TANNER, Nicholas (d.1412), of Winchester, Hants.

Tanner, who imported wine through Southampton, was a frequent offender against the bye-laws of Winchester for selling this commodity and ale in illegal measures. He also traded in cloth, being assessed for alnage on two lengths of material sold in Winchester in 1394-5, and was later on involved in the running of the fulling mill at Priors Barton.E101/344/10; E122/138/11; Winchester RO, ct. roll 11-13 Ric. II m. 2d; Black Bk. Winchester ed. Bird, 10. Active in the administration of the city, as a ‘bagman’ in 1394-5, 1397-8 and 1409-10, coroner in the year of his only return to Parliament, and bailiff, Tanner was also employed by the civic authorities to act on their behalf away from home. For instance, in 1394-5 he rode to Westminster for proceedings in a lawsuit pending between the commonalty and the cathedral priory, and three years later he was paid £2 0s.6d. for completing local business in London. He participated at most important civic functions. In 1409, when he rendered account for 20 marks owing from his bailiff-ship, the mayor and ‘fidedigni’ allowed him half the sum due ‘pro negociis et expensis suis et pro suo bono labore dicte civitate diversis vicibus facto’.Winchester RO, chamberlains’ accts. 18-19, 21-22 Ric. II, 8-9, 11 Hen. IV. Tanner occasionally acted as a trustee of the property of his fellow citizens, including Gilbert Forster, but in 1402 he brought an action for debt in the court of common pleas against one of them, John Pury, and he later sued Master John Felbrigg, prebendary of Wherwell, in the same court for the large sum of £40. Neither suit proved successful.Stowe 846, ff. 108v, 110, 113, 123v; CCR, 1399-1402, p. 588; CPR, 1408-13, p. 126.

Tanner’s property comprised a tenement on the east side of Gold Street, another in ‘La Graterie’ in High Street (of which, before 1411, he enfeoffed his brother John, the rector of Winnall, for conveyance to Mark le Faire), and four gardens in the aldermanry of Jewry Street. In May 1413, after his death, his feoffees sold four shops of his on the corner of Gold Street.Stowe 846, ff. 119, 126, 141; Winchester RO, D3.