Description

A new unused book.

About the book >.>.> Probate inventories are lists and valuations of the moveables of the recently deceased and were required as part of the process of probate to ascertain the value of the deceased’s estate. They have long been recognised as among the most important classes of evidence for the daily lives of individuals from across a wide social spectrum. These documents recording personal possessions in great detail throw an unparalleled light not only on the minutiae of daily life but also on a whole host of other subjects ranging from the impact of developing global trade and the rise of consumer society to literacy and popular religion. Since the appraisers usually noted each room in order as they proceeded through the deceased’s house inventories can also be used to help reconstruct domestic interiors and are therefore of great value to historians of architecture and material culture. This volume contains 111 full transcriptions selected from the inventories of men and women who lived within the City and Deanery of Bristol and whose wills were proved before the Probate Registry of the Diocese of Bristol. These documents are now in the care of the Bristol Record Office. The inventories printed here have been chosen as a representative sample of the occupations and social groups to be found within the collection as a whole ranging from servants and sailors to wealthy merchants and the gentry. This volume covers the period from 1690 to 1804 encompassing Bristol’s ‘golden age’ based on its dominant position in the Atlantic trade. Much evidence of Bristol’s overseas trade is to be found in these documents including the ownership of African slaves. The inventories also demonstrate how middle ranking Bristolians were adorning their homes with the products of a ‘consumerist society’. (SP)