Burgesses of Cambridge. King. [Petition in six parts:]1) The burgesses request remedy...

Petitioners

Burgesses of Cambridge.

Addressees

King.

Nature of request

[Petition in six parts:]1) The burgesses request remedy as a previous bishop of Ely has appropriated the hospital of St John the Evangelist founded in the town by their ancestors, the right to present the master pertaining to them, in disinheritance of the king and the burgesses.2) The burgesses make a similar request concerning the lepers' hospital with chapel founded at Stourbridge.3) They complain of their inability to pay the farm for the town because the king has granted to the religious in the town that they may appropriate all their tenements in which merchants often live.4) They request remedy concerning the actions of the escheator who has detached several tenements from the fee farm.5) They request remedy as the scholars residing in the houses of the burgesses wish to pay their pension for the term of the purification of the Blessed Mary in a pollard for sterling saying that it is the king's will because they lease the houses before Christmas.6) They state that the king has granted that the houses in which the scholars of the university live shall be assessed for taxation by two masters, regents of the university, and two burgesses, but that the chancellor and regents of the university will not allow the two masters to swear the two burgesses in their presence, so that disputes have arisen and the houses are wrongly assessed, with too much favour to the scholars. They request a remedy.

Nature of endorsement

[On face:]1) If they think that they have an action against the bishop, they should proceed by the common law.2) Response as above.3) The king will do nothing for this except by inquisitions made by them if it be to their damage etc. So that if they are harmed they should betake themselves to them.4) They should show which tenements etc.5) They should go before the chancellor of the university and the mayor of the town.6) They should show their charter in Chancery, and the chancellor will ordain according to the form of the charter.[On dorse:]This petition is answered as appears within.

Places mentioned

Cambridge, [Cambridgeshire]

Stourbridge, [Cambridgeshire].

People mentioned

Hugh de Northwold, Bishop of Ely

Hugh Balsham, Bishop of Ely

For another petition in part complaining of the same problem of debased coinage, see SC 8/323/E581

For another petition apparently concerning the same problem of debased coinage, see SC 8/323/E582