Family and Education

Offices Held

Bailiff of the bp. of Salisbury’s manors of Sonning and Eye, Berks. July 1426-d.1

Biography

Laurence, whose heraldic arms show him to have been a cadet of the Fittons of Cheshire, had entered the service of the bishops of Salisbury by September 1416, when Bishop Hallum granted him, as proctor of Thomas Burton, canon of Salisbury cathedral, a letter addressed to the bishop of Worcester for Burton’s induction as prebendary of Torleton. He was almost certainly related to another of the canons—John Fitton, subsequently (from 1422) chancellor of the cathedral—and to Richard Fitton*, who was already employed as the bishop’s bailiff in Somerset and Dorset.2 Retained as an esquire by John Chandler, who succeeded Hallum in 1417, Laurence was in 1426 appointed as bailiff of the episcopal manors of Sonning and Eye for life, in consideration of his past good service. His fee was ten marks a year, and he was also to receive a robe at Christmas and stabling for two horses. It was in the church at Sonning that he was buried following his death on 29 Mar. 1434.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: Charles Kightly

Notes

• 1. Wilts. RO, Reg. Chandler, ii. ff. 102.
• 2. Vis. Ches. (Harl. Soc. xviii), 99-100; Reg. Hallum (Canterbury and York Soc. lxxii), 634; E179/188 m. 244; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, ii. 737-8.
• 3. Reg. Chandler, ii. f. 102; VCH Berks. iii. 221.