Early Life
Greenfield was born in the eponymous Lincolnshire hamlet of Greenfield – but the date of his birth is now lost but we do know that he was related to a predecessor in the See, Archbishop Giffard – and it was Giffard that paid for the young Greenfield's Oxford education. in the year 1269 Giffard instructed that his bailiff at Churchdown (near Gloucester), "...to pay to Roger the miller of Oxford twenty shillings, for our kinsman William of Greenfield while he is studying there, because it would be difficult for us to send the money to him on account of the perils of the ways". After Oxford Greenfield studied in Paris, where he became a doctor of both civil and canon law. Giffard's brother was Bishop Godfrey Gifford – the Bishop of Worcester.
Greenfield was the first of a number of Archbishops who ruled the northern English Archiepiscopal diocese as well as being significant statesmen during the fourteenth century.
Before being made Archbishop he was variously:
- Dean of Chichester,
- Rector of Stratford-upon-Avon
- Prebend of Ripon – where his stall was for a time sequestrated, on account of his non-residence – as at this time he was mainly occupied on affairs of state as a clerk and counsellor to Edward I
- Temporal Chancellor of Durham
- Chancellor of England (1302–1305). On 30 September 1302 Greenfield received the custody of the great seal as chancellor at St. Radegund's (near Dover). During his absence in France, one Adam of Osgodby, then the Master of the Rolls, acted as his substitute.
- Employed in the service of the State by King Edward I from 1290 onwards.
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