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ii. John Pyel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2009
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John Pyel was a Northamptonshire man from the village of Irthling-borough, lying on the upper bank of the River Nene four miles northeast of Wellingborough. Situated on the principal trade route from Northampton to Peterborough, and indeed to the port of King's Lynn, the village was well-placed to transport commercial produce, which in the fourteenth century consisted principally of hides for the leather industry and wool. The surrounding area was also likely to have been rich in cereals and other arable crops. John Pyel inherited a plot of land in the village from his father, John senior, in 1348, and, although by now settled in London, he began from about this date to build up an extensive estate in this part of Northamptonshire. He certainly showed special concern for Irthlingborough. It was at his prompting that Peterborough abbey was granted a licence in 1375 to establish the parish church of St Peter as a college and it was to St Peter's that he granted the remainder of his estate and in its porch that he was to be buried. He also made bequests in his will to both parish churches in the village and provided for thirteen crosses to be set up there and for repairs to the bridge and highways.
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References
104 P103.
105 CPR 1374–7, 72; Pyel's will, Register of John Buckingham, for. 244r-245v. See also the earlier and much shorter will enrolled in the Court of Husting, CLRO HR 110/117. The second parish in Irthlingborough was that of All Saints, considerably smaller than St Peters's, with a dwindling number of parishioners to support it. The church, which was in ruins by the middle of the sixteenth century, was situated next to the manor house of Bataille fee, one of the two fees of Irthlingborough manor held by John Pyel, which was probably his residence there (VCH Northampton iii, ed. Page, William (London, 1930), 207).Google Scholar
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109 See Holt, Richard, The Mills of Medieval England (Oxford, 1988), 77–8Google Scholar. Pyel must either have farmed the mill from Peterborough abbey, or have been an independent mill-owner (ibid., 54–69). In the latter case, the abbey evidently regained control of the mill by 1321.
110 Register of Geoffrey of Crowland, abbot 1299–1321, ‘The White Book’, BL Cotton Ms. Vespasian E xxii, fo. 70; the Book of Walter of Whittlesey, BL Add. Ms. 39758, fos 123v-124.
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113 Edmund King observes the growth of entrepreneurship among abbey tenants at the end of the thirteenth and in the early fourteenth centuries, and cites two examples of tenants of abbey land in Irthlingborough at this time increasing their holdings and building on land probably for the purposes of leasing on the village land market. These men were likely to have been substantial freeholders or already possessed of customary land, a category of tenant the Pyels might well have belonged to (Peterborough Abbey, 119–21).Google Scholar
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122 P111, 152, 62.
123 In his will Pyel left liturgical texts, mostly breviaries, missals and psalters, and a bible to both parish churches and to the college when it was completed. He left his other books of an unspecified nature to the college. Nicholas Orme believes that the merchant class was being drawn towards works of literature in leisure hours. The commonest books to survive in townsmen's wills were, however, liturgical or other devotional works and of the twenty-three books which William Walworth bequeathed in his will, most were works of theology or canon law (English Schools in the Middle Ages (London, 1973), 46).Google Scholar
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147 Below, 2 (i).
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161 CLRO HR 110/117.
162 These terms were fulfilled rather earlier than stipulated when Simon Symeon and John Curteys of Wemington granted to Joan 50 marks annual rental from lands which they held of Henry Pyel (CCR 1385–9, 143).Google Scholar
163 Henry Pyel also left her £10 in his will. There is no other reference to Margaret Joye.
164 Above 1 (i).
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168 The Campions were an old Irthlingborough family (Carte Nativorum, no. 555). John Campion was associated in the purchase of some land in and around the Addingtons, Northants., in 1351, for which Pyel alone paid (P107).
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173 Lambeth Palace, Episcopal Register of Thomas Arundel ii, f. 161.
174 For a fuller description of the life of Joan Pyel, see Barron, C.M. and Sutton, Anne, eds., Widows of Medieval London c.1300–c.1500 (forthcoming).Google Scholar
175 CCR 1385–9, 144.Google Scholar
176 VCH Northampton iii, 256Google Scholar. Register of William Genge, abbot of Peterborough, BL Add. Ms. 25288, fo. 44d.
177 Reg. William Genge, fo. 8v.
178 Pyel Cartulary, fo. 3v. John Hadley, Thomas Rede and Roger Lychefeld were granted the farm of Cranford manor March 1405, by letter patent dated Michaelmas 1404 (CPR 1405–8, 121Google Scholar). Roger Lychefeld held court there in May 1405 and November 1407, although by 1409 the court at Cranford was held by William Hoddleston, first husband of Elizabeth Pyel, Nicholas's daughter (NRO Court Rolls for Cranford BQ, 13.61).
179 CIMisc., vii, 179Google Scholar; Reg. William Genge, fos. 10r, 44v. John Pyel was a minor in 1406, according to the register, but does not reappear after that date.
180 VCH Northants iii, 208–9, 256.Google Scholar
181 Ibid., 256.