This medieval Richard took his mother's name Sherburne, but his father's name was Bayley. Which LNAB?

Question

Richard (1381-1444) was the son of Richard [de] Bayley and Margaret [de] Sherburne. At some point (don't know when, but likely to have been in early childhood), he adopted (or was given) his mother's family name; he's pretty universally called Richard [de] Sherburne, and his children took the name Sherburne.

(There are reliable sources for the above, and all that.)

I think this means that his LNAB, which is currently Sherburne, should be changed to Bayley, and Sherburne should be his CLN.

It's slightly ambiguous, because they didn't use surnames then the way we (in the west) do now, but I think LNAB Bayley would best aligned with WikiTree practice.

Euroaristos/Magna Cartans/medievalists, can you confirm?

Answer 1

The biography of him in the History of Parliament website (which gives his name as Shirburne) states that "his father, assumed the name of his wife's family at the time of their marriage"  presumably because Margaret was the heir of her father.

Therefore Richard would have been called Shirburne or Sherburne from birth, and I think no change should be made to the LNAB.

The biography can be found here http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/shirburne-richard-1381-1438

Comments

Hmm.  I've seen in a few sources (including Richardson's Royal Ancestry) that Richard the younger took his mother's surname, hadn't seen any about Richard the elder's adopting his wife's.  He's pretty consistently called Bayley or Bailey.  But data on him is pretty sparse.

The Parliament biography statement about Richard the elder taking his wife's name is unsourced.  I wish it included at least a note about how we know he used the name.  Overall the article seems rigorous and cites good primary sources, but I am slightly concerned that right at the top it repeats the common error about Richard the younger's wife Agnes being a Stanley (Richardson has shown that she was a Harington).

Given the uncertainty, it seems prudent to leave the LNAB alone for now.  I'll try to incorporate the above info into their bios as I work on their Magna Carta Trail.  Thanks John for the great find!

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It's also frustrating that I can't find anywhere on the History of Parliement website, what the abbreviations used in the sources stand for.  Maybe they are in the books?

However I did track one down, and it looks like I am incorrect.  In the Lancashire Feet of Fines, it does refer to Richard de Baylay and his wife Agnes

It's here https://archive.org/details/p3finalconcords00lacauoft on page 38.

The History of Parliament was published in 1993 and it looks like the work to identify Agnes as a Harrington and not a Stanley was first mooted in 2004 (by Douglas Hickling, and not Douglas Richardson)

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/gen-medieval/2004-05/1085450671

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Test Ebor is Testamenta eboracensia; or, Wills registered at York, illustrative of the history, manners, language, statistics, &c., of the province of York, from the year 1300 downwards.  pp 75-6 is Richard Richard Shirburn's will:  here's the link to it:  https://archive.org/stream/testamentaeborac02york#page/74/mode/2up.  Agnes Shirburn's will is on page 105-6.

DKR is Report of the Deputy Keeper of Records