Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/514

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422


NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* 8. m. JUNE 3, 1905.


(Newcourt, i. 431), and his successor John Rebet or Ryvet, L.D., was appointed on 23 November, 1460 (ibid., ' Heg. Kemp ,' 72) ; but nothing is said in Newcourt as to how it was the living became vacant.

Like Westhawe he seems also to have been a donor of books to the library of Syon Monastery. The name Pynchbek (sic) appears in the list of donors against thirty books (Bateson, 'Cat. Lib. SyonMon.,'p. xxvi), and he may have been the author of ' Epistola M. I. Pynchbek directa generali confessori' in the same library. The work is not men- tioned in Tanner (ibid., p. 79).

Miss Bateson states in a note (p. xxvi) that a Dr. Pinchbeck (sic) was present at the trial of Pecock in 1457 (Gascoigne, ed. Rogers, p. 212). Possibly he is the same as Dr. John.

Another Pinchbeck was also a Carthusian monk. This was Robertus Pynchebeck, who was a lay brother of the London Charter- house in 1534 (Dom L. Hendriks, ' The Lon- don Charterhouse,' 1889, p. 370. See P.R. O., Chapter House, Sa. 2, 82a).

" Roger Pynchebek de Londin" " was a scribe whose name appears in a MS. copy of ' Musica Ecclesiastica, sive de Imitatione Christi,' preserved at St. John's College, Cambridge (MS. C, 6 ; see Cowie, ' Catalogue,' 1843 ; see also ' N. & Q.,' 6 th S. iii. 203, quoting The Tablet, 31 July, 1880, p. 140).

Particulars are given below of some other members of this family. The name is spelt variously Pynchebek, Pynchebec, Pynche- beck, Pynchbek, Pinchebek, Pinchebeck, Pinchbeck, and Pinchback. The family is said by Foss to receive its name from Pinch- beck, a parish so called in Lincolnshire, and this view is followed by the writer of the account in 'D.N.B.' of Christopher Pinch- beck (who died 18 November, 1732). There it is said that " the family doubtless sprang from a small town called Pinchbeck in Lin- colnshire." In both cases, no doubt, Pinch- beck, near Spalding, is intended. The word would appear to signify a stream flowing in a narrow channel.

It may be worth noting here that the abbess and nuns of Syon seem to have held land in the neighbourhood of Spalding and Pinchbeck in Lincolnshire in the reign of Henry VI. (see G. J. Aungier, ' Hist, and Antiq. of Syon Mon.,' 1840, p. 59 ; Rot. Pat., 23 H. VI., p. 1, m. 18) ; and it is just possible that this may account in some measure for the large donation of books to Syon men- tioned above. But too much stress must not be laid on this.

In 1312 (30 August) Robert de Pinchebeck succeeded to the prebendal stall of South


Newbald in York Cathedral (Le Neve, 'Fasti/ ed. Hardy, 1854, vol. iii. p. 205).

In the same century (c. 1327) there was a. William Pinchebeck, a monk of Bury St. Edmunds, and there is in Cambridge Uni- versity Library (MS. Ee. iii. 60) a register (' Registrum Vestiarii ') known by his name (M. R. James, 'The Abbey of S. Edmund afc Bury,' Camb. Ant. Soc. Pub., 1895, p. 163). A full description of the MS. is given in the- Catalogue of MSS. in the University Library at Cambridge, vol. i. (1857), p. 99 et set)., where- Pinchebeck's date is given as 1333. Possibly this William is the same as a namesake who,, some time between 1325 and 1398, was pre- sented to the rectory of St. Mildred in th& Poultry (see Newc., 'Rep.,'i. 502). He may also be the lawyer who, on the death of John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke (13 Rich. II., 1389), was consulted by Sir William Beauchamp as to his right to succeed to the Earl's estates (see Foss, 'Judges of England,' vol. iv. p. 25, quoting Dugdale, ' Bar.,' i. 579). If this be so, it would rebut Foss's suggestion that there was a mistake in the Christian name, and that Thomas Pynchebek, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, was the lawyer consulted, and it would seem probable that the latter retained his position as Chief Baron until 1389.

This Thomas, in the fourteenth year of the royalty of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (1374), was a Justice to hear Pleas at Lancaster (John Booker, 'Memorials of Prestwich,' Manchester, 1852, p. 4, quoting from Dodsworth MSS.). No mention is- made of him in Sydney Armitage-Smith's recent book 'John of Gaunt' (Constable, 1904). He was appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer 24 April, 1388 (Foss, 'Biographia Juridica,' 1870. See also '.Judges of England,' 1851, vol. iv. p. 77).

In 1453 Gilbert Pinchbeck was master of the Grammar School attached to York Minster ('Test. Ebor.,' iii. 143). He died 31 January, 1457/8, and was buried in the Minster (ibid , p. 198, note quoting Drake, 495).

In 1471 John Pynchebek was a Brother of the Guild of the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Mary the Virgin, St. John the Baptist, and St. Katharine of Coventry (' City of Coventry,

Calendar of Deeds, &c ; ed. by J. Cordy

Teaffreson, Coventry, 4 to, 1896, p. 64, No. C, 201).

Thomas Pynchebek was a parson at York. His will was proved 17 October, 1479 ('Test. Ebor.' iii. 199. note quoting 'Reg. Test.' v. 155B). He is probably the same as Dominus Thomas Pynchebek who is referred to in a will in 1491 as having been buried in York