HEBBE, John, of Fishbourne, Suss.

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

Jan. 1397

Family and Education

Offices Held

Commr. to arrest smugglers, Suss. Jan. 1394.

Tax collector, Suss. Nov. 1404.

Biography

John was probably related to the Hebbes of Chichester, and may even have been an elder brother or cousin of Geoffrey Hebbe*, he himself living no further away from the city than two miles. It was in association with Geoffrey’s father, another John Hebbe†, a leading member of the mercantile community, that he was appointed to a royal commission in 1394 to arrest two men of Hayling Island for smuggling wool to France, and it was during his namesake’s mayoralty of 1396-7 that he was elected to Parliament for the city. As ‘of Fishbourne’, he sat on a jury at an inquisition ad quod damnum held at Chichester in April of the same year. Hebbe of Fishbourne was also pricked as a juror at the assizes held at Lewes in the summer of 1398, in a suit of novel disseisin regarding property in Chichester, only to be briefly committed to prison with his fellows for having accepted bribes.1

He may have been the John Hebbe who presented to the rectory at Chithurst (about 15 miles from Chichester) in September 1404 and August 1405, but even if so there is nothing to show how he came to acquire the advowson.2

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

So designated on the return (OR, i. 254) in order to distinguish him from his more prominent namesake, John Hebbe (d.1406), then mayor of Chichester (Chichester Diocesan RO, Cap. I/17/51A: Suss. Arch. Colls. lxxxix. 127).

  • 1. C143/427/13; JUST 1/1510 m. 8.
  • 2. Reg. Rede (Suss. Rec. Soc. xi), 275, 281.