Family and Education

s. and h. of John Jardyn of Bowley by Isabel, da. of Nicholas Maundeland of Hants.1 m. (1) 1da.; (2) bef.1396, Joan (d. 31 Oct. 1427), 1s. 1da.

Offices Held

Tax collector, Suss. Dec. 1385.

Sheriff, Surr. and Suss. 18 Nov. 1386-1 Dec. 1388, 18 Oct. 1392-7 Nov. 1393.

Escheator, Surr. and Suss. 2 Jan. 1392-24 Nov. 1394, 24 Nov. 1400-8 Nov. 1401.

Commr. of inquiry, Surr., Suss. Mar. 1393 (concealments), Sept. 1393 (wastes, Wilmington priory); arrest Aug. 1407.

Biography

The manor of South Mundham and Bowley, which the Jardyns had held since the beginning of the 13th century, fell to Thomas before 1383, when he witnessed the foundation of a chantry in the nearby church at Pagham. The property was estimated to be worth £16 a year at his death, even after £5 annual rent had been paid to the baronial overlords, the Mowbrays. Jardyn’s antecedents had also possessed part of the manor of Denton by Bishopstone in east Sussex, and it was for land there that he did homage to the bishop of Chichester in 1399.2

Jardyn owed his initial appointment as sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1386, as well as his retention for a second term of office, to the government controlled by the duke of Gloucester and his allies, being most likely nominated by Richard, earl of Arundel, the leading landowner of the region. While sheriff he was summoned to the Exchequer court to answer John Hathersham I’s* claim that he had refused to pay him all his wages as knight of the shire for Surrey in the Merciless Parliament. Jardyn averred that he had handed over the balance due in the King’s hall at Westminster, but his subsequent failure to re-appear in court prompted the jury to decide in Hathersham’s favour. For just over a year in 1392-3 he combined his duties as sheriff with those of the escheatorship. Nevertheless, he showed himself reluctant to enhance his social standing by taking up knighthood in response to the royal proclamation, preferring rather to pay a fine of £2. Jardyn made three appearances in the Exchequer acting as a mainpernor for custodians of the estates of alien priories: first, in 1392, on behalf of the earl of Arundel, then, in 1394, for the prior of Hayling priory, and finally, in 1399, for his own son-in-law, James Knottesford. The latter’s wife, Beatrice, had earlier been married to Thomas Roucle, a grandson of the last Lord Bohun of Midhurst. Jardyn was listed among witnesses to important transactions completed by Thomas, earl of Arundel, at Arundel castle in September 1406.3

Jardyn died on 14 May 1410. Within a few months his widow, Joan, married Thomas atte Wode, with whom she received £8 a year from Jardyn’s principal manor, as her dower portion. His son John, aged 13, became a royal ward owing to the minority of the feudal lord of South Mundham, John Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, and in March following his wardship and marriage were sold for 50 marks to the prince of Wales. After John’s death in 1426 and that of his mother a year later, the property was divided between Thomas Jardyn’s daughters, Beatrice Knottesford and Margaret, wife of John Soper*.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

• 1. E401/550, 17 June.
• 2. Suss. Feet of Fines (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxiii), no. 1514; Chichester Cart. (ibid. xlvi), no. 864; L. Fleming, Hist. Pagham, i. 89, 161-2.
• 3. E13/106, f. 17v; CFR, xi. 64, 111; xii. 9; Suss. Arch. Colls. lxxiii. 106; CPR, 1452-61, p. 203; E401/592, 18 Apr.
• 4. C137/81/7; C139/33/26; CPR, 1408-13, p. 281; CCR, 1409-13, p. 243; 1 ??? 13-19, p. 45; Suss. Feet of Fines, no. 2864.