MOREFF, John (d.1451), of Dunwich, Suff.

A native of Dunwich, John was the son of a leading burgess and one of the borough’s most prominent residents in the first half of the fifteenth century. Ibid. 26, 73; CCR, 1396-9, pp. 332-3. During this period he, along with William Barbour and John Luke*, dominated the office of bailiff of Dunwich; he himself served no fewer than 19 terms in that position. While the date of his father’s death is unknown, William Moreff is likely to have died in 1408. When Parliament granted the King a whole subsidy and a half in December 1407, both men were assessed for its first instalment, due on the following 2 Feb., yet only John contributed to its second instalment, due on 1 May, suggesting that William had died in the meantime. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 51, 56.

John certainly married his first wife, Margaret, during his father’s lifetime. Amerced in a town court of August 1407 for breaking a local assize regulating the brewing and selling of beer, she continued until at least 1422 to breach local bye-laws relating to brewing. The town’s court rolls also record that ‘Moreff’s wife’ was amerced for similar offences in the later 1420s and 1430s, but it is unclear whether this was Margaret or his second wife, Matilda. Moreff himself ran into trouble with the town authorities on at least two occasions. In April 1411 he was amerced 3d. for making a dung heap in the market-place, and 11 years later a town court amerced him twice, for leaving another dung heap on a royal highway and for failing to fill in a claypit which he had dug on a common way by the seashore, near a messuage belonging to Richard Cuddon*. Add. Rolls 40710, 40715, 40722; SC11/886 mm. 3, 16, 28d.

Tax assessments indicate that Moreff was one of the wealthiest inhabitants of Dunwich. When, for example, the corporation imposed a local tax on land during the accounting year 1410-11, Moreff was expected to pay 6s. 8d., more than any other resident of St. Leonard’s, the parish in which his then principal messuage lay. A decade on, when the town was raising the money needed to acquire confirmation of its charter, he contributed 13s. 4d., apparently more than any of his fellow townsmen. In later years he was assessed for taxation under another parish, St. Peter’s, and he is known to have held property in St. Martin’s as well. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 76, 107, 111, 133, 139; Archdeaconry of Suff. wills, IC/AA2/1/168-70; SC11/886, m. 14. Part of his wealth was founded on fishing, for he regularly had one or more boats at sea during the various fishing seasons and is known to have dealt in fish. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 17.

A Chancery suit brought by the London vintner, John Draper, probably in about 1439, illustrates the breadth and importance of Moreff’s commercial interests. Draper claimed that while in Prussia he had lent 50 marks to John Jolles, the MP’s servant and attorney, to use on behalf of his master, but Moreff had refused to repay the loan after Jolles’ return to England. Moreff’s answer to Draper’s bill does not survive but the court is known to have referred the case to arbitration. The parties exchanged bonds in February 1440, in acknowledgement that they had agreed to abide by whatever award that the arbitrators (three Londoners, (Sir) William Estfield*, John Carpenter II* and John Chirche) should make between them. C1/75/24; CCR, 1435-41, p. 360. Moreff also had dealings with John Baxter, a merchant from Lincolnshire, whom he successfully sued for a debt of £23. In early 1446 Baxter was pardoned the outlawry he had incurred after failing to repay this sum, as well as the £10 in damages the court had awarded against him. CPR, 1441-6, p. 402. At a much more local level, Moreff’s commercial interests included at least two shops and a small flock of sheep at Dunwich. In 1428-9 he had 43 sheep and 12 lambs pastured on the town’s common marsh, more than any other resident, except Robert Genewe. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 68, 128, 137; SC11/886, m. 14.

Moreff commenced the first of his many terms as bailiff in September 1403. A contemporary borough minute book records that a few weeks later he and his fellow bailiff, Peter Cuddon†, journeyed to Framlingham, to speak with John Lancaster*. Framlingham was the residence of Thomas Mowbray, earl of Norfolk, the magnate who held the farm of Dunwich at this date, and Lancaster was the earl’s leading adviser. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk, 33. Peter Helmeth† was elected bailiff with Moreff in 1403, but Cuddon acted in the office during part of that year, perhaps because Helmeth was ill: ibid. 146. On Christmas Eve that year Moreff attended an array of arms at Blythburgh, and in the same accounting period (1403-4) he advanced 13s. 4d. towards the cost of buying a gun in London for the corporation. The minute book also provides evidence relating to some of his subsequent terms as bailiff. In 1405-6, for example, he visited John Staverton, a local lawyer retained by the town in the early 15th century, on official business. Bailiffs’ Minute Bk. 33, 35, 45. During the same year the corporation bought a silver sceptre for the under bailiff of the borough, and at the beginning of August 1406 he and a fellow burgess, John Helmeth, were present at Norwich for a visit by the King and queen to that city. The following June, during his third term as bailiff, he was among those burgesses chosen to make ordinances for the common good of the community until the Michaelmas of the same year Moreff also took part in local affairs during periods when he did not serve as bailiff. He was one of the 18 elected to the town’s council when this body was reformed and reconstituted in December 1419; and in September 1422 he was among the 17 men chosen to assist the bailiffs in governing the town. Later, in July 1425, he was among those who, on behalf of the community, leased out some lands once held by Augustine Illes† (a prominent burgess of the 1330s and 1340s) to John Luke*. Ibid. 44, 45, 100, 118, 123.

Often involved in local parliamentary elections, Moreff attended these events even more frequently than indicated above. Although the indentures for Dunwich’s returns to the Parliaments of 1432 and 1442 are no longer extant, he is recorded as acting as a mainpernor for the newly-elected Henry Beaumont I* in 1432 and for Reynold Rous* ten years later, showing that he was present (probably also as an attestor) at those elections as well. C219/14/3, 15/2. He also stood surety for newly-elected MPs for Dunwich on other occasions: William Barbour† (May 1421), John Luke (1423), John Polard* (1427), Richard Cuddon* (1431), Robert Thorpe* (1435). When he himself was elected in 1433, Peter Bagge and Philip Canon† stood as his sureties. C219/14/4. Although he was one of the town’s bailiffs throughout his time as an MP, it was perhaps because he so often occupied this important office that he was returned to only one Parliament.

Moreff completed his final term as a bailiff in the mid 1440s and was pardoned, as ‘of Dunwich, merchant’, in November 1446. C67/39, m. 23. Four years later, he began to draw up his will, a long and interesting document proved on the 31 July 1451. Archdeaconry of Suff. wills, IC/AA2/1/168-70. The will is dated 4 Dec. 1450 in its opening lines and 31 July 1451 at the end. He asked to be buried in the Franciscan church in Dunwich, leaving a total of 200s. to the local house of that order and to that of the Dominicans, if they would sing for the souls of himself, his parents, his first wife, and all his benefactors. He also left a further 6s. 8d. to both these orders of friars, with the intention that they should hold a dinner (‘recreacione’) on the day of his funeral and again at his week’s mind, and directed that each priest attending his funeral was to have 4d., each clerk 2d. and each pauper a penny. In addition, he provided for 12 poor persons to receive 1d. per week during the two years following his decease. He also bequeathed 6s. 8d. to the high altar of St. Peter’s, where two secular priests were to sing for the same souls as the friars for a year, and left sums towards the fabric of that and other churches in the town. He made generous provision for his widow, giving her a life interest in his principal messuage in the parish of St. Leonard’s, his shop in the market-place and lands in both Dunwich and neighbouring Westleton; after her death they were to go to his son, William, and William’s heirs. He also awarded Matilda possession of various lands he had purchased in Yoxford, Saxmundham and other inland parishes in south-east Suffolk, to hold for 18 years after his death. Should she die within that period, his executors were to occupy them for the remainder of the term and to use the income for charitable purposes. After the term was up, they were to be divided between William and another son, Peter, and their respective heirs. It is not clear whether William, presumably the MP’s eldest son, had reached his majority when the will was drawn up, but Peter was still a minor, since he was to have a second messuage in St. Leonard’s parish when he reached the age of 14. Moreff also had a bastard son, Robert, and three daughters. To Robert he left a messuage in the parish of St. John the Baptist, to occupy when he reached the age of 20, and various fishing nets, which he was to have when he was 12. As Robert was not yet 12, he cannot have been the Robert Moreff holding property in the town in the later 1430s: SC11/886, mm. 24, 27. Although this might indicate that he intended Robert to pursue a career as a fisherman, he did not leave him any of his fishing boats. These consisted of Le Margarete and a half share in a vessel called Le Trynyte (which he left to Matilda), Le Petyr (which was to be sold) and various smaller boats (‘batellas’). As for his daughters, Margaret was to have £20 for her marriage, but Katherine, who was already married, and Ellen were left no more than 100s. and 40s. respectively. Furthermore, Katherine’s bequest was conditional, for she was not to receive her legacy until her husband, John Reede of Beccles, paid a sum of £40 he owed the testator. For his executors, Moreff chose his wife, his stepson Walter Peers, the prominent East Anglian lawyer, William Jenney* and John Sewale. In return for their trouble, he left 40s. to Jenney and 20s. each to Sewale and Peers, although he also remembered Peers in the body of the will, bequeathing him a house in St. Leonard’s parish.

Moreff’s widow died in 1479. Her will no longer survives, but she was buried in the Greyfriars’ church, next to the sepulchre of her late husband. Gardner, 60, 80; A. Suckling, Hist. Suff. ii. 284 Nothing more is known about the MP’s son, William, but his other son, Peter, was several times one of the bailiffs of Dunwich in the late 15th century and played a prominent role in local affairs until his death in 1522. CFR, xxi. no. 712; PCC 27 Maynwaryng (PROB11/20, ff. 213v-214).