Thomas de Lisle, Bishop of Ely de Lisle Thomas King and council Bishop of Ely The...

Petitioners

Thomas de Lisle, Bishop of Ely

Name(s)

de Lisle, Thomas

Addressees

King and council

Occupation

Bishop of Ely

Nature of request

The Bishop of Ely states that Richard Spink and William his brother, his neifs and fugitives of his church of Ely, of his manor of Doddington, have purchased various oyers and terminers against him in Norfolk, claiming that he besieged them in Norwich and committed other grave trespasses, in order to become enfranchised through people of Norfolk, who know nothing of their birth. Since such actions could not be committed without people knowing about them, he asks the king and council to seek information about this from peers, knights and other good people, and if the suit is found to be false, that the oyers and terminers might be repealed and they might have their suit by writ of trespass in one bench or the other, and if it is found to be true, that the oyers and terminers might stand.

Nature of endorsement

Because the complaint about the purchase of writs of oyer and terminer was shown in Chancery, and afterwards examined before the council, and it seemed then to the court and the council that because of the gravity of the trespass the said writs of oyer and terminer should be granted, it now seems to the council that the same writs should remain in force and not be repealed.

Places mentioned

Ely, [Cambridgeshire]

Doddington, Cambridgeshire

Norfolk

Norwich, [Norfolk]

People mentioned

Richard Spink

William [Spink]

For responses in the process against the bishop, see C 49/46/18

For a further warrant of the privy seal delaying commissions of oyer and terminers against the bishop and his brother, see no. 17968 in C 81/315

For a counter petition, see SC 8/342/16148

For a privy seal warrant concerning the superseding of a writ of oyer and terminer, see no. 17851 in C 81/314

For another petition by the same petitioner on the same matter, see SC 8/162/8059

• Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edw III, vol. VII, 1345-1348, (Public Record Office, 1903), pp.186-8 (various commissions of oyer and terminer, later vacated, on complaints by the petitioners against the Bishop and others, of ambushes and driving off of livestock), & pp.237-238 (more commissions of oyer and terminer, on complaints by the petitioners, now living in Norwich, that they have been threatened, attacked, robbed and ambushed there) & pp.439-440 (protection for one year for the brothers, claiming to be threatened by their enemies)
• Law and Order in Fourteenth-Century England: The Evidence of Special Commissions of Oyer and Terminer, R. W. Kaeuper, (Whiting & Co., London, 1979), p.763 (discussion of petition)
• Rotuli Parliamentorum; ut et Petitiones, et Placita in Parliamento, vol. II, Edw III, (Record Commission, 1783), p.192b (no.72) (full edition of later copy of original petition)
• The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, Ed. Paul Brand, Anne Curry, Chris Given-Wilson, Rosemary Horrox, W.M. Ormrod and J.R.S. Phillips, (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Parliament of January-February 1348, Appendix, no. 74 (calendar of petition and references)