DAMARLE, William, of Taunton, Som.

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

Sept. 1388

Family and Education

m. Joan,1 1s.

Offices Held

Tax collector, Som. May, Dec. 1384.

Biography

Damarle is recorded on the bishop of Winchester’s account rolls as paying, between 1373 and 1415, an annual rent of 1d. for a plot of wasteland in Taunton, and 2d. a year for the use of a conduit, extending from a spring at the mill-head at Bath Pool to his own house. From 1400 he also leased a ‘dayn’ of wasteland next to his property in the High Street.2

Damarle was a member of the local jury which in September 1382 accused the abbot of Glastonbury of obstructing the river Tone, thereby causing great inconvenience to the burgesses. In April 1384 he witnessed a deed conveying a meadow in Taunton. His son, Andrew, was to become involved in February 1410 in the riots of the townspeople against Bishop Beaufort’s officers, but he himself apparently took no part in them.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. Som. Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xxii), 8-9.
  • 2. Hants RO, bp. Winchester’s pipe rolls, 159385-417.
  • 3. Add. 30289, ff. 86, 186-90; CFR, 1381-5, pp. 511-12; 1408-13, p. 179; CCR, 1377-81, pp. 447-8.