KIRKBY, John I

More may be added to the earlier biography.3 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 522-3.

What is known of Kirkby’s career, not least some of the offices listed in the cursus above, suggests that he had a legal background. If so, he was probably the John Kirkby, ‘student at law’, who in Henry V’s reign served John Stone, King’s secretary and dean of the collegiate church of St. Martin le Grand, London, as a steward. At some stage before September 1443 this John Kirkby made a formal statement before a group of lawyers and gentlemen acting on behalf of Richard Caudray, one of Stone’s successors as dean. He informed them that he had once held a view of frankpledge at Maldon, Essex, where the dean possessed jurisdictional rights, in his capacity as Stone’s steward. He added that Robert Darcy I*, the most prominent resident of Maldon, had invited him to both dinner and supper after he had completed his duties, and had given him a ‘chaplet of thrummes’,4 Some sort of wreath or necklace made up of unwoven threads. a thing of novelty (‘de noua coniectura’) at that time.5 Westminster Abbey muns. 8121. Presumably the former steward was called upon to make his statement after Caudray had encountered a challenge to his church’s rights at Maldon.

Exchequer records reveal that in mid 1429 Kirkby and his friends, John Barley* and William Rokesburgh†, entered a recognizance with John Fray†, one its barons. By means of this security, they acknowledged that they owed Fray £100 (which they undertook to repay in ten annual instalments of £10) although the circumstances in which the debt arose are unrecorded. 6 E159/205, recogniciones Trin.