Family and Education

Offices Held

Mayor, Cambridge Sept. 1409-11.1

J.p. Cambridge 14 Jan. 1410-c. Feb. 1414.

Biography

Salle, who traded in cloth, had set up in business in Cambridgeshire by 1394, when he was assessed for alnage. About two years later he acquired from the nuns of the priory of St. Radegund a 30-year lease on premises in St. Giles’s parish in Cambridge for which he was to pay an annual rent of 2s. In 1399 he joined with three others in obtaining possession of the advowson of Kingston, their intention being to grant it with land in the same parish to the Augustinian priory of Spinney, recently badly damaged by ‘fire and water’. At the inquisition taken in connexion with this proposed conveyance, it was found that the grantors had six messuages, 100 acres of land and £5 rent remaining to them in Cambridge, although how much of this property belonged to Salle personally is not specified. There is no record of a royal licence being issued to him and the others to make their endowment, but in April 1400 the priory was permitted to obtain lands worth £40 a year, so it may well be that their intention was fulfilled.2

Salle had been returned to the assembly of estates which deposed Richard II and was reconvened as the first Parliament of Henry IV’s reign. He is not known to have taken any further part in borough elections until 1411, when, shortly after the end of his second term as mayor, he provided mainprise for one of the burgesses-elect, John Alderhithe, at the same time helping to choose the knights of the shire. It had been while he was mayor that he was first appointed to the commission of the peace in the town. He is last mentioned in January 1415, when he and Simon Bentbow* conveyed to Richard Bush† and others a tenement in St. Mary’s parish.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: E.M. Wade

Notes

Variants: Saile, Sarle, Sayl.

• 1. Add. 5833, f. 134; E210/D4244.
• 2. E101/338/3; Cambridge Antiq. Soc. xxxi. no. 263; CP25(1)30/91/148; CPR, 1399-1401, p. 254; C143/430/1.
• 3. C219/10/6; Add. 5813, f. 174. It is unlikely that it was the same William Salle who, 20 years later, in 1435, and described as ‘of Fulbourn’, relinquished possession of a garden in St. Peter’s parish, Cambridge, to Simon Rankyn†: Cambridge Antiq. Soc. xxxi. no. 259.