PEDEWELL, John

More may be added to the earlier biography.2 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 39.

In late 1423 Pedewell was one of three Somerset merchants charged with attempting to avoid paying customs on a quantity of cloths they had shipped at Bristol in a ship of Bayonne called the George. According to one of the customers, Richard Dynt, the merchants had approached him and stated their intention of exporting the cloth, then at Wells, without, however, disclosing the true quantity or acknowledging that it had previously been shipped from Bristol to Axewater (in the Bridgwater district) uncustomed.3 E159/200, recorda Mich. rot. 34, Hil. rot. 2.

Pedewell seems to have been a litigious man who was frequently in dispute with other members of the Wells community.4 Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, pp. 157, 178, 180, 181, 199, 263, 274, 289. Among the most prominent of his opponents was the grocer Hildebrand Elwell*, whom he charged with misusing a borrowed horse in the autumn of 1419.5 Ibid. 222. Five years later, he was pursuing a local labourer for having abducted one of his female servants.6 CP40/654, rot. 283. Nevertheless, like other leading citizens, Pedewell was frequently called upon to mediate in his neighbours’ disputes.7 Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, pp. 205, 219, 222, 223, 230, 232, 238, 243, 245, 256.

Pedewell is last heard of in the autumn of 1435, and may have died not long after. He was certainly dead by early 1440, when his widow and son John were recovering debts in the court of common pleas.8 CP40/716, rot. 30. Pedewell’s other son, Richard, who followed him into trade, had been admitted to the freedom of Wells in his father’s lifetime in the summer of 1425, with the prominent Richard Setter alias Milers* and Thomas Horewode* standing surety.9 Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, p. 249. He too died before January 1440, leaving a widow, Edith, who subsequently married Richard Mayne*.10 CP40/722, rot. 117; 723, rot. 36d; 726, rot. 351; 737, rots. 118, 119. Pedewell’s son John entered the Church and rose through its ranks to become a vicar choral, subdean and ultimately a prebendary of Wells cathedral. He made his will on 1 Aug. 1467 and died within the following two weeks.11 Wells convocation act bk. 1450-1553, p. 37; HMC Wells, ii. 676. It was the younger John who in the summer of 1442 clashed with his widowed sister-in-law, Edith Mayne, over £40 outstanding from a bond which she had made in Jan. 1440 not long after her first husband’s death. Edith for her part claimed that Pedewell had forced her to seal the bond under duress by keeping her imprisoned at Wells: CP40/726, rot. 351.