DAGVILE, Thomas

A brewer,6 Registrum Cancellarii Oxoniensis, i (Oxf. Historical Soc. xciii), 8-10, 36. But it is very likely that he had other commercial interests as well. Dagvile was the son of a prominent late 14th-century burgess of Oxford. His father, William Dagvile, sat for the borough in at least seven Parliaments,7 Those of 1373, 1377 (Jan.), 1378, 1383 (Feb.), 1383 (Oct.), 1384 (Apr.) and 1384 (Nov.). and was its mayor at the time of the infamous poll tax of 1380. His mother, Juliana, was the daughter of another leading burgess and MP for Oxford. Records from the poll tax indicate that the couple were among the wealthiest residents of the town.8 Oxf. City Docs. 12, 25, 28, 43, 44; Med. Archs. Univ. Oxf. (Oxf. Historical Soc. lxxiii), 1; Cart. Oseney Abbey, i (Oxf. Historical Soc. lxxxix), 371.

William’s property in Oxford and its suburbs included a messuage in the High Street called ‘Dagvile’s Inn’ (otherwise known as ‘Croxford’s Inn’), perhaps his place of residence. Outside Oxfordshire, he held three tenements in Abingdon, Berkshire. He augmented these holdings through his marriage since Juliana had inherited a tavern near Carfax, along with properties in the parishes of All Saints, St. Giles and elsewhere in Oxford. Following William’s death, Juliana married another local man, Thomas Cowley†, the King’s attorney in the court of King’s bench. Possessing a life interest in the Dagvile properties, she survived until the second decade of the fifteenth century. In 1413, however, she and Cowley chose to relinquish them to her son, to whom they also released the holdings she had inherited from her father. In return, Dagvile undertook to pay the Cowleys an annual rent of 18 marks for ‘Dagvile’s Inn’ and adjacent shops.9 Surv. Oxf. i. 41, 100, 101, 110, 112; ii (Oxf. Historical Soc. n.s. xx), 36, 204; Top. c. 396, ff. 136, 145; Liber Albus, no. 210; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 681.

Dagvile held some of his property from Osney abbey,10 Cart. Oseney Abbey, iii (Oxf. Historical Soc. xci), 230. and he paid Sir Peter Bessels* rent for a garden in the parish of St. Michael at the North gate.11 Oxon. RO, PAR211/4/F1/3. In August 1422, he conveyed most of his holdings in Oxford to the serjeant-at-law John Cottesmore and others, presumably having appointed them his feoffees. Excluded from this arrangement were a tenement in the parish of St. Martin and a building known as ‘Black Hall’ in that of St. Giles, both of which he had inherited from his mother.12 Top. Oxon. c. 396, f. 144. He did not retain all the real property that came into his hands, for he sold a messuage in All Saints to the butcher John Waryn and his wife Agnes in 1432 and a cottage and garden in ‘Shydelane’ to Osney abbey in the early 1440s. As it happened, the sale to the Waryns was not a permanent alienation since in 1455 Agnes, by then a widow, re-conveyed it to his son and successor, another William Dagvile.13 Ibid. ff. 311, 312; CPR, 1441-6, p. 393; Cart. Oseney Abbey, ii. (Oxf. Historical Soc. xc), 254-5. In July 1442, following William’s marriage to Joan, the daughter of William Quatermayns of Chalgrove, Oxfordshire, Dagvile used his estate to provide for the couple, upon whom he settled two messuages and two shops in All Saints.14 Top. Oxon. c. 396, f. 147.

In spite of taking possession of his inheritance nearly a decade earlier, Dagvile seems not to have participated in public affairs before attesting the election of Oxfordshire’s knights of the shire to Henry VI’s first Parliament. He reappears in the records in March 1424, when the authorities at Oxford ordered the serjeants of the town to distrain him and others who had failed to obey a summons to do jury service in an assize of novel disseisin.15 Munimenta Civitatis Oxonie, 191-2. He began his career as a municipal office-holder later in the same decade, when he served a term as a bailiff of Oxford. When, in April 1428, he and his fellow bailiff, John Mitchell II*, joined the mayor, Thomas Coventre I*, in presiding over a view of frankpledge, one of the presentments was of direct personal concern. A jury found that John Crosse, a scholar at the university, had stolen a scarlet hood worth 10s., perhaps a symbol of office, from him at the end of the previous December.16 Oxf. City Docs. 180-1. By the spring of 1432, Dagvile had attained the rank of alderman, and it was as such that he attested the election of Oxford’s burgesses to the Parliament which opened on 12 May that year. Just over a year later, the electors of Oxford returned him and John Estbury*, another newcomer to the Commons, to the following Parliament.

Within a year of the dissolution of the Parliament of 1433, Dagvile became mayor of Oxford. He held the office for two consecutive terms, meaning that he sat in the Commons of 1435 while mayor. He also took over the mayoralty in the autumn of 1443, following the death in office of Thomas Bailey*. Elected mayor for 1443-4, Bailey died soon after beginning his term since Dagvile had replaced him by the following 4 Oct. Yet Dagvile did not serve out the full remainder of the term since Richard Spragat* was mayor in mid summer 1444.17 Wood’s Surv. Antiqs. Oxf. iii. ed. Clark (Oxf. Historical Soc. xxxvii), 22, 22n; H. Hurst, Oxf. Topography (Oxf. Historical Soc. xxxix), 27; Top. Oxon. c. 52, f. 63. Dagvile also held office in Oxford by direct appointment of the Crown, as one of the King’s coroners and as a j.p. The records of two of the inquests over which he presided as coroner have survived. The first, held in July 1438, returned a verdict of accidental death after a canon of the priory of St. Frideswide had drowned in a pool by one of the priory’s meadows. The second took place on 3 Sept. 1441, following the death of the chaplain Thomas Cardiff. On this occasion, the jury found that Cardiff had died of the wounds inflicted on him by Richard Adyson, a scholar of the university, who had shot him in the neck four days earlier.18 Recs. Med. Oxf. ed. Salter, 51.

Dagvile appears to have enjoyed an active old age. He was elected to his third Parliament in 1447 and in the following year he was called upon to do jury service in a lawsuit brought before the King’s justices at Westminster. He remained in office as a coroner (and perhaps as a j.p.) until his death.19 Cart. Hosp. St. John the Baptist, ii (Oxf. Historical Soc. lxviii), 387. Still alive at the beginning of January 1449, he probably did not live for much longer since he was not re-elected alderman in 1450. He was certainly dead by February 1454 when Richard Spragat replaced him as coroner.20 C242/11/20. Dagvile’s heir was his son William, who sat for Oxford in the Parliaments of February 1449 and 1467.