Bizarre Seventeenth-Century Jury List May 7, 2015

Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern

There follows a jury panel list from Sussex in the UK dating to the seventeenth century. A simple question: what is wrong with it? Beach has placed the forenames in bold and the surnames in italics: the final names are the local towns.

Accepted Trevor of Norsham

Redeemed Compton of Battle*

Faint-not Hewit of Heathfield

Make-peace Heaton of Hare

God-reward Smart of Fivehurst

Stand-fast-on-high Stringer of Crowhurst

Earth Adams of Warbleton

Called Lower of the same

Kill-sin Pimple of Witham

Return Spelman of Watling

Be-faithful Joiner of Britling

Fly-debate Roberts of the same

Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith White of Emer

More-fruit Fowler of East Hodley

Hope-for Bending of the same

Graceful Harding of Lewes

Weep-not Billing of the same

Meek Brewer of Okeham

The forenames are, to say the least, strange. These are so-called hortatory names, names occasionally used by English puritans in the sixteenth and, above all, the seventeenth century to celebrate their passion for Godly living: an amusing and aesthetically challenged period of British onomastics. This list first appeared in Travels over England, Scotland, and Wales by James Brome in 1700, but was made famous by its inclusion in Hume’s History of England (1754-1761) in a note. In the nineteenth-century the list was often dismissed as a forgery and a fairly clumsy one at that. But in 1897 Bardsley pointed out that the list was from Sussex, a strong puritan area, and an area where many puritan children were given hortatory names. For example, 43 percent of children were given hortatory (or as Bardsley called them ‘exhortatory’) names in the Sussex parish of Warbleton between 1570 and 1600, according to American historian David Hackett Fischer. What Beach finds extraordinary is that there are no ‘normal’ names. It is possible that Brome or his source edited these out as being uninteresting. Then the jury list, according to Brome, dated to the English Civil War and Commonwealth 1642-1661: ‘in the late rebellious troublesome times’, when perhaps puritans were more likely to serve? Whether so numerous a pool would have been asked to serve in juries in the seventeenth-century County Assizes is another question altogether and one that Beach has not been able to resolve: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com

Is the list genuine? Bardsley sums it up nicely ‘The names are real enough; the panel is not necessarily so.’ Bardsley, in fact, finds other examples of almost all these names AND in one case actually finds the individual recorded in Sussex documents. The list below was, instead, discovered in the British Library by one ‘Mr Lower’. In this case Bardsley found three of the names in the record: signalled once more by an asterix. Again the jury lists might be concocted or misunderstood, but the names are absolutely convincing. The world turned upside down, indeed. Pass me the salt Peace-of-God, stop snoring Be-Courteous, oh shut the hell up Fly-Debate…

Enjoy!

Approved Frewen of Northiam*

Be-thankful Maynard of Brightling

Be-courteous Cole of Pevensey

Safety-on-high Snat of Uckfield

Search-the-Scriptures Moreton of Salehurst

More-fruit Fowler, of East Hothley

Free-gift Mabbs of Chiddingly*

Increase Weeks of Cuckfield.

Restore Weeks of the same*

Kill-sin Pemble of Westham

Elected Mitchell of Heathfield

Faint-not Hurst of the same

Renewed Wisberry of Hailsham

Return Milward of Hellingly

Fly-debate Smart of Waldron

Fly- fornication Richardson of the same

Seek-wisdom Wood of the same

Much-mercy Cryer of the same

Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith White of Ewhurst

Small-hope Biggs of Rye

Earth Adams of Warbleton

Repentance Avis of Shoreham

The-peace-of-God Knight of Burwash