Cirencester was a Roman settlement. At the time the abbey was founded (1133) Cirencester seems to have had borough status – the foundation charter mentions burgesses there, and such mentions appear repeatedly in the Pipe Rolls during the latter half of the twelfth century, although these types of evidence are not by themselves unambiguous demonstrations that Cirencester should be considered on a par with places that were clearly urban. The Cotswold town was making a living from the wool trade. However, the abbey and town were at odds for jurisdiction and Richard I gave the abbot lordship over the town. Henceforth the townsmen were forced into a struggle to defend the independence on which their prosperity partly relied. Matters reached a climax in the king's court in 1342, when the townsmen accused the abbot of, most notably, trying to suppress the rights and institutions (the town court) that made Cirencester a borough. The abbot's counterargument was that Cirencester was only a vill, a manor belonging to the abbey, not a borough. The abbey's influence – not least pecuniary – won out; in 1343 the king granted a charter confirming the its authority, and dismissed the townsmen's complaints.

Notwithstanding the tensions between abbey and townspeople, the abbey could be a generous patron, particularly to its loyal servants. There is some implication in the document that Baudynton may have been such. At least he was treated to retirement rights comparable to a lay, non-villein servant of the abbey. Turning over one's patrimony to another party was a serious matter, implying that John de Baudynton had no surviving heirs, who would normally have inherited the patrimonial real estate; his household seems to have comprised only a male servant. Most if not all of the property seems to have been accumulated by John's grandfather William, in the third quarter of the thirteenth century.