FRENINGHAM, John (d.1475), of Canterbury, Kent.

Freningham was the son of a Canterbury butcher who had paid an annual rent to the city for a shop there since the early years of the century. There is no evidence, as Wedgwood suggested (HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 356) that he was the gds. of John Freningham†, who sat for Kent in 1377, 1381 and 1399. Indeed, that John died childless: The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 128-30. Although his father never enjoyed the freedom of the city, John junior, himself styled as ‘butcher’, purchased the privilege on 19 July 1442 for 10s. Canterbury chamberlains’ accts. 1393-1445, CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 280. Freningham the elder (he was described as such from the date his son purchased the freedom) continued to pay rent for his shop until 1449-50, when it is presumed he died. Earlier in the 1440s, describing himself as ‘unlettered’, he had brought an action in Chancery against three men of Canterbury who had deceived him concerning a bill of goods. C1/15/229. Vincent Freningham, who began to pay rent for a butcher’s shop from Michaelmas 1451, was our MP’s younger brother. CCA-CC-F/A/2, f. 36v.

Freningham’s entry into Canterbury’s ruling circle may have been marked by his father’s death, as he was first elected jurat at Michaelmas 1449. Early in his career he appears to have taken no part in the city’s business at Westminster and elsewhere that occupied much of the time of his legally-trained colleagues. Nevertheless, as his status and wealth grew through the 1450s he became increasingly involved in civic affairs. He was returned as one of the city’s representatives to the Parliament of 1455, although the lacunae in the city accounts prevent us from knowing how long he sat or if he carried out any other duties on the citizens’ behalf. In June 1460 he was among those who received the Yorkist lords in Canterbury, and when the earl of March made his next visit to Canterbury the following year, as King, Freningham was paid 13s. 4d. for procuring wine and four swans to present to him. Along with the experienced Canterbury lawyer, Roger Brent†, Freningham was chosen to represent Canterbury in Edward IV’s first Parliament, receiving wages for 37 days spent at Westminster. Ibid. ff. 63v, 67v, 81v. In 1461-2 his status was such that it was at his house that the arbitrators appointed to determine the dispute between the city and the abbot of St. Augustine’s were entertained, and his standing was confirmed at Michaelmas 1462 by his election as mayor. In July 1468 he appeared to have signaled his retirement from public affairs when he obtained a grant exempting him from all local and royal office and commissions and from the predations of royal purveyors. Nevertheless, his reluctance was short-lived as just two months later he was elected mayor for a second time. Ibid. f. 74v; CPR, 1467-77, p. 94.

As mayor, in 1468 Freningham led a contingent of armed men from the city to the Downs to aid the earl of Warwick in resisting French pirates operating in the Channel, and two years later, along with Nicholas Faunte* and William Selowe*, he was instrumental in bribing two bands of soldiers, one led by ‘Quynt’ and the other by ‘Lovelas’, not to enter Canterbury as they had been threatening to do. CCA-CC-F/A/2, ff. 129v, 137. One of the leading citizens of Canterbury, he could not escape involvement in the events of the spring of 1471 when the city, led by its then mayor Faunte, rose in support of the Bastard of Fauconberg, although his own attitude to the pretensions of Warwick and the opposition to Edward IV are more ambiguous than those of his fellows. He may have made strenuous efforts to distance himself from Faunte and his followers: the city’s accounts record a payment to him, along with Hamon Bele, Thomas Atwode† and others, for a ‘schedule’ taken to the victorious Edward IV, possibly with details of his erstwhile colleagues’ treason. Ibid. f. 144v. This may have been the list of rebels discovered in Faunte’s pocket when he was captured by Sir George Brown†. Indeed, it may have been this action that enabled Freningham to escape penalty despite being named in an inquisition held in Canterbury after the events as one of those who had taken part in the rebellion through fear of loss of life and goods. Canterbury Cath. Archs., Woodruff’s list, CCA-CC-WOODRUFF, bdle. 56; C. Richmond, ‘Fauconberg’s Kentish rising of May 1471’, EHR lxxxv. 688-9. Having survived the events of 1471 unscathed, he continued to play an active role in civic affairs until his death. In 1474 he was paid 17s. for swans and capons presented to the King and queen on their visit to Canterbury; and the following year he was among those who entertained Sir William Haute to breakfast. CCA-CC-F/A/2, ff. 162v, 168. Shortly before his death he was one of the leading citizens who contributed towards the cost of rebuilding St. Michael’s Gate. E. Hasted, Kent, ed. Drake, xii. 658.

Freningham’s chief associations appear to have been restricted to Canterbury and its environs and mainly within the governing elite of the city. Before August 1457, along with Richard Prat I*, he had been enfeoffed with certain lands in Fordwich, Kent, by the former city cofferer, William Wodelond of Faversham; Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Canterbury archdeaconry ct. wills, PRC 17/1, f. 198. in June 1459 he joined a group of influential citizens to whom William Selowe made a gift of goods and chattels; CCR, 1454-61, p. 377. and three years later he was named among the executors of the prominent citizen, William Benet*. Accordingly, he later conveyed to the mayor and commonalty property in the parish of St. Mary Bredman, bequeathed to the city in Benet’s will. Woodruff’s list, CCA-CC-WOODRUFF, bdle. 38, no. 1. Yet there is no indication of how Freningham accumulated the wealth that enabled him to join Canterbury’s elite, unless it came to him by marriage. In 1450 he had been assessed at an annual income of only £4, the lowest assessment of any individual who had served or went on to serve as mayor or jurat, E179/124/218, rot. 3d. yet his will shows him to have died a wealthy man, possessed of landed interests not only in Canterbury but also in several of its surrounding villages and in the Isle of Thanet, holdings which he confidently expected would raise over £242 when put up for sale.

In this will, made on 2 May 1475, Freningham named his wife, Joan, Thomas Atwode, Thomas Chyldemell of Sturry and Stephen Lyndregge as his executors. Describing himself as a parishioner of the city parish of St. Andrew the Apostle, he nevertheless asked to be buried beside his unnamed first wife in Christ Church cathedral, requiring for his funeral four tapers, each weighing five pounds, and eight torches to be carried by men garbed in black robes and hoods. Six priests were to sing masses and dirges at his burial and then daily for one month afterwards. Torches were also to burn in St. John’s chapel in Canterbury and at the local churches of Stodmarsh and Patricksbourn; and for the next three years an ‘honest preest’ was to sing in St. Andrew’s church at seven o’clock every morning for his soul and for those of his parents and ‘all my good freendes’. Freningham made substantial bequests to the religious of Canterbury, and among the bequests of clothes, goods and money to his kinsfolk and servants were sums of £4 and £2 for the marriages of one Joan Dygon and her sister, on condition that they lived with his widow and abided by her decision regarding their choice of husbands. The widow, to whom Freningham left the remainder of his household goods and implements, was to keep for herself and her heirs all his property in Canterbury, and for term of her life his lands in Monkton and Minster in the Isle of Thanet and in Westbere and Sturry. As he had no children, these last were to be sold after her death and the money used, by the advice of the prior of Christ Church (appointed overseer of his will), to provide for the testator’s soul. Other unspecified holdings were to be sold immediately after his death, raising some £70, of which £10 was to be given to the poor on each of the first two anniversaries of his death and £24 spent on keeping his obit for 12 years, that is, to pay for 20 or 30 masses on each occasion. From the eventual sale of his real estate, after his widow’s death, specific sums were to be given to parish churches and religious houses in east Kent with which Freningham had some association, but the most substantial bequests were of £20 for repairs to Christ Church, £13 6s. 8d. to St. Augustine’s abbey, and as much as £40 to St. Andrew’s to pay for masses for his widow’s soul for six years after her death. Nor did Freningham overlook improvements to the environment of the city: £20 was to be spent on paving the Bullstake, and 40 marks on mending ‘foul ways’. Probate was awarded on 12 Aug. Canterbury archdeaconry ct. wills, PRC 17/2, ff. 406v-8.

Freningham’s widow married again: an indenture of 1505 relating to the sale of his house called ‘Arundell’ and other property referred to the ‘bargainings’ of Joan and her son William Levyns. CAD, vi. C6971.