Gurney Genealogy Library Updated 15 July 2026 by Allen Gurney

Edmund Gournay (d. 1387)

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Lawyer of eminence; steward of John of Gaunt's East Anglian estates; standing counsel to the city of Norwich; husband of the heiress who brought West Barsham into the family.

Born
c. 1340–1350, Harpley, Norfolk. Son of John de Gournay IV (G24). He first appears in the records in 1354, holding his manor court at Harpley "on Thursday next before the feast of the conversion of St. Paul" — early January. 1
Died
1387. Will dated at West Barsham on the feast of the Ascension (16 May 1387); proved at Norwich on 1 August 1387. 2
Occupation / Status
Lawyer of eminence. Justice of the peace for Norfolk (1370 and 1375). Royal commissioner (multiple appointments). Steward of John of Gaunt's East Anglian estates, 1372–1387. Standing counsel to the city of Norwich and borough of Bishop's Lynn (King's Lynn). 3
Buried
Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, West Barsham, Norfolk. Directed by will; 8s. to be distributed to the poor on his burial day. 4
Marriage(s)
Katherine de Wauncy — daughter of Sir William de Wauncy of West Barsham, who also held Depden in Suffolk and Denver in Norfolk. When Katherine's brother and his infant son both died (in 1372 and soon after), she became the Wauncy heir, and the whole West Barsham estate came to Edmund through her. 5

Highlights

  • He won West Barsham — and made it the family's home for nearly three centuries. Edmund married into the Wauncy family, who had held the manor of West Barsham for some three hundred years, since the time of the Domesday survey of 1086. When his wife's brother and infant nephew both died within a few years, the whole estate passed to Edmund. From his death in 1387 until the family's male line died out in 1661, the Gurneys were the Gurneys of West Barsham; the hall still standing there — its surviving Tudor wing now a protected historic building — is the house his descendants lived in and enlarged. 6
  • He ran East Anglia for the most powerful man in England. John of Gaunt — Duke of Lancaster, son of one king and father of the next — kept Edmund on as steward of his estates across East Anglia from 1372 until Edmund's death. Edmund belonged to the small circle of lawyers through whom the Duke governed his Norfolk lands, and his services were prized widely enough that even the great Broadland abbey of St Benet's Holme paid him a fee. 7, 16
  • Two towns paid to keep him on retainer at once. Both Norwich and Bishop's Lynn (today King's Lynn) hired Edmund as their standing legal counsel — Norwich paying him a yearly fee alongside his colleague Edmund de Clipesby. Few men in East Anglia were more sought-after for legal advice. 8
  • His coat of arms still survives in stained glass. Edmund bore the family arms — a red scalloped (engrailed) cross on silver — and after his marriage combined them with his wife's arms on a single shield split down the middle: his cross on one half, her three silver gloves on a red field on the other, the customary way a married couple's two families were shown together. That combined shield could still be seen, centuries later, in the windows of the family's house in Norwich and of Denton church in Norfolk. 9
  • He turns up again and again in the king's records. Edmund appears across at least fifteen separate royal commissions and inquiries — keeping the peace as a justice, investigating customs fraud and piracy off the Norfolk coast, arbitrating between rival religious houses, serving as a special commissioner for the queen's manor, and more. He is one of the most thoroughly documented people in the whole family line. 10

Children

Name Dates Mother Notes
Sir John Gurney V, Knt. d. 1408 Katherine de Wauncy Eldest son. Steward of the Earl of Arundel's Norfolk estates (before 1386); Member of Parliament for Norfolk (1399); Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk (1399–1400, and again in 1408); held eight manors in Norfolk and one in Suffolk. His only son Edmund died as a boy, so the senior line failed and the inheritance passed to his nephew Thomas (G21), son of Robert (G22). 11
Robert Gournay fl. c. 1370–1420 Katherine de Wauncy Direct line. The second son, and the ancestor through whom the family descends. The family's Victorian genealogist could only call him "a second son, whom we believe was named Robert." Married Joan de Norwich; his son Thomas I (G21) inherited West Barsham after Sir John's line failed. 12
Jeanne Gurney fl. c. 1370s Katherine de Wauncy Married Osbert Mundeford of Hockwold, Esq., who was also one of Edmund's executors. 13

Narrative

Edmund Gournay transformed the family’s standing in Norfolk. His forebears at Harpley had been respectable minor gentry — country knights and squires of modest means. Edmund became something far larger: the most sought-after lawyer in the county. Norwich kept him on a yearly retainer — its treasurers paid him twenty shillings a year, listed in the same breath as his colleague Edmund de Clipesby — the town of Bishop’s Lynn sought his counsel too, and, most striking of all, John of Gaunt himself made him steward of the Duke’s estates across East Anglia, a post he held almost without a break from 1372 until he died.8, 7

That tie to Gaunt is the key to Edmund’s rise. In the 1370s and 1380s the Duke of Lancaster — uncle to the young King Richard II — was the strongest subject in the kingdom, and helping run his Norfolk lands placed Edmund among the handful of lawyers and stewards who made that vast machine work. He worked shoulder to shoulder with men like John Winter and his fellow Norwich counsel Edmund de Clipesby — the professional class on whom dukes, bishops, and towns alike leaned.7, 16

That trust showed in the work that came to him. The crown named him to its commissions again and again — to keep the peace as a justice, to root out customs fraud, to settle a quarrel between the prior of Norwich and the prioress of Carrow, to look into piracy in Norfolk waters.10 And when the county’s leading families needed someone they could trust to hold their lands — a common arrangement, where a man held property in another’s interest — they turned to Edmund. He held the manors of Feltwell and Mundford for Sir John de Plays;19 he was one of the powerful de la Pole family’s trustees for a manor near Norwich;18 he joined a circle of knights — the Calthorpes, Haleses, and Sheltons — to grant land to Walsingham Priory;20 and he helped settle the great manor of Hingham on the Morley lords.21

His most important personal step was his marriage to Katherine de Wauncy. Her family had held West Barsham for some three hundred years, and had once moved in royal circles — an earlier Robert de Wauncy witnessed charters for Richard the Lionheart at the great castle of Château-Gaillard in 1198 and was trusted with the care of two royal princesses at Rouen.17 Then came the run of deaths that changed Edmund’s fortunes: Katherine’s brother Sir Edmund de Wauncy died in 1372, leaving a seven-year-old son who did not long outlive him, and the whole West Barsham estate passed to Edmund through his wife. He moved the family’s main seat there from Harpley. Her father had already settled a hundred marks a year on the couple in 1357, and by 1375 Edmund was granting long leases of the manor under his own seal — the red scalloped cross.5, 6

Edmund died in 1387 and was buried, as he asked, in the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at West Barsham. His will paints a vivid scene: thirteen poor men robed in white were to stand around his body holding torches, the family in mourning black beside them, and on the day of the funeral the gentry and “good men” of the surrounding country were to gather at West Barsham to be “honourably fed” — a public show of the family’s new standing. The will also carries a striking clause of conscience: he directed his heirs to make amends to anyone he had wronged — anyone he had cheated of land, injured, or extorted — perhaps the kind of reckoning a powerful lawyer expected to owe.15 His eldest son, Sir John V, succeeded him and built on his legal foundations; his second son, Robert — the direct ancestor — would inherit West Barsham in his turn, when Sir John’s own line died out.11, 12

Citations

  1. Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, p. 357: "Son and heir of the before mentioned John de Gourney IV, kept his first court at Harpley in 1354, on Thursday next before the feast of the conversion of St. Paul." Birth estimated c. 1340–1350 based on this first court appearance. ↩
  2. Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, p. 363: "Edmund Gurney died in 1387; his will is dated at West Barsham, on Thursday the feast of the Ascension of our Lord in that year." Made on the feast of the Ascension (16 May 1387) and proved at Norwich on 1 August 1387; registered in the Norwich Consistory Court register Harsyke at fol. 84 (Daniel Gurney's "fol. 34" is a misprint, and the registered leaf is itself now lost — the text survives via Blomefield and Sir Simonds Dewes's 1637 copy; see note 15). Independent confirmation from Francis Blomefield, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, vol. vii (London: William Miller, 1807), "Gallow and Brothercross Hundreds: West-Barsham," pp. 42–47: "The will of this Edmund is dated at West-Barsham, on Thursday, the feast of the Ascension of our Lord in 1387. He bequeaths his body to be buried in the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in this town, and 8l. to be distributed to the poor here, on his burial day; Katherine his wife to have all her dower, and all his utensils in his house, and her part of all his other goods; appoints Osbert de Mundeford, and Thomas Kempe, his executors. Witnesses, William de Mildenhal, vicar of West-Barsham, Nicholas de Barsham, &c.; and was proved in the same year." Available via British History Online. ↩
  3. Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, pp. 358–363: extended catalogue of Patent and Close Roll entries. Justice of peace: Pat. 44 and 49 Edw. III. Stewardship of Gaunt: History of Parliament Online (Edmund Gurney, d. 1387). Counsel to Norwich and Lynn: Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, p. 359. ↩
  4. Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, p. 363: "He bequeathed his body to be buried in the church of the Assumption of the blessed Virgin in that town, and 8l. to be distributed to the poor on his burial day." ↩
  5. Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, pp. 357–358: Katherine daughter of Sir William de Wauncy. Grant of 100 marks: "dated 31 Edward III (1357). The said deed of Wauncy, sealed with a splayed Falcon on a scutcheon." West Barsham acquisition: her brother Sir Edmund de Wauncy died 1372; his son died soon after; lordship of West Barsham came to Edmund de Gurney "in right of his wife, daughter of Sir William, and sister and heir of Sir Edmund de Wauncy." Independent confirmation from Francis Blomefield, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, vol. vii (London: William Miller, 1807), "Gallow and Brothercross Hundreds: West-Barsham," pp. 42–47: "Edmund de Wauci ... died in the 46th of Edward III. leaving by Joan his wife, Edmund, his son and heir, aged 7 years; this Edmund died soon after, on whose death this lordship came to Edmund Gurney, by the marriage of Cat[herine, daughter of Sir William, and sister of Sir Edward Wauci]. In the 41st of Edward III. a fine was levied between Edmund Gurney, and Katherine his wife, querents, Thomas de Beeston, trustees, &c. deforcients of the moiety of the manor of West-Barsham, settled on Edmund and Katherine, in tail." Available via British History Online. ↩
  6. Daniel Gurney, Record (1848), p. 279: "From this period this family of the Gurneys were principally seated at West Barsham for many generations." West Barsham Hall north wing: Grade II listed; hall burned 1815; 16th-century north wing survives. DG Appendix LXIII (Wauncy family): Domesday Survey records Hugo de Wanci holding West Barsham under Earl Warren in 1086. ↩
  7. L. S. Woodger, "GURNEY, John (d.1408), of Harpley and West Barsham, Norf.," in J. S. Roskell, L. Clark, and C. Rawcliffe, eds., The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1386-1421 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), History of Parliament Online. The biography states that Sir John's father Edmund "served John of Gaunt as either steward or joint steward" of the East Anglian estates almost continuously from 1372 to 1387, and also supplies the non-DG support for Edmund's counsel being sought by Norwich and Bishop's Lynn. Source IDs: history-of-parliament-online-gurney-1386-1421, hop-gurney. ↩
  8. Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, p. 359: "these two, Clipesby and Gurney, were the standing council for the city of Norwich, in the nature of recorder and steward." The underlying Norwich record is William Hudson and John Cottingham Tingey, eds., The Records of the City of Norwich (Norwich and London: Jarrold, 1910), vol. ii, "Selected Records of the City of Norwich," pp. 44 and 47, recording 20s. yearly to "Edmund Gornay for his fee this year" in the same fee paragraph as Edmund de Clipesby. Internet Archive: archive.org/stream/recordsofcityofn02norwuoft/recordsofcityofn02norwuoft_djvu.txt. For Bishop's Lynn, use the History of Parliament biography cited in note 7; a local Lynn primary account for the counsel phrase has not yet been isolated. Source IDs: norwich-records-hudson-tingey-vol2, history-of-parliament-online-gurney-1386-1421. ↩
  9. Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, p. 358: "Mr. Norris conjectures that his house in Norwich was Gurney's Place in St. Julian's parish, in a window of which house Mr. Kirkpatrick saw his arms impaling one of the coats of de Wauncy, Gules, 3 dexter hand gloves pointed downwards argent. This coat is now to be seen in a window of Denton church in Norfolk." ↩
  10. Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, pp. 358–363: fifteen-plus royal instrument citations from Patent and Close Rolls, 36–50 Edw. III and into Richard II's reign. ↩
  11. Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, p. 374 (John V chapter); History of Parliament Online (John Gurney, d. 1408). ↩
  12. Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, p. 363: "a second son, whom we believe was named Robert." Pedigree by Cook, Clarenceux, 1622. See G22 fact sheet. ↩
  13. Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay (1848), Part II, p. 363: "also a daughter Jeanne, married to Osbert Mundeford of Hockwold, Esq. who was one of the executors of his will." Source: Pedigree by Cook, Clarenceux, 1622. ↩
  14. Francis Blomefield, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, vol. 5 (London: W. Miller, 1806), pp. 33–39, "Cringleford" / "Berford's Manor"; British History Online. Source ID: blomefield-norfolk-vol5-pp33-cringleford-berford. ↩
  15. Daniel Gurney, Supplement to the Record of the House of Gournay (1858), Note 118, pp. 789–791, full Latin copy of Edmund Gurnay's will from Harl. MSS. 10, fol. 144 / pencil 148, copied from the decayed Registrum Harsyke. Names Katherine his wife, John his son, Osbert de Mundeford, and Thomas Kempe as executors; specifies thirteen paupers in white vestments holding thirteen torches around the body; and includes the restitution clause for wrongfully detained, extorted, or disseised property. Source ID: dg-rec-supp. ↩
  16. Simon Walker, The Lancastrian Affinity 1361–1399, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), note 19: Edmund Gournay was "the principal legal adviser to the burgesses of Lynn" and, with Edmund Clippesby, "took fees from the abbey of St. Benet's, Holme," bracketed among John of Gaunt's retained East Anglian men with John Winter, Robert Cayley, Thomas Pinchbeck, and John Methwold. Walker cites Staffordshire Record Office D.641/1/2/4 m.4; The National Archives E.403/478 m.16; Historical Manuscripts Commission, MSS of the Corporations of Southampton and King's Lynn (1887), pp. 221–2; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1381–5, p. 380; KB 9/166/1 m.69. Source ID: walker-lancastrian-affinity-1361-1399. ↩
  17. Daniel Gurney, Supplement to the Record of the House of Gournay (1858), Note 119, pp. 791–792, on the Wauncy family: Robert de Wauncy witnessed two deeds of Richard I at Château-Gaillard, 24 October, in the tenth year of the reign (1198), and appears in Stapleton's edition of the Norman Exchequer Rolls (p. cxlvii) as custodian, with Walter de Ely, of the daughter of the Count of Brittany and the daughter of the Emperor of Cyprus during their stay at Rouen and the journey from Rouen to Chinon. Source ID: dg-rec-supp. ↩
  18. The de la Pole trust: Edmund was one of four trustees (with William de Boyton, Thomas Spynk, and John le Latimer of Norwich) settled with Berford's Manor at Cringleford, near Norwich, by the de la Pole family c. 1370; he released his right to Latimer in 1381. Francis Blomefield, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, vol. 5 (London: W. Miller, 1806), pp. 33–39, "Cringleford" / "Berford's Manor." Source ID: blomefield-norfolk-vol5-pp33-cringleford-berford. ↩
  19. The Plays trust: the manors of Feltwell and Mundford (with the advowson) were conveyed to a group of trustees including Edmund, alongside Sir William de Beauchamp, Sir John Marmyon, Sir John de Burgh, and Sir Stephen de Hales. Daniel Gurney, Supplement to the Record of the House of Gournay (1858), Note 117, p. 789, from the Close Rolls, 5 Richard II (1382). Source ID: dg-rec-supp. ↩
  20. The Walsingham grant: Edmund, with Sir Stephen de Hales, Sir Oliver de Calthorpe, Sir Ralph de Shelton, and the clerk William de Walsham, was licensed in 1385 to grant the manors of Great and Little Riburgh to Walsingham Priory. Daniel Gurney, Supplement to the Record of the House of Gournay (1858), Note 116, p. 789, from the Patent Roll, 8 Richard II (1385). Source ID: dg-rec-supp. ↩
  21. The Morley settlement of Hingham: Edmund, with William Pette, William Cursun, and John Reed of Rougham, conveyed the great manor of Hingham to the Morley lords — Walter Rye, A Short Calendar of the Feet of Fines for Norfolk, Part II, no. 1526 — a settlement recited half a century later in the inquisition taken after the death of Robert, Lord Morley (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 26, no. 70). Source IDs: rye-feet-of-fines-norfolk, ecipm-mapping-medieval-countryside. ↩