Smugglers and the Demise of the Great Auk...

Getting slightly obsessed with a tree I'm researching for some-one...why are other peoples trees so much more interesting than one's own I wonder...

This particular tree goes way back into the Middle Ages and it seems that it's heaving with interesting bits...or at least I'm finding them interesting, just hope the person whose family it is does as well.

One chap left a Will in the early 1400's...he left a sheep to his son...not a flock of sheep...just the one...but he also left two Church lights...one for his Parish church and one for the town Church. So I looked up Church lights and they were usually made from lengths of resinous wood twisted together which were then repeatedly dipped into melted tallow...animal fat in other words...hung up to harden and dry out and then used to light the Church. The process must have taken some considerable time and a degree of skill.

In the same article I read that the people of the Scottish highlands and islands used the melted fat of the Great Auk and the Stormy Petrel to make their lights...no wonder the Great Auk is now extinct...they were easy to catch...just walk up to one and bop it on the head.

Then I found an expression in a Parish register that I'd not come across before...' buried in Linen'...those words were used as a confirmation that the person had not only died, but had been buried. I'm unsure as to why confirmation was needed sometimes and not others.

Coming back down the years to the 1700's and there was a reference to a notorious gang of smugglers...they were seriously bad lads...armed with Blunderbusses and some had swords...they smuggled fine French Brandy and Tea, putting their contraband into oil-skin panniers slung across the backs of their pack-horses...managing to evade both the Excise men and the Soldiers most of the time...the chap I was interested in was caught and sent for trial at the Old Bailey but he was acquitted...quite how he managed that, when he'd been said to have threatened and chased an Excise man while brandishing his Blunderbuss I'm not sure...

History is fascinating...!

[knitter]

Googling "buried in linen" now

Learn something new everyday on this site!

Enjoy the rest of your research

[Hidden in reply to knitter]

Interesting isn't it? ◙

[Azure_Sky]

Is it possible buried in Linen meant without a coffin?

[Hidden in reply to Azure_Sky]

From what I read it had something to do with ensuring the burial had taken place...bit of a mystery

[Offcut]

History is fascinating! So right you are. I was told one day that history was written by the king of the day. Which might explain why DICK 3 was shown in such a bad way.

[Hidden in reply to Offcut]

I very much doubt the king would have been much bothered to write about smugglers or torches for Churches...on the other hand he might well have passed a rainy afternoon doing precisely that...lol

[Nikkers]

Hi Vashti,

The term "buried in linen" came about because of a law passed by Charles II in 1666.It stated that all deceased persons should be buried in woollen, so as to boost the use of British wool manufacturing and stop the import of same. However, if a person had died of the Plague ....they were to be "buried in linen." So whoever you were reading about was probably one of the poor souls that succumbed to that dreadful death. XX

[Hidden in reply to Nikkers]

The person I was reading about died in 1440 though...could still have been a Plague of some sort...

[Nikkers]

Sorry Vashti. I do an awful lot of indexing where nearly every death says, "buried in woollen" or "buried in linen". I think it probably applied even back then, but the act wasn't passed until 1666? There was a lot of "plague" type things around at that time - think about leprosy, that was very common. Anything in abundance is referred to as "a plague" , even today, so maybe it was just a common expression? XX

[Hidden in reply to Nikkers]

Don't apologise!...there's no need at all...there were of course...plague type illnesses that carried folk off...

Were coffins used at all Nikkers? Or were they for the wealthier people?

[Nikkers in reply to Hidden]

They did have coffins, of sorts - made of more like we'd call orange boxwood though. Many were just interred just wrapped up if they were very poor -especially babies, but even in coffins they had to be "wrapped" in either woollen or linen and there were special inspectors that would check on the body to make sure before the burial. Some would have used and re-used a "wrapping" after the inspection was done, because it wasn't cheap! Horrible thought to us today, but a sensible answer in those times as so many died in some families so fast, they could never had afforded it - law, or no law!

[Hidden in reply to Nikkers]

The unbaptised babies here were buried in tiny coffins made out of the wooden boxes from green grocers...I met a man who could recall older children of families calling to ask for a box for the latest baby who'd died...

[Nikkers in reply to Hidden]

So sad Vashti. There were so many babies who died. We do have a lot to be grateful for today in that respect. XX