JANYN, John (d.c.1443), of Guildford and Ewell, Surr.

Like his presumed kinsman James Janyn*, John probably came from Ewell in the north of Surrey, where he is known to have held land, and served for a while as constable. CP40/657, rot. 420. Yet it was in the shire town of Guildford that he became a prominent figure in the early fifteenth century. This came about through his appointment near the beginning of Henry V’s reign as keeper of the royal park there for life, as such receiving a daily wage of 2d. from the issues of Windsor castle. It seems likely that he had entered Henry’s service before his accession. Janyn received confirmation of these letters patent after the King’s death in 1422, but 17 years later when Henry VI attained his majority he was required to share the post with another royal servant, Richard Ludlow. Thereafter, the two men held the keepership jointly until Janyn’s death, together with an office called ‘knokkepynne’, in which they instated John’s relation Bernard Janyn*, no doubt expecting him to carry out the duties on their behalf. CPR, 1413-16, p. 29; 1422-9, p. 40; 1436-41, p. 280; 1452-61, p. 596; E364/73, rot. Nd; 77, rot. Q; 84, rot. G. Janyn wore the King’s livery as among the staff of his household put in charge of the hunt. E101/408/19, 21; 409/4, 6, f. 28.

During his long tenure of the post of keeper of the park Janyn became well known in Guildford. He was present at the shire elections held there in 1417, and was admitted to the guild merchant in October the following year. Geoffrey Mudge†, a former MP for Guildford, named him among the feoffees of land elsewhere in Surrey in the 1420s. WARD2/54A/181/50. Janyn went on to serve as mayor for no fewer than four terms, and it was while he was holding office that he was returned to the consecutive Parliaments of 1433 and 1435. Meanwhile, he had again attended the shire elections in August 1429 and April 1432. Add. 6167, f.197v; C219/12/2, 14/1, 3. Save for his appearances in the Commons, there is little evidence that Janyn was active outside Surrey. It is unlikely that he was the man of this name who in May 1429 was appointed by the chancellor, Abp. Kempe, to audit the accounts of the former overseer of the ‘ancient works’ in St. Paul’s cathedral from the time Kempe had been bp. of London: CCR, 1422-9, p. 466.

During the 1420s Janyn was occasionally a defendant in suits for debt filed in the court of common pleas. As ‘of Ewell’ he was subject to a plea brought by the executrix of John Halle senior of Sussex for a debt of £20, and the influential Sussex landowner Sir Roger Fiennes* alleged that he owed him 20 marks. In 1425 Thomas Carew sued him for a breach of the Statute of Labourers for abducting a servant from his employment, although Janyn denied the charge. CP40/647, rot. 26; 657, rots. 73d, 241d. More seriously, the controller of the royal household, John Feriby*, alleged in the Exchequer of pleas in Michaelmas term 1427 that Janyn had agreed at Guildford in the previous January to pay him £20 at Easter, but had failed to do so. When Janyn neglected to appear to make answer the barons decreed that Feriby should recover the money, which was to be taken by the sheriff of Surrey from the MP’s goods. E13/138, rot. 7d.

Of Janyn’s landed possessions there is scant record, although in 1435, together with Hugh Ashbury* (a fellow Member of both his Parliaments) he acquired an interest in a messuage, ten acres of land and an acre of meadow in Guildford and nearby Stoke, and according to the tax assessments made shortly afterwards his annual income from land in Surrey amounted to £10. CP25(1)/232/71/64, 65; E159/212, recorda Hil. rot. 14 (vii). It may be that some of his property came to him through his marriage to the widow of a French ‘gentleman’. In 1429 he and his wife had been sued by a London draper for their failure to honour bonds entered by Elizabeth’s late husband 12 years earlier; and together with Thomas Fraunceys of Guildford they were defendants in a plea of trespass brought by John Upnore in 1437. CP40/673, rot. 447d; 674, rot. 309; KB27/704, rot. 13. Janyn supported his kinsman Bernard in lawsuits over the inheritance of the latter’s wife Elizabeth Loxley when, in 1441, they were challenged in their possession of the manor of Polstead by the sisters of Thomas Wintershall (d.1420). They managed to thwart these efforts and the manor later descended to Bernard’s heirs. CP40/724, rots. 428, 477; C142/25/48. Little else is known of our MP thereafter and he died before Michaelmas 1443, by which date Ludlow was acting alone as keeper of Guildford park. E364/95.