PEPYR, John

A mercer,3 Ct. roll D/B 3/3/8, mm. 2, 4. Pepyr served for over 20 years as an office-holder in Maldon. He first appears in the records in April 1412, when a local jury presented a fellow townsman, William Dalby, for assaulting him with a sword or dagger.4 Ibid., 1411-12, D/B 3/3/7, m. 2. Such fracases were quite common; and 13 years later both Pepyr and John Coppescheffe faced charges, again in the borough court, of having assaulted each other.5 Ibid., 1424-5, D/B 3/3/15, m. 1. In 1432 Pepyr acted as a mainpernor for Thomas Lamb*, following Lamb’s election as an MP for Maldon.6 C219/14/3. He himself was returned to Parliament some five years later, and within three years of leaving the Commons he served a term as one of the town’s bailiffs. It appears that he did not hold any other office after completing his term as bailiff, although he was still alive in the early 1450s.7 SC6/848/18, m. 3d. There is little evidence for Pepyr’s lands, although he sued Edmund Lytylhey in the borough court for trespassing on his close at ‘Noleys’ in 1427,8 Maldon bor. recs., ct. roll 1427, D/B 3/3/419. and it is possible that he bought a messuage from Henry Syngilton and his wife in the same year.9 Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 8. Late in life, he rented a tenement in Maldon from Robert Darcy II*.10 SC6/848/18, m. 3d.