URBAN, David (d.c.1436), of Penryn and Mylor, Cornw.

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

May 1421

Family and Education

m. Isabel, 1s.

Offices Held

Tax collector, Cornw. Feb. 1434.

Biography

Urban, who held land in Ludgvan near St. Mounts’ Bay, lived at Penryn near Falmouth and it was in the latter neighbourhood that most of his properties were situated. It was, in fact, the bailiff of Penryn who, in October 1418, was ordered by the King’s Council to summon him to appear before it to answer a complaint from the factors of a Breton merchant that a ship had, contrary to the Anglo-Breton truce, been seized by certain balingers of (Sir) John Arundell I* of Lanherne, vice-admiral of the duke of Exeter, taken to Falmouth, and the cargo (mainly wines) stored at an inn belonging to him, Arundell’s lieutenant. In January 1421, when commitment was made of the wardship of the estates and heir of John Urban* of Southfleet (Kent) and Helston, David provided securities for the grantee, John Hals, a justice of assize on the western circuit, who was one of John’s executors. He is, therefore, perhaps to be identified with the David ‘Renaudin’ mentioned in the late diplomat’s will as his kinsman and Hals’s fellow executor.1

Urban was present at the shire elections held at Lostwithiel in 1427 and 1429. In the same years he obtained episcopal licences to have his own oratory in a private chapel at his house in the parish of Mylor. He is last recorded, probably only shortly before he died, in March 1435, at which time he settled on his son, David, his holdings in Penryn and in the parishes of St. Martin and Gwenapp, including a moiety of the village of ‘Chiensorn’. In 1439, after his death, property in Penryn extended at 20s.8d. a year was seized by the Exchequer in lieu of payment of a debt owing from the time when Urban had been a collector of parliamentary subsidies.2

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. Feudal Aids, i. 220, 222; CPR, 1416-22, p. 204; CFR, xiv. 371; PCC 50 Marche.
  • 2. C219/13/5, 14/1; Reg. Lacy ed. Hingeston-Randolph, i. 206, 218; CAD, v. A13009; CFR, xvii. 72.