for the souls of himself and others, including " William Clowne, Abbot of Leicester."
Other important burgess families of the 13th and 14th centuries were the Kents, one of whom was Mayor twice and another six times, the Bushbys, the Marewes, the Martins, the Dunstables, the Warrens, the Staffords, the Knightcotes, and the Humberstones, of whom William Humberstone, who was Mayor in 1390, was one of the founders and benefactors of the Guild of Corpus Christi.
Several Goldsmiths are mentioned in the Borough Records between 1200 and 1400, one of whom was Mayor in 1351-2 and 1352-3, and another became a notorious Lollard, and, being excommunicated by Archbishop Courtney, was buried in unconsecrated ground in a spot still known as "Goldsmith's Grave."[1]
In the 15th and 16th centuries other names appear. The most considerable burgess families of that period, were, of course, the Herricks and the Wigstons, whose histories are too well known for repetition, and may be read in the pages of local historians.
Other important families were the Curteyses, the Newtons, Norrises, Staffords, Newcombes, Stanfords, Ellises, Mortons, Gillots, Chettles, Tatams, Reynolds and Clarkes.
Two members of the Curteys family, both named Piers, or Peter Curteys, held the office of Bailiff one after the other for about thirty-seven years.[2] The younger Piers was Alderman of the Twelfth or Southgate Ward, Justice of the Peace, and Mayor in 1482-83. He was attached to the household of King Edward the Fourth, who "in consideration of his good services to the King "gave him a dwelling-house near the South Gate
- ↑ His name was Roger; the name of the Mayor was William. James Thompson, in his account of Leicester Mayors, seems to have confused them. William was dead long before Archbishop Courtney's visitation, as we read of "Alicia, late the wife of William Goldsmith," more than a dozen years before.
- ↑ They were "bailiffs of the liberty," appointed by the Lord or King, and not town officials chosen by the community, as their immediate predecessors were. (Records of the Borough of Leicester, vol. ii. Introduction xxvi.)
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