Thomas de Montpellier
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Thomas de Montpellier, or de Monte Pessulano (died after 1347) was a fourteenth-century Anglo-French judge and Crown official, much of whose career was spent in Ireland. He held a number of important lay and clerical offices including Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland and, briefly, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer.[1]
His family, who came to England from Montpellier in France in the late thirteenth century, had a tradition of service to Edward I and formed part of the royal entourage.[1] Thomas himself is recorded as being in the service of the Crown by 1307, and in his official capacity, he visited Ireland on several occasions.[1] Peter de Montpellier, who was Royal Physician to the English Court from c. 1303 to the end of the reign of Edward II, was probably Thomas's brother or cousin.[2]
He became a prebendary in the Diocese of Ossory in 1318 and was subsequently made prebendary of Lusk;[1] he was appointed Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, about 1338.[1] He made the pilgrimage to the shrine of St James the Great in Santiago de Compostela in 1319.[1]
He was appointed Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in 1327, with a salary of £10 a year, but seems only to have served in that office for a few months.[3] He was made Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer the following year. In the same year, Robert de Wodehouse appointed him his Irish attorney.[4] In 1332 Alexander de Bicknor, the Archbishop of Dublin, appointed him as one of his attorneys while the Archbishop was in England, along with his colleague Nicholas de Snyterby.[5] Montpellier himself repeatedly visited England. In 1335 he returned to the Court of Exchequer (Ireland) as the second baron but was quickly transferred to the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland).[6] He went to England in 1341. Shortly afterwards he was removed from the Bench: whether this was at his own wish or not is unclear.[1] He was still Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in 1347, but nothing seems to be known of him after that date.[1]
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