Family and Education

Offices Held

Reeve, Salisbury 1 Nov. 1404-5; constable 1412-13; mayor 1413-14.2

Mayor, Old Sarum Apr. 1423.3

Biography

Mason presented 38 whole woollen cloths for alnage during the financial year 1397-8, and 24 more in 1402-3. In April 1405 he was acting as an executor of John Wallop*, another clothier. By 1411 he was a member of the convocation of Salisbury. In March 1415 he advanced £2 to the £100 loan which Salisbury was then required to make to Henry V, and thereafter he contributed sizeable payments towards parliamentary subsidies and other tallages levied in the city, namely, in 1417, 1418, 1420 and 1423. In the meantime, he had stood surety for the attendance of Walter Shirley at the Parliament of 1420.4

Mason must have owned property in Old Sarum, for he was nominal mayor of the borough in 1423. But his main interests were doubtless in Salisbury: he is recorded as present at meetings of the convocation until 1428, and the last known record of him, which occurs in March 1429, is of his acting as a witness to a local deed.5

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: Charles Kightly

Notes

• 1. Salisbury RO, ledger bk. A, ff. 56, 60.
• 2. Salisbury RO, ‘Domesday bk.’ II, f. 4; ledger bk. A, f. 40.
• 3. CAD, iv. A6279.
• 4. E101/345/2, 4; PCC 9 Marche; ledger bk. A, ff. 41, 54, 60, 62, 68, 89; C219/12/4.
• 5. Ledger bk. A, ff. 43, 62, 83, 91; ‘Domesday bk.’ III, f. 114.