MASCALL, Roger (d.c.1390), of Southampton.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

m. bef. May 1368, Felicity,1 da. or stepda. of Nicholas Moundenard (d.1357) of Southampton, ?1s. John*.

Offices Held

Bailiff, Southampton Mich. 1368-9.2

Tax collector, Hants Nov. 1382, Dec. 1385.

Serjeant-at-arms Aug. 1386-June 1388.

Biography

A merchant whose main trading concern was perhaps wine, Mascall was already established in Southampton by 1365, when he and Nicholas Sherwind* together purchased two houses built of stone and some cellars near the docks. Three years later he bought, for £80, ‘Bradecroft’ and other lands in the suburbs from the executors of Christine Moundenard, his mother-in-law; and in 1374 the merchant, John Polymond, conveyed to him and his wife in survivorship a house on the west side of English Street. Mascall mortgaged part of the Moundenard estate to Sherwind, but it returned to his possession in 1379 when, using the property as security, he was able to obtain another loan, this time of £70. Shortly before this, he had disputed ownership of a messuage in the town with the Benedictine nuns of Wherwell. Apparently prospering, in 1381 Mascall acquired a building site in English Street, and the following year was able to spend some capital purchasing lands and rents in the vicinity of Titchfield.3

It was ‘in consideration of his great losses in the service of Edward III and Richard II’ (the exact nature of which is not known), that on 9 Aug. 1386, just before his only election to Parliament, Mascall was appointed to be a royal serjeant-at-arms for life, receiving a daily wage of 2d. payable at the Exchequer. As such he was ordered in July following to arrest anyone who might impugn Richard II’s title to present to North Stoneham church. However, his royal employment ended abruptly in the spring of 1388 when, at Southampton, he accidently killed a servant of Geoffrey Waldern* of London. After his arrest by the mayor on 19 June, Mascall escaped and fled into sanctuary, and although he managed (through the intercession of William River, esquire) to obtain a royal pardon in September 1389, he is not heard of again, and it was as his widow that, in July 1391, Felicity Mascall was a defendant in a plea of novel disseisin at the assizes at Winchester. She continued to occupy the house in English Street and was still living in 1407.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. Hants RO, D/CJ/25-27.
  • 2. J.S. Davies, Hist. Southampton, 172.
  • 3. E122/138/11; Southampton RO, SC4/2/111, 115, 116a, 121, 122, 124-5, 134, 405; CP25(1)206/27/3; 207/28/22; CCR, 1374-7, p. 548; CP25(1)207/28/29.
  • 4. CPR, 1385-9, pp. 203, 386; 1388-92, p. 114; JUST 1/1502 m. 228d; Hants RO, D/LY/7/12; Southampton RO, SC4/2/156; Queen’s Coll. Oxf. God’s House, R373, 375; Winchester Coll. mun. 17780.