Burial Register abbreviations

[nanny jan]

I've been helping to transcribe some parish burial records and found 3 notes that I'm stuck on:

Affidavits made

Certificates made

SP written at the end of some entries

I think the affidavits refer to wool being used for the burial shroud but I'm not sure about the other two.

Thanks,

Nanny Jan

[stanmapstone]

The Burial in Wool Acts 1667 and 1678, was legislation intended to promote the wool trade, requiring that corpses should be buried in wool. Initially the officiating priest was required to certify that a deceased person had been 'buried in wool' and later, relatives of the deceased had to swear an affidavit within eight days of a 'woollen burial.' This was recorded in the registers. Failure to comply resulted in a fine of 5GBP which was levied on both the estate of the deceased and on those associated with the burial. The acts were repealed in 1814.

The only suggestion I can give for SP is Spurius = illegitimate
Stan

[nanny jan]

Thanks Stan for the info on Burial in Wool Acts. 

Not sure about S. P. though as it appears after various entries, including several  "wife of...."  Would they name adults as illegitimate?   I wondered if it was not the regular vicar but perhaps the initials of the curate? Alas no info about the names of the clergy to hand.

Nanny Jan

[Arranroots]

Not sure about my spelling here, but isn't there an abbreviation sine prole = without issue?

A 

[MarieC]

Not sure about my spelling here, but isn't there an abbreviation sine prole = without issue?

A 

Yes!  Arranroots, and I've seen it used on a list of Hubands compiled in the nineteenth century, which is on the Net (one of my luckier finds!)  I think it's very likely that this is what it is!

MarieC

[GAJ]

'sp' following burial entries in parish registers in my area of Somerset indicate that that person died of smallpox.
'p' following an entry in the late 18th century indicates that the person concerned was a pauper and that the tax on burial was not collected as there was an exemption.

[nanny jan]

If it helps it was written as S.P. and on men, women and children.   The records are from late 1700s.


Nanny Jan

[behindthefrogs]

Certificate made is possibly an alternative to "p" for pauper.  The poor could be certified as too poor to afford to be buried in wool.


Having done a bit of checking I find the exception to the being buried in wool was people who died of the plague.  I still have in the back of my mind however that those who could not afford the £5 finecould be certified as too poor.

David

[GAJ]

Burial in woollen and the tax on baptisms, marriages and burials are from different periods and don't overlap. 

However poor you were, you had to be buried in a woollen shroud (to support the ailing wool trade) whilst that law was enforced.  You will find some richer members of the community whose burials are annotated with 'buried in linen' for example.  Their families were prosperous enough to afford the fine.