BAGGELE, Michael (d.c.1452), of Midhurst, Suss.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

s. and h. of William Baggele*. m. Isabel.

Offices Held

Tax collector, Suss. Dec. 1421, Oct. 1422, Jan. 1436.

Commr. to assess tax on parishes, Suss. Apr. 1428.

Biography

Michael was returned to Parliament for the only recorded time while still a young man. In 1402 he was among those burgesses of Midhurst indicted before the j.p.s for having plotted to murder Sir John Bohun, the lord of the borough, and for participating in the uprising of 29 Dec. 1401 in which his father William Baggele had been killed by Bohun and his men. He appeared before the King’s bench and after initially denying the charges pleaded guilty to resisting and assaulting Sir John, for which offences he was fined. Baggele’s father’s death had left him heir to a number of properties in Midhurst and elsewhere, and besides these he also acquired the farm of the mill at Woolavington as tenant of the earl of Arundel. In 1422 he conveyed lands in Hooe and Southwick in east Sussex, together with unspecified holdings in Hampshire, to the churchwardens of Midhurst church, to endow a fraternity which would itself support a chantry priest, but how he had come by these properties, situated at some distance from his home town, is unclear.1

Meanwhile, Baggele had served on a jury at an escheator’s inquest held at Midhurst in July 1405. He witnessed a deed dated there in March 1422 on behalf of Thomas Westlond*, and six years later, as a feoffee of property in the town and at West Dean and Easebourne, he was party to a settlement of the same on John atte Wode and his wife Joan. Another close associate of his was Michael Maunser*. As time passed he evidently became reconciled to the ageing Sir John Bohun, whose deed of enfeoffment of the manors of Midhurst and Easebourne he witnessed at Midhurst in September 1430, and in April 1432 he headed the group of eight leading burgesses of Midhurst who formally received from Sir John confirmation and enlargement of the borough’s liberties.2

In 1431 Baggele had inherited ‘Brewerstenement’ and ‘Iwenhalle’ in Midhurst and a shop or workshop in Chichester, all of which his father had bequeathed to his brother Thomas, this property having fallen into the King’s hands on 10 Mar. that year, when Thomas, then vicar of Manuden in Essex, had been put to death by burning as a heretic and lollard. There is nothing in Michael’s will, made at Midhurst more than 20 years later, on 17 May 1452, and proved on 24 Feb. 1454, to show that he shared his late brother’s beliefs. His entirely conventional bequests included 3s.4d. to Chichester cathedral as well as 6s.8d. to the prioress and 3s.4d. to every nun at Easebourne priory. All his burgages and land at Midhurst were left to his widow Isabel and her heirs.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. Suss. Arch. Colls. xx. 24; xcv. 52; Two Fitzalan Surveys (Suss. Rec. Soc. lxvii), 141.
  • 2. C137/46/13; West Suss. RO, Cowdray mss 4455, 4734/5; CP25(1)240/85/38; Add. Ch. 20114.
  • 3. C139/54/26; CCR, 1429-35, p. 142; Reg. Chichele, iii. 221-3; PCC 2 Stokton.