Wells Wills. Arranged in Parishes and annotated. By Frederick William
Weaver. (Kegan Paul and Co.)—The compiler of this curious volume, who is evidently an accomplished archeologist, has, by the permission of the President of the Probate Division of the High Court of Justice, been enabled to take extracts from the whole of the Wills (or rather, the copies of the original wills) contained in the first two books at the District Probate Registry, Wells. These are abOut six hundred in number. The date of the most of them is 1528-1563 ; and they throw some light on Church life in pre-Reformation times, through the occurrence in them of such synonymous words as " brotherhed" (brotherhood), " yeld "
"fraternity," " store" (instaurum and staurum), and " ser- vice " (servitium). These show that a number of parishes had "stores, each in the interest of a separate devotion, supported by an associated body, with a separate balance-sheet, audit-day, and feast-day, the audit sometimes held by separate wardens, some- times by the high-wardens." This curious volume throws light not only on Church life before the Reformation, but illustrates the dress, &c., of the period. How many, even among ordinary archeologists, could tell that the " nysett " bequeathed by William Everard in 1530 as part of his wife's property, is a light wrapper for the neck ?
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