He seems to have been a man of great hospitality, for he left eighty dishes, seventy-five plates, forty saucers, and twelve cups, to treat his tenants at his coming over. In 1329 he settled Briclesworth in Northamptonshire on himself, for life, remainder to his son Thomas, and his heirs, remainder to John, his second son, and his heirs; and the year following he settled Brisingham in the same manner. But in 1344 this fine was revoked, and the manor settled again by him, and Maud his wife, on Thomas, his grandson, son of Thomas, his eldest son, and Margaret his wife, remainder to John, the second son; he died in 1346, as the Escheat Rolls say, and then, according to the settlement, it came to
Thomas de Verdon, his grandson, who died a few months after him, upon which, according to the entail,
Sir John de Verdune, Knt. uncle to the said Thomas, and second son to the last John, became lord; he held Brisingham, with the advowson, of the Earl-Marshal, at two fees, the fee that went off with Wigona or Dionisia de Verdon being joined again in his time (except those parts of it which were conveyed by her husband and self before his death, viz. the fourth part of a fee to John de Lynne, and a fourth part to Walter of Brisingham, both which were to be held of the capital manor.) It seems (though I am not certain) as if this lady after married Sir Richard Le Brewse, Knt. for he was lord here in 1315, and in 1326 the Account Rolls of the manor say, that Sir John Verdon was at 47s. 4d. expense for cloth, against the burial of the Lady Brewse. In 1335, Sir Richard Le Brewse had the moiety of swans going in Brisingham fens, and had two carried to him at Fornham. He was alive in 1354; at his death it returned to Sir John, who had the extent of the manor renewed, from which it appears, that he was capital lord of the whole town, and patron of the church, all which he held of the Earl-Marshal at two fees; the earl held it of the Abbot of St. Edmund, and the abbot of the King; the said John had view of frankpledge, and all other liberties before specified. The manor-house, and three hundred acres of ploughed land in demean, being then valued at 7l. 10s. which is 6d. an acre; thirty acres of wood, valued at 7s. 6d. per annum; forty acres of mowing meadow, worth 3l. 6s. 8d. that is, 10d. an acre; nineteen acres one rood of pasture ground, valued at 6s. 5d. a year; and two windmills at 20s. per annum, besides the commons lying round the whole town, which, in eggs, hens, and days works, paid to the lord by the commoners, were worth 10s. per annum; and the lord had twenty acres of fen to dig turf in, worth 5s. a year; he had also liberty of free-warren by the King's charter, and a free fishery with all manner of boats and nets, throughout all his manor of Brisingham, and through all Roydon, as far as Diss. To the said manor belonged ninety-four copyholders, who held among them seventy-four messuages, and five hundred and eighty-eight acres two roods of land in villeinage; there were six cottagers in villeinage, and the lord pays yearly 3s. in full satisfaction of all suit to the hundred court of Diss, and the same extent saith, that Filby's manor, and Boyland manor, &c. were held of him; (but of them in their proper places.)
This John always sealed with the arms of his family.
He stood to the customs and agreements which his father had made, at his going away to Martlesham, all which appear from the roll made in his father's life time, in 1340, which begins thus:
"The Profits, Customs, Services, and Tenures of the Manor of Brisingham, made on Wednesday before the Feast of St. Dunstan, in the 15th Year of King Edward
