SALISBURY, Michael, of Oxford.

The son of a wealthy Oxford brewer who had twice served as bailiff of the town, Salisbury was still living with his father in 1380, when he and his wife paid 2s. poll tax. In 1385, however, he took on a lease of property in the parish of St. Michael Northgate on his own account, and by 1391 he was serving independently as a juror in the local courts. He seems to have had some links with Bristol, for in July 1393 he acted as a mainpernor on behalf of a clerk from the port who was accused of infringing the Statute of Provisors. Between 1394 and 1415 he discharged various borough offices, including that of coroner; and it was as a former holder of this post that, in April 1418, he was listed among the persons accused of encouraging the commonalty to usurp the jurisdiction of the abbot of Osney in the manors of North and South Osney. A jury claimed that this process had been going on since 1403.Oxf. Hist. Soc. xviii. 30; lxxi. no. 190; lxxiii. 39; Queen’s Coll. deed 2296; CCR, 1392-6, pp. 228-9.

By 1415, however, Salisbury seems to have left Oxford: in February that year he was relieved of his coroner’s office because he was living in Gloucestershire; and very little is heard of him in the records of the town between 1418 and 1431, even though he continued to rent property there throughout this period.CCR, 1413-19, pp. 174, 210; Oxf. Hist. Soc. xci. nos. 179, 233. By 1431 he had returned, for in July that year he was removed from the coronership of Gloucestershire as being once again resident in Oxford, and at Michaelmas he was elected bailiff for the second time (more than 30 years since his first tenure of office). In this capacity he attended the borough’s election to the Parliament of 1432, and in the following year he also witnessed the parliamentary indenture, although no longer a bailiff.CCR, 1429-35, p. 86; C219/14/3, 4. He is last recorded in 1434, as offering sureties in £120 for Master John Tregeran MA, a local scholar who had committed a breach of the peace. His heir was his son, Richard.Oxf. Hist. Soc. lxvi. no. 414; xciii. 5.