Family and Education

m. (1) by 1388, Joan, ?1s. 1da.; (2) by 1404, Petronilla, da. and h. of Edward Tite of Bridport by his w. Alice, 1da.; (3) Alice, ?1s.1

Offices Held

Cofferer, Bridport Mich. 1394-7, 1399-1402; constable 1405-6, 1407-8, 1415-16, 1418-19.2

Biography

Henry Rauf may have been related to the Tite family (one of whose members, Richard, had sat in Parliament for Dorchester five times between 1325 and 1338), for he figured under his alias as early as 1388, that is, before his marriage to Petronilla Tite. The latter’s father, Edward, five times bailiff of Bridport, provided securities at his first election as cofferer in 1394. Rauf and his first wife leased from the commonalty of Bridport a burgage in West Street, and he later held another in East Street. In 1404 he and his second wife were allocated by her father rents from a messuage in West Street as well as reversionary interests in all his other properties. This inheritance passed eventually to their daughter Agnes, who married William Gamelyn, but not without some opposition on the part of ‘Sir’ John Tite. The latter, perhaps a cleric, was neither ‘sybbe nor kynne’ to Agnes, being the offspring of another marriage of Rauf’s, ‘for the said Harry hadde dyverse wifes’.3

Rauf was one of four delegates sent to the county court at Dorchester with the Bridport returns to the Parliaments of 1419 and 1421. He had been a warden of the local church of St. Mary’s in 1414-15 and of St. Andrew’s chapel there in 1418, and together with his third wife, Alice, he joined the fraternities associated with the light suspended before the cross and the torches in the same church.4 Alice survived him, but died before 1440.5

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

Variants: Raffe, Rawe. He was perhaps related to John and Thomas Rauf, successive vicars of St. Martin’s church, Wareham, from 1369: CPR, 1367-70, p. 313.

• 1. Dorset RO, B3/CD 11 f. 2, D2 f. 91v, S155, 156.
• 2. Dorset RO, B3/M11 ff. 10, 12, 15, 24, 26, 33, 48, 53, 87, 93. J. Hutchins (Dorset ii. 9) lists him as bailiff with Roger Stikelane* in 23 Ric. II (1399-1400) but the two men were cofferers in that year.
• 3. Dorset RO, B3/S/39, 155.
• 4. C219/12/3, 5, 6; Dorset RO, B3/CD 11 f. 2, 15 f. 2, 16 f. 2, M11 ff. 3, 65.
• 5. CAD, ii C2530. William Rauf alias Tite, sub-bailiff of Bridport 1406-38 (Dorset RO, B3/M11), for whom Henry provided securities at the local elections every Michaelmas from 1406 to 1417, was probably another of his sons.