GRENEFELD, John I

This John Grenefeld was probably the man employed by St. Swithun’s priory, Winchester, from about 1411 until his death, a period of some 36 years. He paid frequent visits to many of the manors in Hampshire and Wiltshire belonging to the priory, most likely in the capacity of supervisor of stock, and obtained eight grants of land from the prior and convent between 1422 and 1442 in return for his services. In addition, in 1427 he was given a corrody which provided him with a daily allowance of food and beer from the prior’s kitchen and his own room next to the steward’s.2 Reg. Common Seal (Hants Rec. Ser. ii), no. 133.

Grenefeld paid 10s. towards the parliamentary subsidy collected in Winchester in 1430. When in the city he probably lived in his house in Parchment Street, to which he later amalgamated a building next door, and on 22 Aug. 1436 he was allowed by the civic authorities to dig a watercourse running from the ‘Kyngesbroke’ onto his land and out again, provided that he and future inhabitants would never erect a byre, stable, pigshed or latrine which might result in fouling the stream. On the same day, for a payment of £4, he was excused for life from all offices in the city, including those of mayor and bailiff. Three years later he was allowed to enclose with a fence a length of Parchment Street, three feet in width, next to the stone walls of his house and on either side of the porch leading into his hall.3 Black Bk. Winchester ed. Bird, 72-73, 76; D.J. Keene, Surv. Winchester (Winchester Studies, 2), ii. nos. 341-2, p. 1248. However, Keene assumed that this John Grenefeld was the same person as the member of the royal household, John Grenefeld II. Despite his exemption from office, he did occasionally participate in civic affairs, notably by serving on a committee of 12 citizens which, in August 1442, ordained that the mayor should have ten marks a year to maintain his estate, this sum being deducted from the royal grant of alnage.4 Black Bk. 79. Furthermore, he was elected by his fellows to represent them in the Parliament summoned to meet on 25 Feb. 1445, which sat for four sessions before its dissolution on 9 Apr. 1446. Not surprisingly, the citizens of Winchester had to raise a special levy to pay the wages of the two MPs over such a long period, and Grenefeld himself contributed the substantial amount of 8s. towards the £17 0s. 2d. collected.5 Winchester recs., W/E4/4.

Grenefeld could well afford it, for as is clear from suits brought in Chancery in the 1480s it was he who initially took up the tenancy from St. George’s chapel, Windsor, of the property known as Grove Place in Nursling and the manors of Roke and South Wells in Romsey, to the south-west of Winchester, which came into the possession of his eldest son John, a member of Clifford’s Inn, before the latter died in 1448.6 VCH Hants, iii. 436, 455, 459-60. These holdings had been valued at £10 p.a. in 1436, and evidently formed an estate of substance, whose owner was listed among the gentry of Hampshire required two years earlier to take the widely administered oath not to support law-breakers.7 E179/173/92; CP25(1)/207/34/31; CPR, 1429-36, p. 397. Over 8,000 slates were carted from Southampton for Grenefeld’s building works at Skidmore in 1443-4.8 Brokage Bk. 1443-4, ii. (Soton. Rec. Ser. vi), 149-50, 155, 165-6, 169, 173. Yet although established as a landowner, the Winchester MP also maintained an interest in trade, for a bale of alum and a hogshead of wine were brought from Southampton to Winchester for him in 1444, and his widow, Felicity, not only had a pipe of wine carted there five years later, but was also assessed for alnage on cloth woven in the city in 1466.9 Ibid. i. (Soton. Rec. Ser. iv), 19; ii. 167; Port and Brokage Bk. 1448-9 (ibid. xxxvi), 171; E101/344/17.

Grenefeld died before 8 June 1448, the date that his lawyer son John made his will, for among the latter’s bequests to his executors, William Pece and John Grenefeld II* (a member of the King’s household), were two silver bowls and various precious stones not yet in his possession, as they had been left to his mother Felicity for her lifetime in accordance with his late father’s wishes.10 PCC 35 Luffenham. The widowed Felicity was assessed alone for the parliamentary subsidy collected in Winchester in 1464. In her final years she was allotted a chamber in the local hospital of St. John, but this fell vacant before 1468, presumably when she died.11 Winchester recs., W/E4/5; Keene, ii. 822. Grenefeld’s second son, Thomas, officiated as escheator in Hampshire in 1469-70. Besides tenancy of the manors of South Wells, Roke and Grove Place, he also inherited from his parents 32 acres of land in West Wield, but was nevertheless beset with financial difficulties. In about 1480 Richard, duke of Gloucester, claimed that Thomas had sold him South Wells, although this was disputed by Thomas’s sister Agnes and her husband John Hammond†, and shortly afterwards Thomas joined the Hammonds and Simon Croucheman and his wife (probably a second sister) in making a quitclaim to William, Lord Hastings, not only of the disputed manor but the rest of Grenefeld’s landed holdings too.12 Winchester Coll. muns. 16677; C1/52/139-44; CP25(1)/207/34/31.