Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/209

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

1505 Alderman of the Third Ward, which comprised the North Suburb. It would seem to be the Will of this John Norris dated August 29th, 1505, and proved April 22nd, 1510, which is now at Somerset House. He had two sons, William and John, and was a Tanner. He is described in his Will as "Johannes Nores Barker de Parochiæ Omnium Sanctorum villæ Leicester." He gave his body to be buried "in capella beatæ mariæ infra ecclesiam parochiæ Omnium Sanctorum villae predict." After directions for his funeral, and legacies to All Saints, he gave 5 marks to be distributed among the poor on the day of his funeral. He left 3s. 4d. to the poor men's house within the college of the Newarke of Leicester, 2s. to the widows of St. John's and 2s. to the prisoners in Leicester town. He gave pecuniary legacies and real estate to his sons and daughters, and a close in All Saints' parish to provide an obit for his soul in All Saints' Church. To John Whitton he gave "unam togam penulatam cum foxe quam nuper emi de Wilhelmo Plummer," and he appointed his wife Margaret and William Whatton, Vicar of All Saints', Executors, and Dr. William Mason and Richard Reynold Overseers, Mason to have 20s. and Reynold "unum equum quem ultime emi." Another John Norris, a Butcher, entered the Guild in 1508. Alderman William Norris, who was Steward or Master of the Occupation of Tanners, was Mayor in 1567-68, and again in 1579-80. His history was recorded in a quaint epitaph inscribed on a wooden tablet in All Saints' Church, and his place of burial in the Churchyard is marked by a piece of rough forest granite, now just below the surface of the ground, without inscription, about 14 feet from the Chancel's outer wall. He had three wives, and died in 1615-16, in his 97th year. By his will he gave "thrice fifteen groats yearly to All Saints' poor," and 5 marks yearly to the second master of the Free School. It was probably another Alderman William Norris who paid a chief rent of nine pence a year "out of a house of his called the Fox in the North Gate," and who was in 1598 chosen Master or Steward of the Brewers' Company, but refused to serve. George Norris, another Tanner, was Mayor in the great year 1588-89, when Leicester received

163