Mary Matthew (heraldry)
Mary Matthew | |
|---|---|
Coat of Arms | |
| Born | c. 1516 Colchester, Essex, England |
| Died | 1602 Latton, Essex, England |
| Known for | the first woman in England to be granted her own Coat of Arms |
| Spouse | Andrew Judde (m. 1552, died 1558) |
| Children | 6 |
Mary Matthew (c. 1516–1602) was a 16th-century English woman who was the first woman in England to be granted her own Coat of Arms.
Biography
Matthew was born about 1516 in Colchester, Essex.[1][2] Her father was Thomas Matthew of Colchester.[3] Her mother was a daughter of John Bardefeld and had married firstly to Thomas Wesden of Lincolnshire and secondly to Mathew's father.[4]
By 1540, Matthew was married to Thomas Langton, Citizen and Skinner of London.[5] They had five children.[6] After her husband died, in 1552 she remarried to Andrew Judde,[6] a merchant and the Lord Mayor of London,[7] and they had a daughter.[3] Judde died in 1558.[3]
Matthew became the first woman to be granted her own Coat of Arms in 1558.[8] Heraldry was traditionally "a masculine practice" and "there are far more examples of women using their father’s or husband’s arms than being granted their own."[9] These women were known as heraldic heiresses.
Matthew died in 1602 in Latton, Essex.[10]
See also
References
- ^ Morant, Philip (1748). The History and Antiquities of the ... Town and Borough of Colchester in ... Essex, in Three Books; with an Appendix of Original Papers. p. 164.
- ^ Essex Society for Family History. (2011) Monumental Inscriptions at St Mary at Latton Harlow, Essex. 1334-2010. Essex Record Office.
- ^ a b c Slack, Paul (3 January 2008) [23 September 2004]. "Judde, Sir Andrew (c. 1492–1558), merchant". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37622. Retrieved 25 February 2025. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ McSheffrey, Shannon (24 November 2010). Gender and Heresy: Women and Men in Lollard Communities, 142-153. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 211. ISBN 978-0-8122-0396-7.
- ^ Metcalfe, Walter Charles; Hawley, Thomas; Harvey, William; Cook, Robert; Raven, John; Owen, George; Lilly, Henry; Berry, William; College of Arms (Great Britain) cn (1878). The visitations of Essex by Hawley, 1552; Hervey, 1558; Cooke, 1570; Raven, 1612; and Owen and Lilly, 1634. To which are added Miscellaneous Essex pedigrees from various Harleian manuscripts: and an appendix containing Berry's Essex pedigrees. Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. London: Publications of the Harleian Society. pp. 538–539.
- ^ a b "A chronicle of England during the reigns of the Tudors, from A.D. 1485 to 1559. By Charles Wriothesley, Windsor Herald. Ed., from a ms. in the possession of ..." HathiTrust. p. 46. Retrieved 25 February 2025.
- ^ Beaven, Alfred (1908). The aldermen of the city of London temp. Henry III.-1908. With notes on the parliamentary representation of the city, the aldermen and the livery companies, the aldermanic veto, aldermanic baronets and knights, etc. London.: E. Fisher & Company. p. 30.
- ^ Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles (1909). A complete guide to heraldry. University of California Libraries. London, Edinburgh, T.C. & E.C. Jack. pp. 574–575.
- ^ Sutherland, Duncan (2020). "Arms and the Woman: The Heraldry of Women Parliamentarians" (PDF). THE COAT OF ARMS, the Journal of the Heraldry Society. 3: 62.
- ^ Emmison, F. G. (1978). Elizabethan Life: Wills of Essex Gentry and Merchants. Chelmsford. pp. 23–26.
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