Members will be interested to know that John Gaisford’s volume 101, on the Ashe Family and Spanish Cloth, has been very favourably reviewed in the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine (vol. 117 (2024), p.220-21). The review was written by Dr Todd Gray of Exeter University. Some brief extracts of his review are given below.
This volume comprises four complete account books, along with a calendar of a fifth book, of members of the Ashe family of Westcombe in east Somerset and London. They cover the years from 1627 to 1665 and form part of a collection of accounts exhibited in a Chancery case in 1681. This is a substantial volume, running to over 500 pages: the introduction alone comprises 106 pages. This work draws on the editor’s doctorate on Wiltshire in this period.
This Somerset Record Society volume is in part a story of the significance of individuals as entrepreneurs in innovation and their role in creating centres of cloth specialisms. In this period the types of woollen cloth varied across the country. The Ashe family concentrated on Spanish (or Segovia) cloth, a lightweight broadcloth which may or may not have been partly woven with imported Spanish wool.
The accounts detail the generational transformation of ‘white’ cloth to those which were dyed, and the importance of the particular shade of colour is apparent. Even so, it is not always apparent whether terms refer to the type of cloth or to its colour (‘bever gray’ or ‘sad gray’) but mussel, clay, tawny, olive, piper, liver grey, quince grey, cinnamon grey and pearl would appear to refer to the colours. The manuscripts cover the years disrupted by the Civil War, the Interregnum and the Restoration and the accounts show how the Ashe family negotiated the various economic and political hazards.
Wiltshire and Somerset are fortunate in having a few surviving cloth sample books of this period, whereas Dorset and Cornwall have none. Surprisingly, Devon only has one. Where Dr Gaisford’s volume is particularly interesting is in it being able to help us interpret these other cloth manuscripts. Much can be learned from these accounts, but we need to remember that, whilst evidence survives for a handful of cloth-producers, the remaining 99% of the others have left no records behind. This makes this edition a precious commodity.
The volume is also a reminder of the continued importance, and central place, that our county record societies perform in regional studies. Most were formed in the Edwardian period, and many are feeling their age, but this contribution is typical of the significant original material routinely presented to the public through careful editorial guidance. We all owe a debt to Dr Gaisford for the years of work given, not only to edit these account books, but in acquiring and imparting the knowledge to understand them.
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