DODE, Henry

Known as a ‘baker’ in the mid 1430s and as a ‘skinner’ or ‘merchant’ in the later 1440s, Dode traded in a number of different commodities and had business dealings in London. A few months before taking up his seat in the Commons, he faced litigation in the court of common pleas at Westminster on the part of the prominent London grocer Nicholas Wyfold. In pleadings of Trinity term 1449, Wyfold claimed he had sold numerous items of merchandise (including spices and other imported foodstuffs, soap, copper and paper) to Dode in the City, on various occasions between May 1445 and April 1447, for a total of £13 14s. 5d., of which £2 was still outstanding. Dode responded by denying that he owed Wyfold any money at all.2 CP40/754, rot. 134d.

Dode was active as a municipal office-holder at Gloucester for just a few years on either side of the Parliament of 1449-50. During his first term as a bailiff, the town forfeited certain financial securities which it had provided to two justices of oyer and terminer, William Yelverton* and Giles Brydges*, but in what circumstances is not known. In February 1448, however, the Crown issued letters in favour of him, William Oliver II* (his co-bailiff in 1446-7), the commonalty of Gloucester and John Butler* (sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1446-7), freeing them from all claims it might have against them with regard to this matter.3 KB27/698, rot. 81; 699, rot. 33; CPR, 1446-52, p. 126; E159/224, brevia Hil. rot. 20. It was also during Dode’s first term as bailiff that the burgesses of Gloucester petitioned the Crown about their fee farm of £60 p.a., which, they claimed, had become too great a burden for them to bear. According to the petition, the bailiffs were now having to find £20 of the farm out of their own goods, meaning that nobody would serve as a bailiff in the future. The King responded by granting the burgesses the right to build two new water-mills on the Severn, and to hold them for the profit of the town, free of any impost to the Crown.4 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 70-71.

Nothing is known about Dode’s property at Gloucester, other than that he held a stable and house (‘pro necessarijs suis’) in Castle Lane from Llanthony priory and that he leased a house in Westgate Street, his dwelling place in the early 1450s, from Thomas Butler. He was also involved in various transactions as a feoffee for the will of his fellow burgess, Richard Manchestre. In the will, dated 18 Sept. 1454, Manchestre assigned a couple of shops in Gloucester to Dode, John Wolaston and John Halden, directing them to use the income from these properties to maintain a chaplain in St. Mary de Lode, one of the town’s parish churches. Manchestre likewise assigned the reversion of two other shops to the same three feoffees, so that in due course they might use the profits to support the poor inmates of the town’s hospital of St. Bartholomew.5 C115/73, f. 44; Gloucester Rental 1455 ed. Cole, 46; CCR, 1447-54, p. 344; Gloucester Corporation Recs. 399-402. Dode himself was still alive in July the following year, when he attested the return of the town’s burgesses to Parliament, but he is not heard of after that date.