Speaker: Dr. Marianne Wilson (York, The National Archives)

Wills are fascinating historical sources and they can provide rich insights into how individuals wanted to be remembered. Sir Thomas Burgh (c.1430-1496), a Lincolnshire knight, is perhaps best known for building Gainsborough Old Hall, one of the best-preserved surviving medieval manor houses in the country. He became Edward IV’s right-hand man and one of the county’s key participants in the Wars of the Roses; an important military and political figure, with influence in the royal court. When he made his last will and testament in 1496, he had survived several regime changes and amassed a significant amount of resource. This talk will focus on Burgh’s self-fashioning through the text of his will. Burgh was not unusual among higher status gentry men in making lavish post-mortem provision for himself and his family. More unique are the lengthy descriptions and pedantically precise details attempting to exercise tight controls over how he specifically wished to be commemorated. This sheds light on the nature and purpose of wills in the creation of a post-mortem identity.

Breif Bio:

Dr Marianne Wilson has been Communications Officer and a Trustee for the Lincoln Record Society since 2012. She is currently a research associate at the University of York working on the AHRC funded project ‘The Northern Way: The Archbishops of York and the North of England, 1304-1405’. Prior to this, she worked as assistant editor for medieval studies at Boydell & Brewer and coordinator of the Reformation programme at The National Archives 2016-2018. Her own research explores the records of religious communities, and also gender and identity in late medieval wills. She is working on a monograph investigating the community, networks and neighbourhood of late medieval Lincoln Cathedral and its close.