John de Offord
Chancellor of England, chosen Archbishop of Canterbury in 1348; he died in 1349 before he could be consecrated.
died 1349
The Plague in the Bishop of Rochester’s Household
William Dene (attributed), History of the Church of Rochester, printed in Henry Wharton’s Anglia Sacra (1691) · soon after the events of 1348–1349
Post mortem Archiepiscopi Papa ad preces Domini Regis M. Johanni de Offord ejus Cancellario Archiepiscopatum dedit, viro debili & paralitico; qui pecuniam magnam undique mutuans ad magnam summam, inutiliter Papam eam exeniavit & presentavit, & totam perdidit; quia non multùm pòst vixit, sed die Ascensionis Domini obiit, & in Ecclesiâ Cant. est occultè sepultus, electus non consecratus; & sic multos creditores depauperando destruxit.
After the archbishop's death, the pope, at the king's request, gave the archbishopric to Master John de Offord, the king's chancellor, a weak and paralyzed man. He borrowed large sums of money from everyone and spent it uselessly on gifts and payments to the pope, and lost it all. For he did not live long afterward. He died on Ascension Day and was buried secretly in Canterbury Cathedral, elected but never consecrated. And so he ruined many creditors and left them poor.