DUMMERE, Robert

The identification of the man who represented Taunton in the first Parliament of 1449 presents some problems, not least because it has proved impossible to place him definitely within either of the Dummere families who held lands in Somerset and Hampshire in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. One of two Dummere manors in Dummer in Hampshire had by the 1420s come into the hands of Robert Long*, from whom it descended to his son John*, while the other passed from the last male Dummere to the atte More family, who subsequently assumed the name of Dummere.2 VCH Hants, iii. 358; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 617. Conversely, the Somerset Dummeres who held the manors of Pendomer and Chilthorne Domer survived into the fifteenth century, but sold their holdings to the Stourtons in the early years of the century.3 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 491; Feudal Aids, vi. 503.

In the light of the influence exerted by the bishops of Winchester over Taunton’s choice of parliamentary representatives, it is possible that the Taunton MP was a man who owned property in ‘Kyngastret’ in the Soke of Winchester. He died at some point before 1476, by which date his property had descended to his daughter Isabel, then the wife of John Fesaunt.4 C1/52/108.