GEGGE, Robert

The first reference to Gegge dates from August 1432 when he was named as a feoffee by Thomas Waynflete, a relative of the future bishop of Winchester. Among his fellow feoffees was Thomas Hayton, the Lincolnshire filacer in the court of common pleas, and there can be no doubt that our MP had already embarked on a legal career. By Michaelmas 1436 he was active as an attorney in the court of common pleas; and in Trinity term 1438 he was fined 3s. 4d. as surety for a defaulting defendant in the court of King’s bench, a routine hazard for lawyers operating there. He was also active, from the mid 1430s, as a litigant on his own account. In Michaelmas term 1435 he appeared in person in the common pleas to sue a Lincoln miller and fletcher for taking his goods worth £5 and abducting one of his female servants from the city; and in Hilary term 1438 he personally sued in the same court a saddler and chaplain for assaulting him in Lincoln.1 C54/291, m. 30d; CP40/699, rot. 492; 709, rot. 204; KB27/709, fines rot.

Gegge was significantly advanced in the early 1440s. On 15 Jan. 1442 he was elected to represent his native city in Parliament, and soon after the conclusion of this assembly he succeeded Hayton’s successor, Thomas Kele*, as the filacer with responsibility for Lincolnshire suits.2 C219/15/2; CP40/727, rot. 22. As an officer of the common pleas the pace of his litigation there quickened. Almost without exception his numerous pleas of debt were for the minimum sum claimable, namely 40s., and it is probable that each represents a demand for a standard legal fee. Predictability the great majority of his clients, or at least of those of his clients he thought it prudent to sue, were minor Lincolnshire men, such as, for example, Henry Bene, a shipman from Lincoln, and Richard Cales, vicar of Harmston.3 CP40/743, rot. 248; 753, rot. 213d. For other similar pleas: e.g. CP40/726, rot. 441d; 769, rot. 192. Potentially more interesting is the plea of fraud he sued against the Norwich merchant, Thomas Fraunsham, but unfortunately no pleadings have been found.4 CP40/773, rot. 236d. His more important clients, such as Thomas, Lord Roos, and Hamon Sutton I*, for whom he acted as an attorney in the 1440s, do not, unsurprisingly, figure among those he sued for unpaid fees.5 CP40/739, rot. 429; 753, rot. 130d.

In Hilary term 1450 Gegge brought a legal action that suggests a grasping nature. The 1445 Parliament had confirmed earlier legislation forbidding tenures of office of more than a year for sheriffs and related officers or their reappointment within three years after the end of any term. The new statute imposed a heavy penalty of £200 (for each year that office was unlawfully held) on any offender, half payable to the King and half to anyone who should sue the offender on the King’s behalf. Our MP took advantage, suing another leading citizen of Lincoln, Robert Shirwode*, for serving as clerk to the city’s sheriffs in both 1446-7 and 1448-9.6 PROME, xi. 483-4; CP40/756, rot. 324; 757, rot. 119. It is difficult to know what lay behind this action. It may relate to some constitutional dispute within the city: Shirwode had long held office as the city’s common clerk, an office not subject to annual replacement, and our MP, perhaps as the representative of a faction within the city, was perhaps seeking to make the common clerkship subject to annual renewal by conflating it with the office of sheriffs’ clerk. Less charitably, he may simply have been using his legal knowledge for financial gain.

This same knowledge ensured that Gegge was in demand as a feoffee and executor in Lincoln: in the late 1450s he was named as an executor of John Ratheby*; in 1461 he acted for Richard Bolton* in the purchase of a tenement in the parish of St. Peter at Arches; and at the same time, with Thomas Moigne* and Hamon Sutton II*, he was a feoffee for the wealthy merchant, Thomas Grantham†. After his second election to Parliament on 13 Oct. 1460, one of the last acts of his life was to represent Grantham in the latter’s purchase of property in the parish of St. Martin.7 CP40/795, rot. 76d; Lincs. AO, Lincoln city recs., White bk. L1/3/1, ff. 18d, 21d-24; C219/16/6. Nothing is known of his own landholdings but his arms – argent, a chevron between two crescents and a cross, botony fitchy sable – once adorned both the church of this parish and that of St. Benedict.8 Lincoln Rec. Soc. i. 55-56. He was still serving as filacer in Michaelmas term 1462 but was dead by 6 Jan. 1463. His intestacy meant that the administration of his goods was granted to his widow.9 CP40/813, rot. 134; 814, rot. 125d.