Genealogy Chat

Merry dear In case you don't return to Sharon's thread re affidavits - can you tell me please if the fine was referred to as a 'Mortury'? This would solve a niggling problem for me! Olde Crone

Ooh, I'm not sure, OC, but I will have a rummage and see if I can find any reference............ Also will speak to hubby, as he is my Record Office lacky...... Merry

Merry - please tell me your secre - I can't even get my hubby within 20 miles of the records office - let alone get him to act as my lacky!!!!!! Trudy

Right - I have been looking at hubby's transcripts of PR records where burial in woolens/linen and affidavits etc are mentioned for the majority of the burials...most of what we have is for the end of the 17thC in Dorset villages. There doesn't seem to be a particular link between those buried in linen and this phrase, ''Mortury paid'' which crops up from time to time. Also the Mortury thingy (which I had turned a blind eye to until today) also seems to appear in the years after the mention of woolens/linen/affidavits has vanished from the burial records........... I just looked in my Collins Old Dictionary which sometimes comes up trumps!! It says for ''mortury'': ''A customary gift formerly claimed by the incumbent of a parish from the estate of a deceased parishioner.'' So, was it that it was customary for the well off to give money to the church, not through their will, but by payment of the ''Customary Mortury Gift''?? Rather in the same way that it was customary for the well off to pay a much higher sum for the baptism/burial of their children than the hoi-polloi ever did?? If you have ever read ''The Diary of a Country Parson'' - the diaries of James Woodforde who lived through the second half of the 18thC, his local squire paid five guineas for each child's bap or burial always given, ''genteelly, wrapped in a white linen hankerchief''!!! But I digress.........I don't KNOW for sure the correct answer....but the above sounds possible, don't you think?? Suppose you will now tell me it was the poor who were paying their ''mortury'', rather than the rich?? (I can't tell from the records I have here, as none of my own rellies made a contribution - maybe that is significant in itself - they were mostly ag labs!) Bet your Rathbones had to cough up? Merry

Trudy, Sorry, I didn't see your message before....... Here's how I achieved it........ 1) produced two screaming babies 2) told hubby I would like a day off at the CRO 3) waited for hubby to realise what this implied....... 4) ''lacky'' ready to run to the CRO!! 5) plus he likes the drive, which to me is tortuous - 30 miles each way of not much better than B roads.......... Good Luck! Merry

Merry ‘Oh B****r’ – that’s blown it: 1. can’t have kids (not a problem!) 2. hubby doesn’t mind if I go out all day – leaves more time for footy/telly! 3. hubby doesn’t drive!!!!! Never mind, just have to think of something else LOLOL Trudy

Could you invite a lot of unattractive women to the house for some sort of ''female'' get together and then ask him to do the catering?? Most men would run a mile........... Merry

Thanks Merry, have a good day - will have to give it some thought. Trudy

(Second attempt at posting a reply!) Thankyou very much for going to all that trouble, Merry. Why doesnt my dictionary contain the word Mortury? It was my Mr Thomas Green, whose burial was written in extra-specially thick writing, making me think he was a local worthy. In the margin it says: M: paid to Mr Mayer (Cheshire Fam Hist Soc has transcribed this as Mortury paid to the Mayor) As you say, if he was a local nob, then no doubt some 'customary gift' was extracted - probably in payment for the fact that the Vicar never wrote 'bastard' against the name of Thomas Green's many illegitimate Grandchildren!!!!AND, obligingly wrote in their father's names, too. Thanks again Merry - another little niggle cleared up! Olde Crone

At our local library this evening I took a quick peek in a very F-A-T dictionary, which had the same definition as above, but added that it was a 14thC thing......Trouble is, it wasn't clear whether the phrase or word or use of the word in that sense was formed in the 14thC and then continued to be used for centuries, or whether it was a five minute wonder...... Suppose it wouldn't have made it to the dictionary at all if it was a 5 min wonder???? My dictionary is a Collins and seems good for family history! (Think it's circa 1950's when hubby was at school!) It told me what a ''Cyprian woman'' was..........Oh dear - another of hubby's relations!! lol Merry

Have you checked that Mr Meyer isn't the incumbent?? Merry

Merry - no, Mr Mayer or Mayor wasn't the incumbent. This is the only mention of Mortury paid, in the WHOLE of this register,which covers 1554-1881!!! Mind you, that's a clue in itself - my Thomas Green must have been a big (rich) smell in the area, which helps me to know that when the Vicar refers to 'Thomas Green', there's only one! I too use my good old faithful school dictionary, the concise Oxford - not all that concise either, it has some truly wonderful words in it, including the first word I ever looked up in it - Harlot!!!! (Tee hee, not much wiser when I found out it was Prostitute OR a vagabond!). Oh dear, those misspent Scripture lessons. Olde Crone

LOL, OC - Nice to know that used extra special ink for your Thomas Green....... You realise the clerk would have mixed it up specially??!! My mum used to make up the ink for her father in his job as an architect in the 1950's........ Seems like centuries ago, she says! Merry

I seem to remember this thread and the following may (or may not) cover essentially the same ground. A mortu(a)ry was originally a tax levied by the Church on the estate of a person, upon burial (much in the same way that 'heriot' was paid to the Lord of the Manor) and based on a sliding scale on the value of the estate. The modern secular equivalent would be inheritance tax. When the shift between shroud-to-casket burial became a matter of Law, it might be that the lack of an affadavit, to the effect that a casket had been used, resulted in a fine, commonly, but not necessarily correctly, referred to as a 'Mortu(a)ry'. Later the Mortu(a)ry simply became a sum paid to the incumbent for a funeral oration or sermon before the term fell out of usage, around the 18th century, but probably later in more remote lattitudes. J.

Jude Thankyou for that...so my Mr Thomas Green might have paid for somebody to either sing or spout at his funeral....or it MIGHT have been a fine. The burial WAS in 1774, can't remember whether they were still getting buried in woollen then. Merry Yes, it was ever such black ink, and written with a very thick nib! Wouldn't mind a pint or two of their ink, the entries for the 1500s are as black as the day they were written. My Dad was a Draughtsman, worked for ICI in Manchester, and one of the perks of the job was that he was allowed to bring home drawings which were no longer of use. These had been drawn on linen, which was then fixed by some sort of blue stuff. If you boiled and boiled and boiled these drawings, you were left with pure linen, which my mother made into sheets and pillowcases - I still have some! Olde Crone