PASSEWARE, Thomas, of Bristol and Barnstaple, Devon.

The identification of Passeware and the details of his early career present some problems, for there were several men of the same name active in the period. None of these can be said with certainty to have been identical with the MP, although this possibility cannot be entirely discounted. One of them was a merchant of Newport in the Isle of Wight, who is recorded in 1411 as the victim of an act of piracy. By the following year he had in some way fallen foul of canon law and was appealing to the Holy See against his excommunication. He seems to have successfully prosecuted his appeal and by mid 1413 occasionally occurs as a mainpernor in various parts of southern England: CPR, 1408-13, p. 323; CCR, 1409-13, p. 405; 1413-19, p. 81; CFR, xiv. 19; CP40/578, rot. 229d; C1/69/359; SC8/186/9285; C81/653/7012. Another Thomas Passeware, described as ‘of Preston, Som.’ in 1408, occurs as a mainpernor of Roger Pym to whom the custody of the lands of John Paulet had been granted during the heir’s minority: CFR, xiii.104. The man who represented Barnstaple in 1425 probably originated from Bristol, where his family was established by the early thirteenth century. Gt. Red Bk. of Bristol, ii (Bristol Rec. Soc. viii), 271. The Passewares may have derived their name from their activity in overseas trade, and Thomas followed in this tradition, by 1391 trading in a ship called the Katerine of Bristol. Overseas Trade (Bristol Rec. Soc. vii), 195. He also possessed other maritime interests, for it was probably he who in 1428 was licensed to convey pilgrims to Santiago de Compostella. DKR, xlviii. 256.

Although he never rose to the top of Bristol society, Passeware was nevertheless well connected among his neighbours. Thus, the Bristol merchant Roger Russell employed him as his bailiff at Frome Selwood. When brought to account in the summer of 1413, Thomas had run up arrears of £4 13s. 4d., which he proved reluctant to pay, and litigation with Russell’s widow, Margery, continued until early 1429, when negotiations broke down and Passeware was condemned to pay the debt and damages of 13s. 4d. as a result of his default. CP40/672, rot. 104d. This was not to be his only brush with the law. Like other south-western merchants, Passeware engaged in occasional acts of piracy, and it was as a result of the repeated complaints of the Bruges merchant George de la Bourse about such an incident that his appearance (alongside other Bristol merchants) before the young King’s council was ordered in December 1422. SC8/96/4788. Although Thomas was then still described as ‘of Bristol’, by the time of his return to Parliament for Barnstaple three years later he apparently fulfilled the residence qualification, at least in so far as he owned property in the town (probably acquired as a result of a marriage to a local woman called Agnes). He had certainly established himself there by the late summer of 1429, when his neighbours elected him mayor, and he was then regularly described in lawsuits as ‘burgess and merchant of Barnstaple’. C67/37, m. 3; CP25(1)/45/79/17; CP40/680, rot. 158d; 701, rot. 428d; Dayman mss, Z16/1/9/3; N. Devon RO, Barnstaple bor. recs., B1/A11.

Passeware sometimes acted as a feoffee for his neighbours, but their relations were not always so cordial: in 1436 he was in dispute with one John Colyn over two houses in Barnstaple, for which he had purportedly failed to pay rent for more than two years. CP40/701, rot. 428d. He is last recorded in the summer of 1439 as one of the plaintiffs in a suit over a now obscure trespass. KB27/713, rot. 26d. The date of his death is uncertain, but he was dead by 1443, when his widow was being sued for debt by the executors of William Mountfort* of Bridport. John Passeware who stood surety for Barnstaple’s MP John Wydeslade* in 1430 may have been his son or another kinsman. CAD, vi. C4395; C219/14/2.