Many years ago it was very unusual to find people who could read and write, this activity was usually left to clerks and well educated people, so when documents were needed, people would have to go to the clerks and pay them to do the writing.
There would be some element of trust placed on the person doing the writing, as the person they were working for would not be able to read it and correct any mistakes, particularly with spellings.
One of these documents could easily be a person’s will.
At Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies we have a group of volunteers who are in the process of cleaning and accessing the Hertfordshire Wills collection for damage and they have found some interesting signatures.
Because people could not write their name, they would have to put a mark on the paper, which would then be witnessed by others to say that that person had signed the document.
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Has anyone seen an example of a mark from a cooper? They had a unique mark that they used on casks that they had made, I am interested to see if they knew the mark well enough to use it instead of X or their name?
this is fascinating – i had heard of people making their mark and thought most of them were a simple X – it is interesting to see that so many personalised their marks, it can’t have been easy with an unfamiliar quill or scratchy nib
How interesting – a tiny window into the lives of people who might otherwise be overlooked…
You can find out more about the medieval graffiti mentioned above by following this link: medieval graffiti
The Carter family are still thriving in the Granborough area. The production assistant at Buckinghamshire Archives was a John Carter and related to the Granborough Carters.
I found this fascinating. The Community Archives conference this summer had a session on medieval graffiti – people certainly knew how to make their mark.