The Black Death and downstream expansion of I-Y33765 -- Part 2: I-Y33765 in Somerset after 1348-9

The decrease in population caused by the Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century was profound.  Regeneration was very gradual and there was a lag of several centuries before population numbers began to increase (Figure 2 in the previous post 18 December 2020).  It is my belief that within the English arm of the I-Y33765 clade its relatively late expansion at the level of I-Y33767, TMRCA 1502, is coincident with this gradual recovery in the English population.

During the immediate aftermath of the Black Death no documentary evidence has been found for the Clement family in Somerset other than the record of a juror named John Clement at Wincanton, 2 July, 1427.  To give this statement context, between 1399 and 1447 there were 4088 named jurors at courts held in the county of Somerset while in the 1327 Lay Subsidy Roll for the county there are five Clement names out of 10751 taxpayers listed.  Based on these figures we can judge Clement individuals were about one in two thousand of the Somerset population before the Black Death and about one in four thousand, some fifty to one hundred years later.  Hence the reduction in Somerset Clement folk caused by the plague seems to have mirrored the fall in the total English population, where typically the decline is thought to have been about 50% (see Figure 2 in previous post).

So at present, the earliest record that can be conjectured as I-Y33765 Clement activity in Chew Valley during the "plague centuries" is in the parish of Compton Dando, a few miles northeast of Temple Cloud where, in 1518, a dispute between members of the family has survived in proceedings at Chancery.  This litigation is between plaintiffs, Thomas Clement of Compton Dando, husbandman, and Johan , his wife and two defendants, John Rede, husbandman and Isabel Clement, widow, both of Burnett circa 1518 (C1/487/1 & C1/487/2, Chancery Proceedings, The National Archives, Kew). Their argument was over two manors, "Suardis" and "Shewardis" and a considerable associated acreage of farmland, that was leased by the plaintiffs. Unfortunately we get no idea from this Chancery record about the relationship between Thomas and Isabel although it seems clear they were very likely related.  Possibly, Isobel's deceased husband was the father or maybe a brother of Thomas?  In the Lay Subsidy Roll of 1522-24 Thomas Clement "of Wyke" in Compton Dando is assessed with his son Richard.  Richard must have been born at least 15-20 years earlier, so circa 1502-5.  Hence Thomas must have married his wife, Johan, circa 1500 and so have himself been born about 1475. Anyway, from this court case we can conjecture that a century and a half after the Black Death members of a Clement family, very possibly descended from those Clement kin who lived at Temple Cloud in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, were now thriving in the parishes of Keynsham Hundred within Chew Valley.

Certainly, based on TMRCA estimates (Table 1, Part 1) the downstream expansion of the English arm of I-Y33765 happened decades after the Black Death and most likely during this recovery period (Figure 2, Part 1). For example the Y33767 mutation, which has been confirmed in four Clement men representing three male lineages, has a TMRCA of 1502 (Table 1, Part 1).  Using the evidence from the 1522-24 and 1524-5 Lay Subsidy Rolls plus the 1569 Certificate of Musters (Figure 1) which each show a similar distribution of individuals named Clement in the parishes of Keynsham Hundred during the sixteenth century it seems almost certain that this area of the lower Chew Valley was at that time a center for family expansion.  The known genealogy of Clement men derived (+) for I-Y33767 would seem to support this (Figure 1).  

Figure 1: Earliest locations for documented I-Y33767 Clement genealogy in Chew Valley, Somerset, England, and the relationship to documented Clement localities before and after the Black Death.  The Tudor Lay Subsidy Rolls 1522-1525 and Certificate of Musters 1569 each suggest the primary area of Clement expansion in the early sixteenth century was in the parishes of Keynsham Hundred in the lower Chew Valley.  At present it seems to me likely that the Y33767 mutation formed in a Clement man living in this area at some time during the two centuries after the Black Death 1348-9.  The earliest event linked to the I-Y33767 B742594 Clements lineage is the marriage at Compton Dando of Francis Clement and Katherine Peacocke, 29 July 1663.  

Downstream from I-Y33767 two of the three Clement lineages are derived for the BZ4354 marker. At this level, both FTDNA and YFull prefer to use FT314945 as the phylogenetic marker to define this branch but unlike BZ4354, FT314945 is outside the CombBED regions and so may seem less suitable. 

As I have explained earlier, before the Black Death the documented Clement/s locations are centred in an area where the boundaries of Chew, Chewton & Keynsham Hundreds meet near the parish of Cameley, Temple Cloud (1273-1347) and the parish of Farmborough (1334). The genealogies of the four men who are derived for I-BZ4354 originate in parishes within Chew Hundred. From the mid-sixteenth century onward there is documentary evidence for Clement/s individuals throughout the parishes of Chew Valley, from Keynsham, Englishcombe and Bath in the east to Butcombe and East Harptree in the west.  The north south distribution was from Keynsham and Norton Malreward in the north, across the eastern Mendip Hills to Emborough, Milton and Doulting in the south (Figure 2). 

 Figure 2: Earliest documented location for I-BZ4354 (I-FT314945) in Clement IN82043 genealogy at Chew Magna circa 1750.

At the moment we can only be sure that the I-BZ4354 mutation divides the Chew Valley Clement family.  In the future, it would be helpful to understand the geographic distribution of Clement/s men who are derived (+) for BZ4354 mutation against those who are ancestral (-).  At present only one of the five Clement/s  men who are derived for I-Y33767 is ancestral for BZ4354. This BZ4354- man (B742594) has documented ancestry from the parish of Compton Dando.  Using this very limited evidence my hypothesis is that men from families originating in parishes to the west of the Bristol to Wells (A37) road, which divides the I-Y33767 area north to south, may be derived and those from families with ancestry in parishes to the east of that old highway are ancestral.  This very arbitrary idea certainly needs more research and I have been trying to locate Clement/s men who are likely descendants of the family of Ephraim and Ann Clement of Butcombe parish circa 1725 who may wish to test their Y-DNA.  It seems to me this family originate at the western extremity of Chew Valley and so are, if my theory has any foundation, likely to be I-BZ4354 + .   

In conclusion and to summarize my thoughts; it seems to me that, based on the documentary evidence and the history of the plague in north east Somerset, it is likely that some Clement/s family members from Temple Cloud or nearby settlements in Chewton hundred moved north-east into parishes of Keynsham hundred.  This expansion happened at a time contemporary with, or some years after the Black Death.  Church registers and other contemporary sources confirm that descendants of these incomers prospered in the villages which cluster along the banks of the River Chew between Keynsham and Pensford. Our results from genetic testing of descendants and TMRCA estimations indicate that the man in whom the I-Y33765 SNP formed lived among these folk probably at the end of the fifteenth century.  Some generations later, and perhaps as late as the first half of the seventeenth century, men from these villages possibly moved upstream, along the Chew and, in one of these chaps, the I-BZ4353 mutation formed in Chew Hundred.

All these speculations concern those men who moved northward out of Chewton Hundred but, the 1569  Certificate of Musters and parish registers confirm that some Clement families remained in Chewton during the "plague centuries" while others perhaps drifted south towards the towns of Wells and Shepton Mallet.  As yet we have no genetic evidence for this group that radiated south.  Hopefully this situation may be remedied before too long.