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THRIPLOW, John, of Cambridge.
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Family and Education
m. 1da.
Offices Held
Tax collector, Cambs. Nov. 1377.
Bailiff, Cambridge Sept. 1395-6.1
Biography
In January 1381 Corpus Christi college was pardoned for having acquired by alienation without royal licence certain property in Cambridge which included a tenement of Thriplow’s valued at 36s., the fellows being confirmed in possession. But Thriplow himself seems to have resented the increase in the wealth and jurisdiction of the college and other university establishments, for he became actively involved in the disturbances which shook Cambridge at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt later that year. His disaffection was noted quite early on, for on 22 Feb. he was bound in recognizances for £100 to prevent conventicles of the townspeople and not to obstruct the royal justices in their sessions. Nevertheless, Parliament was to hear ten months later how in the summer he had been a leader of the mob which attacked and plundered the college, an occurrence which led to the suspension of the town’s liberties and its commital by royal authority to the custody of Richard Maisterman*.2
Thriplow’s relations with the master and scholars of Corpus Christi college had improved considerably by 1386, when he acted as their spokesman at the assizes held in Cambridge. This was following allegations made by the prior of Ely that they had conspired together not only to deprive the priory of a certain toft in the town but also to cease payment of rents; the prior was awarded damages of £6. In 1392 Thriplow joined with John Herries*, John Blankpayn* and John Cotton* in arranging for the foundation of a chantry in St. Mary’s church, which they endowed by royal licence with a number of properties in Cambridge and Chesterton. A deed of a year earlier refers to a conveyance made by our MP of land in the village of Thriplow, a few miles to the south of the town, whence his family derived its name.3
A few months before he began his only known term of office in Cambridge as bailiff, Thriplow was returned to Parliament for the first time, and in January 1397 he was re-elected. He provided securities in September following for the attendance in the Commons of Thomas Trivet, but is not recorded alive thereafter. In 1404 Thomas Hamond, senior, sold a tenement in the parish of Barnwell, which he had acquired on his marriage to Thriplow’s daughter, Rose.4
Ref Volumes: 1386-1421
Author: E.M. Wade
Notes
Variants: Trippelowe, Tryppelowe.
- 1. E372/241.
- 2. CIMisc. iv. 114; CFR, ix. 213; CPR, 1377-81, p. 586; 1381-5, p. 143; Cambs. Village Docs. ed. Palmer and Saunders, ii. 34; CCR, 1377-81, p. 513; Cambridge Antiq. Soc. lv. 62-63; RP, iii. 106-7.
- 3. JUST 1/1494 m. 25; C143/415/18; CPR, 1391-6, p. 132; CAD, vi. C4617.
- 4. Cambridge Antiq. Soc. xxxi. no. 299.