DYER, Edmund, of Taunton, Som.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Apr. 1414
Nov. 1414

Family and Education

m. 1s.

Offices Held

Portreeve, Taunton Mich. 1411-12.1

Biography

Described as ‘of Taunton’ in 1408, when Thomas Dolbery was pardoned his outlawry for failing to answer his suit for a debt of £5, Dyer was evidently closely associated with the town. He had acted as a juror there in 1400 (at a sheriff’s inquiry into the possessions of Richard II) and attended the shire court of Somerset to witness the borough elections to the Parliaments of 1407, 1410, May 1413, 1417 and 1420. In 1411 he was elected portreeve and in 1414 twice chosen to represent his fellow burgesses in the Commons. It is possible that on the second of these occasions both he and his companion, John Marchaunt II, were slow to go to Westminster: their names appear in the list of witnesses to a conveyance of property next door to Dyer’s own house in the High Street, the deed being dated there on 21 Nov. 1414, when Parliament had already been in session two days.2 In addition to this house, Dyer also occupied in the middle of the market-place, a tenement, probably a shop, which he himself had had built, only for it to be seized into the bishop of Winchester’s hands in 1415 because he was unable to prove ownership.3 He was dead by December 1427, when his High Street property was in the possession of his son, Thomas.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

Variants: Dier, Digher, Dyere, Dygher.

  • 1. Hants RO, bp. of Winchester’s pipe rolls, 159413.
  • 2. CPR, 1405-8, p. 400; C145/278/27; CIMisc. vii. 156; Bridgwater Bor. Archs. (Som. Rec. Soc. lviii), 570; C219/10/4, 5, 11/2, 12/2, 4.
  • 3. Bp. of Winchester’s pipe rolls, 159417; Procs. Som. Arch. Soc. lv. 50-51.
  • 4. Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 634.