I. Adam Fraunceys

Abstract

Adam Fraunceys rose to become one of the wealthiest and most influential members of the London merchant class of his generation, yet of his background we know virtually nothing. He was born, probably in the first decade of the fourteenth century, in the obscurity of a provincial town or village, perhaps in the north of England, of parents whose names alone we know. His patronymic is of little help in locating his origins. The name, which simply means Frenchman, was common enough throughout England, and there were many men of that name engaged in trade in London itself at this time who were not necessarily of the same family. Indeed, not a few of the Fraunceys living in England in the fourteenth century were also called Adam, a fact which not only adds to our problems of identification but was to cause some embarrassment to the London mercer himself in later life.