JORDAN, John

In the biography of John Jordan, the cloth merchant who sat for Dorchester in eight Parliaments between 1397 and 1414, it was assumed that his son John, who represented the borough in 1425, was a different person from his namesake ‘of Wolfeton’.5 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 502. Yet a closer examination of the evidence shows that they were one and the same, as is clear from the document in which John ‘of Wolfeton’ dealt in 1422 with a burgage on the north side of ‘Ilnenlane’, next to one which had belonged to John his father (who had died in the previous year).6 Dorchester Recs. 240. The younger John Jordan owed his emergence as a much more prominent figure than his father, not only in the town but in the county at large, to a successful career as a lawyer, which had begun in the early years of Henry IV’s reign. From the start he was associated with some of the leading gentry of Dorset, notably in their dealings at the Exchequer. In February 1401 he shared with John Syward an Exchequer lease of three manors formerly belonging to a deceased member of Syward’s family, and three months later he stood surety there for John Frome†, a local landowner who had distinguished himself as a member of the King’s Council. This latter connexion may explain Jordan’s appointment as escheator in Dorset in November 1403, when Frome was the outgoing sheriff. Following Frome’s death Jordan provided securities at the Exchequer in 1405 for his son-in-law William Filoll†, and did likewise for Sir John Devereux† and his wife a year later.7 CFR, xii. 105, 125, 312; xiii. 53.

In the same period Jordan was making his presence felt in his home town, where he regularly witnessed conveyances of property,8 Dorchester Recs. 154-5, 180, 190, 194 – generally being called ‘junior’ to distinguish him from his fa. and by the autumn of 1407 he had been made steward of the borough court, by an appointment which coincided with his father’s second term as bailiff. It looks as if he continued to occupy the stewardship until his death 20 years later. Jordan became a popular choice as a feoffee in the town, and was party to transactions which brought him into close contact with such leading burgesses as William Ash† (d.1411) and Reynold Jacob* (d.1424), as well as with landowners from the neighbourhood like Robert More† and Thomas Faryngdon†,9 Ibid. 176-7, 192, 198-201, 206, 217, 246. and towards the end of his career he was named as an executor of the townsman Robert Greenleaf alias Baker.10 Ibid. 243-5, 256, 262-4. He was pricked as a juror at an assize of novel disseisin in 1414, when the protagonists were the abbess of Tarrent and the family of Sir Robert Turberville†, which subsequently welcomed his counsel.11 C260/127/7C; CP40/699, rot. 458.

It is not always easy to distinguish between the properties in Dorchester which Jordan inherited from his father and those he acquired himself. The elder John owned buildings in South Street and Durnelane,12 Dorchester Recs. 139, 159, 183. but during his lifetime his son came into possession of a house and curtilege, also in South Street, as well as burgages in West Street. In 1403 John Hart mortgaged two messuages in South Street to the younger John, although he soon passed on his interest to others including Henry Cravell†.13 Ibid. 145, 149, 152, 156, 183. More important, by that date our MP was already accumulating land outside the town at nearby Wolfeton, to which five years later he added a further eight messuages and 13 acres of land in Dorchester and three miles away at Stratton and Bradford Peverell. A small estate known as ‘la Frelond’ in Piddletrenthide which he had acquired earlier, later assumed the status of a moiety of the manor of Freeland.14 Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 260; Winchester Coll. muns., 14766, 14775-6. By 1412 Jordan’s annual income from holdings in Dorset amounted to £23, according to assessments for taxation.15 Feudal Aids, vi. 425.

These acquisitions probably included the property further down the river Frome, in east Dorset, which had come to him by marriage to Christine, one of the two daughters and coheiresses of John Chantmarle. Christine’s sister Joan had married John Cheverell† of Chilfrome, another lawyer, and the couples divided the estate between them, so that the two men also shared the patronage of the church of East Stoke. Christine’s share of the inheritance included land in Chantmarle, Blandford and Pimperne, and by the terms of an entail of 1412 she and her sister secured a remainder interest in the valuable manor of ‘Byeastwall and Stoborough’, just outside Wareham.16 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 544-5; J. Hutchins, Dorset, i. 413; Dorset Feet of Fines, 270-1. The sisters’ title to land was occasionally challenged, but the two lawyers successfully defended their wives’ interest: JUST1/1531, rot. 37. This manor formed part of the substantial inheritance of the young John Mone* of Hammoon (a descendant of the Lords Mohun), whose wardship and marriage Jordan had purchased a year or two earlier from the lord of Dunster, Sir Hugh Luttrell†. Clearly this was an important acquisition, enabling him to improve the prospects and status of his family by marrying the wealthy ward to his own daughter.17 Honour of Dunster (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxiii), 146. Besides all this, Jordan held land on the Isle of Portland bequeathed to him in 1418 by William Ford†, a former bailiff of Dorchester, while following the deaths of his father in 1421 and his stepmother Alice four years later, he consolidated his holdings in the county town.18 Dorchester Recs. 228, 245, 254.

Jordan’s standing in Dorset is confirmed by his appearance at the county court to attest as many as eight of the parliamentary elections for the shire between 1407 and 1423, and by his service as a coroner. The precise duration of his term as coroner is uncertain, for although in May 1418 the sheriff was ordered to elect a replacement on the grounds that Jordan was ‘insufficiently qualified’ for the post, he evidently continued in office subsequently and was probably coroner at the time of his election to Parliament.19 CCR, 1413-19, p. 464. It also seems likely that he played a part in the management of the estates in the county belonging to Edmund Mortimer, earl of March. Immediately after the earl’s death, he shared a lease at the Exchequer of the Mortimer manors of Marshwood and Gussage ‘Bohun’, by grant of 6 Mar. 1425, and a few weeks later, on 20 Apr., he served as a juror at the earl’s inquisition post mortem heard in Dorchester. Coincidentally, another member of the jury was John Newburgh I*, who by then had been elected knight of the shire for Dorset at the Parliament due to assemble ten days later. Jordan accompanied him to the Commons as MP for Dorchester. The two men already knew each other well, for Newburgh was a feoffee of Jordan’s property at Piddletrenthide. Perhaps they both had private business to do at Westminster, as well as more in relation to the late earl of March’s affairs.20 CFR, xv. 98, 120; CIPM, xxii. 486; C219/13/3. Jordan also took on tasks for other clients while he was there: during the second parliamentary session he appeared in the court of common pleas to prosecute a suit on behalf of the abbess of Godstow in Oxfordshire.21 CP40/657, rot. 395d. Following his return home, in August that year, Sir Robert Turberville’s widow named Jordan as her attorney at another assize of novel disseisin.22 JUST1/1540, rot. 110.

Yet that same autumn of 1425 Jordan was reported to be ‘sick and aged’ and in November the sheriff of Dorset was again instructed to find a replacement coroner. Whether he did so or not is unclear, but on 12 Feb. 1427 a similar order went out, this time stating that Jordan was dead.23 CCR, 1422-9, pp. 215, 295. The executors of his will (which has not survived) included his brother-in-law John Cheverell and another local lawyer, Philip Leweston*. Presumably acting on their testator’s instructions they donated a burgage in High West Street, Dorchester, to the local fraternity of St. Mary in October 1428.24 Dorchester Recs. 272-3. Jordan was succeeded by a son, also named John, on whom in 1430 his feoffees settled the moiety of Freeland for term of his life, and he entered most of his paternal inheritance within the next four years. His mother Christine retained her own inheritance for life, although in 1437 she conveyed some of her property to Leweston and John Newburgh II*. She probably died shortly afterwards as it was her son and heir who presented to the church at East Stoke in 1439.25 Winchester Coll. muns., 14768; Feudal Aids, ii. 81, 115; CCR, 1435-41, p. 371; Hutchins, i. 413. By then the latter had fallen into financial difficulties. He owed William, Lord Botreaux, £200 under a statute staple at Bristol, and that same year he relinquished possession of part of his inheritance at Wolfeton to William Gerard*.26 C241/228/55; Dorset Feet of Fines, 353-4. He apparently died without issue. By 1444 Freeland was in the process of being transferred to Cardinal Beaufort and others, in preparation for its settlement on Hyde abbey in Winchester.27 Winchester Coll. muns., 14770-1. It may be that as part of the arrangement our MP and his family would be remembered in the prayers of the monks. Not long afterwards John’s inheritance from his parents passed to his sister Joan and her husband John Mone, and through their union to the Hampshire MP, Henry Trenchard*, who married their daughter (our MP’s grand-daughter), Christine.28 Hutchins, iii. 326, 328-9.