The `Bohun of Fressingfield' Cartulary

Documents from late medieval Suffolk shed new light on the astonishing rise of a local family to national importance. The documents edited here tell a story of aspiration and social mobility in late medieval Suffolk. Edmund Bohun, the younger son of a prosperous yeoman from Fressingfield, managed through good contacts and good luck to obtain a position in the centre of administrative and political power in London, thence achieving armigerous status as well as acquiring considerable amounts of land, both in and round the village itself and elsewhere in Suffolk. Having no son of his own, he left his land and coat of arms to his nephews, thereby establishing the family's fortunes on a level which they were to retain for several generations. His cartulary describes the properties which he accumulated,and reveals much about the social links of local society, and the financial dealings of its yeomen and farmers who actively traded land between themselves. This edition of the cartulary is presented with a detailed introduction which analyses its contents and places it in its historical and social context; it also includes other charters concerning Fressingfield which are preserved in the Suffolk Record Office in Ipswich.