Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Bristol possesses an almost complete set of Apprentice Books from 1532 and a complementary series of Burgess Books from 1558. Those admitted to the freedom of the city between the years 1532 and 1558 can be found in the Mayor’s Audits’ which contain lists of burgesses giving the fees which they paid so that in fact there is a record of those made free from 1532. The volume of apprenticeship indentures now edited covers the period 1542-1552 and is Part II of the first Bristol Apprentice Book 1532-1565. The first part 1532-1542 was transcribed and edited by Denzil Hollis and published by the Bristol Record Society in 1948. In the Introduction of Part 1 Mr. Hollis described the format of the volume in great detail and discussed the system of apprenticeship in Bristol using all relevant contemporary records. Recently Dr. Anne Yarborough of the Catholic University of America has made a study of the system of apprentices in Bristol before the Statute of Artificers for a Ph.D. dissertation ‘Bristol’s apprentices in the 16th century: the cultural and regional mobility of an age group. Subsequently she has written an article entitled Geographical and social origins of Bristol apprentices 1542- 1565’ which will be published shortly. In view of the work done by Mr. Hollis and that already done and still being done by Dr. Yarborough it is not the intention of this present Introduction to consider the significance of the indentures enrolled but only to comment briefly on points of interest. The enrolments show that an organised system of recording the indentures was in operation at least thirty years before the Statute of Artificers and Apprentices of 1563 which initiated a national regulation of apprenticeship uniform for towns and country. The system in Bristol was largely based on the customs of London. (LL)