Appleby Cottage
By Frey Micklethwait

ELIZABETHAN HISTORY

ESSAYS / ARTICLES

Elizabethan Women of Appleby
By Alan Roberts

Only two Appleby women's inventories appear to have survived from the Elizabethan Age. They belong respectively to Elizabeth Mould, a yeoman's widow who died in 1564, and to Alice Bates, either a widow or possibly a spinster, who died in the Winter of 1579. Neither women are recorded in the Appleby register which in any event does not begin until 1570. Probate and register entries after 1570 confirm that the Moulds were an established Appleby family but there is no further mention of Bates in the parish in Tudor times and the family surname does not appear in the registers before the 18th century. The inventories are markedly dissimilar. Whereas Elizabeth's possessions are fairly typical of the goods of a farmer's widow, with evidence of kitchen furniture and food processing, farm animals and grain in storage, Alice's inventory lists in addition to the usual pots and pans and pieces of furniture a substantial wardrobe of clothing - items such as three red petticoats, an old pink gown and a flaxen smock, two russet aprons and a hat. The appearance of three yards of red cloth may indicate that Mistress Bates worked as a piece worker, a weaver or milliner, or perhaps she merely had an eye for "fashionable" clothes. It is tempting to think she was a young spinster, or even perhaps, an itinerant. Her obvious interest in her attire compares to that of a later 18th century Appleby inhabitant - Mary Stanton who died in 1742 also leaving behind a great stock of quilted petticoats, silk scarves, smocks, cloaks, handkerchiefs and coloured aprons.

1579 THE INVENTORY OF ALICE BATES 1579

A true Inventory of all ye apparrell and goodes of Alice Bates diceased in ye towne of Applebie made the ix daye of January 1578 in the presence of William Robinson and Jhon Petcher who weare praisers of her goodes.

Imprimis 7 sheetes		ixs
Item a bord stott		xiid
Item a sawser		iiiid
Item a kercheefe		viiid
Item ii cofers		iis iiiid
Item a brass pot		iis vid
Item a brasse pan		iis vid
Item ii pewter platters		iis
Item a medle gown		vis viiid
Item an old pinke gown		3s iiiid
Item an old medle gowne		iis vid
Item an old medle frock		iis
Item a red peticote		iiiis vid
a nother		iis vid
a nother		iis vid
Item an old flaxen smocke		vid
a nother		xiid
a nother		viiid
Item ii handkercheefes		xd
Item a flaxen kercheefe		xiid
Item a paire of stenes		viiid
Item ii russett aporns		xd
Item ii linnen apornes		vid
Item a hat		xvid
Item a kercheefe		viiid
Item a corse		iiiid
Item ii neckercheefes		xiid
Item iii yardes of red cloth		vis
Item in her pursse		xs
Summa totalis iii viis viiid
By us	Richard Mold
	William Stanton
	Jhon Spensar ý Exequitors