When is a P not a P? another example - COMPLETED

[Westfrem]

Hi,

Can anyone help with these entries from the 1540s?
My problem is I am no longer sure about the 'P's in this document!!

Top line has a William - and I thought his name started with a 'P' but the bottom entry in the excerpt clearly has a Joane Perry - with the capital P. and again the spouses name starts with the mystery 'P'.

Obviously not a P then - can anyone help?

Thanks

[BridgetM]

Is it a brevigraph, ie P[ar] or P[er]?

[Westfrem]

From the same section:

Check out the 'p' in April. Looks the same. I know there were a lot of inconsistencies in 16th Century writing but I can't understand why the same scribe would use uppercase P for some surnames & lowercase 'P' for others. Looks like it is the same surname as well (both lowercase incidents).

Any ideas?  Does anyone know of names that would begin like that? I'm thinking along the lines of 'ap' to denote family?

[Old Bristolian]

I think BridgetM is correct. The name is something like PERMYTER or PARMYTER - possibly Parminter?

Steve

[horselydown86]

I agree with Bridget & Steve.

The key is that the downstroke of the lower-case "p" is crossed over itself (compare to the one in "April", which isn't).

It's a standard brevigraph indicating a combination of letters (pre/per pro/por pra/par are the usual ones).

The writer can't make a brevigraph with the capital "P" as used in Perry so he's gone lower-case to do so.

I also think PARMYTER is likely, certainly for the top one.

[Westfrem]

Thanks all,

Hadn't considered a brevigraph but have been transcribing the name as Parmyter/Parmiter so it should have come as no surprise.

Thanks again,

Val