Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pateshull, Martin de
PATESHULL, MARTIN de (d. 1229), judge and dean of London, was probably a native either of Pattishall, Northamptonshire (Fuller) or Patshull, Staffordshire (Foss). Whether he was related to Simon de Pateshull [q. v.] or Walter de Pateshull [q. v.] is not known. He appears as one of the clerks of King John in 1209 (Rotuli Chartarum, p. 108), and in June 1215 received a safe-conduct to go to the king at Windsor (Rotuli Literarum Patentium, p. 142). In 1217 he sat as a justice at Westminster, and was a justice itinerant for Yorkshire and Northumberland, after which date he was constantly employed as a judge, his name appearing first in the commissions for seven shires in 1224 (Dugdale). When in that year the justices itinerant were attacked at Dunstable by order of Falkes de Breauté [q. v.], and Henry de Braybroc [q. v.] was seized, Pateshull, who was acting with Braybroc, escaped (Wendover, iv. 94), and afterwards negotiated between Falkes and the king (Annals of Dunstable, sub an.) Grants of forty marks were made to him for the expenses of an iter in October 1221, and of fifteen and twenty-one marks for like expenses in July 1222, and he also had license from the king to keep fifty hogs in Windsor forest (Rotuli Literarum Clausarum, i. 471, 504, 515). He held certain benefices in the archdeaconry of Northumberland (ib. ii. 203), the chapel of Berrow and, perhaps, its mother-church of Overbury, Worcestershire (Annals of Worcester, an. 1224); was a prebendary of London, and in 1227 archdeacon of Norfolk. In 1228 he was chosen dean of St. Paul's. He was struck with paralysis in 1229 (Annals of Dunstable, sub an.), and died on 14 Nov. of that year. He was famed for his prudence and skill in law (Matt. Westmon., p. 126). He was an indefatigable worker. A judge who was ordered to go as itinerant with him in Yorkshire begged to be excused, on the ground that Pateshull was strong and so sedulous and practised in labour as to exhaust the strength of all his fellows, and especially that of the writer and of William de Ralegh [q. v.] (Royal Letters, Henry III, i. 342).
[Foss's Judges, ii. 438; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. pp. 7, 8; Fuller's Worthies, ii. 166, ed. Nichols; Wendover, iv. 94 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Ann. Monast. i. 73, iii. 66, 87, iv. 416, 421, Royal Letters Hen. III, i. 328, 342 (both Rolls Ser.); Rot. Chart., p. 108, Rot. Litt. Pat. p. 142, Rot. Litt. Claus. i. 471, 504, 515, ii. 203 (all Record publ.); Madox's Hist. of Excheq. ii. 43, 257; Le Neve's Fasti, ii. 371, 482, ed. Hardy.]