Reference:This field gives the
reference for the cause. Please use this when ordering
copies of documents or in citations.
Repository:Indicates which archive
repository holds the original documents for the cause.
Court:Indicates in which
court the case was held. Different courts had
different functions, but overlapped in procedure
and personnel.
Case: Shows what type of case
this record relates to. For instance, the case might
involve an accusation of Defamation or a Violation of
Church Rights. If known, this field also provides some
more specific details about the case, given in brackets.
For example, a Defamation case might relate to sexual
slander, in which instance you would see 'Defamation
(sexual slander)' on screen. A list of both general
and specific types of case can be found in the
background information referred to at the top of
this page. For Tithe cases, the specific details
indicate the types of crop or livestock on which
tithes were being claimed.
Details:In order, this shows how
many pieces (separate manuscripts) the original documents
comprise, and whether these include depositions (written
statements, generally from witnesses), a libel (a written
accusation made by the plaintiff or defendant), and a
sentence (issued by the judge and giving the outcome
of the case).
Outcome:This shows the outcome of
the case (if known). Except in a few instances, this is
restricted to a statement of who won and whether the
sentence was appealed against.
Date This field shows the
start and end date of the cause. This can differ from
the events to which it referred, sometimes by years or
even decades. If provided in the format day/month/year
or month/year, this information is exact and has usually
been taken from the citation ordering the defendant to
come to court (for start dates) and the sentence (for
end dates). If just a year is given, this information
may be exact or approximate. Sometimes the project team
were unable to accurately date the documents, in which
case they either left this field blank or estimated a
century (thus some records seem to span a whole century).
Dates are given as they appear in the documents. This means
that before 1752 (when Britain adopted the modern, Gregorian
calendar) they appear in the Julian calendar format, in which
the year starts on March 25th. In this system, December 1690
is followed by January 1690, not January 1691. It is thus
entirely possible to have a cause which starts in, say,
October 1530 and finishes in February 1530.
View the Case Abstract: If available, this button indicates
that you can read a short abstract of the cause: a summary
compiled from research on the original documents.
Order copies of this document
This link to an on-line form allows you to order copies of
the original documents relating to this cause at the
Borthwick Institute for Archives. Please remember to include
the cause reference. If you wish to arrange a visit to see
the documents in person, please
contact us.
Reference:CP.H.4221
Repository:Borthwick Institute GB 193
Court:Consistory
Case:Defamation (sexual slander / witchcraft)
Details:9 Pieces;
Has deposition;
Has libel;
Has sentence
Outcome:plaintiff won
Date:
18/6/1690
—
28/4/1691
This section provides information about the participants in
the cause. Only fields for which the database holds
information are shown.
Participant:
This field provides a number of details about the participant's
name. To understand this information, it is necessary to
appreciate that names in the database have been standardized.
Standardization was necessary to cope with the fact that the
older records were written in Latin, and the fact that
historically spellings of names were inconsistent (sometimes
even in the same document). An example of a participant field
might be:
Participant:Alice
Elland [Eland; Elande]
The first piece of information shown is the participant's
given name. These were always recorded in a standard form,
if necessary translating from Latin. Accordingly in some
instances the record does not reflect the spelling in the
documents. For example variants of forenames were converted
to one standard, e.g. Maria was always rendered as Mary.
Short versions of names (such as Allie for Alice) were also
converted to a standard form. Your search may therefore not
work if you use a given name which has more than one form.
The Given Name field was also used to record corporate names
such as 'Churchwardens of X'.
The project team recorded surnames in the way they appeared
in the documents. These surnames were then standardized to
correct for variations in language and spelling. The second
piece of information in the participant field shows the
standardized form attached to the participant's surname,
highlighted in bold - in this example
Elland. If you asked the database to
search for names including variants, you may return some
unexpected results: for instance searching 'Green' will also
return hits for 'Grene'. Turn off the 'include variants' box
in the search screen to look for a specific version of a
surname.
The final piece of information in this field shows you how the
name is spelt in the original documents. This is seen in
brackets after the standard form, and may be the same as this.
If there is more than one spelling listed in the brackets, it
indicates that this variation was observed in the original
documents. In our example, [Eland; Elande] shows that the
participant's name was recorded as both Alice Eland and Alice
Elande.
Alternative Name:
This field shows any alternative names identified for this
participant. These might arise, for instance, from recording
a married woman's maiden name.
Role:
Shows the participant's role in the cause, such as defendant,
plaintiff or witness. In some instances it was not possible
to identify a role: these are listed as 'undefined'. In
testamentary (and some other) cases, the name of the deceased
person whose estate was in dispute was recorded as 'testator',
but this does not necessarily mean that they left a will. If
the role is recorded as appellant or appellate, this indicates
that the judge's decision (in favour of the appellate) was
appealed against by the appellant. These parties are thus
usually the plaintiff or defendant in the original cause. It
was possible to promote a case without being the official
plaintiff (in which instance the role is given as
'promoting parties'), or to intervene in a case being
contested by someone else ('intervening parties'). The role
of 'executor' indicates that the individual acted as
executor/trix of an estate. The role of 'guardian' shows that
the participant acted as legal guardian to a minor
(sometimes just for the purposes of the cause). If a guardian
or executor acted in a more important role in the cause
(such as plaintiff or defendant), that role has taken
precedence in the description.
Details:
If known, this field shows (in order) the
sex and age of
the participant and any information about their
status. Ages show the participant's
age at some point during the period bounded by the start
and end dates of the cause, but it may be possible to
identify this more exactly by consulting the original
documents, from which the information is taken. If two
ages are given this is reflected in the record. The
participant's recorded age may not be their actual age.
They may, for instance, have given an approximation.
Additionally, if they are recorded as being 21, this may
merely indicate that they are 21 and over (this was a
legally significant age) and not that they were actually 21.
Status:
Status is one of the most wide-ranging categories in the
database. Information given here may include that relating to
family relationships; obvious designations of noble status
such as 'Esquire'; details of marital status such as 'widow'
or 'married to X'; imprecise references relating to age/name,
such as 'junior', 'senior' or 'the younger'; clerical titles
such as 'clerk'; statements in the original documents
indicating poverty or ill-health (such as 'infirm');
information about legal status (such as 'minor'), and
a record of whether the participant filled an unpaid
role such as church or chapel warden. In addition,
'Yeoman', an ambiguous title indicating something of
both status and employment, is included here.
Employment:
Indicates the participant's recorded employment. These
details were generally recorded in a standard form,
modernizing spelling and translating from Latin if
necessary. This field sometimes contains brief descriptions
from the project team describing the occupation, or their
decisions on translation and standardization if problematic.
Location:
Provides information on locations associated with the
participant, most commonly relating to place of residence
(either current at the time of the case or previous). There
may therefore be more than one location listed for each
person. For further information on how to interpret the
information on this field, please see the section on
places below.
Notes:
This field was used by the project team to provide any
significant additional information about the participant,
and sometimes to highlight unusual or problematic features
about the cause.
Participant:Elizabeth
Mould
[Mould;
Moulde]
Role:plaintiff
Details:female; wife of John Mould
Participant:Charles
Empson
[Empson]
Role:defendant
Details:male
Location:Howden
(YorkshireEastRiding)
Place(s):Booth (Booth)
: undefined
Howden (Howden)
: ecclesiastical parish
Participant:Robert
Squire
[Squire]
Role:prosecution proctor
Details:male
Employment:Notary Public
Participant:Thomas
Lea
[Lee]
Role:defence proctor
Details:male
Employment:Notary Public
Participant:Frances
Johnson
[Johnson]
Role:witness
Details:female; 22; spinster
Location:Crowle
(YorkshireWestRiding)
Place(s):Crowle (Crowle, Croale)
: undefined
Lincolnshire
Participant:Sarah
Wilson
[Wilson]
Role:witness
Details:female; 18; spinster
Location:Whitgift
(YorkshireWestRiding)
Place(s):Whitgift (Whitgift)
: ecclesiastical parish
All locations mentioned in each cause were recorded by the
project team. Places associated with participants appear
under their data. Locations which featured in the
documents but which were not attached to a particular
individual appear in the 'Associated Places' section.
Searches for place-names can lead to either or both
sections of the record. To understand how locations
are presented, it is necessary to bear in mind that
place-names have been standardized to account for historic
variations in language and spelling.
For each place, the project team recorded a modern version
of the place-name. Listed after this in brackets is the
original spelling of that name (and any noted variations
in spelling), as given in the documents for that cause.
If obvious, the project team also noted what type of place
it was, such as a field, town or parish; otherwise this
was left as 'undefined'. Note that if a place is listed
as a 'field name', this may indicate either a specific
field or group of fields.
The team then assigned each place to a standardized,
large, modern location: normally a parish, town, city
or county. These standard locations appear in
bold type in the database. Each
place listed after a standard location indicates that
it is either within that location or identical to it.
An example might be:
Location:Whitby
(YorkshireNorthRiding)
Place Names:Whitby (Whitbie, Whiteby):
ecclesiastical parish
Robin Hood's Bay (Robin Hood Bay): township
In this example, the project team identified two places
in the cause associated with the modern, standardized
place of Whitby. These were the parish
of Whitby (spelt Whitbie and Whiteby in the original
documents) and Robin Hood's Bay (spelt Robin Hood
Bay in the original documents), a township within
Whitby.
Location:Crowle
(YorkshireWestRiding)
Place(s):Crowle (Crowle, Cowle)
: ecclesiastical parish
Location:Lincoln (Lincoln)
: diocese
Location:York (Ebor)
: city
Location:Yorkshire, East Riding
Place(s):
Howdenshire (Howdenshire)
: liberty
