Newsletter June 2017

MAG Newsletter June 2017

A well-connected Archdeacon?

murreyandblue

As we said last year, late mediaeval prelates were often well-connected. Indeed, as this ODNB article shows, William Pykenham, Archdeacon of Suffolk, died some time in spring 1497, approximately sixty years after his father. His mother was Katherine Barrington, of the prominent Hatfield Broadoak family, which explains some of his appointments through her Bourchier and Stafford social connections, including that of Rector of Hadleigh in 1470. He served as an executor for his patron, Thomas Bourchier Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1486 and then for Cecily Duchess of York in 1495.

In his role as Archdeacon, Pykenham is associated with two great buildings, of which only these Gatehouses remain: one in Hadleigh and one in Ipswich. He also had dealings with two maternal cousins: Thomas and Thomasine Barrington, the latter being the wife of Sir John Hopton of Blythburgh.

Here too (top) is Barrington Hall, home of the family that…

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