Wills are invaluable records of life in the past, bringing us close to people's beliefs, possessions, and relationships. In this period, before the Reformation, they illustrate attitudes to religion, death, charity, status, and family relationships, as well as mentioning property such as land, livestock, clothes, jewels, furniture, and utensils.

This edition gathers together all the 122 Cornish wills of personal property that are known to exist up to the year 1540, plus extracts from a further 66 that are otherwise not concerned with Cornwall. Although the county has not been lucky in the survival of its wills, those that remain are indispensable sources for studying its history and that of England more widely. Apart from the subjects listed above, they are revealing about church buildings and furnishings, chapels, saint cults, guilds, education, mining, ships, genealogy, and emigration from Cornwall - especially to Exeter, Oxford, and London.

All the wills are presented in modern English and in complete rather than abbreviated form, which gives a truer sense of their individuality. An introduction describes how they were administered and what they contain, and there are concise accounts of their makers, a glossary of unusual words, and indexes of names, places, and subjects.

Nicholas Orme has written many books on medieval history and on Cornwall in particular. He is Emeritus Professor of History at Exeter University and an Honorary Canon of Truro Cathedral.

The cover picture shows a scene that was in the minds of all who made wills: the good Christian's departure from earthly life to salvation. It is reproduced from a fifteenth-century French book of hours (Bodleian Library, MS Liturg. 41, f. 147r), by kind permission of the Library.

". . . this collection is both gold-standard and a model for all future such anthologies" - Brenda Bolton in the Church Times, 22 February 2008.

Last updated: 27 Feb 2008 - Brian Randell, on behalf of the Society