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i. Adam Fraunceys
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2009
Extract
Adam Fraunceys rose to become one of the wealthiest and most influential members of the London merchant class of his generation, yet of his background we know virtually nothing. He was born, probably in the first decade of the fourteenth century, in the obscurity of a provincial town or village, perhaps in the north of England, of parents whose names alone we know. His patronymic is of little help in locating his origins. The name, which simply means Frenchman, was common enough throughout England, and there were many men of that name engaged in trade in London itself at this time who were not necessarily of the same family. Indeed, not a few of the Fraunceys living in England in the fourteenth century were also called Adam, a fact which not only adds to our problems of identification but was to cause some embarrassment to the London mercer himself in later life.
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References
3 BL Harl(eian) Ch(arters) 79.G.38.
4 CLRO Will of Adam Fraunceys enrolled in Hustings HR 103/79.
5 Below, Fraunceys Cartulary (hereafter F) 60.
6 BL Harl. Ch. 79.G.38, dated 21 March 1368, mentions Robert, Thomas, Joan and Maud as deceased children of Adam. Robert was mentioned as his father's heir in charters until July 1362 (CCR 1360–4, 411), and presumably died between these dates. No other mention is made of Thomas or his two sisters, who may all have died very young.
7 There is a reference to an Adam Fraunceys who was master of a leper hospital at Eye in Westminster in 1337, and a passing reference to a man of that name accused of affray in London in 1305, but neither can be said with much conviction to be connected with the merchant's family (CPR 1334–8, 474Google Scholar, Calendar of Trailbaston Trials under Commissions of 1305 and 1306, ed. Pugh, R.B. (London, 1975), no. 193.)Google Scholar Given the high death rate among children even of the greater citizens, the city was dependent on large numbers of immigrants to support the population levels, many of whom were children sent away from home to apprenticeships in London, (Thrupp, S.L., The Merchant Class of Medieval London (Chicago, 1948), 200, 206–7).Google Scholar
8 There was, for example, a tenant of the manor of Buckenham in Norfolk in 1306 named Adam Fraunceys, and references follow in 1308 to Robert and Juliana Fraunceys, the former described as a free tenant, the latter as villein of the same manor (CCR 1302–7, 475Google Scholar; 1307–13, 61). Isolated references to men called Adam Fraunceys occur in a variety of locations. In 1318 John and Adam Fraunceys were among several men, including William, abbot of Maimesbury and one of his monks, accused of robbing Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, and assaulting his men at Lechlade, on the borders of Gloucester, Oxford and Wiltshire (CPR 1317–21, 295Google Scholar). In the same part of the country, the abbot of Cirencester received a pardon from the king in October 1315 for acquiring from Richard de Mynty and Adam Fraunceys certain lands and tenements in Minety, Wiltshire (CPR 1313–7, 364Google Scholar). And earlier, on 2 June 1302, Adam, son of Thomas Fraunceys, was pardoned for his part in causing the death of William Pyncheron in Markfield, Leicestershire (CPR 1301–7, 37Google Scholar).
9 CPR 1358–61, 35, 472.Google Scholar
10 Ibid., 35.
11 Will enrolled in Commissary Court of London, Reg. 1, f. 1. It is possible that Richard Fraunceys of Tathewell was the mercer of the same name to whom Adam Fraunceys granted the reversion of tenements of Simon Fraunceys in 1371 (CLRO Husting Rolls HR 99/154). See below.
12 For his civic career, see Beaven, i, 385.
13 LBD, 150.
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30 PRO E122/158/37.
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34 PRO Ancient Correspondence, SC1/41/200. The exact number of merchants at this meeting was not given, but apart from Fraunceys and Bury four were named, Simon Mordon, stockfishmonger, William Walworth, fishmonger, Richard Preston, grocer and John Philpot, grocer.
35 PRO Wardrobe Accounts, E101/381/9 m.2; E101/382/2 mm.6–8; E 101/383/9 mm.1–2; E101/383/6 mm.1–2; E101/385/1 mm.3, 5–6; E101/385/8 mm.3–5; E101/385/11 m. 2; E101/386/5 mm.4–6, 9–12. I am most grateful to Anne Sutton of the Mercers' Company for these references and for allowing me to see her research notes on these and other topics relating to her work on the early history of the company.
36 Calendar of the Letters of the Mayor and Corporation of the City of London, 1350–70, ed. Shaipe, R.R. (London, 1885), 61.Google Scholar
37 CPR 1367–70, 132Google Scholar. Beaumont was a knight from the East Midlands who possessed substantial and widely scattered lands mainly in the counties of Leicester and Lincoln (CIPM xii, no. 321).
38 The Year Books of the Reign of Edward III 18–19, ed. Pike, L. O., (London 1905), 364, 442–53.Google Scholar
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40 CLRO Recognizance Rolls 10, m.3r.
41 Calendar of the Register of Edward the Black Prince, 4 vols. (London, 1930–1933) i, 65; ii, 79, 58; iv, 284, 327, 402.Google Scholar
42 Hatcher, J., ‘A Diversified Economy: Later Medieval Cornwall’, EconHR, 2nd Ser., xxii (1969), 208–27.Google Scholar
43 Ibid., 214.
44 See O'Connor, , ‘Finance, Diplomacy and Politics’, Table I.Google Scholar
45 P32, 35–6. See also CCR 1349–54, 617.Google Scholar
46 See below, 1 (ii).
47 For examples of the impact of the Black Death on the provision of labour services and the economic effects suffered by the larger abbeys, see Mate, Mavis, ‘Agrarian Economy after the Black Death: the Manors of Canterbury Cathedral Priory 1348–1391’, EconHR, 2nd Ser., xxxvii (1984), 341–54, esp. 347, 351Google Scholar, Harvey, Barbara, Westminster Abbey and Its Estates in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1977), esp. 257–60Google Scholar, Raftis, J.A., The Estates of Ramsey Abbey (Toronto, 1957), 251, 257Google Scholar, and Page, F.M., The Estates of Crowland Abbey (Cambridge, 1934), 127.Google Scholar
48 CCR 1343–6, 108, 377, 655Google Scholar; 1346–9, 147, 158.
49 Ibid., 495. Simon Symeon held extensive lands in Northamptonshire and Lincoln shire, as well as manors and small parcels of land in Huntingdonshire, Yorkshire, Wiltshire and Hampshire (CIPM, xvi, nos. 630–7). He was known to both Adam Fraunceys and John Pyel. Symeon had lands in Irthlingborough, Cranford and Finedon, Northants., all places where Pyel himself had property, and in 1381 he granted the manor of Cransley, which Pyel had held until 1371, to the dean and chapter of St Mary's Leicester (Gibbons, A., Early Lincoln Wills 1280–1547 (Lincoln, 1888), 78)Google Scholar. It was Symeon who, with John Curteys, granted som to Pyel's wife, Joan, which had been bequeathed in Pyel's will. See below, 32 n. 162.
50 It was formally renounced in the codicil to Pyel's will, enrolled in the register of John Buckingham, bishop of Lincoln, Lincoln Archive Office, Episcopal Register xii, fo. 245r.
51 See 2 (i) below.
52 See table below.
53 22 May 1345 (CCR 1343–6, 580Google Scholar). Later Engayne, a prominent member of the Cambridgeshire gentry, J.P. for the county and sheriff and escheator for Cambridge and Huntingdon, was assessed to provide ten men at arms and ten archers for the king's service in August 1346 (CFR 1337–47, 498).Google Scholar
54 CCR 1343–6, 366Google Scholar; 1346–9, 150, 246.
55 CPR 1358–61, 582Google Scholar. For Fraunceys's relations with Bohun, see O'Connor, , ‘Fraunceys and Pyel: perceptions of status’Google Scholar. Brian was very much a household knight, and a useful contact at court for Fraunceys. See Given-Wilson, C., The Royal Household and the King's Affinity (Yale, 1986), 156–8.Google Scholar
56 See 2 (i).
57 Between July 1348 and the end of 1349 alone at least thirteen aldermen are known to have died (Beaven, i, 380–6).
58 Pamela Nightingale has suggested that Nicholas Brembre and John Philpot, both men of sufficient means and standing to have been elected aldermen in the 1360s, were too preoccupied with their own affairs to become involved in city government, at least until it suited them (‘Capitalists, Crafts and Constitutional Change in Late Fourteenth-Century London’ in Past and Present, no. 124 (1989), 14).Google Scholar
59 It is even conceivable that Pyel foresaw trouble and had himself elected in an attempt to deflect it. See O'Connor, , ‘Finance, Diplomacy and Polities’.Google Scholar
60 LBG, 216, 281Google Scholar. For the background to these disturbances see Nightingale, , ‘Capitalists, Crafts and Constitutional Change’, 5–6.Google Scholar
61 The most famous example being the factional disputes between John of Northampton and Nicholas Brembre in the early part of Richard II's reign. There have been several attempts to explain the increase in civil disturbance in London in the 1370s and 1380s, notably by Unwin, G., The Gilds and Companies of London, new edn. (London, 1963)Google Scholar, Bird, Ruth, The Turbulent London of Richard II (London, 1949)Google Scholar and most recently by Pamela Nightingale, ‘Capitalists, Crafts and Constitutional Change’, which contains a brief summary of the historiography of urban conflict in England in the fourteenth century.
62 See Holmes, G.A., The Good Parliament (Oxford, 1975), 108–26Google Scholar, and Bird, , Turbulent London, 30–43Google Scholar. See also Barron, C. M., Revolt in London: 11th to 15th June 1381 (Museum of London, 1981).Google Scholar
63 See O'Connor, , ‘Finance, Diplomacy and Politics’.Google Scholar
64 See above.
65 CPR 1348–50, 560Google Scholar. Two other mercers also went with them, William Causton and Thomas de Langeton.
66 See above.
67 CCR 1364–8, 408.Google Scholar
68 LBF, 48Google Scholar. He was a representative of the ‘laners’ or woolmongers at an assembly of guilds at Guildhall in 1351 (ibid., 239).
69 LBF, 286.Google Scholar
70 CLRO Letter Book F, fos. cxxi–cxxii; PRO Issue Rolls, E403/338, 339. See 3 below.
71 CLRO Husting Rolls HR 75/51, 52; LBF, 200.Google Scholar
72 Creaton, , ‘Mercers' Wardens' Accounts’, i, 149.Google Scholar
73 PRO Issue Rolls, E403/388, 8 and 19 February. For further discussion of this spate of credit extension on the part of the Crown to a small group of London merchants, see O'Connor, , ‘Finance, Diplomacy and Politics’.Google Scholar
74 CCR 1339–41, 469.Google Scholar
75 CCR 1349–54, 180–1, 186, 197, 256, 289 etc.Google Scholar
76 His partners in the loan were the wealthy German merchant Tiddemann de Limbergh, Richard Causton, London citizen and mercer, and Thomas de Notingham, another Londoner.
77 1348, 1358, 1366 (Beaven i, 386).
78 Thrupp, , Merchant Class, 354.Google Scholar
79 CWCH, ii, 117–8Google Scholar; Heales, A., ‘Some Account of John Lovekyn’, Trans, of the London and Middlesex Arch. Soc. vi (1890), 362.Google Scholar
80 CPR 1350–54, 362, 435–6Google Scholar. Fraunceys himself was preparing to found his own chantry college in the city at this time.
81 CFR 1356–68, 158, 250, 386Google Scholar; PRO Customs Accounts E122/70/18 m.6.
82 Beaven, , i, 389Google Scholar; VCH London i, ed. W. Page (1909), 577Google Scholar. The college of St Michael's, Crooked Lane, was really a joint effort between Lovekyn, who rebuilt the church, and Walworth, who added the choir and side chapels.
83 Beaven, , i, 250.Google Scholar
84 LBF, 142Google Scholar. Thomas Garton the elder, who had died c. 1340, was the son of the alderman, Hugh Garton (d. 1327), and the brother of John Garton, both mercers, and was almost certainly a mercer himself (ibid., 45; CWCH, i, 326Google Scholar; Thrupp, , Merchant Class, 345Google Scholar). His wife Idonia died six years later, and this guardianship seems to be an example of the mercers' stepping in to act on behalf of one of their number. One Thomas Garton, possibly the son of the orphan Thomas, became apprenticed to the mercer Robert Haryngeye in 1391 (Creaton, , ‘Mercers' Wardens' Accounts’, i, 155).Google Scholar
85 CWCH, i, 599, 699, ii, 40.Google Scholar
86 LBG, 185, 289.Google Scholar
87 CLRO, Husting Rolls, HR 99/154.
88 Ibid., HR 100/38, 100/119, 102/3. See 2 (iii) below.
89 LBH, 170Google Scholar. VCH Essex vi, 262Google Scholar. Paul Salesbury nursed a bitter grievance that some of his father's London property and his own inheritance had been unlawfully appropriated during his minority. Accordingly, on Friday 14 june 1381, just two weeks after his guardian had relinquished her responsibility for him, he seized the opportunity provided by the insurrection in London to repossess two of his father's houses in the city which had been leased to two aldermen, William Baret and Hugh Fastolf, grocers, forcing them to transfer seisin to him and acknowledge him as their lord. Salesbury was pardoned for his offences on 22 July. (Patent Roll 5 Richard II, part i, m. 31, printed in translation in The Peasants' Revolt of 1381, ed. Dobson, R.B. (London, 1983), 228–30.) He died in 1400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
90 CCR 1364–8, 127.Google Scholar
91 Abbrev. Rot. Orig., 325.Google Scholar
92 CWCH i, 638.Google Scholar
93 F130; CWCH i, 673.Google Scholar
94 F994.
95 CWCH ii, 53Google Scholar. This residue, amounting at least to £44 133 4d, caused Fraunceys some trouble, but he repaid the confidence shown in appointing him executor. Since the regulations stipulated that no priest could be paid more than 5 marks pa for saying masses for a deceased person's soul, Fraunceys found it impossible to find anyone to do so for Oxenford. In the end he distributed the sum among among a number of religious houses in London deputing them to have masses celebrated and prayers said for Oxenford's soul (Riley, H.T., Memorials of London and London Life in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, 1868), 310–2).Google Scholar
96 Register of Simon Langham, Archbishop of Canterbury (Canterbury and York Society, 1956), 340–1Google Scholar; CWCH, ii 143.Google Scholar
97 For Malwayn and Halden see 1 (ii) below. For Langeton and Favelor, see 2 (ii).
98 Three Dephams, William, Raulyn and John were mentioned as members of the Mercers' Company in 1347 (Creaton, ‘Mercers' Wardens' Accounts’, i, 148–9).
99 O'Connor, , ‘Finance, Diplomacy and Polities’.Google Scholar
100 LBH, 108.Google Scholar
101 CLRO Husting Rolls, HR 103/79.
102 CFR 1369–77, 323Google Scholar. For a biography of Sir Adam Fraunceys, see The House of Commons 1386–1421 iii, 118–20Google Scholar. I am most grateful to Dr Carole Rawcliffe for allowing me to see a copy in advance.
103 Thomas Tudenham was the son of William Tudenham, mercer, one of the wardens named with Adam Fraunceys in the account book of 1347. He predeceased his father in 1372, and Adam junior married his widow, Margaret, shortly afterwards (ibid.).