SOMASTER, Adam

Nothing is known for certain about Somaster’s origins, but he owned property both in the city of Exeter and at Halberton, and by the early sixteenth century his family also had holdings in the Totnes area, in Barnstaple and elsewhere in Devon.8 KB27/681, rot. 3; CP25(1)/46/83/125; H.R. Watkin, Totnes Priory and Town, i. 587; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 709; iii. 593. Probably a younger son, he received legal training at Lincoln’s Inn, where he was studying by about 1423. He made his mark among his fellows and consequently was elected one of the Inn’s governors in 1429, when he also acted as Autumn Reader – the Lent reading following six years later, as required by statute.9 Readings and Moots, i (Selden Soc. lxxi), p. xii. He rapidly built up a substantial private practice. As early as 1420-1 he was in receipt of an annual fee of 6s. 8d. from the estate of the recently deceased Sir Otto Trevarthian,10 SC6/823/35. and in August 1426 he served as an attorney for Sir John Passhele, one of the heirs of the Cergeaux family.11 E159/203, recorda Mich. rot. 5. At other times, Adam acted for his own kinsman William Somaster in the royal courts.12 KB27/670, rot. 56d; 681, rot. 3; CP25(1)/46/83/125; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 132-3; 1435-41, p. 240; 1447-54, pp. 151-2; Exeter mayors’ ct. rolls 1-2 Hen. VI, mm. 51d-58d; 2-3 Hen. VI, mm. 1-4d; receivers’ acct. 12-13 Hen. VI, m. 1d. Despite appearing for William against the Exeter city authorities, Somaster also ranked among the Lincoln’s Inn lawyers they employed on the city’s business and on several occasions in 1430-1 he was paid rewards from the civic funds.13 Exeter receivers’ acct. 9-10 Hen. VI, mm. 1-2. It must have been this established connexion within Exeter which led to his election as one of the city’s MPs in 1432. However, as a result of now obscure circumstances, he never sat in Parliament that year. On the schedule accompanying the sheriff’s indenture his name was replaced by that of John Symon* and it was the latter who in the event went to represent the city and drew wages for his labours.14 Ibid. 10-11 Hen. VI; C219/14/3. It seems improbable that Somaster was denied his seat as a result of a deliberate snub by the mayor and council of Exeter, for he continued to be employed by them in the months after the Parliament assembled.15 Exeter receivers’ acct. 11-12 Hen. VI, m. 2. Whatever the truth of the matter, he eventually sat in the Commons a year later, as a Member for the smaller borough of Totnes. His private legal practice nevertheless continued to absorb much of his time. His client base extended across the south-west, from Cornwall to Somerset (where in the second half of the 1430s he was drawn into a dispute with John Bishop III* over the lands formerly belonging to Thomas Osborne of Taunton, of which he had been a feoffee).16 E326/5043-4, 11773-5.

While he never held Crown office, Somaster did serve successive sheriffs of Devon as an under sheriff or other official, and in this capacity he was regularly entertained with food and wine by the Exeter authorities.17 Exeter receivers’ acct. 12-13 Hen. VI, mm. 2-4. The sheriff’s officers were, however, also prone to arouse hostility, and it was thus, during the shrievalty of Sir Thomas Arundell* in 1437-8, that he was set upon by an armed mob and very nearly came to serious harm. The rioters made him surrender the writ he had been ordered to execute and forced him to bind himself by an obligation to them, threatening to imprison him and to steal his horse.18 C1/74/100-1. It may have also been in his capacity as one of the sheriff’s officers that Somaster attended the Devon parliamentary elections in 1437, and subsequently again in the late 1440s and in 1450.

Increasingly, Somaster found himself in a position to command lucrative legal fees. He could now consider himself a lawyer of some note, for by the early 1440s he found employment among the greatest members of his profession, including the famous Nicholas Radford* and the later chief justice, John Fortescue*, who had served as a governor of Lincoln’s Inn alongside him.19 CP25(1)/46/86/194; CCR, 1435-41, pp. 240, 245; E13/143, rot. 44. At the same time he continued on occasion to clash with the greater citizens of Exeter. Thus, in early 1447 he brought a suit against the powerful merchant and mayor John Cutler alias Carwithan*, charging him with an assault on his servant Thomas Ketell and claiming damages of £20. It is not clear that Somaster ever secured Cutler’s conviction, for four years later he was still engaged in litigation against one of the mayor’s associates.20 CP40/745, rot. 324d; 760, rot. 191d. There is no further record of Somaster’s activities and he may have died soon after 1450, when he attested a parliamentary election for the last time.