Johannes de Farnedale
c1303 to c1372
A Saddler made freeman of York in
1363
The webpage
of Johannes
de Farendale includes a
chronology and reference to source material.
The
Saddler
John was
probably born in about 1303 and it is likely that he was the son of de Johanne de
Farndale who had left Farndale for Egton
and Rosedale, but later returned Farndale,
possibly as its second miller. If that is right, then it seems likely that John
would have been born in the agricultural lands of Danby Dale.
John de
Farndale was released from excommunication and prison at Pickering Castle on 23
February 1324. To the Most Serene Prince, His Lord Edward, by the Grace of
God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine, William by Divine
permission Archbishop of York, Primate of England, Greetings in him to serve
who is to reign for ever. We make known to Your Royal Excellency, by these
presents that William de Lede of Saxton, John of Farndale and John Brand
of Howon, our Parishioners, lately at our ordinary
invocation, according to the custom of your Realm, were bound by sentence of
greater excommunication and, contemptuous of the power of the Church, were committed
to Your Majesty’s Prison for contumacy and offences punishable by imprisonment;
and have humbly done penance to God and to the Church, wherefore they have been
deemed worthy to obtain from us in legal form the benefit of absolution. May it
therefore please Your Majesty that we re-admit the
said William, John and John to the bosom of the Church as faithful
members thereof and order their liberation from the said prison. May God preserve
you for His Church and the people.’ Given at Thorpe, next York, 9 April 1324.
His prior offence is unknown, but seems likely to have
been an ecclesiastical offence.
In 1327,
Johanne de Farndale paid taxes of 2s 1d in the Lay Subsidy at Crofton de
Artoft.
The Lay Subsidy of
1327 was a flat rate tax of one twentieth of the value of each person’s
moveable goods, hence the tax is also known as the Twentieth. The majority of moveable goods were cattle, sheep and crops
and therefore the tax fell harder on the rural population than it did on those
in the major towns. The list of names, the Roll, was drawn up and sent to the
Exchequer in Westminster for approval. The assessment took some time to complete and it was not until between February and June of
1328 that the money was actually collected. The tax was ordered very soon after
Edward III was crowned at the age of only 14, but therefore under the effective
rule of Mortimer and his lover Queen Isabella, Edward III’s mother. This Lay
Subsidy was one of the earliest pieces of legislation, to raise money to renew
hostilities against Scotland which Edward II had pursued unsuccessfully for
some years.
John was
also reference to a deed on 27 June 1327.
He paid
another 2s at Crofton cum Hartoft in another Lay Subsidy of 1333.
The
references to Crofton de Artoft and Crofton cum Hartoft must refer to Cropton
at the south end of Rosedale, and Hartoft End, a little way up the dale. So by 1327, John was in Rosedale. This makes sense since we
know that his farther, John, had six acres of land at Cropton in Rosedale in
1314, where he grew oats. Whilst his father seems to have returned to Farndale
as its second miller by 1323, John Junior seems to have remained in
neighbouring Rosedale.
The
following year, 1334, was a year when the
Eyre Court heard cases from the preceding years. John, the son of John the
miller, was listed as one of the mainpernors of Adam,
son of Simon
the miller, who had been indicted for hunting. A mainpernor
was a person who gave a guarantee that a prisoner would attend court. It is
likely that Adam was John’s cousin. It is not obvious why John gave the
guarantee for Adam’s attendance at Pickering Castle, since Adam’s father Simon
was the wealthy main miller of Farndale.
He seems to
have signed a surety on 23 August 1338 relative to another Lay Subsidy.
On 16 April
1336, John de Farndale of Hovingham took on a debt of £8 from Thomas de Wrelton, a chaplain, before Henry de Belton, Mayor of York
and William Gra, his clerk. The first term of the debt ended only a month later on 19 May 1336. John seems to have been living at
Hovingham by then, some 20 kilometres south of Farndale, half
way to York. He seems to have been taking on substantial credit in a
transaction which seems to have been undertaken at York. £8 equates to about
£6,000 in today’s money, the equivalent
value of about 11 horses or 21 cows. It seems likely that John was taking
on debt to set up a new business.
At some
point after this, John became a saddler in York. In 1363, after he
had presumably established himself in that trade, since he became a freeman of
the City of York.
There were
two types of medieval guilds. Trade guilds regulated the activities of a particular
trade or craft, while religious guilds were for the spiritual benefit of their
members. In York the weavers were first recorded trade guild in 1163, paying
the King £10 a year for the privilege.
By 1180 glovers, saddlers and hosiers had grouped together, and
butchers, drapers and vintners had their own guilds at the end of the 13th
century.
Medieval
saddles, built from leather thick and resistant, were often richly decorated
and designed to offer comfort and safety to riders. Saddlery craftsmen in the Middle Ages
used specific methods to manufacture saddles and saddlery accessories. Making
leather required skills such as precise cutting of pieces, strong stitching
with linen or silk threads, and the use of specialized tools such as awls,
punches and dies to embellish the leather. Knights attached great importance to their saddles
(equestrian leather) and equipment, often regarding them as valuable objects
handed down from generation to generation.
His son was Johannes de Farndall, who also became a freeman of York.
How
does Johannes de Farnedale relate to the modern
family? It is not
possible to be accurate about the early family tree,
before the recording of births, marriages and deaths in parish records, but
we do have a lot of medieval material including important clues on
relationships between individuals. The matrix of the family before about 1550
is the most probable structure based on the available evidence. If it is
accurate, Johannes de Farnedale, was related to the
thirteenth century ancestors of the modern Farndale family, and his
descendants were the York Line
and the individuals who settled in Doncaster from whom the modern Farndales
might descend. |
or
Go Straight to Act 9 – the Merchants of York