Family and Education

m. by 1401, Petronilla.

Offices Held

Bailiff, Dorchester Mich. 1392-3.1

Biography

Having already been returned to one Parliament, at Cambridge in 1388, Gardener was again elected in 1393, at which time he was discharging the office of bailiff. In April 1400, he gave evidence at an inquisition ad quod damnum held in Dorchester. He owned some property in the town, next to the convent of the Friars Minor, and in July 1401 he and his wife bought a tenement adjoining it. These premises and others in ‘Puselane’, all held of the Crown, were conveyed in 1406 to John Bomel* and others in order that they might settle them on Gardener and his wife by re-enfeoffment. Two years later the Gardeners made Bomel a grant of another building in ‘Puselane’. Gardener was engaged in the local cloth trade, exporting his wares through Melcombe Regis.2

Gardener died some time between November 1408 and 17 Feb. 1409, on which latter date his will was enrolled in the town court. He left his wife a burgage in South Street, only stipulating that 12d. a year be paid to the guild of St. Mary in St. Peter’s church. The following year, Petronilla transferred to Bomel possession of two shops on High Street and one of her late husband’s tenements on ‘Puselane’.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: E.M. Wade

Notes

• 1. Recs. Dorchester ed. Mayo, 118.
• 2. C143/430/6; E101/343/29; Recs. Dorchester, 145, 164-5, 184.
• 3. Recs. Dorchester, 175, 184-5.