'Worth' of Witnesses in the English Church Courts, 1550-1728

<p>Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.</p>This project has sought to recover and analyse new data relating to the distribution of wealth and the language of social description in England between c.1550 and c.1750. A database has been compiled of 13,686 responses of witnesses in the church courts to the commonly asked question of what they were worth with their debts paid. Witnesses responses to the question of their worth often included monetary estimates of material worth, alongside details about how they made a living, together with more qualitative forms of evaluation in ethical terms of honesty and industriousness. This data will underpin analysis of the distribution of wealth and poverty by socio/occupational status, age and gender amongst a broad social range of witnesses during a period of profound economic and social change. Particular attention will be given to the nature and pace of economic change; to the relationship between wealth, status and the life-cycle; to the impact of social polarisation deemed characteristic of the periods history; and to the degree to which an incipient labouring class can be discerned. In addition, the terms in which witnesses described their own (and sometimes each others) worth will be explored in order to chart popular concepts of wealth and poverty, perceptions of social difference, and forms of self-esteem that were often far removed from formal classificatory schemes of the early modern social order. Finally, the wider cultural significance of monetary markers of wealth will be probed in order to situate commonly cited values (such as forty shillings and 10) within qualitative as well as quantitative frames of reference. The data also contains extensive information about the literacy status and migration histories of witnesses, and incidental details of their religious observance.<B>Main Topics</B>:<br>A dataset has been compiled by extracting data from series of depositions taken within a range of jurisdictions adopting a civil law procedure between the mid-sixteenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. It comprises 13,686 statements of worth, provided by 13,012 witnesses, along with related (and often extensive) biographical material. Worth statements were required of most witnesses appearing in many such jurisdictions between the 1550s and 1640s, and of smaller proportions of witnesses thereafter. They were given in response to an interrogatory designed to evaluate witness credibility that asked witnesses for an account of their worth in goods with all debts paid. Data has been selected from the dioceses of Ely, Canterbury, Chester, Chichester (mostly covering the Archdeaconry of Lewes), London, Salisbury and York, and from the Cambridge University Courts. Constructed as a flat file Microsoft Access database, information relating to 48 variables has been entered in conjunction with each worth statement given by a witness. These variables include details of the jurisdiction, repository, and full MS reference numbers for each worth statement; the cause type and names of the litigants; the number of interrogatories posed to each witness and the place of the worth question within them; the date of the witness appearance; and details of any expenses received or expected to cover the cost of that appearance. Each witness response to the question of his/her worth has been transcribed in full, along with the following biographical details: age, gender, marital status, title/addition, office, occupation, parish and county of residence, migration history, place of birth, literacy status (whether the deposition was verified by a witness signature or a mark), and any further incidental biographical details relating to work, wages, credit relations, landholding, rental and tenancy agreements, rate and tax paying status, dependence on charity or formal parish relief, or religious observance.