John Offord (abt. 1285 - 1349)

Died 20 May 1349 at about age 64 in Tottenham Court, London, England

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Biography

John Offord, doctor of civil law, Chancellor of England, nominated to the See by Papal Bull dated 28 Sept., 1348, but died of plague May 20, 1349, before consecration.

“The name of this chancellor is generally spelled Offord, but on some occasions Ufford; and it is the fashion to call him one of the sons of Robert de Ufford, the first Earl of Suffolk. We are satisfied, however, that he was not so…” ^[1]

In 1331, (then canon of St. Paul's) granted custody of the manor of Offord Daneys with the advowson its church, formerly in dower of Eleanor, widow of Robert Brus, deceased, "which Edmund Peverel held of him and the said Eleanor in chief, and which is in his custody by reason of the minority of John, Edmund's son and heir, to hold until the heir come of age". ^[2]

The day after his death, his brother Andrew retrieved the great seal to take to the king at Woodstock. It was delivered to the king's chamberlain on May 28.^[3]

Buried Christ Church, Canterbury, Kent, England.

Sources

Dictionary of National Biography [1]

1. ↑ The Judges of England: With Sketches of Their Lives, and ..., Volume 3 By Edward Foss, 473-476
2. ↑ Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: 1330-1333 By Great Britain. Public Record Office, p. 408
3. ↑ Calendar of state papers, Volume 1 edited by William Noel Sainsbury, p 365

• Weever, John. Ancient Funerall Monuments within the United Monarchie of Great Britaine, Ireland, and the Islands Adjacent (Thomas Harper, London, 1631)

• Page 222: "Here lieth obscurely buried Iohn Vfford, brother to that illustrious Knight of the Garter, Robert de Vfford, Earle of Suffolke: brought vp in Cambridge, and made Doctor of Law, promoted first vnto the Deanrie of Lincolne, then to the Chancellourship of England, and lastly to this Archbishopricke. Which he neuer enioyed, being cut off by that plague (which consumed nine parts of the men in England) before hee receiued either his pall, or consecration, Iune the seuenth, Ann. 1348."

• Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 58. Robert Ufford: "The suggestion sometimes made that John de Offord or Ufford [q. v.], archbishop-elect of Canterbury, and his brother, Andrew de Offord [q. v.], were also sons of this Robert de Ufford, is highly improbable. In all probability these latter were of an entirely different family, which derived its name from Offord Darcy, Huntingdonshire."
• Wikipedia: John_de_Ufford
• British History Online: Folios xxi - xxx: Sept 1354
• Venn, John. Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College (The University Press, Cambridge, 1897) Vol. 1, Page 1