Of the ever increasing number of volumes issued by the Surtees Society, perhaps none have possessed more general interest and popularity than the two volumes of Wills and Inventories selected from the Registry at Durham, and edited respectively by the Rev. James Raine and the Rev. William Greenwell. Although the choicest of the wills of the spacious Tudor period were taken for the second volume of the series, published forty-seven years ago, there remains a very large number belonging to the smaller gentry, clergy, yeomen and merchants. Some of them were indeed transcribed or abstracted for, but were crowded out of, that volume. These have been handed over to the present editor by Mr. Greenwell and form the nucleus of the following selection.
The union of the two Crowns, in 1608, in the person of James I., ushered in a period of peaceful development and extended to the country parishes of Northumberland and Durham the security which previously had been enjoyed only by the inhabitants of the walled towns, and, to some extent, by the owners of the greater castles. Wills of a later period, therefore, lose a considerable part of their historical interest and for that reason it is considered desirable not to extend the present collection beyond the reign of Elizabeth.
