John Hampton

Date of Brass:

c.1515

Place:

Minchinhampton

County:

Gloucestershire

Country:

Number:

Style:

London F

Description

March 2026

The three remaining pre-Reformation brasses in the church of Holy Trinity, Michinhampton are set together on the north wall as you enter through the west door; on the opposite wall are a larger number of later brasses, perhaps originally from the churchyard where many others remain. The best-preserved of the pre-Reformation brasses commemorates John Hampton, gentleman. This is still set in its original Purbeck marble slab. John and his wife Elyn are shown in their shrouds, while their children, six sons and three daughters, are shown clothed. The most prominent son and daughter are shown dressed as a monk and, at first sight, a nun. She was in fact a vowess. The inscription reads:

    Of yo^r charite pray for the soules of Johñ hampton gentilman Elyn his wyf

    + all their children specially for the soule of dame Alice hampton his dough

    ter whiche was right beneficiall to this church + p(ar)issh whiche Johñ decessed

    in the yere of o^r lord M^oCCCCClvj [ie '1556'] on whose soules jhū have mercy amen

The date has been altered: there were originally only four Cs, not five as now, followed by a blank space for the exact year to be added. This will have indicated '14-' to any onlooker. At first sight therefore this looks like one of those brasses which was laid down in the deceased's lifetime, with the date on the inscription deliberately left incomplete so it could be filled in later by the executors. However the style of the engraving is c.1510-15, well inside the following century, while John Hampton is known from other sources to have died many years earlier, around 1460. If he had commissioned the brass himself, we would expect it to be engraved in the style of a brass of c.1450. Why was the brass commissioned so late? In addition the date '1556' would have him dying in the reign of Queen Mary, around a century after his actual death, and when his brass was already forty years old. Why was the date delayed and then added incorrectly? The answer lies in the circumstances of his death, and newly-indexed legal records provide some explanation.

John Hampton was murdered in the mid 15th century, and his brass was laid down many years later by his daughter Dame Alice. Documents from the King’s Bench Plea Rolls (TNA, KB 27) for the Hilary terms 1460-63, ie between Christmas and Easter in those years, have recently been indexed for the Anglo-American Legal Tradition website, aalt.law.uh.edu. These reveal that during Hilary term 1460 Ellen Hampton, widow of John Hampton, appealed against William Hervy, a London yeoman, for homicide, and against John Avenell of Michinhampton, yeoman, his wife Joan, and Thomas Avenell, Joan’s servant, also of Minchinhampton, together with a local chaplain, as accessories to homicide. The victim was Ellen’s late husband, John Hampton. During the same term William Avenell, gentleman, in custody at the Marshalsea, was the defendant in a debt action brought by John Hampton’s brother, the London fishmonger William Hampton, alleging he owed £200.

In Hilary term 1462 another action was brought in the same court but in the King’s name against William Hervy and his sureties after Hervy failed to keep the peace against Ellen Hampton. (We don't know what Hervy had done.) In Hilary term 1462, and again in Hilary term 1463, Hervy was indicted for felony and murder. On the second occasion the same indictment was brought against William Avenell of Michinhampton, gentleman. None of these indictments specify the victim. 

William Hampton was later one of several London aldermen knighted by Edward IV for their defence of London. When he died in 1483, his possessions came into the hands of Dame Alice Hampton as heiress of both her father and her uncle. Dame Alice wrote her own will in 1514, and it was proved in 1516 after her death on 27 September; Minchinhampton has a bell dated 1515 with her name on it. Her story, as a vowess from 1484 or earlier, has been told elsewhere, and recently by Laura M. Richmond, ‘A Survey of Monumental Brasses of Late Medieval Vowesses’, Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society 23 (2022). It is interesting to speculate about the effect on Dame Alice's life choices of her father's murder.

As mentioned above, the overall style of the brass is c.1510-15, and the date on the bell suggests that the brass might have been laid down at the latter end of this date range, ie c.1515. It seems that at that date Dame Alice, or her executors, did not know the exact year of her father’s death, and the date was left as 14-, with no year date. In other words, they knew it was in the previous century, but not the exact year. When the date was discovered and added, the engraver carelessly inserted a redundant and misleading extra 'C', suggesting 1556 not 1456. Whether 1456 was the correct year he was murdered is unknown, but it seems to have been the date given to the engraver.

There will undoubtedly be further details, as yet unindexed, in the plea rolls for the other law terms of the period 1460-1463, and the other rolls (KB 9 & KB 29) of the same court for this period.

Copyright: Jon Bayliss (text and photos)