KENOTTE, William

The first mention of Kenotte in connexion with the city of Rochester is his return as one of its burgesses for the Parliament which met at Leicester in February 1426. In June 1433 he stood surety for the city’s two MPs sent to the Parliament called to assemble at Westminster the following month,2 C219/14/4. and later that year he sat on a local jury, alongside prominent citizens. He did likewise for a post mortem in 1439, and may have been the ‘William Kenet’ who served on another Rochester jury in 1451.3 E199/20/16; CIPM, xxv. 164; C145/314/6. Even so, he played no significant part in the affairs of the city, and did not mention Rochester in his will.

In fact, if correctly identified, he lived some distance away. The Kenottes or Kynets had a long association with Bonnington, to the north of Romney Marsh, where one of them, John, had been a collector of the poll tax of 1377,4 Poll Taxes, ed. Fenwick, i. 408. and William expected some of the land there which he had inherited from his father Stephen to provide an income of 12 marks p.a. (£8) for his widow.5 Canterbury archdeaconry ct. wills, PRC 32/1, ff. 58v-61. In March 1429 Kenotte witnessed a deed made by two men from nearby Aldington, and he sat on a jury for a post mortem there 14 years later.6 Centre for Kentish Studies, Scott mss, U1115/T25; CIPM, xxvi. 95. At some point before January 1433 he married Joan, probably the daughter of Robert Symnell of Aldington, and in that month a group of feoffees demised lands in the same part of Kent, at Burmarsh, Lyminge, Newington, Aldington, St. Mary’s and Selling, to the couple.7 CP25(1)/115/307/333. Their marriage led to litigation. Soon afterwards, the Kenottes accused Symnell’s widow and her new husband, William Goldwell, of failing to deliver seisin to them of certain holdings in Aldington and Mersham.8 C1/11/276. By the time of his death Kenotte held lands and tenements concentrated in these places and at Bilsington and Mercham, all near Bonnington, and had evidently prospered in the course of his career.

Yet Kenotte’s social status and profession are difficult to establish. The litigation in which he was involved in the Westminster courts reveals something of his connexions in Kent. In 1433 he sued Richard Clitheroe* in the court of common pleas over an obligation,9 CP40/731, rot. 628. and although he was styled merely as ‘yeoman’ in Hilary term 1446 (when he himself was sued by the executors of Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury, for a debt of £20), he was evidently of greater substance than this description implies. In the same term he was one of the jurors who were distrained for their non-appearance in the suit for debt between Thomas, Lord Scales, and Sir Thomas Kyriel*, serving in this capacity alongside such prominent Kentish men as Sir John Passhele, Sir William Septvans and Sir John Cheyne II*.10 CP40/740, rots. 129d, 337, 451. In the years 1448-52 he was involved in a long suit in King’s bench against Kyriel, whom he accused of breaking his closes at Bonnington and stealing cattle worth £60, although he was thwarted in gaining a judgement in his favour when Kyriel successfully pleaded his royal letters of protection.11 KB27/747, rot. 30; 754, rot. 39d; 762, rot. 27. Kenotte’s local standing is also suggested by the occasions when he was appointed as a feoffee. At times this also involved him in litigation. In the 1440s he was sued in Chancery by Thomas Sprynget and his wife, Elizabeth, for failing to hand over certain lands in which he was seised by nomination of Elizabeth’s former husband, Simon Laundere, and around the same time John Joseph† of New Romney brought a plea against him as a feoffee of William Holyngbroke, the late father of Joseph’s wife.12 C1/11/119, 173. Kenotte remembered both Laundere and Holyngbroke in his will.

The date of Kenotte’s death is not known, and his will of 20 Jan. 1452 does not bear letters of probate.13 Canterbury archdeaconry ct. wills, PRC 32/1, ff. 58v-61. He asked to be buried in whichever church pleased the Holy Trinity, stipulating only that the church was to receive a number of bequests, amounting to about £45, which included the cost of a marble tomb. His parish church at Bonnington was left a total of £18 13s. 4d., to pay for images of St. Mary and St. Rumwold, the glazing of a window, and for paving, while other churches in the locality, including Bilsington priory, were to receive some £26 in total, and St. Augustine’s at Canterbury the sum of £9 6s. 8d. A friary in London’s Fleet Street was the only religious institution outside Kent to be singled out for remembrance. Kenotte left one priest five marks, in return for prayers for his soul, while two others were each to have £2 to go on pilgrimage to Rome to pray for him, his parents and other beneficiaries. Greatly concerned about the state of the roads and causeways near his home, he left £20 for their maintenance, while 20 marks were set aside for the marriages of poor girls. Bequests to named individuals, including several of his godchildren, amounted to over £52, and his four executors were each to be rewarded with 26s. 8d. for their labour, besides other monetary gifts. The sum total of the legacies was well over £205. Some of this was to come from the sale of the testator’s land after the death of his widow, but it is hard to believe that his estate could actually have supported this huge burden. Kenotte evidently left no surviving children. Besides his kinsfolk, he favoured the family of Richard Knight, one of his executors. They, headed by Hugh Brent, a Kentish lawyer based at Clifford’s Inn, sued John Joseph in the court of common pleas in the late 1450s for the sum of 40 marks.14 CP40/787, rot. 13d; 795, rot. 53.