Walter de Totyngton (Tottington), monk of Bury St Edmunds. de Totyngton (Tottington)...

Petitioners

Walter de Totyngton (Tottington), monk of Bury St Edmunds.

Name(s)

de Totyngton (Tottington), Walter

Addressees

King, Chancellor and council.

Occupation

monk of Bury St Edmunds

Nature of request

Walter de Totyngton states that amongst other liberties it has been granted to the abbey of Bury St Edmunds by the king's progenitors that no tallage shall be demanded from their tenants, the townspeople of Bury St Edmunds, except in case of necessity, and with the express consent of the monks, certain rebels, on pretext of good reasons, but really to maintain the quarrel of the provisor in the Court of Rome, and their other crimes, have levied very large tallages from these tenants. He requests that a writ of the privy seal be sent to the alderman and four or five of the other most prominent rebels in the town to show by their oath before the Barons of the Exchequer the whole sum which they have wrongly levied, as has been said, and also how they have spent it - and it is also to be noted that five leaders and captains of the town, Thomas Halesworth, James Marham, Harvey Lacford, Robert Westbrom and John de Beketon, chaplain, owe a large sum of money to the king as surety of their good behaviour towards the monks, as can be seen from the record in King's Bench and also in Chancery in the rolls for last Easter, and have fully forfeited this during the last riot. He asks that the king inquire into the aforesaid people in order that they might pay the money as soon as they are convicted, as the king has granted that the monks will have half of it.

Nature of endorsement

[None].

Places mentioned

Seint Esmon (Bury St Edmunds), [Suffolk].

People mentioned

Thomas Halesworth

James Marham

Harvey Lacford (Lackford)

Robert Westbrom

John de Beketon, chaplain

Another petition from the same petitioner is SC 8/20/984

For transcript, see no.32 of PRO 31/7/108

For a related petition, see SC 8/20/967