BERHAM, John, of Sandwich, Kent.

As a Portsman, Berham claimed tax exemption on property in the hundreds of Bewsborough and Eastry, near Sandwich, between 1373 and 1395.E179/225/4, 7, 11, 237/57. In May 1392 inquisitions at Canterbury and elsewhere in east Kent found that up to 100 ‘kips’ of furs and ‘wyldware’, washed ashore on the Kent coasts following the wreck of a Hanseatic ship off Zeeland, had come into the hands of Berham and other Sandwich men. The owners naturally claimed the salvaged goods, but it was only after repeated summonses from the Exchequer that Berham and the others made restitution or offered compensation. They claimed to have done so by November 1395.CIMisc, v. 362, 367; E159/170, Hil., 172, Mich.; CPR, 1391-6, p. 342; CCR, 1392-6, p. 218.