CREEDY, Adam.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Sept. 1388

Family and Education

yr. s. of William Creedy of Creedy in Sandford, Devon. m. 2s. 1da.

Offices Held

Biography

Adam came from a family of no fewer than seven sons whose estates centred on Creedy, just north of Crediton. His eldest brother, Thomas†, who lived at Lydford, was a royal serjeant-at-arms from about 1378 to 1395 and in 1384-5 also wore the livery of Edward Courtenay, earl of Devon. In 1406 another brother, Master William Creedy, rector of High Bickington, left Adam his share of the lands which he himself had inherited after the deaths of their father and Thomas, providing that if Adam died without heirs the lands should pass to their sister, Elizabeth, widow of Sir John Paulet† (d.1391) of Pawlett, Somerset, and previously wife of Sir John Raleigh.1 The full extent of the Creedy inheritance is not known, and it is in any case uncertain whether Adam ever held more than a small part of it.

Little information survives about Creedy’s career, but he is known to have had slight connexions with the city of Exeter which he represented in Parliament. In July 1378 he went surety at the Exchequer for the lessees of ‘Battesyn’ in the parish of St. Martin; his brother Thomas was returned by the city to the second Parliament of 1380; and in 1381 the Creedy brothers together purchased two messuages, a grange and a garden within the city walls.2 In 1410 Adam joined Ivo Creedy, esquire, and Ralph Creedy as patrons of the church of Inwardleigh; and after the death of his nephew, Thomas Paulet, he shared with his sister and William Paulet the younger part of the Somerset manor of Badialton where, in 1412, they acted as patrons of the parish church.3

Adam died before 1426 when another brother, John Creedy esquire, made a will naming as chief beneficiary of his property in London and lands in Surrey and Devon Adam’s elder son, William. His younger son, Thomas, who lived with John, was given the reversion of a house at ‘Lee’ and ‘Spensersplace’ in Newton, Devon. Some time between 1432 and 1443 the heir, William Creedy, petitioned the chancellor, Bishop Stafford, for assistance in recouping from the executors of his guardian (the parson of Tiverton and Pyworthy) profits accumulated from Adam’s estates during his minority and said to amount to as much as £33 5s. a year.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

Variants: Credie, Credy, Cridye.

  • 1. Add. Roll 64320; Trans. Devon Assoc. lxv. 202; Reg. Brantingham ed. Hingeston-Randolph, i. 461; Reg. Stafford, 386-7.
  • 2. CFR, ix. 104; Exeter City RO, mayor’s ct. roll 4-5 Ric. II m. 19.
  • 3. Reg. Stafford, 180; Some Som. Manors (Som. Rec. Soc. extra ser. 1931), 239; Reg. Bubwith (ibid. xxix), 122, 123.
  • 4. PCC 6 Luffenham; C1/11/174.