No Country for Old Men? Late Medieval Gentry ‘Communities of the Mind’ in the County of Hampshire

This article examines the armigerous gentry (knights and esquires) that operated in and around the county of Hampshire in the late-fourteenth to mid-fifteenth century. It finds that whilst there was a core of resident knightly families who identified primarily with Hampshire - some for several centuries - there were many other knightly families who held substantial land in Hampshire but rarely engaged politically or socially, identifying with the southern region rather than the county – and sometimes much further afield. Those who had strong links with Hampshire depended upon lands in neighbouring Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Somerset. Networks crossed not only county but also social boundaries and expressed themselves through ‘affinities’, most vividly the Winchester Bishopric under Wykeham and Beaufort. It was very difficult to gain entry to the highest ranks of the Hampshire elite but there were clearly close ties between upper and lower gentry families as evidenced through a series of deeds surviving in one greater gentry family (Brocas of Beaurepaire) which suggest circles of influence that were primarily local and engaged knightly families who were otherwise silent in the political affairs at county level.


NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN? LATE MEDIEVAL GENTRY 'COMMUNITIES OF THE MIND' IN THE COUNTY OF HAMPSHIRE BY TOBY PURSER
This article examines the armigerous gentry (knights and esquires) that operated in and around the county of Hampshire in the late-fourteenth to mid-fifteenth century.It finds that whilst there was a core of resident knightly families who identified primarily with Hampshire -some for several centuries -there were many other knightly families who held substantial land in Hampshire but rarely engaged politically or socially, identifying with the southern region rather than the county -and sometimes much further afield.Those who had strong links with Hampshire depended upon lands in neighbouring Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Somerset.Networks crossed not only county but also social boundaries and expressed themselves through 'affinities', most vividly the Winchester Bishopric under Wykeham and Beaufort.It was very difficult to gain entry to the highest ranks of the Hampshire elite but there were clearly close ties between upper and lower gentry families as evidenced through a series of deeds surviving in one greater gentry family (Brocas of Beaurepaire) which suggest circles of influence that were primarily local and engaged knightly families who were otherwise silent in the political affairs at county level.

KEYWORDS: county; gentry; affinity; county community; medieval gentry; communities of the mind; kinship A community in the county
In a recent assessment of late medieval communities, Gwilym Dodd concluded that the concept of community and the identification with the county did indeed foster a sense of community through shared functions and interests; closing the debate over the 'county community' he argues, is premature, especially with regard to the grass-roots expression of county community sentiment, the petitions presented to the Crown. 1 This 'county mentality' did not, though, dominate how the gentry thought of themselves and their associations, or preclude vertical ties with magnates.The county community was the dynamic idea of the county, a factor in shaping political mentalities and obligations in the localities.Gordon McKelvie proposes that the concept of the 'county community' is best suited to the early modern rather than the late medieval period, but the county is the 'appropriate unit at which to discuss law enforcement.' 2 The historiography of the later medieval county community is decades old, with its hey-day arguably in the 1970s-late 1980s. 3The validity of the 'county community' seemed to have been killed off by Christine Carpenter in 1994 who proposed 'communities of the mind' as an alternative, in line with her perspective of social networking, and in 1998 Anthony Gross concluded that the county was perhaps little more than a tool for dialogue between central and local government. 4At around the same time however, Simon Walker began to put the county back on the map, as it were, arguing that gentry could hold affiliations both with the county and a magnate's affinity, and whilst holding lands in multiple counties, could indeed identify with one particular locality; county office-holding was the arena where local status was confirmed. 5Susan Reynolds explored collective action and collective identity as normal aspects of the functioning of late medieval society whereby any group could represent itself on a collective basis without needing any official sanction to function in this way. 6ocal studies have since then taken a varied approach.In the Palatine of latefourteenth century Durham -where a regional rather than a county framework is seen as a better model -a complex web of interests varied from locale to locale, creating regional peculiarism. 7In Yorkshire, the activities of the Gascoigne family present not a single county community but 'numerous over-lapping communities, united by kinship, memory, shared experiences and culture'. 8In Buckinghamshire, the gentry were not restricted by county boundaries; horizontal ties with other gentry families outnumbered those with any other groups and the everyday world was a fairly parochial one. 9In Northumberland, the majority of heirs/heiresses found partners whose family had holdings in the county. 10A recent (2021) study returns to Warwickshire, where intergenerational networks based around kinship and service at local and state-level formed the basis of a 'Midlands' region of fifteenth century affinities across Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire that survived the upheaval of the Reformation. 11Outside the 'top-down' vertical ties or the 'bottom-up' horizontal paradigm, McKelvie's study of bastard feudal affinities, in particular, illegal retaining, found that these crossed county boundaries but replicate the horizontal ties of the peerage at the gentry/ yeomen social levels. 12he patterns of landholding, office-holding and social networking of the later medieval armigerous gentry of Hampshire all point towards a deeply entrenched but small community identifying with the shire in the early fourteenth century and surviving into the sixteenth century. 13Indeed, over half of the early fourteenthcentury Hampshire knightly families survived through the female line, indicating how important marriage and kinship was over the longue dur� ee c1300-c1500. 14hus kinship played a significance part in the continuity of the social landscape, arguably a main driver behind political office-holding and the administrative unit of the 'county.'Entry to this small group was entirely based on marriage to heiresses and with one notable exception, Sir John Sandys, marriage of similar social standing.Its core members formed a close kinship within the county and neighbouring counties, and in the absence of a great temporal lord, formed close bonds with the most powerful magnate in the county: the Bishop of Winchester.This did not necessarily constitute a 'county community,' rather, a community in the county.The only significant barony in the county were the St John's at Basing in the north-east of the county, which dated from 1086, with manors in Hampshire, but also across the southern counties as well as Hertford, Cambridge and Warwick. 15ome of the key county gentry of the later medieval period were either tenants of the St John barony (Cowdray) or collateral heirs of those tenants (Brocas, Uvedale).The failure of the male line with Edmund St John's death at Calais in 1346 split the estate when Luke Poynings assumed the title Lord St John on his marriage to Isabel, Edmund's sister; Thomas Poynings accounted for £70 from Hampshire but £279 from Sussex and Kent, illustrating the changing focus out of Hampshire. 16When the Poynings male line failed in 1429, the barony was further divided between three sisters and it was the Paulets (originally from Hinton St George, Somerset) who regained the barony in the sixteenth century, becoming Marquis of Winchester and earls of Wiltshire. 17he dismantling of the St John barony in the middle fourteenth and again in the middle fifteenth centuries meant that no group of leading knightly gentry dominated the county; the interspersion with other counties, particularly the west country, and the domination of land by the Winchester Bishopric (which itself spanned six southern counties), had not created a single 'county community.' 18or this reason too, there were no large clusters of illegal livery as in Yorkshire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire due to the lack of a strong magnate base in the county, though there were some cases (Figures 1 and 2). 19efining the armigerous, or knightly class, depends primarily upon income from land, state-level office-holding (which was based upon landed income) and social interaction, including marriage, patronage and other office-holding.We shall see that these attributes were not exclusively county based or 'top down' in later medieval Hampshire.Fourteenth century distraints of knighthood were set at £40 landed income and in 1410, legislation stipulated that a knight could live on 100 marks pa. (£66) and an esquire on 40 marks (£26). 20H. L Gray's figures for the 1436 tax return put the 'knightly' category between £40-£100 and esquires between £20 and £40; the 'parish' gentry -some esquires, 'gentlemen' and merchants had landed incomes of between £5 and £20. 21Tax returns from Hampshire in 1412 and 1436 give 33 and 50 individuals of knightly status with an income in that bracket from the county. 22The total taxable income of the 33 individuals in 1412 with between £40 and £100 was £1,619, an average of £47, reflecting the paucity of secular wealth in the county, probably due to the Winchester Bishopric and other ecclesiastical houses which dominated the county.A study of Nottinghamshire in the period 1399 − 1461 defined the greater knights having at least £100, the lesser knights £40 -£100 and the lesser squirearchy £20. 23The Warwickshire 'elite' of 1436 had an income of at least £60 and the 'middle-ranking' £20 -£50. 24Most Derbyshire knights actually had at least double or even treble the amount set out in 1410. 25Hampshire, by contrast, did not have a 'greater' gentry.The 1436 income tax returns indicate that only 25 of the  50 or so listed in the returns with a knightly income were active members of the 'county' armigerous gentry. 26Only four families had what we might call 'greater gentry' incomes in the 1436 returns, and these were established resident families who dominated county affairs, politically and socially, but this certainly did not constitute a 'class' of the sort that Simon Payling identified in Nottinghamshire. 27tate-level office-holding in the early fifteenth century suggests a small but dominant group of long-established landowners actively engaged in Hampshire.Sixteen MPs for Hampshire identified in the 1412 returns had an average income of £45, again, typical for Hampshire's lack of means, but of these, most (12) had an income of over £40 from Hampshire.The other key state-office in the county at that time, the shrievalty, included eighteen identified in 1412, with an average of £43, most (13) had £40 and over, a similar figure because the same group of people took it in turns to hold these offices.The Uvedales of Wickham were sheriffs fifteen occasions from 1387-1492, MP eleven occasions from 1385-1467. 28urthermore, John Uvedale, originally from Titsey, Surrey, had married the daughter and heiress of Sir John Scures of Wickham whose father, Sir John, had been MP for Hampshire three times, in 1309, 1314 and 1322 and sheriff for an unprecedented length of time, from 1322-1337. 29Not only did the Uvedales marry into the land, but they acquired the office-holding responsibilities that went with it.The Pophams of Popham were MPs for Hampshire 24 occasions in the period 1295-1449. 30he leading electors confirm the hegemony established by the landed families that had sat in parliament for Hampshire for the previous century.The Statute of 1406 requested that the election returns should not be a simple endorsement on the writ of summons of the names of those elected, but rather an indenture drawn up between the sheriff and the electors who were to append their seals. 31The statute reflects the increasing importance of the commons and the competition for seats but says nothing about the election process itself. 32The statute also tells us of the competition for seats, as in the event of a contest, those with the support of the greater number of electors should be returned.The legislation did not, however, restrict the electorate to the wealthier gentry, but remained a broad composition of yeoman and husbandmen, the very type who bore the burden of taxation.An analysis of seven surviving lists of electors in Hampshire for the parliaments of 1422-1441 show that the numbers of electors was on the increase, more than doubling from 14 in 1422 to 32 in 1441, peaking in 1436 with 67 electors and averaging 27 per election. 33Of the 125 electors present at the seven elections, 19 were at some time in their careers knights of the shire and a further five borough MPs; 15 were sheriffs, 13 justices of the peace and six escheators.In 1422, Sir Stephen Popham and John Lisle headed the list; Popham did so again in 1429 and 1436 and was actually elected in the other parliaments of 1423,1425,1429 and 1441, making him the most dominant individual at the elections in this period.Popham was sheriff in 1427 and 1440.John Lisle was an elector again in 1423,1436 and 1441, sheriff in 1439 and MP in 1433.William Brocas, elected in 1422, was chief elector in 1423, second in 1425 and 1441, and was sheriff in 1429 and 1435.
However, a small group of dominant landowners does not make a 'county community.'Not all of landowners were primarily engaged in the county and several of them had significant incomes and held office from and in other counties.There were 49 Hampshire MPs across the fifteenth century; 33 (67%) were drawn from the principal armigerous resident families.Six fifteenth century MPs sat in six other shires, which included Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire, Essex, Berkshire and Sussex.The danger in associating state office-holding with the 'county community' is illustrated by the Tichborne family, who held lands in Hampshire from the twelfth century into the twentieth century but did not sit in parliament for Hampshire after 1327 until 1553, despite returning £50 in 1436. 34The Lisles, another Hampshire landowner of twelfth century origin, did not sit for Hampshire until 1401 or hold the shrievalty until 1412. 35aking K.B McFarlane's advice ' … to include the adjacent districts in the reckoning, since a county boundary was itself no barrier to the exercise of territorial influence; only great distances were,' this article will discuss examine how this resident core of knightly families existed alongside 'silent', non-resident and nonresident armigerous gentry in the southern region who were qualified to hold county office -and occasionally did so -and over time, 'migrated' in or out the life of the county as their family fortunes shifted. 36Furthermore, an examination of the kinship network of Bishop Wykeham and of a resident knightly family, Brocas, illustrate that social interaction between 'greater' and 'lesser' gentry was flourishing and depended upon local, family connections regardless of the county boundary.

A regional community: 'resident,' silent' and 'migrating' families
The taxation returns of 1412 demonstrate that even the established Hampshire families depended upon landed income from neighbouring counties. 37Two established families who identified closely with Hampshire for many generations had a combined income greater than their Hampshire income (Popham: £89 from Essex and £40 from Wiltshire, Uvedale: £60 from Surrey, £56 from Kent) and a third established knightly family, the Lisles, had £40 from Wiltshire.Incomes from other counties were therefore crucial to fifteenth century landed society.Only 13 of the 33 with armigerous income listed in 1412 were primarily associated with Hampshire by holding state-offices and or engaging in social contracts.This meant in theory that the other 20 individuals could stand for election as knight of the shire, serve as sheriff, escheator and justice of the peace in Hampshire.In practice, however, few did.This silent majority of landholders based in Hampshire composed a parallel community to those who were active and resident.
The county returns for England are incomplete (19 survive) but all the southern counties are available and give us some sort of regional picture.Figure 3   Brerding, can be identified as professional lawyers sitting on the bench, along with John Fromond, who was closely associated with Winchester College and Bishop Wykeham. 38aving a landholding stake in the county meant that at any time, a family could express their affinity with the 'county' in terms of state-office holding, particularly if they were in the region.One such regional family, the Berkeleys, effectively 'migrated' into Hampshire in the fifteenth century.In 1412, Sir John Berkeley accounted for £40 a year from the Hampshire lands but his main income was £157 from Gloucestershire, £68 from Somerset and £67 from Wiltshire; Hampshire was only a (smaller) part of his total wealth of over £340. 39It was Sir John's second marriage that brought the Berkeleys into Hampshire, that to Elizabeth, sole heir to John Betteshorne of Bisterne; on her father's death in 1399, she inherited lands in Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire, centred on an estate in the New Forest. 40In the later fifteenth century, the Berkeleys dominated county politics, holding office as MP or sheriff on twelve occasions from 1455-1485 and in 1501 Sir Edward Berkeley appears as a knight on the Hampshire 1501 records, clearly identifying with the county, whilst his brother, Sir Maurice, is described as 'of Beverstone' (Gloucestershire). 41Another family that migrated into Hampshire in the late fourteenth century, this time from neighbouring Berkshire, was the Brocas family from Clewer, whose affinity we shall examine below.
Two families holding Hampshire manors identified across the Wiltshire/ Hampshire borders.The Sturmys of Elvetham were primarily a Wiltshire family based at Burbage and had held the hereditary office of Steward of Savernake Forest since the Conquest; Henry Sturmy had £40 in lands from Hampshire in 1300 and was listed as a tenant-in-chief. 42Sir Henry Sturmy, of Wolf Hall, Wiltshire, and Elvetham, Hampshire, was MP five times from 1344-1360 and sheriff in 1347 as well as sheriff of Wiltshire in the 1360s.His famous nephew Sir William Sturmy, ambassador, member of the King's council and speaker of the House of Commons, was MP for Hampshire in 1384, 1390 and for Wiltshire several times from 1390-1422 and for Devon twice in that period, as well as JP for Wiltshire and Hampshire. 43In 1412, Sir William Sturmy had income of £37 from Hampshire but £91 from Wiltshire and £40 from Devon (Figure 4). 44he Lisles of Wotton (Isle of Wight) whose family estates in Hampshire passed intact in a remarkable unbroken line for thirteen generations also operated on the Wiltshire/Hampshire borders.In 1412, the family estate was assessed for taxation at £187; £33 in Dorset, £40 (Chute) in Wiltshire, and £112 in Hampshire.The identification of the family with the defence of the Isle of Wight diminished, perhaps because the Lisles increasingly resided from preference on the mainland.The shrievalty of Wiltshire implied residence in Wiltshire.Altogether by 1471 there were fifteen manors and two advowsons in Hampshire, four manors in Dorset, and two each in Wiltshire and Devon.John V chose in 1429 to be buried at Chute (Wiltshire) but John IV in 1407, John VII in 1523 and at least one other were interred at Thruxton (Hampshire) where their tombs remain.The will of Other armigerous long-standing families were 'silent' members of the county community.The Langfords held Chale (Isle of Wight) from the late thirteenth century to 1509 but never held office as MP or sheriff for Hampshire although Sir John Langford was Constable of Carisbrooke castle; thereafter the family were absentee landlords in Hampshire. 49The Wallops had held land at Wallop and Over Wallop in Hampshire since the reign of Henry III; in 1428 John Wallop held the quarter fee at Wallop and his income in 1436 was £36. 50The Wallops do not sit in parliament for Hampshire until 1415 but served as sheriffs and on the county bench throughout the fifteenth century; Stephen Wallop was the ancestor of the earls of Portsmouth. 51John Giffard of Itchell, 'esquire' in 1431 and assessed with an income of £50 in 1436, was a member of the family that had been lords of Itchell since 1264. 52The family held the manors of Norton and Weston (Glos) in 1320; in 1503 William Giffard was distrained for knighthood. 53he Giffards only served twice as sheriffs in this period and never as Hampshire MPs. 54he 1412 returns and the political engagement, or non-engagement, of armigerous families serve to illustrate the cross-county modus operandi of some Hampshire landowners.This was far from an 'open elite' but it was not by any means exclusively a county elite.We will now take a deep dive into the workings of two affinities based in the county to explore further what it meant to be a part of the 'communities of the mind' in and close by, to Hampshire.

Communities of the mind: the Winchester Bishopric: patronage and kinship
The established core of landed armigerous gentry in Hampshire in around 1400 was no strangers to what we now call 'cultural and social capital.' 55 A wealth of evidence survives from the Winchester Bishopric that illustrates how the key political families expressed their identity, not as a 'county' community but a community of the mind with Bishop Wykeham and his new foundation at Winchester College, through marriage and wider, kin-like connectins with Wykeham's family, holding Bishopric offices, witnessing deeds, dining with the Bishop and sending their sons to his new school. 56The paucity of greater gentry and magnates in Hampshire meant that the Bishop was effectively seen as the leading magnate.Such evidence also reveals some Hampshire families and individuals who were not operating at state office-holding level even though they had wealth and means to do so.It illustrates the relations between the 'greater' and 'lesser' or 'parish' gentry.
Firstly, the established knightly families clearly valued their relations with Bishop Wykeham.The grant of Eling from Henry Husee to William Wykeham in 1372 was witnessed by the knights Luke Poynings, Bernard Brocas and Philip Popham, and the grant of Meonstoke from William Wykeham to Thomas Cranley, Master of Winchester College in 1386, was witnessed by Sir Philip Popham. 57Henry Popham attested many of Wykeham's transactions, dined in the bishop's household in 1393 was another beneficiary of his will and involved with the foundation of Winchester College. 58Popham was licensed by Wykeham to choose a confessor in 1396, and was authorised to hunt game on the episcopal chases at Downton. 59Sir John Scures had been an early patron of Bishop Wykeham and the Uvedale marriage to the heiress of Wykeham, Sybil, brought them not only into Hampshire (from Titsey, Surrey), but into the sphere of influence of the bishop.John Uvedale's sister married Bishop Wykeham's greatnephew, William Wykeham, and Uvedale was left a cup of silver to the value of 10 marks in Wykeham's will. 60The Uvedale connection with the Bishopric continued, as in 1486 John's grandson Sir William was a beneficiary of Bishop Waynflete's will, and a certain Thomas Uvedale was servant to Waynflete.
Sir Bernard Brocas's his marriage to Mary Boarhunt, daughter of Sir John des Roches, brought him not only a clutch of manors to consolidate his inheritance at Beaurepaire, but also a connection with the collateral descendant of Peter des Roches, thirteenth century bishop of Winchester, whose descendants held their lands at Bradley and Hussbourne from the Bishopric. 61Brocas had a close association with Bishop Wykeham, witness of several deeds and chief surveyor and keeper of the parks on the episcopal estates from 1377. 62ir Edward Coudray of Herriard was Wykeham's bailiff at Highclere, dined in Wykeham's household in 1393 and was a beneficiary of his will.and Bishop Beaufort's bailiff at Sutton, Alresford and Cheriton from 1405-26 -William Coudray entered Winchester College in 1398. 63It was Sir Edward's son, John, who brought the news of the victory at Agincourt to Winchester College in 1415. 64he transactions of the Bishopric cross social and county divides, involving Wykeham's family, 'new men' and old wealth.Sir Thomas Wykeham, nephew of Bishop Wykeham, mainly held offices outside Hampshire, in Oxfordshire, where he sat four times in parliament and on the bench from 1406 periodically until 1413 and then from 1416 until his death in 1443.He was sheriff of Hampshire in 1416 and his lands in 1412 illustrate his regional, rather than county association. 65ocial connections were exploited to the full by the most notable armigerous upstart, Sir John Sandys, soldier of fortune under the Black Prince, who had abducted and married Joan Bridges, heiress to Sir William Fifhide. 66Sandys sought to cement his arrival in the shire by closely associating with the bishop, dining in Wykeham's household; his son Walter furthered the family by marrying Agnes Warrener, a kinswoman -probably aunt -of Wykeham. 67Thomas Warrener was Wykeham's kinsman and bailiff of the Soke and Liberty of Winchester 1365-1404; he appears several on grants as witness alongside Popham, Brocas and Lisle. 68One of these was a grant to John Fromond, steward of the estates of Winchester College.Resident at Sparsholt, of an old Winchester family -a Stephen Fromond was mayor in 1275, Richard Fromond was the Bishop of Winchester's bailiff of Clere from 1320-1323 and MP for Hampshire in 1328 -but not part of the 'county' gentry; John Fromond was a wealthy man (worth £50 in 1412) who never drew his £5 stipend after the first year and in his will endowed a chantry where a daily mass was sung for his soul until 1529 as well as bequeathing the College a goblet of silver, and a chalice, amongst other things. 69William Ringbourne of Afton and kinsman of Wykeham MP in 1383, also appears on the grant to Fromond; he was of a established armigerous family returning £40 in 1412, his son William serving as sheriff and MP for Hampshire in 1420 and 1436. 70Richard Wallop, of an established armigerous family in the county acted as Fromond's feoffee and as steward of Winchester College manors from 1421-30; he sent his son Richard to Wykeham's new school and his new college at Oxford. 71ishop Wykeham's will listed family, armigerous and non-armigerous individuals.Edith Ringborne, Agnes Woodlock, Agnes Sandys (daughter of Thomas Warrener), Thomas Warrener, William Ringborne and John Bennet as his cousins and beneficiaries; the first three of these received £100, the second three £20. 72arrener was also left 100s.or a silver cup to that value, as was John Fromond, steward of the Winchester College manors from 1405-1420. 73There were 100 or so beneficiaries altogether.Other beneficiaries in Wykeham's will included Edward Coudray, he received 100s, or a silver cup to that value.So did William Fauconer, Wykeham's bailiff of Sutton, Alresford and Cheriton from 1401-1405, and Richard Wallop, bailiff of Twyford and Merdon from 1401-1404. 74he armigerous gentry expressed their identity with Wykeham with keen support for his new establishments, Winchester College and New College, Oxford.There were 2,692 scholars in the period 1393-1540 − 70 scholars at any given time.Scholars were from families with land holdings less than five marks pa -so they were mostly sons of rural farmers and small-holders and the majority came from lands on the college estates or the counties in which these estates were located, that is, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset and Berkshire. 75owever, Founder's kin -consanguinei -immediately put pressure on this.(There was what might be seen as an obsession with 'Founder's Kin,' who were entitled to preferential admission to the school until 1857 -and to New College, Oxford).Thomas Warrener's sons Thomas and Reginald Warrener were admitted in 1393. 76John Sandys, son of Sir Walter and first cousin to the Warreners, was admitted in 1412, and a William Ringborne in 1449. 77enry Popham's sons and nephews were among the first commoners at the school. 78John Uvedale, with his brother William, attended Wykeham's new school in Winchester.Members of the Brocas, Tichborne, Lisle, Ringbourne, Wallop and Uvedale families attended Winchester College across the fifteenth century, and New College and Magdalen Colleges, Oxford. 79Patronage was used to bend the rules and get boys from wealthy gentry families admitted. 80These were probably 'commoners' or extranei (up to 10 per year) educated alongside the 70 scholars, but none in the original scheme of foundation.Kirby uses the Books of the Seneschal of Hall to identify those dining from day to day at the college and paying to do so: there were gentleman commoners who paid 12d to dine with the Fellows and the 'pensioners' who paid 8d to dine with the scholars. 81ocial and political connections between Hampshire gentry, greater and lesser, and Winchester Bishopric and College, continued under Bishop Beaufort, whose affinity was naturally Lancastrian and regional and not of the nature of the Wykehamist-kinship. 82At Christmas 1423, Bishop Beaufort sent Sir Walter Sandys six capons, six couple of rabbits, and a six-lb.pot of a costly luxury, 'grenegyngyver,' which cost 14s.6d., and to Richard Wallop six couple of rabbits and a gallon of wine, which cost 3s in thanks for supporting the College in a dispute with the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury over a boundary dispute. 83Sir Walter Sandys, husband of Agnes Warrener, Wykeham's kinswoman, acted as co-feoffee with Bishop Beaufort and Thomas Chaucer, Beaufort's cousin.John Uvedale also acted as co-feoffee and witnessed a latter patent issued by Beaufort.Edward Coudray, Wykeham's bailiff of Highclere, swapped with William Fauconer to become Beaufort's bailiff of Alresford, Sutton and Cheriton from 1405-1426.The grant of Barton from Archdeacon Walter Trengof of Cornwall to the warden of Winchester College in 1440 was witnessed by Sir John Popham and Sir John Lisle, amongst others. 84t is under Bishop Beaufort that we might discern some political influence by the bishop in the state-holding offices in Hampshire, individuals with rather different to the family connections and long-established families.Fauconer, bailiff under Wykeham, but not of the armigerous gentry, was MP in 1407 and 1411, John Arnold in 1413 and Lewis John in 1413. 85John Arnold was a career official, acting in Beaufort's entourage when he was bishop of Lincoln, receiver-general of the Winchester estates and joint apparitor-general of the diocese; he replaced Thomas Warrener as bailiff in 1404.Thomas Chaucer, appointed sheriff in 1413, was the son and heir of the famous Geoffrey Chaucer and was intimately associated with the House of Lancaster and based primarily in Ewelme, Oxfordshire.He sat for Oxfordshire fourteen times from 1401 to 1431 (but never Hampshire), acted as JP and Escheator for Oxfordshire and Berkshire and in many other capacities. 86is lands in Hampshire were the manors of East and West Worldham, by his marriage to Maud Berghersh, but his regional base was between the Chilterns and the Cotswolds; and his connections with Hampshire were chiefly political, through his close association with his first cousin Henry Beaufort.
Lewis John was intimately connected to Thomas Chaucer and owed his remarkable double election to the seats of Taunton and Wallingford in the parliament of May 1413 solely to Chaucer, who was constable of Wallingford and Taunton castles; John had no other connections with the area. 87His election in Hampshire for the parliament of November 1414 probably owed more to Thomas Chaucer's position as sheriff at that time.His political focus became Essex, where he sat five times in the period 1420 − 1439, and where he was sheriff and JP.However, these few individuals were the exceptions to the pattern of Lisle, Cowdray, Uvedale, Popham, Brocas and Sandys families who dominated office-holding in the early fifteenth century.
The Court of the King's Bench had been fixed at Westminster in 1423 and in 1424 Beaufort became Lord Chancellor; central officials appeared in other counties, too, and thereafter the commissions grew. 88Around a third of the bench had connections with Bishop Wykeham which dropped after his death and recovered under Beaufort but not quite as high. 89Beaufort focussed on the northern counties of the Bishopric -Berkshire and Oxfordshire -where over 50% of appointments went to Beaufort's men as opposed to 27% in Hampshire. 90The most frequent justice under Beaufort was Richard Wallop, appearing eight times; he was also justice of gaol delivery at Winchester Castle in 1410. 91Wallop was from an old armigerous Hampshire family and was a servant of the Winchester Bishopric.Also present on the bench was John Fromond (four times).Along with Wallop, William Rickhill, William Brenchley, William Hankford, John Colpepper, William Skerne, William Cheyne and John Martin were justices of gaol delivery in Hampshire in the first quarter of the fifteenth century; all were professional lawyers, none of armigerous status. 92However, the apparent dominance by professional lawyers, judges and Bishops' men may have been due to the participation of the knights and esquires in Henry V's wars in France in this period.Sir Stephen Popham, John Popham, William Warblington and Sir Walter Sandys, all on the commissions, were in France in and after 1415. 93e Brocas 'affinity': a local community in the county Sir Bernard Brocas of Clewer, Berkshire, accumulated estates in Hampshire through marriage with Mary des Roches, heiress, although Beaurepaire had been purchased in 1353. 94Sir Bernard was closely associated with Bishop Wykeham, as we have seen, but his son was executed in 1400 for plotting to restore Richard II; the family fortunes did not suffer since William Brocas had £120 in 1436 (fourth highest in the county) and married Joan, daughter of Sir Walter Sandys. 95 series of deeds in the Brocas collection from Sherborne St John, Beaurepaire and Bramley and Pamber in the period c. 1380 -c.1460 reveal the social connections between the Brocas family and other knightly families -some of these families who engaged very little or not at all with state-level county politics, some families were of lesser, 'parish gentry' status and some with newly acquired armigerous status. 96What mattered most was locality rather than county, since all bar one of the core associations were close to the Brocas base at Sherborne in the north-east of the county. 97Personal connections mattered, too, since at the turn of the fifteenth century, we might discern close associations between Brocas and 'new men' entering county society -the Sandys, Dingley and Chamberlain families as well as the established families.
A clutch of big county names evidences the high status of the Brocas family in the county.The deed of settlement of 1429, in which trustees John Golofre and William Warblington settled Beaurepaire on William Brocas' heirs male was clearly important enough to merit the presence of Sir Walter Sandys and Sir Stephen Popham. 98The conveyance of 1470 at Hoo and Broxhead between the trustees of William Brocas to William Brocas and his wife was witnessed by John Lisle, Thomas Uvedale, John Paulet, Edward Langford and Bernard Brocas, among others. 99The Coudrays of Herriard appear on nine occasions from 1314 − 1429, and the another established armigerous family, the Warblingtons of Sherfield, eight times from 1406 − 1460.
Some witnesses had connections across the southern region.The Mores of Pamber had close associations with nearby Monk Sherborne and Richard More appears in a transaction in 1313, his descendants Hugh, Henry, Robert, John, William and Geoffrey in fifteen transactions from 1387 to 1463 out of 28 transactions in that period concerning Monk Sherborne and the Beaurepaire and Bramley transactions on fourteen occasions from 1322 to 1451 and at Pamber six times from 1368 to 1443. 100 Robert More II became MP for Hampshire in 1397 -it is possible that his election in 1397 was influenced by Sir Bernard Brocas jr., who was executed in 1400 for plotting to restore Richard to the throne. 101These transactions illustrate localism not county affinity, since More's 1412 returns of £20 from Hampshire were dwarfed by £108 from Dorset and £60 from Wiltshire, where he was MP. 102 The Baynards, from Wiltshire, were regular witnesses on the Sherborne deeds.Sir Philip Baynard was sheriff of Wiltshire in 1377 and appeared in six transactions from 1387 to 1406, with an income of £20 in Hampshire in 1412, and £40 from Wiltshire. 103The Baynards held lands at Silchester, five miles north of Sherborne, resulting from a marriage to a daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Bluet. 104Philip died in 1415, and his son Robert was a Brocas witness at Sherborne in 1412, and his son John in 1460. 105Philip and Robert were also witnesses in the Beaurepaire and Bramley deeds, appearing eight occasions from 1383 to 1428 and on three occasions from 1381 to 1413 in the Pamber deeds. 106hilip was sheriff for Hampshire in 1391 but the family did not hold office in the county at any other time (Figure 5).
Two knightly families with long-held lands in Hampshire had connections further afield but engaged with the Brocas family in the deeds.Sir Nicholas Dabridgecourt appeared for the Sherborne deeds in 1387 and 1390, and his son Sir John in 1406, 1408 and 1412. 107Sir Nicholas had married Elizabeth Say, heiress of Stratfield Say, in the latter half of the fourteenth century, and his descendants remained lords of Say until 1629; Sir Nicholas did sit as MP for Hampshire in 1399, probably due to his Lancastrian associations (he was a retainer of John of Gaunt) and served as sheriff in 1389 but the family was otherwise absent from county politics. 108In 1412 Sir John Dabridgecourt returned £40 from Hampshire but another £126 from Berkshire, Derby and Middlesex. 109In 1412 Sir Robert Pedwardyn appeared in three Brocas transactions at Sherborne and Beaurepaire, twice with Sir John Dabridgecourt. 110The Pedwardyns were lords of South Warnborough (five miles south-east of Sherborne) in the early fourteenth century, and also Burton Pedwardyn in Lincolnshire and of lands in Herefordshire, where it is likely they concentrated their resources. 111The Pedwardyns were a knightly family but never held county office in Hampshire in the period c1300-1441 during which time they held Warnborough. 112Both the Dabridgecourt and Pedwardyn families were not part of the 'county' core families politically but their appearance in the deeds at Sherborne reminds us of their presence in the county.
Two families on the Brocas deeds who were longstanding landowners in Hampshire but held no state-offices and can be said to have had 'parish' gentry status, were the Fabians and Cufauds.The Fabians, of Fabians (Wootton St Lawrence, close to Monk Sherborne) were another local longstanding family like the Mores and Baynards, and had held Fabians since 1282. 113The Fabian family witnessed seven transactions at Sherborne from 1387 to 1404, fifteen at Beaurepaire and Bramley from 1332 to 1398 and once at Pamber in 1381. 114The Fabians were not a county knightly family, never sitting in parliament or serving as sheriff for Hampshire, but to the Brocases at least, they were important parish gentry, to be associated with in certain circumstances.The Cufauds of Cufaud, in Basingstoke Hundred, had been lords of the manor since 1167 and remained so until 1737, when it was sold by Martha Cufaud. 115The Cufauds made no returns for Hampshire in 1412 or 1436, never sat in parliament for Hampshire or served as sheriff, but were certainly significant in Sherborne, Beaurepaire and Bramley, where they appeared on twelve Brocas occasions from 1332 to 1418. 116ther parish gentry on the deeds include John Strode, appearing at Sherborne St John seven times from 1396 to 1415, who had an income of £20 in 1412, drawn from land and rents at Sherborne and Allington. 117Nicholas Valence appeared at Sherborne in 1399 and 1404 and had an income of £33 in 1412, from the manor of Farley Mortimer in Hampshire; the family had also held Wield, south of Basingstoke, in the fourteenth century. 118These incomes place Strode and Valence on the margins of the armigerous class; neither ever sat in parliament for Hampshire or served as sheriff.
An exception to the rule of long-established local landholding witnesses was Robert Dingley who witnessed two transactions at Sherborne (five miles from his manor of Wolverton) three at Bramley and Beaurepaire and one at Pamber. 119ingley was an elector for the 1422 parliament, when William Brocas was elected, and again in 1429, when William Brocas was sheriff. 120His father, Robert Dingley I, came from the Lancashire family of Dingley, seated at Downham, and found service in the retinue of the Black Prince and John of Gaunt, and was closely associated with Sir John Sandys, adventurer and upstart. 121In 1385 he acquired the rights to the manor of Fittleton and Combe in Wiltshire, where he was MP in 1391, and in 1384 he bought the Hampshire manor of Malshanger (Basingstoke); he also acquired land in Surrey and Ireland which passed to his younger son on his death in 1395. 122Dingley was one of the very few who purchased land in the county and gained access to the inner circle of resident knightly families, by use of patronage and connections.Robert Dingley II furthered consolidated the family's rise by marrying Joan Brocas, the daughter of Sir Bernard, and though he inherited Wolverton, he concentrated his estates in the Kennet Valley, away from Wolverton, exchanging Wiltshire estates for Berkshire lands.Robert Dingley accounted for £60 in 1436, in 1431 he was titled esquire. 123ne 'gentleman' associate of Brocas and Dingley was a Southampton man, whose family perhaps also aspired to greater social status with their links to the Brocas family.William Chamberlain appeared eleven times in Sherborne deeds up to 1444, once in Beaurepaire and Bramley in 1440 and once in Pamber in 1420, succeeded by his son John in 1454 and 1469. 124William Chamberlain was an elector for the 1430, 1436 and 1441 parliaments, latterly present alongside William Brocas senior and junior and Robert Dingley II. 125Chamberlain did not serve as sheriff or MP for Hampshire.The Chamberlain family were Southampton-based rather than county; in 1412, John Chamberlain had an income of £20 in land and rents from the Isle of Wight and the town of Southampton. 126William Chamberlain, described as a 'gentleman' in 1431, appeared as a property owner in Southampton and Winchester, and owner of lands at Hinton Daubeney (near Portsmouth). 127His income of 1436 was ninth highest in Hampshire, at £64.18. 128His association with the Brocas family aligned with that of the Dingleys and achieved a measure of social climbing but neither Dingley or Chamberlain families truly entered the greater gentry ranks, since the Dingley line failed in 1501 and Malshanger sold to Archbishop Warham. 129

Conclusion
A solid core of the late fourteenth-century armigerous families closely engaged politically and socially with Hampshire survived into the sixteenth century in the male line -Lisle, Sandys, Berkeley, Brocas, Uvedale, Cowdray, Gifford, Norton, Tichbornes, Wallop, Barowe. 130Others though, survived through the female descent, including the notable Pophams, in the form of the Bulkeleys in Hampshire, and the collateral descent of the oldest barony, St John, through the Paulet family, so it is never straightforward to talk of 'rising gentry.' 131 Instead, understanding the rippling circles of kinship tells us how this society operated and the spotlight on the Wykeham affinity reveals how significant kinship was.The only major upstart to the knightly community, Sir John Sandys, very quickly embedded himself and his descendants into the kinship networks of the county and it was this that ensured his legacy in the long run.
No such resources like the Stonor-Plumpton-Cely-Paston letters survive for late medieval Hampshire gentry, but the themes of lineage, land and lordship were certainly just as crucial; kin, feoffees, neighbours and county office-holders comprised the 'significant others' and with people of higher and lower status, as we see with the Brocas affinity. 132And like the Brocas affinity, the Stonor network was based roughly around a fifteen-mile neighborhood, not the region or even the county; the emphasis on kinship or claimed kinship also provided a model for non-kinship relationships.The letters of these late medieval knightly families suggest that it was a world of "predatory lords, tight-fisted dowagers, disgruntled sons, wretched daughters and bitterly contested wills," in the words of one writer, something we can see, albeit more dimly, in the social circles of Hampshire families. 133n 1944, McFarlane looked forward to a time when the lives and achievements of the country gentry were more familiar.McFarlane's thinking of the 'country' rather than 'county' gentry was correct.The findings in Hampshire point towards a regional, cross-county armigerous gentry.The core knightly gentry was one community in the county, engaged in many circles of influence.The lack of powerful aristocrats in the county empowered the gentry to co-operate between knightly and parish gentry classes though it was by no means an 'open elite.'The affinities of the Wykeham and Beaufort bishops indicate just how these 'communities of the mind' operated, using kinship and patronage that drew together a diverse established gentry, professionals, and 'new' men to the dining table, classroom, and chantry.The Brocas deeds indicate that localism was at a premium, operating in the vacuum of a great lord but it was those landholders in the neighbourhood who mattered most of all.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.This work is entirely theoretical, there is no data underpinning this publication other than published manuscripts and unpublished manuscripts where referenced.

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2023 The Author(s).Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.DOI: 10.1080/14631180.2023.2277613
indicates that Wiltshire, Somerset and Kent were the sources of the greatest wealth of those on knightly incomes (£40-£100), though most of Kent is based on the incomes of Sir Nicholas Haute (who had no association with Hampshire in terms of officeholding or socially), and Thomas Poynings, styled Lord St John, whose Basing barony was much diminished.Somerset returns are skewed by Sir Thomas Wykeham (Bishop Wykeham's nephew but based in Oxfordshire with some engagement in Hampshire) and Sir Edward Courtenay of the Devon affinity.Returns of those with below £40 from Hampshire either show the lesser armigerous class with little or nothing else, or those with far greater incomes, such as Lord Botreaux.As well as being only partial, McFarlane thought the 1412 returns somewhat 'ad hoc;' the numbers were probably rounded up and our own £40-£100 category is of course artificial.Some of those returning knightly incomes above £40 for Hampshire, like Hugo Tildale and John Pokeswell, are never seen again in Hampshire at this social level; others, like John Skilling and Thomas

Figure 3 .
Figure 3.The Distribution of knightly incomes in the southern region in 1412.
John VI (d.1471) mentions his daughter Anne and that of Sir Nicholas (d.1506) a kinswoman Joan, both nuns of Amesbury in Wiltshire.45The Lisle knights were knighted at important state occasions such as the knighting of Prince Edward in 1306, the coronation of Henry IV, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth of York in 1497 and the creation of Henry Prince of Wales in 1503.The Coudrays operated on the Berkshire/Hampshire borders, holding Herriard in Hampshire (near Basingstoke) since the thirteenth century which remained in the family into the sixteenth century.46Sir Thomas Coudray had Padworth in Berkshire and served as MP for Berkshire in 1328. 47A series of leases show that the Coudrays were absentee landlords in Hampshire for much of the fourteenth century: Thomas Coudray granted the manor of Herriard for life to Master Jacob Man, Cecilia Beauchamp and Roger of Essex in 1314 for £26 annually for fifteen years and £100 annually thereafter; by 1351 Sir Thomas Coudray had granted the manor for life to Robert Achard; in 1365 Edward Coudray granted the manor to John, rector of St. Martin's, Winchester and others. 48Their other Hampshire manor, Sherborne Coudray, was also leased out.Thomas Coudray was MP from Hampshire in 1318 but their absence was reflected in the lack of office-holding until Edward Coudray was sheriff of Hampshire in 1404 and MP in 1402,1417 and 1423.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4.The southern region of England.