Households

Once the Easter the Easter Oblation Lists had been transcribed several pieces of information began to fit together. These confirm or contradict past information about the sixteenth century.

Cropredy was able to build in stone during this century as Oxfordshire was a relatively prosperous county and probably in advance of many areas in Britain.

The elderly carried on living in their own homes giving accomodation to a married son or daughter. Although many married late after rebuilding it was surprising that the average age of marriage was still the same as the national one. It was also unusual to find that the farmhouses and some cottages had a large number of unmarried adults living in and for many boys from all types of households to be attending school.

Looking at Cropredy Wills reveals how the parishioners were able to provide for their widows and children.

The search into Cropredy's past began with a study of the buildings. The occupiers and their work came next and was saved from floundering in the seventeenth century by Thomas Holloway's Easter Oblation lists. Thomas it was soon discovered collected his dues household by household coming up the Long Causeway and proceeding around the town. He most certainly did not walk around house to house, but visualised their sites and their occupants, writing them down in columns. The payments could have been made at the church as all were expected to attend. Seven of his lists date from 1613 to 1619. The last one in 1624 was made by his successor. Counting the population, organising local rates, or collecting government taxes such as the later hearth tax were all done by property. In the hearth tax of 1663 the more important householders were set at the top of the list, but the rest went in the usual house order. The cottagers were left out if they had less than half a yardland (pp 623,700).

The need to associate people with a house has continued right down the centuries. Sometimes a family name became one with a property and remained in use even after new tenants had moved in. Palmer's House [1] and Shotswell's House [1a] were two in Cropredy which were know by that in 1681 even though the two families had departed. In Great Bourton, Elkington's, Ellyett's, Sabean's and the Chapel Houses were all mentioned in Thomas's lists. For example in 1617 Thomas Tymes was dwelling in Sabean's House [c25/4 f19]. The rest of the town were living in their own homes and the vicar had no need to add "house" after the family surname.

Families in certain houses had built pews within the church. One Great Bourton deed sold the rights with the house to a certain pew in the Bourton aisle of Saint Mary's church, Cropredy. The new house owners then used the seats they had purchased, but only as long as they were the owners of the house. The tenants connected to a particular site made similar arrangements. The custom was extended to grave plots, in the seventeenth century, which went with certain house sites. When a surname changed upon the lease it was found that the memorial stones after that date were commemorating members of the new tenants' family. In this way the Robins from the High Street farm [26] had a particular plot on the south side of the church. They were followed by the Blagraves [26] and then the Blackamores [26] onto the farm and grave plot. This was noted in the churchyard long before the Robins family reconstitution took place and confirmed a gap in the documents. On the north side of the church the new occupants of a cottage in Church Street, sold after the Enclosure of the Open Common Fields, purchased their plot in one of the only places left in the churchyard. Smiths [46] continued to be buried there only if they died as one of the family living in and owning that particular cottage. Other members who lived elsewhere in Cropredy had to find another grave plot.

From Holloway's lists a household appears to consist of the family who are all related to the master or mistress and into this household might come relatives who acted as servants but remained part of the family. There might be other servants also employed and they too became part of that household. They ate with them, slept in their children's chambers, but were not really "family" and known as such, even though they all paid their christian dues together.

The difference being they were temporary and not entitled to the master's love and legacies as his children should be.

Thomas Holloway draws a half line under some names entered for one house site and then proceeds with a second master and his family, as seen at [8]. This house contained two separate families and yet they were kin, father and son living in a house converted into two. The lease confirms that first the father then the son leased the land, but in the tithe books the father still has one yardland and his own garden for some time after the change in the lease. Eventually the son has the whole tenancy and the house then holds only one family. This was one of the only leases on the B manor to include the wife. In 1624 Martha Woodrose signed the documents and as a widow in 1632 she continued to do so when a new lease was drawn up. To the same property in 1637 came her relative John Wilmer of the Inner Court, London, Esquire. He took over the tenancy, but Martha was allowed to have the parlour end where she set up her own separate household. If they had divided the land with the landlord's permission then the number of Cropredy households rose by one or two depending upon the temporary arrangements in the town at the time. Upon the death of the widow, or parents and the releasing back of the separated yardland the number of households would fall accordingly. The actual number of sites had not grown or diminished, but the system was flexible for those who had been able to lease and divide up one of the larger properties. Thomas Holloway indicated the split household with a half line.

There was a great advantage in having eight lists for the young adults could be seen to be coming and going in a few households. Naturally on the sixty sites the families were all showing themselves at different stages in their life cycle. Using one static list unexplained by any family reconstitution would mean fossilising the community to one date. The eight lists spread over twelve years reveal their movements for at least a fifth of a household's lifecycle, presuming they lived for sixty years. A second problem of confining a family to the members of a household mentioned in one list is that they may indeed have been there for upwards of one year (though in a census only one night is guaranteed), but we are leaving out members who return on other years. Relatives come and go. Visitors descend who may be of wider kin. Not shown are those who came daily to the hall or kitchen and there may be other staff which are under eighteen, or day staff which are not listed with that household. There would also be grandchildren, nieces and nephews staying under eighteen. The lists are in this instance limiting our knowledge and if we build up the whole parish from the households only, we must be careful we are not denying the families their relations. Some daughters returned to be married from home before departing to their husband's parish. They too may have spent many years of their life away in service, but considered themselves part of the family and were remembered in wills.

By combining all the records such as wills, inventories, registers, college deeds with terriers and the newly transcribed Easter lists it was realised the families could be placed on all the available sites. It was then possible to show that the elderly parents had no other place to live, except in their family home.

Cropredy lists give all adults over eighteen years of age. The vicar rarely allowing confirmation to any under that age, although sixteen was permissible. The household usually went in order of status. Man and wife being as one paid just two pence. The woman was not named and appeared as "ux" or "uxor" meaning the wife. Widows followed if they were not the main leaseholder, though occasionally the vicar mistakenly headed the list with a widow when the son had already taken the chair. She too paid her twopence. Any married relative came before adult sons and daughters. Outdoor staff such as the shepherd or the master's man should follow the daughters each paying their twopence. Last of all came the maids.

Someone confirmed for that Easter may pay only a penny. Widow Armett mentions some of the poor and all these usually pay their two pence. In 1616 two widow's names were written down, but no money was paid. These were Mrs Huxeley [36] and Mrs Mallins [53] and that year no-one from the Whytes [46] paid. Did he decide in "his love" to forego it? They would have their pride, but surely lack of paying was a sign of failing, or temporary ill health, for to neglect to pay for their communion wine might still be considered an ill omen.

Taking just a few examples from 1613 when Holloway placed "Mr Woodrusse ux ijd" [8] at the head of the household, followed by his daughter and her husband "Mr Ellcocke ux ijd" [c25/7 f1]. The rest of the family were written below in the correct order. Over the road in the Howse [9] family the master was Henry Broughton who had married widow Margery. Her two sons remained throughout the lists and daughters stayed for several years. Solomon, Thomas and Elizabeth were twentysix, twentyfive and twentyone in 1613. This information from the registers adds a great deal to the bare lists of names and more was revealed in the records. At Lumberds [14] on the Green Edward's mother who had married twice had moved to her chamber being of great age. She may never have left her house since her first marriage, except when the rebuilding took place. Two of her grandchildren had been confirmed already and were at home. Almost the entire life of her son Edward had been spent living in a household with parents and siblings then step father and step sibling Em, until he marries very late, and has children and still the mother lives on her third of the land until perhaps shortly before her death in 1613. Edward was able to keep in contact with Em for she moved down to Devotions after her marriage [3]. Only after Edward's son married did he leave Cropredy, but was forced to return when the son became ill (p534). Few houses had simply man, wife and children.

Married children and parents lived together not only on farms, but in the craft cottages. Weaver William Watts [27] is followed in the list by his eldest daughter Annes and her husband, Wam Shottswell. They lived in an upper chamber. There was also the apprenticed nineteen year old son Thomas who on the death of his father would carry on the business, though while William Shotswell lived with his father-in-law he was senior to Thomas.

Going on down Creampot Lane to just one more farm we find the Watts [34] household headed by Richard Hall and not widow Watts or her eldest son Arthur. Richard we have to presume had entered the lease on their farm when the widow was still young enabling the family to carry on until the eldest son could take over at the start of the next lease. Arthur never did, for although he had already married and had three children he died during an epidemic, and never entered upon the lease. The same fever took the lives of his young adult siblings who came back possibly to nurse the sick and tragically endangered their own lives (p594). The lists show that before that dreadful year the siblings took turns to be home acting as servants. No other record can prove the presence of these single people in the town, or the numbers of male servants needed to run the farm, or the indoor staff helping to make butter and cheese.

The lists also reveal that parents with married children did not make way for them straight away when they could split up the lease. A newly married couple had to manage on half or two thirds. If both parents died leaving a son to rear his younger siblings, half the land went to rear them and provide their legacies; only when the siblings had left could they enter the whole of the lease. No parent would give up part of the lease without making various safeguards for their own future, for by hanging onto a third an old couple kept their independence even if reduced to a chamber with use of the hearth and table.

Having paid a large entry fine, and with so many years left of a lease, it counted as moveable estate which must be added to an inventory, so while the senior members were still actively partners in the property they remained at the top of Thomas Holloway's household lists.

How many of the farms had been leased for three lives like cottagers? The copyhold cottagers had been bought a "life" which was entered at the manor court often at birth or after marriage. When a senior "life" died, or surrendered, then the new wife or husband and eventually a child could be entered. Not all the girls with lives on a copyhold were able to marry. Anne Norman remained a spinster [48]. The three named lives on a copyhold could live in Cropredy and the youngest was more likely to return home from service earlier and then be found on the lists, if this coincided with the surviving eight years from 1613 to 24.

The above information has already revealed that Cropredy households were not just master, mistress, children and perhaps servants. Were they unusual? Peter Laslett has found that "it is not true that the elderly and the widowed ordinarily had their married children with them, or that uncles, aunts, nephews and neices were often to be found as resident relatives" [Laslett. P. The World We Have Lost further explored. 1983 Methuen]. In Cropredy the basis for each household has been the property, as this was the most stable unit. Whoever was leasing the land, or whoever had their name on the copyhold had we saw the right to live on that site. All widows had a customary right to continue to lease half their late husband's land while there were still children under age and then a third. At the same time the married son or son-in-law having the remainder could take up one of the upper chambers. In the vicar's lists this is proved again and again and was confirmed in leases following the death of a father. A Rede [32] must keep a brother, and another Rede a stepmother and step-sister in a chamber, and often provide meat as well. Stepmothers and mothers-in-law are assured full board and lodging in the testators will, though if either party is unhappy a bequest of money is left so that they may depart to friends (p505). This departure to another household means some sites did include a relation or "friend" out of kindness. Cropredy sites definately housed three generations.

Dyonice Woodrose's [8] will showed that relatives, two grandchildren belonging to another parish, were living with her. Mothers-in-law might also come in from other parishes. Grace Howse [24] had to leave her farm and live with first one daughter and then another, both fortunately in Cropredy so that her movements can be recorded (p118). Admittedly some widows are not buried in Cropredy and their place can only be known when more parish studies have been done, but presumably the choice to stay or leave was theirs to make.

These complicated households and especially the one headed by Richard Hall [34] in Creampot lane whose relationship to the Watts we cannot as yet prove, makes the division into types of household difficult for they are constantly changing over the seventy years after 1570. Cropredy, which lacked the ability to increase the number of sites to allow the older generation separate households, was not conforming to patterns discovered in many areas over the rest of Britain. Yet if other local towns had Easter lists and their families could be placed to house sites, then the custom of having three generation households might be found to be widespread, especially in parishes where there was no spare land upon which to erect cottages. Certainly on their own the rest of the parish records would not be able to dispute so certainly Mr Laslett's statement that it was not true the elderly and the widowed had married children living with them, for in Thomas Holloway's time the majority had three generations and a few had relatives under one roof during some part of their life cycle.

Cropredy's sixty households were obviously not completing their life cycles all at the same time. A few were at the three generations under one roof stage, while others were in the nuclear phase. The families that were traceable over a long period of time revealed the number of years the household had three generations. It might be for only a few years while the children were small when at least one if not two grandparents were alive. One thing that comes out very clearly from the family reconstitutions is the fact that only very rarely did a widow live alone. The two exceptions were widow Ursula Hyrens and then widow Judith Wood [56] using the cottage in Hello. Both began life there with their husbands alive, then as widows with no surviving sons they continued to be the copyholders. If in the rest of the country over half lived in a one bay dwelling then Cropredy was exceedingly fortunate to have very few one cell cottages. Most of Cropredy's stone buildings had chimnies and upper chambers while the surviving timber buildings had at least three narrow bays, one of which had an upper chamber (ch.25).

The older inhabitants continued in their home moving into one or two of the chambers. The senior parents were therefore well housed and possibly well cared for under a dry roof. They kept the benefits of the hall fire, yet the young wife was there to cook if they fell ill. Several seniors owned a cow and indeed contributed to their living necessities right up to the end. A few survived into their seventies and eighties, so that after their death the son's or daughter's household of one couple with children was hardly there for long before the eldest child was at a marriageable age. The chamber would once again house parents and soon there would be three generations living together under the one thatch. They were not left alone in small cottages in Cropredy even if they had wished for solitude. A few parents may move out if they found someone else to take them in. The eldest son by custom "set up his lease" as near to his twentynine years as could be managed, sharing with, or caring for his surviving parents. Mr Laslett found the opposite to be true [Laslett p99].

This was not rare in Cropredy. Thirty out of thirtyfour Cropredy born men waiting for the lease married and started farming on a holding in which the household had a senior member alive. Tenants had no permission or right to any land upon which to build a cottage for parents. They could only, like Robert Robins [26] who had shared with his mother for most of his married life, buy a tenement in another parish like Wardington for his widow to share with their ordained son, but she still did not live alone.

During the eight years covered by the Easter lists it was discovered that two thirds of the town were never just man, wife, children and staff. Twentyfour households had no year alone and only five were nuclear families throughout these eight years. The remaining thirtyone households had the following years alone:

In the list for 1617 Cropredy had 20% with 3 generations, 40% with other relations, and 4% with two families under one roof, leaving less than 36% as nuclear families, which was half the average found in population lists from the end of the sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries.

These reveal that in other parts of England 69.2% of households consisted of only parents and their children. 5.7% had three generations and even less had two married couples under one roof [Laslett P. p99]. Margaret Spufford's findings according to the wills in Cambridgeshire however were that "a household should very frequently have contained the older generation" [Contrasting Communities 1979 Cambridge Univ. Press p114].

When only the Registers were available it was found that the number of years when a house had three generations could vary from one to twentyfour. Eighteen had one to five years, four had six to ten years, eleven had eleven to fifteen years, three had sixteen to twenty years and the Robins twentyfour. In sixtysix marriages thirtyone had overlapped the next generation while thirtyfive did not reach this situation. Naturally a few grandparents out-lived one of the younger couple.Thomas Sabin of Bourton was concerned for Ellen. His mother? Ellen was to be kept with "meate, drinke and aparrell bye and lodginge duringe they lease of xxi yeares if she soe long live by my wyffe and Richard Sabin my sonne by Even and Equall portions." This was made the 19th of September 1614 [MS. Will Pec. 51/1/11], but was crossed out. Their two married sons Thomas and Richard still lived at home. The Easter lists were then checked and Ellen was living next door with the Plants in 1613, at home in 1614, 1615 and 1617, but was missing in 1616 and up to her burial on the 30th of May 1620. Was it possible she escaped paying her Easter twopence through infirmity? Or had Ellen betaken herself off to live with other relations?

Unfortunately only on those eight years can we prove that people had lodgings with families other than their own, or stayed on with married siblings. By housing a young couple the leasehold and copyhold tenants had an active work force. Manor courts might frown or even prohibit the practise, but over these eight years the rule was disregarded. Most lodgers were relatives or fellow parishioners, not strangers. This practise had probably become the best way to solve homelessness after a fire, while repairs or rebuilding took place, family overcrowding, or simply the best way of solving the care of the old and at the same time housing a new couple who would eventually take over. This happened in Church Lane when William Bagley and his new wife went to live at William Hudsons [19] (p429).

Those who came from another parish to set up their business may at first escape parental responsibility or care of siblings, but the immediate family finally caught up with Densey [13], Holloways [21] and Gybbs [25]. Mrs Gybbs nee Batchelor took care of her mother who became ill in the April. The widow may not have intended to stay, but when she could not return they had to sublet her home in West Adderbury. According to widow Batchelor's will her relations were reduced to the Gybbs for on her late husband's side there seem none eligible for legacies. The lists and wills prove that relations were not forgotten. Cattell's [30] mother and sisters come to live in Cropredy. Evans the herd has his sister, while at the A manor farm the Coldwells [50] sheltered a sister, and the good Mrs Calthrope. Mr William Hall [6] gives houseroom to his wife's relatives and grandchildren. Nieces come to help and learn from grandmothers and aunts [8]. Although many may have come on other years, stayed and departed, they left no records and are "invisible." One of the values of the vicar's Easter lists is to prove that these movements of relatives took place, even if their full extent cannot be told.

As widowers and widows aged then the family cared for them, it was not the exception, but the custom in Cropredy to do so. The only people excluded being the married farm labourers who had no hold on their cottage once their employment stopped.

The family trees for all the known households are found with the description of the properties as well as the average number of people in their households over the eight listed years (in Part 4). As the purpose of the lists was to ensure every confirmed parishioner paid their "tuppences" can we be sure they included the very poor, the elderly and the poorer widows? It would appear Holloway did, or at least they offered them. The lists may have contained all except the bedridden and the travelling poor. Widow Arnett's will of November 1607 (p81) left something to the poorest who can be traced to cottages. Some of these properties which were never hovels are still lived in. Providing they attended the Easter communion service these very poor people were included in the lists. This is important for it means that with very few exceptions all the adults were included in the lists from the poorest to the richest living in the town. Of course some of the very poor may have left to swell the ranks of travelling paupers seeking work in larger town but those families which the records prove moved away did not fit into the group of very poor for they had leased farmland.

Occasionally a man or woman fell ill and realised they would never work again. One solution was made in Bourton by William Tims the carpenter. His inventory reads as though he died in a one room hovel. The opposite was true. Here was a man who had leased a house which had been rebuilt in stone under a thatched roof. He owed money through not being able to work and passed on everything to his carpenter son in a legal deed made the 30th of December 1625. William then had no rent worries and his meat, drink, washing and nursing were taken care of. The Tims' home remained the same and presumably if William was cold, and the fire was lit, he took his place on the inglenook bench in the hall. One day he must have passed through this stage judging by his apparel. Was this just a night shirt and he was confined to bed? In William's chamber the now much reduced belongings were itemised following his burial on the 6th of January 1628/9 (if this was his burial date?):

Cropredy's fine new houses, with their extra chambers, enabled them to accommodate the whole family plus parents, staff and even other relatives so each house could reasonably cope with three generations for many years providing the harvests flourished and the stock remained healthy. Even the Church Street timber cottages had a sleeping loft and managed to accommodate extra members of the family though at a greater loss to comfort. At the Norman's [48] the two daughters continued to live with their father. It is an excellent example of the rights of an unmarried daughter whose life was entered on the copyhold to inherit a lease, even if she still had to make room for a sisters family, which in this case brought the name of Hudson to the cottage (p381). However crowded the cottages became wherever possible they looked after their own.

The poor of England were thought by some early readers of inventories to have lived in a single room or home, with barely the basic essentials of daily living to support them. In Cropredy quite a different picture emerges. If the inventories are interpreted alongside other evidence which places their chamber within a larger building, then the picture of abject poverty, at least in the rural areas along the stone belt, is far less severe.

Servants, maids, students, aged parents and even the occasional gentleman died with their possessions confined to one room in the property. Surely this tells us a great deal about the caring attitude of the people in the town of Cropredy which during these seventy years put money by to rebuild and could still afford to house relatives in their average sized households. It could mean in years of harvest failure that there was not enough food to feed them all, and the town would have to try and help the poorer members of the community. A family crisis would also present individuals within a household unable to contribute their share, so that alms were necessary.

One group of Cropredians who had to leave town earlier than was the custom were orphans. Many parents who died young, left their children with no option, but to find work elsewhere. The pull to come back and visit siblings would not have been as great as to parents or grandparents who could afford to house them in return for help.

The size of the population and the fact that Cropredy was presumed only able to maintain sixty households must have influenced the retention of the three generation custom. Their new buildings cannot be discussed without first some knowledge of the size of the town's households, given over eight years, and their needs in terms of chambers and working space.

In spite of some terrible years of dearth and agues Cropredy's baptisms showed a steady rise over burials from 1577 to the 1640's, so that every year, some had to leave and live elsewhere. Taking the generation covered by the lists, births in the families span from 1587 to at least 1633 and during that time apart from at least thirtynine children dying, one hundred and seventeen girls departed either still single or married, and eightynine sons. A chart of who is thought to have stayed or left of those mentioned in the Easter lists is on (p128). In 1593 and 1623 baptisms were unusually high, only to fall back drastically as bad harvests, failure of the cloth trade, fevers or a combination of years of undernourishment reduced the population. In such years as 1579, 1584, 1588, 1596, 1602, 1607 and 1609 the burials, which were in the same register for both the towns of Cropredy and Bourton, rose from the usual 2, 3 or 4 upwards to 20. Due to the fever of 1631 burials rose to 25. 19 were buried in both 1633 and 34 and deaths rose to over 20 in 1638, 1639 and 1641.

On the 5th of September 1538 Cromwell issued a mandate which ordered every wedding, christening and burial to be recorded in a book each Sunday after the service [State papers Domestic Vol xiii, pt 11, No.281. Tate W.E. 1946]. The vicar had to have at least one church warden present to act as witness and failure to comply led to a fine of 3s-4d, admittedly put to the repair of the church. The penalty of paying out the price of half a ewe was prohibitive. Cropredy registers have been reasonably well cared for, except for terrible fever years. Like all paper work entries were forgotten, or names wrongly spelt. Easy to give a girl a sibling's christian name, at her marriage, especially in a large family and seldom was her surname put down. Pages are lost and in 1598 when Thomas Holloway had new orders to copy out the paper register onto parchment other mistakes were bound to occur. On one occasion there was a deliberate crossing out in the original (saved in the bishops transcript) of an entry for Richard Kinde [31], son of John and Alyce, baptised 2 February 1575/6. This son had been to school, gone away, married while away and returned in November 1597 just prior to the transcribing of the register.

Here was a mystery for although he stays with his wife to farm and brings five children to be baptised he leaves suddenly after the 1613 Easter list. Or had he been excommunicated and had to leave at the end of his lease being unable to renew? Richard by then was thirtyseven (p591).

Of those who remained the majority were baptised, or buried in Cropredy, but others failed to use the parish church of their town by having relations buried elsewhere, or getting married by a preaching minister in another church, or the wife's parish. Did others take the eldest child to be baptised at their mothers home town? Some had strong religious feelings and objected to the parish church, but few did this until later in the seventeenth century when Quakers were to have their own burial grounds. What about the very poor who could not pay the fees? How many never baptised their children? Did they then get charged a fine in the church court, or was that too left unpaid? In a later century when records were jotted down on the remaining blank pages at the end of the Burial in Woollens book mistakes can be seen when compared with their final entry into the register [MS. dd par Cropredy c2]. Although the registers and wills are the major source for family reconstitution it is obvious, when a whole town is analysed from 1570 to 1640, that several families had other children not apparently christened and possibly not registered as buried. All calculations on the number of teenagers are therefore difficult and open to query.

Cropredy is particularly fortunate that Thomas Holloway enjoyed writing and maintained well kept parchments to keep his income up to date. From the Easter lists it is possible to calculate the adult population. For the children we have to go to his registers to find them, but of course what we cannot tell is how many of those aged between twelve and seventeen years of age were away for a year or more and how many teenagers came in from other towns to work in Cropredy houses. A few clues of children's whereabouts,are given in wills.

The vicar's habit of naming most of the male adults in the family (though not often enough with the servants), is of great value for it tells us who made up their side of the adult household, including the relations. The numbers of women can be calculated, but their names came from the registers. Staff whose names are missing can only be added up. The occasional naming of their shepherds and men brought out their length of service to the family during the eight years. The opportunity to make a chart of the number of adult residents in each property (Pt.4) gives information that few other sources can prove. There were bound to be other relations and visitors which escape these lists, for they owed their Easter oblations in another parish, but providing it is realised our use of the list was not the original intention, the information it reveals is very valuable.

From the lists of 1614 and 1624 it was possible to discover and compare how many adults dwelt in Cropredy's sixty houses:

---------------1614---------

---1624----

Heads	50 couples	52 couples
	8 widows	7 widows
	1 batchelor
	1 spinster
Elderly	12 widows/widowers	8 widows
	3 couples	1 couple
Others	5 couples	6 couples
Single	11 sons	12 sons
	13 daughters	13 daughters
Siblings	7 brothers	2 brothers
	5 sisters	3 sisters
Servants	32 male(23 households)	21 male
	27 female	26 female
Children	about 88	about 132
Total	about 321	about 342

The children went up by about forty four and adults down by seventeen over ten years. From October to March in 1623/4 Cropredy lost seven adults, five from the Watt's [34] household. The average size of a household in Cropredy in 1614 was 5.3. By 1624 this had risen to 5.6.

Another way of tabulating the 1624 households was to divide them up into types of property:

-------FARMS------

-----------COTTAGES-----------

Husbandmen	Craftsmen	Labourers
40 married	60 married	14 married
7 widows	6 widows	3 widows
13 single relatives	15 single relatives	2 single
44 servants	3 servants

Of the heads of household for the farms in 1624 eighteen of them were married men, and four widows. The rest of the farming residents were made up of two extra married couples living in the houses, three elderly widows who had retired and lived in their own chambers, and one elderly bachelor. Also on the farms dwelled a brother and sister who had stayed on with a married sibling, six bachelor sons between twentythree and thirtyseven and five daughters coming home for a spell, aged between nineteen and thirtytwo. With the servants there were fiftyseven single people over eighteen years of age needing, in the twentythree buildings, mens and maids chambers above stairs. The parents or the grandparents being housed in the lower chambers.

The custom continued in Cropredy of employing their own children once they had had some experience elsewhere. They came home to help fathers with their third of the lease, or with mother's household tasks. Cox's daughters may have had to help with his trade [49]. Some quite simply came to help a parent in need, rather than expect them to employ a servant. They would sleep with the servants employed by their sibling, or in the cottages with the children in their chamber. On balance over the eight years daughters were able to return more than brothers, but this would fluctuate according to families. As there were no separate cottages for the elderly, the returning adult children could not stay on permanently unless like Em Devotion and her sisters [3] their eldest brother remained a bachelor and needed their help. Only a few returned after the death of parents. George Watts was one who continued to do so [34]. Obviously these felt some claim on the home, or else they awaited their portion.

In these families the Masters, a few servants, widowers, widows or student sons would probably make a will providing they still had possessions to distribute, or explanations about the destination of their assets.

The cottagers with a trade farmed only a small amount, perhaps as little as their common and a few strips under four acres. Thirtytwo cottage tenants were leased rights of commonage. They seldom required any staff, and their children must depart earlier leaving only eighteen single people at home. There were twentynine married heads of household with one widow and two widowers. Three other widows and a married couple were lodging in the cottages. A sister housed a thirtytwo year old bachelor and two sisters aged twentyone and twentynine. Five sons still lived with parents aged twenty four, twentyeight, thirtytwo, forty and one unknown. While seven daughters aged twentytwo, thirtyfive, thirtyeight, thirtynine and three unknown were working at home. These thirtytwo cottages had only two male servants and one maid living in for 1624 (Wyatts who employed a maid when they lived on the Green [13] in 1614, had moved their farrier business to a farm [31] by 1624).

Cottages whose tenancy depended on their employment which did not always allow the use of common rights attached to the farm, sometimes took on a lease from another townsman (p228). In these cottages lived five heads of household all married and two extra couples living in. In addition there were two widows and a widower. One nineteen year old son and an eighteen year old daughter brought the total of inhabitants in the seven cottages for 1624 to nineteen adults. Two cottages had only one bay, the rest had two (ch.30).

From the eight list years the households average number of adult occupants over eighteen were worked out. The farms had on average over six people to accommodate in three bays and the craftsmen and cottagers had around four in their one, two or three bay cottages. In a three bay house with three upper chambers over the hall, lower chamber and nether chamber they were able by having one or two sleeping to a room to leave the buttery, kitchen and hall for storing, preparing and eating food. The general conclusion was that some overcrowding did take place at some period in a family's life in Church Street, but in Lumberds [14], Gybbs [25] or Huxeleys [36] there was usually sufficient room to manage the three generations without causing a severe health hazard. In fact most buildings had more bays of building than many modern dwellings today. Admittedly the one cell cottages were overcrowded when a family lived in them, but ideal for a couple like the Woods [56]. Sutton's [42] one cell building might be tight, because of the "sick" daughter who was apparently having to sleep downstairs in the hall, but there was no question of Anne's sister Jane having the copyhold if Jane refused to look after her. Anne Sutton therefore remained in the hall or shared their chamber. Jane married William Langley and he had to tolerate this inconvenience. Boxed wall bedsteads with a settle attached were still seen in Sibford, Oxon and on Gower into this century [Local information and the Museumof Welsh Life, Cardiff]. The Gower bed was built beside the hall fire giving them a little privacy at night and warmth by day, when there was no spare lower chamber. A will often revealed information about members of the family, and their inventories began to mention the rooms they lived in. The later terriers provided the number of bays per house for the B manor properties.

Unfortunately not all heads of household left a surviving will or inventory. There were some who might be expected to make a will, but circumstances beyond their control sometimes prevented them from doing so. One such was the epidemic which swept through Cropredy in 1609. Two people perhaps classed as craftsmen, or labourers as they grew older, lived in Church Street next to each other. They were John Whyte [46] and John Bryan [47].

Just because neither in those days of sudden death made a will we cannot conclude they lived in inadequate dwellings and were always too poor to have belongings. Whyte's lived in the largest timber house in Church Street and Bryan's in a smaller one. John Bryan's home background was not the cause of the lack of a will, for his mother had made one, more the circumstances of his sudden death. John was paid for contract threshing on the vicar's farm in 1587 [c/25/2 f1], so he could have approached the vicar, but did he need to? Were his belongings due to age already dispersed to children and now worth less than £5. Or had he just died too quickly? Both had dwelt in a reasonable timber and thatched cottage, still there to-day inside an outer stone wall, and their sons, William Whyte and Richard Bryan, having taken on the cow commons would also be living in their households (ch.25).

Servants who left a will, would have no belongings except their clothes and perhaps a coffer, but their chamber in their master's house would be as stark, or as comfortable as their mistress provided. In other poorer areas staff might sleep in the hall on straw palliases, but not any longer in Cropredy. Even the less well off householders had chambers which contained bedsteads and at least two pairs of sheets, if not three or more (ch.39). The information found in wills and inventories depended a great deal upon which stage of life the testator died in.

From the family reconstitution it was evident that there were three stages in a man's adult life and that these affected the contents of a testator's estate. In stage one a young man was out earning his capital and lived in several households under the master's control. They were employed by the year and lived as part of the family, but obviously having different claims on the master than his children and by the end of the year many felt the need to move on to another household. The second stage depended on several factors. The amount of money the young adult had managed to save from his earnings. The ability to attract a future partner who had also saved enough to help set up "house" together and thirdly their age. On average it was twentynine for men, but younger for some women, though many men waited until their late thirties before they could enter onto a lease, or part of a lease shared with their parents. In Cropredy the majority of husbandmen's first born sons lived in one of their parents chambers after marriage. The most informative wills and inventories were from those dying in the second stage. They had to provide a will to organise their affairs and provide for their children which involved settling their estate in the house, farm or trade. The executor appointed would then have to have an inventory made. The will needed proving and the inventory exhibited at the next church court.

A man's last stage on withdrawing from his total involvement to perhaps at first a third of the lease was to allow his son, or a son-in-law, to take over the rest, while he and his wife moved into one or two chambers. On their now reduced assets, having hopefully already dispersed adequate stock, goods or money to each and every child, they, or one of them, often lived on for several years dying in their own homes.

The one thing to look for in the inventory of a widow's goods was to see if she had kept the table traditionally provided by the husband, and her own fire pots. Girls often took to their marriage the bedstead, bed furnishing and some brass cooking kettles and pots, as Mrs Ann Lyllee did [29].

If the widow still had all the fire equipment for the hall fire then she was indeed still mistress of her household. In that case no final deed had been made transferring her rights in exchange for "divers comforts."

Older widows and widowers might retain one table on which to eat in the privacy of their chamber, but the lack of one could mean, if the pillows and bolsters were much in evidence, that they, he or she had taken to bed for some time now. Warming pans and chamber pots in the wealthier homes could signify that old bones needed to be provided with a few luxuries in preference to a pail (p678).

Ten widows who left wills or just inventories were receiving full board and lodging as well as eight widowers and bachelors, while five other widows and widowers kept a table, but had given up the cooking fire. Of these twentythree all must have reached the third stage in their lives. Their inventories are for their room only, not a hovel, but an adequate chamber in a rural household. The rest of the building is not entered by the appraisers as the deceased had only the use of one or two chambers. If these formed 60% of Britain's inventories then their interpretation can only be made with several other known factors, including the size and type of house they lived in, before any conclusions are made.

Even acknowledging the fact that the household on the site had three generations, with the married son entered upon the second stage and the senior's on their third, it was not always as simple as that. A few sites mentioned above, had two families living side by side in a split household each with their own hearth. It did not matter whether they were husbandmen or gentlemen they must have agreed to share the dairy and or brewing equipment [8]. This still allowed the junior couple more space to live as an independent household, which was not possible for couples sharing a timber cottage who could only have one master [48]. On other sites the lease was taken out in one name, but the terriers give a different tenant using that farm's strips. On closer examination a son-in-law was farming part of his father-in-laws land [29]. A different set up was found down Creampot at Watt's [34]. Widow Anne allowed Richard Hall to run the farm for years and the Watts do not take over again until after Hall's death. Next door John Hentlow [35] had kept his copyhold rights, but the land was set to others. He continued to live in part of the house, along with his married sister and another couple. These were just a few of the explanations for name changes on parcels of land and revealed some families with complicated households.

During their lifetime men and women might be raised in one parish, serve their stage one out in several others and then just the fortunate eldest returned to the home farm, while the husbandmen's other sons each had to make their own way in the world depending largely upon their own skills, health, and determination to provide for their family usually as a tenant in another parish.

When a list was made of the townsmen's wealth from their inventories, and studied with the size of their houses, hearths, type of possessions and their considered status in life, it is obvious that it is almost impossible to generalise on the association between wealth and house size for husbandmen and trade. The first question to ask is the one of "what age were they when they died?" For the people's "pocket purse" varied enormously from stage to stage in their lives (p184), but also the decade they died in was vital as coins were often in short supply. Secondly we ask "was their house a stone or timber one?"

In Church Street they managed with the open hearth, but the houses were substantial enough to still be here today. In their inventories the capital is low for they lacked more stock and crops, which is where the husbandmen kept their wealth, rather than inside the house. Some craftsmen had more in pewter and furniture, because they did not have the land to increase stock, but a shepherd's sheep may reach a total far in excess of the husbandmens estate (p269) and Palmers who died as labourers had some wealth from stock and milk equipment. The testators, it will be revealed below, leave vital clues about the change over from leaving corn and stock to pewter and finally money or bonds. Just a few left land, but it was not included being immovable and having separate documentation. The family's wealth is not always evident, for often a great deal had been given away already, or exchanged to pay debts in the case of the carpenter Tims (p59), and in some inventories all except the bedstead and bedding had gone, which it has been emphasised did not in this town indicate a hovel. The carpenter William Tims who made the deed of a "gift" to his son did so "by resone of my age and weekness" leaving his son to provide "all things necessary for my nourishment and food for my body divers years since" [MS.Will Pec. 52/3/41].

We find a shepherd dying a day labourer, a gentleman in one chamber, another gentleman leaving silver, but whose inventory is lost, a will maker with no will and widows and others who died too soon, leaving silence. All this adds up to only a paper thin glimpse, and it is only a glimpse of who lived in the town and where. More can perhaps be added from their schooling, clothes or the servants they employed. So tied up is the evidence that in the following chapters material may be used more than once. Before searching for the names of those who lived in Cropredy we can now look briefly at how they divided up the living space in their houses. This was revealed in inventories and the House Survey of the remaining sixteenth century properties.

One of the aims of the House Survey was to make detailed drawings of the older Cropredy properties. These were to be followed up by a search for deeds and documents connected with the properties. Not all the properties could be seen. Details will be found in Part 4.

The House Survey produced evidence that hearths were built into the inner walls supporting the roof and so appeared long before the hearth tax lists. A labourer Thomas Palmer [59], a shepherd Valentyne Huxeley [36], a mercer Edmund Tanner [39] all had a hearth, so did Devotion [3] on one yardland as well as those with more yardlands such as Watts [34] and Howse [28]. Only when Wyatts [31] used a chimney as a visible sign of wealth had they begun to add to the original one, but many like Richard [34] and John Hall [29], both yeomen, kept to one hearth. Hill [20], the baker, had a chamber over his hall, so it is likely he had his chimney and cooking utensils in the hall and although no oven is mentioned he needed one for his trade.

Were the houses large enough to hold the three generations? What written evidence was there for upper chambers and the size of properties from 1570 to 1641? Out of nintyfour inventories looked at thirtythree did not mention any rooms. There was after all no obligation on the part of the appraisers to do so, but it severely reduces the material. Of the remaining sixtyone only thirtyseven mention upper rooms beginning in 1587. Yet even then we know there were chambers over the lower rooms in Church Street from the evidence of the house survey. We also know that the new stone houses were built as one and a half, two, and two and a half story buildings which were put up mostly before the end of the sixteenth century in the late first or early middle stage of the tenants' lives. Families had been living in them for several years before an inventory following a death had to be made.

1577 - 1596	20 inv.	10 had rooms mentioned	3 upper chambers
1597 - 1616	25 inv.	14 had rooms mentioned	7 upper chambers
1617 - 1636	41 inv.	32 had rooms mentioned	24 upper chambers
1637 - 1647	8 inv.	5 had rooms mentioned	3 upper chambers
Total	94	61	37

In some houses rooms were mentioned in wills which were definitely left out of the attached inventory, for example Thomas Smith of Great Bourton has a "garner over Entry" in his will which was left out of the 1612 inventory [MS. Will Pec. 51/1/2]. Of the thirtythree from Cropredy which have no rooms mentioned it is known that the house had either the open hall with a lower chamber and buttery under the upper chamber, or was a stone house which had a hall, including a stone chimney, chamber and buttery. Over the hall a chamber would eventually be made and partitioned, even if the appraiser chose to write the list minus any indication of the chambers in which the goods were normally kept. The failure to mention upper chambers is more likely to be a deficiency in the records rather than the buildings in this area. They also missed out upper chambers, or the lower chamber, if married relations were housed in them. This is where the wills made in the second stage in life were of real use in the study of buildings. They could be used alongside the family tree, but help was still needed from other deeds and terriers as well as the 1613 to 1624 lists. These prove the existence of large households such as Halls [6] whose inventory has been lost. Other information came from the House Survey, College records and Holloway folios.

The inventories had to be read aloud at the Court. At first this may have been the vicar, Thomas Holloway's task. His writing was difficult to read, but when some Williamscote pupils became adults and remained in the town a few developed a neat way of setting out the inventories which would have helped their reader's performance at court, for that is what it became. Such aids to help the listener were the staccato two tone "It- em" beginning each new group of possessions to be valued. It allowed the voice to indicate a space between two valuations (p52). Later useful headings such as "The upper chamber," or the "Chamber below the entry" gave the exact whereabouts of the valuers and helped the townsmen to visualise the particular house, mentally walking round with the appraisers. A few of the scribes were not so careful and their personal views of the cottage and its worth might be confirmed by their hasty grouping together of the contents. They failed to give the chambers, settling for a valuation of the main items with their total. On the other hand some who had of late been confined to one chamber had each article itemised as though to show respect to the deceased by prolonging their inventory. Had the chosen valuers been carefully selected by the executors to give as good a showing as possible? Or had it been sensible to choose those whom they might need to appeal to later? When the scribe sat at the hall table sending someone into each room for a quick list of items, those who were unable to write would have trained their memories to produce a spoken list with ease, which could then be jotted down by the scribe, who left out the room. The hall equipment perhaps being put down while he waited, or at the end. Such a method would not do for the Hunt's [16] who needed each and every room carefully given. The exhibiting of these important documents would fill the Church at the Ecclesiastical Courts. As it was compulsary to attend everyone would hear the reading of the inventory.

Neighbours may not be asked inside each and every hall to judge the contents, but we saw above they only had to attend the Church Court and listen to inventories being read out to picture, weigh up and draw their own conclusions. Who had what? If they listened carefully they could follow the appraisers noting everything which the scribe had jotted down. Some items will be old, and remembered as such, and having passed down through many owners, these may receive a low value. They were giving these articles their worth and not their replacement value. Some items were passed over as being wooden or perishable. They noted the bedstead, the pewter, the table, the brass cooking pots, the stock and the corn, while the most informative named the rooms they were in.

On some years inventories regress and fail to inform us of upper floors and later ones dispense with such items as hearth equipment for by then they were commonplace and could be put with a lump sum for brass. All of which means that inventories in one parish have to be taken and studied as a whole alongside the family reconstitution which gives the age of the deceased and his stage in life (Part 4).

The stone house might acquire partitions and cocklofts later, but from all the evidence the original building in stone would nearly always include a chimney and for many a built in oven. The stone houses' outer walls and main timbers may have been provided by the landlord, while the inner partitions, floors and doors could be added by the tenant. Without the blacksmith John Russell's [13] will made in 1600 we would never have known from the College records that he had already improved the dwelling house by adding partitions and lofts (p438). In some Bourton inventories there was some confusion as to whom the additions now belonged, so they were detailed with care. Bourton had some freehold land and tenements. At John Ellyett's house he had added a floor over the hall with a partition. John then added a partition "between the kitchen and the entrie and the loft over the entrie" worth 12s. There was also his floor over the chamber and certain planks held ready to make beds and floors worth 26s-8d by 1595. In 1613 Ellyetts lived next to the Bourton "Chappell" (which may temporarily be housing the poor). George Hopkins as late as 1632 may have lived in Ellyett's house. In his house George had floors, partitions and "dores" worth £4 and they definitely had a stone chimney for they burnt coal in it and that chimney made it possible to have a hall chamber [MS. Wills Pec. 37/3/8, 41/3/18].

How many other parishes, if they had had an Easter Oblations list would have revealed three generation households? Cropredy's households had extended families, in which siblings and grandparents resided with the young couple. It was certainly not rare or due to exceptional circumstances. Grandparents had a significant part to play as members of the family. They fulfilled an important role in a verbal society where the oral history of their land, customs, relations and family tales would delight as well as prepare the grandchildren. It was not either just the labourers who must double up under one roof, but all levels of Cropredy society.

For Cropredy at least we have found that during the family cycle households often had three generations. That there were few hovels except in the farmyard, though some servants slept over the manor stables [8], and the number of people per household was surprisingly large, due to the high number of single people in each farmhouse.