WODEFOLD, William

Litigation in the court of common pleas reveals much more about Wodefold than was given in the earlier biography:1 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 884-5. notably that he was a draper, and, to judge by the number of his debtors and the size of their debts, active in the wool trade. He had dealings with a fuller from Rolvenden in Kent, who owed him £17 10s. in 1419,2 CP40/635, rot. 249. and a ‘woolman’ from Eastbourne, nearer home, whom he pursued for a debt of £20. Further afield, he established trading contacts in Berkshire, and something of the extent of his business is shown by the suits he brought in 1431 against John Orpyd* of Abingdon a ‘woolman or mercer’ for £40, another Abingdon ‘woolman’ for a similar sum, and others for a total of £25. The following year he was suing the prior of Michelham, Sussex, for £11.3 CP40/667, rot. 92; 680 rots. 29d, 67; 687 rot. 13d. Besides his property in Lewes, Wodefold held land a few miles away at Chiddingly and Waldron, and suits he had brought earlier, in 1425, concerned trespasses committed on his holdings there involving the theft of livestock and timber and poaching from his fields and ponds.4 CP40/657, rot. 176d.

Wodefold served as a juror at Lewes in September 1423 and April 1432, at the inquests following the deaths of Sir William Bardolf and William, Lord Clinton.5 CIPM, xxii. 326; C139/54/36. While on occasion he had appeared in person to prosecute his suits in the common pleas, more often he employed the able Sussex lawyer William Fenningham* as his attorney. From Michaelmas term 1433, however, he was represented in court by one of his sons, Robert Wodefold, who had chosen to enter the legal profession rather than to follow his father into trade.6 CP40/657, rot. 74; 691, rots. 71d, 86, 447d; 699, rots. 661d, 671. William is not recorded alive after the autumn of 1435. The date of his death is not known, but 15 years later his executors (his widow and two sons), were engaged in settling his affairs in the central courts.7 CP40/759, rot. 221.