This article introduces a new source for assessing the distribution of wealth in early modern England derived from witness depositions taken by the church courts. It discusses the accuracy of statements of ‘worth’ provided by thousands of witnesses between the mid‐sixteenth and later seventeenth centuries, and uses the monetary estimates of worth in goods that the majority of deponents supplied to assess the changing distribution of personal wealth. We argue that this data supports recent claims that the pre‐industrial English economy experienced significant levels of economic growth, while showing that its benefits were increasingly unevenly distributed between different social groups. In particular, the century after 1550 witnessed spectacular increases in yeoman worth that outstripped inflation by a factor of 10. The relative wealth of yeomen was also underpinned by its more secure distribution over the life cycle which further compounded the differences between them and other social groups.

To cite this article: Judith M. Spicksley (2007) 'Fly with a duck in thy mouth': single women as sources of credit in seventeenth-century England , Social History, 32:2, 187-207,

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This article uses testamentary evidence from Lincoln diocesan court between the 1570s and the 1690s to examine links between inheritance, a rise in money-lending amongst single women, and an increase in the proportion of women that never married. Two trends emerge: first, more fathers after the 1570s chose to bequeath cash to their daughters; second, they were more likely to restrict access to this portion by age rather than marriage. Assisted by a softening of attitudes towards interestbearing lending, these changes offered some single women a measure of financial independence that may have impacted on their marriage decisions.