Family and Education

m. Lucy (d.c.1404), wid. of Walter Bristowe of Winchester,1 1s.

Offices Held

Commons’ bailiff, Winchester Mich. 1368-9; mayor 1372-3, 1379-80.2

Tax assessor, Winchester May 1379.

J.p. Hants 14 Dec. 1381-Jan. 1384.

Controller of a subsidy for repairing the city walls, Winchester 15 Sept. 1389-d.3

Biography

In 1367 Frye paid a 20s. fee to be admitted to the freedom of Winchester. Like his wife, Lucy, who had considerable interests in the cloth trade, and his son John, a ‘tapener’ and fuller who entered the freedom in 1377, he was a clothier.4 By his marriage he gained control of several Winchester properties: the Fryes probably lived in a substantial house on the west side of Wongar Street; and, in the same street, they held a number of other buildings including six cottages under one roof. In 1388 Frye leased a plot in Shulworth Street to form a garden for his house.5 Actively involved in civic affairs and having twice occupied the mayoralty, on the day after the close of the first session of his first Parliament in 1381 Frye had been appointed as a j.p. in the shire as a whole. It was only much later that, in 1389, he was named, with John Blake I*, as supervisor of the expenditure of £100 granted by Richard II for repairs to the city walls. He died in 1392, leaving among other bequests 3s.3d. to the fraternity of St. John the Baptist.

According to the terms of his widow’s will, made in about 1402, the property held by her and her former husband was divided between Adam Bristowe, chaplain, and John Frye, her sons by her two marriages, and 40 marks was left to another son, Richard. Following her death, which occurred before March 1405, the six adjoining cottages and rents of 2s.8d. p.a. were granted in trust to Gilbert Forster*, John Blake, William Wygge* and John Steor*, for the foundation of a chantry in St. Pancras church where Lucy’s obit was to be celebrated for 200 years. In 1413 the surviving trustees conveyed the premises to the corporation, which, as late as 1446, was providing 3s.4d. a year ‘pro obitu Ricardi Frye et Lucie’.6

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

B. Putnam, Procs. J.P.s, 214, 215, 223; HMC 6th Rep. 600.

• 1. D.J. Keene, Surv. Winchester (Winchester Studies ii), ii. 1238; Stowe 846, f. 73.
• 2. Winchester Coll. mun. 1223; Stowe 846, ff. 71, 76v; CCR, 1369-74, p. 593.
• 3. CPR, 1388-92, p. 112; E101/491/20.
• 4. Winchester RO, chamberlains’ acct. 41 Edw. III; E101/344/10, 12.
• 5. Keene, ii. nos. 364, 404-5, 408-10, 414; Stowe 846, ff. 73, 77v, 83; Winchester RO, 34/BX/TC9, enrolments mm. 15d, 21d.
• 6. Keene, ii. nos. 404-5, 408; Stowe 846, ff. 108v, 114, 128, 133, 138v; Winchester RO, 34/BX/TC9, enrolments m. 7; chamberlains’ accts. 25-26 Hen. VI.