Adam Moleyns

Adam Moleyns^{[lower-alpha 1]} (died 9 January 1450), Bishop of Chichester, was an English bishop, lawyer, royal administrator and diplomat. During the minority of Henry VI of England, he was clerk of the ruling council of the Regent.^[1]

Adam Moleyns
Bishop of Chichester
Appointed	24 September 1445
Term ended	9 January 1450
Predecessor	Richard Praty
Successor	Reginald Pecock
Other post(s)	Lord Privy Seal (1444–1450) Dean of Salisbury & Archdeacon of Taunton (1441–1445) Archdeacon of Salisbury (1440–1441)
Orders
Consecration	6 February 1446
Personal details
Died	9 January 1450 Portsmouth, Hampshire

Life

Moleyns had the living of Kempsey from 1433.^[2] He was Dean of Salisbury from 1441 to 1446. He became bishop of Chichester on 24 September 1445, and was consecrated bishop on 6 February 1446.^[3] He was Lord Privy Seal in 1444,^[4] at the same time that he was Protonotary of the Holy See. In 1447 he had permission to fortify the manor house at Bexhill.^[5]

And this yeer...maister Adam Moleyns, bisshoppe of Chichestre and keper of the kyngis prive seel, whom the kyng sente to Portesmouth, forto make paiement of money to certayne soudiers and shipmenne for thair wages; and so it happid that with boistez langage, and also for abriggyng of thair wages, he fil in variaunce with thaym, and thay fil on him, and cruelli there kilde him.^[6] - The Brut Chronicle

Moleyns was a correspondent of the humanist Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, Pope Pius II, who complimented him in a letter of 29 May 1444: "And I congratulate you and England, since you care for the art of rhetoric".^[7] In 1926 George Warner attributed The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye (1435–38) to Moleyns but this theory was partly based on Warner's mistaken identification of Adam Moleyns as a member of the family's Lancashire branch.^[8] The theory of Moleyns' authorship of the poem is now rejected by most historians and scholars.^[9]

An active partisan of the unpopular William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, Moleyns was lynched in Portsmouth by discontented unpaid soldiers on 9 January 1450.^[3][10]

Notes

1. Or Adam Molyens, Adam Molens, Adam Molins, Adam Molyneaux, Adam Molyneux, Adam de Moleyns

Citations

1. Paleography Exercises A document of Adam Moleyns accessed on 25 August 2007
2. Priests of Kempsey accessed on 25 August 2007. Archived 2009-10-24.
3. Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 239
4. Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 95
5. Bexhill Museum The History Of Bexhill Archived October 6, 2007, at the Wayback Machine accessed on 25 August 2007
6. John Silvester Davies, ed. (1856). An English chronicle of the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI written before the year 1471; with an appendix, containing the 18th and 19th years of Richard II and the Parliament at Bury St. Edmund's, 25th Henry VI and supplementary additions from the Cotton. ms. chronicle called "Eulogium.". The Camden Society.
7. Alessandra Petrina, Cultural Politics in Fifteenth-Century England: The Case of 2004:216 and note
8. Holmes, G.A. (1961). "The Libel of English Policy". English Historical Review. 76: 193–216. doi:10.1093/ehr/lxxvi.ccxcix.193.
9. Smith "Moleyns, Adam (d. 1450)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
10. Michael Miller The Wars of the Roses chapter 37 accessed on 25 August 2007;Steven Muhlberger Beginning of the Wars of the Roses Archived July 14, 2007, at the Wayback Machine accessed on 25 August 2007;The Royal Garrison Church Archived 7 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine accessed on 25 August 2007

References

• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X.
• Smith, Bill (2004). "Moleyns, Adam". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18918. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Further reading

• Reeves, A.C., Lancastrian Englishmen (Washington: University Press of America) 1981. One of five fifteenth-century careers outlined through documents.

Political offices
Preceded by Thomas Beckington	Lord Privy Seal 1444–1450	Succeeded by Andrew Holes
Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Richard Praty	Bishop of Chichester 1446–1450	Succeeded by Reginald Pecock