Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rudborne, Thomas (d.1442)
RUDBORNE or RODEBURNE, THOMAS (d. 1442), bishop of St. Davids, probably a native of Rodbourne, Wiltshire, was educated at Merton College, Oxford, where he was bursar 1399–1400, and was proctor of the university in 1399 and 1401. In 1411 he was with others appointed by the university to examine the doctrines of Wiclif, and was presented to the living of Deeping, Lincolnshire. Having been collated to the archdeaconry of Sudbury in 1413, he the same year exchanged that office for the deanery of the collegiate church of Tamworth. He was elected warden of Merton in 1416, and apparently resigned the following year, when he accompanied Henry V to Normandy as one of his chaplains. In 1419 he was admitted prebendary of Sarum, and in 1420 was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford. Being provided by papal bull to the bishopric of St. Davids in 1433, he was consecrated on 31 Jan. 1434. In 1436 Henry VI, whose chaplain he was, nominated him for election to the see of Ely, but the monks would not elect him. He built the tower over the gate of Merton College, and gave books to the library and to the library of the university. He died in 1442. His character is said to have been good and his manners affable, and he is described as an eminent divine, mathematician, and historian. He was a correspondent of Thomas Netter or Walden [q. v.] The works attributed to him are a book of letters to Thomas Netter (Waldensis) and others, to which a reference is made by his namesake Thomas Rudborne (fl. 1460) [q. v.], monk of St. Swithun's, Winchester, in the ‘Prologus in Historiam suam Minorem’ (Anglia Sacra, i. 287), and a chronicle not now known to exist.
[Brodrick's Mem. of Merton Coll. pp. 16, 38, 158, 221 (Oxf. Hist. Soc.); Godwin, De Præsulibus Angl. p. 583; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglic. i. 297, ii. 492, ed. Hardy; Wood's Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford, II. ii. 917, ed. Gutch; Bale's Scriptt. cent. vii. 53; Pits, De Angliæ Scriptt. p. 599; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 645.]