Person:Catherine Peniston (1)

Modern books unsure of her origins anglicize her name to Penistone or Peniston, and genealogists sometimes come to the circular conclusion that her ancestors must have been English to have such a surname, even though she came from the region where France meets Italy. The real surname was a bit different.

The earliest record of her appears to be as Katerine Penyson' in the household of Queen Margaret of Anjou.^[1]

The 1564 visitation of Northamptonshire names her father as "Gregory Penyston of Curtasels in Pyamount in Italye".^[2]

When her son-in-law Richard Guildford visited her close relatives and reported it in his "Pylgrymage of Sir Richard Guylforde to the Holy Land" he spelled the place "Curtysello" and referred to his pleasant stay with "maister Jerom and Augustyn Panyson [...] whiche two gentylmen be nyghe cosyns vnto mayster Vaux and to my lady Guylforde".^[3] Katherine's daughter-in-law Joan also mentioned a cousin William Panyson in her 1538 PCC will who had come to live more recently in England. He worked sometimes for Thomas Cromwell and appears under various spelling in State Records.

Corticelle near Alessandria is today called Cortiglione. The surname of the lords of this place was generally spelled Panizzone or Panizzoni, and the lordship of that place was granted to them in 1453, specifically to Francesco Panizzone who was a doctor that served the ruler of Provence, the same royal family as Katherine served, King René d'Anjou (the father of Margaret of Anjou).^[4] April 10 1444, a "Master Francisco" appears in records as the Queen's physician attending her in England, which could even be Francesco Panizzone, perhaps Katherine's grandfather.^[5]

Her English "denization" of 22 December 1456 in the Patent Rolls refers to Katherine as having been born in Provence.^[6]

It appears that during her lifetime the lordship of Cortiglione was held by a Gregorio Panizzone, likely Katherine's father named in the visitations. His wife was named Caterina.^[7] It seems he was dead by 1482.

1. ↑ The household of Queen Margaret of Anjou, 1452-3: II Myers, A R, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 1957;40(2):391-431.
2. ↑ The visitations of Northamptonshire made in 1564 and 1618-19 : with Northamptonshire pedigrees from various Harleian mss by Harvey, William, d. 1567; Vincent, Augustine, 1584?-1626; Metcalfe, Walter C; England. College of arms. Published 1887. See p.51
3. ↑ https://books.google.be/books?id=SlYJAAAAQAAJ
4. ↑ http://www.regione.piemonte.it/cultura/guarini/schede/at/dwd/cortiglione.pdf
5. ↑ Sarah Gristwood, Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses
6. ↑ Patent Rolls, Henry VI, Volume VI. p.342
7. ↑ See Turin archives.