Family and Education

poss. s. of William Marchaunt I* and bro. of Richard*. m. bef. Aug. 1408, Joan, at least 1ch.

Offices Held

Commr. of sewers between Burnham and Ilchester and at Wells, Som. May 1425.

Biography

Described as ‘of Taunton’, in August 1397 Marchaunt stood surety at the Exchequer for the lessees of part of the manor of Milton-on-Stour, Dorset. His occupation is nowhere recorded, but he was clearly well-to-do, for in 1408 he and his wife were granted licence by Bishop Bubwith of Bath and Wells to have masses celebrated in the oratory of their Taunton house. He also owned two buildings in the High Street, and in 1409 purchased the messuage lying between them. Other property of his in Cock Street was leased out in 1418 for 3s.4d a year. In August 1420 Marchaunt joined with Thomas Knolles*, the London grocer, in acquiring all the tenements in Bridgwater belonging to Thomas Story of Taunton. Marchaunt was one of the four delegates sent to the shire court at Ilchester with the results of the Taunton elections to the Parliaments of 1417, May 1421, 1427 and 1429.1

Marchaunt was acquainted with the prominent Somerset landowner Sir Hugh Luttrell* of Dunster, who sent him a gift of game at his wife’s churching in 1417. He and his putative brother, Richard, both witnessed an indenture drawn up at Taunton in 1423 between Sir Hugh and one of his tenants, and at an unknown date before 1428 he was enfeoffed with John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells, and others of certain of Sir Hugh’s manors in Somerset and Devon, for the purpose of settling them on his son and heir, Sir John Luttrell (d.1430).2

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

• 1. CFR, xi. 223; CCR, 1409-13, p. 65; Reg. Bubwith (Som. Rec. Soc. xxix), 36; Bridgwater Bor. Archs. (ibid. lviii), 599; Add. 30289, f. 72; C219/12/2, 5, 13/5, 14/1.
• 2. H.C. Maxwell Lyte, Hist. Dunster and Fams. Mohun and Luttrell, i. 99; Honour of Dunster (Som. Rec. Soc. xxx), 180; CPR, 1429-36, p. 99; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 73, 76.