Family and Education

Offices Held

Jurat, Canterbury Mich. 1396-8, 1399-1401, 1403-4, 1406-8; bailiff 1404-5.1

Biography

According to the 17th-century antiquary William Somner, Chicche was descended from an ancient ‘family of gentlemen, for many generations known in our city’. His first recorded ancestor was Eudo Chicche, who in the late 12th century held the Canterbury aldermanries of Burgate and Westgate in fee. Eudo and several of his descendants were bailiffs of Canterbury in the 13th and 14th centuries and also, occasionally, MPs either for the city or for the shire. The Chicches held the manor of Dane John inside the city walls from the reign of Henry II onwards and were benefactors of the church of St. Mary Bredin, in which parish the manor lay.2

It was as ‘of Dane John’ that in June 1391 Chicche received a quitclaim of certain lands in Horsmonden, and in January following he sued Richard Wellesbourne and others in the city court for having disseised him of a tenement in the parish of St. Mary Bredin. (But he was unable to obtain the damages, then awarded at £30, until 15 years had elapsed.) He began to take an active interest in the administration of Canterbury in 1396, and in 1399-1400 is recorded as organizing carriage for a millstone purchased for the 'King’s mill’ which the city owned. A jurat when returned to his only Parliament early in 1404, he was elected bailiff at the following Michaelmas. Chicche ceased to be involved in the affairs of the city in 1408.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

Variants: Chiche, Chuche.

OR, i. 265 has ‘de Bongon’, a clerical error for ‘de Dongon’, now known as Dane John.

• 1. Canterbury Cathedral City and Diocesan RO, accts. FA1, ff. 27, 31, 42, 48, 62, 74, 79; List Canterbury Officials , comp. Urry and Bunce, 49.
• 2. List Canterbury Officials , 14, 18, 24-36, 40-43; W. Sommer, Antiqs. Canterbury , 79; E. Hasted, Kent ed. Drake, xi. 78-79, 147-8.
• 3. CCR, 1389-92, p. 483. CPR, 1405-8, p. 345; FA1, f. 44d. It is here assumed that he was a different person from Thomas Chicche of Beverley (just to the south of Canterbury) and Goodnestone, near Faversham, who served as sheriff of Kent 29 Nov. 1402-5 Nov. 1403. He, probably grandson of Sir Thomas Chicche and son of that Thomas Cricche who died in 1392 during his term as sheriff, married bef. 1396, Alice, da. and coh. of Thomas Ellis of Sandwich. The couple jointly held land in Newington, and after Alice's death their young son John became coheir with his aunt Constance, wife of William Nutbeam*, of his maternal gdfa.'s property at Warehorne and elsewhere. Thomas acted as attorney on his son's behalf at the assizes held in June 1404 in pursuit of his claims: Hasted, vi. 550-1; CP25(1)106/183/1645, 184/1660. 110/247/984; CCR, 1377-81, p. 372; CFR, xi. 7, 55; JUST 1/1512 mm. 41, 66d. As Thomas Chicche esquire he was patron of Goodnestone rectory on four occasions between 1418 and 1433, and in 1431 as 'of Goodnestone' he was assessed for the subsidy on land at Beverley and on the Isle of Thanet: Reg. Chichele, i. 166, 205, 254, 274; Feudal Aids, iii. 60, 64.