Steventon Probate Material, 1521-1540
There is a suggestion of an epidemic disease in 1533 as only four wills survive for the 1530s, all of which are from July and August 1533 which indicate it may have been plague. Plague deaths usually peaked from July to October. The four who died were related. No parish records of burials exist for this period so this interpretation cannot be confirmed. See Social History.
The wills of the 1520s and the early 1530s precede the Reformation and display Catholic religious practices.
These transcriptions have been made from copies of original probate documents supplied by HRO and TNA. Words have been modernized and punctuation added to make reading easier but names have been transcribed as written. Words in italics indicate omissions in the original document which have been added to make sense of the text. Words in square brackets indicate that they have been transcribed as seen but where the meaning is unclear. Basingstoke is described as being in the county of Southampton, the old name for Hampshire.
A glossary is attached of unusual words.
Content derived from research undertaken as part of the Victoria County History project
