Family and Education

m. by 1387, Agnes1 (d.1416), s.p.

Offices Held

Town clerk, Winchester 1387; alderman of Tanner Street Mich. 1394-5; chamberlain 1397-8, 1405-7; commons) bailiff 1402-3; bailiff of the 24, 1411-12.2

Warden of the fraternity of St. John the Baptist, Winchester Mich. 1394-5.3

Alnager, Winchester and the Soke 7 Feb.-17 Oct. 1399, Hants. Mich. 1403-4.

Biography

John may have been the son of Richard Steor of Winchester, who went surety at the parliamentary elections of 1388 for William Wygge, and brother of Thomas, a draper and dyer who owned ‘Franshalle’ in Wongar Street and served as alderman of Tanner Street in 1408-9 and bailiff of the commons in 1419-20.4 He himself was engaged in the clothfinishing business; he sold as many as 40 lengths of fabric in 1394-5 and 14½ in 1397-8, and was among those citizens fined in the local court for having material woven outside the liberty of the city. An important local figure, he became town clerk in 1387, the year in which he and his wife acquired a tenement in Wongar Street, along with land extending to Shulworth Street. His properties, subsequently including three cottages and a gate house with an upper room, formed a compact group half way down Wongar Street, where he chose to live, although he also owned a house in Colebrook Street.5 For a few months in 1399 Steor acted as royal alnager in the city and he later served in the same capacity in the shire as a whole, but neither term of office coincided with his appearances in the Commons. From 1405 to 1413 he was one of the trustees for the administration of the chantry founded by Lucy, widow of Richard Frye*. As bailiff of the 24, in 1411 he notified the sheriff of Hampshire of the results of the local parliamentary elections.6

Steor died at an unknown date between 1412 and 1416. On 8 Oct. 1416 his widow made her will, leaving all her estate in Winchester to be sold to provide for religious services and good works. The executors of both this will and that of her late husband had disposed of the property by 1423.7

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

Variants: Steer, Ster.

• 1. Stowe 846, f. 134v.
• 2. Stowe 846, ff. 108v, 112v, 126, 134v; Black Bk. Winchester ed. Bird, 145; Winchester RO, chamberlains’ accts. 18-19, 21-22 Ric. II, 8-9 Hen. IV.
• 3. HMC 6th Rep. 600.
• 4. C219/9/5; Stowe 846, ff. 85, 130; D.J. Keene, Surv. Winchester (Winchester Studies 2), ii. nos. 384, 390, p. 1358.
• 5. E101/344/10, 12; Keene, i. 224; ii. nos. 381, 384, 404-5, 408, 412, p. 1357; Stowe 846, ff. 90, 104, 134v.
• 6. Stowe 846, ff. 114v, 133; C219/10/6.
• 7. Stowe 846, ff. 137v, 138v, 147v.