Subject: Indentures
Period: 1781 (dated)
Publication:
Color: Hand Color
Size:
21.5 x 13.8 inches
54.6 x 35.1 cm
This vellum indenture serves as testament to a one-year lease of a "messauage, burgage or tenement" in the amount of five shillings, signed August 17, 1781. The lease is between John Helmsley, a master mariner, and Mary Crosyer, both from Bridlington in the County of York. The indenture includes a red wax seal and a tax stamp.
The top of the indenture is cut in a jagged ("toothed") line, as was the common practice with indentures. The legal contract was duplicated on a single sheet, and then the copies were separated by a jagged edge, so that the two pieces could be fit together again to verify authenticity.
References:
Condition: B+
Light soiling.
