ABSTRACT
The journey of life for William Death, yeoman, freeholder, copyholder, subtenant and householder of Earls Colne, had ended. A solemn funeral procession including Widow Death, their children William, John and Elizabeth, relatives and friends accompanied Death's final rite of passage along the Coggeshall Road through the Earls Colne landscape. The Death family and their descendants and extended family in law were to hold Mitchells from 1646 until 1712. The full extent of Death's land occupancy in the Earls Colne landscape goes unrecorded in the manorial court rolls and rentals. Family networks also came into play with the Death family's landholding and reveals the role family networks played, as land was often sublet from or to relatives from the extended family. The court rolls provide the main source of information for only the copyhold lands that the Death family held in Earls Colne, and the revival and frequency of the courts was the direct result of the Harlakenden family's residency.
