- Alice Chestre
Alice Chestre (sometimes written "Chester" or "Chestour") (? - 1485) was a merchant and a benefactor of the city of
Bristol, England . She marriedHenry Chestre (or Chester), adraper who traded inSpain ,Lisbon ,Bordeaux andBrittany , exportingcloth and importing other goods. He was the third son ofRobert Chester ofStow St Edward . [http://www.stirnet.com/html/genie/british/cc4aq/chester1.html]Henry died on
St Valentine's Day in 1471, while he wasMayor of Bristol . After a fewbenefaction s, he left all of his possessions to Alice in his short will. Alice took over her husband's business after his death. As a businesswoman, she was a trader like her deceased husband, and imported iron andwine from Spain while exportingtextiles toIreland , Lisbon, Spain, andFlanders , often in her own ships. She amassed a very large fortune in this manner and donated freely to both her city and her localparish church , that ofAll Saints, Bristol .Most of her donations were ecclesiastical. She donated a house in Broad Street to All Saints, established a
chantry for her husband, commissioned a weeklyJesus mass and two anniversary masses for her husband. She also gave her church numerous embroideries (including a black and goldhearse cloth forfuneral s, bearing the words "Orate pro animabus Henrici Chester et Aliciae uxoris eius" [http://www.fsu.edu/~proghum/interculture/Medieval%20Funerals.htm] ), ornatealtar fronts,plate , asilver cross, and paid for a newrood loft. The church's record of benefactors refers to her, somewhat effusively, as "this blessed woman". In religious terms, she was a pious woman who was dedicated to the emergent cultus of the holy name of Jesus. As a widow, she was vigorously engaged in the world of business afairs and civic duties. She gave thePort of Bristol a crane in 1475, at theWelsh Back .In November 1472, she commissioned a
carpenter , Stephen Morgan, to rebuild a house in the High Street, next to the Bull Inn (later the Angel Inn). Extraordinarily, the building contract survives. Thetimber-framed house was completed in March the following year, with a shop on the ground floor, a hall above with anoriel window , a chamber above the hall with another oriel window, and another chamber above the first. The house is shown in drawings and photographs made before it collapsed in 1865.One of her sons was
Prior ofBarlinch Priory inSomerset . A second son inherited her house in High Street, and later donated it to All Saints.References
* Burges, Clive. "Alice Chestre". In Matthew, H.C.G. and Brian Harrison, eds. "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography." vol. 11, 352-3. London: OUP, 2004.
*Jean Manco, [http://www.buildinghistory.org/bristol/aliceshouse.shtml The House that Alice Built]
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