FRAUNCEYS, Sewal, of Bath, Som.

In 1379, living in Northgate Street, Bath, with a Servant, Alice, Fraunceys paid 2s. poll tax and was described as a ‘craftsman’. It is clear, however, from the assessments for alnage made between 1395 and 1397, that he was also engaged in the production of cloth; indeed, he was assessed for as many as 318 ‘dozens’ in that period. He witnessed deeds concerning property in Bath between 1378 and 1396, and in April 1381 himself acquired a lease from the commonalty for the lives of himself, his wife and their son, of a cartilage in Plumtree Lane, ‘in which curtilage a round dovecote should be built the first year, situate between their land on the south and by the city walls on the north’. By 1389 Fraunceys was paying 26s.8d. a year in rent to Thomas Ford for other property in the city.1E179/169/38 mm. 2, 3; Ancient Deeds Bath ed. Shickle, 5/56, 57, 96; E101/343/28, 30; Med. Deeds Bath (Som. Rec. Soc. lxxiii), 144.