serjeant of the city between 1375 and 1385, and was granted the gate of Aldrich-gate, i.e. Aldersgate. He died in 1387, when his will was proved in the archdeaconry court of London; but, though duly indexed in the archives of the archdeaconry now at Somerset House, the document itself is missing. The will of his widow Emma was proved in May 1394 in the commissary court of London (cf. Liber Albus Letter-book, H, 11). Her executors were her son Ralph and Margery, wife of Thomas Lucas, citizen and mercer of London. The fact that Chaucer was in possession of Aldgate, and resided there at the same date as the Common-serjeant Strode occupied Aldersgate, suggests the possibility of friendly intercourse between the two.
[The Merton College Register, the mentions of Strode in Chaucer's works, and the accounts of Leland and Bale are the sole authorities of any historical value. John Pits, in his amplification of Bale, adds gratuitously that Strode travelled in France and Italy and was a jocular conversationalist. Dempster, in his Hist. Eccl. Gentis Scotorum, characteristically described Strode as a Scottish monk who received his early education at Dryburgh Abbey, adducing as his authority a lost work by Gilbert Brown [q. v.] Dempster also extends his alleged travels to Germany and the Holy Land, and includes in his literary work Fabulæ Lepidæ Versu and Panegyrici Versu Patrio. Simler and Possevino vaguely describe Strode as a monk, but Quétif and Echard, the historians of the Dominican order, claim him ‘ex fide Dempsteri’ as a distinguished member of their order. Dempster's story of Strode's Scottish origin has been widely adopted, but may safely be rejected as apocryphal. An ingenious endeavour has been made by Mr. J. T. T. Brown in the Scottish Antiquary, vol. xii. 1897, to differentiate Strode the schoolman from Strode the poet. Mr. Brown argues that the titles of the poetic works associated with Strode's name by Dempster and others were confused descriptions of the works of a Scottish poet, David Rate, confessor of James I of Scotland, vicar of the Dominican order in Scotland, whose Scottish poems in Cambridge Univ. Libr. MSS. Kk. i. 5 attest his literary skill, his nimble wit, and a knowledge of foreign literature. Mr. Brown is of opinion that the compiler of the Vetus Catalogus of Merton read ‘Ratis Raving’ (cf. Early English Text Soc. ed. Lumby) as ‘Rafs Raving,’ and rendered the latter by Phantasma Radulphi; claims that Fabulæ Lepidæ Versu exactly describes at least four poems ascribed to Rate in Ashmole MS. 61—namely, The Romance of Ysombras, The Romance of the Erle of Tolous, The Romance Lybeaus Dysconius, and A Quarrel among the Carpenter's Tools; that Panegyrici Versu Patrio describes poems by Rate found in both the Ashmole and Cambr. MSS., like A Father's Instruction to his Son, A Mother's Instruction to her Daughter, The Thewis of Wysmen, The Thewis of Gud Women. … Next there is Itinerarium Terræ Sanctæ, and again we have a poem by David Rate in Ashmole MS. 61, The Stasyons of Jerusalem. That the author of that poem himself visited the places he describes is not doubtful. He says he was there. Prantl's Geschichte der Logik gives a summary account of Strode's philosophy; Mr. H. Dziewicki, the editor of Wycliffe, has kindly given the writer the benefit of his views on certain points. The various editions of Strode's Consequentiæ and Obligationes are catalogued in Hain's Repertorium Bibliographicum, vol. ii. Nos. 15093–15100; cf. Copinger's Supplement, pt. i. p. 451.]
STRODE, THOMAS (fl. 1642–1688), mathematician, son of Thomas Strode of Shepton-Mallet, Somerset, was born about 1626. He matriculated from University College, Oxford, on 1 July 1642. After remaining there about two years, he travelled for a time in France with his tutor, Abraham Woodhead [q. v.], and then returning settled at Maperton, Somerset. Strode was the author of: 1. ‘A Short Treatise of the Combinations, Elections, Permutations, and Composition of Quantities,’ London, 1678, 4to, in which, besides dealing with permutations and combinations, he treats of some cases of probability. 2. ‘A New and Easie Method to the Art of Dyalling, containing: (1) all Horizontal Dyals, all Upright Dyals, &c.; (2) the most Natural and Easie Way of describing the Curve-Lines of the Sun's Declination on any Plane,’ London, 1688, 4to.
Another Thomas Strode (1628–1699), serjeant-at-law, born at Shepton-Mallet in 1628, was son of Sir John Strode of that place by his second wife, Anne, daughter of Sir John Wyndham of Orchard. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1657, became serjeant-at-law in 1677, and, dying without male issue on 4 Feb. 1698–9, was buried at Beaminster (Hutchins, Dorset, 1864, ii. 130).
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 448; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714.]
STRODE, WILLIAM (1599?–1645), politician, born about 1599, was the second son of Sir William Strode, knt., of Newnham, Devonshire, by Mary, daughter of Thomas Southcote of Bovey Tracey in the same county (Chester, Westminster Abbey Registers, p. 522). Strode matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, 9 May 1617, at the age of eighteen, and graduated B.A. 20 June 1619. In 1614 he was admitted a student of the Inner Temple (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714, p. 1438). In the last parliament of
