Beinecke MS 195                                                 England, 1576-1579/80
Nathaniel Bacon

     Account book, being a record of Stiffkey mill belonging to
     Nathaniel Bacon (1546?-1622) for the time period 8 December 1576-
     1579/80. Contains weekly statements of George Brigges, John Wilson,
     Thomas Shorten, William Fether, Robert Merkyn, and Henry Corye.

          A. Hassell Smith, ed., The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of
          Stiffkey
     (Norwich, 1979) pp. xxxi, 238.

          Paper (watermarks: unidentified pot), ff. vi (paper) + i
     (parchment of the 13th century) + 21 + i (parchment of the 13th
     century) + x (paper), ca. 305 x 205 mm. Tabular format.
          Collation impossible due to tight binding.
          Written by several individuals in informal cursive scripts.
          Most folios are wrinkled, torn; some have been mended.
          Binding: s. xix. Half green goatskin with green cloth sides, gold-
     and blind-tooled. Leaves of a didactic theological text (Germany, s.
     XIII^^med) bound at beginning and end; probably a bifolium. Parchment;
     291 x 196 (220 x 155) mm., 2 columns, 43 lines; double outer, single
     inner vertical bounding lines, ruled in lead; prickings (slashes) in
     upper, lower, and outer margins. Written above top line in a small
     gothic bookhand. Initials in red or green with penwork designs of the
     other color. Stained, but with little loss of text.

          Written in England 1576-1579/80; the signature of Nathaniel Bacon
     appears in several places, apparently as examiner of entries. Part of
     lot 300, Sotheby's, 19 Dec. 1911. Purchased from Tregaskis in 1913 by
     Philadelphia jurist Samuel W. Pennypacker; his note, dated December
     1913, on first flyleaf: "From 1740 to 1865 four generations of my
     forefathers in the paternal line were millers. Therefore the record of
     a mill, kept in 1577 by the brother of Lord Verulam the great
     Chancellor, and carrying us through its manuscript binding into the
     more distant past, finds its place at Pennypacker's Mills on the
     Perkiomen [creek in Southeastern Pennsylvania]." Presented to Yale in
     1955 by Mrs. Leonard Bacon.

     Bibliography: Faye and Bond, p. 39, no. 195.

     Barbara A. Shailor