Nicholas Leveson's Will: Religion and Legacy

Description:Although Nicholas ensures that the legacy of the Leveson family is secure by leaving his land and property to his wife and sons, he also takes measures to ensure his individual legacy.

Nicholas Leveson’s will reflects the fundamental importance of religion in the lives of people living in the sixteenth century. Nicholas leaves money to people in order that they pray for him, including forty shillings left to his sister in law for a ‘remembrance for my soule’. In addition, he leaves ‘one hundred pounds sterling’ to his wife Denise ‘for a remembrance to praie for my soule’. Nicholas also leaves money for his funeral, including money ‘for blackcloth for gownes’ and ‘for the dynner’ after his burial.

However, the will also indicates that religious remembrance during this time was associated with a sense of personal and family legacy. In a more elaborate request, Nicholas asks that his brother James shall find a ‘preest’ who is ‘of good and vertiouse disposition’ in order that he ‘singe and say his daiely masse…in the parrishe churche of Sainte Andrewes in London praying for my soule and for the soules of my father and mother by the space of tenne yeris next after my deceace’. In addition to this, Nicholas asks his family to mark ‘the daie of my deceasse’, an anniversary which is to be ‘kept yerelie by noote during the saide tenne yeres’. It is evident in these requests that religious remembrance was extremely important, in terms of Nicholas Leveson’s Catholic beliefs and also in terms of his individual legacy.

Attachments

Transcription of Nicholas Leveson's Will, 1539 (63 KB)