CARPENTER-L Archives

Archiver > CARPENTER > 2000-03 > 0952811072


From: "Bruce E. Carpenter" <>
Subject: Three Carpenter Knights
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 13:44:32 -0800


Three Carpenter knights appear in the English historical record at
approximately the same time. The following hopes to shed some light on this.
The three knights were Hugh le Carpenter who served the king’s brother John
of Cornwall, John le Carpenter who served the Seneschal of Gascony, John St.
John, and the John Carpenter who is reputed to have attended parliament from
Liskeard, Cornwall in 1323. For this last Carpenter I have not seen this
actual historical record (if it exists) due to the lack of historical
parliament material in my library. Researchers in the 1800s (Edward
Carpenter) claimed this individual existed and I will provisionally accept
this claim. I have evidence now that points to connections to the kingdom of
Gascony, an English possession in the south of France, for all three
individuals.
For Hugh le Carpenter we have good documentation (Calendar of
Inquisitions, Edward III, no. 11 and no. 187) concerning his daughter Alice
who had title to her father’s lands in Salop by right of his knight service
to Margaret de Cornwall’s deceased husband. The Earl of Cornwall had died in
1336. The King and his brother were actively engaged in a war with the Scots
as this juncture. Among their followers were knights and others connected to
Gascony. Hugh le Carpenter himself had died in 1350 according to the same
disposition. In 1319 a France based merchant, Helmyng de Osenbrugge, filed a
complaint against Hugh le Carpenter for boarding is ship and seizing his
cargo (Patent Rolls, May 24, 1319). This case, and many others exactly like
it, shows the open conflict and hostility that raged between commercial
interests of France and Gascony. Carpenters were involved in many of them.
Are Hugh the knight and Hugh the cargo-taker the same?
Another interesting case of exactly the same nature occurred next door
to Kiskeard in Cornwall, for a John le Carpenter in Lostwithiel, Cornwall,
in 1336. Another merchant with French ties, Richard Scotter of Hok, had his
ship boarded and cargo confiscated by John le Carpenter and friends (Patent
Rolls, June 16, 1336). The ports of Cornwall were extremely important
destinations in the Gascon trade for England. Scotter’s ship, “le Cog Johan”
, entered his Cornwall port due to a storm. He had come from Brittany. Are
John the knight and John the cargo taker the same?
The third knight, John le Carpenter, of Staughton St.John in Oxfordshire,
died in the very late 1330s. His knight service was to John St. John, the
King’s Seneshal to Gascony. His connections to Gascony need no comment. He
doubtless went back and forth to Gascony many times with John St. John on
the King’s business.
The point I am trying to make here is that while the Carpenter knights
were rendering service to English causes, they seem to have engaged in the
open conflict with French interests that was characteristic of the period.
The Carpenters were already a leading Gascon family from the 1250s on and
are the best-documented Carpenter family of the Middle Ages. They dealt in
cloth and wine. One of their members, Ellis Carpenter, was a special agent
of the English crown. The real history of the English Carpenters is
intimately connected to the kingdom of Gascony. France finally swallowed up
the kingdom about 1450. At this time many wealthy Gascon refugees settled in
the Bay of Bristol area. I think research would point to Gascon Carpentiers
to have been among their number.

Bruce Carpenter

This thread: