CARPENTER, John II

Carpenter rose from relative obscurity to become a leading figure in mid fifteenth-century London. Unlike most of those who represented the City in Parliament, however, his standing was based less upon his wealth than upon his remarkable administrative achievements, both as common clerk of London and as the most influential of the executors of his friend Richard Whittington† (d.1423). Of his family, little has come to light. The names of his parents, who were buried in the city church of St. Martin Outwich, are known only from the will of his widow Katherine, which also confirms that he had an elder brother, also named John. This accounts for the frequency with which the later MP was described as ‘junior’. His father, Richard, may perhaps be identified as the citizen and chandler of that name who was active in London in the first decade of the century.5 Douglas-Smith, 2. What seems certain is that Carpenter did not come from a family with major mercantile interests, although his later close connexion with a namesake who rose to become bishop of Worcester suggests that he may have counted this eminent cleric among his relatives.

Nothing is known of Carpenter’s education but he may have had some legal training and began his career as an attorney in the city courts. As early as October 1412 he acted for the rector of the church of St. Leonard in Eastcheap and others in a case heard before the assize of nuisance, while three years later he appeared in a similar capacity for the prior of the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem at Clerkenwell.6 London Assize of Nuisance (London Rec. Soc. x), 181. It was probably as a result of such activities in the city courts that he was appointed one of the deputies of the long-serving common clerk of London, John Marchaunt. The date of his appointment is uncertain, but it is possible that he had joined Marchaunt’s staff by 1415, for in that year ‘Jankyn Carpenter’ was among a number of city officials and lawyers who were granted fees by the Tailors’ Company.7 Guildhall Lib. London, Merchant Taylors’ Co. accts. 34048/1, f. 86. In November 1416 he became one of the mayor’s serjeants, and when Marchaunt retired in the spring of 1417 he was appointed to succeed him as common clerk. The close personal relationship between the two men was doubtless a factor in his appointment: at Carpenter’s request Marchaunt was permitted to continue to occupy the mansion over the main gate at the entrance to the Guildhall, traditionally reserved for the common clerk, and to receive the common clerk’s salary of £10 p.a. for life. Carpenter himself agreed to start receiving this stipend only after Marchaunt’s death, restricting himself in the meantime to the various other fees and robes which came with the position.8 Jnl. 1, ff. 1v, 39v; Cal. Letter Bk. London, I, 179-80. Three years later, in July 1421, Marchaunt named Carpenter as one of the executors of his will.9 Cal. Wills ct. Husting ed. Sharpe, ii. 431.

Perhaps the most significant of Carpenter’s achievements as common clerk was the compilation of the Liber Albus, a book of customs and ordinances relating to the city of London. In a preface to the book he explained that the work had been undertaken to ensure that the customs of London would not fall into oblivion, and he went on to note that many of the most experienced of the City’s governors (‘gubernatoribus longaevis magis expertis et discretioribus’) had fallen victim to the frequent outbreaks of pestilence and that in consequence ‘their successors have, at various times, been at a loss for written information and disputes have arisen as to what decisions should be taken’.10 Liber Albus ed. Riley, i. 3. Carpenter not only gathered much existing material regarding London’s customs, but also included at the beginning of the Liber a new and detailed account of the duties of city officials, which he may have compiled himself.11 W. Kellaway, ‘John Carpenter’s Liber Albus’, Guildhall Studies in London Hist. iii. 69.

Carpenter also made his mark on the City’s administration in other ways. Of particular importance was his initiation of the practice of signing official documents in the name of the mayor and aldermen: in June 1418, for instance, his name was attached to two proclamations, both of which were entered into the City letter books.12 Cal. Letter Bk. London, I, 196-7. He received grants of fees and robes from several of the London companies who called upon his services, including the Tailors, who granted him a livery hood every year during his tenure of the office of common clerk. As early as 1417 the Tailors had dealt directly with him when they petitioned the civic authorities to allow the fraternity of yeomen tailors to celebrate its annual feast, after disturbances had led to a ban on such festivities. Among the payments was 13s. 4d. ‘done a mesme Carpenter de entrer un record fait sur la gouvernaunce de les ditz vadletz’.13 Merchant Taylors’ Co. accts. 34048/1, ff.103v-283; M. Davies, ‘The Tailors of London’, in Crown, Govt. and People ed. Archer, 175-6. The Brewers too were keen to establish a connexion with Carpenter, no more so than in May 1422 when they were accused of inflating their prices beyond what was allowed by a City ordinance. Richard Whittington himself was behind the charges, as a result of which the masters of the craft were threatened with imprisonment and a £20 fine by the mayor and aldermen. The common clerk had previously received a gift of 20s. from the Brewers for his counsel and thus may have found himself in a difficult position. It is striking, therefore, that his immediate response was to reassure the Brewers ‘that thei shold nomore harme have, nether of prisonement of her bodies ner of losse of xx li. for wel they wysten and knewen that alle the forsaid juggement of the mair and aldremen was not don at that tyme bot for to plese Richard Whityngton for he was cause of alle the forsaid juggement’. Clearly Carpenter felt sympathy for the Brewers and was sufficiently confident of his own ability to influence proceedings to contradict the verdict of the court of aldermen.

As instigator of the proceedings, Carpenter named the influential former mayor Whittington, with whom he was connected by a long-standing bond of friendship.14 London English ed. Chambers and Daunt, 140-2; C.M. Barron, ‘Richard Whittington’, Studies in London Hist. eds. Hollaender and Kellaway, 213-14. It was during Whittington’s mayoralty that he had begun work on the Liber Albus, and it is possible that the experienced alderman and mayor, for whom such a book of customs would have proved indispensable, had encouraged him in this undertaking.15 Barron, 232. It was, however, Whittington’s appointment of Carpenter as one of his executors that would come to dominate the younger man’s activities for much of his remaining career. Carpenter was the key figure among the four executors, for the former mayor specified that no decision concerning the disposal of his vast estate was to be made unless at least three of them were present, of whom Carpenter was to be one. This gave him the principal voice in the administration of Whittington’s estate and the determination of the nature and form of the foundations which were to be established: Whittington’s will itself merely specified that the residue of the estate after debts and legacies had been paid was to be used for works of charity, and it is thus highly probable that the eventual decisions to establish a college for priests and an almshouse were priorities which, at the very least, Carpenter shared with Whittington.16 J. Imray, Charity of Richard Whittington, 6. Carpenter’s prominence among the executors found reflection in a pictorial representation of Whittington’s deathbed scene at the beginning of the ordinances drawn up for the Mercers’ almshouse, where Carpenter was accorded the most important position at the front of the scene among the four executors surrounding the former mayor’s deathbed.

The process of establishing the college and almshouse was underway soon after Whittington’s death. In a series of transactions the former mayor’s properties in London were gradually conveyed by their feoffees to Carpenter. Among the properties so conveyed to the executors were three tenements in the parish of St. Michael Paternoster, including Whittington’s own great house (the only one of his holdings in the City which did not form part of the endowment of the college and almshouse), Le Tabbard on the Hoop and four shops.17 Corp. London RO, hr 152/52, 57, 153/39, 154/21. These premises provided the location for the college and almshouse and it appears that the construction of these was largely complete by the autumn of 1424, for on 8 Nov. a foundation licence was purchased from the Crown and on 16 Dec. the college was conveyed to its first master, William Brooke, and the four other chaplains, and the almshouse to the tutor and 12 inmates. The foundations were linked to the powerful Mercers’ Company which was granted the advowson of St. Michael Paternoster, whose rector was to be master of the college.18 CPR, 1422-9, pp. 259, 273-4, 280, 418; London hr 153/42-43. In the meantime the executors had made arrangements for the annual payment of £63 p.a. and £40 to the college and almshouse respectively, but pending the provision of a proper endowment these sums were to be found out of Whittington’s lands and moveable wealth. The acquisition of lands sufficient for the intended endowment and the disposal of Whittington’s property in line with the provisions of the will took several years. By the end of 1430 the bulk of the former mayor’s holdings in the City had come into Carpenter’s sole possession. In the meantime, he and the other executors had acquired the additional estates in London which were to be used for the foundations. During the accounting year from Christmas 1430 to Christmas 1431 the total rents from these holdings came to £222 17s. 4d., a figure which excluded those properties acquired during the accounting year. The achievement of Carpenter and the other executors was emphasized by the fact that the properties which had been owned by Whittington himself accounted for only £48 16s. 8d. of the total income of the endowment, while the remaining £174 0s. 8d. was derived from the premises acquired after his death. By 1445 the completed endowment yielded a total of £250 3s. p.a.19 Imray, 20-21, 23, 29, 122-7. In the interim, Carpenter and his fellows had completed the legal framework required for the foundation with an act of Parliament passed in 1432.20 Ibid., 20-21, 37; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 214-17; PROME, xi. 18-19.

The college and almshouse aside, other projects funded out of Whittington’s estate included the rebuilding of Newgate gaol which was undertaken, so Carpenter stated, ‘because that hit was feble, over litel, and so contagious of Eyre, that hit caused the deth of many men’. Royal licence for this undertaking was granted on 12 May 1423, and the inmates were temporarily transferred to the sheriffs’ compters. The project appears to have taken just under two years, and in January 1425 commissioners were nominated to deliver the gaols to which the prisoners had been taken. As a result of his agency in the rebuilding of the prison, Carpenter found himself drawn into a dispute over the non-payment to the gaol of an annuity of four marks bequeathed by Sir John Poultney in 1349 out of lands he had used to endow the chapel of Corpus Christi next to the church of St. Lawrence Pountney. Following the rebuilding of the gaol, the master and chaplains of the chapel had ceased to pay the rent charge and it fell to Carpenter to try to restore this income. However, it was unclear who, if anyone, was entitled to take legal action against the master and chaplains and so early in 1431 Carpenter petitioned Parliament that the mayor or chamberlain of London should, in future, have the right to distrain for the recovery of arrears in the payment of the four marks. The petition was granted and on 12 Jan. letters patent were issued confirming this arrangement.21 PROME, x. 451-2; CPR, 1422-9, p. 98; 1429-36, p. 110; Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 119.

Carpenter’s actions reflect both his sense of duty as the leading executor of Whittington’s estate and his wider sense of civic responsibility. These two motives were particularly prominent during his foundation of what John Stow was later to describe as a ‘fayre and large liberarye’ close to the Guildhall.22 J. Stow, Surv. London ed. Kingsford, i. 273-4. This project was a collaboration between the executors of Whittington, who had also given £400 to Greyfriars library, and those of another mercer, William Bury, but the inspiration for the library may well have come from Carpenter himself. Little is recorded of the process of foundation, although it is clear that it was built between March 1423 and 27 Sept. 1425 when the mayor, aldermen and commonalty entrusted the library’s books to Whittington’s and Bury’s executors. It is highly likely, however, that Carpenter himself exercised the practical supervision of the library until his death in 1442. The building itself was of stone and consisted of three chambers at ground floor level with the books chained to shelves in an upper chamber above. It was constructed on part of the site of the demolished Guildhall College, and it also made use of a parcel of common soil 44 feet in length which Whittington’s executors had acquired in an exchange of land with the City.23 C.M. Barron, Med. Guildhall London, 22-24; R. Smith, ‘The Library at Guildhall’, Guildhall Misc. i (1), 3-10; Stow, 273-4; Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 53; jnl. 2, f. 53. Carpenter’s keen personal interest in the library is evident in his own will in which he bequeathed to it the residue of what was clearly a large personal collection of books. Any ‘good or rare books’ were to be selected for inclusion in the library by William Lichfield, rector of All Hallows the Great, and Reynold Pecock, who had been appointed as master of Whittington College and rector of St. Michael’s in 1431-2, and these were to be placed in the library by his executors ‘for the profit of the students there and those discoursing to the common people’. Carpenter bequeathed a book of prayers and meditations to his chaplain ‘that it might be given to some devout person to pray for both their souls’, while other pamphlets were bequeathed to one of his clerks on condition that they would eventually pass to the Guildhall library.24 Commissary ct. wills, 9171/4, ff. 84v-86v; W. Scase, ‘Reginald Pecock, John Carpenter and John Colop’s “common profit books”’, Medium Aevum, lxi. 265-70.

The administration of Whittington’s estate and the foundation of the college, almshouse, library and the other building projects was a major preoccupation of Carpenter for more than ten years and one to which he had to devote both time and considerable sums of money. The bequests in his friend’s will amounted to over £1,000, while the building works connected with the college, almshouse, Newgate prison and the library probably cost a similar amount. The precise cost of only one of these projects is recorded: the new south gate of St. Bartholomew’s hospital alone cost £174 14s. 4d. Other, more minor schemes included the building of two new houses on empty ground in the parish of St. Michael Bassishaw, work which was carried out by a Croydon carpenter named William Addescombe, who was to be paid 94 marks for his labour,25 Imray, 8, 24; CAD, i. C1570. and the re-foundation of a perpetual chantry in the chapel over the charnel house in St. Paul’s churchyard.26 CPR, 1429-36, pp. 56-57; Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 115; London hr 157/20, 30.

During much of this time, however, Carpenter also continued to serve as common clerk, his stature in the City probably much enhanced by his prominence as Whittington’s leading executor. His services as an arbiter were frequently called upon by the City in order to resolve disputes between citizens which were brought before the court of aldermen, and in March 1427 he himself took an oath to keep the secrets of that court. Not surprisingly, given his activity in the property market on behalf of the Whittington foundations, he was a popular choice as a feoffee for the transactions of his fellow citizens, including John Fray†, a baron of the Exchequer, Thomas Frowyk I*, John Shadworth†, John Gedney* and John Welles II*. In addition he was often chosen to be a recipient of goods and chattels, such ‘gifts’ being entered into the City’s plea and memoranda rolls as part of business arrangements made by individuals such as William Cantelowe* and John Mitchell I*.27 Corp. London RO, Bridge House deeds H.50, 53, 58, 62, 64, 70, 80, 81; London hr 144-78 (numerous deeds); Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, 250, 283, 290; 1437-57, 162-3, 165; Cal. Wills ct. Husting, ii. 452; CCR, 1422-9, pp. 286-7; 1435-41, p. 455; 1441-7, pp. 300-1. He also played an important part as custodian of the city’s records and collective memory. So, for instance, on 11 Aug. 1428 one of the executors of Simon Winchecombe, a former sheriff, came into court with a round barrel containing records, rolls and other memoranda of the time of his shrievalty, the key to which was entrusted to Carpenter,28 London jnls. 2, ff. 55v, 92v, 93v, 104; 3, ff. 119, 127v; Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 76. while in early 1432 he wrote a long and detailed letter to a friend concerning the reception into London of Henry VI on 20 Feb., following the King’s coronation in Paris the previous December. This letter was copied into the City letter books and was subscribed ‘per fabrum sive domificem vestrum Johannem ejusdem urbis secretarium indignissimum’. The use of the term ‘secretary’ was a significant indicator of Carpenter’s status, and the inclusion of the account in the letter books a reflection of his close involvement in the compilation of the City’s records. He ended the letter by noting that he was too busy with civic business to provide details of the King’s reception by the prelates and nobles.29 Corp. London RO, letter bk. K, ff. 103-104v.

Carpenter’s close connexion with the Mercers’ Company did not prevent him from establishing links with some of the other guilds which also valued his legal expertise and unrivalled knowledge of city custom. Thus, in 1429 he was paid £5 and granted livery by the Grocers who had sought his advice in connexion with their acquisition of new letters patent.30 P. Nightingale, A Med. Mercantile Community, 426-7. The following year Carpenter was rewarded for his service to the City with a grant of an additional £10 p.a. for life, while in February 1431 he was able to lease land and shops in the parish of St. Peter Cornhill from the mayor and commonalty for 80 years at an annual rent of a red rose for the first 30 years with 20s. p.a. payable thereafter. This substantial property became his principal residence until his death.31 Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 108, 119-20.

By the mid 1430s Carpenter’s duties in respect of Whittington’s estate had largely been discharged, although he continued to supervise the college and the almshouse until his death. He had not, however, neglected his own fortunes completely, for in the assessment made for the income tax of 1436 he was said to hold property in the city to the value of some £24 p.a.32 S.L. Thrupp, Merchant Class Med. London, 379. This property comprised tenements in five parishes including the ‘Crown’ in St. Magnus and a house on the east side of Chancery Lane opposite Lincoln’s Inn (holdings which were subsequently used for his foundation in Guildhall chapel), as well as land in the parish of All Hallows Barking which he purchased from the widow of William Neel† in the early 1420s, and rent charges in several parishes which his widow Katherine would later use to establish anniversaries for their souls. The full extent of his estates remains unknown: while dealing with his goods and chattels in May 1441 Carpenter referred to a now lost will concerning his lands and tenements.33 Cal. P and M. London, 1458-82, pp. 127-31; T. Brewer, Mem. Life John Carpenter, 160; London hr 153/47-8. By the autumn of 1436 Carpenter had been common clerk for almost 20 years, and it may well have been with an eye on his eventual retirement that, on 14 Dec., he persuaded the city government to exempt him, the City’s ‘beloved secretary’, from service on juries, assizes and watches and from holding any further civic offices.34 Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 210. Three years later, while serving in his second Parliament, Carpenter secured a similar concession from the Crown, exempting him from all Crown offices, juries and assizes, which noted how Carpenter ‘from his youth up [he] has served the King and his progenitors in that place and elsewhere with great labour and untiring zeal’.35 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 356, 371, 453.

It is not certain whether part of Carpenter’s motivation in seeking these exemptions lay in his election on 20 Nov. 1436 (three weeks before the London concession was granted) as one of the City’s four representatives at the Parliament which was summoned to Westminster on 21 Jan. 1437. This was the first occasion on which a serving common clerk had been returned to Parliament, and was a clear mark of the unique position he had attained in London’s political elite. In addition, however, it is probable that he had been returned on account of an issue of particular concern to the citizens which was to be addressed in Parliament. A possible cause for the citizens’ desire to be represented by their learned clerk in 1437 was a petition concerning a new customs duty levied on imports by the port of Bayonne in Gascony which may well have had a serious impact upon the business dealings of some Londoners.36 PROME, xi. 212.

It is likely that Carpenter’s presence in the Commons helped to spread his reputation as an able lawyer and administrator beyond the confines of the City. His skills as an arbiter were employed on several occasions in disputes between Londoners and individuals from elsewhere in the country.37 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 61, 360. Of particular interest is his involvement in the administration of the city of Norwich whose liberties were seized by the Crown in the summer of 1437. John Welles II, originally from Norwich himself, was appointed as keeper and escheator of the city on 12 July, and on the same day he and Carpenter were named the sole justices of the peace and of oyer and terminer for Norwich while its government remained in the King’s hands. Soon afterwards, when the citizens of Norwich began to make attempts to have their liberties restored to them, they turned to Carpenter as an intermediary. At an assembly on 8 Oct. two letters were sealed by the city’s council, one to the chancellor and the other to Carpenter, informing them of ‘certain articles’ of the city of Norwich. When the King’s council discussed the matter in the following month, the chancellor and Carpenter were instructed to draw up the terms of a ‘submission’ to be made by those responsible for the disorder in Norwich. The suspension of Norwich’s liberties continued into early 1438, but it was probably through the good offices of Carpenter, whom the citizens asked ‘to make request to the King’s council for the full reformation of our liberties’, and Welles that the city eventually achieved the restoration of its privileges.38 CPR, 1436-41, p. 89; Recs. Norwich ed. Hudson and Tingey, 283; PPC, v. 76. Carpenter also continued to be active as a feoffee, both within and outside London. Among those with whom he was associated were his namesake and possible kinsman, the future bishop of Worcester, then master of St. Anthony’s hospital, the King’s physician, John Somerset*, and Carpenter’s friend William Chedworth, clerk of the city chamber.39 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 510-11, 551. It may also have been around this time that he established a connexion with Cardinal Beaufort. This may have arisen from Beaufort’s scheme to fund repairs to London Bridge where, in about 1437, the stone gate and tower at the south end, along with two of the arches, had collapsed. Beaufort’s contribution was £1,000, which he eventually paid to Carpenter’s executors after the former common clerk’s death. As late as April 1450 £496 still remained in their hands, but the work had evidently been finished by the time William Worcestre completed the field-work for his Itinerary in 1480.40 Jnl. 5, ff. 27, 34; L.B. Radford, Henry Beaufort, 292; W. Worcestre, Itin. ed. Harvey, 269.

It was at some point before 4 Oct. 1438 that Carpenter finally retired from the post of common clerk. Yet, this by no means marked his departure from public life, for over the next three years he continued to serve the city government in a number of different capacities. On 23 Oct. 1439, at a meeting of the common council held two days after the two aldermen had been selected, he was chosen for a second time as one of London’s MPs.41 Jnl. 3, f. 25v. On this occasion it is possible to discern clear reasons for his election, for prior to their attendance at the Parliament the MPs were carefully briefed by the mayor and aldermen. The civic authorities and some of the companies were particularly concerned about the threat to trade posed by alien merchants, and this was reflected in a petition submitted to the Parliament which went on to secure the reintroduction of the ‘hosting laws’ (restricting the freedom of movement of aliens in the city), and also the extension of the powers of the London garbler. It is possible that Carpenter himself was responsible for the petition or at the very least that it owed much to his drafting.42 C.M. Barron, ‘London and Parliament’, Parlty. Hist. ix. 357; Nightingale, 446-8; PROME, xi. 291-3.

Even after Carpenter’s retirement as common clerk, his knowledge continued to be greatly valued. In June 1440 he was granted the sum of 20 marks for his labours for the City, although it is unclear if this refers to his work at Parliament or to another matter.43 Jnl. 3, f. 44. The same year he and other lawyers attended a lavish dinner at the Grocers’ hall organized ‘to asske counseille for goyng to feyris and marketis with divers waris’.44 Nightingale, 448. He continued to act as an arbiter and feoffee in London until the summer of 1441 and in June that year was sent by the mayor and aldermen to bring one William Bowyer to the Guildhall. Of rather greater significance was his involvement in a bitter dispute which had flared up between the City and the dean of the college of St. Martin le Grand over the seizure by the sheriffs of a fugitive prisoner who had sought sanctuary there after escaping from the custody of an officer taking him to the Guildhall. The dean sued the sheriffs for this violation of sanctuary, and the city officers petitioned that ‘this mater may be comynde with the counceylle of the cite and in especiall with John Carpenter’ in order to uphold the city’s liberties, ‘consideryng that this cause is every Fremannys cause’.45 Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 241-3.

On 8 Mar. 1442 Carpenter drew up his will, a remarkable document which encapsulated many aspects of his career. A desire to avoid pomp and ceremony characterised the funerary arrangements he specified, insisting that his ‘vile corpse’ be buried near the pulpit by the chancel in the parish of St. Peter Cornhill. Silver vessels ‘which have very often served me for the unreasonable and vain glory of the world’ were left to the church and his furred garments ‘which I have many times abused in superfluous and useless observances’ were to be sold and the money used to buy clothing for the poor. It was in keeping with this outlook that at an unknown date before his death Carpenter commissioned a representation of ‘Death leading the Estates’ (or the Danse Macabre) which, according to John Stow, was ‘curiously painted upon boord about the North cloyster of Paules’.46 Stow, 109. His post obit arrangements included a chantry to be funded for three years out of a bequest of £20 and the celebration of daily masses for a month after his death. In addition to lands worth some £20 p.a. his widow Katherine was to receive 100 marks in cash and 50 marks in plate and jewels. She was also to continue to live in the substantial property which they leased from the City. Other goods were bequeathed to relatives, including two silver-gilt cups ‘which Thomas Knolle[s]† gave me’, which were left to his brothers, Robert and John. A long section of the will concerned Carpenter’s books, 26 of which were named and left to specific individuals, while the remainder were to be given to the library at Guildhall. Among the recipients were John Carpenter, the master of St. Anthony’s, who was left a book on architecture which his namesake had received from William Cleve, clerk of the King’s works, Reynold Pecock, William Chedworth and several individuals who had served under him while he was common clerk. The books themselves covered a range of subjects, including works by Seneca and Aristotle, alongside devotional, theological and moral treatises, some of which he had acquired from his predecessor as clerk, John Marchaunt. Especially notable was his bequest of a copy of Roger Dymmok’s Twelve Conclusions against Lollardy. One of Carpenter’s former clerks, Robert Blount, was to receive a collection of ‘little books’ containing acts and records relating to both the common law and the custom of London ‘so that after the decease of the said Robert they may remain to the chamber of the Guildhall for the information of the clerks there’. An unusual clause in the will, which was proved on 12 May 1442, specified that the bishop of London as ordinary responsible for proving the will should receive 20s. as an inducement not to interfere with its execution, particularly regarding those bequests made for pious uses. Carpenter’s executors, charged with carrying out his wishes, were his wife Katherine, Chedworth and David Fyvian, rector of St. Benet Fink.47 Commissary ct. wills, 9171/4, ff. 84v-86v (translated in Brewer, 131-44).

Some of Carpenter’s London property was bequeathed to the City authorities who were to pay for an obit on 2 or 3 Oct., and otherwise use the issues of the tenements to pay for the education and board of four boys, ‘qui vulgariter Carpenters children nuncupentur’, who were to assist at divine service in the chapel at the Guildhall. A tutor was to supervise them and they were to be educated at schools most convenient for them.48 Cal. P. and M. London, 1458-82, pp. 127-31. In the event, these instructions were not carried out until the 1470s, but the benefaction continued to be administered well into the sixteenth century and in 1837 the endowment was applied to the new City of London School.49 Douglas-Smith, 22-23, 32.

The parentage of Carpenter’s widow, Katherine, who survived him for 16 years, is obscure, but it is clear that she, who obtained letters of denization in 1446, almost four years after her husband’s death, had been born in Zeeland. The couple do not appear to have had any surviving children.50 CPR, 1441-6, p. 406. In two successive wills, drawn up in 1456 and 1457, Katherine made additional bequests for obits in St. Peter Cornhill, St Martin Outwich, where John’s parents were buried, and in Whittington College. Until her death she continued to live in the residence which she and John had leased from the City.51 Cal. Wills ct. Husting, ii. 537; Brewer, 145-65; commissary ct. wills, 9171/5, ff. 214-214v; Cal. Letter Bk. London, K, 294; jnl. 4, ff. 214, 225v.