I'd agree with these suggestions arthurk.
Just to say 'manservant' is written man servante'.
Interesting the three other words you were stumped on Matt have 'double ll' in them - 'phillipe', burlle. and Serll'.
John Cowper, the second witness, spells his alias name with just one 'n' - 'Stening'. Or at least the scribe does. It seems to be in the same writing as the rest of the will, although it doesn't say he has made his mark.
I'm guessing John Cowper the witness was the testator's son?
I see this scribe is not concerned with consistence of spelling even for the same word even just in these few snippets!
He then spells the testator's name 'Stennying'.
And one of the overseers is 'John Banisster', presumably related to the 'Roberte Banester', his daughter's son. Possibly her husband.
Hi
I obviously either just missed "manservant" or [more likely] put a error in my original post. I was looking at two wills at the time and I can see quite clearly that this says "manservant" so I don't know how I thought it was kinsman lol!
I agree with Banester and Bannister being related.
As for the names Cowper and Stenning, well that's a whole other story. First there are people named Cowper [as well as Cooper/Coper and Couper], then there are some named Stenning/Stening [both with or without an e at the end], Steyning/Styenning [again with or without an e] or Stenyng/Stennyng lol! Oh and there are some people named "Cowper als Stenning" and some named "Stenning als Cowper" [with Stenning spelt various ways] and some "Cowper als Butcher" as well.
In some wills the testator is indexed as Cowper but describes themselves as "Cowper als Stenning" while some people indexed as Stenning [or variation] describes themselves as "Stenning als....."
As you can see it gets very complicated trying to sort these people out. I have several branches of research into this name but it is quite hard to put them all together.
I guess the use of "als Stennig" etc means an alternative name [ie Cower otherwise Stenning] but if that's so then tracking down the correct christening and parents for each person I'm researching is like looking for the preverbiale needle in a haystack lol!
I just hope wills help sort this family out, they are my only real clues.
Matt
