BOSBURY CHANTRY VALUATIONS, 1547

This is a short extract from the Chantry Valuations for Herefordshire undertaken on behalf of the See of Hereford in 1547. A ‘Chantry’ (also known as an ‘Obiit’) was a monetary trust fund set up to employ a priest to say a number of masses for the benefit of the departed soul of a deceased person to help speed it to Heaven.

Chantries were commonly established in England before the Reformation and were endowed with lands, rents and other assets, the income from which maintained the chantry priest. Sometimes a chantry chapel was built where the masses would be said. The information collector for Bosbury was John Jauncey and the surveyor he worked for was William Crouch.

    Radlow Bosbury.

    The Rent roll of the Lands belonging to the Parish Church of Bosbury

LandownersRent-
charge
Imprimis John Hope for a tenement6s.8d.
Item of Thomas Farley for a certain land4s.10d.
Item of Morris Dowding for a mene [?messuage/dwelling] with a close4s.
Item of John Alcott for 2 acres of arable land8d.
Item of Roland Butcher for a cottage2s.
Item for a parcel of land now voidnothing
Item Richard Blackway for a meadow6s.8d.
Item William Wooding for a cottage6s.8d.
Item of him for another cottage6s.8d.
Item Humphrey Powell for a cottage 6s.8d.
Item of John Knight for a close11s.
Item of Richard Nash for a rent going out of his freehold13d. ob.
Item of John Harford, gent for one acre of pasture8d.
Item of the same John for 3 acres of arable land18d.
Item of Richard Bacon for 1 acre of arable land5d.
Item of John Woore for a yearly rent of the freehold of Thomas Kent3d.
Item of Richard Broye for a chief rent2d.
Item of Richard ap Powell for a rent2d.
Item a yearly rent out of the lands of John Taylor1d.
Item of James Brydge for a rent of his lands1d
Item a yearly rent out of the lands of Richard Wooding1d.
            [Total]58s. 4d. ob.p.
Reprises
Imprimis paid yearly to the Bishop of Hereford8s.
Item to John Chamberlain for a chief rent7d.
           [Total Reprises]8s.7d.
     And so remains clear49s. 9d. ob.

Note: In 16thC documents, ob. stands for a halfpenny (from the Latin ‘obulus’ which came from the Greek ‘obolos’, a small silver coin of ancient Greece worth one sixth of a drachma).

Source: This is based on the transcriptions in ‘The Herefordshire chantry valuations of 1547: the working book of William Crowche, surveyor of augmentations’ written by Michael A.Faraday and published in 2012 by Lulu.com. The new book is available in paperback from Amazon and elsewhere online with ref. ISBN-10 1291156402. The original valuation documents with records from 1546 to 1552 are held in The National Archives, Kew, ref. E301/26.

With special thanks to Celia Kellett, a Ledbury VCH volunteer, for discovering this information.

This page typeface: Garamond, 1528.
Page updated: December 2023. Barry Sharples.

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