August 2024) Gerard Collier 17th October 1878 - 26th April 1923 Founder Member of the Workers Educational Association, Educationist, Member of Fellowship of Reconciliation, Conscientious Objector.   (April 2024) Up in the Gallery - West Gallery Music - with particular reference to West Penwith   (January 2024) All Change!   (August 2023) THE CLOCK OF ST IVES PARISH CHURCH   (April 2023) Industrial Village to Peaceful Hamlet: Halsetown homes 1832 - 1950   (January 2023) 1914: TYPHOID IN ST BURYAN   (September 2022) Glimpses of Golowan   (June 2022) The St. Just Easter Book 1588-1596 and the Laudable Customs   (April 2022) Some Zennor Women - Part 3   (January 2022) Some Zennor Women - Part 2   (November 2021) Some Zennor Women - Part 1   (October 2021) An Old Impression   (May 2021) Devastating Fire destroys Penwith Church St Hilary Church, St Hilary Churchtown, Nr Marazion Good Friday 25th March 1853   (March 2021) A Perfect Square of 21 Houses   (January 2021) Media and medics - reporting the 'Spanish flu' in West Cornwall   (November 2020) Life in Medieval Cornwall - Don't neglect the context! By Dawn Walker   (September 2020) A 'Paris Outrage' of 1905 - the Local Connection Cedric Appleby   (July 2020) Penzance's wild frontiers - part 2: Chyandour and Wherrytown at play   (May 2020) Penzance's wild frontiers - part 1: Chyandour and Wherrytown at work   (April 2020) Parish Boundaries - and some boundary stones   (January 2020) BLOOMING FOREIGNERS:
myths and tales of some plants in Morrab Gardens, Penzance   (November 2019) The Road to Nowhere?   (September 2019) Managing Without Maps part one: Dykes, disputes, and the Drama of being on the right side   (August 2019) Homing in on Pigeons: Culver houses or Cornish Dovecotes   (February 2019) John Davidson: Penzance Poet in Residence, 1907-1909   (December 2018) The Wreck of the North Britain   (October 2018) Early Aviation in West Cornwall   (August 2018) Newlyn Tidal Observatory   (April 2018) The Mystery of the Burning Ship   (February 2018) No Better Than She Ought To Be? Cases from the Penzance Preventive and Rescue Society Records 1907 - 1935   (January 2018) St Michael's Mount in the Wars of the Roses   (November 2017) Penzance: Beating the Bounds of the Extended Borough of 1934   (September 2017) Pushing Boundaries: Beating the Bounds of the Borough of Penzance   (August 2017) Election Fever Pt. 2: St Ives, New Constituencies, New Voters ...... and New Problems in 1885   (July 2017) Election Fever Part 1: The Parliamentary Borough of St Ives, 1880-1881   (May 2017) James Warren of St Just in Penwith, 1798-1842: Wrestler and Rescuer   (April 2017) Penzance Sanitary Conditions in 1849   (March 2017) Hounding the Wrong Dog   (February 2017) Bal Maidens at Work 1857   (January 2017) Christmas Cheer, 1878   (December 2016) Morvah - which St Bridget?   (November 2016) Oh Temperance - Oh Mores   (October 2016) Scientific Sunbathing at Polgigga   (August 2016)