Thomas Workman – a Tudor Merchant
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Thomas Workman – a Tudor merchant Teachers’ Notes Who was Thomas Workman? Thomas Workman was a Gloucester merchant who died in July 1587. He was a mercer by trade, selling good-quality cloth – much of it imported. How do we know about him? Thomas Workman left a will which had to be proved before its terms could be carried out. This process (obtaining a grant of probate) involved the executors of the will appearing at the bishop’s court to swear that the will was genuine. They also had to produce a list of the dead person’s possessions (a probate inventory), partly to forestall arguments about what the deceased had left and partly because the fees charged for a grant of probate depended on the value of the possessions. Unfortunately, very few Tudor inventories have survived for Gloucestershire. Thomas Workman’s inventory is one of a batch of just sixty – all dating from 1587. How was the inventory made? Before his death, Thomas Workman had asked John Maddock and Richard Barnes, fellow cloth-merchants, to be his friends of trust to help carry out his wishes. On 10th July 1587, shortly after his death, they visited his house, together with another mercer called Thomas Sergeant, to value the contents. These valuers, or appraisers, started in the shop and then went round the house from room to room listing the items and placing a value on them. What can we learn from these documents? Using Thomas Workman’s inventory is like walking round the house with the appraisers. Not only can children learn about the shop and the house, they can also make deductions about the people who lived there, their work and about mid-Tudor life in general. Thomas Workman’s will helps to fill in some of the background about his family. How do we read the writing? This pack contains facsimile copies of Thomas Workman’s will and inventory. Each document has been transcribed twice – once as it is in the original and a second time with spellings modernised, Arabic numerals rather than Roman, and some additional punctuation. There is also a shortened and modernised version of the will. In addition there is a Glossary of the more unusual words, as well as a plan of Tudor Gloucester and drawing of the Westgate area much as it would have looked in Thomas Workman’s day. How can these documents be used in the classroom? One way of starting to use a probate inventory, before even talking about wills, is to ask the children to bring in a list of the items in their bedrooms (no values). This gives them a concept of the process involved. They quickly learn it is not worth listing very small items, but use instead more general categories (eg ‘my clothes’). They will, however, list specific items which they consider important or valuable – just as Tudor appraisers did. If you collect their lists and read out one or two anonymously, you will find they quickly identify whose it is from clues in the list - they know Emma plays the guitar and Craig is a passionate Arsenal fan! In the process they are learning that is possible to make deductions about people from the things they own. This is the time to explain about wills and inventories and how similar deductions can be made about Thomas Workman. As the inventory is quite long, it is probably sensible to divide the class into groups, each group looking in detail at one part: the Shop, the Hall & Buttery, the Chambers, the Clothes, the Kitchen. Alternatively, since the Shop has a lot of complicated words, you might prefer to look at that section as a whole- class activity. Groups can be briefed to find out as much as they can about the contents of their room(s). The glossary in this pack will help them, as will any library material on life in Tudor times. Unfortunately, the documentary evidence about Thomas Workman is all written so any opportunity to see pictures of the sort of items mentioned, or such items themselves, will be very helpful for children. The Blacksmith’s House by Joy James (A& C Black) is a very useful source of illustrations of Tudor domestic life in a house which was not too grand! Cheltenham Museum has examples of Tudor domestic artefacts – if it is possible for you to arrange a museum visit then that is ideal. One useful exercise is for children to label items in an illustration as they identify them. Another useful technique is to ask them what they know for sure about the Workman family, what they can guess about them and also what they would like to know. Thomas Workman’s will may provide some of the answers, but for many questions it will not be possible to find an answer – always an important element of real Historical research. Can I copy these documents? Copyright in this work belongs to Gloucestershire County Council. You are free to reproduce the material contained in it for classroom use only. Any questions about this pack should be made to Gloucestershire Archives, Alvin Street, Gloucester GL1 3DW tel. 01452 425295, email [email protected]. Thomas Workman’s Inventory The House We do not know exactly where Thomas Workman’s house was. People did not have exact addresses in Tudor times. Gloucester was not a big city and anyone wanting Thomas Workman would have asked a passer-by until they found someone who knew him. We know that he rented a stable in Gore Lane (later called Bull Lane) which ran between Westgate Street and Longsmith Street, so that it is likely his house was nearby – probably on the north side of Upper Westgate Street in what was known as Mercer’s Row (see plan). It was not a particularly big house. Downstairs, there was the Shop which fronted on to the street, with the Hall and Buttery behind it and Kitchen at the back. Upstairs there were just two Chambers (bedrooms). There may have been a privy at the back. The Shop Since no chamber is mentioned over the shop, it is probable that the shop was a single-storey lean-to on the front of the house. As a mercer, Thomas Workman dealt in good-quality cloth. The term ‘mercer’ was short for ‘silk- mercer’ (literally ‘silk-dealer’) but by Thomas Workman’s day mercers dealt in a variety of fabrics, many of them imported, including linen and wool textiles. Many of the strange-sounding names of fabrics (ozenbriks, bewpers, dowlas) were corruptions of the places from which they came (Osnabruck, Beauprais, Daoulas). As was common with mercers, Thomas Workman stocked ‘haberdasher ware’ – buttons, silk thread, belts, gloves and combs – the sort of accessories that might appeal to a customer buying cloth to be made into a gown. He also stocked a more surprising range of luxury items – sugar, spices, saffron, raisins, aniseed etc. These items were generally both expensive and imported. Presumably mercers, who were used to dealing with imported cloth, had the opportunity to buy these items at the same time and found them a profitable sideline. Even so, it is surprising to find Thomas Workman selling gunpowder! The mortars, pestles, weights and balances were needed for these items rather than the cloth, which was sold by length. Since an expert opinion was needed to value the stock in the shop, it was essential to have at least one fellow-mercer as an appraiser. The Hall The hall was the main living-room of the house. The table was listed in two parts: the table board and the frame on which it rested. This was a reflection of an earlier time when tables were inevitably trestle-tables (see The Kitchen). Round the table were seven joined stools – wooden stools made with proper joints – but only one chair with arms, which presumably Thomas Workman sat in. We still use the expression ‘chairman’ reflecting the days when homes like this had only one chair at the table. The basin and ewer were there to allow the family to wash their hands before eating. Away from the table there was a high-backed wooden settle. For technical legal reasons, an inventory did not value houses or land but concentrated on goods and chattels (literally ‘moveable property’). It is therefore something of a surprise to find the wainscot and a glass window listed, as we would consider such items to be fixtures. However, as becomes clear at the end of the inventory, Thomas Workman rented his house and so he would have expected to take these expensive improvements away with him if he left. A leaded-pane glass window, which let the light in but kept the cold out, was an enormous improvement on the alternatives: having the window either shuttered or open, or having a translucent oiled-cloth covering which let only a dim light through. The Buttery This room, next to the Hall, was more of a store-room than a living-room. The name has nothing to do with ‘butter’, but derives from ‘bouteille’ (bottle) and originally referred to where drink was stored. In Thomas Workman’s house, this room was where the table-ware was stored - plates (platters, trenchers), bowls (pottingers), and dishes as well as the candle-sticks. The Chamber over the Hall The stairs would have risen from the Hall straight into the bedroom (chamber) above. As is common in Tudor and Stuart inventories, the bed is described in some detail. The bedstead consisted of a wooden frame with holes in the side to allow a cord to be laced across.