Introduction

Summary

This third volume of Devon's early taxation lists covers twenty-nine parishes and 112 taxation lists. Many of the documents are in a poor state of preservation through damp, tearing or have been damaged by rodents and Dean Prior, Dolton and Colyton have manuscripts which are too fragile for full examination. In contrast, the best-preserved collection is that of the borough of Dartmouth and this, as discussed on page xxxvii, was achieved partly through the work of the Devon & Cornwall Record Society nearly a century ago.

The lists have been drawn from archival collections in Barnstaple, Colyton, Exeter, Plymouth and Taunton. There are long sequences for Churston Ferrers, Coldridge, Crediton, Dartmouth and Dean Prior but many parishes have only one or two surviving rates. There are no surviving examples for the remaining twenty parishes in this alphabetical range (either for Clawton, Clyst Honiton, Clyst Hydon, Clyst St George, Clyst St Lawrence, Clyst St Mary, Cockington, Coffinswell, Colaton Raleigh, Combepyne, Countisbury, Creacombe, Cullompton, Culmstock, Dawlish, Denbury, Dowland, Down St Mary, Drewsteignton or Dunchideock).

As with the earlier volumes in this series, the parishes concerned are located across the county. Nearly all are rural in character but even the most urbanised, Crediton and Dartmouth, had extensive countryside. The lists comprise 1 churchyard rate, 2 hospital rates, 3 highway rates, 10 rates for military purposes including a Ship Money rate, 16 tithe accounts including 3 Easter Books, 29 church rates and 46 poor rates. There is one joint church and poor rate as well as four others for which no purpose was specified. The latter were undertaken by sidemen along with churchwardens or overseers of the poor and may also have been intended to maintain both the church building and the poor.

Rates, as discussed in Volume One, had distinct purposes: the church rate supported the maintenance of the building and those for bells, churchyards, clerks, highways, hospitals and the poor are equally self-explanatory. There were also rates which underpinned military activity. Eight parishes in this volume were assessed for their arms in the rate prompted by the general uncertainty following the defeat of the Armada in 1588.

The Easter Books, otherwise Paschal Books, recorded a portion of the ‘offerings’ and tithes due to clerics, lay people or institutions which were paid at Easter.