25. PRODHOME

Sampson  Tree

WILLIAM PRODHOME (25)

 

WILLIAM PRODHOME and his brother Thomas are the first generation of Prodhomes named by Richard Whiting in his pedigree of the family.[1] The tree is headed ‘Prodhome of Pridhamsleigh and Upton Prodhome’. Upton Prodhome was a manor in the parish of Payhembury, between Cullompton and Honiton. Pridamsleigh is in the parish of Staverton, between that village and the small town of Buckfast, but may have come into the possession of the family later.

Medieval farmhouse of Pridamsleigh

 

No parents are named. In 1170 William, son of Ralph Prodhome, founded an almshouse in Exeter called By St Alex Cell.[2] He may have been William and Thomas’s grandfather, or less possibly, their father.

Thomas is named first on the tree and may have been the elder brother. He married Emma, but Whiting gives no children for him. It may be that William was the younger son and only inherited his father’s manors when his brother died childless. Whiting says that in 1235, in the reign of Henry III, he held the manor of Upton Prodhome. The fee to his liege lord was one pair of gilt spurs or 6d at midsummer.

We do not know the name of his wife. He is shown as having only one son, William junior.

It was around this time that the countryside in Devon was changing. The large open fields were disappearing. The move was towards individual ownership and more intensive cultivation.

Around 1250 Willelmo Prudhum was a witness to a grant of land and advowson at Vleburgerclist [?Burrow] and Wudeham, in the parish of Broadclyst.[3] This may have been either William senior or his son.

We have no information about William’s death.

 

[1] Richard Whiting. Whiting of Wood: A Mediaeval Landed Family, 1974 (MS in DRO).
[2] http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/p/r/i/Howard-N-Pridham/FILE/0002page.html
[3] www.a2a.org.uk: 312M/TY182