Tithes of sheep were mixed or small/minute tithes as they arose from livestock and so were normally payable to the vicar or his farmer (see ‘Tithes – modus’ under ‘Subjects’).
EDC 5/1566/12 – Hugh Dodd, rector of Coddington, contra Richard Allen
Tithes of garden produce were predial tithes, but usually classified as small tithes because the crop was of lower value than other crops such as grain. Such small tithes were normally payable to the vicar or his farmer (see ‘Tithes – modus’ under ‘Subjects’).
EDC 5/1566/12 – Hugh Dodd, rector of Coddington, contra Richard Allen
EDC 5/11/1 – Sir Thomas Langton, farmer of the tithes of the chapelry of Low, contra Lawrence Banastre
Although orchard fruits were usually classed as great tithes, it was sometimes claimed that windfalls were small tithes and as all the other tithes in this cause were small tithes it may be that this reference was to windfalls, or possibly fruit grown in a garden, rather than an orchard.
WILLIAM COWPER
WILLIAM COWPER
Qualifications:
Career: acting as proctor in the Chester Consistory Court by 1566
CAUSES:
| Reference | Type of cause | Role | Outcome | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EDC 5/1566/10 | Defamation - sexual slander | Proctor for defendant | Plaintiff won | He seems to have replaced Robert Parkinson in this cause |
Barlow
John
Male
Married
Margaret
Clerk; rector of Warmingham and Malpas
CCEd person ID 35561 (Warmingham)
Career: appointed rector of Warmingham on 26 August 1536; rector of the Higher Rectory of Malpas from 30 January 1562 on the resignation of William Hill on a pension of £16 for life on a bond from Barlow. He was buried at Malpas on April 28 1585 as ‘John Barlow, Clerke, late Parson of Malpasse and Warmingham’.
Further notes: He seems to have married late in life, perhaps for a second time, to Margaret Silcock, and he names in his will four sons and two daughters. His son William was apprenticed in Shrewsbury, his son John was apprenticed to a mercer in Chester. His son Richard was probably underage at the time of John Barlow’s death. Another son, Randle, Ralph or Randolph, baptised on 13 January 1572, had a distinguished academic career and after ordination took up a series of clerical appointments in Ireland, culminating in the post of archbishop of Tuam from 1629 to 1638.
After his death in 1595 his widow remarried Mr Thomas Wilson, the schoolmaster at Malpas, on 26 May 1596.
Although his tenure of the parish of Warmingham may seem unrealistically long, he certainly did hold both parishes in plurality for some years until his death, although it is possible that two men of the same name held Warmingham in succession. At the metropolitan visitation of 1578, following the death of the bishop, William Downham, the presentments at Warmingham include a note that ‘John Barlowe there person is not resident and cometh seldome amongest them. They have but fewe Sermons Ther parsonage is in Decaie’. A marginal note reads ‘he is Resydent at Malpas he is enioyned to […] sermons hereafter and to Repayre his hous before mydsomer next.’
Sources:
Borthwick Institute, York, V 1578-9 CB 3, f. 32v.
CALS, 220830, Malpas St Oswald Parish Registers.
George Ormerod, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester, (second edition, revised and enlarged by T. Helsby, 3 vols, London: George Routledge & Sons, 1882), vol ii, pp. 608-610, vol iii, pp. 233-235.
Rev. G. J. Piccope (ed.), Lancashire and Cheshire wills and inventories from the Ecclesiastical Court, Chester, 3 volumes (Chetham Society, old series, 54, 1861 (Third Portion)), pp. 87-89.
Details of the career of Ralph Barlow; A Cambridge Alumni database https://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/
EDC 5/1566/10 – witness to the sentence. He was probably in attendance at court because a tithe cause in which he had an interest was being heard at this time.
Powell
Margery
Croft
Isabelle (Sybil)
Moseley (Mosteley)
John
Male
Warrington
Married
Katherine Moseley
EDC 5/1566/10 – defendant
Carter
Richard
Layton
John
Male
Married
John Layton was the nephew of Robert Brassey, Provost of King’s College and vicar of Prescot. The earl of Derby, who leased the Prescot Hall estate from the college, granted a lease of this property to John Layton in 1558, perhaps at the instigation of Dr Brassey. The Prescot Hall estate adjoined the Whiston lands of the Ogle family, previous occupiers of Prescot Hall as stewards of the lords of the manor.
John Layton died in January 1569.
Sources:
British History Online ‘Townships: Prescot’, in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 3, ed. William Farrer and J Brownbill (London, 1907), pp. 353-354. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol3/pp353-354
F. A. Bailey, ‘Early Coalmining in Prescot, Lancashire’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 99 (1947), pp. 1-20.
EDC 5/1566/11 – possibly rightful owner of the farm of the tithes in dispute
Ogle (Ogells)
Edward
Male
1542
Huyton
Married
Gentleman
The Ogle family had acquired lands in Huyton in the early sixteenth century and also occupied lands in Whiston and Sutton. They were lords of the manor of Whiston. They had also leased the Prescot Hall estate, which adjoined their Whiston lands, from the earl of Derby, who had himself leased the estate from King’s College. However, in 1558 Lord Derby granted another lease of the Prescot Hall estate, this time to John Layton, and this may have been the cause of the tithe dispute.
Edward Ogle died in December 1567.
Sources:
British History Online ‘Townships: Whiston’, in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 3, ed. William Farrer and J Brownbill (London, 1907), pp. 348-352 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol3/pp348-352
F. A. Bailey, ‘Early Coalmining in Prescot, Lancashire’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 99 (1947), pp. 1-20.
EDC 5/1566/11 – plaintiff
