ELDESFELD, William

It is not clear whether Eldesfeld was a native of Gloucester although he was certainly a resident of the town by 1433. In September that year he and two other burgesses, Thomas Bisley* and John Sotherton, were among those who received a grant of land at Lydney on the edge of the Forest of Dean, although for what purpose is not known.2 Gloucester Corporation Recs. ed. Stevenson, 389-90. A mercer by trade, he lived in a tenement on the eastern corner of Maverdine Lane, just off Westgate Street. He kept his shop in the same building, held of the abbot of Gloucester. Eldesfeld also held another tenement or tenements in the Mercery, a tenement in Eastbridge Street, a curtilage in Northgate Street and a garden off the latter street.3 Gloucester Rental 1455 ed. Cole, 30, 62, 78, 80; Glos. Archs., cath. deeds, D1609/10/3. He served at least four terms as bailiff of Gloucester, during the second of which his fellow burgesses elected him to his only Parliament. In his final term as bailiff, he and his associate, Richard Skidmore, agreed to submit their community’s differences with Prior Garland of Llanthony priory to arbitration, a prelude to the ‘loveday’ between the borough and priory in 1457.4 Cal. Regs. Priory of Llanthony (Bristol and Glos. Rec. Soc. xv), pp. xvii, 26.