Adam de Brome

Who was Adam de Brome?

Adam de Brome was an almoner to King Edward II and founder of Oriel College in Oxford, England.

De Brome was probably the son of Thomas de Brome, taking his name from Brome near Eye in Suffolk; an inquisition held after the death of Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall, in 1300, noted de Brome holding an inheritance of half a knight's fee. The first records of de Brome are as a collector of food supplies in Dorset in 1297, in April 1298, he was in Ireland, from November 1299 was in charge of the assize of corn and wine and in the same year led troops from Yorkshire to Carlisle for a campaign in Scotland. In 1305 he was auditing accounts of the papal tithes, and in 1312 assessing tallage in the midlands. Early in Edward II's reign de Brome was one of the King's Clerks of Chancery, he was twice ordered to take charge of the Bishop of Durham's seals until its vacancy was filled. After 1311 he was given a variety of judicial offices, as justice of assize, commissioner of oyer and terminer, and as a justice dealing with crimes against the wool customs.

In the 14th century many royal officials were not directly paid, but instead were given the incomes of distant ecclesiastical properties that they rarely visited. De Brome may have been one of these, he had been ordained priest on March 2, 1301, and was admitted as rector of Wyck Rissington, Gloucestershire, three weeks later. He was appointed Master of God's House, Dunwich, in 1306, and was, for a short time, rector of Bridford, Devon between 1311 and 1312, Handsworth, Yorkshire between 1313 and 1316, and of St Creed, Cornwall in 1314. He also held the posts of chancellor of Durham sede vacante, in 1311 and between 1316 and 1317, archdeacon of Stow, in the diocese of Lincoln in 1320, prebendary of Bathwick in Wherwell Abbey, Hampshire from 1314 until 1320, rector of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford from 1320 until 1326, warden of St Bartholomew's Hospital, Oxford from 1326 until 1332, and rector sharing Eckington, Derbyshire from 1328 until 1332.