John Fressh (sometimes Frossh, Frosh, Frosshe, Fresshe, Fresche or Froysh) (died 6 September 1397) was a citizen, alderman, and Mayor of London in the latter years of the fourteenth century. A merchant by trade, he was a member of the Mercers' Company, a medieval London trade guild, and has been described as one of London's leading citizens of his time.
Fressh's early life is unknown to historians, and he only appears in the records with his marriage to Juliana, the daughter of an influential merchant, in 1373. From then on, promotion within the city's political machinery was swift. He soon became an alderman, or councillor, and undertook service to both the city and the King, Richard II. He encountered personal and political difficulties in 1381 after the Peasants' Revolt. In the early 1380s, he and colleagues in other victualling trade guilds clashed with a reformist tendency within the Common Council led by John Northampton. In revenge, Northampton accused Fressh of treasonously assisting the rebels, and he was imprisoned for a short time. Fressh's party was soon able to take power on the council, however, which saw him restored to favour.
With this exception, Fressh appears to have avoided too many political pitfalls. He concentrated on his mercantile interests, in the process making a lot of money for himself and for colleagues for whom he acted as a broker. However, this was interrupted in 1392, when the King, dissatisfied with the Common Council's running of London affairs, had all the city's officials arrested for a short period and suspended the city's rights to appoint its Mayor and council. This crisis does not seem to have interrupted Fressh for long; he and his colleagues were soon released, and, indeed, in 1394 Fressh was elected Mayor. During his mayoralty, he was accused of imprisoning citizens who criticised him and also oversaw the unusual Rykener case in the mayoral court.
Fressh died a wealthy man in 1397 and was buried in the Church of St Benet Sherehog, which had been receiving his patronage for some years. His wife survived him, and their three daughters made good marriages into the families of Fressh's fellow merchants.
Political background
London The historian Michael Hicks has described late-medieval London as "the largest port, the largest market and retail outlet for luxuries and manufacture, and the largest employer" in Late Medieval England. Nationally and financially, it was the most important trading post in the country, handling over 60 per cent of English trade abroad. Throughout the period, maintaining control of—and influence in―the city was of fundamental importance for every monarch. For their part, London's citizens benefited from proximity to royal administration, justice, and patronage, with Parliament and the King's Council at Westminster. The city, though, was also hit heaviest by the King's poll taxes of 1376–1381, damaging the King's relations with the city.
Relations with the crown Clickable map of John Fresshe's London, London was governed and administered by men from its merchant class, who were organised by their trades into different guilds (or misteries). These men, among whom Fressh was numbered, formed London's political upper class. They filled the offices of alderman, sheriff, and Mayor, and governed through the Common Council. The common council members were omnicompetent on financial matters, and more delicate city negotiations with the King or his council would be referred to the Common Council. The city was politically turbulent at this time. Although a contemporary chronicler, Jean Froissart, believed Richard II favoured London at the expense of the rest of the kingdom, it is probable that King and city had poor opinions of the other. But, they had to live with each other: the Crown depended on the wealth of London's merchants for the subsidies and loans they provided, and the city relied on the King to protect its trade abroad and its liberties at home.
Relations were not only strained between city and Crown, but also suffered internecine tension, having been riven with factional strife since the late 1370s. This had several causes, including the aftermath of plague outbreaks with concomitant depopulation, followed by different guilds vying for power, combined with a high level of immigration and an as-yet undeveloped sense of community solidarity. It was also rumoured that the King's uncle, John of Gaunt, was planning to replace the elected Mayor with a captain appointed by the Crown. By 1381, London's ruling class was itself engaged in a bitter internal feud for political dominance on the council and was thus unstable and divided. These issues were to influence city politics throughout Fressh's lifetime, until Richard lost his throne in 1399.
Early life and marriage Nothing is known of Fressh's early life. The medievalist Carol Rawcliffe has suggested that since he later married the widow of a leading mercer, Nicholas Ploket, Fressh could have been apprenticed to him as a young man. At some point, he became a merchant and joined the Mercers' Guild, one of the more important of medieval London's livery companies. It is only with his marriage, which had occurred by March 1376, that Fressh starts appearing on city records. His wife, Juliana, was the daughter of an influential Essex landholder, William Langrich, and brought him not only a respectable dowry but a substantial portfolio of estates in that county. This included two messuages and in Barking, while to the north of the county, she inherited a small estate in Nazeing, and in the south, the manor of North Ockendon and lands in Cranham. This estate was probably worth much more than the stated amount of . In London, she brought him a house in Cordwainer Street and other properties in Havering and Cheapside.
Fressh also augmented his Essex portfolio in his own right, purchasing a watermill and land in Havering-atte-Bower, and becoming lord of the manor of Dovores, an area which stretched from Havering to Bowers Gifford. He also successfully pursued unpaid debts to his father-in-law from the time of Edward III. Fressh must have been a relatively wealthy man even in the early days of his career, as in 1379 he was one of 200 citizens who donated—in his case the substantial sum of five marks—to the city's subscription fund established to encourage the "great lords of the realm" to return to Westminster for an approaching royal council.
Career
Fressh was appointed a collector of King Richard II's ill-fated poll tax in December 1380, and elected alderman of the city of London's Bassishaw Ward on 12 March 1381. The poll tax was to provoke the Peasants' Revolt in May that year, which saw a rebel army from Essex march on London the following month. Fressh was one of three leading citizens—along with fellow mercers John Horn and Adam Karlille—sent by the then-Mayor, William Walworth, to parley with the rebels' leader Wat Tyler, whose army was assembled at Blackheath. Fressh and his colleagues were to negotiate with the rebels, and, if possible, persuade them to withdraw. However, says the historian Juliet Barker, even though the rebels "had been on the point of returning to their homes[Horn]... exceeded his authority". He supposedly told the rebels that "the whole city of London felt as they did", which encouraged the rebels to move against the capital. What is certain is that on the afternoon of 13 June 1381, the rebels assembled in Southwark before attacking London Bridge, which opened its gates without resistance. This army, in turn, allowed another rebel force entry through Aldgate. Many rebellious Londoners joined them, and what a later commission recorded as "treasons, murders, killings, executions, the burning and destruction of houses as well as other intolerable and hitherto unheard-of evils" began.
To what extent Fressh supported Horn's actions is unclear. In an inquisition held at Easter 1383 it was alleged that both the other aldermen indeed supported Horn. However, since these hearings were held during Northampton's mayoralty, it is likely that Fressh was the victim of a conspiracy. He was found guilty of treasonably assisting the rebels and imprisoned in the Tower of London. However, a later inquisition in November found otherwise, and Fressh was bailed, by which time his fellow mercer and friend, Nicholas Brembre, was Mayor. All three envoys do, however, appear to have at least encouraged the mob to set the Marshalsea Prison on fire and in the words of the medievalist Ruth Bird, "it is doubtful there was even much disapproval when the marshal, Richard Imworth, was dragged from sanctuary at Westminster and murdered".
Mercantile career Successful trading made Fressh an extremely wealthy man. He did not confine himself to mercery but also involved himself in the lucrative wool trade to the continent. The quantities involved could be substantial: on one occasion in 1385, he was licensed to send 13 sarples of wool to Calais. As a mercer, he trained many apprentices. In 1392, for example, these were William Walderne, Walter Cotton, Thomas Grene and Thomas Welle. They did not solely learn the mercer's trade from Fressh; he also used them as his agents abroad to further his wool trading, as Walderne, for example, did in Calais in 1388. Fressh also traded on behalf of his colleagues, and Walderne brokered Brembre's wool abroad. Fressh also traded luxury cloth worth hundreds of pounds to Calais and Portugal.
Fressh not only made money but also lent it; he was a ready litigant when it was necessary to recover a debt. Between 1381 and 1383, he launched nine recovery lawsuits, recovering over . One such suit was against his wife's cousin, John Langrich.
Feud with John of Northampton
Following the Peasants' Revolt, the reputations of Walworth and the incumbent Common Council had been tarnished, allowing the election of a member of the Grocers, John Northampton. Northampton was elected Mayor in 1381 on a highly populist, radical agenda which included one-year terms for aldermen and proposals for new election machinery. These set him on a collision course with the powerful Fishmongers' Company who had a monopoly on the supply of fish to London. This was because, for religious reasons, people fasted for a quarter of the days each year, and accordingly, London required a plentiful supply of cheap, fresh fish. The fishmongers, however, were aggressive in the first instance and lax in the latter: the city records condemn their high prices for produce described as "putrid and corrupt, unwholesome as food for man, and an abomination". As a leading mercer, Fressh was caught up in the resultant political confrontation between Northampton and the victualling companies, who were led by traditionalists such as Bembre and the fishmonger, Nicholas Exton. Northampton's election posed a serious challenge to Fressh, and, says Rawcliffe, even "threatened to terminate [his] promising career".