THE PENGUIN HISTORY OF

BRITAIN
General Editor David
Cannadine

The Struggle for

Mastery
THE PENGUIN HISTORY OF
BRITAIN

I: DAVID MATTINGLY Roman

Britain: 100–409
Anglo-
II: ROBIN FLEMING
Saxon Britain: 410–1066
The
III: DAVID CARPENTER
Struggle for Mastery:
Britain 1066–1284
IV: MIRIAM RUBIN Britain
1272–1485
New
V: SUSAN BRIGDEN
Worlds, Lost Worlds:
Britain 1485–1603
A
VI: MARK KISHLANSKY
Monarchy Transformed:
Britain 1603–1714
A Wealth
VII: LINDA COLLEY
of Nations? Britain 1707–
1815
VIII: DAVID CANNADINE The
Contradictions of Progress:
Britain 1800–1906
IX: PETER CLARKEHope and
Glory: Britain 1901–1989
DAVID CARPENTER
The Struggle
for Mastery
BRITAIN 1066–1284
ALLEN LANE
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS
ALLEN LANE
THE PENGUIN PRESS

Published by the Penguin

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First published 2003

1

Copyright © David Carpenter,

2003
The moral right of the author
has been asserted

All rights reserved. Without

limiting the rights under
copyright
reserved above, no part of this
publication may be reproduced,
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or introduced into a retrieval
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book

ISBN: 978-0-14-193514-0
Contents

List of Maps and

Genealogical Tables

Preface

Maps

Money, Technical Terms,

 and Names of
People and Places

1 The Peoples of Britain

2 The Economies of
Britain
3 The Norman Conquest
of England, 1066–
87
4 Wales, Scotland and the
Normans, 1058–94
5 Britain and the Anglo-
Norman Realm,
1087–1135
6 Britain Remodelled:
King Stephen,
1135–54, King
David, 1124–53,
and the Welsh
Rulers
7 King Henry II, Britain
and Ireland, 1154–
89
 8 Richard the Lionheart,
1189–99, and
William the Lion,
1165–1214
9 The Reign of King John,
1199–1216
10 The Minority of Henry
III and its Sequel,
1216–34, Llywelyn
the Great, 1194–
1240, and
Alexander II, 1214–
 49
11 Britain During the
Personal Rule of
King Henry III,
1234–58
12 The Tribulations of
Henry III, the
Triumphs of
Alexander III and
Llywelyn, Prince of
Wales, 1255–72
13 Structures of Society
14 Church, Religion,
Literacy and
Learning
15 King Edward I: The
Parliamentary State
16 Wales and Scotland:
Conquest and
Coexistence
Genealogical Tables

Bibliography
Index
List of Maps
and
Genealogical
Tables

MAPS
(pp. xiii–xxi)

1 The counties of England

2 The regions of Scotland
and northern England
3 The structure of the
early Scottish state
4 Royal Scotland:
expansion and
administrative change
5 The regions and political
divisions of Wales
6 Wales by c. 1200: the
ebb and flow of Anglo-
Norman power
7 The Edwardian
settlement of Wales, 1277–
95
8 The English expansion in
Ireland
9 The continental
possessions of the English
kings after 1066
GENEALOGICAL
TABLES

(pp. 531–40)

1 The rulers of England:

the English line
2 The rulers of England:
the Norman line
3 The rulers of England:
the Angevin line
4 The rulers of Scotland
5 The dynasty of Gwynedd
6 The dynasty of
Deheubarth
7 The dynasty of Powys
A mid-thirteenth-century map
of Great Britain by Matthew
Paris (British Library)
Preface

From the Norman

Conquest of England to the
English Conquest of Wales
is the narrative span
covered by this book. The
one began with Duke
William of Normandy’s
landing in 1066, the other
concluded with Edward I’s
Statute in 1284 which laid
down the future
government of Wales. At
first sight it seems a very
Anglo-centric period. The
Normans master England
and gradually become
English. The English then
master Wales before
proceeding, at the end of
the thirteenth century,
very nearly to master
Scotland as well. But this
is only part of the story.
After 1066 English
monarchs gave far higher
priority to their
continental lands than
they did to the
intensification of their
overlordship over Britain.
This left plenty of space
for the ambitions of the
kings of Scotland and the
Welsh rulers. ‘The Struggle
for Mastery’ in the book’s
title is the struggle not for
a single mastery of Britain
but for different masteries
within it. The kings of
Scotland aspired to bring
much of northern England
into their realm and for a
while managed to do so. In
other directions they
expanded their power
more permanently, thus
creating the territorial
extent of modern Scotland.
The Welsh rulers strove
both to recover areas lost
to Norman conquerors,
and assert dominion over
one another. The princes
of Gwynedd in the
thirteenth century
fashioned a principality of
Wales in which they
subjected all the native
rulers to their authority. It
was only in the last
quarter of the thirteenth
century that these separate
masteries were swept away
and replaced briefly by a
single English mastery of
Britain.
The book begins with
two thematic chapters
about the peoples and
economies of Britain, the
former dealing with
questions of national
identity. There are also
two later thematic
chapters, one about
society, and the other
about the church and
religion. Between and
around these chapters, the
spine of the book is
provided by a political and
governmental narrative,
beginning with chapter 3.
Some readers attracted by
‘the story’ may prefer to
begin there. The narrative
offered is very much
British in its form. Wales
and Scotland appear for
their own sake, not just
when relevant to England.
Sometimes their histories
are treated in separate
chapters, notably chapters
3 and 16, and sometimes
integrated within chapters
which also deal with the
affairs of England. The
plan throughout, rather
than dividing the book
into long separate sections
about England, Scotland
and Wales, has been to
interlink their histories,
showing how they were
connected and how they
moved together. The book
also covers the English
intervention in Ireland in
the 1170s, and the
interaction thereafter of
English and Irish politics.
Within the chapters which
also deal with English
affairs, asterisks show
where sections on Wales,
Scotland and Ireland
begin. Asterisks are also
used to indicate changes of
subject matter within
sections on England.
Readers wishing to pursue
separate themes will be
able to do so with the help
of the index.
British history in this
period was the reverse of
being self-contained. This
book also reflects on how
its course was influenced
in new and fundamental
ways by continental
connections and
developments, the theme
of R. W. Southern’s classic
essay ‘England’s first entry
into Europe’. England,
Scotland and Wales were
all, in varying degrees,
affected by the papal
government of the church,
the new international
religious orders, the
learning of the European
Schools, the business of
the crusade, and the
castles, cavalry and
chivalry of the Frankish
nobility. Britain was also
linked to the continent as
never before by the way
the ruling dynasty in
England down to 1204
also ruled Normandy and
after 1154 Anjou and
Acquitaine as well. One
consequence in England
was the development of
uniquely powerful
institutions of government
to keep the peace in the
king’s absence and raise
money to support his
continental policies, a
system which itself created
an equally unique critique
of that government,
culminating in Magna
Carta. If there is a
watershed in British
history during this period
it was also provided by a
continental event, the
English king’s loss of
Normandy and Anjou in
1204, which for the first
time since 1066 confined
him largely to England. As
a consequence, he was
able to devote far more
time than before to the
matter of Britain. The
eventual conquest of Wales
later in the thirteenth
century was the result.
 The book is based partly
on my own reading of the
primary sources and partly
on the secondary
literature. The amount of
work produced by
historians in recent years
has been truly remarkable.
It has invigorated the ‘old’
history of the period, the
history of politics and the
constitution, law and
government, church and
state, about which scholars
have written since the
days of Stubbs and
Maitland in the nineteenth
century. It has also opened
up a series of ‘new’
histories, examining the
theory and practice of
queenship, the position of
women, the
commercialization of the
economy, the predicament
of the Jews (expelled from
England in 1290), the
standard of living of the
peasantry, the emergence
of the gentry, the changing
structures of magnate
power, the transition ‘from
memory to written record’,
the nature of national
identity and the relations
between England and the
rest of Britain. The work of
historians underlies what
is said on every page.
Because my debt is so
large, to have recorded it
in detail would have made
an already long book
impossibly longer. In the
Bibliography I have,
therefore, given a broad
indication of the primary
sources and then made
suggestions for further
reading. A full account of
the secondary sources will
be found under my name
on the King’s College
London History
Department’s web site:
www.kcl.ac.uk/history.
I am most grateful to
Richard Huscroft and
Janet Nelson for reading
and commenting on parts
of the book. The whole of
it was read in draft by
David Bates, Margaret
Howell and John
Maddicott. Their criticisms
and suggestions have been
immensely helpful and I
am greatly in their debt.
Quite apart from reading
the book, Margaret Howell
has given constant support
and wise advice on all
kinds of points of detail. I
have received help from
many academic colleagues
who have answered
questions, assisted on
points of detail, debated
matters of controversy,
and sent me copies of their
works in advance of
publication. I would like to
thank in particular Jim
Bolton, Paul Brand, Dauvit
Broun, Michael Clanchy,
David Crook, Anne
Duggan, Richard Eales,
Charles Insley, Rees
Davies, John Gillingham,
Derek Keene, Paul Latimer,
Samantha Letters, Chris
Lewis, Phillipp Schofield,
Beverley Smith, Keith
Stringer, Nicholas Vincent,
Anne Williams, Bjørn
Weiler, and Patrick
Wormald. I have learnt
much from my doctoral
students at King’s College
London and have often
made use of their work.
Over the years I have been
lucky in studying the
period with a long line of
able and industrious
undergraduates and they
too have contributed a
great deal to the book.
David Cannadine, the
general editor of the series,
encouraged me with his
enthusiasm and made
important comments on an
early draft. At Penguin, the
patience, cheerfulness and
understanding of Simon
Winder, the
commissioning editor,
have supported me
throughout.
I would like to thank
the library staff of my own
College, King’s College
London, as well as the staff
of the Institute of
Historical Research, the
University of London
Library, the London
Library and the Public
Record Office. I am
grateful to my colleagues
in the History Department
at King’s for shouldering
extra burdens while I was
on leave in 1995–6 and
again in 1999–2000 when
my Special Subject was not
running.
My greatest debt is to
Jane, Katie and James,
who have had to live with
a husband and father
increasingly preoccupied
by ‘the book’. All three
have given staunch
support. Without them I
might have begun this
book but I would never
have finished it.
For the paperback
edition of the book I have
taken the opportunity to
correct a number of errors
present in the hardback
version.

King’s College London

January 2003
1. The counties of England
2. The regions of Scotland and
northern England
 3. The structure of the early
Scottish state.
(Based on the map in Alexander
Grant’s essay in The Medieval
State,
ed. J. R. Maddicott and D. M.
Palliser (Hambledon, 2000), p.
59.)
4. Royal Scotland: expansion
and administrative change
5. The regions and political
divisions of Wales
6. Wales by c. 1200: the ebb
and flow of Anglo-Norman
power.
(Based on the map in R. R.
Davies, Conquest, Coexistence
and Change: Wales
1063–1415 (Clarendon Press,
Oxford; University of Wales
Press, 1987), p. 38.)
7. The Edwardian settlement of
Wales, 1277–95.
(Based on the map in R. R.
Davies, op. cit., p. 362.)
 8. The English expansion in
Ireland
(Based on the map in Robin
Frame’s chapter in Short Oxford
History of the British
Isles: The Twelfth and Thirteenth
Centuries, ed. B. F. Harvey
(Oxford, 2001), p. 39.)
9. The continental possessions
of the English kings after 1066.
Money,
Technical
Terms, and
Names of
People and
Places
MONEY

The coinage and divisions

of money are explained
below, page 40.

TECHNICAL TERMS

Most technical terms (like

‘farm’ and ‘relief’) are
explained when they first
appear; the place can be
found through the index.

NAMES OF PEOPLE
AND PLACES

In the case of toponymic

surnames I have usually
given the modern form of
the places concerned, with
‘of’ if the place is in Britain
and ‘de’ if the place is in
France. However, I have
not allowed this to
override conventional
usage, so Hubert de Burgh,
Waleran of Meulan and
William de Mowbray, not
Hubert of Burgh, Waleran
de Meulan and William de
Montbray (Montbray in
Normandy).
 Following the
conventions of the series, I
have used anglicized forms
of Irish personal names.
In the case of the
regions, rivers and places
of Wales, I have generally
used Welsh forms where
they are easily
recognizable (so
Ceredigion, Tywi, Dinefwr)
and English ones where
they are very well
established (for example
Brecon, Usk, Carmarthen).
Alternative English and
Welsh forms (Brecon,
Brycheiniog) are given in
the index.
I have used ‘the Western
Isles’ to embrace all the
islands off the west coast
of Scotland from Arran in
the south to Lewis in the
north, including both the
Inner and Outer Hebrides.
1

The Peoples of
Britain

Britain as a geographical
entity was a familiar
concept to medieval
writers. The Venerable
Bede had begun his
Ecclesiastical History of the
English People with a
detailed description of the
island and this, suitably
revised, was used by two
famous (though very
different) twelfth-century
historians, Henry of
Huntingdon and Geoffrey
of Monmouth, to preface
their own works. In the
thirteenth century, the
historian and artist
Matthew Paris, a monk of
St Albans abbey, drew
several maps of Britain,
the best of them illustrated
at the beginning of this
book. Bede’s Britain had
been populated by gentes
or nationes, two terms,
used interchangeably,
which can best be
translated as ‘peoples’ or
‘nations’. That such
groupings were
fundamental to political
and social organization
was accepted without
question for thus it had
been in the book
gigantically more
influential than any other,
the Bible itself. In 1066
there were three principal
peoples in Britain: the
English, the Welsh and the
Scots.
By far the most
numerous of these peoples
were the English, the
descendants of the Angles
and Saxons who had
arrived in the fifth and
sixth centuries and had
gradually established
political control over a
large part of Britain. Their
success had been at the
expense of the Britons, the
original inhabitants of the
island (hence its name),
but the Britons survived
under their own rulers in
the area to the west of the
great dike built in the
eighth century by King
Offa. By the English they
were called ‘the Welsh’
(Latin, Wallenses), which
meant ‘borderers’, hence
the use of Wales (Wallia)
for the area they ruled. In
the north of Britain there
were various peoples, of
whom the most important
were described in Gaelic as
Albanaig (‘the men of
Alba’) and in Latin as
Scotti, hence Scots, and
hence also Scocia or
Scotland. Scotland’s extent
was much smaller than it
is today. Indeed in the
twelfth century the term
was sometimes used
simply for the area
between the Forth, the
Spey and the central
highlands, the core of the
realm ruled by the king of
Scots. Those in the regions
outside that core, as we
shall see, even if they
acknowledged in some
way the king’s authority,
were not Scots or in
Scotland at all.
The peoples of Britain
in 1066 were subject to
diverse political systems.
There was one Welsh
people but it was ruled by
many kings. There was one
king of Scots, but he ruled
several peoples. Only the
English (apart from those
subject to the king of Scots
beyond the Tweed) had a
single king exclusively
their own. All this was
soon to change. Between
1066 and the end of the
thirteenth century a
profound reshaping took
place in the identities of
the peoples of Britain. The
Norman Conquest made
England a realm of two
peoples, the dominant
Norman and the defeated
English, yet by the early
thirteenth century those
two peoples had moulded
into one and everyone,
whatever their descent,
was English. Likewise the
various peoples subject to
the king of Scots all came
to be Scottish, this despite
the introduction of a new
nobility of Anglo-Norman
descent. No comparable
remoulding affected the
Welsh, for they remained
unmixed with any other
people, but these years still
witnessed important
changes in their identity
and status.
Peoples or nations, it is
often rightly said, are the
product of their members’
belief that they exist, and
in our period the English,
the Scots and the Welsh
certainly existed in that
sense. Of course, divisions
of class, career and
education can always cut
across the horizontal ties
that bind a people
together. A medieval
prelate would doubtless
have defined his
nationality very differently
from a peasant. Some
individuals would have
been unable or unwilling
to define it at all. Likewise
ties of region can on
occasion seem far more
important than those of
nation: ‘I am of the people
of the men of Norfolk and
it is proper that I defend
my native land,’ wrote one
twelfth-century monk. Yet
horizontal ties of
nationality are perfectly
capable of existing
alongside other loyalties.
In this period they worked
to give a sense of a shared
nationhood to more than
simply a small elite. Such
ties could include a
common history,
government and language
together with laws and
customs; the last three
were mentioned by
Bernard, bishop of St
Davids around 1140, when
he affirmed that ‘the
people’ of Wales formed a
distinct ‘nation’. Faced
with external threats, real
or imagined, a sense of
national identity became a
powerful political force in
this period amongst the
Welsh, the Scots and the
English.
***
There was certainly a
strong and pervasive sense
of national identity
amongst the English before
1066. ‘It was hateful to
almost all of them to fight
against men of their own
people, for there was little
else that was worth
anything apart from
Englishmen on either side,’
wrote the Anglo-Saxon
chronicler about the near
civil war of 1052. He was
speaking at the very least
for churchmen, the high
aristocracy and also the
5,000 or so thegns, the
country gentry who
formed the backbone of
English local society. The
idea of a single English
people, ‘Angelcynn’, had a
long history. It had been
popularized by Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the
English People and
strengthened by a single
language and a vernacular
literature. It had been
inculcated by King Alfred
and his successors both to
defend England from
Danish attack and unify
the country under their
rule. And it had then been
solidified by the structures
of royal government: a
single coinage, a common
oath of allegiance to the
king, the ‘king of the
English’, and units of local
administration, the shires,
which embraced the length
and breadth of the
country.
This identity was
shattered by the Norman
Conquest. The English
bishops, abbots,
aristocracy and a large
proportion of the county
thegns were swept away,
leaving the English simply
as monks, peasants, minor
gentry and townsmen. Into
the key positions came
Normans and others from
across the Channel
bringing their own
language and customs. The
division of the peoples in
England was now
proclaimed in the king’s
writs and charters which
were addressed to his
subjects both ‘French and
English’.
The process by which
the division cleaved by the
Conquest was healed and
the inhabitants of England
became once more
universally English has
been much debated by
historians. One view is
that it was largely
complete by 1150;
another, perhaps more
correct, that it embraced
the whole of the twelfth
century. The process
required both the Normans
to see themselves as
English and those of
Anglo-Saxon descent to
accept them as such. For
the latter, the wounds of
the Conquest remained
open well into the twelfth
century. In the 1120s, the
great historian William of
Malmesbury, a monk of
Malmesbury abbey and a
product of a mixed
marriage, could still write
that ‘England is become
the residence of foreigners
and the property of
strangers’. That the native
population at this time
retained its own identity is
shown by the circle of
townsmen, minor gentry
and hermits, men of old
English stock and proud of
it, who surrounded the
English holy woman,
Christina of Markyate.
Language remained a
divisive factor. Sometime
after 1125 Brictric, the
priest at Haselbury in
Somerset, complained of
having to remain silent
before the bishop and
archdeacon because he
knew no French. Reactions
to the trauma of the
Conquest took various
forms. English monks in
the two generations after
1066 sought both to
explain the events in terms
of punishment for sin, yet
also, in the very brevity of
their accounts, to avoid
the painful memory
altogether. Another
reaction was defiance.
Sometime in the twelfth
century a monk of Ely
wrote a Life of the
resistance hero Hereward
the Wake, a Life which
defended the English from
allegations of inferiority
both by denigrating the
Normans and extolling
Hereward’s martial
expertise and chivalrous
conduct. The Life,
however, ended with
Hereward’s reconciliation
with King William. The
implication was that the
English should not rebel
but find an honoured place
in the new state. There
are, indeed, indications
that English attitudes were
softening. Between 1125
and 1132 another great
historian of mixed
parentage, Archdeacon
Henry of Huntingdon,
wrote of the Normans in
much the same tone as
William of Malmesbury.
Yet later when he came to
narrate the defeat of the
Scots at the battle of the
Standard in 1138, he
seems to have regarded
the victors, whom he calls
‘the barons of England, the
most famous Normans’, as
also in some way English.
By the 1160s Ailred, the
great Cistercian abbot of
Rievaulx, a man entirely of
old English stock, could
declare that the two
nations had now been
joined together to form
once again a single English
people. The lead here, so
Ailred thought, had been
taken by the dynasty itself
thanks to Henry I’s
marriage in 1100 to a
descendant of the old
English kings, the daughter
of King Malcolm and
Queen Margaret of
Scotland.
Up to a point this was
probably wishful thinking.
Whether the great barons
in the 1160s regarded
themselves as
wholeheartedly English
may be doubted. But
Ailred’s remarks none the
less do reflect important
changes. Powerful forces
were moving those of
Norman descent in the
direction of an English
identity, beginning with
the smaller landholders
and ending with great
barons and the royal
house.
The Conquest had
placed perhaps 8,000
Normans throughout the
shires of England. Some
had single properties of
small size. Others had one
or several substantial
manors and formed the
cream of a new country
gentry. However, very few,
even of the latter (as a
study of twelfth-century
Warwickshire and
Leicestershire has shown),
had any land in
Normandy. The lives of
such men were largely
confined to England, and
to an England where they
were in daily contact with
‘Anglo-Saxons’, not merely
as lords of peasants, but as
colleagues of Anglo-Saxon
freemen and minor gentry
with whom they worked
running the hundred and
the shire, the basic units of
local government. This
was the environment The
Dialogue of the Exchequer (a
book about the running of
that office) was thinking
about when it declared in
1178 that ‘nowadays,
when English and
Normans live together and
marry and give in
marriage to each other, the
nations are so mixed that
it can scarcely be decided
(I mean in the case of
freemen) who is of English
birth and who Norman’.
The way Normans at
this level became English
reflected contemporary
views about the shaping of
nationality. One key
element here, as the
Dialogue implied, was
‘blood’ or descent. Thus
William of Malmesbury
declared that he drew his
blood from both the
Norman and the English
people (gens).
Intermarriage therefore
had indeed the power to
mix up the races, making
the offspring, in terms of
blood, partly English and
partly Norman. That was
not the same as making
them wholly English of
course, but other ideas
about identity helped the
move in that direction.
Blood or descent could be
superseded by place of
activity, upbringing and
birth. Very soon after the
Conquest, anyone whose
working base was England
might call themselves
English. Even Lanfranc,
whom William the
Conqueror made
archbishop of Canterbury,
styled himself in one of his
letters a ‘new Englishman’
and later referred to ‘we
English’, although by birth
he was a Lombard. Closely
related to this were ideas
about upbringing. In the
1150s, the Book of Ely (a
chronicle/cartulary
produced at Ely abbey)
defined a thoroughgoing
Norman as one of Norman
parentage (that is blood)
and also of ‘education’ in
Normandy. The
implication was that a
person of Norman blood
but English ‘education’
would lose something of
his Normanitas, would in
effect become partly
English. Another related
factor was place of birth.
That too could affect
nationality, so much so
that an Englishman was
defined in 1258 as
someone ‘born of the
kingdom of England’.
Hence also the constant
demand in the thirteenth
century for the king’s
councillors to be naturales
– men ‘native born’. This
Englishness acquired by
place of birth, upbringing,
and work, if maintained
from one generation to the
next, could become
Englishness by blood or
descent. Gerald of Wales
(1146–1223), churchman,
scholar, royal clerk and
prolific writer, described
himself as ‘by original line’
three-quarters English and
Norman and a quarter
Welsh. The Englishness
here could only have come
from the anglicization of
his forebears in the way
described, for they had no
Anglo-Saxon blood in their
veins.
Clearly, therefore, place
of birth, education and
activity combined with
intermarriage were all
making Norman families
based in England English.
Of course, it was one thing
to be simply labelled
‘English’, another to feel
English in a positive,
wholehearted way. That
too, however, was
happening in the first half
of the twelfth century,
particularly through a
growing interest in
England’s history. A
knowledge of the Anglo-
Saxon past had been kept
alive after the Conquest in
the great monasteries, in
part to help maintain their
ancient rights. In the
twelfth century both
William of Malmesbury’s
History of the English Kings
and Henry of Huntingdon’s
History of the English were
widely circulated amongst
religious houses, thus
making their Norman-
descended heads and
patrons familiar with
England’s story. This was
the background to
Gaimar’s remarkable
History of the English,
written around 1140, and
intended specifically for a
secular audience of
Norman descent, hence its
French verse form. It told
the story of England from
the Anglo-Saxon invasions
through to the reign of
William Rufus, celebrating
the deeds of the English
kings. Here then was
encouragement to adopt
the English past as one’s
own; hence the crusading
knight, Richard de
Argentan, commissioned a
painting of the martyrdom
of King Edmund for a
chapel in Damietta, an
episode of which Gaimar
gave a gripping and lurid
description. Gaimar also
extolled the exploits of
Hereward the Wake. Thus
if Hereward, in the Life
written at Ely, was used to
give the English back their
self-respect, here in
Gaimar he made the
English respectable to the
Normans. Closely
associated with an
enthusiasm for history was
an attachment to England’s
‘native soil’, to the
‘churches, cities, castles,
rivers, meadows, woods
and fields which are
appraised most highly
amongst the delights of all
realms’, as Matthew Paris
put it. Thus several copies
of Gaimar’s History
concluded with a
Topography (written in the
1150s) giving a detailed
description of England’s
roads, counties and
bishoprics. From the late
eleventh century, lords of
Norman descent had
themselves been adding to
England’s ‘delights’,
increasingly preferring to
found or endow
monasteries in England
rather than enrich houses
on the continent, a clear
sign of shifting loyalties.
The move towards an
English identity was strong
but it was more sluggish in
the higher levels of society
than lower down the social
scale. Among the baronage
there was much less
intermarriage and thus
Norman descent was not
obscured in the way
mentioned by the Dialogue.
There were also much
stronger connections with
Normandy. Although
diminishing during the
twelfth century, the
number of nobles with
lands in both the kingdom
and the duchy remained
significant (see below, p.
269). Such men probably
crossed back and forth
over the Channel, like
their king. Some were born
in the duchy with all the
consequences which
followed for their sense of
identity. As late as the
1220s, the Englishness of
William II, earl of
Pembroke, was thought by
himself and others to have
been diluted by his birth
on the family estates in
Normandy. Twelfth-
century noblewomen did
not hurry across the
Channel so that their
children could play for
England! The barons of
England formed a small
but immensely influential
group who were naturally
aped and courted. Even
those who no longer had
lands in the duchy had
powerful incentives to
keep alive their own
Normanitas and pause
before identifying entirely
with England. After all,
they served a king who
down to 1204 spent at
least half his time on the
continent and certainly did
not regard himself as
English: ‘You English are
too timid,’ remarked
Richard I. The baronage
were also well aware of
the contrasting fortunes of
the Norman and English
peoples. The former had
been gloriously successful.
Before the battle of the
Standard in 1138, Henry
of Huntingdon imagined
the army being
encouraged by reminders
of how the Norman people
(gens) had conquered in
France, England, Italy and
the Holy Land. Likewise in
the 1150s Richard de
Lucy, Henry II’s chief
minister, a man largely
based in England, could
still (when it suited him)
talk of the glorious
exploits of ‘we Normans’ in
conquering England. The
English, by contrast, for all
Hereward’s exploits, were
a defeated people,
punished by the Conquest
for their sins, and,
according to some hostile
caricatures, reduced to
peasants. Far from
marking a new start,
Henry I’s English marriage
was thus ridiculed in some
Norman quarters. The one
point on identity even the
sober Dialogue of the
Exchequer had been sure
about was that unfree
peasants were English.
Indeed, the regular
imposition of the murdrum
fine on local communities
kept alive the equation
‘English’ equals ‘unfree
peasant’ until the end of
the thirteenth century (see
below, pp. 102, 413). The
lampoon of Gerald of
Wales, in an anti-English
mood in the 1200s, thus
hit home: ‘The English are
the most worthless of all
peoples under heaven, for
they have been subdued by
the Normans and reduced
by the law to perpetual
slavery.’
Not surprisingly,
therefore, a hesitation over
adopting English identity
is still powerfully reflected
in Jordan Fantosme’s
account of the victory over
the Scots in 1174, written
very much for the baronial
elite. While the victory
was no longer portrayed as
a Norman triumph as in
1138, no effort was made
to celebrate it as an
English one either. Indeed,
the only Englishman to
appear eo nomine was one
of Anglo-Saxon descent,
Cospatric son of Horm, old
and grey-haired, who
rather tamely surrendered
Appleby to the Scots.
Members of the baronial
elite were perfectly able to
take an interest in England
without necessarily
acknowledging that they
were English. Thus the
Topography added to
Gaimar’s History in the
1150s specifically referred
to ‘we French’. Uncertainty
about identity is also
reflected in labels applied
by contemporary
historians. While most
spoke of the English
conquering Ireland in the
1170s, the dean of St
Paul’s, Ralph of Diss, could
still write of a famous
victory over the Welsh as
late as 1198 as a victory of
the French. Perhaps
increasingly in the twelfth
century members of the
baronial elite, in so far as
they thought of the matter,
regarded themselves as
having a kind of dual
nationality. They were
Norman and proud of it in
terms of their ultimate
descent, but English in
varying degrees,
depending on whether
they still had estates in
Normandy, in terms of
place of birth and activity.
Some writers made brave
efforts to describe the
resulting mix. As early as
1130 a Norman monk of
Lewes wrote of the
‘Norman-English’
(Normanangli). Henry of
Huntingdon himself, while
he thought of the 1138
army as in some ways
English, also described it
as made up of ‘the people
(gens) of the Normans and
the English’. In another
formulation he called its
leaders ‘the barons of
England, the most famous
Normans’, probably there
getting closest to how they
thought of themselves. The
term ‘Anglo-Norman’ often
used by modern historians
does perhaps best describe
England’s baronial elite in
the twelfth century.
 The final loss of
Normandy in 1204 was
thus of great importance.
‘The barons of England’
lost their lands across the
Channel. Henceforth they
would be born, brought up
and based exclusively in
England. So would the
king. Families might still
retain memories of their
Norman ancestry, but the
logic of embracing an
entirely English identity
was now overwhelming.
Fittingly King John (1199–
1216) was the first king to
drop altogether the
‘French and English’ form
of address in his
documents. His subjects
were now all English.
Underlying these
changes was another
important phenomenon
which gradually
strengthened the
development of an English
identity in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. This
was the revival of the
English language.
Linguistic divisions were
still important in
separating English from
Normans after 1125, as we
have seen. Indeed they
were still socially divisive
in the thirteenth century.
The great bulk of the
population, the peasantry
of Anglo-Saxon descent,
spoke only English. French
on the other hand
remained, as the knight
Walter of Bibbesworth put
it around 1250, the
language ‘that any
gentleman should know’,
being used both for polite
conversation and for
politics and business. Yet
the use of English was
gradually moving
upwards, ultimately
creating a bilingual gentry
and nobility. For those of
Norman descent living and
working in close proximity
to the English, speaking
the language must have
been as necessary as it was
natural. The knightly lord
of Clopton in
Northamptonshire,
William de Grauntcourt,
according to a family
history written in the
thirteenth century, ‘was
called William of Clopton
by inferiors, since it was
easier to have an English
name in their own
language rather than a
Norman one’. The family’s
consequent replacement of
‘Grauntcourt’ with
‘Clopton’ may well reflect
a change in the everyday
language it spoke. English
was certainly spoken in
the household of one
Suffolk knight in the 1190s
for it was in English,
indeed in the local Suffolk
dialect, that a spirit
(according to one story)
made known its presence.
By the mid thirteenth
century there seems little
doubt that even the
highest aristocracy could
speak English. Henry III’s
brother, Richard, earl of
Cornwall, certainly did so.
So indeed did Edward I.
There is also evidence
that French was losing
ground as a naturally
acquired mother tongue
and was having to be
formally taught (in the
same way as Latin). Walter
of Bibbesworth’s comment
quoted above came in a
treatise he wrote to help
Denise de Montchensy
teach her children French.
Yet Denise was the wife of
a great magnate of
Norman descent. The fact
that the history of England
written by Robert of
Gloucester around 1300
was in English verse
suggests that this was the
most natural spoken
language of high knightly
families like that of
Bassingbourn which
formed part of the
audience. This was the
future. Of the many copies
made after 1300 of the
history of England called
The Brut (after Brutus,
Britain’s eponymous
founder) there are 30 in
French and Latin and 168
in English. Since much of
the Brut was based on
Gaimar, it was in the
English language that the
latter’s English history
became best known, a
powerful combination. By
1300 there was a growing
sense that English unified
the people in a way
French, for all its status,
did not. ‘These gentlemen
use French, but every
English person knows
English’ ran lines in the
poem Arthour and Merlin.
In 1295 Edward I,
galvanizing the nation for
war, proclaimed that the
French wished to destroy
the English tongue. Here
the English language was
being used as synonymous
with the English people in
a way that would have
been impossible even a
hundred years before.
Under Edward’s
leadership in 1295 king
and nation stood at one in
resisting a foreign threat,
just as they had under
Alfred. Kingship after 1066
had indeed continued to
play a vital part in shaping
national identity. Yet it did
so in a new way. A sense
of community and identity
was now not merely
shaped by and for the
king, as it was in both
Scotland and Capetian
France. It was also shaped
in opposition to him. The
twelfth-century kings
continued, in Anglo-Saxon
mode, to give the nation a
real and positive sense of
unity under the crown,
notably by the formation
of the common law. The
title they adopted was
unambiguous: ‘king of the
English’. Yet while royal
government gave with one
hand, it took away with
the other, imposing huge
financial burdens on the
nation in an effort to
sustain its continental
possessions. The
extraordinary power and
sophistication of central
government in England
became matched by an
equally remarkable and
unique critique of that
government from below.
Opposition to royal
exactions dated back to
before 1066, but it was
now voiced on an entirely
new scale, and out of
common grievances came
a new national solidarity,
this time formed in
opposition to the crown. In
1215 everyone was to take
an oath to support the
enforcement of Magna
Carta, thus forming ‘the
community of the land’, a
community formed for no
other purpose than to take
action against the king. In
1258 likewise ‘the
community of England’
swore to support the
revolution of that year
which reduced the king to
a cipher. In all this there
was one further factor
which did more than
anything else to string and
solidify through society a
sense of universal
Englishness. This was the
growing belief that the
English were a people
under threat, under threat
from the foreigners
introduced into the
country by the king
himself. In the early
thirteenth century all the
king’s subjects were once
again English. But the
kings continued to employ
officials and give
patronage to ministers and
favourites who came from
overseas, thus offering
their native subjects not
merely oppression, but
oppression at the hands of
foreigners. The very
survival of the English
people was in danger, or
so it was proclaimed. More
than anything else it was
this threat, reaching a
climax in the 1260s, which
bound the English
together, appealing to
churchmen, peasants,
knights and barons alike.
Gilbert de Clare, earl of
Gloucester’s demand in
1265 that office be
confined to Englishmen
would have seemed
ludicrous to his kinsmen
150 years earlier, lords of
Orbec and Bienfaite in
Normandy, and not
English themselves. It was
only with Edward I (1272–
1307) that king and
kingdom were once more
at one.
 ***
Just as English national
identity was refashioned in
this period so was that of
the Scots. In the first half
of the twelfth century the
racial mix within the king
of Scotland’s realm had
become even more
complex. This was thanks
to the way King David
(1124–53) had introduced
a new ‘French’ nobility, as
it was called, into his
kingdom, one of Norman
or Anglo-Norman descent.
There was also, as we have
mentioned, a sense in
which the Scots
themselves were simply
the inhabitants of the core
of the kingdom between
the Forth, the Spey and the
central highlands. Thus
David could refer in a
charter to ‘the worthy men
of Moray and Scotland’,
clearly seeing a distinction
between the two. Likewise
a topographical survey as
late as 1200 mentioned
‘the mountains which
divide Scotland from
Argyll’. Place names in
Argyll like ‘the hill of Scot’
suggest that it was not as
Scots that the indigenous
inhabitants saw
themselves. The same was
true of the men of the
largely Norse province of
Caithness in the far north,
of the ‘Galwegians’ or men
of Galloway, the ‘English’
in Lothian (the area
between the Tweed and
the Forth), and the
‘Cumbrians’, who
inhabited the old British
kingdom of Cumbria
running south from the
Clyde to the southern edge
of the Lake District.
Galwegians, Cumbrians,
English and French, as
well as Scots, were all
sometimes addressed by
name in David’s charters.
By the end of the
thirteenth century, all this
had changed. The people
in the king’s realm were
described as Scots and
Scotland was the whole
area acknowledging the
king’s authority, broadly
the area of modern
Scotland.
Exiguous evidence
makes this process hard to
chart. As late as 1216, the
chronicle of Melrose abbey
(situated in the heart of
Lothian) viewed the Scots
as barbaric aliens, ‘devils
rather than soldiers’. The
attitude was much the
same in 1235 – certain
Scots, ‘knaves rather than
knights’, being accused of
pillaging the churches of
Galloway. Yet in the
section of the chronicle
covering the years 1265–6
(transcribed between 1285
and 1291 though perhaps
composed earlier) the
attitude is different. Guy
de Balliol, who died
fighting for Simon de
Montfort at Evesham,
clearly a man of Norman
descent, was now
described as a ‘valiant
Scottish knight’. Likewise
the achievements of the
abbot, Reginald of
Roxburgh in Lothian, were
said to be unequalled by
other ‘children of the
Scots’. Clearly by this time
it was as Scots that the
men of Lothian thought of
themselves. This was in
line with the universal
Scottishness asserted by
the Guardians of the realm
after King Alexander III’s
death in 1286. The seal
made for the government
of the kingdom bore on
one side the legend ‘the
seal of Scotland appointed
for the government of the
kingdom’ and on the other
‘St Andrew be the leader
and compatriot of the
Scots’. The assertions of
the Guardians show that
those of Anglo-Norman
descent among the
political elite now
regarded themselves
unequivocally as Scots.
How well those assertions
played in Caithness,
Sutherland, Argyll, and
Galloway is less clear, but
probably there too a sense
of Scottishness was
becoming preponderant. A
declaration in 1284 about
the royal succession was
agreed by the earls of
Sutherland and Orkney, as
well as three rulers from
Argyll and the Isles. All
were described (with many
others) as ‘barons of the
realm of Scotland’. Later in
1320, the most famous of
all statements of the
independence of the Scots,
the Declaration of
Arbroath, was made in the
name, amongst others, of
the earl of Sutherland and
the earl of Caithness and
Orkney, as well as ‘the
freeholders and the whole
community of the realm of
Scotland’.
How then had the
meaning of the ‘Scots’ and
‘Scotland’ become all
embracing in this way? It
had nothing to do with a
common language. While
the king’s court probably
spoke French, the use of
English was steadily
advancing in the lowland
towns at the expense of
Gaelic, spreading from
Perth in a narrow coastal
strip up the east coast and
round towards Banff and
Elgin. That, of course,
merely accentuated the
differences with the
Gaelic-speaking
highlanders, a division
made much of by the
chronicler Fordun, writing
in the fourteenth century.
The introduction of the
Anglo-Normans had also
been divisive. One of the
best early thirteenth-
century English chronicles
(which survives in a copy
made at Barnwell abbey in
Cambridge) commented
that the ‘modern’ kings of
Scotland appeared as
‘French in race, manners,
language and culture’.
They only maintained
Frenchmen (meaning
Anglo-Normans) in their
entourages, and had
reduced the Scots to
servitude. All this,
however, was only part of
the story. Members of the
native Scottish nobility
were themselves becoming
‘Frenchified’, thus making
their race far more
joinable. (For further
discussion see below, pp.
330–31, 424.) At the same
time the Anglo-Normans,
in important ways,
accepted aspects of
Scottish ‘culture’. It was
not simply one-way traffic,
giving but not receiving.
One aspect of this was the
cult of St Andrew. It was
Andrew, the brother of St
Peter, who, it was
believed, had converted
the Scots to Christianity.
The cult was vigorously
developed by the bishop of
St Andrews, the self-styled
‘bishop of the Scots’, with
a success seen both in the
Guardians’ seal and the
Declaration of Arbroath
which told how Christ
wished Andrew ‘to protect
[the Scots] as their patron
for ever’. Accounts of
Scottish origins, moreover,
by ‘Frenchified’ Scots
probably close to the
ruling elite suggest that
the latter not merely saw
itself as Scots, but Scots in
a way congenial to the
native population. The
accounts showed an
acceptance of the Scottish
people’s Celtic roots,
stressing that Ireland was
its divinely ordained
homeland, having been
settled by the Scots,
descendants of Gaythelos,
a Greek prince, and his
wife Scota before they had
arrived in Albion, as
Britain was then called.
The stone on which the
Scottish kings were
inaugurated at Scone had
come from Ireland’s royal
site of Tara.
According to the
Declaration of Arbroath, if
Robert Bruce was not
prepared to continue the
fight for independence
(which of course he was),
‘we would make king some
other man who was able to
defend us’. The implication
was that the Scottish
people had an existence
separate from its kings. Yet
the reality was different. It
was above all the kings
who had refashioned the
people in the years after
1100. They had introduced
the Anglo-Normans and
had asserted (in varying
degrees) royal authority in
Moray, Sutherland,
Caithness, Argyll,
Galloway, Man and the
Western Isles, thereby
expanding the effective
boundaries of the kingdom
and with it of Scotland
itself. The title the kings
bore from the early twelfth
century onwards, modelled
on that of the English
kings, was emphatically
‘king of the Scots’. The
indication that all the
king’s subjects were Scots
became unambiguous once
William the Lion (1165–
1214) addressed his
charters simply to ‘all his
upstanding men of all his
land’, abandoning
altogether the occasional
‘to all his men… French,
English, Scots and
Galwegians’. It was
likewise King Malcolm
about 1161 who used for
the first time the
expression ‘the kingdom of
Scotland’ in a context
which shows that Scotland
included Lothian as well as
the land north of the
Forth. The impact of this
royal rhetoric can be seen
in increasing numbers of
private charters from the
1170s onwards, covering
transactions in Lothian,
Galloway, and elsewhere,
which speak of ‘the
kingdom of Scotland’ or
‘the kingdom of the Scots’.
Scotland had grown as the
kingdom had grown and
the Scots were simply all
those who were subject to
the authority of the king.
The king’s role in
refashioning national
identity was thus
significantly different from
that in England. Whereas
the English were bonded,
in part at least, by their
opposition to the crown,
the Scots, enjoying a
monarchy far less intrusive
and exacting, were bonded
at its behest and in its
support.
***
In Wales there was no
integration of peoples as
there had been in England
and Scotland. The Welsh
absorbed no one. The
Normans arrived in Wales
as conquerors, yet they
never became integrated
within the existing Welsh
kingdoms, becoming
Welsh in the process.
Instead they carved out
their own polities,
subjecting the native
Welsh in the areas they
conquered and leaving
them under their own
rulers in the areas they did
not. The crucial difference
here lay in the political
constitution of the host
nation. Both in England
and Scotland the
newcomers were installed
within a single polity and
soon felt part of it. That
was impossible in Wales,
where a whole series of
disparate political units
constantly changed shape
through warfare and
family settlement. With no
large political unit to
subdue and in which they
could ultimately be
assimilated, the Normans
conquered piecemeal and
set up their own political
units in the form of the
marcher baronies. (Much
the same happened in
Ireland.) The Normans
quickly married into Welsh
noble families, but the
descendants of such unions
(like Gerald of Wales) felt
at most ambivalent about
their nationality. By
descent they might be
partly Welsh, but brought
up in the marcher baronies
and with many contacts
with the wider Anglo-
Norman realm, this
Welshness by descent
could never be completed
by Welshness through
‘education’. The
upbringing and active life
of such men, as Gerald of
Wales observed in his own
case, remained very much
with the English.
***
Significant changes had
therefore taken place in
the make-up of the peoples
of Britain, or at least of the
English and the Scots, in
the two centuries after the
Norman Conquest. At the
same time, partly as a
result, there had been
equally significant shifts in
English attitudes, or the
attitudes of writers in
England, towards the
Welsh, the Scots and also
to the Irish. In the twelfth
century such writers had
begun for the first time to
express contempt for the
other peoples of the British
Isles, regarding them as
barbarians and justifying
conquests (notably in
Ireland) in the light of a
civilizing mission. As John
Gillingham has put it, this
period seems to witness
‘the beginnings of English
imperialism’. Such
attitudes first appear with
William of Malmesbury in
the 1120s – the Welsh, ‘all
that barbarianage’; they
are later found in the Gesta
Stephani (‘The Deeds of
Stephen’), written in the
1150s, where the Welsh
are described as a
‘barbarous people’ of
‘untamed savagery’.
Likewise towards the end
of the century William of
Newburgh thought the
Scots were ‘a barbarous
nation’, while Gerald of
Wales described the Irish
as ‘so barbarous, they
cannot be said to have any
culture’. Ralph of Diss thus
saw Henry II’s invasion of
Ireland in 1171 as very
much a civilizing mission,
bringing law and order to
a people hitherto untamed
by ‘public power’.
At the root of these
attitudes were major
contrasts between the
economy and society of
England and those of the
rest of Britain (discussed in
the next chapter). Gerald
of Wales described the
frugal diet of the Welsh,
based more on meat than
bread, and the skimpy
clothes worn even by the
rulers. Walter Espec (in a
speech put into his mouth
by Ailred of Rievaulx)
ridiculed ‘the worthless
Scot with half bare
buttocks’. King John in
Ireland in 1210 laughed at
the badly dressed kings
riding without saddles on
poor horses. These
contrasts had existed
before 1066 but they were
accentuated by the
Norman Conquest and
rendered far more
noticeable. Thus English
ecclesiastics, now brought
within the mainstream of
continental reform, looked
increasingly askance at the
divorce and concubinage
common in Wales, and in
Ireland where it was
alleged men exchanged
wives like horses. And
likewise there was an
increasing contrast in the
area of political conduct.
After the Conquest, again
in line with continental
practice, political murders,
executions and mutilations
had virtually ceased in
England. In Wales, on the
other hand, disputes over
succession continued to
lead to ‘the most frightful
disturbances… people
being murdered, brothers
killing each other, and
even putting each other’s
eyes out’, as Gerald of
Wales described it. It was
the same in Ireland where
one reason why the Irish
submitted to Henry II’s
‘peace’, according to Ralph
of Diss, was because they
lamented the way their
fathers had so often been
killed by mutual slaughter.
Warfare in England came
to resemble that on the
continent, where the aim
was to capture and ransom
rather than kill a noble
opponent. Celtic customs
were very different. As
Gerald of Wales observed:
‘The French ransom
soldiers; the Irish and
Welsh butcher them and
decapitate them.’ Even
more fundamental, the
Welsh and the Scots took
slaves. This was why the
Scottish invasion of 1138
was such a profound shock
for it revealed the
appalling face of war as
slave hunt. As one Hexham
chronicle put it:
Old men and women were
either beheaded with swords or
stuck with spears like pigs
destined for the table… Young
men and women, all who
seemed fit for work, were
bound and driven away into
slavery. When some of the girls
dropped to the ground
exhausted by the pace of the
slave-drivers, they were left to
die where they fell.

Not surprisingly the

invasion of 1138 seems to
have been crucial in
establishing the reputation
of the Scots and
Galwegians as barbarians.
***
Racial stereotypes are
often obstinately difficult
to shift and it is natural to
think those appearing in
the twelfth century would
be no exception.
Henceforth the view of the
Scots and the Welsh as
barbarians would be
entrenched, a development
of fundamental importance
for the future of Britain.
Yet in fact nothing like
that happened. One of the
most significant features of
British history in the
thirteenth century is the
way such hostile opinions
were replaced by others
far more positive.
There was, in fact,
nothing very deep rooted
about the new critique of
the Celtic peoples.
Resulting from perceived
differences between
England and the rest of
Britain, it was perfectly
capable of moderating in
the light of new
information. Indeed some
of the accusations of
barbarism were qualified
almost as soon as they
appeared. Thus Ailred
wrote that thanks to the
policies of David, king of
Scots, ‘the whole barbarity
of that nation was
softened’. The Gesta
Stephani noted how
Richard fitz Gilbert de
Clare had brought such
peace and prosperity to his
part of Wales that ‘it might
very easily have been
thought a second England’.
Most striking of all were
the changing opinions of
Henry II’s clerk, the
historian Roger of
Howden. When he
described the invasions of
England in 1173–4, he
seems to have agreed with
William of Newburgh’s
view that the Scots were
‘bloodthirsty barbarians’.
But later, when his
diplomatic work for Henry
II gave him a closer
knowledge of Scottish
affairs, he began to
sympathize with the
demands of the Scottish
church and kingdom for
independence. Of
imperialistic attitudes to
the Scots (or the Welsh)
there is no trace.
By the mid thirteenth
century a more
sympathetic approach to
the Welsh and the Scots
was much in evidence.
Matthew Paris in his
Chronica Majora wrote a
voluminous history of the
years 1235 to 1259 (in a
modern printed edition it
takes up 1,700 pages). He
inherited from his
predecessor at St Albans,
Roger of Wendover, an
intense hostility to
continental aliens
introduced by the king
into England. Had he
likewise imbibed twelfth-
century attitudes to the
Scots and the Welsh, it
would certainly be
apparent. Yet there is little
sign that this was the case.
In 1244 King Alexander of
Scotland mustered a large
army to invade England,
yet for Paris this awoke no
memories of the brutal
invasions of the twelfth
century, which had done
so much to turn the
English against the Scots.
The army was led by
Alexander, ‘good, just,
pious, bountiful, and loved
by everyone, both the
English and his own
subjects’. The large
numbers of foot soldiers
(put at between 60,000 to
100,000), far from being a
bare-buttocked,
bloodthirsty rabble, were
‘all unanimously confessed
and consoled by preachers,
fearing not to die since
they were about to fight
justly for their country’.
Three years later Paris
reported that no one could
understand why the pope
wished to send a legate to
Scotland ‘since the
Catholic faith flourished
there uncontaminated and
the peace of clergy and
people was absolutely
firm’. It could only have
been, he concluded,
because of greed for the
wealth of ‘the Scots’. Far
from supporting Henry III’s
intervention in Scottish
affairs in the 1250s, Paris
reported how the
‘indigenous and native
born men’ were indignant
at the way aliens (that is
English) were promoted
over them. The expulsion
of the latter thus meant
‘the magnates of Scotland
could control the reins of
the kingdom more freely
and safely’.
When it came to Wales,
Paris commended the
famous native scholar
Thomas Wallensis for
returning home as bishop
of St Davids, observing
that such love for one’s
native land was absolutely
natural. When the Welsh
rose against English rule in
the 1250s, his attitude was
the same as to events in
Scotland.

Their cause seemed just, even

to their enemies. And this
especially comforted them that
they fought constantly in the
fashion of the Trojans from
whom they were descended for
their ancient laws and liberties.
O miserable English, crushed by
aliens and with their ancient
liberties extinguished, draw a
lesson from the example of the
Welsh.

Here then it is the Welsh

who are to educate the
English. The last thing
Paris wrote about the
Welsh just before his death
in 1259 was to lament the
king’s rejection of terms
which would have allowed
them to live ‘in peace,
tranquillity and liberty’.
Paris, therefore, had no
feeling that England
should exert a hegemony
over the rest of Britain. On
the contrary, he believed
that the Welsh and the
Scots should enjoy peace
and independence free
from English interference.
In taking these views, he
was not out on a limb. For
the Tewkesbury chronicler
in the 1250s Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd, the future prince
of Wales, was fighting
vigorously to preserve his
‘paternal liberties’. The
Dunstable annalist thought
the revolt had been
provoked by the attempt
to subject the Welsh to
English law. Despite the
propaganda of Edward I,
several chroniclers took a
remarkably measured view
of his eventual conquest of
Wales in the 1270s and
1280s. Thus the Dunstable
annalist gave a full list of
the grievances which had
provoked the Welsh ‘to
stand together for their
laws’.
Up to a point Paris’s
own views were shaped by
his political agenda. The
Welsh and the Scots were
standing against an
English king whom he
regarded as both
oppressive and
incompetent, just as the
English needed to do. It
was when it suited this
critique that the Welsh
became momentarily ‘the
dregs of mankind’ – the
king could not defeat even
these unworthy enemies.
But there was more to it
than that for Paris’s
positive attitudes were also
founded on good
information about Wales
and Scotland. St Albans
had a daughter house in
the north at Tyne-mouth,
and its prior was active in
Anglo-Scottish affairs,
supplying Paris with
several important
documents. Paris knew
Wales well through
Richard, bishop of Bangor
who, as a result of a series
of local quarrels, resided at
St Albans between 1248
and 1256. Essentially what
had transformed the
English attitude to the
Scots and the Welsh was
that the twelfth-century
view of them as barbarians
no longer seemed to
correspond with reality.
This was partly the
result of developments in
economic and
ecclesiastical organization
which will be discussed in
chapters 2 and 14. Also
important was the
transformation in the
identity of the Scottish
people. In 1150 the Scots
were only one of several
peoples within King
David’s realm. English
historians were well aware
of the fact. When they
spoke about the atrocities
of 1138 they were clear
that the blame lay with the
Scots, that is Gaelic
speakers from north of the
Forth, and with the even
more bloodthirsty
Galwegians. They did not
blame King David himself,
who was a perfect Anglo-
Norman gentleman, nor
his Anglo-Norman
followers, who were as
civilized as anyone on the
other side. A hundred or
so years later the
descendants of those
Anglo-Normans were
themselves being called
Scots. Where the latter in
1138 were bare-buttocked
highlanders, in 1265 they
included the knight Guy de
Balliol who died a hero’s
death at Evesham. It was
ridiculous to call him a
barbarian. The same was
true of members of the
native nobility, who had
become as ‘French’ (to use
the term of the Barnwell
annalist) as their Anglo-
Norman colleagues. Under
pressure of the Edwardian
wars, the old lampoons
reappeared. One ballad on
the battle of Dunbar in
1298 described the Scots
as a ‘barbarous, brutal and
foolish people’. But this
was manifestly to attack
one group of Scotsmen,
not the people as a whole,
a point made clear by the
ballad’s further description
of the Scots as ‘a kilted
rabble’. That was not how
the Scottish nobility
appeared in battle. Indeed,
in 1244 Matthew Paris
commented favourably on
the quality of the
thousand-strong Scottish
cavalry.
 In the event, the
Scottish army of 1244
never went into action, a
fact which points to the
wider context which
permitted the development
of favourable views of the
Scots, namely the long
period of unbroken Anglo-
Scottish peace between
1217 and 1296. This gave
plenty of time for the
atrocities of 1138 and (on
a smaller scale) 1173–4 to
be forgotten. The invasion
of 1216 by comparison
was a tame affair,
reflecting the fact that the
Scots had long since given
up war as slave hunt.
Paris’s view of the Scottish
foot soldiers in the army of
1244, as we have seen,
was not as a kilted
bloodthirsty rabble. Apart
from being properly
confessed, they were
‘ready for action and
effectively equipped with
axes, lances and bows’.
***
The Welsh, unlike the
Scots, did not rise in the
world through absorbing a
new Anglo-Norman
nobility. Indeed, Gerald of
Wales alleged that by
accepting the very
designations ‘the Welsh’
and ‘Wales’ in the twelfth
century, the Britons (as
they previously called
themselves) had actually
been diminished since they
had adopted the labels
given them by the English.
This, however, did the
Welsh less than justice.
‘Wales’ and ‘the Welsh’,
Wallia and Wallenses were
respectively English and
Latin words. They were
not taken into the Welsh
language itself. In their
own tongue the Welsh
replaced ‘Britons’
(Brytanyeit) with a word of
their own, Cymry, one
which evoked both the
community of their people
(it meant ‘compatriots’)
and its long history, for it
had been used as a word of
self-description since the
seventh century.
It was indeed through
the discovery, or more
exactly the invention of
their history, that the
Welsh went up in the
world in this period, in the
process becoming far less
easy targets of
condescension and abuse.
This was thanks to one of
the most famous books
ever written, namely
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
History of the Kings of
Britain, which came out a
little before 1139. Geoffrey
was a Welshman and one
of his purposes was to give
respectability to his race,
faced with the growing
perception that they were
barbarians. Henry of
Huntingdon had argued
that it was a knowledge of
history which
distinguished rational men
from brutes, and Geoffrey’s
fertile imagination, with
little more to go on than
what could be gleaned
from Bede and vague tales
about Arthur, supplied the
Welsh with a glorious one.
He told how Brutus,
grandson of the Trojan
Aeneas, had conquered the
island of Albion and
named it Britain after
himself. He and his
successors had founded
towns, made laws and
were manifestly highly
civilized. Their line had
culminated in Arthur,
greatest of all warrior
kings, who had driven out
the Saxons, conquered the
Scots, Picts and Irish,
subdued Gaul and defeated
the Romans. Ultimately, of
course, ‘the power of the
Britons came to an end…
and the Angles began to
reign’, yet Arthur had gone
to the isle of Avalon to be
cured of his wounds, and
Merlin had promised that
one day the Britons would
rule again.
Of course, it was
perfectly possible to enjoy
Geoffrey’s enthralling tale
without imbibing its Welsh
message. Ultimately the
English adopted Arthur for
themselves. Yet the
message did go home,
inspiring the Welsh and
impressing those in
England. ‘Openly they [the
Welsh] go about saying
that in the end they will
have it all. By means of
Arthur, they will get
[Britain] back,’ declared
the author of the
description of England at
the end of Gaimar’s
History. The Welsh revival
in the second half of the
twelfth century seemed
directly related to a new
sense of origin. As Gerald
of Wales put it, ‘Our
British people, now known
by the false name Welsh,
is, like the Romans, sprung
from Trojan blood, and
defending its freedom
against both Saxons and
Normans, has shaken the
yoke of slavery from its
back.’ Likewise in the mid
thirteenth century
Matthew Paris included
references to Brutus and
Merlin in his map of
Wales, and spoke, as we
have seen, of the Welsh
fighting for their freedom
‘in the manner of the
Trojans from whom they
were descended’.
Attitudes were also
changed by an increasing
accommodation between
the peoples in Wales, one
comparable to that taking
place in Scotland, although
in this case it did not lead
to any merger. The
Norman barons admired
the ‘innate nobility’ of the
Welsh rulers, and married
their daughters, sometimes
giving Welsh names to
both male and female
offspring. Gerald of Wales
himself was descended
from the marriage between
Nest, daughter of Rhys ap
Tewdwr, and Gerald of
Windsor, Henry I’s
castellan of Pembroke. The
Norman barons had also
been less bothered than
clerical commentators by
the charges of barbarism,
and indeed had briefly
indulged in taking slaves
themselves. They also
imbibed more positive
aspects of Welsh culture,
notably the devotion to St
David and other native
saints. ‘St David’ indeed
was one of their battle-
cries as they conquered
Ireland. The native rulers,
for their part, quickly
adopted castles, armour
and cavalry. In 1257
Matthew Paris was highly
impressed by the Welsh
cavalry, the riders in two
large contingents being
‘finely armed’, and the
horses themselves
protected with metal. Thus
the English and the Welsh
had more and more in
common. In 1188, during
a pleasant day in Hereford
culminating in a stroll
round the bishop’s garden,
the Lord Rhys, the ruler of
Deheubarth, and members
of the great baronial house
of Clare paid compliments
to the ‘high birth’ of each
other’s families, amidst
much good-natured banter.
The banter itself implied
that war might at any time
break out again, but that
did not alter – indeed it
enhanced – the respect in
which the two groups held
each other, which was also
why occasional atrocities
seemed so shocking and
like a breach of trust.
Welsh warfare itself was
coming into line with best
‘modern’ practice. A letter
from the king’s camp at
Deganwy in 1245 makes
no complaints about its
barbarism. On the
contrary, it criticized the
English for plundering the
Cistercian abbey of
Aberconwy, and felt the
Welsh were thus quite
justified in killing the
culprits. Even so the
Welsh, in correct chivalric
manner, while dispatching
the ordinary soldiers had
taken the knights alive,
intending to imprison
them (doubtless for
ransom), only changing
their minds when some of
their own nobles were
killed by the English.
Welsh politics too had
become less violent,
largely through contact
with the English. The
prince of Wales, Llywelyn
ap Gruffudd, imprisoned
rather than killed or
mutilated his brothers,
dangerous rivals though
they were. In the end, by a
telling irony, the youngest,
Dafydd, having caused
trouble for over twenty
years, was finally executed
by Edward I. (For further
discussion see below, pp.
428–9.)
When the chronicler
Thomas Wykes, writing
after the Edwardian
Conquest, described the
Welsh as a ‘savage people’
who lived on meat and
milk and did not eat bread,
his remarks might have
applied to the lower
classes, but hardly to the
rulers for whom wheat
was grown and bread
baked daily (as Gerald of
Wales’s own remarks
suggest). English writers
when describing Welsh
nobles, far from making
suggestions of savagery,
praised them in much the
same terms as they did
members of their own
elite. Thus one of the
Welsh nobles killed in the
fighting of 1245 was
described in the letter
quoted above as ‘a young
man most elegant and
strenuus’, the last a word
hard to translate but with
connotations of both
martial strength and
chivalric behaviour.
According to Matthew
Paris, Gruffudd of
Bromfield (a ruler of
northern Powys) was
Welsh by nation, gens and
language, and also ‘noble,
strenuus and powerful’.
Likewise Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd, prince of Wales,
for the Dunstable annalist
was ‘a most handsome
man and strenuus in war’.
Llywelyn was
acknowledged by the
English to bear a coat of
arms, indeed one which
was a modified version of
the royal arms of England,
this the result of his
grandfather’s marriage to
King John’s illegitimate
daughter.
 The positive light in
which the English nobility
regarded their Welsh
counterparts also emerges
in the late thirteenth-
century ‘Legend of Fulk
fitz Waryn’, a work of fact,
fiction and romance which
narrates the exploits of the
Shropshire knight Fulk fitz
Waryn and his ancestors.
Here a Welsh ruler might
appear sporting a coat of
arms, fighting valiantly
with his retinue alongside
a baronial ally, spending
time as a youth at the king
of England’s court,
marrying a royal or
baronial wife, and even
having contacts with the
king of France. These men
all passed as members of
the same chivalric society.
***
 There was another
factor which served to
moderate English attitudes
to the Welsh and the Scots.
While the latter had risen
in the world, the ‘barons of
England, the most famous
Normans’ (as Henry of
Huntingdon had called
them), had in a way gone
down in it – gone down,
that is, by becoming
English. Around 1280 the
Earl Warenne, according to
one story, recalled how his
ancestors had conquered
the land with Duke
William, and produced a
rusty sword to prove it.
But there was no escaping
the fact, as we have seen,
that Warenne too was now
a member of the very
people his ancestors had
reduced to servitude,
however glorious its
previous history. The
problem of how to view
the Conquest is evident in
the ambivalent accounts
offered both by Matthew
Paris and subsequent
historians. Should one
celebrate William’s
victory, or sympathize
with the oppressed
English? The barons of
England in the thirteenth
century could no longer
have the same unalloyed
confidence in their
pedigree as ‘the most
famous Normans’ of a
hundred years before. It
was correspondingly less
easy to view the other
peoples of Britain with
contempt.
This view had also been
moderated by changes in
the barbarian league table.
For William of
Malmesbury, in the early
twelfth century France was
the home of civilization. A
hundred years later it was
also the home of less
attractive things. For
during the invasion of
Louis, eldest son of the
king of France, in 1216
appalling atrocities were
perpetrated by his
followers, ‘barbarous
aliens’ as the Waverley
annalist called them. ‘The
routiers and other wicked
plunderers from the
kingdom of France set
villages alight, did not
spare churches or
cemeteries, took and
despoiled all kinds of men,
and by harsh and hitherto
unheard-of bodily tortures,
compelled them to pay the
heaviest ransoms,’ wrote
Roger of Wendover. This
‘great tyranny’ was long
remembered. Matthew
Paris’s standard of
barbarism was not that set
by the Scots or the Welsh
but by Louis’s Frenchmen:
‘even Louis never brought
such sordid and violent
followers to England as
[the king’s son, the future
Edward I] nourished in his
household,’ he remarked.
 From the political
standpoint, these changing
ideas in England about the
other peoples of Britain
point to a conclusion of
cardinal importance. The
ground for the eventual
conquest of Wales and
attack on Scotland at the
end of the thirteenth
century was not laid by
long-standing and
intensifying English
hostility to the Welsh and
the Scots. Quite the
reverse. The harsh and
pejorative opinions of the
Welsh and Scots expressed
by the English in the
twelfth century had largely
vanished a hundred years
later, changing with
changing reality. The
English attitude to the
Irish, on the other hand,
remained unchanged
precisely because the Irish
rulers seemed much as
they had been in the
twelfth century, killing
opponents and not
improving their marital
practices. The sketch of
Ireland offered to the
historian Froissart in the
1390s by one of Richard
II’s esquires (who had
spent time there in
captivity) was still of a
land without towns,
ransoms, stirrups, proper
armour and decent
saddles. Its kings knew
nothing of courtly
behaviour, and had to
have a crash course in
English ways before they
could be knighted by
Richard II.
There was also no sense
in which the emergence of
these new identities had
rung down nationalistic
blinds, making the peoples
of Britain more separate as
they became more similar.
Instead there were
numerous contacts which
crossed both race and
border. The number of
Welshmen called Sais, a
Welsh designation
meaning Englishman,
multiplied in the
thirteenth century even in
areas subject to native
rulers, which reflected
extensive contact with the
English, often including
marriage to an
Englishwoman. At the
highest level the number
of mixed marriages
increased. If these never
prevented conflict, their
tendency was certainly to
sedate it. In 1262 the
marcher baron, James of
Audley, was asked by the
king to ensure the loyalty
of Gruffudd of Bromfield,
Gruffudd being his
brother-in-law. Llywelyn
the Great himself
described the English
baron Ralph Mortimer,
who had married his
daughter Gwladus, as ‘his
dearest son’, while Roger
Mortimer, fruit of the
union, both made an
alliance with his cousin,
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the
Prince of Wales, and
included his coat of arms
in a heraldic roll which he
commissioned. Meanwhile
in the north of Britain
there was a substantial
cross-border nobility,
constantly replenished by
marriage, which held lands
both in England and
Scotland (see below, p.
425). Such men probably
thought of themselves as
Anglo-Scottish, much as
the cross-Channel elite of
the twelfth century were
Anglo-Norman.
Nor did the reshaping of
national identities in the
two centuries after the
Conquest sever Britain
from the rest of Europe,
however intense and
significant English hostility
to foreigners was at times
in the thirteenth century.
In origin the aristocratic
culture, which came in
varying degrees to
embrace the whole of
Britain, was very much
that exported from France
– France in the wide sense
of the French royal lands
and the surrounding
principalities. Hence in a
most telling passage the
Barnwell annalist said that
in culture the king of
Scotland and his nobles
were French. He did not
say they were English,
although it was directly
from England that the
culture came. The two
fundamentals of
aristocratic life, the castle
and the cavalry knight,
had both been brought
from France by the
Normans, as they had
brought chivalric modes of
warfare and politics.
France in the twelfth
century was the home of
troubadours and
tournaments, and it was in
tournaments across France,
not in Britain, that William
Marshal, the future earl of
Pembroke and regent of
England, made his name in
the 1170s and 1180s as
‘the greatest knight in the
world’. The loss of
Normandy in 1204 made
the barons of England
finally English but did not
confine them to Britain.
Richard de Clare, earl of
Gloucester, and the heir to
the throne, the future
Edward I, both frequented
the European tournament
circuit in the 1250s and
1260s. Earlier a Scottish
noble, Duncan, earl of
Dunbar, had died in 1248
on the crusade of Louis IX,
the king of France who
was later canonized. The
foreign friends and
relatives whom Henry III
established in England in
the mid thirteenth century
kept alive something of the
internationalism of the old
Anglo-Norman baronage.
Thus Meath in Ireland and
Ludlow in Wales
eventually passed through
marriage to Geoffrey de
Joinville, lord of
Vaucouleurs in
Champagne, and younger
brother of Jean de
Joinville, who had also
crusaded with Louis and
had later written a life of
the Saint. Geoffrey was
summoned to the armies of
the king of France,
crusaded with the future
Edward I of England and
ended his days in the
house of Dominican friars
at Trim in Ireland.
Matthew Paris’s map of
Britain itself had a wider
context for it was almost
certainly drawn from
Britain as it appeared on a
map of the world, rather
like the Mappa Mundi
preserved in Hereford
cathedral, which has
Jerusalem at its centre. In
the Hereford map Britain
is placed on the world’s
outer rim, yet it still
appears large and
impressive. It was in many
ways a wealthy island, as
the next chapter will show.
2

The Economies
of Britain

Between 1066 and 1284

the economies of Britain
were transformed. The
population at least
doubled. A large acreage
of new land was brought
under the plough. The
commercial sector also
expanded with the money
supply spiralling, and a
new infrastructure of
towns, markets and fairs
growing up. These changes
embraced Wales and
Scotland as well as
England, serving to reduce
the contrasts between the
different parts of Britain.
In the triforium of
Westminster Abbey the
sculptured head of a
craftsman, smiling,
assured, naturalistic,
humane, seems to sum up
this expansionary, self-
confident age. Yet below
in the chapel of St Faith is
another head, with
pinched cheeks and
sunken eyes, its mouth
open as though crying out
in pain. This was also an
age when a large
proportion of the peasant
population lived at the
level of bare subsistence.
In years of bad harvest
there was starvation.
According to one view the
situation was getting
worse as the rising
population began to
outrun the ability of the
land to support it. For
many peasants there was
no ‘merrie England’.
The English economy
dominated the rest of
Britain. England covers 57
per cent of Britain’s land
mass as against Scotland’s
34 per cent and Wales’s 8
per cent. England was also
mile for mile much richer,
a reflection of the far
higher proportion of good
fertile land as opposed to
upland pasture, moor and
mountain. Whereas
roughly 13 per cent of
England’s land mass stands
at over 600 feet, the
respective figures for
Wales and Scotland are 42
per cent and 48 per cent.
In the assessment of
ecclesiastical wealth made
for a papal tax in 1291–2,
the only figures covering
the whole of Britain for
this period, the average
valuation per square mile
in England was £4.04, in
Scotland £1.34 and in
Wales £0.90. The grand
total for Scotland was just
short of a fifth of
England’s; that of Wales
was only a twenty-eighth.
The English economy was
not only the largest. It is
possible to know much
more about it. Domesday
Book, the Hundred Roll
survey of 1279, numerous
private charters, and a
growing body of manorial
accounts from the
thirteenth century provide
sources uniquely rich, if
frustratingly patchy.
 The picture Domesday
Book gives of England in
1086 is of a society
overwhelmingly rural. It
records some 270,000
heads of rural house-holds,
nearly all of them
peasants, that is broadly
people who lived by
working on the land.
Against that there were
between five and ten
thousand lords and some
25,000 heads of urban
households, the latter an
estimate by historians
because Domesday Book
gives uneven information
about the town population.
Domesday placed much of
the rural population in
units of lordly exploitation
which it called manors,
although these varied in
size and structure. In a
broad swathe across the
midlands and the south
(excluding Kent) large
numbers were what
historians call ‘classical’,
that is to say they were
coterminous with a single
‘nucleated’ village. Indeed
the twelfth-century
chronicler Orderic Vitalis
wrote that in common
speech the words ‘manor’
and ‘village’ were
interchangeable. Thus at
Willingham in
Cambridgeshire the bishop
of Ely’s manor consisted of
the whole village and its
surrounding arable and
meadow lands, embracing
in all some 900 acres.
Much of the land the
bishop had kept in his own
hands as his home-farm or
demesne. The rest of the
arable with a share in the
common meadows was
held by his peasants:
twelve villeins, and eight
cottagers. Later evidence
(Domesday itself never
gives the size of peasant
holdings or the terms on
which they were held)
shows that the villeins
each held half a ‘yardland’
(around fifteen acres). The
cottagers probably had
under five acres. Both
groups had to supply two
days’ labour a week on the
bishop’s demesne and
further work at harvest
time. In 1086, taking all of
Domesday England,
villeins made up 41 per
cent of peasant tenants,
most probably holding
either a whole yardland or
a half, while cottagers
accounted for another 32
per cent. The obligation to
provide labour was
probably heavy and
widespread, but peasants
could also pay rents both
in money and kind. At
Willingham there was only
one slave but some manors
had many more, so that
they made up roughly 10
per cent of the rural
population. There was one
other key feature of the
manorial system, namely
that both the lord’s
demesne and the land of
each individual peasant
was distributed in equal
proportions between either
two or three great open
fields which lay around
the village. At Willingham
there were three fields and
in 1251 the lord had
roughly a hundred acres in
each. The lands of each
peasant were probably
divided evenly between
the three fields in the same
way. This was the normal
pattern. As a consequence
everyone had to follow the
same agricultural regime,
accepting, for example,
that one field each year
should lie fallow (the usual
practice), hence such
manors were said to have
‘common fields’, and hence
the need for a manorial
court to organize the
running of the manor.
There were manors of
the Willingham type
throughout England,
although as inheritances
were divided and the
population increased it
was quite usual for there
to be more than one
manor in a village. In
Kent, East Anglia,
Lincolnshire and
Yorkshire, however, a
rather different form of
structure was common.
This was one composed of
a lordly centre, often a
nucleated village, linked to
a series of outlying
hamlets whose peasants
gave renders in kind and
money to the centre,
rather than extensive
labour services, the
renders often being more
important in the lord’s
income than the direct
produce from any central
demesne. Such peasants
were often called
‘sokemen’, the subordinate
hamlets being part of the
‘soke’ or jurisdiction of the
centre. Attached to the five
carucates of land (about
600 acres) at William de
Warenne’s great base at
Conisbrough in Yorkshire
were a further eighty-six
carucates held by sokemen
in twenty-eight
subordinate hamlets. In
Domesday Book sokemen
and other freemen made
up roughly 14 per cent of
England’s peasant
population.
In this society there
were therefore gaping
disparities in wealth. Even
a lord of a single manor
had far more wealth and
power than a villein, let
alone a cottager. And great
lords had many manors:
Willingham was one of
fifty held by the bishop of
Ely across six counties. His
estates in Domesday Book
were valued at an annual
£484 – 318 pennies a day,
when one penny a day was
the wage (when he could
find work) of a twelfth-
century labourer.
Taken as a whole the
Scottish and Welsh
economies were very
different from the English.
This was largely the result
of the much higher
proportion of high ground
which made pastoral
farming far more
important than arable. As
a sixteenth-century writer
remarked, Scotland was
always ‘more gevin to
store of bestiall than ony
production of cornys’.
Gerald of Wales in the
1190s made the same
point about Wales: ‘the
greater part of the land is
laid down to pasturage;
little is cultivated’.
Another consequence of
this largely pastoral
economy was that
settlements were often
small and scattered.
According to Gerald, the
Welsh lived a solitary life
in huts on the edge of
woods rather than
communally in villages. He
would probably have said
much the same about the
Scots.
This contrast between
England and the rest of
Britain should not,
however, be overdrawn.
Even at the start of our
period there was probably
extensive corn production,
if mostly of oats (more
suitable than wheat for
poorish land) both in the
coastal lowlands of Wales
and in the lowlands of
eastern Scotland south and
north of Forth. Gerald of
Wales himself described
Welsh ploughing, which
was of a peculiar nature.
The driver of the oxen
walked in front but facing
backwards, so that he
often fell and was run
over. Although there is
little sign of manorial
structures, a point to
which we will return,
there was certainly the
equivalent both in Wales
and Scotland of the soke-
type estates found in parts
of England. In Wales,
historians are increasingly
detecting nucleated
villages which apparently
pre-date the Norman
Conquest. In Dyfed, these
had the strips of the
peasant bondmen arranged
round them in radial
fashion. In Gwynedd
considerable progress has
been made in tracing the
sites of llys and maerdref
complexes. Llys means
‘court’, that is the
residential and judicial
centre of the local ruler.
The maerdref was the
associated village in which
the peasant bondman
lived. These Welsh villages
were not subject to fully
formed manorial
institutions; the strips of
the peasant bondmen,
whether scattered or
radial, seem to have been
run individually, rather
than as part of some
common field system.
Since, however, the
bondmen gave renders in
kind and also had to
labour on the land of the
lord, the two systems were
not that dissimilar.
 If there were features in
common between the
English rural economy and
that of Scotland and
Wales, that was much less
so when it came to towns,
commerce and coinage, at
least if the comparison is
with England south of
York. North of that city,
apart perhaps from a
market and urban
beginnings at Durham,
there were no towns in
1066 either in England or
Scotland. There is scant
evidence of English money
circulating north of the
border; in any case, York
was the northernmost
English mint. The Scottish
kings did not mint coins
before 1136. A
contemporary Life of
Queen Margaret of
Scotland, who died in
1093, tells how she
encouraged merchants to
come to Scotland by land
and sea with precious
wares, hitherto unknown,
which hardly suggests a
high level of pre-existing
commerce. As late as the
1140s King David,
Margaret’s son, expressed
doubts as to whether ships
were likely to arrive at
Perth ‘for the sake of
trade’. In Wales there were
no towns before the
Normans and little
evidence of money. The
economy depended on
barter and plunder, with a
trade (to Ireland) in one of
the most valuable items of
that plunder: slaves.
Plundered slaves were also
important in Scotland,
hence the appalling impact
of the Scottish invasion of
the north in 1138. (See
above, p. 16.)
In England things were
very different. ‘And one
coinage is to be current
throughout all the king’s
dominion, and no man is
to refuse it,’ thundered
King Edgar (959–75). The
assertion of a royal
monopoly over the
coinage, and the minting
of plentiful and high-
quality silver coins to
sustain it, was one of the
greatest achievements of
the Anglo-Saxon kings. In
the last years before the
Conquest, a quarter of the
coinage was minted in
London. All the coins bore
the king’s head on one
side, and all the dies for
striking this image were
manufactured in London
before being distributed to
the regional mints. Of the
latter there were between
sixty and seventy, making
it possible for the king in a
single simultaneous
exercise to replace one
type of coin by another
throughout the country, a
practice to which surviving
coin hoards bear
testimony.
 Most of these mints
were situated in what the
Domesday clerks called
boroughs: all told they
gave the name (or that of
city) to some 112 places in
England while listing
thirty-nine more as having
markets. The clerks were
not using ‘borough’ in any
technical sense. They
simply meant a place
where a significant
number of the inhabitants
lived from non-agricultural
pursuits, that is from trade
and manufacture. It is
equally clear, however,
that these boroughs
differed from the
countryside legally and
administratively. There
was already burgage
tenure, which meant that
townsmen held their
property in return for
money rents and enjoyed
freedom to alienate it.
Boroughs had their own
courts (mentioned in
Anglo-Saxon law codes)
and could owe the king an
annual ‘farm’ (that is a
payment) separate from
that of the rest of the
county. Domesday
provides no surveys for
London and Winchester,
and its information is
incomplete elsewhere. One
can only offer a guess at
the total number of
townspeople in 1086 – one
already mentioned is
25,000 heads of
households, which would
make with their families
an urban population of,
say, 120,000. Around
thirty places perhaps had
populations of between
1,000 and 5,000
inhabitants, with only
York, Lincoln, Norwich,
Winchester and London
exceeding that figure.
London’s population may
have been around 25,000.
It was already divided into
wards, each under an
alderman.
Most of the small towns
were involved in local
trade, which will be
discussed in more detail
later, but trade was also
international. Around the
year 1000 merchants from
Normandy, Ponthieu,
Flanders and the
Rhineland were active in
London. Of these the
Flemings were already the
most important, shipping
England’s chief export,
wool, to Flanders for its
burgeoning cloth industry.
Tin was also exported,
while imports included
wine, cloth and spices.
Some part of the trade at
least was in English hands.
According to one legal
tract, the rights of a
merchant were enhanced if
he crossed the sea three
times (and some are
known to have reached
Pavia). In 1066 England
with its currency,
cornfields, sheep and
towns was a wealthy
country; indeed it was a
wealth about which
William the Conqueror’s
chaplain, William of
Poitiers, waxed lyrical.
Hence the Norman
Conquest, and what a good
investment that proved to
be. Over the next 250
years England’s resources
increased several times
over. Just when the
expansion began is hard to
discover, but it certainly
predated the Conquest.
Norwich, it has been
estimated, covered fifty
acres in 900 and 200 in
1066. It is much easier to
describe the features of the
expansion, which
embraced much of western
Europe, than it is to detect
its underlying causes,
though these included the
opening up of new
European supplies of
silver, the absence of
plague and, more
tentatively, a slightly
warmer climate than that
prevalent before 900.
At the heart of the
expansion in England lay a
rise in population,
although this is the subject
of much debate. Domesday
Book, as we have seen,
recorded some 270,000
heads of rural households,
but what, to arrive at a
total number, should be
the multiplier for their
families – 3.5 or, as most
historians now seem to
think, between 4.5 and 5?
And how accurate are
estimates of the urban
population and how many
people have to be added in
for unnamed under-
tenants, bailiffs, monks,
priests, household
retainers and castle
garrisons, as well as for
the people of
Northumberland of which
there was no survey?
Depending on the answers
to these questions the
population can be put as
low as 1.1 million and as
high as 2.5 million. Recent
considerations of the
subject have arrived at a
population of around 2
million, a figure which
currently commands fairly
wide acceptance.
In the 200 years after
1086 the evidence for a
significant rise in the
population is abundant.
Willingham’s tenants in
1086 (including the slave)
numbered 23. A survey of
the manor in 1251 put the
number at 79, a 3.4 times
increase. At Martham in
east Norfolk there were 74
tenants in 1086, 107
around the middle of the
twelfth century and 376 in
1292, a fivefold increase.
At Taunton (here getting
away simply from tenants)
the adult male population
rose from 612 to 1,448
between the years 1209
and 1311. Expansion was
not universal, however, for
it depended very much on
local conditions, to which
we will return. Between
1086 and 1279 the
population of six villages
in the Warwickshire
hundred of Stoneleigh rose
by a factor of 3.6 and eight
new settlements appeared.
But in the adjoining
hundred of Kineton the
population hardly rose at
all. Unfortunately the
Hundred Roll survey from
which the 1279 figures
come survives (sometimes
in fragmentary form) for
only six counties, namely
Warwickshire,
Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire,
Buckinghamshire,
Cambridgeshire and
Huntingdonshire. Arriving
at overall figures for the
population increase is
therefore a highly
speculative exercise. One
approach has been to work
back from the 1,386,196
males and females over
fourteen revealed by the
poll tax of 1377. Allowing
for evasion, paupers and
children, this could, on
one estimate, convert into
a population of 2.5 to 3
million. Allowing then for
a 40–50 per cent death
rate in the plagues in and
after 1348, the population
might have been between
5 and 6 million on the eve
of the Black Death, having
already, in one view, been
reduced from its 1300
peak by the terrible
famines of 1315 to 1317.
 There is, however,
clearly much that is
speculative about a
proposed 5 to 6 million
population for 1300, and
in recent years some
historians have suggested
a markedly lower total. B.
M. S. Campbell, in
particular, while accepting
a figure of around 2
million for 1086, has
argued that England in
1300 could not have
supported a population
much in excess of 4 to
4.25 million. Yet while this
view is based on a detailed
consideration of land use
and yields both in 1300
and 1086, it is admittedly
provisional and subject to
revision. The evidence
from individual properties,
when viewed as a whole,
may well point to a rather
higher rate of increase
between 1086 and 1300
than that envisaged by
Campbell. A population
level in 1300 of 5 or even
5.5 million retains
powerful advocates. In the
current state of research,
all we can say is that the
population at the very
least roughly doubled
between 1086 and 1300,
rising from around 2 to 4
million plus. A higher rate
of increase and a larger
total in 1300 is by no
means out of the question.
Whatever the precise
rate of growth, the rising
population was the engine
driving forward the
economy in these
centuries. Food was not
imported in any significant
quantities; fundamentally
England had to feed itself.
Hence the stimulus to
production. More peasants
necessitated greater
peasant production, both
for food and rent. More
peasant mouths to feed
also encouraged lords to
increase their own
production, for – and this
is a crucial fact – a large
and growing proportion of
the peasantry were
certainly not self-
sufficient. They, like the
increasing numbers of
townspeople, needed to
buy food, a rising demand
from which lords, seeking
more opulent lifestyles,
could profit by increasing
their own production and
thus their marketable
surpluses.
Food, but of what type?
The countess of Leicester’s
accounts in 1265 show her
household consuming
bread (always a staple),
fish (300 herrings from
stores one Friday), meat
(oxen, pigs, sheep, kids,
calves and hens), and
dairy products (cheese,
milk, and hundreds of eggs
a day), all washed down
with ale and wine. Lower
down the social scale,
wine disappears and the
supply of meat diminishes.
An elite peasant
yardlander at Bishop’s
Cleeve in Worcestershire,
where peasant budgets
have been reconstructed
by Christopher Dyer, had
perhaps a pig for bacon, a
couple of cows for cheese,
around thirty sheep
(primarily for the sale of
their wool) and draught
oxen. But the far more
numerous cottagers
probably had no more
than a solitary cow.
Indeed, nearly 50 per cent
of the tenants on some
bishopric of Winchester
manors in the thirteenth
century possessed no
animals at all.
Fundamentally (although
this would not be the case
in largely pastoral areas)
the great bulk of the
peasantry lived off bread
and pottage, a kind of
porridge made from oats
and pulses; bread was by
far the largest component
in the diet of harvest
workers at Sedgeford in
Norfolk in 1256.
Considerable efforts were
certainly made in this
period to improve animal
husbandry. At Rimpton in
Somerset, new farm
buildings, better feeding
and a professional bailiff
improved the fertility and
survival rates of the lord’s
cattle and pigs, and
maintained those of sheep
at an impressive level. But
all the evidence suggests
that the primary need was
for corn production; that
was where life and profit
lay. Indeed, in calorific
terms (according to one
calculation) corn
accounted for 93 per cent
of agricultural output.
Throughout this period,
therefore, gargantuan
efforts were made by both
lords and peasants (it is
often difficult to
distinguish between their
efforts) to bring new land
under the plough. North of
Trent in 1086 lay a great
deal of under-utilized land,
partly through Yorkshire’s
depopulation after its
ravaging by William the
Conqueror. Even in the
heavily manorialized
midlands and the south
there were swathes of
waste and woodland
between villages which
could be taken in, a ‘drive
to the margins’ which
ultimately created a sea of
arable with the fields of
one village hard up against
those of the next. Very
large inroads were also
made into the royal forest,
which around 1200
covered a third of the
country. The abbot of
Peterborough, his knights
and free tenants created
450–600 acres of new
arable in the soke of
Peterborough in the first
quarter of the thirteenth
century. Twelfth-century
clearances in the soke had
already spawned the new
village of Paston and the
attendant hamlets of
Dogsthorpe and Cathwaite,
an indication (and there
are many others) that
colonization involved the
foundation of new
settlements as well as the
expansion of old ones. The
greatest enterprises,
however, involved
drainage – of the Somerset
levels, of the Essex
marshes, of Romney marsh
in Kent and above all the
East Anglian fens. In
Lincolnshire the men of
the Holland district
reclaimed over 100 square
miles from the sea and
converted it, in the words
of the Crowland
chronicler, into ‘good and
fertile arable’.
The landscape of
England was being
transformed, yet the end
result can nowhere near
have doubled, let alone
tripled, the area under
cultivation. The need to
sustain, and the desire to
profit from, the rising
population also inspired
efforts to cultivate the land
more efficiently. This is
related to the whole
question of how lords ran
their estates.
At the time of
Domesday Book many of
the new Norman knights
were probably keeping
their manors in hand and
seeking to reorganize and
expand the demesnes or
home-farms within them.
Great lords, on the other
hand, while treating some
of their property in that
way, seem more generally
to have followed a policy
of leasing out both whole
manors and parts of the
home-farm sections of the
manors they kept in hand.
In the second half of the
twelfth century, this
pattern began to change as
great lords increasingly
shifted out of leases. In
1176 all Peterborough
abbey’s manors were
leased; by 1210 all were in
hand. This process of
resumption began on big
ecclesiastical estates like
Peterborough’s and was
probably inspired by
worries over the
permanent loss of property
through leases becoming
hereditary. It was also
believed that in-hand
manors could yield much
more profit than those let
out on ancient leases. One
of Bury St Edmunds’
manors, Tilney in the
Norfolk fenland, had
formerly been leased at £4
a year. By resuming it in
the 1180s Abbot Samson
increased the revenue to
an annual £20 to £25.
Probably here and
elsewhere the property
had gained in value as it
gained in population.
Meanwhile, another factor
came into play in the early
thirteenth century which
encouraged lords both to
take manors in hand and
expand their home-farms.
This was an economic
event of overarching
importance, one which
was also central to politics
and royal finance, namely
the great inflation.
Although evidence is
limited, prices in the
twelfth century seem to
have been fairly stable.
Those of wheat, by far the
most important saleable
commodity, moved
upwards in the ten years
either side of 1180, but in
the 1190s fell back to their
old levels. Then in the four
or five years from 1200
prices rocketed. Although
this was followed by some
falling back, the old levels
were never recovered and
prices remained at at least
twice their twelfth-century
level, ultimately, in the
last quarter of the
thirteenth century,
averaging between three
and four times as much.
Prices of other items, like
oxen, followed comparable
trends. The reasons for the
inflation, which was an
English, not a continental
phenomenon, have been
much debated. One
hypothesis has explained it
in terms of a flow of silver
into the country to pay for
English wool, but it is
difficult to see how this
could account for a sudden
rise in prices around 1200.
Another suggestion is that
in the early 1200s
numerous hoarders of coin
suddenly decided to spend
their money and save less
than before, the inflation
again being monetary but
the money coming from a
different source. The
hoarders acted in this way,
it is said, because they had
lost confidence in a
currency much debased by
clipping and general wear
since the last major
recoinage in 1180 (hence
the need for King John’s
recoinage in 1205). Coin
hoarders, however, are not
the kind of people who
need to eat more bread.
They would have spent
their money on goods
other than corn, and
would that have released
such a quantity of coin as
to create a general rise in
prices? By far the most
likely cause of the
inflation, at least when it
came to the price of
wheat, the commodity
which dominated the
market, was that given at
the time by Ralph, abbot
of the Cistercian
monastery of Coggeshall in
Essex. He blamed the very
high prices in 1205, which
he contrasted with those in
the time of Henry II, on
the freezing weather
which had destroyed the
harvest. Chroniclers also
commented on the bad
weather of 1201. Almost
certainly it was a
succession of poor harvests
which drove up corn
prices, with perhaps the
release of hoarded coins
affecting those of other
commodities. The
subsequent failure to
resume earlier price levels
may well have been due to
longer-term factors,
namely the influx of silver,
which certainly fuelled a
large increase in the
money supply from the
1180s, and the demands of
a rising population
outrunning the supply of
corn.
Whatever the cause,
while inflation did not
begin the move to take
manors in hand, for that
had begun earlier, it
certainly consolidated the
trend and with it the
related move to develop
the demesne or home-
farming side of activities.
This did not mean that
rents were unimportant. In
the thirteenth century,
some lords (like the
archbishop of Canterbury)
continued to lease
individual manors. Once a
manor was in hand, lords
were keen to raise the
rents paid by free and
unfree tenants. They also
increased their income
through commuting rent
owed in labour to rent
paid in cash, in the process
often imposing heavier
burdens on the peasantry.
On some estates, lords still
received more money from
rents than from selling
corn on the market. Nor
was the market the
destination for all produce,
that coming from manors
near a lord’s principal
residence often being
consumed rather than sold.
None the less, for all these
qualifications the
thirteenth century does
stand apart as an age
where lords directly
exploited their manors and
made money by selling the
produce on the market,
thus profiting from the
high prices produced by
inflation. To have as large
a surplus as possible to
sell, the lords strove to
expand and consolidate
the home-farm portions of
their manors through
purchase and exchange, a
process well documented
in numerous charters. In
farming more efficiently
they were aided by a
growing army of
professional estate
stewards, some of whom
wrote treatises on estate
management, the most
famous being Walter of
Henley’s Husbandry, a
veritable ‘good dung
guide’.
Just how far yields per
acre were increased as a
result of this expertise and
activity is hard to know. A
comparison with those at
the time of Domesday
Book is simply
unavailable. Figures from
lordly demesnes in the
thirteenth century are
often not encouraging. On
the estates of the bishop of
Winchester yields of wheat
remained around eight to
twelve bushels per acre (a
bushel is thirty-six litres),
where on modern farms
they are in the seventies.
The yields from barley and
oats actually declined.
Perhaps the Winchester
administrators, having
greatly expanded the area
of the demesne arable and
with it the bishop’s
income, felt no pressure to
farm it more intensively.
Elsewhere in the country
attitudes were different. In
parts of fertile eastern
Norfolk yields were three
times those of the
Winchester estates, thanks
to intense use of labour
and flexible cropping
which virtually eliminated
fallow. Although in
lowland England there was
no general shift from a
two- to a three-field
rotational system, thus
reducing the amount of
land lying fallow, the
distinction between the
two systems became
blurred as portions of
fallow fields were kept in
cultivation. Whether
peasant productivity
equalled or exceeded that
of lords is impossible to
say as there are no figures.
The need to cultivate
increasingly marginal
lands and the soil
exhaustion due to lack of
manure – a lack, as at
Holland in Lincolnshire,
arising from new arable
eating into meadow and
pasture – may have
particularly affected
peasant agriculture. On the
other hand, with yields
literally a matter of life
and death peasants must
surely have farmed with
absolute commitment.
There was plenty of labour
to weed and to spread
what dung there was.
Indeed in eastern Norfolk
the ratio of labour to land
on peasant holdings was
some six times that on
demesnes.
Part and parcel of these
developments in farming
was an accentuation of
regional specialisms. There
were areas of intensive
arable production like East
Anglia; various balances
between production of
corn for the market and
for personal consumption
in the common fields of
the midlands and the
south; in the south-west, as
at Rimpton, corn
production was combined
with quite extensive sheep
rearing; and of course
sheep and other cattle
were the speciality of the
pastoral uplands, where
the Cistercian monasteries,
founded in the twelfth
century, entered the sheep
business on a large scale.
Sheep indeed were
everywhere, kept both by
prosperous peasants and
great lords. If the rising
population was the main
engine behind the
expansion, the Flemish
cloth industry’s demand
for wool provided a
powerful auxiliary motor.
England already boasted
many sheep at the time of
Domesday Book, and
thereafter their numbers
multiplied. The
contribution to cash
income varied but was
rarely insignificant: on
three great ecclesiastical
estates at the end of the
thirteenth century it
amounted to between 11
per cent and 35 per cent,
the rest coming from corn
sales, rents and various
rights of jurisdiction. By
this time England had
probably 10 million sheep.
Here too the countryside
had been transformed.
***
There is virtually no
statistical evidence from
which to compute the
populations of Wales and
Scotland. The population
of Wales around 1300 has
been hazarded at 300,000
and of Scotland at 1
million, largely by
reference to a likely 5 to 6
million in England, which
itself, as we have seen, is
open to debate. However,
there can be no doubt that
the Welsh and Scottish
populations substantially
increased. Indeed Gerald
of Wales specifically
commented on the rise in
that of Wales in the
twelfth century, the only
contemporary ever to refer
to the subject of
population increase.
In Wales, growth was
related to other changes in
the economy. These were
partly the result of the
Norman conquest of much
of the southern lowlands
from Gwent through to
Dyfed, which began soon
after 1066 (see below, p.
110). To protect their
lands the Norman lords
built castles, and to exploit
them they set up manors
very similar to those in
England, the first time, as
we have seen, such
institutions had appeared
in Wales. As a
consequence there was a
considerable increase both
in cereal production and
the number of nucleated
villages. Some of the sites
developed were probably
new, others (like Carew,
just east of Pembroke)
were very old. The
peasants on whom the
working of the new
manors depended were
both native Welsh and, in
substantial numbers,
Anglo-Saxons introduced
from England. The balance
between the two peoples
varied, something reflected
in the way personal and
field names shifted from
English to Welsh between
the east and west of
coastal Gwent. In parts of
Dyfed lived a different
people altogether because
in the early twelfth
century Henry I opened
the area up for Flemings,
who had been displaced
from their native land by
flooding and over-
population. These men
may well have been
recruited and settled by
professional agents acting
for lords, hence the way in
which some of the new
villages (Templeton is an
example) seem to have
been formally planned
with plots set in rows
beside a street.
Throughout the conquered
south there is plenty of
evidence of expansion.
Around the castle at Carew
two new settlements grew
up, Carew Newton and
Carew Cheriton. In the
wetlands of coastal Gwent,
the Norman lords seem to
have laboured to re-
colonize and rehabilitate
areas which the Romans
had once reclaimed from
the sea, rebuilding the sea
wall in the process.
There were also new
and expanding settlements
in native Wales. By the
end of the thirteenth
century Llysdulas (Dulas)
in northern Anglesey had
thrown up a series of
subsidiary farms and
hamlets. At Aberffraw,
further south, by tradition
the principal seat of the
rulers of Gwynedd, the llys
boasted an impressive
complex of buildings while
the maerdref had spawned
four outlying hamlets.
Some of the llys/maerdref
complexes in the
thirteenth century, like the
manors in the marcher
lordships in the south,
were linked to substantial
demesne farms, with the
cultivation relying on the
services of the peasant
‘bondmen’ in the maerdref.
At both Aberffraw and
nearby Rhosyr there were
over 600 acres of land in
hand, and at nearby Llan-
faes thirteen carucates
were valued at £20 10s. a
year. Tax records from the
end of the thirteenth
century show that at
Aberffraw wheat was
grown extensively, indeed
the balance between wheat
and oats was better than in
some parts of Oxfordshire.
In Scotland there was
also a substantial increase
in the arable area through
inroads into forest,
wasteland and moor,
although most of the
exiguous evidence is
confined to the south-east
between the Tweed and
the Mounth. There the
process is reflected in the
name Aithmuir (‘oat
moor’) in Perthshire.
Further north at
Arbuthnott in Mearns,
sometime before 1206, a
lord seems to have
removed peasant
pastoralists and ploughed
up their lands. Scottish
lords still derived far more
income from rents than
from demesne farming,
judging from evidence
both from the earldom of
Fife and the monasteries of
Lothian in the 1290s, but
some great abbeys did
have extensive demesnes:
at Swinton that of
Coldingham priory
extended to around 500
acres.
Despite these
developments, the wealth
of Wales and to a lesser
extent of Scotland
remained in flocks and
herds. Properties with
substantial arable were
usually attached to
pastures running back up
into the hills. Here the
wool trade brought
important developments.
Welsh wool was not of the
highest quality, but the
Cistercian abbey of Strata
Florida was already
exporting it in the early
thirteenth century.
Scottish monasteries
became involved with
sheep on the grandest
scale. In the late thirteenth
century Melrose abbey,
another Cistercian house,
could provide fifty sacks of
wool a year for Italian
merchants, which implies
a flock of over 12,000
sheep.
***
Changes to the rural
economy were inseparable
from those in the
commercial sector which
were nothing less than
revolutionary. A
developing network of
markets, fairs and towns,
together with their
associated trade and
manufacture, provided
lords with goods to buy
and centres where they
could sell their produce in
order to make the money
to do so. The ability to
procure thus stimulated
the effort to produce.
Peasants too used markets.
They sold corn to raise
money for their rents.
They also bought corn on
which to live if they were
not self-sufficient, and
other items if they were. A
peasant yardlander might
have an annual surplus of
around £2 to spend. None
of this would have been
possible without money
itself.
The only coin in Britain
for nearly all this period
was the silver penny, of
which there were twelve
in a shilling, 240 in a
pound, and 160 in a mark
(two thirds of a pound).
Shillings, marks and
pounds were simply terms
of account. There were no
coins of those values.
Large sums of money had
to be transported in barrels
full of thousands of
pennies. In England there
were recoinages involving
significant changes in
design in 1158, 1180,
1247 and 1279, with the
previous types being
demonetized. A large
number of regional mints
were involved in such
recoinages but at other
times most minting in the
thirteenth century was
concentrated at London
and Canterbury, much of it
to change coin brought in
by foreign merchants. The
money supply in this
period is necessarily a
speculative subject. Down
to 1205 it has to be
deduced from coin hoards;
thereafter, more reliably,
on mint records. The
increase in the supply was
certainly stupendous, and
was supported by an influx
of silver to pay for English
and Scottish wool.
According to the estimates
of Nicholas Mayhew, in
England in 1086 there
were £37,500, or 9 million
pennies, in circulation,
4½d. per head if the
population stood at 2
million. In 1300 the
circulation was £900,000,
or 216 million pennies,
54d. a head for a
population of 4 million,
and 36d. per head for a
population of 6 million.
There was therefore a
twenty-four-fold increase
in the money supply
between 1086 and 1300,
most of it taking place
after 1180 when there
were perhaps £100,000, or
24 million pennies, in
circulation. When
allowance is made for
inflation, which would
reduce the real value of
money in 1300 by a factor
of three or four as
compared with 1086, the
change is both less
spectacular and more
significant. Even a penny
was a valuable coin – a
day’s wages for a labourer.
Although it could be cut
into halves and quarters
(in 1279 Edward I at last
minted halfpennies and
farthings) there was no
way, throughout this
period, one could simply
go into a tavern and buy a
drink. At that level it
remained a barter (or
credit) economy. The
diminishing value of
money, however, and its
greater supply must have
monetized and
debarterized a whole range
of transactions, in the
process stimulating
production and exchange.
The increasing money
supply also enabled the
velocity of money, that is
the speed with which it
circulated, to slow down.
Money had to work less
hard. This facilitated
commerce because it
meant cash balances could
be built up and purchases
take place immediately
rather than one transaction
having to wait upon
another.
There was one other
factor which worked in the
same direction, namely the
increasing use of credit,
much of it provided by the
Jews. William the
Conqueror had brought
Jews from Rouen and
established them in
London, the first known
settlement in England. By
1159 there were
communities in at least
nine other towns. The
Jews probably acted, as
they had in Rouen, both as
moneylenders and dealers
in coin, plate and bullion,
doing good business
changing into English
money the silver that
flowed into the country to
pay for the export of wool.
Under Henry II (1154–89)
the Jews began to
concentrate primarily on
moneylending, and
became England’s main
source of credit. The
opportunity had been
created both by Henry II
reducing the number of
mints and moneyers, thus
removing one traditional
source of credit, and by
the disappearance of the
great Christian financiers
(like William Cade) from
whom Henry and many
others borrowed money
early in his reign. Perhaps
such men were
discouraged by the
increasing hostility of the
church to open usury and
the king’s threat that its
practitioners, on death,
would forfeit their
property to the crown, as
apparently Cade did. The
Jews were ideally placed
to fill the gap. As tightly-
knit communities with
connections throughout
England and the continent,
they easily formed
business partnerships.
They also enjoyed both the
king’s protection and help
in collecting their debts.
Since in law the Jews were
regarded as crown
property, Henry II quickly
realized that he did not
have to take loans from
them; that would be like
taking loans from himself.
He could simply tax them
instead, but for there to be
anything to tax he and his
successors naturally
ensured that money
borrowed from the Jews
was indeed repaid.
The total number of
Jews remained small,
probably fewer than 5,000,
but by 1190 there were
significant communities in
seventeen towns, and
smaller settlements in
many others. The majority
of loans were of small
amounts advanced to
townsmen and free tenants
of minor importance in the
immediate vicinity of the
towns. But most of the
money (for the individual
amounts were much
larger) was loaned to great
lay and ecclesiastical lords.
Cade, who died around
1166, had lent at least
£5,000 to clients,
including some of the most
important men of the
realm. The greatest of his
Jewish successors, Aaron
of Lincoln (and most
Jewish wealth was in the
hands of a few plutocrats),
was owed on his death in
1186 some £18,466, a sum
not far short of the annual
revenue of the crown.
Religion and usury made
the Jews deeply
unpopular, but until their
wealth was destroyed in
the second half of the
thirteenth century they
were a vital lubricant to
the economy and adjunct
to the money supply.
Intimately related to the
expansion of that supply
was an entirely new
infrastructure of markets,
fairs and boroughs. Within
that structure, speed and
range of contact for both
lord and peasant were
increased by the greater
use of horse as opposed to
ox haulage, arguably a
revolution in transport.
Markets and fairs were
usually established and
run by lords with the aim
of profiting from tolls paid
by traders. Markets were
held weekly on a specified
day. Most had a largely
local function, being a
forum for buying and
selling corn and other
wares from the
surrounding fields and
villages. Others, however,
like Henley, an entrepôt
for supplies for London,
were also involved in
inter-regional trade. Fairs,
which were held for longer
periods though usually
only once a year, also
served inter-regional
functions, particularly as
centres for trade in
livestock. At the top of the
scale in the thirteenth
century were half a dozen
great international fairs,
held at Winchester,
Northampton, Stamford, St
Ives, Boston and King’s
Lynn.
 Taking the whole period
from 900 to 1516, around
1,550 markets and 2,060
fairs are known to have
existed in England. Of
these, only 13 per cent and
3 per cent respectively can
be discerned before 1199.
In the next century a
revolution appears to have
taken place. Between 1199
and 1272 the king licensed
the establishment of some
770 markets and 920 fairs,
47 per cent of the total
number. Up to a point
these figures are
misleading. Some of the
new institutions had an
earlier existence, the
licence being simply a
precaution now that the
king was insisting on his
right to sanction new
establishments. Market
and commercial growth
early in the twelfth
century is certainly
reflected in Winchester
fair, whose permitted
duration increased from
three days in 1096 to
sixteen in 1155. Yet there
is little doubt that the
majority of the markets
and fairs licensed in the
thirteenth century were
genuinely new. The
statement, common in
inquiries into episodes of
violence and sudden
death, that ‘he recovered
from his wound and went
to markets and taverns as
usual’ shows just how
much the market had
entered the fabric of
everyday life.
Some new markets
never really got going,
others grew quickly into
boroughs, or (like
Stratford-upon-Avon in
1196) were planned as
part and parcel of new
boroughs from the start.
The proliferation of towns
was indeed another
cardinal feature of the
expanding economy. M.
W. Beresford has listed
172 towns established in
the medieval period, of
which eighty-eight belong
to the years from 1154 to
1250. The initiative was
again that of the lords
(including the king), and
many new boroughs were
established beside castles
or ecclesiastical
institutions. With an
existing population to
supply, and usually on a
strategic site, they were
ideal situations for
craftsmen and traders. The
north in 1066 had been
virtually an urban desert.
By 1150 seven boroughs
had appeared, including
Newcastle upon Tyne,
Durham, Berwick and
Carlisle. The years 1150 to
1199 saw another fifteen.
Even more spectacular was
the growth of east-coast
towns on the back of the
wool trade and fishing
(Kingston upon Hull,
Boston, King’s Lynn,
Yarmouth). Yet the
expansion equally
embraced settled inland
areas. By 1348 twenty-
seven new towns had
appeared in Oxfordshire
and Gloucestershire to add
to the original Domesday
six.
As new towns were
founded, old ones grew in
size. The growth was both
extensive, so that Bristol
rebuilt its walls to take in
the new settled areas, and
intensive, so that frontages
in Winchester’s High Street
averaged as little as eight
feet in width. Estimates of
town populations are as
chancy as those of the
population as a whole and
indeed can slide up and
down in relation to them.
By 1300, at the bottom of
the scale, there were
perhaps 550 market towns
with an average
population of 750. At the
top of the scale, leaving
aside London, were around
twenty towns with
populations of over 5,000
and four more (Norwich,
Bristol, York and
Winchester) with over
10,000. This was small
beer compared with
northern Italy where there
were as many as thirty-five
towns of at least 100,000
inhabitants. Yet it was still
a great change from the
situation in 1086 when
only 111 boroughs were
mentioned in the
Domesday Book and only
four towns, not including
London, had putative
populations of over 5,000.
One calculation gives the
towns between 6 and 7.5
per cent of the total
population in 1086, and
between 10 and 15 per
cent in 1300. The urban
sector had thus grown
more quickly than the
economy as a whole.
This period was equally
important for the
consolidation of London’s
position as ‘the queen of
the whole kingdom’, to
quote the Gesta Stephani
written in the 1150s.
Situated in a low river
basin, sheltered by the
friendly surrounding hills
of Blackheath, Brockley,
Richmond and Hampstead,
location had long ago
made it England’s pre-
eminent town. Its place on
the eastern side of the
country opened it to
merchants from
continental Europe. The
great river enabled those
merchants to unload
(before seeking
refreshment at the famous
cookhouse), not at some
Channel port, but already
well inland. And the
bridge, the most seaward
over the river, meant that
from London one could
move north and south, as
well as west along the
Thames itself, which was
navigable as far as
Lechlade in
Gloucestershire. What was
new in this period was
London’s emergence as the
political and governmental
capital. The might of
kingship at the Tower
(keeping in check the
unruly Londoners), the
majesty of kingship at
Westminster (symbolized
by the Confessor’s abbey
and Rufus’s great palace
hall), meant that already
in 1170s William fitz
Stephen could describe
London as ‘the seat of the
monarchy of England’. The
move around this time of
the exchequer and treasury
from the old capital,
Winchester, to
Westminster confirmed the
change, as did the
emergence from the 1190s
of the court of common
bench, hived off from the
exchequer, which became
the central law court of the
kingdom. These factors,
together with the end of
the cross-Channel state in
1204, and the king’s
devotion to Edward the
Confessor, ensured that
Henry III spent more time
at Westminster than any
previous king.
London’s population has
been estimated at around
25,000 in 1086 and
40,000 in 1200. Thereafter
the city may have grown
more slowly than some
provincial towns,
especially those on the
east coast, which were
more favoured by wool
merchants. But with
changing trading
conditions at the end of
the thirteenth century,
London quickly recovered.
By 1334 it had five times
the assessed wealth of its
nearest rival, Bristol. Its
population around 1300
can be variously estimated
at between 60,000 and
100,000, half the size of
Paris, perhaps, but still one
of the great European
cities. London in the early
fourteenth century had
354 taverns and 140
parish and other churches.
Here indeed one could
recover from wounds and
‘go to markets and taverns
as usual’.
Growth in the size of
towns was accompanied
by important
developments in the
structure of their
government largely under
licence, that is by charter
of the king, a phenomenon
discussed later (see below,
p. 392). Town growth
naturally had an impact on
the countryside, for a start
by recruiting from its
population, a process
reflected in the famous
rule found already in the
customs of Newcastle upon
Tyne, c. 1135, that
peasants who spent a year
and a day in a borough
would thenceforth be free
to remain there. Most
towns drew the bulk of
their population from
within a twenty-mile
hinterland, but London
reached out to between
twenty and forty miles.
Towns, of course, required
food as well as people, and
this stimulated agricultural
production. The feeding of
London generated
intensive cultivation of
fruit and vegetables in the
immediate vicinity and
pulled in corn from
counties as far distant as
Oxfordshire, with Henley
and a ring of other market
towns acting as local
depots. In return,
townsmen supplied the
countryside (and also, of
course, themselves) with a
range of goods, the
dominant occupations in
most places being trade
and manufacture related to
food, drink, clothes, shoes
and metal.
Most trade and
manufacture was simply
for local needs, but some
towns gained a national
reputation for their wares.
‘Herring of Yarmouth,
plaice of Winchelsea,
merling of Rye, cod of
Grimsby’ ran one
thirteenth-century
doggerel about places and
their associations. (It also
included the prostitutes of
Charing, soon to be
Charing Cross.) Herrings in
particular, salted and with
no sell-by date (hence in
the countess of Leicester’s
stores), were widely
distributed. The doggerel
also tripped through
‘scarlet of Lincoln,
hauberge of Stamford,
blanket of Blythe, burne of
Beverley, russet of
Colchester’, enumerating
some famous cloths and
their places of
manufacture. Cloth
manufacture was an
expensive and many-
staged business which
often came under the
control of the dyers at the
end of the process. The
towns, however, faced stiff
competition from imports,
especially from Flanders,
and from work in the
countryside, of which
more later. It was in the
countryside too that
England’s extractive
industries were situated.
Here too there was
significant growth.
‘Marble of Corfe’, ‘iron
of Gloucester’, ‘tin of
Cornwall’ all featured in
the doggerel. The first,
from the Isle of Purbeck,
was just one of many
building stones quarried in
England from which (with
some imports) the great
castles and churches of the
period were built.
Gloucester’s iron (for
horseshoes, wheel rims
and so forth) came from
the ore mined and forged
in the Forest of Dean,
which accounted for a fifth
or a sixth of the country’s
total output. The number
of bloomeries throughout
the kingdom increased
perhaps fivefold between
1086 and 1300 with
production reaching 1,000
tons a year. Cornwall’s tin,
judging from a remark by
Henry of Huntingdon, was
marketed at Exeter in the
early twelfth century, as it
probably had been for
centuries. In the 1150s
fifty to sixty-five tons a
year were mined, rising to
over 600 in 1214,
although production may
then have levelled out.
England exported tin, as
it did cloth and grain. But
one export stood out above
all others: wool, largely for
the Flemish cloth industry,
though it also went
elsewhere, notably to the
Rhineland. Hard evidence
for the volume of exports
only comes after 1275
with the introduction of
customs duties, but exports
had almost certainly
multiplied several times
over in the previous 200
years. By the early
fourteenth century they
averaged some 35,000
sacks a year, each sack
being the product of
roughly 200 to 250 fleeces.
With additions for the
home market, this is the
basis for the calculation
that England had 10
million sheep. Much of the
wool was paid for in silver,
so that the dramatic
expansion of the money
supply is a rough measure
of the expansion of wool
exports. But of course
England also imported, if
largely for the wealthy:
building stone (especially
from Caen in Normandy),
fine cloths, silks, and
spices (the countess of
Leicester had cinnamon in
her sauces). Merchants of
Norway supplied Geoffrey
de Buketon with goat
skins, chests full of
miniver and fifty-seven ox-
hides. Yet just as there was
one pre-eminent export, so
there was one pre-eminent
import: wine, the
aristocracy’s principal
beverage. In the twelfth
century the great bulk of
wine drunk in England
came from Anjou and
Poitou. The loss of these
provinces in 1203 and
1224 was the making of
Gascony and the start of
England’s love affair with
claret. In the 1300s
(according to surviving
records) exports from
Bordeaux had reached
100,000 tonnes a year
(double the amount
exported in 1956) and a
quarter of this went to
England, being unloaded
at Bristol, Portsmouth and
Southampton.
A great deal of
England’s trade was in the
hands of foreign merchants
from Norway, the
Rhineland, and above all
from Flanders. In the
second half of the
thirteenth century Italian
merchants too came to
play a large part in the
business of wool exports.
But the same period also
sees the emergence of
some great English
merchants; many
prominent London citizens
were heavily engaged in
both exporting wool and
importing wine. In 1273
English merchants were
licensed to export 8,100
sacks of wool. Between
1331 and 1335 their
exports averaged annually
24,000 sacks. In 1303
Edward I summoned
together merchants from
forty-two towns. An
English merchant class was
emerging.
 ***
The commercial
revolution in Wales and
Scotland was even more
striking than in England
given that it started from a
much lower base, with no
towns and little currency.
The crucial change in
Wales took place in the
thirteenth century, hence
the extraordinary contrast
between the 10,000 cows,
forty warhorses and sixty
chasers which Llywelyn
the Great of Gwynedd
promised King John in
1211 (clearly he had little
money), and the £9,166
(or perhaps £12,500)
which his grandson
actually paid Henry III
between 1267 and 1271.
Coins were not minted by
the Welsh rulers, who
were doubtless fearful of
the king of England’s likely
response. Rather the rise in
the money supply resulted
from English coins coming
across the border,
doubtless reflecting the
sharp rise in the money
supply in England itself.
By the 1300s there were
around eighty places in
Wales with urban
characteristics. Most
prominent were the towns
founded by the Normans
in the south, in a sweep
from Chepstow round to
Pembroke. Cardiff,
Carmarthen and
Haverford, with
populations significantly
more than a thousand,
were the largest towns in
Wales. There were also
urban developments in the
native principalities;
Welshpool in southern
Powys, with its trade
across the English border,
was the largest town. In
Gwynedd there were
burgesses at Nefyn, while
Llanfaes (in Anglesey) had
a twice-yearly fair and a
port. Wales imported cloth
and salt, and in years of
bad harvest was dependent
on English corn. From
Llanfaes wool and hides
were exported to Scotland
and Ireland. There were
certainly native merchants
because the agreement
between the Welsh and
Scottish rulers in 1258
made provision for those
of both sides. Continental
merchants made their
appearance too, for both
Italians and Flemings dealt
in Welsh wool.
 For all these changes,
the commercial sector in
Wales remained small.
That was not the case in
Scotland, richer as it was,
and facing continental
Europe. Rough
calculations from coin
hoard evidence in Scotland
suggest the following
expansion of the money
supply:
 Value
Date pennie
circula

mid
£12,50
twelfth
20,800
century

1247– £50–
51 60,000
 1278– £130,0
84 £180,0

Even if the threefold

increase between 1247 and
1284 needs scaling down,
the growth in Scotland
between these dates was
still probably larger than
that in England in the
same period. Indeed,
according to one possible
calculation, in the 1280s
there were more coins in
circulation per capita north
of the border than there
were south of it. The great
majority of the coins in
question were English, but
Scottish coins made a
contribution, for King
David had minted them in
his own name from 1136
and his successors
followed his example.
Central to this remarkable
expansion were wool
exports, which reached
perhaps 20 per cent of
those of England. Italian
and Fleming merchants
established bases in
Berwick, as did fifteen
religious houses which
supplied much of the wool.
It was the Berwick mint,
significantly, which
produced by far the largest
part of Scotland’s own
coin; the next most
important for the
recoinage of 1250 were
the mints at Perth and
Edinburgh.
Perth, Edinburgh,
Berwick. Scotland had also
gained an urban
infrastructure. By 1300
there were around fifty
burghs. Of these, Berwick
and Roxburgh appear
before 1124, Edinburgh,
Dunfermline, Stirling and
Perth are mentioned
between 1124 and 1130,
while the first datable
reference to Glasgow is
with the dedication of its
cathedral in 1136.
Glasgow was very much an
ecclesiastical burgh, its
lord the bishop. St
Andrews likewise was
episcopal. The great
majority of the important
burghs, however, were
established at royal
centres: both Edinburgh
and Stirling sheltered at
the foot of ancient rock
fortresses. King David
(1124–53), with his
upbringing in England,
saw such towns as a way
of making money (they
were one of his few
sources of cash income)
and encouraged them by
conferring the kind of
privileges coveted by
boroughs in England.
Certainly that was the
practice of later kings, the
customs of Newcastle upon
Tyne being particularly
imitated. Thus the Scottish
burgesses gained freedom
of tolls, control over their
courts and responsibility
for paying their monetary
dues to the king. There
were also merchant guilds,
nineteen being known by
1300. The majority of
Scottish burghs served the
same kinds of local
functions as those in
England. Where they
gained a wider importance
it was thanks again to
location. Ayr imported
corn from Ireland.
Aberdeen (with fish
exports reaching Cologne
and Flanders) was the
centre for the whole
hinterland beyond the
Mounth. Perth, which
grew in area roughly
fourfold between the
1120s and the fourteenth
century, was on the Tay at
a point where it was
navigable, fordable and
also (by the early
thirteenth century)
bridgeable. Berwick-on-
Tweed was the port of
entry from England,
receiving herrings and
corn from King’s Lynn,
while exporting wool.
Those exports were not all
in the hands of foreign
merchants. By the 1290s
the Scots had their own
quarters in Bruges and a
stretch of canal was named
after them: ‘Schottendyc’.
***
During this period there
had, therefore, been
considerable expansion in
the English economy.
Estimates of gross
domestic product (GDP)
are, of course, extremely
hazardous but Campbell,
assuming a population
increase between 1086 and
1300 of 2 million to 4.25
million, suggests a growth
of real GDP (adjusted for
inflation) of some 130 to
150 per cent. Mayhew, on
the basis of a population
rise from 2.25 million to 6
million, puts the increase
at over fourfold. The
expansion also embraced
Wales and Scotland, as we
have seen. Indeed, square
mile for square mile, the
diocese of St Andrews in
the 1290s was almost as
wealthy as that of
Winchester. There had also
been important changes in
the form of this wealth: far
more of it was in money.
Hence in many parts of
Britain the commutation
into money of rents
previously paid in labour
and kind; hence too the
evident cash resources of
Llywelyn prince of Wales,
Alexander III of Scotland
and Edward I of England.
Without the expansion of
the money supply Edward
could never have raised
some £661,400 in lay and
clerical taxation between
1290 and 1307.
The period also saw
striking increases in the
cash resources of the great
lords. The wealth of the
Scottish church, when
assessed for taxation,
seems roughly to have
doubled over the
thirteenth century. In
England the net income of
the bishop of Ely rose as
follows:

1086
 1171–
2

1256–
7

1298–
9

The 2.7-fold increase here

between the 1170s and the
1290s would probably be a
broad average for many
ecclesiastical estates. It is
more difficult to get
figures for the laity but
groups of estates studied
by Sidney Painter yielded
a median baronial income
of £115 a year between
1160 and 1220, and £339
for the years 1260 to
1320, the respective
averages being £202 and
£668. Most of the English
earls in the mid thirteenth
century had incomes of
between £2,000 and
£3,000 a year. In Scotland
the annual income of the
earl of Fife in the 1290s
was £500 less than those
of the English earls, but
still significant.
This rise in income,
made possible by the
growing population and by
inflation, was also driven
by lords themselves, from
the king downwards. Quite
apart from the ravenous
demands of warfare, they
wanted extra money to
impress in finer clothes, to
reward followers with cash
rather than land, to live
and worship in more
splendid buildings, and to
eat and drink with more
abundance and
refinement.
Contemporaries noticed
the changes. The
chronicler Orderic Vitalis
wrote of the new
cathedrals, monastic
buildings and village
churches which were built
during the peace of Henry
I. Likewise the Life of
Gruffudd ap Cynan (d.
1137) spoke of the
prosperity of Gwynedd in
his time: people began to
live off the fruits of the
earth, and limewashed
churches glittered ‘like the
firmament of the stars’.
The result of Queen
Margaret’s labours in
Scotland (according to her
Life) was a novel variety of
dress among the Scots, and
a new splendour and
refinement at court. The
biography of William
Marshal, earl of Pembroke,
noted that in the 1160s
even a king’s son rode
with his cloak rolled up
behind his saddle. Now (in
the 1220s) a mere esquire
had a baggage animal:
‘The world was not then so
proud as it is on our days.’
On his hunting expeditions
in the 1260s and 1270s
Llywelyn as prince of
Wales had 500 followers,
200 more, it was said, than
his grandfather, Llywelyn
the Great.
Standards of living had
been rising before 1066,
but the Conquest arguably
boosted the aristocratic
demand for cash and
raised expectations of the
kind of lifestyle that cash
was to fund. To a much
greater degree than before
the attitudes of the
nobility were shaped by
the religious, military and
chivalric ethos of the
continent, a natural
development, since it was
from the continent that the
new nobility had come.
Nobles needed revenue in
cash rather than in kind
because that was the form
in which it could easily be
shipped home, but they
also wanted to spend their
money in a continental
way in England. Although
there was a precedent in
Edward the Confessor’s
Westminter Abbey,
William of Malmesbury
was surely right to think
that the Conquest spurred
on the construction of new
abbeys and cathedrals as
well as parish churches. It
also brought to England an
entirely new form of
fortified residence,
administrative centre and
status symbol: the castle.
There were over 500 of
them by 1100. While
pressed peasant labour
could throw up the early
mottes, the stone keeps
and fine timber halls
which followed needed
money and lots of it.
William of Malmesbury
again contrasted the ‘mean
and despicable houses’ of
the Anglo-Saxons with the
‘noble and splendid
mansions’ of the Normans
and the French, a contrast
well illustrated by the way
in which the Anglo-Saxon
residence at Goltho in
Lincolnshire was rebuilt on
far grander lines after
1066. It was rebuilt indeed
several times because
lords, lay and
ecclesiastical, were never
content. Churches, castles
and manor houses were
constantly refashioned.
And around lordly
residences the landscape
too was transformed by
the creation of hunting
parks for the excitement of
the chase, the pleaure of
the venison and the
prestige of the jurisdiction.
Between 1227 and 1258
the king granted no less
than 630 charters of ‘free
warren’ allowing lords to
set up such private parks.
That the nobility had
progressively more cash in
this period and embraced a
more opulent lifestyle
seems clear. Yet one must
be careful about claiming
too much. The fivefold
increase in income enjoyed
by the bishops of Ely
between 1086 and 1298–9
becomes less impressive
when adjusted for a three-
to fourfold increase in
prices in the intervening
period. For the same
reason, the £661,400
levied by Edward I in
taxation over and above
his ordinary revenues
between 1290 and 1307
was hardly worth more in
real terms than the
£214,500 raised from
taxation to pay off the
Danes between 1002 and
1018. This may not be a
fair comparison. The sums
for 1002 to 1018, even if
the figures from the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle can be
believed, were effectively
squeezed from the
kingdom by invading
armies. A better marker
might be the £24,000
which was certainly Henry
I’s revenue in 1130, but
this sum too in real terms
Edward rarely bettered on
any regular basis, even
with the heavy taxation of
the last years of his reign.
If, moreover, one takes
into account the increase
in GDP between 1100 and
1300, then Edward I was
taking a significantly
smaller share of GDP than
Henry I.
***
To understand why this
was so takes us back to the
condition of the peasantry.
Here the period after 1066
saw important changes,
the first being the end of
slavery in England and of
both slavery and the slave
trade in Wales and
Scotland. The trade was
gradually killed off by
ecclesiastical censure
during the course of the
twelfth century. Slavery
itself gave way to
changing economic
conditions, though the
process is really only
traceable in England. In
England, Domesday Book
mentioned some 28,000
slaves. If, as seems likely,
some had families they
may have accounted for
anything up to 10 per cent
of the rural population.
Slaves worked to their
lord’s orders (men were
often ploughmen and
women dairymaids), and
could be punished by
death or mutilation. Some
lived in the manor house
complex, others (probably
the great majority) in the
village. A hundred years
later, when the king’s
lawyers were defining
status, they made no
mention of slaves at all.
The population was either
free or unfree, and the
latter, while restricted in
many ways, were certainly
not punishable by their
lords in life or limb as
slaves had been. ‘The
bodies and members of
serfs belong only to the
king,’ declared the king’s
judges in 1244. Apart from
that difference, some lords
in the thirteenth century
(as at Cuxham in
Oxfordshire) maintained
labourers, living in the
manor house complex,
whose position seems
comparable to that of
earlier slaves. But these
were but the remnants of a
much larger group whose
numbers had been in
decline long before the
snapshot in Domesday
Book. This was why
twelfth-century lawyers
could ignore and in effect
abolish the category. The
decline was not primarily
because of the teaching of
the church. The church
certainly forbade the
trade, and regarded the
manumission of slaves as
an act of piety, but it
accepted the continuance
of the institution: there
were slaves on its own
estates. Rather the reason
for the decline was
economic. Slaves were
more trouble than they
were worth, largely
because, with no land of
their own, the lord had to
support them. In the
relatively stable economic
conditions in the tenth
century, and then again
after Cnut’s conquest, lords
probably deemed it easier
and more profitable to
grant land to slaves in
return for labour services
and rents, integrating
them, therefore, into the
rest of the peasantry,
something which also
happened in Wales and
Scotland. The Normans,
keen on money rent
because they were
absentees and with land in
abundance on which to
settle slaves, probably took
this view even more
strongly.
The disappearance of
slavery meant that a larger
proportion of the rural
population had land, and
no one was at his lord’s
mercy in matters of life or
limb. Other changes,
however, were less
favourable. Domesday
Book shows that between
1066 and 1087 many
counties saw a sharp fall in
the number of sokemen
and free peasants.
Probably they had been
turned into villeins, an
alteration which meant a
loss of status, for they
were now obliged for the
first time to perform
significant labour services.
The change may well have
been brought about as new
Norman lords reorganized
their manors, creating
home-farms worked by
peasant labour.
 A century after the
Conquest another
reduction in the status of
the peasantry was being
introduced. The king’s
lawyers, with far more
precision than ever before,
began to define exactly
who was unfree. As a
result, by 1200 a sharp
line had been drawn
dividing the free and the
unfree in England. ‘The
villeins’, to use what was
now the technical term for
the unfree, were all those
who held land in return
for labour services. The
consequences of
unfreedom were likewise
codified for the first time.
A lord could sell his
villeins with their land
‘like oxen and cows’, and
exact ‘merchet’ from them,
a payment for a daughter’s
marriage. He could also
tax his villeins and
increase their rent and
labour services at will. As
Bracton, a law book of the
1220s, put it, villeins did
not know in the evening
what they would have to
do next morning. However
unreasonable the lord’s
conduct, the villein had no
legal redress in the courts
of the king. Those courts
were closed to him for any
matter concerned with
land and the terms of its
tenure.
The occasion for the
change was almost
certainly the introduction
of new legal procedures in
the 1160s and 1170s,
which enabled plaintiffs to
bring civil actions against
their lords (see below, p.
242). By specifying that
those plaintiffs had to be
free, and by establishing
the labour service test for
unfreedom, the judges
made the procedures
unavailable to a large part
of the peasantry. The
wider social and economic
background gave such a
ruling particular
importance, for this was
the very moment when
lords were increasingly
taking their manors in
hand and embracing
demesne farming, making
the ability to control and
discipline the peasant
workforce all the more
important.
Just how far these
changes really worsened
the lot of the peasantry has
been questioned by
historians. A significant
proportion of peasants
remained free – the
sokemen who had survived
in eastern England, and
the numerous peasants on
many manors who had
always held their land by
rent. By the late thirteenth
century the unfree
represented at most 60 per
cent of the peasantry. The
distinction between free
and unfree was also
blurred, though not
removed, by the
movement to commute
labour services into
money, either permanently
or on an ad hoc basis. In
general, by the end of the
thirteenth century heavy
weekly work was probably
exacted from only a third
of the unfree peasantry. It
was still exacted at
Cuxham, but at
Willingham roughly half
that owed was sometimes
commuted. Parallel
changes were also taking
place in Scotland, and in
Wales where many
peasants in the maerdref in
which the ilys was situated
no longer provided labour
for the cultivation of the
lord’s demesne. In
England, moreover, the
peasants who were
deemed legally unfree
were hardly deprived of
benefits they or their
ancestors had once
enjoyed; few can ever have
brought legal actions
against their lords. In
practice those performing
labour services had long
been regarded as bound to
the manor and very much
their lord’s property. The
Norman kings issued writs
helping lords recover
‘fugitive’ peasants, and an
imitative procedure was
introduced by King David
in Scotland where indeed
‘fugitive’ became a generic
term for peasant. Although
the English definitions of
unfreedom were never
introduced in the rest of
Britain, the peasants in
Scotland, and in Wales
where they were aptly
named ‘bondmen’, were
certainly no better off.
It has also been argued
that in thirteenth-century
conditions there were even
some positive advantages
in being unfree. A
freeman, especially if
taking land on a new lease,
was exposed to the full
force of market conditions,
which given the shortage
of land could dictate very
high rents. Villeins, on the
other hand, whatever the
legal theory, were
sometimes protected from
radical changes in their
conditions by the force of
manorial custom, a custom
enshrined in the
procedures of the manorial
court. Walter of Henley in
his Husbandry advised that
the level of fines imposed
by the court should be
determined by a peasant’s
‘peers’, in other words not
by the lord’s will, and
records show this was
often indeed the case.
These qualifications,
however, go only so far.
There are numerous
examples of landholders
great and small (like the
queen’s uncle Peter of
Savoy or the knightly lords
of Rycote in Oxfordshire)
imposing heavier burdens
on their villeins in the
thirteenth century. Such
lords frequently justified
their actions on the
grounds that their tenants
were indeed unfree and so
had no protection against
greater burdens. Clearly
they were determined to
exploit their legal rights,
whatever manorial
custom. Many peasants,
moreover, wanted the
benefits of freedom – rents
rather than labour
services, and access to the
king’s courts; large
numbers bought their
freedom in the century,
and (alleging that they
were free or specially
privileged) initiated court
cases against their lords to
try and keep down the
level of their rents and
services. The courage and
resource displayed by
peasant communities in
pursuing such actions over
decades is one of the most
inspiring and significant
features of the thirteenth
century.
If the legal position of
many peasants
deteriorated, what of their
standard of living? This
brings us to the most
fundamental fact about the
great expansion of the
twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, indeed about
Britain itself: while the
economy expanded it did
little or nothing to
improve the living
standards of the peasantry.
The growth in GDP was
real but of course it had to
be divided among a
growing population.
Outside the noble elite, the
achievement between
1086 and 1300 was at best
to sustain more people at
the same standard of
living. For a large
proportion of the
peasantry, that level was
the lowest possible
compatible with sustaining
life. In the occasional years
of really bad harvest, life
was not sustained for there
was starvation. With these
statements probably most
historians would agree.
More controversial, as we
shall see, is the argument
that far from simply failing
to improve, the peasant lot
actually worsened as the
population began to
outrun the ability of the
land to support it.
For Wales and Scotland,
lack of evidence makes
these issues difficult to
probe in any depth. In
both there were numerous
peasants with very small
amounts of arable land. At
the end of the thirteenth
century one can see such
men both in Meirionydd
and in Berwickshire. Such
peasants might also have
flocks and herds in the
hills but not ones of any
great size if the evidence
from Gwynedd is anything
to go by. There, records
from the 1290s suggest
that the average tax-
paying farmer and his
family enjoyed but a bare
subsistence. Alongside
them were many others
too poor to pay tax at all.
In all of this there were
close parallels with the
situation in England. There
the starting-point for any
investigation of living
standards is to ask how
much land a peasant
family (of 4.5 units)
needed for bare
subsistence. Of course this
varied greatly but a
plausible estimate for a
typical open-field manor
has put the figure at
between ten and thirteen
acres, depending on
whether the rotation was
between two fields or
three. Now in E. A.
Kosminsky’s samples from
the Hundred Rolls, 26 per
cent of the free and unfree
peasantry had half-
yardland holdings and thus
achieved this minimum.
Another 24 per cent had
holdings of a whole
yardland, that is between
twenty-four and thirty
acres, and apparently lived
well above subsistence
levels, at least if they had
only one family to support.
Sometimes peasants,
exploiting village land
markets, were able to
build up more substantial
holdings. A few indeed,
like the Knivetons of
Derbyshire, ultimately
ascended into the knightly
class. Yet if one half of the
peasantry were in
reasonable circumstances,
Kosminsky’s figures reveal
that the other half, some
46 per cent, were
smallholders, usually
holding well under ten
acres of land. Surveys of
manors from beyond the
Hundred Roll area reveal a
similar pattern. Outside
the intensively cultivated
areas of East Anglia such
people cannot have
supported themselves from
their arable land. Their
prospects seem grim.
Of course, they cannot
have been fatally grim
because then such people
could not have survived,
as manifestly they did.
Clearly they had other
sources of income apart
from their arable land,
though these sources
differed according to
region. At Willingham, for
example, the numerous
smallholders revealed in
the survey of 1251 could
place pigs, cattle and
above all sheep in the
three great common
meadows created by
reclamation from the fens.
Likewise the forest of
Arden could be exploited
by the rising population of
Stoneleigh hundred, as
could Windsor forest by
the many smallholders at
Pyrton in Surrey. There
was also in varying
degrees the possibility of
rural employment. It is
noticeable how many of a
small group of villein
litigants at Beachampton
(Bucks.) in 1286 had
occupational surnames:
Smith, Ironmonger, Carter,
Marshal. One indeed had
become a university
professor, Master Henry of
Beachampton. Most
villages had brewers (who
were often women), and
there was employment at
mills. Important too was
the wide spread of the
rural cloth industry. The
initial preparation process,
the washing, combing and
spinning, was very labour
intensive, accounting
perhaps for between 45
and 70 per cent of total
manufacturing costs. Here
the countryside, with an
abundance of cheap labour
and streams suitable for
driving fulling mills, had
obvious advantages. In
order to survive many
smallholders must also
have been wage labourers,
perhaps needing
(according to a calculation
from Bishop’s Cleeve) 130
days’ work a year at 1½d.
a day to achieve
sufficiency. There certainly
was work available. Even
at Cuxham where the lord
(Merton College, Oxford,
by the second half of the
thirteenth century) exacted
labour services in full and
where there was a
permanent staff of
demesne labourers, around
1,000 days of paid work
were still required –
enough to give 130 days’
pay for seven of the
thirteen smallholders in
the village. Where labour
services were commuted,
lords would have required
more labour. Peasants
holding substantial
holdings of thirty acres
and upwards might also be
employers.
The exploitation of
woodland and meadow,
and income derived from
crafts and labour, were all
ways in which
smallholders might obtain
sufficiency, but it must
often have been sufficiency
of the barest kind. The
most deprived peasants
were probably those in the
open-field manors in the
midlands and the south,
where the villages were
like islands in seas of
arable and there was little
meadow and forest left to
be exploited. Here and
elsewhere employment in
village crafts cannot have
helped more than a
minority. The problem
with relying on wages
came in years of bad
harvest. If a labourer was
paid in kind, as some
were, then he was
protected. But the many
paid in cash, who needed
it to buy corn or bread,
were in a dangerous
situation; there was no
way their wages would
respond to a sudden surge
in prices consequent on
harvest failure, and indeed
wages (with labour
abundant) had not kept
pace with the general path
of inflation. The only
recourse was to find more
work, and that may have
been impossible.
In years of bad harvest,
therefore, there was
famine. The failure of the
harvest of 1257 meant that
by the early summer of
1258 the price of wheat
was two and a half times
what it had been in 1254–
5. In the manor of North
Waltham the bishop of
Winchester gave relief to
sixty ‘poor tenants’, 27 per
cent of the smallholders
with fewer than ten acres
of land. The prevalence
and utility of this kind of
succour is hard to judge,
as is the extent to which
suffering within a village
was alleviated by family or
communal action (see
below, p. 414). It is clear,
however, that such
remedies were often
inadequate. In 1258 so
many people wandering
about searching for food
died from starvation that
the government relaxed
the rules about the
identification of bodies.
Matthew Paris described
the situation:
Such great famine and
mortality prevailed in the
country, that a measure of
wheat rose to fifteen shillings
and more… The dead lay
about, swollen and rotting, on
dunghills, and in the dirt of the
streets, and there was scarcely
any one to bury them; nor did
the people dare or wish to
receive the dead into their
houses for fear of contagion.

The year 1258 was far

from unique. On several
occasions in the 1270s the
price of wheat approached
or exceeded the 1258
figure. In years of bad
harvest and high prices
smallholders were often
forced to raise money by
selling land, thereby
undermining their position
further. A great deal of
thirteenth-century crime
(and there was a widely
held belief that it was
increasing) was committed
by ‘unknown’ vagabonds
and malefactors, men quite
probably forced out of
village communities by
these conditions. The
chattels of identified
criminals were nearly
always pathetically small;
many had no chattels at
all. Life expectancy was
short. For the peasants of
the bishop of Winchester
there was a crude annual
death rate in the thirteenth
century of seventy to
seventy-five per thousand,
as opposed to twelve per
thousand in post-war
England and Wales. In the
second half of the
thirteenth century, even
the more substantial
tenants amongst the
Winchester peasantry had
a life expectancy of only
twenty-four years on
reaching the age of
twenty. For the
smallholders it was
probably far shorter.
The situation in the
thirteenth century could
be bad; was it getting
worse? That certainly has
been argued by historians,
partly at least on the basis
that a population which
grew from 2 million to 5
or 6 million between 1086
and 1300 must have been
outrunning the ability of
the land to support it,
especially if peasant
productivity was affected
by soil exhaustion.
Campbell, by contrast,
arguing for a population
increase of only 2–2.25
million to 4–4.25 million,
shows how much the same
standard of living could
have been sustained
through the creation of
new arable land and some
small rise in productivity.
Even if, however, the
sustainable ceiling was
indeed around 4.25
million, there is nothing in
Campbell’s model which
precludes the population
having been pressed up
hard against it, leaving a
growing proportion of the
peasantry living at bare
subsistence levels and
falling into danger in years
of bad harvest.
There is indeed some
evidence of this
happening, most notably
in the proliferation of
smallholdings in areas
where sources of income
outside the arable had
long been restricted. At
Cuxham in Oxfordshire the
process of wood clearance
was complete by 1086.
Meadow and pasture were
very limited. None the less
the tenant population rose
from eleven to twenty-one
between 1086 and 1279.
But whereas the number of
smallholders tripled from
four to thirteen, those with
half-yardland holdings
increased by only one.
Although some of the
smallholders were
subsequently given half-
yardland holdings, these
were on poorish land,
much of it today rough
grazing. Of course the
smallholders were also
wage labourers, but it is
hard to avoid the
conclusion that the
villagers as a whole were
worse off in 1279 than
they had been in 1086.
The same expansion in the
number of smallholders
can be seen on numerous
other properties. In
general they made up 33
per cent of the peasant
population in Domesday
Book and 46 per cent in
Kosminsky’s sample from
the Hundred Rolls. Indeed
the 1279 survey may make
things look better than
they were, since many
half- and whole-yardland
holdings probably
supported extended family
groups, formal divisions
being prevented by the
lord’s desire to preserve
the integrity of holdings.
Where division was
possible there is sometimes
striking evidence for the
proliferation of
smallholdings: at Martham
in Norfolk 1,066 acres
were held by 107 tenants
in the mid twelfth century
and by 376 in 1292.
The growth in the
population between the
eleventh and thirteenth
centuries was in large part
a growth in the ranks of
peasant smallholders, the
latter therefore forming, as
we have seen, a larger
proportion of the
population in 1300 than
they had in 1086.
Although alternative
sources of income
increased, they are
unlikely to have offset the
deterioration in living
standards this implies.
Lords still profited from
the rents of the new
smallholders. The king,
save as a landholder
himself, hardly profited at
all. Roughly 60 per cent of
the peasant population in
the late thirteenth century
were deemed too poor to
pay taxation. That
remarkable and chilling
fact more than anything
else puts the great
expansion of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries
into perspective. It is
certainly the reason why
the GDP could increase
without commensurate
benefit to the crown.
 ***
The economic
transformation in these
years was none the less
very real and had been
dependent upon
developments on the
continent, notably the
growth of the Flemish
cloth industry which fed
on British wool and paid
for much of it in silver,
hence the explosion of the
money supply. More
generally, the rise in the
population, the clearance
of land, the growth of
towns and the
proliferation of coinage
were all phenomena
common to much of
Europe. They were related
to that process of
expansion and
homogenization which is
the theme of Robert
Bartlett’s book The Making
of Europe – the expansion,
that is, of a Franco-Latin
Christian core, exporting
as it went much the same
military, social and
ecclesiastical institutions.
It was from France, as we
mentioned in the last
chapter (and will show
more fully in the next),
that castles and cavalry
came to Britain through
the agency of the
Normans. Likewise it was
from France and Italy that
Britain received in the
twelfth and thirteenth
centuries both new
religious orders and the
structures of papal
government of the church.
These too helped to
homogenize England,
Wales and Scotland, and
incorporate them into
Europe.
One scene encapsulates
something of this
incorporation. It is 1188 in
a remote valley in the
uplands of central Wales.
Gathered there are the
Lord Rhys, ruler of
Deheubarth, and his sons.
They are dressed in the
Welsh manner, indeed one
son has his legs and feet
left bare. Yet the scene is
also very European. The
group is close to the abbey
of Strata Florida, whose
monks by 1212 were
exporting their wool
overseas from English
ports. The abbey itself is
part of the great
international Cistercian
order in which every
house has the same
constitution and is subject
to central control.
Although founded by a
lord of Norman descent,
Robert fitz Stephen, Strata
Florida has been embraced
whole-heartedly by the
Lord Rhys, and will
become the mausoleum for
many of his family. It is a
substantial church, 200
feet long, and soon will
have a remarkable round-
arched, roll moulded
western doorway, flanked
by an elegant lancet
window. Rhys and his
party are being addressed
by a group of high-
powered ecclesiastics. One
is Gerald of Wales, partly
of native descent, yet
shaped very much by his
studies in Paris and his
work in the Anglo-Norman
world. Another, the leader,
is the archbishop of
Canterbury. He is the
envoy of the pope and his
mission, following the fall
of Jerusalem in 1187, is to
preach the crusade.
Within a few years of
this peaceful scene, Rhys
was attacking the Anglo-
Norman lordships in south
Wales. In 1212, a few
months after licensing its
exports, King John ordered
Strata Florida to be
destroyed for helping his
Welsh enemies. Such
conflict had its roots in the
way the Normans had
conquered important areas
of Wales in the years after
1066. In many parts of
Europe as the Franco-Latin
centre expanded so it
created tensions, both
because of the very
different cultures into
which it cut, and because
the cutting edge was so
often violent. The
response, in varying
degrees, was resistance,
submission and
conformity. It was a
response which differed
across Britain, in part
because the Normans came
to Wales as conquerors
and to Scotland by
invitation of the king. In
England itself they did not
meet a culture ‘inferior’ to
their own, save in one
crucial area, that of
military technology.
Thanks to their military
might the Normans would
soon change the face of
Britain.
3

The Norman
Conquest of
England,
1066–87
Edward the Confessor, last
king of the ancient Wessex
line, died on 5 January
1066. Next day he was
buried in the new abbey
he had built at
Westminster and Harold
was crowned in his stead,
scenes graphically
depicted on the Bayeux
Tapestry. Earl over
Wessex, brother-in-law to
the Confessor, Harold had
dominated England since
the death of his father,
Earl Godwin, in 1053. The
Confessor had no children
and had in his last feeble
days designated Harold as
his successor. The great
men gathered at
Westminster sanctioned
the choice and both
archbishops probably
officiated at the
coronation. Tall, strong,
clever and courageous,
Harold had long planned
this take-over. He was
mighty in arms: in 1063 in
a campaign by land and
sea he had crushed
Gruffudd ap Llywelyn,
‘king over all the Welsh’,
and laid his head before
the Confessor. He was also
a clever politician: in 1065
he had condoned, if not
encouraged, the northern
rebellion against his
brother Tostig, earl in
Northumbria since 1055,
and had thereby removed
a rival, conciliated the
north and made alliance
with the only family
whose wealth remotely
approached his own, that
of Edwin, earl in Mercia,
and his brother Morcar,
who succeeded Tostig as
earl in the north.
 Having gained the
throne, Harold could be
both optimistic and
anxious. He had succeeded
to a state of great power,
or at least of potential
power. Yet his title to the
throne was open to
challenge, notably from
Duke William of
Normandy, and Harold
himself had seen at first
hand the cavalry and the
castles which made the
Norman military machine
superior to the Anglo-
Saxon.
During the tenth
century, the Confessor’s
forebears had moved out
from their Wessex base
and brought under their
rule the areas in East
Anglia, the midlands and
the north seized and
settled by the Danes after
865, for the first time
unifying England under a
single king. The
subsequent Danish
conquest under King Cnut
(1016–35) had shaken up
the English aristocracy,
bringing new families to
the fore (like the
Godwins), but had not
replaced it with
Scandinavians. On the
death of Cnut’s son
Harthacanut in 1042,
leaving no direct heirs, the
old Wessex dynasty had
been peacefully restored
with Edward the Confessor
returning from exile in
Normandy. The Anglo-
Saxon state had three
pillars: a pervasive sense
of Englishness which held
king and people together,
something already
discussed (above, p. 3); a
kingship high in status and
strong in administrative
structures; and a church,
gentry and nobility
integrated within the
king’s government of the
realm.
The ideal of the king as
a great warrior was a
constant throughout the
medieval period. Even the
Venerable Bede wrote with
admiration of how King
Aethelrith of Northumbria,
‘ambitious for glory’, had
conquered more territories
from the Britons than any
other ruler. Yet Anglo-
Saxon kingship also
glittered as Christian and
civilian. The ordo for the
973 coronation of Edgar,
shot through with
Carolingian influences,
formed the basis for all
later ceremonies. The king
was crowned and anointed
with holy oil just as the
prophet Samuel had
anointed King Saul and
King David. He was thus
chosen by God, imbued
with the blessings of the
Holy Spirit, and elevated
above all his subjects.
Hence it was crowned and
enthroned that the
Confessor was depicted on
his seal. The oath the king
took at his coronation
stressed his duty to
maintain peace and
dispense justice. In the late
Anglo-Saxon period he was
taking increasing steps to
do so. In the past the king
had not so much punished
crime as regulated the
compensation payments its
victims or their families
were to receive from the
perpetrators, the role of
the courts being to oversee
such settlements. Now,
alongside this system, the
king started to isolate a
group of major crimes,
namely homicide, robbery,
serious theft, rape, arson
and treason, which he, and
only he, had the right and
duty to try and punish, the
punishment often being
death by hanging. Such
offences constituted
breaches of the king’s
‘peace’, which by 1066
probably extended
throughout the country.
This itself was related to
the oath of loyalty to the
king taken by all adult
males, which included a
pledge not to be thieves or
receivers of thieves.
Peasants probably swore
this oath when they
entered the tithings (as
they were later called), the
associations of ten adult
males whose members
stood surety for each
other’s good behaviour. In
later practice (and quite
probably before 1066) the
tithing’s failure to arrest a
delinquent member
resulted in an amercement,
a monetary penalty
imposed by the king for an
offence.
The old English kings
had also developed an
administrative structure
which enabled them to run
this peacekeeping system
and also to exact their
revenues, always the twin
purposes of local
government. They thought
of England as a series of
counties, making their
announcements to the
officials and men of
Northamptonshire,
Oxfordshire, and so on.
The counties were the
essential building blocks of
the kingdom, and indeed
survived unchanged in
shape until 1974. By the
year 1000 there were
thirty-two of them. Some,
like Kent and Essex, were
ancient kingdoms, others
in the midlands were
probably created by the
Wessex kings as they
expanded their rule in the
tenth century. Each county
was subdivided into
hundreds, of which there
were over 600 in the
thirteenth century. Both
counties and hundreds had
courts, the former
meeting, at least according
to legislation, twice a year,
the latter once every four
weeks. These courts were
central to maintaining the
peace and settling civil
disputes over property. If
they were very much
‘popular’ courts run by the
leaders of local society
doubtless in very different
ways, they were also
presided over, as we shall
see, by royally appointed
officials.
The king’s revenues
came in part from his
lands, which were
scattered through most of
the country, the proceeds
in cash or kind being
worth some £6,000 per
annum in 1066, according
to the figures in Domesday
Book. These sums were
either paid into the
treasury at Winchester or
given to the king directly
(and if in kind, consumed)
when he was in residence
in the locality. More
remarkable was England’s
land tax, a tax with
Carolingian parallels but
now unique in Europe. It
depended on a territorial
division called the hide or
carucate, which varied
considerably in size but
was often around 120
acres. Each hide had to
contribute so many
shillings to the tax (the
rate could be varied), with
the king expecting a lump
sum from each hundred
depending on the number
of hides within it. If the
figures from the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle can be
believed (a debated point),
early in the eleventh
century the geld, as this
tax was called, had raised
vast sums to pay off the
Danes, the £72,000 taken
by King Cnut in 1018
being the largest. Equally
impressive is the
possibility that regular
annual gelds between
1012 and 1051 raised up
to £14,000 a year to
support the king’s fleet and
army. Underpinning this
taxation and the economy
more generally was the
superb coinage, universal,
exclusive, of high quality,
and controlled centrally by
the king (see above, p. 30).
To run this system the
king appointed local
officials of whom the most
important were the sheriff
and the earl. It was often
to them as the governors
of the shire that the king
addressed his orders and
pronouncements. The
sheriff was the official who
did the day-to-day work of
collecting the king’s
revenues and executing his
orders. If there was no earl
in the county, as often
there was not, the sheriff
was directly answerable to
the king. The number of
earls varied, as did their
powers and the counties
over which they presided.
Often an earl would head a
group of shires, and with
the sheriffs in some sense
as his deputies, command
their military forces and
preside over their courts.
Both earl and sheriff were
present in the
Herefordshire county court
during an important case
in Cnut’s time.
 There were various
ways in which kings
sought to proclaim their
will and enforce their
decisions in the localities,
thus solving the problem
of government at a
distance. The royal court
was both the centre and
the cementer of the realm.
As it travelled the country
the local nobility came in
to discuss their affairs with
ministers, king and queen,
the latter (her role is
discussed later) often
being at the heart of court
ceremonial. In fact the
royal itinerary, though
imperfectly known, was
still largely confined to the
midlands and the south.
But if the king did not visit
all his realm, he brought
the realm to him in great
assemblies or ‘witans’
where legislation was
promulgated and
important decisions taken.
The king could also send
his envoys into the
localities. Present at the
meeting of the
Herefordshire county court
referred to above was Tofi
the Proud, there ‘on the
king’s business’. As his
ultimate ‘muscle’, there
was a body of troops
attached to the royal
household and supported
by the allotment of land
and by pay. Some of these
were thegns, others of
Scandinavian origin were
described as ‘housecarls’, a
name sometimes given to
the body as a whole. Apart
from forming the nucleus
of armies, these men
watched over the king’s
interests in the shires and
if necessary put down
trouble, for example
punishing the non-
payment of taxation in
brutal fashion.
In granting favours and
issuing orders kings also
utilized written
communication. Indeed
they were doing so with
increasing efficiency,
gradually embodying
grants not in the elaborate
and wordy ‘diploma’ but in
a far more concise and
standard form document,
namely the ‘writ’ (brevis),
essentially a letter
authenticated by the king’s
seal being attached to it.
Where diplomas and writs
made concessions to
ecclesiastical institutions
they were often written by
the beneficiaries
themselves, but there is
considerable evidence that
the king relied on his own
clerks, however few in
number, to write his
orders to local officials. In
the last years of his reign
the Confessor certainly
had a chancellor, the
official who can be seen
later keeping the king’s
seal and presiding over his
writing office. The train
was already starting for its
thirteenth-century
destination where the
chancery controlled the
whole government of
England through issuing
thousands of documents a
year, all derived in form
from the sealed writ of the
Anglo-Saxons.
None of this structure of
government, of course,
was sustainable without
military force. At the heart
of the king’s armies were
the troops of the royal
household just described.
They were supplemented
through a system (set out
most fully in Domesday
Book for Berkshire) in
which every five hides of
land had to provide one
warrior for the army or
one sailor for the fleet, a
great lord thus supplying a
contingent in accordance
with the hidage of his
estate. The Old English
kings could certainly raise
armies of very substantial
size, as the ability to fight
three battles in 1066
shows. There was,
however, one key feature
about these forces. They
seem to have been
composed of foot soldiers,
not combined foot and
cavalry. At Hastings the
English fought exclusively
on foot, just as they had at
the battle of Maldon in
991. In 1051 the reason
for an English defeat in
Wales, according to the
twelfth-century chronicler
John of Worcester, was
because they had been
ordered to fight on
horseback ‘contrary to
their custom’. There was
also one other key feature
of the English military
system. England had
walled towns but, as the
chronicler Orderic Vitalis
pointed out, lacked the
kind of fortifications
‘called castles by the
French’. There is little to
suggest Orderic was wrong
in this judgement.
Excavations have revealed
only one pre-Conquest
castle in the sense of a
significantly fortified
residence. This is at Goltho
in Lincolnshire, and there
the pre-1066 earthworks
were later supplemented
by a much stronger
Norman motte-and-bailey
castle. One qualification
for being a thegn,
according to an early
eleventh-century
document, was to have an
enclosure with a gate-
house, but there is nothing
in the historical narrative
(about the crisis of 1051–2
for example) to suggest
that such residences had
much military value. The
importance of these
features of the English
military system, which
certainly set it apart from
that developing on the
continent, the events of
1066 were to show.
If there was a question
mark over English military
practices, there was none
over the way the church,
aristocracy and gentry
were part and parcel of
royal England. The church
indeed had helped to unify
England in the first place.
By 1066 there were twelve
English bishoprics,
Durham being subject to
the metropolitan authority
of the archbishopric of
York and the rest to the
authority of the
archbishopric of
Canterbury. There were
also some forty-five
monastic houses (including
eight nunneries), the
richest, like the episcopal
sees, being very wealthy. It
was clearly vital for kings
to control an institution
which held some 26 per
cent of England’s land, and
they certainly did so,
appointing the bishops and
abbots and ensuring that
church land owed military
service as part of the five-
hide system. That the
monasteries existed at all
was thanks to King Edgar
(959–75), for he had
sponsored the reforms
which saw their
foundation or re-
foundation. They prayed
daily for the king and
queen and were mostly
situated within the
monarchy’s midlands and
southern bases. The bishop
was often addressed with
the sheriff and the earl in
the king’s pronouncements
and attended the county
court, ecclesiastical pleas
(see below, p. 101) being
heard there or in the court
of the hundred.
The thegns were the
county gentry of Anglo-
Saxon England, vital for
the governing of the
shires. They gave
judgements in the county
courts; they were
addressed along with royal
officials in the king’s writs
– ‘all my thegns of
Somerset’, ‘all my thegns
of Berkshire’; and it was
they who served in royal
armies under the five-hide
system. There were
perhaps four or five
thousand thegns spread
through the counties. In
theory the minimum
qualification to achieve
the status included having
the residence with gate
and enclosure mentioned
above together with five
hides of land, the
equivalent of a medium-
sized manor. Some thegns
were specially attached to
the king, ‘king’s thegns’;
others were in the service
of great lords.
Lordship too was
central to the workings of
government and society.
The king relied on great
lords to bring contingents
to the army, give counsel
at witans, and hold office
as earls. Domesday Book
shows that there were
ninety or so lords on the
eve of the Conquest with
wealth substantially larger
than the ordinary county
thegns and above them
there were three great
families who combined
their own lands with the
tenure of earldoms,
namely the families of
Seward, of the brothers
Edwin and Morcar, and
above all of Harold
himself. There was always
a danger, of course, of
such men becoming over-
mighty, but in general
lordly power before 1066
seems to have been less
disruptive of the state than
in some areas of the
continent. This was due
both to the absence of
castles and to the limited
competence of lords in the
areas of justice and law
and order. Lords before
and after 1066 were
certainly developing
manorial courts but the
latter’s purpose was
essentially to discipline the
peasant workforce and
ensure the smooth running
of the manor. At a higher
level, although at least 100
hundreds in 1066 seem to
have been dominated by
great lords, lay and
ecclesiastical, the king
never appears to have
formally relinquished
control of their courts.
Even if he had, provided
he reserved the royal
monopoly over the serious
crimes mentioned above it
would only have meant
conceding jurisdiction over
cases of minor crime and
disorder. It was certainly
only that which was
involved in the grants the
king did make of ‘sake and
soke, toll, team and
infangenthief’, the most
important right here being
‘infangenthief’ (often later
seen attached to manorial
courts) which involved
having a gallows on which
to hang petty thieves taken
red-handed on the lord’s
property.
The structures of Anglo-
Saxon monarchy might be
strong, yet individual
kings weak, as a result of
personal inability and
political circumstance.
Weakness in a king could
also have an effect on
structure. The Confessor
reduced the number of
hides on which some
hundreds paid geld and (in
1051) abolished the highly
unpopular annual army
geld altogether. It is
difficult to think that the
Confessor was other than
dangerously threatened by
Harold’s family whose
lands in 1065 were £2,000
a year more valuable than
his own. Harold, as earl
throughout the counties of
Wessex, had been
encroaching on royal lands
and absorbing them into
those of his family. He had
also recruited numerous
sworn followers. Yet these
problems vanished with
Harold’s accession. The
over-mighty earl became
the king. In combining his
family lands with those of
the crown he was far more
powerful than his
predecessor. Apart from a
doubt over its military
structure, Harold’s
difficulties lay not with the
state he inherited but with
his political position. His
alliance with Edwin and
Morcar was fragile, despite
his marriage to their sister.
His brother Tostig in exile
plotted revenge. Nothing
could give Harold the
prestige of the ancient
House of Wessex. His own
father, Godwin, who had
made the family fortunes
through service to King
Cnut, came from a Sussex
family of merely local
importance. Harold’s
succession had depended
on brushing aside a clear
representative of the
Wessex dynasty, Edgar
Atheling, who at some
stage had perhaps received
the title ‘Atheling’,
meaning throne-worthy,
from the Confessor
himself. A great-grandson
of King Aethelred (971–
1016), and grandson of the
heroic Edmund Ironside,
Edgar was a teenager born
in exile, and kept landless
in England, doubtless
through Harold’s
influence. Another
claimant, William, duke of
Normandy, was a very
different proposition.
***
The basis of Duke
William’s claim was that
he had been made heir to
the throne by the
Confessor himself back in
1051. This was probably
true enough and was part
of the latter’s abortive
attempt to throw off the
Godwins. Edward
naturally looked to
Normandy. His mother,
Emma, was the daughter
of Duke Richard I, the
Conqueror’s great-
grandfather. Edward
himself had spent the
period of Danish rule as an
exile at the Norman court
and it was with Duke
William’s support that he
had returned in 1042 to
secure the English throne.
The Normans also alleged
that Harold had taken an
oath to accept William’s
succession. Again true
enough, though probably
the oath had been forced
from him in 1064 or 1065
as the price of release after
he had fallen into Duke
William’s hands during an
ill-fated diplomatic
mission.
The precise merits of
William’s claim, however,
were beside the point. The
first part of the Bayeux
Tapestry opens and closes
with a magnificent picture
of Edward the Confessor,
huge and imposing,
crowned and enthroned.
Against him William,
holding court as duke of
Normandy, bare-headed
like everyone else, seems
small and insignificant.
William had every
incentive to reach out for
the wealth of England and
the manna of a crown. He
certainly had the resources
to do so. In 911 the
Frankish Carolingian king,
Charles the Simple, had
granted Rouen and its
surrounding area to the
Viking leader Rollo and his
followers. This was the
origin of Normandy. In the
next century Rollo’s
descendants, frequently
using the title Duke,
established their rule
within Normandy’s historic
frontiers. Although Viking
settlement had probably
been quite extensive, the
newcomers ultimately lost
their connection with
Scandinavia and became
essentially French in
language, politics and
social structure.
For the power of the
Norman nobility the years
between c. 1025 and c.
1050 were critical. The
flaccid rule of Duke Robert
(1027–35) was followed
by the long minority of his
son William, the future
Conqueror. Only seven or
eight on his accession, he
was the fruit of an
unconsecrated union
between Robert and the
daughter of a Falaise
tanner. The great nobles,
many probably descended
from long-established
families, gained control of
both ducal lands and local
office, notably that of the
vicomte, the duke’s chief
local agent. They also
increased the number and
geographical spread of the
men who owed them
allegiance, in the process
rewarding followers with
‘benefices’ or ‘fees’ in land,
and asserting lordship over
‘allodial land’ which
families had previously
held freely from no lord at
all. The nobility likewise
seized monastic lands and
challenged what had
previously been a ducal
monopoly by themselves
founding numerous
monasteries, which
protected the souls of the
patron family and
proclaimed its status. This
was a period of violence
and instability which
spawned nobles –
ambitious, aggrieved,
unrewarded – who sought
outlets beyond the duchy’s
frontiers. Thus Normans
began to arrive as fighters
in southern Italy where
they ultimately established
their own kingdom. It was
the same dynamism which
established the Normans in
England.
 Put like this the
Normans appear as a
uniquely expansionist,
martial and chosen race,
and that is how they
appear in the marvelling
pages of one of the
greatest of all medieval
chroniclers, Orderic Vitalis
(1075–c. 1141). He was
born in England of a
French father and English
mother but became a
monk at one of those
‘noble’ monasteries in
Normandy, St-Evroult. In
fact, however, Norman
militancy and expansion
were inseparable from a
much wider aristocratic
diaspora which was
Frankish rather than
specifically Norman. The
nobles of Anjou were just
as aggressive as those in
Normandy and knights
from many parts of France
took part in the conquest
of southern Italy, as indeed
they did of England. Also
common to many parts of
Europe, it has been
suggested, were changes in
family structures which
help to explain this
aristocratic conduct. These
involved large kin groups,
which had shared property
widely on the death of one
of their members,
narrowing into lineages in
which the patrimonial land
passed intact to the eldest
son. The validity of this
hypothesis has been much
debated. The evidence is
treacherous and may, on
one view, reveal less a
general trend than a
favouring of the direct
male line in particular
situations. In Normandy,
however, the development
of lineages does seem to be
reflected in the
appearance, from the
1040s, of toponymic
surnames like Beaumont
and Montgomery, the
result, it can be argued, of
a single line retaining and
thus becoming attached to
its core properties. If land
was concentrated in fewer
hands than before it would
explain how the nobility
gained resources to build
castles, found monasteries
and extend its lordship
over men. It would also
help to explain the
pressure to expand and
conquer, for this solved
the problem of younger
sons, the custom becoming
– perhaps the result of the
conquest of England – for
acquisitions to go to them,
leaving the patrimony
intact to descend by
primogeniture.
Whether or not this was
an exceptionally violent
age throughout much of
Europe has also been
debated. On one view, the
impression that it was is
simply the result of better
documentation. There was
certainly nothing new
about the military
preoccupations of the
aristocracy. Many of the
ingredients of knighthood
can be found in the ninth
century. Yet the fact that
the Normans did indeed
concentrate on and define
their status through the
practice of arms remains of
overwhelming importance.
With the rest of the
Franks, they favoured
above all heavy cavalry,
like the contingent
pictured on the Bayeux
Tapestry charging into
Brittany to attack Dinan. A
‘knight’ might simply be a
cavalry soldier equipped
by a lord. But because the
armour and the horse
could only be afforded by
an elite, the term was also
used increasingly as an
honorific title to a rank,
with initiation ceremonies
like that depicted on the
tapestry where William
‘gives arms’ to Harold. In
one vital respect,
moreover, the nobility in
this period did gain an
entirely new means of
wielding power, ultimately
violent power. This was
the castle. The
encastellation of Europe
between the tenth and the
thirteenth centuries was
indeed ‘a development of
quite fundamental military
and political importance’
(Robert Bartlett). In
Normandy, although the
evidence is fragmentary,
the aristocratic elite seem
to have been building
castles from the 1030s.
Just how second nature it
had become to construct
such buildings is
illustrated by the castle
thrown up at Hastings as
soon as the Normans
arrived in England,
another scene depicted in
the tapestry.
The Norman nobles
were central to the
Conquest, but only
because William had
brought them under
control, reviving ducal
authority in Normandy
after its collapse during his
minority. In 1047, in
alliance with Henry I, king
of France (1031–60), he
won a great victory over
his domestic foes at the
battle of Val-ès-Dunes, and
then, in the next decade,
turned and beat off the
assaults of King Henry and
his ally Count Geoffrey of
Anjou. William maintained
a tight hold over
appointments to bishoprics
and presided over a series
of reforming councils
which enhanced the
authority of bishops within
their dioceses. He also won
the favour of the pope and
obtained a banner
signifying the latter’s
approval for the conquest
of England. To counter the
spread of aristocratic
power, he went some way
towards establishing a
tenurial hierarchy in
which nobles, lay and
ecclesiastical, did him
homage and held their
land from him in return
for military service, if
unspecified in extent.
William also prevented the
castellans from effectively
destroying the public
structures of local
government inherited from
the Carolingians by taking
over for themselves the
maintenance of law and
order. He asserted the
right to control private
castles and he built castles
of his own; the one at
Caen, between the two
great monasteries founded
by himself and his wife,
still seems to hinge the
city.
 By the 1060s the duchy
was dominated, under the
duke, by a small and
tested group of around a
dozen nobles, most from
long-established families
and as a group far more
unified than their
equivalents in England.
Where Harold had
quarrelled disastrously
with Tostig, William’s half-
brothers, Robert, count of
Mortain, and Odo, bishop
of Bayeux, were among his
leading lieutenants.
Individually the great men
of Normandy were very
different, Count Robert
stolid and reliable, Odo
voluble and boastful. It
was Odo who
commissioned the tapestry,
still at Bayeux, which tells
the story of the Conquest.
But they were all, as
William of Malmesbury
put it, ‘inured to war’. The
duke was absolutely
equipped to be their
leader. Bursting with
confidence, he could make
and take jokes, and accept
and reject advice. Above
all, he too was a warrior.
‘It was a sight at once both
delightful and terrible to
see him managing his
horse, girt with sword, his
shield gleaming, his
helmet and his lance alike
menacing,’ wrote his
chaplain, William of
Poitiers. Stout (a very
different physical type
from Harold), but always
leading from the front,
William was a brilliant and
ruthless exponent of the
lightning cavalry
expeditions, the siege
operations and the burning
and pillaging which were
the business of war. And it
was above all through
warfare, external warfare,
that William canalized the
energies of his men. Here
he was helped by events
across his frontiers, which
freed him from external
threat. In 1060 both King
Henry of France and Count
Geoffrey of Anjou died.
Anjou entered a period of
weak rule and civil war.
The new king of France
was a minor, in the
custody of Baldwin, count
of Flanders, whose
daughter William had
married, thereby securing
an important ally to the
north. In 1062 William
invaded Maine and
wrested it from the count
of Anjou. In 1064 or 1065
he led a punitive
expedition into Brittany. It
was this drive, expertise
and organization which
was now to be felt in
England.
***
With promise of great
rewards, William raised an
army, in part mercenary,
from Normandy and other
parts of France. And then
he was lucky. Hostile
winds, so William of
Poitiers states, highly
unusual in the Channel at
that time of year, kept him
from crossing while
Harold’s army guarded the
coast, and then shifted to
release him when the army
had departed to deal with
a crisis in the north. Tostig
had thrown in his lot with
the king of Norway,
Harold Hardrada, who
nourished his own claims
to the throne, and in
September they sailed up
the Ouse to York and
mauled the forces of
Edwin and Morcar at the
battle of Fulford Gate. By
this time Harold was
already hurrying north and
on 25 September he
surprised and killed both
Tostig and Hardrada at
Stamford Bridge. Two days
later, on the evening of
Wednesday, 27 September,
the Norman army
embarked at St-Valéry-sur-
Somme in Ponthieu
(whose count was
William’s vassal), and next
morning landed at
Pevensey in England.
William also made his
own luck. His military
administration had kept
his forces in being during
the long wait. Some of
Harold’s, by contrast, had
departed through lack of
supplies even before the
invasion of Hardrada.
William’s strategy once
ashore was equally clever.
He refused to be drawn
inland, away from his lines
of communication. Instead
he made Hastings his base,
built a castle there, and
ravaged the surrounding
countryside, much of it
Harold’s ancestral land.
‘Here a house is burnt’ ran
the caption on the Bayeux
Tapestry above a picture
of a pathetic woman with
child in hand fleeing as
her home is fired.
William’s tactic was to
provoke Harold into
coming to him and Harold
duly obliged. Perhaps he
felt his political position
would not brook delay;
perhaps he was over-
confident and sought to
repeat his success at
Stamford Bridge. Either
way, instead of harrying
William’s army and
blockading the Channel
with his fleet, he hastened
south to do battle without
Edwin and Morcar –
without half his army,
according to the chronicler
John of Worcester (writing
between 1124 and 1140).
That battle was joined
at nine in the morning of
14 October, six miles
north-west of Hastings.
Harold had formed up his
army on foot in a solid
shield wall occupying the
plateau, about a quarter of
a mile broad and half a
mile deep, overlooking a
little valley. William had
thus to drive his cavalry
and infantry up a steepish
hill merely to reach the
English lines. Soon a
contingent of Breton foot
in William’s army gave
way, and the rumour
spread that Duke William
was dead. This was the
climax of the battle and
William was its equal. The
tapestry shows him raising
his helmet to reveal his
face, a necessarily static
picture whereas the actual
event was fast-moving,
William galloping down
his lines to inspire his
men. Throughout the
battle he had far more
command and control than
Harold who, wedged in his
shield wall, was invisible
within a few feet of his
standard. There is here a
wider point. The English,
as we have seen, had no
cavalry. It was a fatal
deficiency. Once the
Bretons had given way and
panic had spread through
the Norman ranks, the
moment had come for a
cavalry charge down the
hill to sweep all before it;
as it was, the English
charged on foot and were
cut off by Norman cavalry.
So little indeed did the
Normans fear such foot
charges that they twice
feigned retreat in order to
repeat the cutting-off
tactic. So Hastings became
a killing match and the
Normans had more
effective means of killing:
horsemen, and also
archers. The lack of
English archers is one of
the puzzles of the battle.
Only one English bowman
is shown on the tapestry,
the consequence perhaps
of the haste with which
the army had been
assembled. By contrast the
shields and bodies of the
English bristle with
Norman arrows. As the
day wore on, and the
English numbers dwindled,
the Norman cavalry
established themselves on
the plateau and broke into
the shield wall. They killed
Harold’s brothers Gyrth
and Leofwine, then
Harold’s immediate
bodyguard, and then at
last, as the shadows of the
autumn evening
lengthened, they cornered
Harold himself, already
wounded by an arrow in
the head, and struck him
down.
Only part of the English
forces had been engaged at
Hastings, and in London
Archbishops Stigand and
Ealdred, Earls Edwin and
Morcar and the townsmen
rejected William’s
demands for submission
and nominated Edgar
Atheling, who was with
them, as king. Early in
December, William began
a long circular march
round the city burning and
pillaging as he went. Edgar
was as powerless to resist
him as he had been earlier
to resist Harold. When
William reached
Wallingford, Stigand came
to him and swore
allegiance; he was
followed at Berk-
hampstead by Archbishop
Ealdred, Bishop Wulfstan
of Worcester, and Edgar
himself, as well as by
Edwin and Morcar, with
citizens of London and
many others. On Christmas
Day, 1066 William was
crowned king in
Westminster Abbey.
William’s triumph was
due to more than luck and
superior tactics. It also
reflected significant
differences between the
Norman and English
polities, as we have seen.
In England the Normans
certainly did not meet a
state inferior to their own.
Quite the reverse. The
duke’s role in the
maintenance of law and
order in the duchy, though
significant, was less
pervasive than that of the
king in England. The duke
had no chancellor, no
writs, no seal, and no geld
tax. He minted a greatly
inferior coinage. Yet
William conquered, as
Cnut had done earlier in
the century. The state
which the English created
but could not defend: there
is some truth in that
aphorism. In terms of
armour, martial values and
military effectiveness there
was little, in some ways, to
choose between the
English and the Normans,
which was why Hastings
was such a long battle. The
five-hide system, on paper
at least, was a more clearly
defined and established
method of raising armies
than any in place in
Normandy. Where the
Normans had the edge was
not in the way the armies
were recruited, but in
what they produced. In a
conflict like Hastings the
simple truth was that a
force which could fight on
horse as well as foot was
superior to one which
could only do the latter.
Given the amount of
training mounted warfare
takes, English society was,
in that respect, less
militarized than Norman.
On both sides of his seal as
king of England, the
Confessor showed himself
enthroned. William, on the
seal he made once he
became king, was
enthroned on one side but
on the other appeared as a
mounted knight. Nothing
sums up better this vital
contrast between the
Norman and the English
polities.
There was another
significant difference, as
we have seen. Orderic
Vitalis did not merely
mention the absence of
English castles. He also
affirmed that this was why
‘the English, in spite of
their courage and love of
fighting, could only put up
a weak defence against
their enemies’.
Fundamentally, when it
came to defences the
English had fallen between
two stools. The defences of
royal and magnate
residences were too small
to allow any effective
resistance to the Normans.
Those of the towns were
too large to do so.
According to a document
of the early tenth century
(‘The Burghal Hidage’),
27,000 men were needed
just to defend the
boroughs of Wessex,
numbers impossibly large
in a time of dislocation
like 1066 when so many
men were already called
up in the armies. And
there was here a double
bind. Just as the absence
of castles enabled the
Normans to seize England,
so it was by building huge
numbers, over 500 by the
year 1100 according to
one plausible estimate,
that they secured their
rule. The castles of the
Conquest, built both by
king and lords, took a
variety of forms. In
London the great stone
keep begun by the
Conqueror, now called the
White Tower, is ninety feet
high, has walls over
thirteen feet thick, and still
looks a mighty building
even against the present
London skyline. Elsewhere
structures were simpler.
Some were just ditches and
banked enclosures topped
with palisades (called by
historians ‘ring works’).
Others, indeed the great
majority, were of the
motte-and-bailey type, as
at Berkhampstead. The
motte was a great earthen
mound protected by a
ditch and topped with a
stockade and a wooden
keep, the adjoining bailey
an enclosure protected by
earthen ramparts, topped
again with a stockade, and
surrounded by an outer
ditch. Such structures
could be built speedily and
defended by small
numbers of knights, yet
they were quite sufficient
to dominate their strategic
environment; that, not the
protection of the local
population, was of course
their purpose. Utterly
novel, standing high above
town and village, road and
river, the castle as both
symbol and sanction lay at
the heart of the Conquest.
 Cavalry and castles
were integral to the
intensely competitive
military and political
environment in France,
where small principalities
– Anjou, Maine, Brittany,
Normandy, the French
kingdom – were engaged
in constant fast-moving
warfare across great plains
and open frontiers.
England was very
different. Since Cnut’s
accession in 1016 it had
suffered neither invasion
nor civil war. Harold had
triumphed in Wales, but
this was not cavalry
territory. There had been
no need to develop either
cavalry or castles. The
English state had been too
successful for its own
good.
 ***
William’s success in
1066 cannot be explained
entirely in military terms.
Following his initial
victories the English had
accepted him as king.
After all, he proclaimed
himself the Confessor’s
designated heir and took
the same coronation oaths
as his Anglo-Saxon
predecessors. When he
returned to Normandy in
March 1067, he left as
regents his brother Bishop
Odo and his friend since
childhood, William fitz
Osbern, but he also
retained many English
sheriffs and recognized
and appointed English
earls. In the next few years
William, faced with a
series of rebellions, was
utterly to destroy this
Anglo-Norman co-
operation.
There was immediate
discontent at the taxation
and the castles which were
a concomitant of Norman
rule. The Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle commented at
once on the breach of
William’s coronation oath
to rule his people well.
Worst of all, as Orderic
Vitalis later put it, was ‘the
anger at the loss of
patrimonies and the death
of kinsmen and fellow
countrymen’. From the
start, as a writ to the abbot
of Bury St Edmunds shows,
William demanded the
lands of all who ‘stood in
battle against me and were
slain’, including the lands
of Harold and his brothers.
From William’s point of
view, these dispossessions
were justified on the
grounds that Harold was a
perjured usurper (in
Domesday Book he was
not even given the title of
king). They were also
utterly necessary both to
grip the kingdom and, as
with taxation, reward
those who had fought for
his victory and in the case
of the Norman monasteries
had prayed for it. Yet the
dispossessions sent shock
waves through English
society. They destroyed
Harold’s house which had
dominated England for a
generation and
disinherited the families of
the other fallen.
Thoroughly alarmed, large
numbers of English
landholders flocked to
William or his deputies
hoping to secure or
recover their lands. Some
were lucky, like Azo the
steward of the Confessor
who found William at
Windsor, but many had to
offer money. ‘The people
bought their lands,’
grumbled the Anglo-Saxon
chronicler.
Trouble began before
William returned to
England in December
1067. In the new year he
had to march into the West
Country, where he
besieged and took Exeter
and built a castle in the
town. Then he drove on
into Cornwall where he
ultimately established his
half-brother Robert, count
of Mortain. The coronation
of William’s wife Matilda
in May 1068 was the last
of the great Anglo-Norman
occasions. Earl Edwin
found himself threatened
locally by Roger of
Montgomery’s earldom in
Shropshire and challenged
at court by ‘greedy
Normans’, as Orderic put
it, who opposed his
prospective marriage to
William’s sister. Between
1068 and 1070 he was
joined in rebellion by Earls
Morcar, Waltheof and
Gospatric, whom the
Conqueror himself had
placed over Northumbria.
Most dangerous of all,
Edgar Atheling, with
succour and support from
King Malcolm of Scotland,
now revived his claims to
the throne. In his first
response, in 1068, William
marched north, building
castles as he went at
Warwick (where Edwin
and Morcar surrendered),
on the rock at Nottingham,
and at York. Early in 1069,
however, the Atheling
attacked York and was
chosen king by his
supporters. So William
went north again and gave
York a second castle. It
was not enough. In the
autumn of 1069 a great
fleet sent by Sven
Esthrison, king of Denmark
(1047–76), a nephew of
King Cnut, entered the
Humber, and joined up
with the Atheling. On 21
September they defeated
and captured William’s
sheriff of York and seized
the city. Meanwhile Exeter
and Shrewsbury (the seat
of Roger of Montgomery’s
new earldom) were also
attacked.
This was the crisis of
William’s reign and he
knew it. He ignored a
rebellion which threatened
his conquest of Maine, and
acted in England with a
combination of energy,
brutality and conciliation.
Leaving Bishop Geoffrey of
Coutances to deal with the
trouble in the west, he
again marched north and
on Christmas Day, 1069
wore his crown, especially
dispatched from
Winchester, in the ruins of
York Minster, a symbolic
riposte to the pretensions
of the Atheling. He then
marched to the Tees,
ravaging the country as he
went. The Danes were
bought off, the Atheling
retired to Scotland, and
Gospatric and Waltheof
admitted defeat, retaining
their earldoms. But
William was not finished.
He led his troops on an
extraordinary winter
march across the Pennines,
fell upon the Shrewsbury
rebels, built castles at
Chester and Stafford,
ravaged the surrounding
areas, and was back at
Winchester in time for
Easter (April 1070). By
this time his forces in
Yorkshire had reduced
much of it to a wasteland.
Historians have
sometimes been sceptical
about the extent of ‘the
harrying of the north’ but
the evidence is terribly
powerful and consistent.
William ‘went northwards
with all his army that he
could collect and utterly
ravaged and laid waste
that shire [Yorkshire],’
wrote the Anglo-Saxon
chronicler. Sixteen years
after the event Domesday
Book still recorded 33 per
cent of Yorkshire ‘waste’
and another 16 per cent as
virtually without
resources. The sheer scale
of the waste, amounting to
80 per cent of that
recorded in Domesday, can
scarcely be explained by
clerks simply writing off
areas for which they had
no information, as has
been suggested. Columns
of refugees, young and old,
women and children,
fleeing the famine caused
by ‘the devastation’,
reached as far south as
Evesham, where they died
of weakness even as they
ate the food provided by
the abbot. Simeon of
Durham, writing in the
early twelfth century but
with local knowledge,
likewise spoke of the great
famine; the exodus of
refugees; the decaying
corpses and ‘the land
deprived of anyone to
cultivate it, reduced for
nine years to an extensive
solitude…. There was no
village inhabited between
York and Durham.’ The
Conqueror’s knights were
masters of the ravage and
they rose to the appalling
challenge. Small parties of
them, moving rapidly from
village to village, could
easily have accomplished
the destruction in the
months between Christmas
and Easter. They were
helped by the winter
season. The corn for both
eating and sowing was in
the barns. By setting them
ablaze the food for two
years was effectively
destroyed. The last word is
with Orderic Vitalis, who
was born in 1075 and
grew up in Shropshire till
he was ten:

My narrative has frequently

had occasion to praise William,
but for this act which
condemned the innocent and
the guilty alike to die by slow
starvation I cannot commend
him. For when I think of
helpless children, young men in
the prime of life, and hoary
grey-beards perishing alike of
hunger I am so moved to pity
that I would rather lament the
griefs and sufferings of the
wretched people than make a
vain attempt to flatter the
perpetrator of such infamy.

William’s northern
campaign almost ended
English resistance, but not
quite. Edwin and Morcar
had been kept out of the
upheavals of 1069–70, but
in 1071 they escaped from
court. Edwin was soon
trapped and killed; but
Morcar fled to the Isle of
Ely where he joined up
with an adventurous
Lincolnshire thegn,
Hereward (Hereward the
Wake of later legend).
King William invested the
isle and in October 1071
Morcar surrendered,
ending his life as a
prisoner. Hereward
escaped. His further
exploits inspired poets but
did not threaten Norman
rule. The Conquest itself
was over. In 1074 the
Atheling recognized as
much; he left Scotland and
became a pensioner at
William’s court. Lacking a
real sense of dynasty and
destiny, his later role was
as a captain of Norman
and Scottish armies, not as
a candidate for the throne.
William of Malmesbury
provides a last glimpse of
him in the 1120s, aged
and obscure, living quietly
in the country.
***
The Normans had come
to exploit the peasantry,
not replace them. The
overwhelming bulk of the
English population thus
remained in place after the
Conquest, if battened
down by more exacting
lords. The latter, often
absentees, strove to get
their income in cash rather
than in kind, a desire for
money which accelerated
the end of slavery.
Reorganization of manors
also led to a substantial
decline in the numbers of
sokemen and free peasants
(see above p. 52). Peasants
laboured on the new
castles and fled or starved
to death when a Norman
army burnt its way
through the countryside.
Towns too suffered. Much
of York was wrecked in
the great rebellions of
1069–70 while elsewhere
houses were pulled down
to make way for the new
castles and cathedrals.
There was some
immigration. At York, 145
properties once held by
Anglo-Scandinavians were
taken over by Frenchmen.
There were French
quarters too at Norwich
and Northampton. But
probably the great bulk of
the town populations
remained English.
If peasants and
townsmen remained in
place, a huge swathe of
English landowners was
dispossessed, including
virtually all the
aristocracy. It was that,
more than anything else,
which secured the
Conquest so absolutely.
This disappropriation had
begun after Hastings and
increased in pace with
every rebellion. The result
can be seen in Domesday
Book which surveyed
England both in 1066 and
1086. Only four
Englishmen, Edward of
Salisbury, Gospatric son of
Arnkell, Thorkell of
Warwick and Colswein of
Lincoln, remained as major
landholders. Gone were
Harold’s family and those
of the other English earls,
gone were all ninety or so
of the lords who had
possessed land worth £40
a year or more, and gone
too, at least in the record,
were perhaps fifteen or
twenty thousand smaller
English landholders. Many
of the latter were very
small fry indeed, which
shows how devastatingly
low the blades of
disappropriation had been
set. Others, perhaps four
or five thousand of them,
were thegns, who, as we
have seen, formed the
country gentry of Anglo-
Saxon England. In many
counties page after page of
Domesday Book, manor
after manor, reveals hardly
a single Anglo-Saxon lord.
‘Henry de Ferrers holds
Kingston [in Berkshire].
Ralph holds it from him.
Stanchil held it in the time
of King Edward’ runs a
typical entry, where the
1066 lord Stanchil has
been replaced by the great
Norman baron Henry de
Ferrers, who has in turn
granted the manor to his
knight, Ralph de
Bacquepuis. Just
occasionally the survival
of wills and charters shows
what all this meant for a
particular English family.
For more than a
generation prior to 1066 a
spread of lands in
Lincolnshire had supported
Ulf, son of Tope, and his
kinsmen. ‘They acted in
concert, endowed their
favourite monastery
(Peterborough), transacted
business together, attested
each other’s charters and
lent each other a helping
hand in troubled times’
(Robin Fleming). Within
half a decade of the
Conquest this family
network was no more. Ulf,
son of Tope, had departed
for the Holy Land, never to
return, and the family’s
lands were split between
five Norman lords. Where
families did survive it was
often in much reduced
circumstances. In
Cambridgeshire, Almaer,
lord of Bourn, was reduced
from an estate of twenty-
two hides to one of fewer
than four.
 William’s Conquest had
thus turned out very
differently from that of
Cnut, who, as William of
Malmesbury shrewdly
noted, restored their lands
unimpaired to the
conquered. Cnut had
rewarded his followers
with money rather than
with land. The Conqueror
chose land, perhaps
inevitably given Norman
expectations, and thus set
off the vicious cycle of
rebellion and deprivation
which ended with the
elimination of so many
English landholders.
Malmesbury was a monk,
writing in the 1120s, half
Norman and half English.
He believed that the sins
of the English explained
the Conquest. Yet he could
still write about it with
great bitterness. Hastings
was ‘a fatal day’, ‘a
melancholy havoc of our
dear country’, making it
‘the residence of foreigners
and the property of
strangers’.
The Conquest was,
therefore, devastating, but
large numbers of
Englishmen did survive at
levels above the peasantry.
Almaer of Bourn was not
alone. When a great
Norman baron, a Henry de
Ferrers or Ilbert de Lacy,
swept into an area to take
possession of the estates
granted him by the
Conqueror, he was met by
dozens of Englishmen
promising faithful service
and seeking to obtain or
retain land. Some were
lucky and, like Aelfwine,
tenant of the Ferrers at
Brailsford in Derbyshire,
were predecessors of major
gentry families of the
twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. Indeed around
ten of Henry de Ferrers’s
twenty-five tenants in
Derbyshire had English-
sounding names and the
proportion was even
higher on the Lacy estates
in Yorkshire. Further
evidence of English
survival is provided by the
lists of king’s thegns at the
end of every county
section of Domesday Book.
Most held just a few hides
of land, but they were also
probably local officials –
huntsmen, foresters,
sheriff’s bailiffs – and thus
significant. Domesday
Book may also conceal a
whole class of English sub-
tenants and officials
because it rarely reveals
who were the lessees or
bailiffs of the manors held
by the Norman lords.
Thaxted, the most valuable
Essex manor of Richard de
Clare, was leased to an
Englishman. He may well
have been one of many.
For running the hundred,
the basic unit of local
administration, the English
remained vitally
important. Indeed they
provided nearly half the
jurors drawn from the
Cambridgeshire hundreds
who gave evidence to the
Domesday commissioners.
Much later history – the
bid made by Norman kings
for English support, the
survival of the English
language – becomes
understandable against
that background. At the
level of the county and the
hundred, unless there was
to be constant disturbance,
Normans and English had
to work together.
Gradually a new
nationality and local
society formed to replace
the old.
In that formation a
significant role was played
by women. After the
Conquest the Normans had
no place for the male kin
of the killed and
dispossessed. Women, or
at least women of a certain
status and place in the life
cycle, were a different
matter. Marriage to the
widow or daughter of a
thegn might help secure
possession of his lands. It
was to escape such a fate,
or worse, that English
women after the Conquest
fled to monasteries. But
many such marriages did
take place, like that
between Robert d’Oilly
and Ealdgyth, daughter of
Wigod of Walling-ford. Of
course, the whole purpose
of such matches was to
divert property away from
English kin. But Ealdgyth
and the rest cannot have
suddenly disowned their
Englishness. They passed it
on to their children and
thus took a first step in
bridging the divide of the
Conquest.
***
The church, with some
struggle, by and large kept
its lands intact before and
after the Conquest, holding
some 26 per cent of
Domesday England.
Beyond these possessions,
however, virtually all the
land of England had come
into the king’s hands, and
Domesday Book shows
what he did with it,
illuminating both the
resources of the crown and
the structure of the new
aristocracy. The first and
most striking fact is the
amount of land William
kept for himself: in all
some £12,600 worth, 17
per cent of Domesday
England. These royal
lands, giving a presence in
nearly every shire, were
double in value those held
by the Confessor. Whereas
before 1066 the leading
nobles had roughly 16 per
cent more land than the
king, afterwards it was
exactly the reverse.
William was thus far more
powerful than the
Confessor, though that
would have been true for
Harold too had he
remained on the throne.
Apart from his own
possessions and those of
the church, William had
redistributed the great
bulk of the land of
England to his followers
from Normandy and
elsewhere in France. The
most important land-
holders in each county
were listed individually at
the start of each county
section of Domesday Book
and came to be called
tenants-in-chief of the
crown, a ‘baron’ being
simply a major tenant-in-
chief. In the twelfth
century there were
between 150 and 200 of
the latter. Domesday
shows that these tenants-
in-chief had themselves
granted to their own
tenants, in varying
amounts, roughly 45 per
cent of their land in terms
of value. We have seen
how Henry de Ferrers gave
Kingston in Berkshire to
Ralph de Bacquepuis. On
the Clare estates, 40 per
cent of the land in terms of
value was held by around
fifty tenants. Similar ‘sub-
enfeoffments’ were made
by the new Norman
bishops and abbots on
their church estates. The
reasons for such grants
were various. One was to
win friends and influence
people, hence some of the
tenants were very great
men, barons themselves or
major tenants of other
barons. Another reason
was to reward followers,
so that many tenants of
the Clares and the Ferrers
were, like Ralph de
Bacquepuis (Bacquepuis
near Evreux), their tenants
or neighbours in
Normandy.
The structures of power
which resulted from these
landed endowments can be
analysed in different ways.
Where tenants-in-chief had
granted manors to tenants,
it was generally the latter
who enjoyed the revenues.
Yet tenants-in-chief still
expected service and
support from their tenants
and continued to have
rights over their lands, as
will be seen. Thus in
assessing their power it is
not irrelevant to add the
value of tenanted land to
that they kept in their own
hands, that is ‘in demesne’.
Below is an analysis made
along these lines, based on
the pioneering work of W.
J. Corbett published in the
1920s:
Tenants-in-chief,
1086: value of lands in
demesne and tenanted
A

D
 E

Calculated like this the

concentration of wealth at
the top of the scale is
remarkable, for the barons
from class A commanded
between a quarter and a
fifth of Domesday England.
Since they were all close
associates of the
Conqueror, and included
his brothers, this explains
much of the hold he
established over the
country.
A rather different
picture, however, emerges
if one makes a survey of
the landed wealth of
tenants as well as tenants-
in-chief, and does it in
terms simply of the land
held in demesne. This both
hugely increases the
numbers of people
surveyed and reduces the
separation between the
great barons and the rest.
An analysis along these
lines by J. J. N. Palmer
shows that 34 per cent of
secular wealth (apart from
the lands of the king) was
in the hands of 940
landholders with lands
valued at between £5 and
£45 a year. Another 11 per
cent was possessed by
1,720 landholders with
lands worth between £1
and £5 a year. Below this
there were some 3,470
men with lands valued at
less than a £1 a year. All
told, the analysis reveals
over 6,200 landholders. If
a proportion of these were
English it was a
comparatively small one.
Having made some
estimate of the numbers in
Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk
(counties excluded from
his analysis), Palmer puts
the total of Norman land
holders (Norman here
meaning loosely everyone
from France) at over
8,000.
These findings are
immensely significant
because they explain the
grip which the Normans
gained on England and the
power of local society in
later centuries against both
great lords and the king.
Even if some of these
lesser Normans had other
sources of income (for
example as professional
knights) and were largely
absentees, the great
majority were almost
certainly resident on their
estates in England. These
were the men who were
the first to speak the
language and intermarry
with the native English.
That half the personnel of
the Cambridgeshire
hundred juries were
Norman, some holders of
substantial properties,
others with only tiny
holdings, is as significant
as the fact that half were
English. Nothing shows
more clearly how involved
the Normans had become
from the start in running
local affairs in England.
The more substantial
families with lands worth
£5 and upwards came to
form the cream of a new
gentry class, the county
society of the knights
coming to replace the
county society of the
thegns. Their
establishment in England
was often reflected in
place names. Thus the
Bacquepuis’s Kingston
became Kingston
Bagpuize, showing very
clearly how this family
from the Evreçin had taken
root in Berkshire.
 In terms of their
physical configuration, the
lands of individual barons,
both demense and
tenanted, were often
spread over many shires
while having a core in one
or more particular regions
(see below, pp. 404–5).
Since such estates were
usually built up from the
possessions of many
dispossessed Englishmen,
they were as a whole new
creations. A common
pattern was for a baron to
receive a large proportion
of the lands of a few great
English nobles together
with the properties of
numerous smaller fry. Of
the Clare lands in Surrey,
40 per cent in terms of
value derived from three
major ‘ancestors’ (as
previous owners of
significance were called),
while the other 60 per cent
came from seventeen men,
only three of whom
contributed more than one
property. Many of the
large antecessorial grants
took place soon after the
Conquest, while the lands
of the lesser individuals
were swept up later in
disappropriations
following the rebellions. In
all this William showed a
keen strategic eye. Outside
the Welsh borders, he
never gave all the lands in
a shire to a single baron,
but he was quite prepared
to create smaller blocs of
power in order to hold
down particular areas. In
the north, Henry de
Ferrers gained nearly all
the land within
Derbyshire’s Appletree
wapentake, while Ilbert de
Lacy received nearly all
that in Skyrack wapentake
in Yorkshire. (A
wapentake was the
equivalent of a
hundred.)In Sussex,
William accepted the
ancient divisions into
rapes, but completely
ignored earlier tenurial
patterns when he
concentrated the land
within them under single
lords. There was a similar
concentration of Clare
holdings around their
great castle at Tonbridge
in Kent.
Politics and family
history were always
reshaping the contours of
great estates, if at a slower
pace than in the Conquest
period. In the long run,
what was more significant
was the transformation in
the terms on which land
itself was held. After the
Conquest, the king and
nobility, it can be argued,
came to form a new kind
of tenurial hierarchy. This
hierarchy, together with
castles and cavalry, lies at
the heart of ‘feudalism’ as
defined by many English
historians, who thus
eschew the much broader
definitions, including in
effect the whole of
medieval society, adopted
by continental colleagues.
The introduction of
feudalism to England is a
complex and controversial
subject; it may be helpful
to describe the structures
as they can be seen in
place after 1066 before
going back to consider
how far they were
comparable with what had
existed in Anglo-Saxon
England and how far they
were significantly
different.
Domesday Book makes
clear, for example in its
entry for Shropshire, that
the great lay and
ecclesiastical landholders
listed at the start of each
county section ‘held’ their
land from the king. Such
men came to be called
‘tenants-in-chief’. In 1086
they had probably all
performed an act of
homage in which they
knelt before William,
placed their hands
between his and swore
allegiance for the land
they held from him. The
land was usuually called a
feodum, that is a ‘fee’ or
‘fief’: hence ‘feudalism’.
The ceremony of homage
was solemn and
consequential. Breach of
the oath was treason and
involved the forfeiture of
the fief. In return for its
tenure, the Conqueror
required each tenant to
provide contingents of
knights either for the royal
army when it was called
out or to guard royal
castles, the individual
quotas (on the evidence of
a survey in 1166) ranging
from fifty or sixty knights
down to a handful.
William’s imposition of
such service is described in
the twelfth century by
Orderic Vitalis and the
chroniclers of Abingdon
and Ely. If the survey of
1166 does indeed reflect
the quotas he determined,
as is not unlikely, then the
tenants-in-chief as a whole
owed some 5,000 knights.
Although tenure of this
kind came to be called
tenure by ‘knight service’,
actual military service
represented only one part
of its value. There were
also, probably from the
start, what historians have
sometimes called ‘the
feudal incidents’. When a
tenant-in-chief died his
heir had to make a money
payment to the king to
inherit the fee, a payment
later described as a ‘relief’
when considered
reasonable in size and a
‘fine’ when arbitrary and
exorbitant. If the heir was
a minor, which was often
the case given the
prevalence of early death,
the wardship of the lands
and the revenues from
them passed to the king.
The king also contolled the
marriages of the widows of
tenants-in-chief; and he
controlled too those of
heirs and heiresses when
they were his wards.
Although it was quickly
accepted that the fees were
hereditary, the king
retained power to
influence their descent,
especially where there was
no direct male heir, and he
used this power to raise up
those who were in favour
and pull down those who
were not. Ultimately, in
default of heirs the fee
would ‘escheat’, that is
return to the king,
although this was
comparatively rare. What
feudalism gave the king
was thus military service,
money, sources of
patronage (in the
marriages of widows and –
best of all – of heiresses),
and also social and
political control. There
was in addition the
ecclesiastical equivalent of
wardships, since after the
death of bishops and
abbots the king received
the revenues from the
lands they had held in
chief until a successor was
appointed.
Henry I’s coronation
charter of 1100 suggests
that the feudal structure
just described was in place
and that relations between
the tenants-in-chief and
their own tenants had
developed on similar lines.
The former expected their
own tenants to supply
quotas of knights which
would help them provide
the service owed to the
king as well as military
support at other times, for
example rebellion. Very
broadly tenants of a single
property might owe a
single knight, and so on in
increasing numbers. A
baron, just like the king,
through inheritance
payments, wardships and
the bestowal of marriages
gained sources of revenue,
patronage and social
control. His ability to
discipline his tenants and
to forge them into a real
community was,
potentially at least,
facilitated by the
‘honourial court’ as it is
sometimes called by
historians. This was a
court held by the baron
and attended by his
tenants by knight service,
a court which had
jurisdiction, amongst other
things, over disputes
concerning the tenure of
the fees and the services
due from them. The ‘fee’
or ‘honour’ (the words at
this level were used inter-
changeably) which the
baronial tenant-in-chief
held from the king and
which would pass to his
heir was thus composed of
his tenants and their lands
as well as the lands he had
kept in hand, ‘in demesne’.
The feudal structures in
England after the Conquest
were not imported intact
from Normandy. There
both the duke and
individual lords had been
extending their lordship
over allodial lands, but the
process was far from
complete and the rights
and service were probably
often undefined. Nor did
the structures have any
general parallel in England
before 1066. England was
an ‘old’ country with
diverse forms of lordship
and land tenure. There
certainly were tenants
holding land in forms
comparable with those
found after the Conquest
(for example, some of the
lessees of the bishop of
Worcester). Lords also
tried to assert lordship
over family land, much as
they did in Normandy. But
Anglo-Saxon wills and
charters, together with
Domesday Book which
throws much light on
conditions before the
Conquest, suggest there
was still a great deal of
allodial land held from no
one at all. Those with such
land might well have
sworn fealty to a great lord
or in a special way have
been in the service of the
king, but they were not
their tenants. The
circumstances of the
Conquest meant a
complete new start,
bringing all secular land
into the hands of the king.
He gave it out again to
men he made his tenants,
and likewise made tenants
of the bishops and abbots.
That was how all land
came to be held from the
king. The king’s position,
unique in Europe, at the
head of a tenurial
hierarchy with all its
attendant rights and
revenues, stemmed from
these unique events.
Of course, a new form
of tenurial hierarchy is still
perfectly compatible with
kings and lords before
1066 having enjoyed in
some respects equivalent
powers. When it came to
the raising of armies, the
contrast between the two
systems certainly seems of
little moment. The core of
royal armies was always
provided by household
forces, the thegns and
housecarls before 1066
and the household knights
thereafter. Beyond that,
although in neither case is
there real evidence for the
size of the forces produced
in actual practice, the
system in which lords
owed so many warriors
according to the hidage of
their estates seems just as
good as one in which they
owed a number of knights
(unrelated to hidage) as
determined by the
Conqueror.
In other ways too kings
and lords before 1066
exercised powers
comparable with those of
their post-Conquest
successors. Land was
certainly forfeited for
breach of faith. Indeed it
was forfeited to the king
for any failure to turn up
when summoned to the
army. Both king and lords
had large numbers of
followers in their special
allegiance, and on the
death of such men they
could demand a ‘heriot’
from their families, a
death duty rather than the
later feudal payment to
inherit, but probably just
as valuable.
Yet despite these
similarities, the change
brought by the Conquest
was still momentous. The
fact was that kings and
lords before 1066 wielded
much less power over their
men than their post-
Conquest successors. Since
there was often no tenurial
content to lordship, they
lacked the same ability to
manipulate the descent of
land and take possession of
it when heirs were under-
age; there are no pre-1066
references to wardships.
By the same token they
also had less power over
the marriages of women,
and therefore significantly
fewer resources of
patronage, something
discussed more fully in a
moment. The king’s
exploitation of his new
feudal rights was
absolutely central to the
workings of politics and
society in the century and
a half after the Conquest.
It could be a major cause
of friction between the
king and his baronage as
the concessions in the
early clauses of both the
Coronation Charter of
1100 and Magna Carta in
1215 show. At the level of
the baron and his tenants
the honour and its court
were also new. If lords
before 1066 sometimes
had rights of soke or
jurisdiction over extended
areas it is difficult to see
how this was equivalent,
let alone the origin (as has
sometimes been
suggested), of later
honourial jurisdiction
because the key to the
latter was the kind of
feudal tenure which
simply did not exist in any
general way before the
Conquest. There has been
debate about the
importance of the honours
after 1066. They were
never self-contained and
autonomous institutions
since from the start there
were tenants who held
from several honours or
were tenants-in-chief
themselves. Honours also
had very different histories
and came in various
shapes and sizes. Yet when
all these qualifications
have been made, in the
century after the Conquest
and for many years
thereafter honours formed
an essential element in
magnate power. (For
further discussion, see
below, pp. 404–7.)
Associated with the
introduction of feudalism
were wider changes in the
structure of the family.
England too saw the
transition from the
extended to the linear
family, which, as we have
noted, has been detected
taking place rather earlier
elsewhere in Europe.
Neither the speed nor the
extent of the change
should be exaggerated.
The numbers of kin
amongst whom property
was usually divided seems
to have been narrowing
before the Conquest, with
a bias in favour of direct
male heirs at the expense
of brothers, nephews,
sisters, widows and others.
After 1066, eldest sons did
not in fact get everything.
Fathers could still make
provision for younger
offspring from acquisitions
and sometimes from
patrimonial lands, and
they also continued to
provide for widows and
daughters. None the less,
the Normans, with
stronger notions of
patrimony and
primogeniture than those
current in pre-Conquest
England, arguably shut the
door more firmly on the
wider kin, and created a
greater expectation that
the key properties,
including the principal
castle, would go to the
eldest son. A change in
practice is reflected in the
absence of toponymic
surnames before 1066 and
their development
thereafter. Likewise there
is a remarkable alteration
in the nature of wills:
those before 1066 went
into great detail, allotting
land to various members
of the kin, while those
after 1100 say nothing at
all about land and
concentrate on distributing
the movable property.
There was indeed no need
to say anything because,
unless previous provision
had been made, the
descent of the patrimony
by the rules of
primogeniture was simply
accepted.
 It is difficult to
generalize about how
these changes in lordship
and family structure
affected the position of
noblewomen, partly
because the evidence
bearing on the descent of
property through women
is tenuous, partly because
politics, status and life
cycle could make female
experiences far more
diverse than those of men.
Anglo-Saxon wills show
widows and daughters
receiving property, and
widows also disposing of
it, apparently as they
wished. In a case in the
Herefordshire county court
a woman (presumably
widowed) actually
announced that she would
grant nothing to her son.
Yet after the Conquest too
women could hold
property. The Coronation
Charter of Henry I in 1100
laid down that widows
were to receive both their
dower and ‘marriage
portion’. The former was
land assigned by the
husband on marriage for
his wife’s support after his
death. (In the law book
Glanvill of c. 1189 it was
specified as a third of the
husband’s estates unless a
smaller amount was
stipulated.) The latter was
land given with the bride
by her own family. The
Charter also shows that
women could inherit land.
Indeed in the law of the
twelfth and thirteenth
centuries there was
nothing to prevent a
widow alienating her
inheritance, so in theory
the Herefordshire episode
could have been replicated
after 1066. If the
development of
primogeniture after the
Conquest meant that
daughters were less likely
to get a share of the
inheritance, they were by
the same token more likely
to scoop the lot if they had
no brothers.
 If all this suggests that
women, before and after
1066, enjoyed independent
power as landholders, the
impression may be
misleading. In the
Herefordshire case, the
woman is not named and
the whole transaction was
probably masterminded by
its chief beneficiary, the
great thegn Thurkill the
White. After the Conquest,
when widows alienated
land, they usually did do
so with the consent of
their heirs. In any case few
twelfth-century widows
remained so for very long,
pressure to marry again
being intense. In all
marriages, in twelfth- and
thirteenth-century law the
husband had total control
over his wife’s property.
 The Conquest did,
however, bring changes
especially when it came to
the control exercised by
king and lords over
marriage. Women before
1066 were certainly forced
into marriage, as the
charter issued by King
Cnut (perhaps at his
coronation) shows. But
after 1066 the new
tenurial rights of lordship
gave the king and lords
tighter controls in this
area, as the greater
precision of Henry’s
Charter compared with
Cnut’s demonstrates. As it
was, the attempts at
regulation in the former
were unavailing. Henry
did not keep the promise
not to force widows of
tenants-in-chief to marry.
He did not relinquish the
right to find husbands for
the heiresses of deceased
tenants-in-chief, promising
only to arrange such
marriages after having
taken counsel from his
barons. Since such
heiresses would be wards
in the king’s hands until
they married and only
then able to inherit, he
was well placed to stand
his ground. He also had
every incentive to do so
because the gift of a
wealthy wife was by far
the easiest way to enrich
both his close family and
rising ministers. There
were also plenty of
heiresses about. Fifty-four
of the 189 honours in
existence in 1166 passed
into the female line at
least once after 1086. The
king’s ability to conjure up
heiresses was also
enhanced by the relative
fluidity of female (and
male) inheritance rights. A
woman could, for example,
be made more eligible at
the expense of an
unfavoured brother by
giving her a large marriage
portion. Later the
opportunities for
manipulation became all
the greater when the
practice developed
(perhaps influenced by a
decree of Henry 1 around
1130) that in default of
sons the inheritance was to
be divided equally
amongst all the daughters,
instead of the eldest, like
an eldest son, getting
everything. This both
increased the pot of
patronage available to the
king and allowed him,
despite the supposed
equality of division, to
chop up the respective
portions according to the
pecking order of the
prospective husbands. As
for widows, a second
husband in the law as
defined later in the
century would control his
wife’s dower from her first
marriage, together with
her inheritance and
marriage portion, as long
as she lived. The dower
would then pass back to
the heir of the first
husband, the inheritance
and marriage portion to
the heir of the wife – one
and the same person if the
first marriage had
produced offspring but not
otherwise. However, if the
second marriage produced
a child, the husband could
continue to keep the
marriage portion and
inheritance for the length
of his own life, before they
passed back to any child of
the first marriage.
Complex! The
interpretation and
implementation of such
rules gave plenty of room
for royal interference. The
resulting disputes were the
stuff of politics.
 ***
King William thus
introduced a new ‘feudal’
aristocracy to England, yet
he established it within the
framework of the Anglo-
Saxon state. Here there
were deep continuities
before and after 1066, and
also significant changes.
For William his
coronation, which
followed closely the old
Anglo-Saxon order of
service, had immense
significance. From a duke
he was now a king and he
made sure no one forgot it.
Surrounded by his bishops,
barons and knights he
wore his crown three times
each year, at Christmas,
Easter and Whitsun, rites
based on German imperial
practice and probably
introduced into England in
the 1050s but now made
much grander, judging
from the awe-struck
description in the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle. Likewise
William continued the
Laudes Regiae, the great
ceremonial hymns
invoking God’s aid for the
king and the whole
Christian community:
‘Victory and long life to
the most serene William,
crowned by God, great and
pacific king,’ chanted the
choirs. ‘Behold I see God,’
cried one of William’s
jesters, like so many jesters
getting at a truth. Such
rituals were a constant
reminder that the king was
the Lord’s anointed, ruling
with his blessing and
protection. They were of
immeasurable importance
in securing service and
stilling revolt.
The basic structures of
Anglo-Saxon government,
superior in many ways to
those in Normandy,
William gratefully took
over: the counties and
hundreds with their courts;
the sheriffs; the pervasive
royal peace with its
specially reserved royal
pleas; the geld; the
coinage; the chancellor
and the sealed writ. The
nerve centre of William’s
government, the royal
household, was similar to
the Confessor’s. Here were
the chamberlains
receiving, storing and
spending the money for his
day-to-day expenses, here
some of the household
knights (others might be
away trouble-shooting on
special missions), here his
chancellor heading the
clerks of the chapel who
sang the daily services and
wrote documents, here the
kitchen staff providing
food and drink, and the
grooms looking after the
dogs, horses and stables.
Around the household the
wider court was gathered,
with its councillors, some
of whom were great
barons, lay and
ecclesiastical, others men
of much lower status; and
around the court William
regularly assembled the
nobility in great councils,
similar to the pre-1066
witan, to witness his
wearing of the crown and
discuss affairs of the
realm, for example the
making of Domesday
Book.
Yet Norman rule was
also significantly different
from that of the Confessor
and his Wessex
predecessors. In the first
place, after 1072 William
was largely an absentee.
Of the 170 months
remaining of his reign he
spent around 130 in
France, returning to
England on only four
occasions. This was no
passing phase. Absentee
kings continued to spend
at best half their time in
England until the loss of
Normandy in 1204. This
was not simply because
the continent was home;
rather, as William of
Malmesbury shrewdly
appreciated, Normandy
with its long open frontiers
was far less secure than
England and needed
constant minding. In the
purely personal sense these
kings must, therefore, have
been less ‘hands-on’ and
interventionist than their
Anglo-Saxon predecessors,
though perhaps not less
than Cnut who was also
king of Denmark. But this
absenteeism solidified
rather than sapped royal
government since it
engendered structures both
to maintain peace and
extract money in the king’s
absence, money which was
above all needed across
the Channel. Malmesbury
indeed compared England
and Normandy to two
sisters joined at the waist,
the healthy one supporting
the other, who is
terminally diseased.
 By far the most
important of William’s
regents was Bishop Odo,
who had authority to act
independently in the king’s
name. At other times,
Archbishop Lanfranc, or a
small group of magnates
headed by Lanfranc,
received the king’s orders,
but William also wrote
direct to sheriffs and other
local officials when he was
abroad. Many such orders
were reactions to
complaints and petitions.
Already the trek across the
Channel to the real centre
of power had begun. ‘Do
this so that I quickly hear
the truth of the matter by
your letter,’ one writ to
Lanfranc concluded.
However far away he
might be, England was
always under that stern
exacting oversight.
As the exchange
between William and
Lanfranc suggests, the
exigencies of the cross-
Channel state significantly
increased the role of
written orders in
government. William took
over Regenbald, the
Confessor’s chancellor, and
with him the sealed writ,
which soon came to be
written in Latin rather
than English. William
issued large numbers of
writs in favour of abbeys
and bishoprics confirming
their rights and properties.
Here he was frequently
being reactive, the
initiative coming from the
beneficiary who not
surprisingly (as before
1066) often wrote the
document. The
chancellor’s task was just
to check the draft by the
beneficiary, supply
standard writ formulas and
affix the king’s seal to the
finished copy. But William
was also proactive. Writs
were issued to summon
armies, and give orders to
local officials. Had more of
these survived in the
original, we would
probably detect the hands
of a small group of clerks
at court writing for the
king, although in fact only
one has been identified.
One particularly
important use of the writ
was to command local
courts to hear law cases.
Although employed for
that purpose before 1066,
such orders multiplied
thereafter as the Conquest
produced numerous
disputes over the tenure of
land. William also sent
Lanfranc, Odo of Bayeux
and the bishop of
Coutances into the county
courts to hear such pleas.
If all this enhanced the
role of the king in local
affairs, so did changes in
the structures of
government. One
innovation, derived
apparently from
Normandy, lay in the way
William began to subject
parts of England (the New
Forest for a start) to a type
of royal forest law which
was later to be a major
source of both income and
unpopularity. Another
change related to the earls
because, as compared with
1065, the number of
counties subject to their
authority was greatly
reduced. William set up
earls in Kent and the
Welsh borders, who
guarded the frontiers very
much as the counts did the
frontiers of Normandy. But
these frontier earls were
the only ones William had.
There would be no over-
mighty officials in his
England, any more, in all
probability, than there
would have been in
Harold’s.
This limited use of
earldoms meant that
William established a
direct relationship with
the sheriff, who was no
longer the earl’s deputy
and was more powerful as
a result. Even more
important was the way the
king’s castles, planted in
the county towns, became
the military and
administrative bases for
royal government in the
shires, housing the sheriff’s
office, the mint, and the
county court over which
the sheriff presided. Secure
in the castle and keeping
troops there to enforce his
will outside it, the sheriff
could afford to be far more
unpopular, and thus more
ruthless in the king’s
interests (and his own),
than before. ‘Art thou
called Urse? Have thou
God’s curse,’ Archbishop
Ealdred thundered at Urse
d’Abetot, sheriff of
Worcestershire. The
sheriffs were powerful but
William was determined to
control them. He ordered
the regents to summon
them together and forbid
seizures of property from
the church. He moved
them frequently from one
sheriffdom to another and
more often appointed ‘new
men’, owing everything to
him, than he did great
barons; he was doubtless
aware of how the
equivalent office in
Normandy, that of the
‘viscount’, had fallen into
the hands of magnates,
some of whom had been
notably disloyal in the
great crisis of 1046–7.
William was not going to
have a repeat performance
in England.
The Anglo-Saxon
coinage was far superior to
the Norman and William
naturally continued it, but
he standardized the weight
of the coin and increased
the annual money
payments made by the
mints. The symbolic
importance of the coinage
remained. Circulating
everywhere, seen by
everyone, it was the most
visual demonstration
possible of the unity of the
realm under the king.
Although the evidence is
fragmentary, William
probably levied the geld
annually, usually at 2s. a
hide (producing perhaps
£2,500) but occasionally at
higher rates. The 6s. a hide
in 1084 provoked cries of
protest from the Anglo-
Saxon chronicler. If
William never equalled the
sums raised by geld early
in the century, assuming
the figures can be
believed, that was because
he levied it at lower rates
(that in 1018 was possibly
20s.), and exempted the
demesne manors of his
barons (though not the
peasant lands within them)
from payment. Yet these
early gelds had in effect
been harried out of the
kingdom by invading
armies. The more regular
army geld levied between
1012 and 1051 had itself
proved unsustainable. Up
to a point William may
actually have revived a tax
which was falling into
decay. He certainly needed
the money to pay the
mercenaries who had
helped make and sustain
the Conquest, but his
noble followers he had
rewarded with land. That
being the case, it made
sense to reduce the tax
liability of his barons on
their main reward,
especially when the
exemptions could be
reversed, as some of them
were after 1087. How
right William was to
choose land rather than
money. His followers,
unlike those of Cnut, had
come to stay.
Much of this makes
kingship seem more
powerful and pervasive
after the Conquest,
especially when one adds
in the new ‘feudal’
package of powers. But
this is only part of the
story. The baronial fees or
honours introduced new
structures of magnate
power, cutting into and
across the counties and
hundreds of Anglo-Saxon
England, destroying the
monopoly of their courts
and raising the question of
whether the allegiance of
under-tenants belonged to
the baron or the king.
Before 1066 the only
private court had been
that of the manor.
Afterwards, while the
upheavals of the Conquest
doubtless brought business
into the courts of shire and
hundred, it is difficult to
think that they were not
weakened by the loss of
land pleas to the honourial
court, as also of
ecclesiastical pleas to the
courts of the church. At
the centre of honourial
power, moreover, was
something completely
new: the private castle. If
the royal castle enhanced
the king’s local position, so
did the private castle that
of the baron. Of the 500 or
so castles in England
around 1100 perhaps two-
thirds were in private
hands. The castle was thus
not confined to a small
elite as it had been in
Normandy. It was common
to all barons and many
major under-tenants. What
had begun as an
instrument of conquest,
continued as an instrument
of lordship. In the castle,
the lord held his honourial
court, feasted his friends
and followers, and
generally displayed his
wealth and status – hence
the elaborately decorated
entrance to the great stone
keep at Castle Rising in
Norfolk built by Earl
William II d’Albini after
1138. There was nothing
in any of this necessarily
threatening to the king.
William I had probably
ordered the building of
castles by his followers in
order to secure the
country. He and his
successors depended on
strong loyalist barons. But
if barons were ever to be
disloyal, the Conquest has
certainly placed new
weapons in their hands
with which to resist the
crown.
***
In 1066 William had
wanted to postpone his
coronation until his wife,
Matilda, then holding the
fort back in Normandy,
could be crowned with
him. In the event he went
ahead without her, but
Matilda’s eventual
coronation in May 1068
was still a magnificent
affair. Queens, therefore,
were important and, as the
ceremony of crowning and
anointing showed, they
held a formal office.
Matilda had her own set of
regalia, which may have
included such symbols of
authority as the orb and
sceptre. Certainly Henry I’s
queen, Edith Matilda,
appears with both on her
seal. All this had probably
been equally true before
1066. If the framework of
queenship altered after the
Conquest, its basic
structures did not.
Matilda’s ceremony in
1068 was similar to those
performed for Emma,
queen of both Aethelred
and Cnut, and Edith,
queen of the Confessor. All
these queens gained lustre
through the growing cult
of the Virgin Mary, who
was depicted as a mother
and increasingly as a
crowned queen, the Queen
of Heaven. She appears as
both in a Winchester
prayer book of Emma’s
time.
Matilda’s status did not
derive solely from her
marriage and her office. It
also, in common with
other queens, came from
her own family. As her
tombstone proudly
proclaimed, she was the
daughter of a count of
Flanders and the
granddaughter of a French
king (Robert the Pious).
She was of far higher
status than William
himself, hence his anxiety
to be crowned with her in
1066, and the manner in
which a form of the Laudes
Regiae, introduced for her
coronation, applauded
king and queen in almost
parallel terms. Cnut, trying
to establish a new dynasty,
had felt the same need of
linkage to his wife: the
coronation ordo of 1017,
after his marriage to
Emma, widow of the
previous king and
daughter of a duke of
Normandy, described her
as consors imperii, a sharer
in his rule.
Anglo-Saxon precedent
and practice also meant
that as queen Matilda
enjoyed her own
resources. Some of these
probably came, as they
certainly did under Edith,
from a share in the
financial offers made to
the king for favours, a
payment later called
‘queen’s gold’. More
important was land. Before
1066 certain individual
estates were traditionally
used to provide for the
queen, although they were
neither drawn on
exclusively nor uniformly.
Since the queen as widow
seems to have kept the
lands she held as queen, a
new clutch had to be
found for her successor.
But the fact that queens
did have lands which they
could expect to keep after
the king’s death gave them
their own income and a
measure of independence.
The Conqueror himself
allowed Edith to keep her
extensive possessions until
her death in 1075, and did
not then pass them to
Matilda. But he found
Matilda other lands worth
around £500 a year, most
of them coming from the
estate of the fallen thegn
Beorhtric. From these
Matilda was able to endow
monasteries and, like
Emma and Edith, support
her own household,
rewarding her
chamberlains, for example,
with grants of land. This
household was separate
from that of the king when
Matilda and William were
apart, but merged more or
less with his when they
were together.
At their coronation
queens, unlike kings, took
no oath of office. Was
there none the less a
conception of what they
should so? Before and after
1066, they sometimes
appear in charge of the
royal treasure but perhaps
this was more the result of
particular crises, or of
activity as the king’s
deputy, than of any role
they were generally
allotted. Queens certainly
were expected to feature
prominently in court
ceremonial. Indeed they
could mastermind it, at
least if we can believe the
Life of Edward the Confessor
which has Edith, who
commissioned the work,
both encouraging her
unworldly husband to put
on royal finery and
arraying him in it.
Whether Matilda did the
same for the Conqueror
may be doubted but she
was often at court, judging
from the large number of
royal documents she
witnessed, something
which itself reflects her
status. The coronation
ceremony indicated that
queens should be fruitful,
the prayers linking them
with the biblical women,
Sarah, Rebecca and
Rachel, who produced the
line of David. The
influence that queens
established over their sons
(sometimes through
controlling their
upbringing) could indeed
lead to important political
roles both as queens and
queen-mothers. According
to the coronation prayers,
the queen was also to
imitate the biblical
example of Esther and
persuade the king to act
with mercy. Intercession
was not, of course, an
exclusively queenly
prerogative, but that of the
queen did have a special
moral force, as well as the
unique advantages
provided by proximity to
the king not merely at
court but in the
bedchamber. Nor was
there really any clear line
between pleading from a
sense of mercy and
pleading from a sense of
politics.
All of this, of course,
amounted to the queen
influencing the men who
pulled the levers of power,
while not pulling them
herself. And the men did
not have to listen. When
Matilda interceded with
William for Robert, her
eldest son, she got
nowhere. When, testimony
both to her spirit and
resources, she dispatched
money to him despite
William’s prohibition, he
ordered one of her
servants to be blinded. The
queen was not in any sense
a joint ruler of the
kingdom. Indeed, neither
the consors imperii of the
1017 coronation nor the
queen’s place in the 1068
Laudes were generally
adopted. Emma, in the
first depiction of an
English queen, might stand
beneath the Virgin
opposite Cnut, but he was
crowned, she was merely
veiled. There had to be a
king. There was no
permanent need for a
queen. William did not
remarry after Matilda’s
death in 1083. His
successor, William Rufus,
did not marry at all.
Scotland had no queen
between 1130–31 and
1186. Nor was queenly
status itself unalterable. It
depended on life cycle, as
the king’s did not. If her
husband’s death did not
‘de-queen’ her, it certainly
diluted her status,
particularly if the new
king married and created
another queen.
For all these limitations,
the queen was
unquestionably in a
position of potential
influence and, in effect, of
power. What she actually
achieved depended on a
whole range of variables
including political
circumstance, personal
ambition, and the
particular relationship
with the king. In one way,
queens after 1066 did have
potentially more scope
than before. Cnut had
governed several realms,
yet there is (perhaps
surprisingly) virtually no
evidence that he ever
made Emma his regent.
William was different. He
made Matilda regent on
several occasions both in
Normandy and in England.
In England she was sought
out by those with
grievances and presided
over important law cases
in the counties. She was
the first in a series of
formidable post-Conquest
queens given opportunities
by the exigencies of the
cross-Channel state.
 ***
The church was central
to royal power both before
and after the Conquest,
and William was no less
determined to control and
exploit it than his
predecessors had been
before 1066. Kings also
swore at their coronations
to protect the church,
which at the very least
meant maintaining its
properties. It also implied
they should be supporters
of reform. The struggle for
reform envelops the whole
period covered by this
book and constantly
impinges on the course of
politics. The reform
movement had begun
outside the papacy but in
the pontificate of Leo IX
(1048–54) was taken over
by it. The ultimate aim
was to ensure that the
church worked with
enthusiasm and devotion
for the spiritual welfare of
its flock. Monks were to
devote themselves to the
round of divine service
and pray for the salvation
of the faithful. Priests and
bishops were, as Pope
Gregory VII (1073–85) put
it, to be ‘pastors of souls’.
For this to be achieved,
certain abuses had to be
eradicated. One was
clerical marriage, which
snared priests in the world
and threatened to make
their offices hereditary.
Another was pluralism, the
holding of more than one
benefice, behind which
there was often simony,
the buying and selling of
ecclesiastical office. If the
church was to be rid of
these abuses, a necessary
condition was clear lines
of authority. Bishops
needed to be able to rule
their dioceses and
archbishops
(metropolitans) their
provinces. Above all, the
ultimate authority of the
pope in matters of
doctrine, law and
discipline needed to be
recognized in theory and
exercised in practice. To
that end the great mass of
canon law – passages from
the Bible, the
pronouncements of popes
and the decrees of councils
– was edited and arranged
so as to lay bare the basis
of papal power.
For the future of royal
power the implications of
reform were explosive in
England as elsewhere. Was
the pope to exercise a
direct authority over
churchmen? Was the
church to be freed from
control by the king? To
break the royal hold over
ecclesiastical
appointments, in
particular, seemed
essential to reformers,
given that such
appointments implied the
king had some kind of
spiritual authority, and
resulted in totally
unsuitable royal clerks
gaining high office. How
could they be instruments
of reform? But such a
fissure seemed utterly
unreasonable to the king,
given the wide lands held
by bishops and abbots, for
which, apart from
anything else, they owed
military service. Until the
last years of William’s
reign, however, there was
little to presage any
fundamental conflict,
thanks in large measure to
William’s relationship with
the man who replaced the
discredited Stigand as
archbishop of Canterbury
in 1070: Lanfranc.
 From Pavia, born
around 1010, Lanfranc had
studied arts in the Italian
Schools, and had gained
an easy mastery of its
fundamental method: the
deployment of evidence in
support of argument. He
had gone to Normandy to
teach and then, around
1042, had entered the
impecunious infant
monastery at Bec. There,
in novel fashion, he used
the methodology of the
arts to study the Bible, and
made his school
internationally famous in
the process. Having
defused an early quarrel
with Duke William
through a joke (‘I would
go into exile more quickly
if you gave me a better
horse’), in 1063 Lanfranc
became abbot of the new
ducal monastery of St-
Étienne at Caen, a
resounding vote of
confidence. From there the
move to Canterbury was a
natural one. Lanfranc was
far more than a dry and
cloistered academic. He
had a good head for
business and had
masterminded building
operations at Bec. He
tempered sternness with
humility, and had a brisk,
humane common sense:
‘Whatever death overtakes
the just man his soul will
be in peace,’ he declared,
quoting scripture. Here
was the man who could
act as archbishop and also
as regent. Lanfranc
believed wholeheartedly in
reform yet he also thought
that ‘the practice of
Christianity’ could only be
established through good
kings. Hence he entreated
God to grant William a
long life, for William was a
good king. Indeed with the
archbishop of Rouen, he
had presided since 1049
over reforming councils in
Normandy.
‘In order to confirm his
power in the kingdom he
had acquired,’ as the
chronicler John of
Worcester put it, William
replaced the English
bishops and abbots. By the
end of the reign there were
only three important
native prelates. Yet in
establishing his power,
reform of the church was
almost as important as the
change in personnel,
although that was far from
the only motive for it.
William complained that
church laws before 1066
contravened the ‘precepts
of the holy canons’, and
the English themselves, if
William of Malmesbury is
at all representative, came
to believe him. Thus the
Normans could regard the
Conquest as a divinely
sanctioned mission (the
pope after all had given
his approval) and the
English could accept it as a
punishment for their sins.
The propaganda had at
least some basis in fact.
True, Wulfstan of
Worcester, the only
English bishop remaining
in 1087, was a model of
erudition, eloquence,
practical piety and
unostentatious austerities.
English bishops attended
the great papal reforming
council in 1049 and
avoided the schismatic
Stigand. Yet there had
been no reforming synods
in England before 1066,
and no parallel to
Lanfranc’s school at Bec
and the duchy’s other
vibrant monasteries. The
pre-Conquest church under
the other-worldly
Confessor and the all too
worldly Stigand was very
different from that after
1066, driven forward by
William and Lanfranc.
Not all Lanfranc’s work
was successful or well
judged. His attempt to
assert Canterbury’s
primacy over the whole of
Britain and more
particularly over the
archbishopric of York was
motivated by the
passionate concern with
Canterbury’s rights. But it
lacked precedent, sucked
his successors into a
quagmire, and actually
weakened rather than
strengthened church
discipline and the unity of
the kingdom. Indeed it
became impossible in later
centuries, thanks to
disputes over status, for
the two archbishops to
appear in each other’s
presence. Lanfranc,
however, was sensitive to
English conditions. He
came to revere some of the
Anglo-Saxon saints and
accepted the uniquely
English institution (found
at Canterbury itself) of
cathedral clergy organized
as monks rather than as
chapters of canons. But
there was still much to do.
Between 1070 and 1076
five councils were held
which promulgated
statutes for the reform of
the church; the first two
were presided over by
papal legates. A sensibly
cautious start was made in
eliminating clerical
marriage – a more radical
approach in Normandy led
to the stoning of the
archbishop of Rouen.
Much attention was given
to increasing the authority
of the bishop within his
diocese and improving its
administration. Several
cathedrals were moved to
more populous centres:
Dorchester on Thames to
Lincoln (1072), Selsey to
Chichester (1075),
Sherborne to Salisbury
(1078) and Elmham
ultimately to Norwich
(1094). Dioceses seem to
have been formally
divided into territorial
archdeaconries and then
subdivided (sometimes
using old Anglo-Saxon
minister divisions) into
deaneries. Archdeacons
may have existed before
1066 but they were now
more able, along with the
rural deans, to ‘scrutinise
the character of [the local
clerics] and their
competence as priests’, as
Lanfranc put it, describing
his own activities.
The parish priesthood
was the lowest rung of the
church, yet the most
important. Here significant
changes were taking place,
both for good and ill.
Characteristic of Anglo-
Saxon England had been
large territorial areas
served by priests based in
minsters. Occasionally, as
at Farnham and Chertsey
in Surrey, these survived,
in whole or in part, to
form later parishes. But for
the most part, before and
after 1066 such
jurisdictions were being
undermined as individual
lords founded new
churches, an activity itself
related to the breaking-up
of great estates and the
formation of manors and
nucleated villages. The
pace may well have
quickened after the
Conquest for William of
Malmesbury speaks of
churches rising in every
village. Thus the new
Norman lords of manors
marked their arrival in the
country and God’s sanction
for it. By 1086 in Surrey
60 to 70 per cent of later
parish churches had
already begun their life;
the actual formation of the
new parish boundaries was
largely complete here and
elsewhere by 1200, a
process as central to the
shaping of England as it is
hard to trace.
Another way William
and his followers thanked
God for their victory and
indirectly tied kingdom
and duchy together was by
giving land in England to
their family monasteries
back home. Around thirty
continental houses, most
of them in Normandy,
received land in England.
Fécamp’s endowment was
worth £200 a year. But the
Normans also thanked God
and proclaimed their
arrival by founding
monasteries in England,
around thirty-four of them
by 1087, just over half
being daughters of
continental houses. Battle,
William’s own foundation,
was placed symbolically
on the very site of his
victory. Other houses like
the Warenne foundation at
Lewes in Sussex, a
daughter house of Cluny,
marched side by side with
the baronial castle. The
Normans also began to
endow pre-1066 English
houses, indeed by the end
of the century such grants
were on a far greater scale
than those made to the
continental monasteries.
The major English houses,
of course, acquired
continental abbots. Some
of the latter, like Thurstan
at Glastonbury, quarrelled
violently with their
English monks, but all of
them (and the same was
true of the Norman
bishops) had one decisive
advantage over their
English predecessors: they
were far more successful,
as the contrasting fortunes
of Abingdon under English
and Norman abbots shows,
in recovering and retaining
property, hence the
church’s success in broadly
maintaining its estates
over the Conquest period.
In general, William of
Malmesbury was right to
think that monastic life
flourished under the
Normans. Lanfranc himself
drew up a series of
constitutions to govern the
life of the monks at Christ
Church, Canterbury and
these were adopted by at
least twelve other
monasteries. Many of the
new abbots were men of
exemplary sense and piety,
and they attracted recruits.
The monks at Gloucester
rose from ten to 100 under
Serlo, abbot from 1072 to
1104. The Normans were
also great builders. The
massive, cold stone
columns of their new
abbeys and cathedrals
seem almost with the aid
of God and man to be
treading down Norman
rule into English soil.
Lanfranc’s reforms
depended absolutely on
the support of the king,
and none more so than one
of the most important of
these. Churchmen before
1066 had been aware that
there was a category of
offences committed by the
laity but related to ‘the
rule of souls’ (blasphemy
and adultery, for example)
which should come within
the jurisdiction of the
church; so should disputes
over wills and burials. But
the bishop or his deputy
had none the less heard
such cases in secular
tribunals, usually in the
hundred court. To
Lanfranc this seemed a
scandalous breach of
canon law, and William
agreed. ‘I order and by my
royal authority command’
ran the consequent royal
ordinance, which banned
the practice, laying down
that henceforth such cases
were to be heard in a place
decided by the bishop.
Indeed, if necessary they
were to be brought there
‘by the force and justice of
the king and the sheriff’.
There could be no clearer
indication of William’s
support for the church,
even though the
competence of his own
courts was diminished.
Although in practice there
was no sudden or clear-cut
break with the past, the
ordinance facilitated the
development of separate
ecclesiastical courts, over
which, for most routine
cases, the archdeacon and
rural dean presided.
Under Lanfranc and
William, therefore, the
English church, as
archbishop Anselm later
put it, was like a plough
drawn by two well-
matched oxen. If the pope
was formally the driver, he
followed where they led.
The pope had been useful
in getting rid of some
English prelates and
sanctioning through his
legate some early reforms.
William and Lanfranc were
meticulous in showing
proper respect, but
essentially it was ‘we’ll call
you, don’t call us’. The
relationship changed with
Gregory VII (1073–85)
who was determined to
make the papal headship
of the church a reality. As
his quarrel with the
Emperor Henry IV
deepened and the latter set
up his own anti-pope,
Clement III, so William’s
attitude became
increasingly ambivalent.
Gregory complained that
William was preventing
Lanfranc and other bishops
visiting the Holy See. But
Lanfranc’s loyalties were
with William. He
explained that while
England (‘our island’) had
not abandoned Gregory for
Clement it might decide to
do so. After Gregory’s
death in 1085 William and
Lanfranc hesitated to
recognize his successor.
This, however, was only
the beginning of the story.
In the long term William
and Lanfranc’s pick-and-
choose attitude to the
papacy was to prove
unsustainable.
***
After the suppression of
Edwin and Morcar in
1071, English attacks on
individual Normans
continued, something
which William sought to
counter by introducing the
‘murder’ fine. It had to be
paid by the hundred or the
village in which a murder
took place if it could not
apprehend the murderer or
prove the victim was
English. But any general
resistance was at an end.
The rebellion of 1075
illustrated as much. It was
joined rather weakly by
Waltheof, the last
surviving English earl,
who had followed
Gospatric in
Northumberland and also
apparently presided over
Northamptonshire and
Huntingdonshire. The
leaders, however, were
two young continental
nobles, one at least
irritated by the way the
king’s sheriffs were
challenging his local
power. Since equivalent
tensions had sometimes
surfaced before 1066,
normal politics had been
resumed. The revolt was
quickly put down.
Waltheof was executed,
Earl Ralph of Norfolk fled
to his estates in Brittany
and Earl Roger of Hereford
(son of the ultra-loyalist
William fitz Osbern, as
Lanfranc never ceased to
remind him) was
imprisoned for life. There
he flung the fine robes sent
him by the Conqueror on
the fire, a furious and
futile gesture which sums
up the rebellion. The
Conqueror had
demonstrated his mastery
and he was to do so again
even more dramatically in
1082. Faced by the
vaulting ambition of his
half-brother, Bishop Odo,
for whom Kent, the
regency and the Bayeux
Tapestry seemed not
enough, William hurried
across the Channel and
had him tried and
imprisoned.
William juggled his
problems in England with
those across the Channel
where, as we have seen, he
spent most of his time. In
Normandy the brief respite
which had permitted the
Conquest had ended and
he was on the defensive.
He faced a count of
Flanders, Robert the
Frisian, who was a sworn
enemy, a count of Anjou,
Fulk Rechin, who aimed to
recover Maine, and a king
of France, Philip I (1060–
1108), who had gained
hold of the French Vexin
in 1077 and so was able to
prowl along the Norman
frontier. All of them were
ready to exploit William’s
quarrels with his son
Robert who, approaching
twenty-five in 1077,
coveted a good deal more
power than his sceptical
father would accord him.
There was also one final
challenge to William’s rule
in England: an invasion
planned by King Cnut of
Denmark in alliance with
the king of Norway and
the count of Flanders.
William levied a heavy
geld and then in 1085
came over with a large
paid army. But it was not
needed. The Danes
quarrelled among
themselves and eventually
in July 1086 Cnut was
murdered. For England
this was a decisive
moment. The kings of
Denmark had made their
last bid for the throne.
‘Having found out for a
fact… that his enemies
could not carry out their
expedition,’ as the Anglo-
Saxon chronicler put it,
William decided to survey
his winnings. At his
Christmas court of 1085 he
‘had much thought and
very deep discussion with
his council about this
country – how it was
occupied or with what sort
of people’. The result was
the great survey of
England embodied in the
two volumes of Domesday
Book. (The name,
signifying the final and
definitive nature of the
testimony, was in use by
1179.) Domesday
mentions 13,418 places
and contains 2 million
words. ‘Not one ox, cow or
pig was left out,’ grumbled
the Anglo-Saxon
chronicler. To carry out
the survey England was
divided into at least seven
circuits each with its own
commissioners. They had
some existing material to
help them, for example
lists of geld liabilities and
of dues from royal manors,
but the great bulk of the
information probably
derived from written
returns about their
properties presented by
the tenants-in-chief. This
material was then co-
ordinated with the
evidence presented by
local juries at sessions of
the hundred courts. The
survey’s rapid completion,
quite probably by August
1086, testified to the
strength of pre-1066
governmental structures
and William’s ability to
exploit them.
Studies of Domesday are
full of friendly
controversy. One
ingenious suggestion (by
David Roffe) is that
William commissioned the
survey but not the book,
the latter being the
brainchild in the 1090s of
William Rufus’s chief
minister, Ranulf Flambard.
But a Worcester chronicler
of the early twelfth
century states that the
Conqueror ordered that
everything be written in a
book, and the returns
would certainly have been
useless unless edited. As
for the purpose of the
whole exercise, one view is
that William wanted
information to enable a
reassessment of the geld.
But there is no indication
that the geld was generally
reassessed, nor does
Domesday Book itself
highlight the information
which would have been
relevant. If the Conqueror
wished to increase his
revenue from the geld, it
could be done much more
simply by altering the rate
at which it was levied, and
reducing the number of
exemptions. The form of
the book suggests the
principal aim was rather
different: the king wanted
information about his own
properties and those of his
tenants. Domesday
arranges its information
county by county. At the
start of each section there
is a survey of the county
town and a statement of
the customs of the shire.
Then follow the estates of
the landholders one after
another, listed hundred by
hundred and then manor
by manor. The first
landholder is always the
king. The survey thus
provided William with
detailed information about
his own lands, including
assessments of their
potential value. His
harshness as a landlord is
referred to explicitly by
the Anglo-Saxon chronicler
and he was now ideally
placed to demand more
from his reeves and
lessees. Any efficient
landholder taking over a
new estate would have it
surveyed; for William,
Domesday Book was such
a survey on a gigantic
scale. William was equally
determined to know about
the estates of his tenants.
The list of their names at
the start of each county
section made it easy to
find the page where the
entry for each began. In
1085 William had parked
out his army, brought to
meet the Danish threat, on
the lands of his barons,
hence perhaps his
immediate desire for more
information about their
possessions. But the
broader background was
the gigantic turnover in
landholding which had
taken place since the
Conquest. For all William’s
attempts to control it
through written orders and
special officials, some
barons had just helped
themselves, and there was
no record of the final
results. Domesday
provided just that. Now,
when William wanted to
seize estates after a
tenant’s forfeiture or
death, he knew what to
take. If he kept those
estates in his own hands
during an ecclesiastical
vacancy, or through
wardship or escheat, then
he could exploit them as
effectively as any land of
his own. Domesday Book
was therefore very much
about exploiting the king’s
feudal rights and revenues.
 Why then did the
magnates themselves co-
operate in the making of
the survey? The answer is
that Domesday Book
provided them with
something approaching a
written title to their lands,
if not a definitive one. This
was why it recorded the
name of the Anglo-Saxon
holder of the land in 1066.
That was completely
irrelevant to the
exploitation of the estate,
but it was very relevant
indeed if (as was so often
the case) land was claimed
by a Norman lord as the
successor of an English
‘ancestor’. Of course what
precisely an ‘ancestor’ had
held often gave rise to
disputes, and the
Domesday commissioners
were far too busy to
determine all of them.
Nevertheless the whole
process provided an
opportunity to ventilate
claims which the king
issued writs ordering local
courts to settle.
In the generation after
its construction, and
probably for longer,
Domesday was central to
the exploitation of the
king’s lands and his feudal
rights and revenues.
Almost at once, moreover,
William responded to
something else the survey
had been designed to
reveal: the names of the
under-tenants enfeoffed by
the tenants-in-chief. Would
these men be loyal to the
king or simply to their
overlords? William, with
characteristic precision,
provided an answer. He
could not demand homage
from the under-tenants
because they did not hold
land from him. But he
could demand an oath of
fealty. In August 1086 he
summoned to Salisbury ‘all
the landholding men of
any account that were
over all England whosoever
men they were’ (my italics)
and made them swear just
such an oath. Domesday
Book thus revealed the
dual polity which had
emerged out of the unitary
Anglo-Saxon state. On the
one hand there were the
pre-1066 counties and
hundreds giving the king a
direct relationship with all
his subjects, particularly
through maintenance of
his peace. On the other,
within this old framework,
were the new structures of
feudalism.
After the Oath of
Salisbury, William
returned to Normandy and
within a year lay buried in
his great abbey at Caen. ‘I
was brought up in arms
from childhood,’ he
groaned on his deathbed,
according to Orderic
Vitalis. This martial, stern,
demanding, jovial, pious,
intelligent and farseeing
man had transformed the
face of Europe.
4

Wales,
Scotland and
the Normans,
1058–94
According to his obituary
in the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, King William
subdued both Wales and
Scotland and would have
conquered Ireland too had
he lived a few more years.
The comment reflected the
aura of William’s power
but not the reality of his
policies, which were more
defensive than aggressive.
This was chiefly because of
the limited value of Celtic
Britain and William’s
higher priorities
elsewhere. It was also
because of the nature of
William’s kingship.
Lanfranc, on becoming
archbishop of Canterbury,
investigated the ancient
rights of his see and
argued he was ‘primate of
all Britain’. William, on the
other hand, rarely toyed
with the British imperial
titles sometimes adopted
by the Anglo-Saxon kings.
Instead he proclaimed
himself simply ‘king of the
English’, a kingship which
at most carried claims to
tribute from the Welsh
rulers and a loose
overlordship over the king
of Scots. William inherited
no lands from the
Confessor in Wales or
Scotland and gained none
from the forfeitures after
the Conquest. He used
Harold’s estates in
Herefordshire to set up a
frontier lordship for
William fitz Osbern. It was
not William but his
Norman barons who were
to transform the face of
Wales, gripping it within a
generation far more
fundamentally than had
the Anglo-Saxons in many
centuries. No similar
transformation in this
early period took place in
Scotland. Indeed in the
north it was the king of
Scots who was the
aggressor, not the
Normans.
***
In its entry for 1069 the
Brut, the principal native
chronicle for the whole
period covered by this
book, implied that Wales
was divided into three
political entities:
Gwynedd, Powys and
Deheubarth. Gwynedd was
the whole of north-west
Wales from the estuary of
the Dee to the estuary of
the Dyfi. Powys was north-
east Wales from the Dee to
around the upper valley of
the Severn. Deheubarth
meant broadly the whole
of south Wales, Wales that
is to the south of the Dyfi
estuary and the Wye,
although it came later to
mean simply those parts of
south-west Wales which
had escaped Norman rule.
Gwynedd and Powys were
far more coherent
politically than
Deheubarth but all three
were liable to division
between rival rulers. This
was facilitated by the way
they were made up of a
series of smaller
administrative regions
called cantrefs and
commotes, the latter
sometimes being
subdivisions of the former.
There were five commotes,
for example, within
Gwynedd’s western
cantrefs of Llŷn, Ardudwy
and Meirionydd. Cantrefs
and commotes could
themselves form parts of
larger units. In
Deheubarth, the latter
included Ceredigion,
Dyfed, Yystrad Tywi, and
Glamorgan, the last with
kings of its own. All these
regions appear as separate
entities again and again in
the Brut. In Gwynedd the
four cantrefs between the
Conwy and the Dee gave
the name ‘the Four
Cantrefs’ to the whole
area.
There has been much
debate about the origins of
the cantrefs and
commotes. Had they
grown up almost as
separate kingdoms so that
their holders enjoyed near
kingly rights and status, or
had they been created
from above by kings who
decided – at least in theory
– the authority their lords
enjoyed? Whichever was
the case, cantrefs and
commotes were both
centres of lordship, with
dues paid to a central
court, and focuses of
community; hence the ease
with which Gwynedd,
Powys and Deheubarth
could be broken up, and
the ‘hostile heart’
engendered by the round
of plundering warfare
between men of different
regions.
Underlying many of
these features were the
basic facts of geography.
Nearly all the divisions
mentioned above had their
own geographical logic,
very often drawn by rivers.
A single political entity
embracing them all had
none. The great mountains
which dominated Wales
prevented any easy
journey across the country.
In the north, Gwynedd
itself was divided naturally
by the river Conwy.
Viewed from the eastern
side of its estuary on the
great rock of Deganwy, the
menacing mountains of
Snowdonia to the west,
running sheer into the sea,
still seem to guard an
almost impenetrable land.
In the south-west,
Ceredigion centred on the
narrow coastal plain
between the rivers Dyfi
and Teifi. In the south the
major divisions all had
their own characteristics:
the lowlands of Dyfed with
the great ecclesiastical
centre of St Davids; Ystrad
Tywi, the heart of the
kingdom of Deheubarth,
with its mountainous
cantrefs of Mawr and
Bychan severed by the
deep-grooved Tywi;
Glamorgan, cut through by
rivers, with lowlands in
the south, uplands in the
north, and then to the east
the rich pastures of Gwent.
Acting as a hinge between
north and south Wales,
there was a mountainous
region described as
‘between the Wye and the
Severn’. The upper valleys
of these two great rivers
provided avenues
eastwards into England
and westwards through to
south-west Wales. The
strategic importance of
this area led to constant
battles for its control.
Given this geography it
was not surprising that
Wales was subject to a
multiplicity of competing
rulers. Before his defeat by
Harold in 1063, Gruffudd
ap Llywelyn had brought
all Wales under his rule
but it was a brief and
unique achievement. A
single language, a native
law and a common descent
from the ancient Britons
and so, as legend had it,
from Brutus and the
Trojans made the Welsh
think of themselves as a
separate and distinctive
people. But there were
conflicting ideas about
how or indeed whether
this needed to be
expressed politically. ‘They
obstinately and proudly
refuse to submit to one
ruler,’ commented Gerald
of Wales towards the end
of the twelfth century.
Welsh law books of that
time and later might begin
with a vision of a united
Wales basking in the rule
of the tenth-century King
Hywel the Good, but they
actually dealt with a Wales
in which there was a
plurality of kingdoms. (See
below, p. 228.) Whether
Welsh law also enforced
division by stipulating that
kingdoms should be
apportioned among the
sons of a ruler is more
questionable. Such
partition was certainly the
law and custom with
ordinary patrimonies, but
with kingdoms the laws
envisaged a single heir, the
edling, designated by the
ruler. Just who the edling
should be, however, was
less clear. Throne-
worthiness was not
confined to the sons, let
alone the eldest son, of the
previous king; therefore
the potential existed for
disputes over the
succession, in the course of
which kingdoms were
divided up, so much so
that, whatever the precise
law, the practice became
regarded as almost
customary. Claims and
feuds were also
encouraged (as Gerald of
Wales observed) by the
practice of fostering out
sons to different noble
families and by the intense
pride in lineage – Rhys ap
Tewdwr ap Cadell ap
Einon ap Owain ap Hywel
Dda, ran one genealogy.
Conflict was also
fostered by the nature of
Welsh kingship. The Brut
frequently used the word
brenin which in Latin was
translated as rex, that is
‘king’. Yet there was not
one of Henry II’s knights
(it was later said) who did
not regard himself as
worth a Welsh king. The
latter were very different
from those of England and
not just because of their
puny resources. They went
through, as far as is
known, no coronation or
inauguration ceremony;
and they had a much
smaller role in the
maintenance of law and
order, which was largely a
communal responsibility.
To a far greater extent
than their English
counterparts they were
simply warrior chiefs, their
aim to secure ‘vast spoil
and return home
eminently worthy’ as
Gruffudd ap Llywelyn did
after his campaign of
1055.
The nature of this
warfare and the politics
which went with it was
extremely violent,
sometimes exultantly so.
‘Amidst that [battle]
Trahaearn was stabbed in
his bowels until he was on
the ground breathing his
last, chewing with his
teeth the fresh herbs. Then
Gwcharki the Irishman
made bacon of him as of a
pig.’ So the Life of
Gruffudd ap Cynan
celebrated the death of his
rival, Trahaearn ap
Caradog, at the battle of
Mynydd Carn in 1081.
Having won this victory
Gruffudd marched to
Powys where, according to
the Life, ‘he straightaway
displayed his cruelty in the
manner of a victor’. ‘He
destroyed and killed its
people, burned its houses
and took its women and
maidens captive… He
destroyed the land
completely.’ Two things
separated this kind of
politics and warfare from
that evolving in the Anglo-
Norman world (discussed
more fully below, pp. 126–
7). One was the slaying of
noble rivals. Between 1069
and 1081 no less than
eleven Welsh princes fell
in the violence. A minister
of Henry I (1100–1135), in
a later period of strife,
arranged a truce ‘out of
love of the land for he
knew they were all killing
one another’. The second
difference was the seizure
of women and children to
be kept or traded as slaves,
something encouraged by
the absence of castles in
which to keep prisoners
and of money with which
to ransom them. Thus the
ruler Iorwerth ap Bleddyn
was allowed to promise
Henry I £300 of silver ‘in
whatever form he could,
horses, oxen and other
things’.
At the heart of the
violence between 1069
and 1081 were the
conflicts within the kin of
Gruffudd ap Llywelyn,
king over all the Welsh,
who was murdered by his
men in 1063 following his
defeat by Harold. ‘After
innumerable victories… he
was now laid in the waste
valleys,’ lamented the Brut.
At last in 1081, after the
great victory at Mynydd
Carn, Rhys ap Tewdwr
established himself in
Deheubarth, ‘the kingdom
of the south’, while his ally
Gruffudd ap Cynan,
grandson of a king of
Gwynedd, bid for
supremacy in the north.
These events had not been
played out in a vacuum.
The whole of the west
coast of Wales was very
much within the orbit of
Irish and Scandinavian
politics. Gruffudd ap
Cynan’s father had fled to
Ireland where he married
the daughter of Olaf, the
Danish king of Dublin,
Gruffudd himself being the
fruit of the union.
Gwcharki who made bacon
of Trahaearn was only one
of many Irishmen who
swelled the armies of the
Welsh rulers. To the east,
on the other hand, Wales
was accessible to England.
Before the Conquest there
had been English
settlement as far west as
Rhuddlan in the north. In
the south, Harold had
established a hunting
lodge at Portskewet in
Gwent although this was
soon burnt down by the
Welsh. The Normans
would not be so easily
removed. Their hand was
already apparent at the
battle of Mynydd Carn for
King Caradog of
Glamorgan, killed there
alongside Trahaearn, had
been a client of King
William. The purpose of
William’s solitary
expedition to Wales in
1081 was to secure a
similar submission from
Caradog’s supplanter, Rhys
ap Tewdr. Meanwhile
within a year of his victory
at Mynydd Carn, Gruffudd
ap Cynan found himself a
prisoner of Earl Hugh of
Chester, who was
determined to establish is
own supremacy in the
north. ‘That was the first
plague and fierce advent of
the Normans to the land of
Gwynedd,’ groaned
Gruffudd’s Life.
The Normans had
reached Wales very soon
after their arrival in
England. Within three
years of Hastings William
had established William
fitz Osbern, Roger of
Montgomery and Hugh of
Avranches as earls with
great power in the border
counties of Herefordshire,
Shropshire and Cheshire
respectively. This was a
strategy to protect the
frontier from Welsh
incursions. But it could
also serve as the base for
Norman advance. In the
south William fitz Osbern
established a castle at
Chepstow at the mouth of
the Wye and another castle
higher up the river at
Monmouth, and began the
advance into Gwent. By
1086 there was a Norman
castle at Caerleon on the
Usk, and its lord held
considerable lands west of
the river. William also
established Clifford castle
four square in the upper
valley of the Wye, and this
could support the Norman
advance (gathering pace in
the 1090s) towards Brecon
and Builth. Fitz Osbern’s
death in 1071 and the
rebellion of his son Roger
in 1075 inevitably slowed
the pace of advance, the
Conqueror being content
to hold the line through
the sheriff of Herefordshire
and receive tribute from
the Welsh rulers.
Domesday Book shows
that paid by Rhys ap
Tewdwr was an annual
£40. Having secured
Rhys’s submission
William’s 1081 expedition
metamorphosed into a
pilgrimage to St Davids.
Until his final demise in
1093, Rhys’s problems
were less with the
Normans than with his
Welsh rivals whom he
defeated and killed (after a
period of exile in Ireland)
in 1088 and 1091.
All this was to change
in April 1093 when Rhys
was killed by the Normans
edging into Brecon.
Cadwgan ap Bleddyn of
Powys then immediately
plundered Ceredigion and
Dyfed and departed. Two
months later the Normans
overran the same areas
and stayed. Arnulf, Roger
of Montgomery’s son, now
established the first castle
at Pembroke, one never
afterwards taken by the
Welsh. South-west Wales,
‘which was not in their
power before that’, as the
Brut put it, thus came
under Norman rule. Rhys’s
death must likewise have
facilitated Bernard of
Neufmarché’s conquest of
Brecon and further south
Robert fitz Hamon’s of
southern Glamorgan, for
which Cardiff castle was
the base. The Normans
also moved into upper
Gwent, the base here being
the castle at Abergavenny.
 Further north, after
1066, Roger of
Montgomery’s position in
Shropshire had actually
been more dominant than
that of fitz Osbern’s in
Herefordshire because he
was given all the non-
ecclesiastical land in the
shire. He parcelled much
of it out, in solid strategic
blocks, to his followers,
who built their own
mottes, like that of the
Corbets at Caus and the
Says at Clun. Roger
himself established the
first castle of Montgomery,
named after his home in
Normandy, just as Caus
was named after the pays
de Caux. Montgomery was
a hinge on which Norman
and subsequently English
control of Wales turned. It
stood just to the west of
Offa’s Dyke, at the point
where the Severn plunges
into the mountains of
central Wales, to connect
via narrow passes with the
Dyfi valley. Thence the
way was opened to
Aberystwyth and the
whole of south-west Wales.
Doubtless this was the
route (protected by eight
mottes built down the
Severn valley) the
Normans took when they
advanced into Ceredigion
and Dyfed.
It was north Wales
which saw the most
spectacular and ultimately
the most illusory of these
early Norman advances. In
Cheshire Earl Hugh had
received a concentration of
lands much like Roger of
Montgomery’s in
Shropshire. From there his
nephew, Robert, had
advanced probably in the
1070s to establish a castle
at Rhuddlan, by this
means controlling the
valley of the Clwyd. The
seizure of Gruffudd ap
Cynan after his victory at
Mynydd Carn was clearly
designed to eliminate any
challenge from that
quarter. By the time of
Domesday Book the
Normans had pushed on to
the Conwy above which
Robert had probably
completed his castle of
Deganwy. By sea as by
land, that was the base for
the conquest of the rich
corn lands of Anglesey
together with most of the
rest of Gwynedd, the hold
consolidated by castles
which in their skilful siting
(one was at Caernarfon)
foreshadowed those of the
ultimate Edwardian
conquest in the thirteenth
century.
With Anglesey,
Gwynedd and the rest of
the north held by the
castles of Robert of
Rhuddlan and Earl Hugh
of Chester, and with
Ceredigion, Pembroke,
Glamorgan and Gwent
being secured in the west
and south, it looked as
though all of Wales would
soon fall to Norman rule.
Yet it was not to be. On 3
July 1093, Robert of
Rhuddlan was killed in a
skirmish by his Welsh foes,
led – at least according to
Orderic – by Gruffudd ap
Cynan. Next year, in the
words of the Brut, the
Welsh ‘being unable to
bear the tyranny and
injustice of the French,
threw off their rule’. In the
north, Gruffudd ap Cynan
and Cadwgan ap Bleddyn
of Powys destroyed the
Norman castles in
Gwynedd and slaughtered
a relief expedition. In the
south, helped by the death
of Roger of Montgomery in
July 1094, the new castles
in Ceredigion and Dyfed,
with the exception of
Pembroke, were destroyed
in risings. The Normans
ultimately held on to most
of the coastal lowlands of
south Wales but their
control of Gwynedd was
never fully restored, the
greatest reverse they
suffered in all their
conquests in Britain.
 The changes wrought by
the Normans remained
profound. In the areas
which came and remained
under their sway, notably
the southern lowlands, the
native rulers were either
eliminated or subjected
and eclipsed. At a lower
level, some Welshmen
became peasants within
the manors established by
the Normans, being
interspersed with English
immigrants. In Dyfed in
the early twelfth century
substantial numbers of
Flemings were also
introduced (see above, p.
38). Alongside these new
manors there were
settlements which
remained Welsh, some
populated by freemen and
some by bondmen, both
groups now giving their
services and renders to
their new lords. There was
a tendency for these
‘Welshries’, as they came
to be called, to be pushed
onto less fertile land,
hence the profound
difference which
developed between south
and north Glamorgan,
lowlands and uplands, one
Anglo-Norman and the
other Welsh. Yet the
transformation in Wales,
dramatic though it was,
proved less awesome than
that in England. The
English aristocracy was
destroyed after 1066; the
Welsh was not. Substantial
parts of Wales, if shifting
in size, remained under
native rulers. In the
thirteenth century, the
descendants of Gruffudd
ap Cynan, Cadwgan ap
Bleddyn and Rhys ap
Tewdwr still held sway in
Gwynedd, Powys and
regions of the south.
The Norman conquest
of Wales was thus
permanent yet incomplete.
For the incompleteness
there was, of course, one
paramount reason, as
Gerald of Wales pointed
out. Wales was formidably
defended by its mountains,
woods and rivers. The
political fragmentation
caused by this geography
in fact served Wales well.
There could be no Welsh
Hastings, no overthrow of
the kingdom in a single
battle. Wales would have
to be conquered
piecemeal, with armies,
fleets and castle-building
all co-ordinated. That, as
Gerald noted, would take
the ‘diligent and constant
purpose’ of the king for at
least a year. William, given
his scale of priorities,
could not give that amount
of time. Nor could his
successors in the 200 years
after 1066. It followed,
therefore, that the
conquest of Wales
remained a baronial, not a
royal, enterprise. Yet the
barons too had rival
preoccupations. William
fitz Osbern died fighting
for William in Flanders; his
son was disinherited after
rebellion in England; the
Montgomerys had wide
lands in France. Moreover
once the most fertile parts
of Wales, the southern
lowlands, had been
absorbed, the incentive to
‘go on’ lessened. On a day-
to-day basis, the
consolidation and
continuation of the
conquest of Wales were
left to knightly tenants
with no more resources
than their Welsh
opponents.
The Welsh, moreover,
were redoubtable
opponents. They are
‘entirely bred up to the use
of arms’, commented
Gerald of Wales, almost
echoing the Conqueror’s
dying remarks about
himself. A great chief (like
Hywel ap Goronwy) slept
with his sword above his
head and his spear at his
feet, and wished to die in
battle, not in bed. Later
evidence shows that Welsh
rulers could raise armies of
foot several thousand
strong, exploiting the
obligation on all freemen
to perform military service
as needed within the
kingdom and for a period
of six weeks a year outside
it. (This at any rate was
the obligation as stated in
the Welsh law books of the
late twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.) Alongside such
forces was the king’s
permanent war band, his
teulu, which was really the
central institution of his
kingship. Composed of
young nobles maintained
at court, the teulu might be
used to eliminate the
king’s opponents by
mutilation or murder, and
generally to act as the
enforcer of his rule. It
formed the core of royal
armies, and was doubtless
the chief beneficiary of the
plunder. Confronted by
such lightly armoured,
sure-footed warriors,
equipped with bows and
spears, masters of the
sudden ambush and the
quick retreat, the armies of
the Normans rarely
achieved decisive victories.
The Welsh, moreover, also
learnt from the Normans.
They had long bred horses
and now learnt to fight on
them. They donned mail
and built castles. Militarily
they thus had the best of
both worlds.
The permanence of the
Conquest, even if the
conquered areas
fluctuated, owed
everything to the many-
sided abilities of the
Normans themselves not
only in the realms of
violence but also of
accommodation. In Wales
the Normans were the
same explosively
confident, brutally
professional, free-wheeling
warriors who had
campaigned in Maine and
Brittany and had
conquered England. In
Wales their war joy and
greed could be unconfined.
They now operated in the
March, that is the frontier
zone beyond the English
kingdom. Instead of
receiving their lands from
the Conqueror they carved
out their own marcher
lordships. Instead of being
hedged around by the
structures of royal
government, within their
lordships they exercised
almost sovereign power.
When the powers of the
marcher barons were
defined in later centuries,
they had near total control
over justice (hence the
king’s writ did not run)
and enjoyed the right to
wage war and build
castles. Historians once
thought that these powers
were either conceded by
the king or taken over
with the cantrefs and
commotes of native Wales.
But it was far more fun
than that. The Normans in
Wales were conquerors,
not constitutionalists.
Sometimes they exploited
existing territorial units,
but equally (as in
Glamorgan) they often
ignored them. With the
king’s acquiescence, the
powers of the marcher
lords were taken into their
own hands. They were
absolutely necessary to
conquer and control.
Individual marcher
baronies could expand and
contract depending on the
ebb and flow of conquest.
Some remained small like
Clun (held directly from
the king after the
forfeiture of the
Montgomery family).
Others like Pembroke and
Glamorgan came to be
considered as the
equivalent of English
shires. Central to the
survival of all of them was
the castle; no less than 300
pre-1215 sites have been
identified in Wales. Castles
were centres of aggressive
lordship and bastions of
safety in times of retreat.
They were also intended to
be psychologically
crushing: Carew was built
on top of ancient
earthworks and overlooked
a cross commemorating a
former ruler of
Deheubarth. Many began
as simple motte-and-bailey
structures topped with
wood but usually at some
point wood was replaced
by stone. Sometimes stone
was used from the start.
Again and again in the
narrative of the Brut, the
Welsh risings swept over
everything else only to
break against the great
stone keeps. Nothing
marks the distinction
between English and
Norman methods more
clearly than the contrast
between Harold’s palace at
Portskewet, so easily burnt
down in 1065, and fitz
Osbern’s massive keep at
Chepstow, never
afterwards taken by the
Welsh. Of course, masonry
is nothing without the men
to man it, and here too the
Normans had an answer.
Many of the major castles
were centres of what
historians have called
‘castleries’ where the lord’s
tenants held their land in
return for providing a
garrison for the castle’s
defence. At Clun, for
example, the building of
the castle in the 1090s was
quickly followed by the
enfeoffment in the
surrounding area of
tenants who owed a total
of seven knights for ‘castle
guard’, the rest of the
garrison probably coming
from paid troops.
There was also a
‘spiritual’ side to the
Norman conquest of
Wales, as there was to that
of England. The Welsh clas
(‘community’) churches,
with their hereditary
clergy, unregulated in
behaviour, seemed
scandalous to these
church-militant Normans.
They used the lands of
such institutions to found
new houses (nineteen were
established between 1070
and 1150) and endow
existing monasteries in
England and Normandy. In
one evocative passage,
Orderic Vitalis described
the peaceful scene in the
chapter house of his
monastery, St Evroult,
when Robert of Rhuddlan
confirmed his gifts in
England and Wales to the
house. In another passage
Orderic gave a graphic
picture of Robert’s violent
death under the towering
cliffs of the Great Orme,
just north of Conwy, as he
rushed forward on foot to
confront his foes; two
scenes which encapsulate
the gallantry, piety and
ranging activity of these
Norman conquerors.
The Normans were self-
confident in their prowess
and in their piety, but they
were not blindly arrogant.
They were quite ready to
learn from the Welsh and
adapt to conditions, even
coming in the early days to
see the possibilities of the
slave trade. The Welsh
long remembered with
grudging respect how Earl
Hugh of Chester paid off
some Scandinavian
mercenaries not with
young men and women
but with toothless hags.
Given the Welsh terrain,
the Normans soon saw the
value of lightly armoured
cavalry, and some tenants
(for example in the
lordship of Oswestry) held
their lands in return for
providing it. The Normans
also recruited foot soldiers,
sometimes in large
numbers, here drawing on
the Welsh who remained
within their lordships. The
Normans too got the best
of both worlds. At a higher
level, they were very ready
to make alliances with the
Welsh rulers, indeed there
were Normans fighting for
King Caradog at the battle
of Mynydd Carn. There
was nothing socially
demeaning about such
contacts. Just as they came
to venerate Welsh saints
like Dogmael and David,
so the Normans also
respected the status of the
Welsh rulers. Thus
Caradog rubbed shoulders
with Norman barons at the
consecration of St Mary’s
church at Monmouth.
Later in the 1120s
Gruffudd, the son of Rhys
ap Tewdwr, though now
virtually landless, might
still ride in company with
two great marcher barons
and be complimented on
his ‘innate nobility’. By
this time intermarriage
between Welsh and
Norman noble families was
common-place. Once it
was clear that the Welsh
rulers were not going to be
destroyed like their
equivalents in England, the
Normans, if they were to
profit from their gains, had
just as much interest in
peace as they had in war.
If violence brought the
Normans their possessions
in Wales, it was often
accommodation which
enabled them to keep and
exploit those gains.
Of course, it takes two
to accommodate and the
Welsh proved willing
partners. That was another
important reason for their
survival. King Caradog and
Rhys ap Tewdwr were the
first in a long line of Welsh
rulers who tried by a
policy of submission and
alliance to limit Norman
attacks, while gaining
Norman support in their
struggles for mastery over
their native rivals. The
Normans were far more,
however, than simply new
ingredients in old politics.
Their advent was
traumatic. ‘Why have the
blind fates not let us die?
… O [Wales] you are
afflicted and dying,’ cried
a despairing poet in the
1090s. The whole pattern
of life had changed for
ever. The Welsh within the
marcher baronies faced
new and exigent foreign
lords. The Welsh rulers
now played out their old
politics as part of a much
greater and more
dangerous game, one in
which, challenged by the
marcher barons and the
English king, they strove
to retain what they held
and recover what they had
lost. The game only ended
with the final conquest of
Wales by Edward I.
***
In 1040 Macbeth (of
Shakespeare’s play) killed
Duncan, king of Scots, and
seized his throne. It was
not till 1058 that Duncan’s
son Malcolm, after a
period of exile in England,
was effectively restored,
thus inaugurating one of
the most significant reigns
in Scottish history. Two
fundamental points need
to be made about
Malcolm’s kingship. The
first is that he ruled an
area far smaller than
Scotland today. The
second is that the Scots
were only one of several
peoples who inhabited the
north of Britain. The
history of the north during
the period covered by this
book is essentially that of
Malcolm’s descendants
expanding the area of their
rule, both by conquest and
accommodation, thus
creating the boundaries of
modern Scotland and a
single people of the Scots.
The line of King
Malcolm had been founded
in the mid ninth century
by a king of Scots, Kenneth
MacAlpin, who had
established himself east of
the highlands between the
firths of Forth and Moray.
That this area was the
original heart of the
Scottish kingdom is
suggested by the way the
thanages, the basic units of
royal administration in the
localities (discussed later),
were concentrated within
it. It is also suggested by
the use of the terms
Scotland and the Scots.
These are English forms of
the Latin Scocia and Scotti
which were themselves the
equivalents of the Gaelic
Alba and Albanaig. Now
when we first have
evidence of geographical
meanings in the twelfth
century, ‘Scotland’ could
still stand for broadly this
same area between the
firths of Forth and Moray
(see above, p. 11). The
only difference, for reasons
we will mention, was that
the use excluded Moray
itself, the area running
westwards from the river
Spey, although it possessed
a significant number of
thanages and had almost
certainly been part of the
original kingdom.
 The limited extent of
early Scotland is easily
explained. There was a
substantial Norse
population in the far north
in Caithness. Lothian,
running south from the
Forth to the Tweed, was
largely inhabited by
English. In the west, the
Galwegians (the men of
Galloway) and the
Cumbrians (Cumbria
extending from the Clyde
to the southern edge of the
Lake District) had their
own identities, ones which
owed much to the Norse
Gaelic culture of Ireland.
The rulers of Caithness,
Argyll and Galloway were
all striving to increase
their power: Galloway
itself, as a single political
entity, was the creation of
Fergus in the 1120s and
1130s. His style ‘king of
the Galwegians’ well
reflects his own view of his
status. The rulers of Argyll
and Galloway looked, not
east to Scotland, but west
to the Irish Sea, where
they struggled for mastery
over the Isle of Man and
Western Isles with the
dynasty – often highly
factionalized – established
as kings of Man by the
great Irish warrior Godred
Crovan around 1079.
Here, as with Orkney and
Shetland, the nominal
overlord, formally
recognized from 1098, was
not the king of Scots at all,
but the king of Norway.
The MacAlpins were
certainly not content with
this situation. Their claims
to wider authority are
reflected in the way
‘Scotland’ was also used in
a second, larger, sense to
mean the whole area north
of the firths of Clyde and
Forth. This ‘larger’
Scotland still excluded
Lothian and Cumbria, but
it was here that the kings
made some of their early
advances. Between around
960 (when Edinburgh was
a royal base) and 1018
they had taken hold of
Lothian, placing the south-
east border on the Tweed.
They had also gradually
asserted dominion over
Cumbria, ultimately after
1018 using it as an
appanage for the heir to
the throne. But there were
also setbacks. In 1054
Cumbria south of the
Solway seems to have
fallen to Siward, Earl of
Northumbria. Even worse,
a division was opening
within the original
kingdom through conflict
with Moray. Moray had
been the power base of
Macbeth (himself a
member of the MacAlpin
dynasty) and after his
demise, as we will see, a
kinsman continued to rule
there. The growing fissure
explains why in the next
century Moray was not
part of Scotland at all in
the narrow use of the term
referred to earlier.
In the assertion of royal
power, one important
factor made for continuity
and stability. Although
there might be dispute
over who should be king
of Scots, the kingship itself
was not usually divided.
The severance with Moray
was the exception which
proved the rule. Already
therefore there was a
fundamental contrast with
the multiple kingship
prevalent in Wales. The
MacAlpin kings, while
they were not anointed,
enjoyed a much higher
status than their Welsh
counterparts, being almost
certainly inaugurated with
ceremony at Scone. The
king had also, as
Alexander Grant has
shown, a local
organization which
enabled him to exploit his
resources. The latter were
essentially derived from
the royal lands, which
were organized into shires
or what were later called
‘thanages’ after the official,
the thane, who ran them.
A thanage, of which
seventy-one are known,
normally embraced one or
two parishes (or what
were to become parishes),
with the thane collecting
renders in kind from the
dependent settlements at
the estate centre. Although
their existence has always
to be deduced from later
evidence, the great
majority of the thanages
probably existed at the
time of Malcolm’s
accession, being largely
situated between the Firths
of Forth and Moray.
Within the area of the
thanages the king did not
hold all the land, for there
were many lords with their
own estates. There were
also superior officials, who
took the proceeds of land
attached to their offices,
and held the title
‘mormaer’, or ‘earl’. (The
titles were
interchangeable, with the
latter eventually becoming
general.) However, the
earldoms within the core
of the kingdom, Fife,
Gowrie, Angus and
Mearns, were hedged
around and honeycombed
by the thanages. Gowrie,
indeed, was in the king’s
hands. The thanages thus
formed the heart of royal
Scotland. Round them was
a ring of provinces:
Menteith, Strathearn,
Athol, Mar and Buchan, in
which, unlike the inner-
core earldoms, there were
no thanages at all. These
too were under mormaers
or earls who were
certainly subject to the
king in a way the rulers of
Galloway, Argyll and
Caithness were not. But
with their offices
becoming hereditary and
without thanages to
contend with, they also
enjoyed a large measure of
independence. This
distinction between the
inner core of the kingdom
formed by the thanages
and the outer ring by
earldoms was to be
fundamental to the history
of Scotland throughout our
period (see Map 3).
Within the kingdom
serious crime was settled
by compensation, as in
England, but without
being an offence against
the king: there was no
king’s peace covering the
whole realm. The
hereditary legal official,
the ‘brithem’, played an
important part in both
arranging compensation
and settling disputes over
land. The king, as far as
the evidence goes, made
no use of writing and
minted no coins. Yet in
context the MacAlpin
monarchs were powerful
and successful rulers. It is
highly likely that they had
more wealth than all the
mormaers put together,
partly because the lands of
the latter were generally in
the uplands. Even within
the earldoms a general
system of military service
obtained, similar to the
five-hide system in
England, with (at least in
theory) a specified number
of men coming from each
ploughgate or its Gaelic
equivalent, the ‘davoch’.
An important task of the
mormaers was to lead out
this ‘common army’ from
their provinces, an army
which fought on foot and
could be large and
ferocious. The kingdom as
a whole was liable to tax,
namely ‘cain’, comparable
to the geld, though paid in
kind and raising unknown
amounts. The royal estates
themselves seem
impressively organized.
They provided ‘conveth’, a
food render designed to
support the royal
household. This was
organized so as to allow
the kings literally to eat
their way round the
kingdom, in the process
doing much to impress
royal authority within the
core of this small but
manageable realm. All this
reflected another
fundamental difference
from Wales, for the
Scottish lowlands were
sufficiently large, coherent
and central, as the
lowlands of Wales were
not, to encourage the
development of a powerful
single kingship which
would eventually greatly
expand its territorial
authority.
 After ascending the
throne in 1058 King
Malcolm was indeed eager
to expand his power, but
should he attempt to do so
to the north or to the
south? His first marriage
to the widow of Thorfinn,
earl of Orkney might help
him reassert authority in
Moray and lay claim to
over-lordship further
north. In 1078 he crushed
Macbeth’s step-grandson,
Malsnechtai, who ruled in
Moray, seizing his
treasures and cattle. But
the victory seems short-
lived for in 1085 the Ulster
annals recorded the ‘happy
death’ of Malsnechtai ‘king
of Moray’, and the history
of the area is then obscure
for over forty years.
Essentially Malcolm
looked south. The recovery
of Cumbria south of the
Solway was a major
ambition and there were
also rich pickings to be
had across the Tweed
border. An English king
based in the south before
1066, and thereafter a
Norman one who was
often overseas, together
with the general chaos of
the Conquest, all
encouraged Malcolm to
chance his arm. He was to
lead no fewer than five
southern expeditions,
being remembered at
Durham as ‘a man of the
greatest ferocity and
bestial character, who
ravaged Northumbria
miserably with frequent
invasions’. In these
invasions he was to set a
pattern followed by
Scottish kings for over 150
years.
The first incursion was
in 1061. While Tostig,
Siward’s successor, was
absent in Rome, Malcolm
marched into Northumbria
and then probably crossed
to the west to recover
control of Cumbria south
of the Solway. This
southern orientation was
confirmed by Malcolm’s
second marriage. In 1068
he welcomed to his court
Edgar Atheling and other
English exiles. Some two
years later he married
Margaret, Edgar’s sister
and granddaughter of
Edmund Ironside, thus
uniting himself with the
ancient line of Wessex
kings. Margaret was
significantly to influence
her husband’s policies and
to found a line of Scottish
kings.
In 1070, in the
aftermath of Edgar
Atheling’s abortive
invasion of England, but
after King William himself
had disbanded his forces,
Malcolm went south again.
He consolidated his hold
over southern Cumbria
and then ravaged
Teesdale. It was this
invasion (and perhaps also
the marriage to Margaret)
which provoked William’s
one intervention in
Scotland when in 1072 he
marched to Abernethy.
Malcolm ‘gave hostages
and was his man’, as the
Anglo-Saxon chronicler
put it, but he did not
remain quiet for long. In
1079, having triumphed in
Moray, and with William
back in Normandy, he
harried Northumbria as far
south as the Tyne. William
responded by sending his
son Robert north. He
penetrated as far as
Falkirk, secured Malcolm’s
renewed submission, and
on his way back began the
building of a new castle on
the Tyne, the beginnings
of that great northern city.
 The castle was
formidable yet it was also
a recognition of Malcolm’s
power, for it stood not on
the Tweed but on the
Tyne, some seventy miles
further south. As the
northern chronicler
Simeon of Durham
complained, the way
remained open for Scottish
incursions, hence the need
for the castle built at
Norham on Tweed in the
1120s. Equally important,
indeed related, was the
fact that by 1086 the
enfeoffments of Norman
barons had gone no further
north than Mitford, some
fourteen miles beyond
Newcastle. This highlights
the greatest of all the
contrasts between Wales
and Scotland. There was
never any equivalent in
the north of the Welsh
marcher baronies; there
were no Norman lords
aggressively pushing into
the frontier zones and
planting out their castles
beyond the Tweed or the
Solway. On the contrary
the pressure was often
from the other side.
Malcolm’s fourth
invasion came after the
Conqueror’s death in 1091.
With Edgar Atheling once
more at his court and
William Rufus away in
Normandy, he penetrated
almost to Durham. Later in
the year both Rufus and
Robert marched north and
Malcolm yet again
submitted. But the real
response came in the
following year, when
Rufus assembled a large
army, expelled Malcolm’s
client ruler from Cumbria
south of the Solway, and
established a castle and
town at Carlisle. For
Malcolm this was a
devastating blow. He was
deprived of the great
territorial gain of his
career and, with Carlisle
stopping one end, his
access to the primary east–
west route through the
valleys of the Irthing and
the south Tyne. In 1092
Malcolm went south to see
Rufus at Gloucester, and
was told his status was
simply that of an English
baron. Not surprisingly,
the next year he launched
his fifth and last invasion.
He was trapped by Earl
Robert de Mowbray in
Northumbria and killed,
together with Edward, his
eldest son. Queen
Margaret, already ailing,
died when she received the
news.
Malcolm’s invasions of
England, until the last,
were superbly timed. Their
motives were mixed.
Doubtless he hoped to
extend his authority over
an area south of the Tweed
on a permanent footing,
just as he tried to do south
of the Solway, but he
lacked the technology
either to acquire the one
or retain the other. No
castles were built by
Malcolm. The invasions
were still immensely
worthwhile if only for
booty, partly in the form
of slaves. The Durham
source quoted earlier tells
of ‘the very many men and
women led away as
captives’. Queen Margaret
herself tried to purchase
the freedom of English
slaves she found in
Scotland. Yet
paradoxically she was also
one cause of the invasions.
Margaret, thanks to her
Wessex descent, was a
queen of high status,
something Malcolm
acknowledged by naming
their first four sons after
Anglo-Saxon kings. The
children themselves
enhanced Margaret’s role
because she controlled
their education and was
inevitably involved in
what were, as we shall see,
the complex politics of the
succession. A Life of
Margaret, written within a
few years of her death
almost certainly by her
former confessor, Turgot,
the prior of Durham
(1087–1107), affords a
unique glimpse of the
personal chemistry
between husband and
wife, on which so much
queenly power depended.
Malcolm honoured his
wife as more educated and
in religious matters more
fervent and informed than
himself. He gazed at her
books which he could not
read and jestingly
threatened her with
punishment when she took
his money to give to the
poor. Margaret’s fabled
piety was perhaps the
product of her early
upbringing in the only
recently converted
Hungary, whence she had
arrived at the Confessor’s
court in 1057. She heard
several Masses a day, read
and re-read the Psalter,
and filled the palace with
paupers. She was also
concerned with the more
general reform of the
church.
Margaret venerated
some of the Scottish
hermits but it seems
certain that the church in
general needed reform.
There had been no wave of
monastic revival in the
tenth century or later, as
there had been in England
and Normandy, and apart
from a few earlier
survivals the nearest
approach to monasteries
were communities of
Culdees (‘vassals of God’),
established from Ireland in
the ninth century and now
largely regarded as the
private domains of noble
families. As for local
churches, these were often
grouped together, in a way
comparable to the Anglo-
Saxon minsters, under
Culdee communities and
communities of other
clerics. But the ministry
provided, judging from
Margaret’s legislation, was
often lax. Bishoprics
certainly existed, but long
vacancies were apparently
customary and neither the
numbers of bishoprics nor
the diocesan boundaries
seem very fixed.
The scope of Margaret’s
reforms was limited. The
abuses condemned by the
councils over which she
and her husband presided
(neglect of the Sabbath
and improper celebration
of the Mass, for example)
were to be condemned
again when Turgot became
bishop of St Andrews.
Margaret certainly built a
‘noble church at
Dunfermline’ to house a
Benedictine priory – the
first regular Benedictine
monastery in Scotland –
but this was not followed
by a monastic revival.
Margaret’s daughters had
to be sent for their
education to Romsey
abbey in England; and
there was no prospect of
Margaret and Malcolm
working hand-in-hand
with a great bishop as
William did with Lanfranc
in England. St Andrews
was probably recognized
as the senior Scottish
bishopric, but it had no
metropolitan authority,
and in any case Fothad,
who held the see between
1059 and 1093, was no
reformer.
There was a political
dimension to such reforms
as there were because they
fitted well with the agenda
of southern conquest. In
1072 Lanfranc adopted the
title of ‘primate of all
Britain’ but accepted the
authority of the
archbishop of York over
Durham and northwards
‘to the ultimate limits of
Scotland’. Later Scottish
kings were determined to
maintain the independence
of the Scottish church from
the pretensions of York
and Canterbury, yet there
is no sign that this was the
agenda of Malcolm and
Margaret. Indeed,
Margaret sought Lanfranc’s
help in founding
Dunfermline. Malcolm
expected to expand
southwards, not to defend
himself from any southern
threat. Both his violence
and Margaret’s reforms
might, in different ways,
encourage the English to
accept his rule. So might
their adoration of St
Cuthbert at Durham.
Malcolm laid the
foundation stone of the
new cathedral there in
1093 and secured the
convent’s prayers in
perpetuity for himself and
his wife.
Both reform and
invasion were related to
another consideration, one
which dominated the later
stages of Malcolm’s reign:
the question of the
succession. Although the
Scots of the MacAlpin
realm had long had a
single king, and probably
sometimes a successor
designated in advance (the
‘tanaise’), succession was
not by primogeniture.
Rather (until 1005) the
throne had gone to the
member of the royal house
who had seemed most
suitable or been most
powerful. Malcolm II’s
succession by his grandson
Duncan in 1034 was the
first example of the
throne’s passage in the
direct male line since the
mid ninth century. And
then Duncan had soon
been overthrown by
Macbeth. There were now
several potential
challengers for the
succession: Malcolm’s
brother Donald Bàn, for
example, or an even more
likely candidate, Duncan,
the son of his first
marriage, who had been
dispatched to King William
as a hostage in 1072 but
was still inconveniently
alive at the Norman court.
Malcolm himself was
absolutely determined to
be followed by Edward,
Margaret’s eldest son, thus
grafting the MacAlpin line
on to that of the Wessex
kings. But Margaret was
unpopular. At the councils
she had to argue down
opposition and this was
not helped by her lack of
Gaelic; Malcolm himself
had to act as her
translator. It was
absolutely vital therefore
to enhance the prestige
and power of the new
dynasty. The reform of the
church, it was hoped,
would win the favour of
God, if not of man. The
southern wars might also
contribute to this end –
Margaret may have
regretted the slaves, but
she needed the wealth and
the prestige which the
expeditions brought. In
some remarkable passages
Turgot’s Life makes it clear
that at court Margaret was
the mistress of ceremonial,
striving to make ‘the
magnificence of royal
honour much more
magnificent for the king’.
Had she seen Queen Edith
(after whom she named
her eldest daughter) do
much the same at the
court of the Confessor?
Margaret thus adorned
herself ‘in costly elegance
as befitted a queen’. She
decorated the palace with
silken cloths, made native
courtiers dress in coloured
robes, introduced gold and
silver vessels to the table,
and ‘instituted more
ceremonious service of the
king’ so that henceforth he
rode and walked
surrounded by a large
retinue. Malcolm certainly
had a strong sense of his
kingly authority and
insisted his subjects swear
an oath of allegiance to
him. When Turgot refused
to do so he was prevented
from setting up a
monastery at Melrose.
In the end it was all
worth it, for the line of
Malcolm and Margaret did
indeed survive in Scotland.
Through the marriage of
their daughter to Henry I it
became established in
England too.
5

Britain and the

Anglo-Norman
Realm, 1087–
1135
King William’s deathbed
dispositions, whatever his
earlier intentions,
accorded with developing
customary law in
Normandy which
distinguished between
patrimony, which must go
intact to the eldest son,
and acquisitions, which a
father could dispose of as
he wished. Robert became
Duke of Normandy and the
Conqueror’s second son,
William Rufus, king of
England. Henry, the third
son, received only money.
The quarrels between the
Conqueror’s children,
grandchildren and their
noble followers dominated
Anglo-Norman politics
down to 1154, had
constant repercussions in
Wales and Scotland, and
did much to shape and re-
shape the political face of
Britain. This chapter
covers the history of
Britain during the reigns of
William Rufus (1087–
1100) and Henry I (1100–
1135).
***
English politics in the
years after 1087 were
enacted within an Anglo-
Norman framework, one
which involved far more
than simply an old play
acted out on a larger stage.
The central struggle of the
Conqueror’s descendants
to defy the division of
1087, oust their rivals in
England or Normandy, and
thus unite the Anglo-
Norman realm, was
entirely new. So were the
complications which
ensued for the nobility,
especially when they held
lands on both sides of the
Channel. Not everyone, to
be sure, was in this
position. There were major
Norman landholders after
the Conquest, like the
count of Evreux, who held
little or no land in
England. And politics,
particularly in border
areas (like the Norman
Vexin), had their own
momentum distinct from
those of the wider realm.
Yet the fact remains that
large numbers of
influential men did have
extensive cross-Channel
holdings. That was
ultimately true of eight of
the ten barons closest to
the Conqueror at the end
of his reign. When England
and Normandy came under
separate and contending
rulers, as was frequently
the case after 1087, the
position of such men
became intolerable. ‘How
can one serve two
masters?’ the cry went up
again and again. Cross-
Channel barons had to
commit treason to one
ruler or the other, and for
that the normal penalty
was disinheritance. As the
barons complained in
1088, according to
Orderic, ‘If we serve
Robert, Duke of Normandy
as we ought we will offend
his brother William, who
will then strip us of our
great revenues and mighty
honours in England. Again
if we obey King William
dutifully, Duke Robert will
confiscate our inherited
estates in Normandy.’ The
situation was equally
fraught for the ruler, who
sought to prevent the
succession of disloyal heirs
and the marriage of
women to ‘enemies’ (as
Henry I put it in his
Coronation Charter of
1100). Nor was the
problem solved when the
lands of a Conquest baron
were divided between sons
in England and Normandy,
which usually (though not
invariably) happened in
accordance with the
distinction between
patrimony and
acquisitions. Such
separations were rarely
final and clear-cut. For
instance, a baron
disinherited for disloyalty
in England might find
safety with his kin across
the Channel and support
for the recovery of his
lands. Families did not
forget, and cherished
claims to lost lands down
the generations.
One reaction of the
nobility to these
circumstances was to
strive for good relations
between the rival rulers. ‘A
few attentive to their own
advantage for they had
possessions in both
countries were mediators
of peace,’ noted William of
Malmesbury of the civil
war of 1088. Another was
to work for the triumph of
one party over the other,
thus ending the conflict of
interest. ‘Then let us make
Duke Robert ruler over
England and Normandy to
preserve the union of the
two realms’ (Orderic) was
the majority decision in
1088 – not that the
majority got its way.
Politics thus gained a
new intensity after the
Conquest, and yet they
were also less bloody. In
the great Anglo-Norman
and English battles
between 1106 and 1264,
as in the more general
ravaging warfare, very few
nobles were ever killed.
The immediate reason, as
Orderic stressed, was the
protection of armour, but
ultimately any knight
could be surrounded and
disarmed. The key point
was that when this
moment came he simply
surrendered and was taken
off for ransom. The
institution of ransom was,
therefore, absolutely
central to the failsafe
warfare enjoyed by the
nobility in this period.
Indeed the whole aim in
battle was to capture, not
to kill, a noble opponent.
There was here a wider
context because politics
too, not just warfare, was
largely bloodless. It is a
remarkable fact (and one
quite contrary to usual
perceptions of the Middle
Ages) that between
Waltheof’s demise in 1076
and Gaveston’s in 1312 not
a single English earl, and
indeed hardly a single
baron, was executed (or
murdered) in England for
political reasons. Rufus
and Henry I mutilated a
few of their enemies but
such corporal punishments
too were on the way out.
The usual penalty for
treason was disinheritance
and imprisonment. This
was not because of any
lack of theory. Treason, in
the sense of breach of faith
to one’s lord, was very old,
could cover a wide range
of offences, and might
certainly be punishable by
death. It was simply that
in this period the death
penalty was not exacted.
These basic conditions
of warfare and politics
were already becoming
established in Normandy
before 1066. In England,
political killings persisted
(the last took place at
court in 1064) and there
had been no softening of
the view that the penalty
for treason should be
death. Thus Waltheof’s
execution in 1076 was,
wrote Orderic, according
to ‘the law of England’
while ‘the laws of the
Normans’ stipulated
imprisonment and
forfeiture. Nobles were
also killed in English
warfare, in part because
until 1016 it had been in
conflict with another
people, the Danes, and the
whole future of the
dynasty had been at stake.
In Normandy, on the other
hand, warfare both foreign
and domestic was between
high-status nobles of
similar outlook and
background, very often
sharing kith and kin. It
ebbed and flowed across
open frontiers and around
castles, with victory and
defeat unpredictable, and
usually nothing utterly
fundamental at stake. Of
course, when the Normans
engaged in all-out warfare
against another people, as
they did in 1066, they too
killed with a will. But
normally it seemed natural
to spare noble enemies.
Orderic specifically
mentions how family ties
kept down casualties in
battle. This type of politics
was reinforced and
confirmed by the special
circumstances created by
the Anglo-Norman realm.
What was the point in
executing rebels in
England if that just
antagonized their kin in
Normandy? Thus in 1095
Rufus, as Orderic
observed, treated the
rebels mercifully ‘out of
respect for their exalted
kinfolk who might have
sought vengeance in
Normandy’.
 After 1066, therefore,
English politics and
warfare were embraced by
those of Normandy and
France and followed their
conventions. It was the
latter which created the
conditions for the
development of chivalry,
that code of values which
so profoundly influenced
the attitudes of the
aristocracy in this period.
What distinguished
chivalry from earlier codes
was principally ‘courtesy’,
a ‘courtesy’ manifested
most strikingly in the
civilized treatment of one’s
opponent. It was that
comfortable context which
made the practice of the
other chivalric virtues –
loyalty, largesse, and
above all valour – so much
more enjoyable; enjoyable,
that is, for the nobility.
Chivalry was very much a
code which governed their
conduct towards each
other; it had nothing to do
with how they treated
townsmen and peasants.
Knights might not kill each
other in warfare. They
killed everybody else.
***
Physically the sons of
the Conqueror were much
alike: short, stocky, and
barrel-chested, though
Robert was the stoutest
and shortest, hence his
nickname ‘Curthose’
(‘Short-stockings’), while
Rufus had blond hair, a
florid complexion and a
red beard. Henry’s hair
was black. All three were
bred to war, though for
Rufus it was a passion, for
Henry a business. On the
face of it the future
seemed to belong most
probably to Robert. His
right to Normandy was
unchallenged and, as
eldest son, he had some
claim to England. Yet
Robert was ultimately
swept aside by his
brothers, both in
Normandy and in England,
and no wonder. He was
eloquent, plausible and
chivalrous, yet at the same
time he was lazy, prodigal
and utterly without
judgement. Rufus was
totally different.
Ecclesiastical writers
treated him with horror,
the result of his public
pillage of the church and
the murky dissipation of
his private life. In fact he
was probably heterosexual
but with the court at night
deliberately unlit it was
easy to think otherwise.
Rufus, however, was no
spendthrift playboy.
William of Malmesbury
shrewdly noted the
adroitly controlled
contrast between his
private and public face;
the intus and the extus. At
table with his intimates,
Rufus was affable, relaxed,
and self-mocking; in public
assemblies he was
intimidating, with glaring
eyes (of different colours)
and a ferocious voice, that
was all the more
frightening for becoming
slightly halting when he
was angry. Rufus’s sharp
intelligence could slice
through to the political
heart of any question. His
boundless energy
contrasted with Robert’s
torpor, and his expansive
self-confidence with
Henry’s doubts and fears.
Above all, as Malmesbury
recognized, Rufus was
ambitious, he was greedy
for power and fame. His
deeds of personal
gallantry, his ‘mighty
plans’ and his ‘courtesy’
(he offered a place in his
household to a knight who
had unhorsed him) became
legendary. To later secular
writers (most notably
Gaimar, in his History of
the English, written around
1140) he seemed the
epitome of the heroic,
chivalric king. His success
was phenomenal. He
secured Normandy,
conquered Maine,
expanded England’s
frontiers northwards, and
asserted his supremacy
over Scotland. Only Wales,
thanks to these and other
preoccupations which
included a tumultuous
quarrel with Archbishop
Anselm, escaped his
power.
None of this seemed
likely at the start of the
reign. Almost at once
Rufus faced a rebellion
designed to set Robert on
the throne, the aim being
to place England and
Normandy under one
ruler. The leader was
Rufus’s uncle, Odo of
Bayeux, who had been
released on the
Conqueror’s death. His
capture and that of
Rochester castle in the
summer of 1088 brought
the revolt to an end. The
anarchy in Normandy and
Robert’s loss of Maine now
gave Rufus ample
opportunity to turn
aggressor. In January 1091
he arrived in the duchy
with a large army and
forced Robert both to cede
him significant territory
and expel Edgar Atheling,
still a potential focus for
intrigue. Edgar, however,
went to the court of his
brother-in-law, King
Malcolm, and in May
1091, with Rufus still in
Normandy, the two
invaded the north. (See p.
121.) Rufus’s reaction
came in two stages. An
expedition to the Forth in
1091 forced Malcolm’s
submission; an expedition
to the Solway in 1092 led
to the foundation of
Carlisle. Rufus and
Carlisle: the two should
always march together as
the best measure of this
king’s ambition and
achievement. Since 1061
Cumbria south of the
Solway had probably been
King Malcolm’s. But now
the foundation of Carlisle
with its castle superbly
sited on a bluff between
the rivers Caldew and
Eden brought it clearly
within the English
kingdom and opened the
way for further advance.
Carlisle was a far more
aggressive statement than
Newcastle upon Tyne,
which merely retained
what had long been in the
realm.
These and other plans,
however, were soon
hampered by Rufus’s
quarrel with the church. In
March 1093 he fell
dangerously ill and, in the
hope either of survival or
salvation, filled the see of
Canterbury, scandalously
vacant since Lanfranc’s
death in 1089, with
Anselm, the abbot of Bec.
Anselm, an Italian like
Lanfranc, was sixty years
old and had been a monk
of Bec for thirty-three
years. He was famous for
his piety, intellectual
brilliance and theological
writings. He warned that
his appointment meant
shackling a raging bull to
an old and feeble sheep.
But Anselm was no sheep;
a wiry mule with a
forceful kick would have
been a better analogy. Like
Lanfranc, Anselm was
determined to defend
Canterbury’s rights and
properties, many of which
had been lost or damaged
during the vacancy. He
burned too with the desire
to hold Lanfrancian-style
councils for the reform of
the church. But two things
were different. The first
was that Rufus was not
like his father. He had
absolutely no interest in
the church save as a
source of profit. The
second was that Anselm,
younger than Lanfranc and
from a more
uncompromising reform
generation, was not
prepared to qualify
obedience to the pope for
the sake of peace and royal
power in England.
Rufus recovered,
although he never thanked
Anselm for it, and in the
next month decisive events
occured in Wales. The
killing of Rhys ap Tewdr in
April 1093, recognized by
the Conqueror as ruler in
the south, allowed Arnulf,
Roger of Montgomery’s
son, to establish himself at
Pembroke. It also
facilitated Bernard of
Neufmarché’s conquest of
Brecon and Robert fitz
Hamon’s of southern
Glamorgan (see above, p.
111). With Gwynedd in
the north encastellated by
Robert of Rhuddlan and
Earl Hugh of Chester, it
looked as though the
whole of Wales was
coming under Norman
rule. But at once there was
a contrary sign. On 3 July,
in a skirmish under the
cliffs of the Great Orme,
Robert of Rhuddlan was
killed by (or so Orderic
believed) the native
claimant to Gwynedd,
Gruffudd ap Cynan. For
the moment, however,
Rufus was busy with the
affairs of Scotland. In
August 1093, he asserted
that his barons could sit in
judgement on King
Malcolm, a novel claim
which implied the Scottish
king had merely baronial
status. The result, as we
have seen, was Malcolm’s
last invasion of England
and his death together
with that of his eldest son
Edward at the hands of
Earl Robert of Mowbray, a
pardoned rebel of 1088.
With Queen Margaret’s
death a few days later the
tensions created by
Malcolm’s policies
exploded. The English at
court were expelled,
Malcolm’s other sons by
Margaret were brushed
aside, and the throne was
taken by Malcolm’s
younger brother Donald
Bàn. Rufus now seized the
chance to make his own
man king of Scots. He
received the fealty of
Duncan, Malcolm’s son by
his first marriage (long a
hostage at the Norman
court), and sent him north
with an army. Donald Bàn
was ousted and Duncan
became king. Yet, a
measure of Rufus’s
priorities, he himself
crossed to Normandy in
March 1094, having first
refused Anselm’s demand
to fill vacant abbeys and
sanction the holding of a
reforming council.
 When Rufus returned at
the end of 1094, Britain
was in turmoil. That
November Duncan had
been killed and Donald
Bàn restored. There had
also been a general rising
in Wales, Roger of
Montgomery’s death in
July 1094 following the
killing of Robert of
Rhuddlan the year before
having cleared the way.
The Norman base at
Pembroke survived but the
other castles in Ceredigion
and Dyfed were destroyed,
as were the Norman
castles in Gwynedd (see
above, p. 112).
Rufus was in no
position to mount an
immediate response. In
January 1095 at a council
held at Rockingham, his
quarrel with Anselm
reached a climax. Rufus
demanded that the
archbishop abandon Pope
Urban II, whom Anselm
had recognized while
abbot of Bec, and like
everyone else in England
since the Conqueror’s time
(above, pp. 101–2) await
the royal decision over
which of two rival popes
should be recognized. The
king’s authority to make
this decision was integral,
so Rufus asserted, to the
rights of the crown.
Anselm freely
acknowledged the
allegiance he owed the
king ‘in the things that are
Caesar’s’, but denied that
this extended to making
him abandon the pope.
Rather than do that, he
declared, he would leave
the kingdom. In the event,
Rufus, always quick on his
feet, decided to accept
Urban in the hope that this
would bring Anselm’s
deposition, which it did
not. On top of this
problem, in the summer of
1095 Rufus faced a
baronial revolt. Its aim
was to replace him, not
with the hapless Robert,
but with the Conqueror’s
nephew, Stephen, count of
Aumale. The leader, the
tall, dark, unsmiling Earl
Robert de Mowbray,
perhaps felt his dispatch of
King Malcolm had lacked
reward. Rufus reacted with
confidence. Indeed in
October 1095, with
Mowbray’s castle at
Bamburgh under siege, he
led an expedition to north
Wales. Traditional Welsh
tactics were a match for it.
Gruffudd ap Cynan laid
ambushes and retreated to
the hills, thus baffling a
general who was used to a
very different terrain and
had little time to spare.
The revolt, however,
was suppressed. Mowbray
was imprisoned for life,
Earl Hugh of Shrewsbury
was fined £3,000, and the
count of Eu blinded and
castrated. Thereafter Rufus
enjoyed almost unbroken
triumphs. He maintained
peace in England, installed
a client king in Scotland,
took possession of
Normandy, conquered
Maine, and dispensed with
his awkward archbishop of
Canterbury. The real
turning-point for all this
was Robert’s decision to
embark on the First
Crusade, when in order to
raise money he leased
Normandy to Rufus for
five years in return for
£6,666. In September 1096
Rufus took possession of
the duchy. This was
followed the next year by
his second and grander
invasion of Wales, this
time in the south. The
results were unspectacular
but Rufus penetrated to St
Davids, and stabilized the
Norman hold on
Pembroke. The campaign
led to the final break with
Anselm, who was accused
of providing substandard
knights for the expedition.
In November 1097,
pouring scorn on the
custom that no one could
visit Rome without royal
permission, he left England
to put his case to the pope.
‘Go if you must,’ laughed
Rufus’s councillor, the
count of Meulan, ‘we will
get what we want’; and for
the rest of the reign
Canterbury’s revenues
flowed into the royal
coffers.
By this time William
had transformed the
situation in Scotland. In
October 1097 he sent
Edgar Atheling (now an
ally) north with an army.
It drove Donald Bàn from
the kingdom and installed
Edgar, Malcolm’s eldest
surviving son by Queen
Margaret, in his place. He
was to reign till his death
in 1107. The Malcolm–
Margaret line had been
restored for good. Yet
Edgar was not intended to
be an independent king
like his father. In a charter
issued before his
installation, he styled
himself king of Scots and
Lothian by the gift of his
lord King William.
Next on Rufus’s agenda
was the recovery of Maine,
which his father had
conquered and Robert had
lost. By the end of July
1098 this had been
achieved, thanks in good
part to an extraordinary
nobleman whose power
stretched across many
frontiers and whose
military skills were as
legendary as his sadism.
This was Robert of
Bellême, the second
surviving son of Roger of
Montgomery. Bellême
ruled the county of
Ponthieu in right of his
wife, and held both his
father’s lands in Normandy
and his mother’s to the
south of the duchy,
including Bellême itself. It
was in Wales, however,
that he received his
reward, with important
consequences for
Gwynedd’s independence.
In the summer of 1098
Bellême’s brother, Earl
Hugh of Shrewsbury,
together with Earl Hugh of
Chester, made a
determined attempt to
recover Gwynedd. They
penetrated Anglesey and
forced both Gruffudd ap
Cynan and Cadwgan ap
Bleddyn to flee to Ireland.
But at this moment a
dramatic intervention took
place in these western
seas, one with an outcome
that affected the political
shape of both Wales and
Scotland.
Magnus Barelegs, king
of Norway (grandson of
Harold Hardrada), had
gathered a great fleet ‘to
plunder and gain dominion
in the west beyond the
sea’. He occupied the
Shetlands, the Western
Isles, and the Isle of Man,
his authority over all three
(according to Magnus’s
Saga) being now formally
recognized by the king of
Scots. Certainly it was not
till 1266 that Norway
resigned this lordship in
the west. Magnus then
descended on Anglesey,
killed Hugh of Shrewsbury
with a lucky shot from his
bow, and departed as
suddenly as he had come.
In the vacuum created by
this disaster, both
Gruffudd and Cadwgan
returned from Ireland.
Gruffudd was suffered by
the Normans to keep
Anglesey and Cadwgan
parts of Ceredigion and
Powys. The vacuum was
confirmed by Rufus’s own
decisions. Instead of
passing Hugh’s lands to
Arnulf, lord of Pembroke,
his brother on the spot, he
preferred the absentee
Robert of Bellême, a
decision determined and
vindicated by the situation
in Maine, where in the
summer of 1099 Bellême’s
help was needed to put
down rebellion. Rufus
himself when he heard the
news abandoned his hunt
in Clarendon forest,
galloped to Southampton,
crossed to Normandy in
the teeth of a storm
(‘Whoever heard of a king
perishing by shipwreck?’),
took the horse of a local
priest and surrounded by
cheering crowds rode off
to muster an army with
which he soon recovered
Le Mans. Next year Rufus
held his Whitsun court at
Westminster in the great
hall which he had built.
The massive structure still
survives: 240 feet long and
67 feet wide, at the time
by far the largest hall in
Europe. Yet Rufus’s
reaction was
characteristic: ‘It should
have been twice as big.’
Rufus’s successes
depended above all upon
money, hence his ability to
buy Normandy from his
brother. Although there
were ‘feudal’ contingents
(like Anselm’s) in his
armies, he also recruited
household knights from all
over Europe, and was
famous as an open-handed
hirer of soldiers. The
revenue-raising ability of
the administration in
England was vital, and
here Rufus found a
minister of drive and
genius in Ranulf Flambard.
Flambard had risen from
obscure origins to be
keeper of the royal seal in
the 1080s and ultimately
(in 1099) he became
bishop of Durham. He was
arrogant, abrasive,
expansive, jocular,
licentious, sharp-tongued
and quick-witted, a man
after Rufus’s heart. His
nickname Flambard meant
‘incendiary’ or ‘scorcher’.
Contemporaries recognized
that Flambard was ‘second
after the king’. He
authorized many writs and
(as Orderic makes clear)
was in charge of both the
dispensation of justice and
the exaction of revenue.
He may well have
developed schemes to
make more money from
the geld, and certainly it
was a heavy geld which
raised the money to
purchase Normandy. He
almost certainly
masterminded the
exploitation of the king’s
‘feudal’ rights, an
exploitation for which, as
we have seen, Domesday
Book was the central tool.
For the first time, to the
disgust of reforming
churchmen, abbeys and
bishoprics were
deliberately kept vacant so
that the king could enjoy
their revenues. Inheritance
fines reached such levels
that some barons
complained they were
made to buy back their
own land. Wardships and
the attendant marriages
were exploited by the king
not left in the hands of
families. As the
concessions made by
Henry I in his Coronation
Charter show, all this was
deeply resented.
It is doubtful if any of
this worried the king. He
had treated rebels with a
cunning mixture of
punishment and pardon.
He had made Robert of
Bellême his trusted aide
and rewarded other
supporters, usually from
old baronial families, with
earldoms. Henry de
Beaumont, for example,
became earl of Warwick
and William de Warenne
earl of Surrey, yet this was
at small cost to the crown
because such titles
(notably in the case of
Warenne) were largely
honorary. Stories later
abounded of what Rufus
intended next: he would
conquer Poitou; he would
build a bridge of boats
across the sea and conquer
Ireland; he would make
himself king of France; he
would take Rome itself.
The reality was different.
On 2 August 1100, having
feasted in the morning,
Rufus went hunting in the
afternoon. He was killed in
the New Forest by an
arrow shot by Walter Tirel,
almost certainly an
accident. The body was
taken back, blood dripping
from the cart, for burial at
Winchester.
***
On 5 August 1100,
three days after Rufus’s
death, his younger brother
Henry was crowned king
of the English. Henry was
to conquer Normandy,
bring thirty-three years of
peace to England, develop
its structures of
government, reach a
settlement of fundamental
importance with the
papacy, and (as the Brut
put it) ‘subdue under his
authority all the island of
Britain and its mighty
ones’. To Orderic Vitalis he
seemed to be the mightiest
king ever to sit on the
English throne.
Henry was now thirty-
two years old. His youthful
struggles with his brothers
had educated him
politically, as Orderic
noted. In contrast to the
open-handed Robert, he
knew the value of money
and the importance of
bestowing patronage
carefully. In contrast to the
self-confident Rufus, he
was always fearful of
treason and the turn of
fortune’s wheel. Never a
risk-taker, Henry
preferred, as William of
Malmesbury observed, to
gain his ends by diplomacy
rather than the sword; and
he had that rarest of all
assets among the
successful: he knew when
to stop. That
characteristic, together
with his preoccupations in
Normandy (where he spent
more than half his time),
meant that over Wales and
Scotland his aim was more
to control than to conquer.
The political shape of
Britain came to owe much
to his restraint. This did
not mean that Henry was
in any way a mild man.
There was no
contradiction, as there had
been with Rufus, between
his public and private face.
With little laughter in his
household, everything was
business. Even his
womanizing (so William of
Malmesbury thought) was
a duty imposed by the
desire for children. Henry’s
bullock body, his bawling
voice, his decisive actions,
his righteous punishments,
his very restraint, were all
intimidating.
In gaining the throne
Henry was lucky, for
Robert was still absent on
crusade. When he returned
only a month later he took
possession of Normandy
and at once cast eyes on
England. Henry had
already moved to gain
support. On the day of his
coronation, he had issued
a Charter which disavowed
Rufus’s ‘oppressions’.
Henceforth the king would
not exploit ecclesiastical
vacancies and would
charge heirs a ‘just and
lawful relief’, instead of
making them virtually buy
back their lands. He would
not force widows to marry,
and would arrange the
marriages of heiresses only
after consultation with his
barons. Widows too, or
other relations, were to
have custody of land and
children during minorities,
which seemed virtually to
eliminate the royal right of
wardship. Henry thus
appeased his barons, but
he also sought the loyalty
of the under-tenants, very
much on the lines of the
oath of Salisbury (see
above, p. 105). The
Charter stipulated that the
barons were to give like
concessions to their own
men, and exempted
knights from paying geld
on their demesne lands.
Henry capped all this by
sending Ranulf Flambard
to the Tower; and by his
marriage to Edith,
daughter of Margaret and
Malcolm of Scotland, who
was conveniently in his
power at Romsey abbey,
he hoped to graft the
Norman dynasty onto the
old Anglo-Saxon root, and
conciliate the kind of
Englishmen on whom
much of local government
depended. Such men had
already given Rufus
significant support in the
crisis of 1088.
As Henry braced himself
to meet Robert’s challenge,
Archbishop Anselm
returned to England and
exploded a bomb. He
refused either to receive
the customary investiture
of ring and staff from the
king or to do him homage;
both had been forbidden at
the council in Rome the
previous year, which he
had attended. He had not
come back to England, he
said, for the king to
disobey the pope. The
investiture dispute was
part of a much wider
European struggle which
had already led to violent
conflict between Pope
Gregory VII and the
Emperor Henry IV. For the
king to invest a bishop or
abbot with ring and staff,
the spiritual symbols of
office, the church argued,
implied that he had
spiritual jurisdiction, ‘a
monstrous idea’ as Pope
Paschal II (1099–1118) put
it, tantamount to saying
that man had created God.
Likewise if ecclesiastics
performed homage to the
king it showed they were
subject to him. All this was
part of a wider programme
to free the church
altogether from secular
control and in particular to
ensure that rulers had no
part in ecclesiastical
appointments. Bishops
should be chosen by the
clergy and people of their
diocese, and abbots by
their communities: free
canonical elections. If on
the other hand, as Paschal
explained to Henry, kings
‘open the door of the
church’, those chosen
would ‘not be shepherds
but thieves and robbers’.
Henry had an appalling
dilemma. He needed
Anselm’s support against
Robert but its price might
gravely damage his control
over the church. Eadmer, a
Canterbury monk and
Anselm’s biographer, even
described Henry, with
pardonable exaggeration,
as facing ‘as it were the
loss of half his kingdom’.
At one extreme, lay
investiture could be
defended (as in the works
of a writer known as
‘Anonymous of York’)
precisely because the king
did have spiritual
functions: he was both
king and priest, rex et
sacerdos. A more moderate
line was taken by Ivo,
bishop of Chartres, who
argued that what was
being given was nothing
spiritual but simply the
temporal properties of the
prelates which princes had
conferred on the church
down the ages. Henry
himself made his stand
partly on custom, ‘the
usages of my
predecessors’, which he
would not alter, and partly
(here moving to the
question of homage as well
as investiture) on his
refusal to tolerate ‘anyone
in my kingdom who is not
my man’.
In the short term an
agreement to refer the
whole question back to the
pope found a way out of
this impasse. Anselm
married Henry to Edith,
now re-named Matilda,
and gave essential support,
both material and moral,
in the ensuing crisis. As in
1088, Robert had the
backing of the greatest
Anglo-Norman magnates,
partly from their desire to
unite the two realms.
Henry countered in March
1101 by promising the
count of Flanders £500 a
year in return for bringing
a thousand knights to
England in the event of
invasion or revolt, a classic
example of the importance
of money and mercenaries.
However, Robert’s
challenge soon evaporated.
He reached England in
July 1101 and then, to the
disgust of his supporters,
resigned his claims to the
kingdom in return for
£2,000 a year and other
concessions. Those
dispossessed on either side
were to be reinstated. In
future neither ruler would
harbour the other’s
enemies. The Anglo-
Norman realm was to
function through a
peaceful accord between
its rulers. The aspiration
was sensible, but
foundered on Henry’s
success in England and
Robert’s failure in
Normandy.
Henry, in fact, soon
moved against his
brothers’ leading
supporters, namely Robert
of Bellême and Arnulf of
Pembroke, the sons of
Roger of Montgomery.
Unlike Rufus, he did not
need Bellême’s support to
hold down Maine, and in
1102 he struck, besieging
Robert’s English castles
and forcing the brothers
back across the Channel
with the loss of all their
English and Welsh
possessions. After the fall
of the Bellêmes in 1102,
England, as Orderic Vitalis
noted, enjoyed peace until
the end of Henry’s reign. If
Henry could dispossess
them, small wonder ‘no
one dared rebel or hold a
castle against him’. But
Henry’s peace was not just
based on fear. He also
strove to create a group of
loyalist barons. William de
Warenne, earl of Surrey
and lord of Lewes and
Conisborough, had backed
Robert in 1101 and been
dispossessed in the next
year. Yet he was soon to
be a pillar of Henry’s
regime. Henry also knew
how to reward his
servants, many from old
baronial families – Robert
of Meulan, for instance, a
leading councillor until his
death in 1118, added the
honour and earldom of
Leicester to his large
Norman estates. In the first
years of the reign,
however, one vital
ingredient necessary to
peace was absent: Henry
did not control Normandy.
Those disaffected in
England could flee to their
cross-Channel estates, and
were bound to back Robert
in a fresh attempt on
England. To the conquest
of Normandy, therefore,
Henry assigned top
priority. That decision had
important repercussions on
royal authority in Wales,
limiting intervention when
the opportunities for it
were abundant.
Earl Hugh of Chester
had died in July 1101,
leaving a seven-year-old
son, Richard, whose
estates thus came into the
king’s hands, the first
example of how the right
of wardship could
suddenly transform the
king’s power in Wales.
Would Henry now seek to
recover the dominion over
Gwynedd which Hugh had
exercised before the great
revolt of 1094? Faced with
that prospect, Gruffudd ap
Cynan journeyed to King
Henry’s court for one of
the most crucial interviews
in Welsh history. He was
welcomed by the king,
who was looking for allies
against the Bellêmes and
was conceded much of
Gwynedd west of the
Conwy. In the years down
to 1114, with Henry
preoccupied with
Normandy, he was able to
build up his power east of
the river too. Further
south, Henry was more
hands-on, partly to round
off the destruction of the
Bellêmes. He kept
Shropshire and placed it
under a sheriff. He also
kept western Dyfed and
Pembroke where he made
Arnulf’s former deputy,
Gerald of Windsor, his
castellan. In Ceredigion he
replaced Cadwgan ap
Bleddyn of the Powys
dynasty (a client of the
Bellêmes) with his brother
Iorwerth ap Bleddyn, here
showing an early ability to
exploit the divisions within
the native dynasties. But it
was not long before
Iorwerth himself was
languishing in Henry’s
prison, having been taken
to court and been judged
guilty of various offences.
From now on, the ‘fear of
King Henry and his law’
was upon the Welsh rulers.
After Henry had secured
the kingdom, he allowed
Anselm to hold the one
great reforming council of
his archiepiscopate (at
Westminster in 1102).
Nine abbots were deposed
for simony, and legislation
governing the lives of
monks and clergy was
passed. Yet the impasse
over investiture and
homage remained. At the
end of 1103, with Anselm
now in Rome and the pope
standing firm, Henry
seized the revenues of
Canterbury. It took the
critical situation in
Normandy to break this
log-jam. There Henry, or
so his apologists claimed,
was being urged to rescue
the duchy from anarchy.
He was only too pleased to
comply, but just before he
could launch what was his
second campaign (in
1105), the pope
excommunicated Robert of
Meulan, Henry’s chief
adviser, and raised the
prospect of
excommunicating Henry
himself. It was imperative
to reach a settlement and
this was achieved just
before the climax of
Henry’s final campaign in
1106. That climax came in
the battle joined outside
Tinchebrai on 28
September. Robert was
captured and spent the last
twenty-six years of his life
in comfortable
confinement in a
succession of castles in
south-west England.
Beating off several later
challenges, Henry was to
hold England and
Normandy together for the
rest of his life.
In August 1107, back in
England the settlement of
the investiture dispute was
formally pronounced.
Henry promised to give up
the practice of investiture
for good. Pope Paschal
conceded that no one was
to be denied consecration
because they had done
homage to the king. True,
this was only until the rain
of Anselm’s prayers
persuaded Henry to
renounce homage, but it
would have taken an
ocean of tears in which
Henry was drowning to
effect that. Although
nothing explicitly was said
about it, Henry continued
to control appointments
(as Anselm acknowledged)
so that his chief minister,
Roger, became bishop of
Salisbury and his chaplain,
Thurstan, in 1114
archbishop of York. Henry
continued to exploit
ecclesiastical vacancies:
Canterbury remained
unfilled for five years after
Anselm’s death in 1109,
when it passed to a ‘safe’
man, Ralph, prior of Caen.
The verdict of the York
historian, Hugh the
Chanter, seemed about
right: faced by the greatest
of all attempts to free the
church from secular
control, Henry had lost
something in royal dignity
but little in real power.
Henry was not, in any
case, a man of outward
show, and he had scaled
down his father’s thrice-
yearly crown-wearing
ceremonies. He owed his
ability to keep control of
the church partly to the
fact that the episcopal
bench was so royalist.
Eight of the thirteen
bishops in 1097 had been
royal clerks, although such
men, it should be stressed,
could often be
conscientious and
independent diocesans:
Thurstan showed a real
pastoral concern and was a
tiger in asserting the rights
of York. Moreover, where
curial bishops remained in
secular office, like Roger
of Salisbury, they could act
as a hinge between church
and state. Even the most
committed reformers, for
example Gilbert Crispin,
abbot of Westminster,
were uncertain about
Anselm’s stand. Should he
not have remained at
home tending his flock?
Henry was no Rufus, as his
permission for the
Westminster council had
shown in 1102. And after
all, what Anselm himself
most wanted was to hold
such councils and work
generally for the reform of
the church. As it was, his
practical achievements
were far smaller than
Lanfranc’s save in one area
which concerned them
both, the assertion of
Canterbury’s primatial
authority over the whole
of Britain. Thus Anselm
received from Bishop
Urban of Llandaff (1107–
35) the first (or at least the
first known) profession of
obedience to Canterbury
from a Welsh bishop.
Anselm’s career had also
both reflected and
reinforced a tide bringing
England into a much closer
relationship with the
papacy.
Pope Paschal
complained that Henry
prevented contact with
Rome, but if so the
prevention was
intermittent. In fact during
the reign much closer ties
were established with the
papacy. Of the archbishops
and bishops in 1100, only
four had visited the pope,
each on a single occasion;
of those in office in 1135
all save two had done so,
some many times over. In
1119, moreover, Pope
Calixtus II had himself
consecrated Archbishop
Thurstan, and next year he
freed York explicitly from
any obedience to
Canterbury. This was
directly against Henry’s
wishes, yet he accepted
the verdict. If that was
partly because Calixtus
promised not to send
legates to England without
the king’s permission (only
one presided over a
council during the reign),
it still represented a
considerable assertion of
papal authority. Other
developments were also
changing the face of the
church. No fewer than 137
monasteries were
established in the reign, of
which forty were
daughters of continental
houses. Henry himself
established the great
Cluniac abbey at Reading,
where he was buried. Most
important of all was the
arrival of the Cistercians.
The first monastery was
established at Waverley in
Surrey in 1128, followed
in 1132 by Rievaulx in
Yorkshire, founded by
Henry’s great minister
Walter Espec. Over the
next twenty years
Cistercian houses covered
the land, transforming
England’s spiritual life and
influencing the course of
politics.
***
The outcome of the
battle at Tinchebrai
reunited the Anglo-
Norman realm and for the
moment brought peace to
Normandy as well as to
England. Henry, like some
great puppet master, could
once more pull the strings
in Britain. Soon after 1106,
he gave the lordship of
Carlisle to Ranulf le
Meschin, who had led the
van at Tinchebrai, the son
of the vicomte of the
Bessin. This was to
relinquish Rufus’s great
foundation, but to a loyal
vassal and at a time when
relations with Scotland
were harmonious. King
Alexander I (1107–23),
who succeeded on his
brother Edgar’s death, had
spent time at Henry’s
court, and his sister, of
course, was Henry’s queen.
In south Wales, Henry
consolidated his hold
around Pembroke, in 1108
settling large numbers of
Flemings in the area (see
above, p. 38). This part of
the country long
afterwards retained its
Flemish character. At the
same time Henry founded
a royal castle at
Carmarthen on a strategic
site just above the estuary
of the Tywi where it
controlled the river which
cut through the heart of
Ystrad Tywi.
All this was interrupted
by an extraordinary act of
romantic folly. In 1109
Owain, son of Cadwgan ap
Bleddyn of Powys and
Ceredigion, seized and
seduced Nest, the alluring
and eager wife of Gerald of
Windsor, Henry’s castellan
at Pembroke. Since Nest
was the daughter of Rhys
ap Tewdwr, the king of
Deheubarth killed by the
Normans in 1093, the
marriage (and it does not
stand alone) illustrates a
growing accommodation
between the Welsh and the
Normans. So in a sense
does the sequel, which
shows the Welsh princes
still as major players,
while accepting that their
games were refereed by
the king.
The immediate effect of
the seizure (graphically
described in the Brut,
which is particularly
comprehensive in dealing
with this period) was like
that of an explosion which
sends a flock of birds
rising in panic into the air.
Cadwgan, Owain’s father,
filled with the ‘fear of King
Henry on account of the
injury to his officer’,
hurried to court but
nevertheless he was
deprived of everything
save one township. Henry
was then free to give
Ceredigion to Gilbert fitz
Richard de Clare, one of
England’s wealthiest
magnates: ‘You were
always asking me for a
portion of Wales… now go
and take possession of it.’
Gilbert did just that,
establishing castles at
Aberystwyth and Cardigan,
and enfeoffing his
followers, who also
established castles. So the
Normans for a time
recovered Ceredigion,
which they had lost after
the Welsh resurgence of
the 1090s. This was also a
major step in Henry’s
rapprochement with the
old baronial families in
England and in Normandy,
where Gilbert’s brother
was lord of Orbec and
Bienfaite.
Meanwhile Henry’s
sheriff of Shropshire
exploited the segmentation
of the Powys family and its
violent feuds by enlisting
Owain’s cousin, Madog
(‘Do you want to please
King Henry?’). Madog
indeed seized Owain’s and
Cadwgan’s portions of
Powys, and then in 1111
killed both Cadwgan and
Cadwgan’s brother
Iorwerth, whom Henry
had released from prison
to fight him, for by this
time Madog and Henry
had fallen out. Yet, after
these triumphs, Madog still
went to King Henry’s
court, where he was soon
followed by Owain, both
clamouring for royal
recognition and the
support that that would
bring. For the moment,
truces were arranged,
hostages taken and both
gained shares in Powys;
not long after, however,
Owain trapped and
blinded Madog.
Henry’s moderate
response was utterly
conditioned by threats far
away on the southern
frontiers of the Anglo-
Norman realm. In August
1111 he left England for
Normandy where he
remained for nearly two
years. His policies in
Britain continued to be
adjusted in the light of his
anxious defence of the
duchy. One problem was
that he had no clear ‘right’
to Normandy, which as he
said he had simply
‘subjugated by battle’. At
best, as William of
Malmesbury put it, he had
‘done wrong’ (in deposing
Robert) ‘to put an end to
wrong’ (Robert’s anarchic
rule). Even Henry’s
partisans, like Orderic,
acknowledged that
Robert’s son, William
Clito, born in October
1102, had a good claim to
the duchy. Having just
escaped Henry’s attempt to
seize him in 1111, he had
fled to the French court
and he remained a
constant danger until his
death in 1128. There were
other threats across the
frontiers. The count of
Flanders was antagonized
by the marriage in 1110 of
Henry’s daughter Matilda
to his enemy the Emperor
Henry V. In the same year
Fulk V of Anjou had
become count of Maine,
and he refused to
acknowledge Henry’s
overlordship. And then
there was the king of
France, Louis VI, ‘the Fat’
(1108–37). With steady
energy and wily ambition,
Louis was determined to
establish Normandy’s
status as a fief and to
destroy the great castle of
Gisors, built by Rufus on
the frontier of the Epte,
which divided the Norman
from the French Vexin. All
these external foes were
very ready to take up
Clito’s cause, and tempt
from Henry’s allegiance
those Norman barons who
had no stake in England.
The barons with
interests spanning the
Channel were in a
different position. The
land they held in England
and Wales – land
completely in Henry’s
power – could keep them
loyal in Normandy, rather
as a plank held down at
one end by a great weight
will remain in place even
if the ground at the other
end gives way. Equally
vital were the resources
and prestige of his English
kingship for they were the
support behind everything
done in Normandy.
Orderic was making a
practical, not a
constitutional, statement
when he described Henry
as issuing ‘royal
commands’ in the duchy.
To emphasize the point
Henry in his Norman writs
and charters usually styled
himself king rather than
duke. To the pressures he
faced between 1111 and
1113, he reacted with a
mixture of pre-emptive
strikes, patronage and
diplomacy. He seized and
imprisoned Robert of
Bellême; he established his
nephew and eventual
successor, Stephen, as
count of Mortain in the
vulnerable south-west
corner of the duchy, also
giving him the honours of
Lancaster and Eye in
England; and above all he
engaged his son and heir,
William, to Fulk V’s
daughter Matilda,
accepting Fulk’s rule in
Maine, while Fulk
acknowledged Henry’s
overlordship. There would,
then, be no re-conquest of
Maine, a restraint very
different from the
reactions of Rufus, which
parallels Henry’s earlier
decision not to re-conquer
Gwynedd.
The stabilization of
Normandy had immediate
repercussions in Britain on
Henry’s return there in
July 1113. He made
David, King Alexander of
Scotland’s younger
brother, an earl, married
him to the widowed
daughter of Earl Waltheof
(see above, p. 102), and
gave him custody of her
inheritance, which
included extensive lands in
the midlands, the
beginning of a long-term
connection between the
Scottish royal house and
what came to be called the
earldom of Huntingdon.
Since Alexander was
childless and David, who
was often at the English
court, was his heir, this
was a clever way to secure
a hold over the future
Scottish king. In 1115
Henry at last moved to
assert his authority in
Wales. Here Gruffudd ap
Cynan’s expansion of
Gwynedd east of Conwy
had brought him into
conflict with Richard, who
had now succeeded his
father as earl of Chester.
Owain ap Cadwgan (of
Nest fame) was likewise
struggling with Gilbert fitz
Richard for power in
Ceredigion. Henry’s
campaign was the greatest
yet mounted in Wales, and
anticipated much later
strategy in having three
armies split between the
south, the centre (against
Powys) and the north. The
writer of the Brut feared
for the extermination of
his race, yet Henry was
content when Gruffudd ap
Cynan, Owain and other
men of Powys submitted
and paid tribute. His
lesson had certainly gone
home. In 1117 when
Gruffudd, Nest’s brother,
the son of Rhys ap
Tewdwr, returned from
Irish exile and attempted
to recover his lands, he got
scant support. On Henry’s
instructions, Gruffudd ap
Cynan plotted to seize
him; ‘Yes!’ shouted the
Welsh garrison of
Carmarthen when asked if
they were true to the king,
and Owain, having been
knighted by Henry in
Normandy, joyfully set out
to put down the revolt –
only to be killed by the
forces of Gerald of
Windsor in revenge for
Nest’s abduction.
By this time Henry was
once more in Normandy
and facing a formidable
coalition which had rallied
in support of Clito. Again
Henry made artful use of
patronage, giving William
de Warenne the castle of
Saint-Saens in the heart of
the Warenne family lands,
a castle which inevitably
would be lost in any Clito
victory, having belonged
to Clito’s faithful guardian
Elias. Diplomacy played an
important part too with
the marriage of Henry’s
son, William, which finally
took place in 1119. And
then, on 20 August 1119,
Henry decisively defeated
King Louis’s forces at the
battle of Brémule. At its
climax William Crispin
brought a great blow down
on Henry’s helmet, only to
be felled by Roger fitz
Richard – how Henry must
have blessed the day he
gave Ceredigion to Roger’s
brother! In 1120 the two
kings came to terms.
Hitherto Henry had
avoided doing homage to
the king of France and
thus acknowledging
explicitly that he held
Normandy as a fief. He
may well have hoped his
authority in the duchy
would become more and
more regal. But the top
priority was to see Clito
off. So William, Henry’s
son, now did homage in
return for Normandy (with
Gisors included), which
indicated Louis had
abandoned Clito. Henry
still avoided doing homage
himself but wanted no
more uncertainty about his
position. On his new seal,
used from 1121 (and
perhaps earlier), he firmly
styled himself duke of
Normandy.
 Yet there was to be no
absolute certainty. In
November 1120 William,
heir to the English throne,
was drowned in the wreck
of the White Ship. Apart
from his daughter Matilda,
married to the emperor,
Henry had no other
legitimate children and his
re-marriage next year to
the daughter of the count
of Louvain failed to
produce a child. The
question of the succession
dogged the rest of Henry’s
reign and exploded in civil
war after his death. For
the moment, however,
Henry’s return to England
in 1120 had an impact on
Wales and Scotland, much
as had his return in 1114.
In 1121 he led his second
expedition to Wales, this
time directed just towards
Powys. Gruffudd ap Cynan
of Gwynedd refused to
support the men of Powys,
saying he had ‘made peace
with King Henry’, which
left the remaining sons of
Cadwgan ap Bleddyn and
their uncle, Maredudd, no
alternative but to submit
and pay heavy tributes.
In the next year, 1122,
Henry turned his attention
to the north, with highly
significant results. His
concern for the northern
border is explained by the
pretensions of King
Alexander in Scotland, the
first sign of much future
conflict.
***
As king of Scotland,
Alexander almost certainly
acknowledged Henry’s
overlordship. His childless
marriage to one of Henry’s
illegitimate daughters
itself emphasized his
subordinate status. It was
to perform the military
service he owed that he
accompanied Henry on his
Welsh campaign of 1114.
In all probability
Alexander’s grant to his
brother David of southern
Lothian, and Cumbria
north of the Solway, was
also the result of Henrician
pressure. That Alexander
began to resent this
demanding overlordship is
strongly suggested by his
conduct of ecclesiastical
affairs.
In 1109 Alexander had
filled the see of St
Andrews, vacant since
Fothad’s death in 1093,
with Turgot, prior of
Durham and his mother’s
biographer. During his
episcopate which lasted till
1115 Turgot brought the
Scottish church into direct
contact with the papacy,
and tackled the same
issues of discipline and
morality that had
concerned Queen
Margaret. The king’s
connections with the south
also explain his
establishment of
Augustinian canons at
Scone, the very heart of
the kingdom, for these
priests came from Nostell
priory in Yorkshire. There
were also, in all
probability, important
developments in episcopal
organization. By 1155 the
Scottish church was
divided into ten dioceses.
Some were of long
standing, like St Andrews,
although they were often
left unfilled. Others may
well have been founded in
the reigns of Alexander
and David, his successor.
Certainly in or soon after
1115 there were bishops of
Moray and Dunkeld. These
developments raised in
acute form the question: to
whom was the Scottish
church subject? Here
Alexander was determined
to overthrow the
Canterbury–York
agreement of 1072 which,
without any consultation
with the Scots, as he
complained, had placed
the Scottish church under
the metropolitan authority
of the archbishop of York.
That had seemed of little
moment when King
Malcolm’s thrusts reached
as far south as Durham. It
was different now with
King Alexander on the
defensive. At York,
meanwhile, Thurstan was
equally determined to
uphold his metropolitan
authority, which meant
consecrating and receiving
professions of obedience
from all the Scottish
bishops. In 1119 Pope
Calixtus issued a letter
supporting this stance. It
was to rebut these
pretensions that in 1120
Alexander, seeking a new
bishop of St Andrews,
turned to the Canterbury
monk Eadmer, Anselm’s
biographer, and manifestly
no friend of York. But
Eadmer, apart from raising
problems over homage and
investiture, sought simply
to replace York’s authority
with that of Canterbury.
Alexander was firm: ‘He
would never in his life
consent to a Scottish
bishop being subject to the
archbishop of Canterbury,’
Eadmer reported him as
saying. This was part of a
wider view of his royal
authority, which he may
well have derived from
Henry I in England. As the
bishop of Glasgow told
Eadmer, Alexander ‘wishes
in his kingdom to be all
things alone; and he will
not endure any authority
to have the least power in
any matter, without his
consent’. The logic of all
this, in the ecclesiastical
field, was that St Andrews
should be raised to
metropolitan authority,
and it was precisely this
that King David (doubtless
picking up the ball from
Alexander) was to seek
from the pope in 1124–5,
soon after his accession.
The political ramifications
were clear. As Thurstan
said, the demand implied
that the king of Scotland
was not subject to the king
of England, whereas (so he
said) the reverse was
indeed the case.
 Therefore when Henry
returned to his kingdom in
1120 he found Alexander
showing unwelcome
independence. His brother
David too, in Cumbria,
made sure that John,
bishop of Glasgow (1118–
47) was consecrated by the
pope, not by York. It was
no accident that in 1121
Henry permitted (and
quite probably instructed)
Ranulf Flambard, long
rehabilitated as bishop of
Durham, to build a castle
at Norham on Tweed, thus
at last protecting the
northern border. Around
this time he also
established two ‘new men’,
who owed everything to
him, in the north: Walter
Espec at Wark on Tweed
(and Helmsley in
Yorkshire), and Eustace
fitz John at Alnwick.
Meanwhile, in the north-
west Henry gained security
beyond the border by
marrying an illegitimate
daughter to Fergus, the
ruler in Galloway, and in a
move of enormous
importance reversed his
earlier policy towards
Carlisle. Richard, earl of
Chester had perished in
the White Ship without
any direct heirs. Henry
allowed the earldom to
pass to Ranulf le Meschin,
vicomte of the Bessin, but
in return he took back into
his own hands the lordship
of Carlisle which he had
granted Ranulf in the
1100s. Royal authority
was in this way planted
once again on the Solway;
by 1130 the region to the
south was divided, rather
imprecisely, into two
administrative districts
under royal officials, one
described as ‘Carlisle’ and
later in the century as
‘Cumberland’, the other
(much less important) as
Westmorland. This was an
important moment in the
history of the north, and
one deeply offensive to the
Scottish royal house from
whom Carlisle had been
taken by Rufus in 1092. In
1122 Henry went north,
began the great square
keep of Carlisle castle,
which still survives, and
surrounded the town with
a wall, thus protecting its
burgesses. He also laid
plans for a separate
bishopric which would
sever the area from the
authority of the bishop of
Glasgow. This was finally
sanctioned by the pope in
1133, by which time
Carlisle had its own mint,
supported by a silver mine
run by the town’s
burgesses at Alston.
These advances in the
north were interrupted in
1123 by the last of the
Norman revolts which
Henry had to face, again
with the aim of making
Clito duke. As before,
Henry triumphed with a
mixture of diplomacy and
force. The plans of his son-
in-law, the Emperor Henry
V, for invasion kept Louis
VI quiet. The pope
annulled Clito’s dangerous
marriage to the daughter
of Fulk V of Anjou and in
return a papal legate, John
of Crema, was allowed to
hold a council in England.
By the time this took place
in 1125, Henry’s
household knights in
March 1124 had crushed
the rebels at the battle of
Bourgthéroulde.
The crisis was over but
the door of the succession
still swung on its hinges.
The death of the emperor
in May 1125 gave Henry
the opportunity to try and
slam it shut. He brought
Matilda to England and in
the New Year exacted an
oath from the great
magnates to accept her
succession both in England
and Normandy. There was
an immediate reason for
such speed. Louis VI had
once more adopted Clito’s
cause, and in January
1127 he accepted his
homage both for
Normandy and the French
Vexin. There was
considerable support for
him, even within Henry’s
court. He seemed the
‘natural’ heir, at least to
Normandy, while there
were no precedents in
either the kingdom or the
duchy for female
succession. Later in 1127,
therefore, Henry took out
further insurance in a
move which shaped the
whole future of the
dynasty. He betrothed
Matilda to Geoffrey, the
son and heir of Fulk V,
count of Anjou. The
marriage (finally
celebrated in 1128) was a
variation on an old theme,
for William, Matilda’s
brother, had married
Geoffrey’s sister. The aim
in both cases was to forge
an alliance with the count
of Anjou and prevent him
supporting rebels in
Normandy.
Clito’s death in 1128
without direct heirs was
thus a great relief,
especially as King Louis
had just made him count
of Flanders. Henry could
also be reassured about
affairs in Scotland and
Wales. At the Christmas
court of 1126 David, who
had now succeeded his
brother Alexander as king
of Scots, had both
supported Matilda’s
succession and abandoned
his attempt to get
metropolitan status for St
Andrews. In return
Archbishop Thurstan
relinquished his own
efforts at Rome to subject
the Scottish bishops to
York’s obedience. In south
Wales Henry was very
much in control. He had
established royal bases at
both Pembroke and
Carmarthen. He had
married his trusted
minister Miles of
Gloucester to the heiress of
the lordship of Brecon, and
his illegitimate son Robert
to the heiress of
Glamorgan. Robert had
also received Bristol and
the earldom of Gloucester.
One branch of the Clares
was in Ceredigion while
another had gained
Chepstow and lower
Gwent between the Usk
and the Wye, the lordship
founded by William fitz
Osbern.
In north Wales, in the
1120s, Gruffudd ap
Cynan’s sons, taking up
the baton from their
father, had pushed
Gwynedd eastwards at
least to the Clywd, this at
the expense both of native
rulers and the earl of
Chester. But given
Gruffudd’s loyalty, and the
earl’s unreliability, that
had not bothered Henry.
In his extraordinary career,
Gruffudd had thus rescued
Gwynedd from virtual
extinction and made it the
dominant force in the
north. In the last years
before his death in 1137,
so his Life recalled, he held
great feasts, adorned his
land with churches, and
brought peace and
prosperity to his people.
He was also anxious to
‘modernize’ Gwynedd,
especially in ecclesiastical
affairs, something which
paralleled developments
elsewhere in Wales. Before
the Normans the Welsh
church had bishops but no
diocesan structure, either
in terms of boundaries or
government. In the south,
a reflection of Norman
influence, territorial
dioceses emerged in the
first half of the century in
part through the disputes
between Bishops Urban of
Llandaff (1107–34) and
Bernard of St Davids
(1115–48). Llandaff,
embracing forty-six
churches, was defined as
lying between the Wye and
the Tywi. The dispute was
also important in putting
the Welsh church in close
touch with the pope who
issued five bulls in relation
to it, and in 1132
appointed ‘judges delegate’
to hear the case back in
Britain, one of the earliest
examples of such
commissions. All this is
revealed in The Book of
Llandaff, which documents
the struggle. In the north,
the Normans had
established Hervé, a
Breton, as bishop at
Bangor in the 1090s but,
appalled by Welsh
customs, he soon departed.
The decisive moment in
establishing a diocese at
Bangor came in 1120
when Gruffudd made
David bishop; David was
of mixed Welsh and Irish
ancestry, had studied at
Würzburg and been a
much-travelled clerk of
Henry I. So Gruffudd had
placed Bangor under a
man familiar with best
international practice and
in this appointment had
also pleased Henry I. If
Gruffudd had given birth
to modern Gwynedd,
Henry had indeed been the
midwife.
With south Wales in his
own hands or under
loyalist magnates and
ministers, with north
Wales under the trusty
Gruffudd ap Cynan, with
loyalists enfeoffed in
Northumberland, with the
king himself at Carlisle,
and both the king of Scots
and the Welsh rulers
frequenting his court,
Henry could indeed be
called, as Walter Map put
it later in the century, ‘lord
of the whole English
island’.
 ***
King Henry’s hold of
Normandy and control of
Britain depended directly
on his government of
England, which secured
much of the revenue on
which they were based.
That government had also
to maintain law and order,
thus fulfilling Henry’s
pledge in his Coronation
Charter: ‘I establish a firm
peace in all my kingdom
and I order it henceforth to
be kept.’ Ministers had to
do all this, moreover, in
the frequent absences of
the king, absences which
after the conquest of
Normandy in 1106 were
clearly to be a permanent
feature of his rule. In the
event he spent more than
half his reign outside
England. Henry himself
was well qualified to
oversee this government.
He was the most educated
of the brothers and was
heard to quip that an
unlearned king was like a
crowned ass (his only
known joke). Orderic
observed how he subjected
everything to vigilant
scrutiny and wished to be
cognizant of the affairs of
all his servants. Under that
watchful eye, in the long
Henrician peace an
experienced cadre of
ministers gave careful
attention to detail and
made improvements from
year to year, in this way
developing the structures
of a royal government
more powerful and
intrusive than ever before.
 Henry’s household, as
shown by a ‘Constitution’
written down soon after
his death, consisted of over
150 men, together with
fifty more in the hunt, and
one solitary woman, the
laundress. The basic
structure was probably
much as under his
predecessors, but Henry
had introduced one
important reform. Under
Rufus and at the start of
Henry’s reign the court
had lived in part by
plundering the
countryside, so much so
that the peasantry fled as
it approached. In 1108
Henry laid down the
penalty of mutilation for
anyone guilty of such
seizures, ‘alleviating the
evils which pressed most
heavily on the poor’, as
Eadmer put it. This was
probably the origin of the
regulations seen in the
‘Constitution’, which
stipulated in great detail
how each member of the
household was to be
supported – by wages,
food, drink and candles, all
carefully graduated
according to position.
The officials of Henry’s
chamber were responsible
for the room in which he
lived. They included the
bearer of his bed, and his
‘ewerer’ who filled his
bath and dried his clothes
after a journey. They also
received, stored and spent
the king’s money; the
increasing sums for which
they were responsible
were reflected in the office
of treasurer of the
chamber, which appears
for the first time in the
1120s. There was also an
expansion in the work of
the chancellor. Averaged
across the reign, forty
documents a year survive
(in originals or copies)
from Henry’s chancery and
less than twenty from that
of Rufus. The level of
chancery business (of
which the surviving
documents are but a tiny
fraction) is reflected in the
existence of a deputy, the
‘master of the writing
office’, whose wages Henry
doubled, and in the
gigantic offer of over
£3,000 which Geoffrey
Rufus, the chancellor in
1130, made to obtain the
office.
The ‘Constitution’ does
not mention the branch of
the household which gave
these written orders
punch: the household
knights. However, their
position and function in
Henry’s reign have been
much studied. Perhaps
Henry did not retain as
many knights as Rufus but
according to Orderic he
had several hundreds of
them. Drawn both from
noble families and from
the lower ranks of society,
many of them building up
traditions of family service
in the household, they
were expected to be
worthy (as Orderic said) of
the wages and food which
supported them. They
might also serve in the
hope of recovering lost
patrimonies, as Eadmer
noted, and gaining new
ones. They appear
throughout the pages of
Orderic as councillors,
castellans, and (at
Bourgthéroulde) as victors.
They were vital to Henry’s
rule.
The king’s household
was the most fundamental
institution unifying the
Anglo-Norman realms.
Some of the stewards were
based largely in England
or Normandy, but the
master of the writing
office, the treasurer of the
chamber, and probably the
bulk of the household
went back and forth across
the Channel. When in
England and not pulled by
emergencies to Wales or
the north, Henry spent
most of his time at palaces
and palace-castles in the
south. According to the
number of known
documents issued from
them, Westminster-London
was first in rank with 237,
followed by Winchester
(127), Woodstock (93) and
Windsor (71). Henry thus
did not need to travel to
rule England and could
remain, as far as his
itinerary went, very much
a Wessex king. To cope
with his absences, Henry
set up small regency courts
or councils in England and
in Normandy. In
Normandy they were
headed for many years by
John, bishop of Lisieux; in
England until her death in
1118 by Queen Matilda.
Matilda, as the daughter
of King Malcolm and
Queen Margaret of
Scotland, was descended
from the line of the Anglo-
Saxon kings through her
mother. Her initial
position cannot have been
easy. There had been no
queen of England since the
death of the Conqueror’s
wife in 1083. Matilda
brought with her no
inheritance and was
scorned by some Normans
for her Anglo-Saxon
pedigree. Her change of
name from Edith to
Matilda, from that of the
last pre-Conquest to the
first Norman queen, itself
reflected sensitivity on the
subject. Yet Matilda, clever
and co-operative, played a
significant part in the first
phase of Henry’s reign.
Henry himself in
remembering his mother,
Matilda of Flanders, must
have had a very positive
image of queenship, and
he soon gave his own wife
a similar kind of landed
endowment. So Matilda
had her own resources
which she exploited,
according to William of
Malmesbury, with some
harshness. If to some of
the Norman elite Matilda
seemed an alien, her
ancestry, in which she was
intensely interested, made
her very much at one with
the mass of Henry’s
subjects. Poets indeed
celebrated her as ‘the glory
of England’, ‘sprung from
kings on both sides’.
Matilda could also draw
on another positive image
of queenship, indeed she
did so quite deliberately,
for it was she who
commissioned the Life of
her mother, Queen
Margaret, which showed
Margaret playing a very
full part in the daily affairs
of court and kingdom (see
above, p. 124).
Matilda’s religious
observance certainly
echoed that of her mother,
for example in her concern
for the poor and
oppressed. On one
occasion she astonished
her brother David, the
future king of Scots, by
washing and kissing the
feet of lepers. To David’s
remark that if Henry found
out he would never kiss
her again, she retorted that
the feet of the eternal king
were preferable to the lips
of a mortal one. In her
patronage of religious
houses Matilda stood in
the tradition of both her
mother and mother-in-law.
Just as the one had
founded Dunfermline
priory and the other Holy
Trinity at Caen, so Matilda
founded Holy Trinity,
Aldgate in London, one of
the first Augustinian
houses in England, using
the revenues of Exeter to
do so. Here, as in her
endowment of other
houses like Abingdon,
Matilda’s grants were
confirmed by her husband,
the two acting very much
in partnership.
Contemporary
comment, for example in
the so-called Hyde abbey
chronicle, shows that
Matilda’s religiosity earned
her great respect; so,
indeed, did her success in
providing the king with
children. Of course, there
was no scope at Henry’s
court for the kind of role
played by Queen Margaret
at the court of King
Malcolm where she had
laboured to bring its
ceremonial up to date. Nor
was Henry always
approachable. On one
occasion, faced by a crowd
of complaining clergy,
Matilda was tearfully
sympathetic but
apparently too frightened
to intervene. Intervene,
however, she sometimes
did, and effectively. For
example, she helped
persuade Henry to return
Canterbury revenues to
Anselm and later to give in
marriage Earl Waltheof’s
daughter to her brother
David. She was careful,
however, in matters of
controversy to take her
husband’s part. Solicited
for help by both Anselm
and the pope throughout
the investiture dispute, she
explained that there could
be no settlement which
‘diminished the rights of
royal majesty’. This loyalty
to the king and
understanding of his
objectives was the key to
her appointment as regent
when Henry was out of
England. The success of
Henry’s mother in the post
had created a precedent,
yet it was also one which
could be ignored: no
similar position was
accorded to Henry’s
second wife, Adela of
Louvain. As regent,
Matilda issued writs in her
own name, heard
petitions, and tried law
cases in, as she put ‘the
court of my lord and
myself’. She made clear to
ministers that she must be
consulted and was
complimented by the
bishop of Norwich for
‘administering royal affairs
with laudable solicitude’.
Matilda’s seal, with which
she authenticated her writs
and charters, showed her
standing, a tall imposing
figure, holding as symbols
of authority an orb in one
hand and a sceptre in the
other. Here indeed was a
woman who could govern
a kingdom.
Of the ministers of the
king and queen, one was
pre-eminent: Roger, bishop
of Salisbury (1107–39). A
poor priest from the
suburbs of Caen, he had,
so the story went,
impressed Henry by racing
through the Mass and had
become his chaplain. In
England he soon headed
both the judicial and
financial administration.
The large numbers of writs
he witnessed and in effect
authorized shows that the
writing office and central
government moved at his
command. He worked
under Henry when the
king was in the kingdom,
under Matilda when he
was not. After Matilda’s
death, Roger was left
formally in charge and
issued writs in his own
name. He was in fact
‘second under the king’, as
Henry of Huntingdon put
it, and ‘justiciar of all
England’, the title
ultimately adopted by his
successors, although Roger
himself did not use it. In
many ways Roger’s
position was similar to
that of Rufus’s great
minister Ranulf Flambard,
and contemporaries
described them in similar
terms. Yet in approach
they were as different as
their masters. Rufus’s
mighty plans and high-cost
wars required large sums
of money to be raised very
quickly; for that purpose
Flambard’s aggression and
fertility were ideal, and his
unpopularity the measure
of his success. After 1106,
Roger operated in calmer
waters even with the
emergencies in Normandy,
and was able to build
slowly; for that his
bureaucratic mentality (he
attended to affairs of state
in the morning and those
of his bishopric in the
afternoon) was ideal. So
was his plausible and
conciliatory nature. Letters
poured in to him begging
for justice and favour. His
ability to balance the
options they posed, gauge
the limits of his authority
(did the king need to be
consulted, was the queen
persuadable?), and come
up with acceptable
solutions made an
essential contribution to
England’s peace.
Central to Roger’s
power and the control of
the king’s revenues was
the exchequer, where he
presided probably from
1110. That greatest of all
institutions of central
government for the first
time emerges into the
light. Its task was first to
exact or collect the king’s
annual revenue; second, to
store it and spend it on the
king’s orders; and third, to
audit annually the
accounts of those
responsible for the
revenue’s collection. A
great book written by
Bishop Roger’s great
nephew, The Dialogue of
the Exchequer, explains the
exchequer’s workings in
1178 and they were not
fundamentally different in
Roger’s own day. Each
year the exchequer
officials, the barons of the
exchequer, usually
meeting at Winchester,
prepared lists of the sums
which the sheriffs were to
collect and pay in, one half
at Easter and one at
Michaelmas. The payments
were made into the
treasury, which was also at
Winchester, and by 1130
effectively a branch of the
exchequer. By 1178 it was
often called the ‘lower
exchequer’ or the
‘exchequer of receipt’. At
the treasury two
chamberlains received the
money, kept it and
dispensed it on the king’s
orders, the great bulk
often being sent to the
king’s chamber. The
receipts for payments were
wooden tallies (one for
each individual debt), that
is sticks cut down the
middle with the payment
recorded both in notches
and writing on either side.
One half was kept by the
sheriff, the other by the
exchequer. After
Michaelmas each year, at
stated intervals, the
sheriffs and other
collectors of revenue came
back to the exchequer, or
more specifically to the
branch later called the
‘upper exchequer’ or
‘exchequer of audit’. There
they accounted for the
money they had been
summoned to pay in at the
previous Easter and
Michaelmas, the tallies
being matched up as proof
of payment. If the sheriff
had been ordered by the
king to pay some of his
revenue directly into the
chamber or spend some of
his revenues locally, for
example on the
garrisoning of a castle, he
now produced the
authorizing writ and was
credited accordingly. The
state of play in respect of
each debt was worked out
visually with counters on a
great chequered cloth,
which gave the exchequer
its name. Like the tally
sticks, this was clearly
designed to help those
who could not read.
The results of the
annual audit were
recorded on a great roll
(the ‘pipe roll’, as it was
later called), a new one
being opened for every
year. That for 1130 is the
first to survive, and the
only one from Henry’s
reign. It is mightily
impressive. Sixteen
separate membranes, each
around four feet long and
a foot wide and made up
of two smaller membranes,
were written up on both
sides. All sixteen were then
sewn together at the top so
that they could be rolled
up into a single roll. The
roll of 1130 runs to 161
pages in a modern printed
edition, records over 300
writs authorizing
expenditure by sheriffs or
pardoning debts, and
mentions over 2,000
people and places.
 If Bishop Roger
conceived the exchequer
de novo he was an
administrative genius. Yet
even the friendly Dialogue
does not make that claim,
but discusses whether it
went back to Anglo-Saxon
times or whether it was
introduced by the
Conqueror and modelled
on the exchequer in
Normandy. There certainly
was a Norman exchequer
under Henry I but its
origins are as obscure as
its English brother’s.
Probably at least the name
exchequer and the
chequered cloth method of
accounting from which it
derived were fairly new in
Henry’s reign. Although
the abacus system on
which it was loosely based
had been known in
England for a long time,
there is no reference to the
exchequer eo nomine
before 1110. On the other
hand, previous kings can
hardly have been without
means of recording and
auditing their dues. The
Dialogue mentions that the
original name for the
exchequer was ‘the tallies’,
which seems to recall a
time before the exchequer
cloth when wooden tallies
may have been used to
record debts as well as
receipts. The treasury at
Winchester existed before
the Conquest and it
certainly kept records of
the farms due from royal
estates and lists of hides
for the levying of the geld.
Both are referred to in
Domesday Book. Probably
the system of 1130
emerged gradually. The
absenteeism of the
Norman kings, which
made it harder to audit
accounts ad hoc as the king
went round his estates,
and accelerated the
replacement of revenue in
kind from royal manors
with revenue in cash,
necessitated a central audit
and increased the amount
of money it had to deal
with. The number of debts
owed to the king was also
increased by new feudal
revenues and the
increasing impositions
made by royal justices in
the localities. According to
the Dialogue the exchequer
flourished exceedingly
under Bishop Roger’s
direction, as the rolls
showed. It may well be
that much of the
procedure which existed in
1130 was due to him.
Certainly in his time the
exchequer was a hugely
powerful instrument of
government. It was central
to the exaction of revenue,
the control of local
officials, and the web of
political control which the
king could spin over the
country, for nearly
everyone of importance
owed money to the crown
and could be punished or
rewarded by varying the
rates of repayment.
Where did Henry’s
revenues come from? In
one key area these had
actually been declining,
since land brought in over
£3,000 less in 1130 than it
had in 1087, the result of
the amount given away in
patronage during the
intervening period.
Nevertheless land in 1130
was still by far the largest
component of the total
income: £2,600 came from
estates which had come
into the king’s hands
through forfeiture and
escheat, and £9,900 from
the county farms. The
latter were fixed sums
which the sheriffs had to
pay each year, being
derived largely from the
king’s lands in the county,
though also from other
customary payments (like
‘sheriff’s aid’), and minor
pleas in the county and
hundred courts. The
exchequer was also
working hard to get more
money from the farms,
having revalued them only
a few years before, and in
1129 demanding a £666
increment from eleven
shires specially grouped
together. The decline in
revenue from land
provided an incentive to
make more money by
other means. One of these
was the royal forests. In
his Coronation Charter
Henry had promised to
keep the forests as in the
time of his father, which
implied he would not
imitate Rufus’s
malpractices. Yet Henry
had royal forests in
twenty-five counties and
certainly expanded their
bounds, a process Stephen
(in 1136) promised to
reverse.
Other sources which
could be exploited were
‘justice’ (of which more
later) and the king’s feudal
rights. It was these, of
course, which had been
opened up by Flambard’s
shameless energy and
Henry in his Coronation
Charter had forsworn them
– not for long, although
not on Flambard’s brazen
scale. Ecclesiastical
vacancies brought in
£1,100 in the 1130 roll,
and inheritance fines,
reliefs, and payments for
wardships and marriages
another £1,300. A further
£5,550 still to be paid
hung unpleasantly over
baronial heads. With
£2,500 coming from the
geld (and more pardoned
as patronage), Henry’s
total recorded revenue in
1130 was £24,550 of
which £22,900 was paid
into the exchequer
(barring a small amount
going directly to the king’s
chamber) and the rest
expended locally. This sum
was only exceeded four
times in the reign of Henry
II and was more than that
raised a hundred years
later in 1230, although by
then there had been
considerable inflation. The
total actually demanded
(as opposed to paid in and
expended) was £66,800, so
Henry was also owed a
great deal of money; a
useful position to be in. He
was very rich, and was
probably every year
generating a considerable
surplus; a treasure of
fabled size glowed at
Winchester.
There were other ways
in which Henry kept hold
of local government. Like
his father and brother he
was careful about the
creation of earldoms.
Henry made Robert, count
of Meulan, earl of Leicester
in 1107, his brother-in-law
David in effect earl of
Huntingdon around 1114,
and Robert, his own
illegitimate son, earl of
Gloucester between 1121
and 1123. But these
earldoms were different
from the border
palatinates created after
the Conquest, of which
only Chester now survived.
The new earls had much
more limited powers and
their counties were
essentially run by the
sheriff appointed by the
king, and responsible at
the exchequer for the
shire’s revenues. Henry
was also determined to
control the sheriffs, whose
performance he had
criticized in a writ of
1108. Early in his reign
twelve counties were
under sheriffs who had
been in office at the time
of Domesday Book or were
the sons of such men.
Henry allowed the trusty
Miles to follow his father
in Gloucester but in
general made it very clear
the office was not
hereditary. He appointed
tenants of loyalist barons
to some counties (like
Nottinghamshire), and
over others placed curiales,
that is men who were high
in his service and members
of his court. At times he
dramatically increased the
numbers of the latter so
that in 1130 they held no
less than eighteen
counties.
In 1108 Henry’s
criticism was that the
sheriffs were holding extra
sessions of the county and
hundred courts to suit
their own ‘needs’, meaning
for their own profit. One
source of that profit was
hearing pleas of the crown.
Described at length in The
Laws of King Henry I, a
book on legal procedure
written between c. 1114
and 1118, these included
(as they had since Anglo-
Saxon times) homicide,
robbery, assault, serious
theft, rape and arson. It
was vital for the king to
control and exploit such
business, and Henry
developed two ways of
doing so more efficiently.
One was through the
increasing use of an
official who had existed
before 1100, namely a
local justiciar empowered
to ‘keep the pleas of the
crown of the king’, which
probably involved
investigating them, and
then prosecuting the
offenders in the local
courts, taking over all this
from the sheriff.
Prosecution could also be
either by juries drawn
from the hundreds or by
individuals following a
process known as appeal.
In 1130 the keeper of the
crown pleas in Norfolk and
Suffolk promised to make
the king a ‘profit’ of £333,
which shows just how
much money could be
made.
 A second development
was more significant. This
was the practice of sending
judges on circuit round the
shires to hear crown pleas
and whatever civil
business was brought
before them. These judges
were later called ‘justices
in eyre’ (‘eyre’ meaning
visitation) or ‘itinerant
justices’. Since the leading
itinerant justices were
curiales, they gave the king
far tighter control over his
pleas than the local
justiciars and the sheriffs
whom they superseded. It
was on the ‘itinerant
justices’ that the
administration of royal
justice in the shires in the
later twelfth and thirteenth
centuries was largely to
depend. The precise stages
between the Conqueror’s
practice of sending a judge
to a shire to hear an
important individual plea,
on the one hand, and the
judges going through
several shires to hear all
crown pleas, on the other,
is difficult to trace in the
absence of pipe rolls. In
1096 Flambard may have
held a West Country crown
pleas circuit. By the 1120s,
as the 1130 pipe roll
shows, the eyres were
certainly in full swing.
Richard Basset, for
example, had heard pleas
in six shires; Geoffrey de
Clinton in eighteen; and
Ralph Basset (Richard’s
father) in eleven. In 1124
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
provides a glimpse of
Ralph Basset at work in
Leicestershire where he
hanged forty-four thieves
and mutilated six. Henry’s
eyres provided an
impressive manifestation
of royal power,
contributing most of the
£3,600 owed for pleas in
the 1130 pipe roll, and
demonstrating that
everyone was subject to
the king’s justice. Even the
peasants of the mightiest
northern barons were
saddled with amercements
which had to be paid to
the king. A significant by-
product of this activity
may well have been to
diminish yet further,
indeed perhaps largely
eliminate, the role of local
courts in arranging
compensation payments
like those seen in the
Anglo-Saxon law codes for
offences to person and
property, although these
certainly continued
unofficially.
Beneath the level of
pleas of the crown, Henry
had no quarrel with
private jurisdiction,
whether exercised in the
(often overlapping) courts
of manor, honour or
private hundred. He
ordered lords to
implement the judgements
of their courts (if they
didn’t, the sheriff would)
and restore land to tenants
‘justly’, which probably
indicated that the matter
should be decided in a
court of law. Quite
probably many cases were
moving from honourial to
shire courts, or coming
before the king himself
because of default of
justice. But Henry was
quite prepared to shore up
the jurisdiction of
particular honourial courts
and command tenants to
perform the service due to
their lords. In his 1108
writ he laid down that
pleas over the occupation
and division of land
between the tenants of the
same lord should be heard
in the lord’s court. (For
further discussion of the
honour, see below, pp.
403–7.) The 1108 writ also
made clear that actions
between barons were to
come before the king
himself. In such cases, in
particular, the king could
charge large sums for
‘justice’, £3,500 being
offered for judicial favours
in the 1130 pipe roll.
There has been much
debate among historians
about the type of men
Henry I employed to run
his government. Orderic
Vitalis in a famous passage
described how Henry
‘ennobled men of base
stock, who had served him
well, raising them, as it
were, from the dust’. There
was certainly nothing new
about kings taking
servants from outside the
ranks of the baronage.
Indeed Hugh of Buckland,
named by Orderic as one
of Henry’s new men, had
been a sheriff under Rufus.
All kings needed to recruit
servants who were
dependent on the crown
for their fortunes and
could be relied upon to be
loyal and diligent in its
service. The length,
stability and
administrative
developments of Henry’s
reign may have made such
men more conspicuous
than before, and also have
given them wider
opportunities for holding
office. Geoffrey de Clinton,
for example, was sheriff of
Warwickshire, a justice in
eyre in numerous counties,
chamberlain of the
Winchester treasury and a
prominent figure at court.
The background of some of
Henry’s servants is
obscure, justifying
Orderic’s remark that they
had been ‘raised from the
dust’. The Dialogue of the
Exchequer itself referred to
Bishop Roger’s ‘lean
poverty’. Others like
Clinton and Ralph Basset,
who headed Orderic’s list
of examples, came from
families of essentially
knightly status holding
small amounts of property
in England or Normandy,
sometimes in both.
Western Normandy, where
Henry had been based
before his accession, was a
particularly fertile
recruiting ground. There
were also ministers who
came from more
substantial backgrounds,
like Miles of Gloucester,
son of the Domesday
sheriff, and Aubrey de
Vere, son of a minor
baron. Henry’s servants
were certainly enriched, as
Orderic noted. Clinton by
1130 had added 578 hides
of land to his father’s
single manor at Glympton
in Oxfordshire. Walter
Espec, Eustace and Payn
fitz John, and Nigel
d’Albigny (who began as a
household knight), as well
as Miles of Gloucester, all
became great barons
through marriages
arranged for them by the
king. Such men were
ruthless acquisitors,
disseising tenants within
the honours they had
acquired and forcing men
to grant them land; as a
result Nigel d’Albigny was
conscience-stricken on his
deathbed. This suited the
king. The very
unpopularity of these
ministers made them all
the more dependent on his
favour. Their loyalty might
also be ensured by the
large sums of money they
could owe him, sometimes
as punishment, sometimes
through having to pay for
favours they received.
Together they formed a
loyal and ruthless cadre on
which Henrician
government depended.
The work of the
chancery; Bishop Roger
and the exchequer; control
over the sheriffs; justices
in eyre; use of new men: in
all these areas Henry built
on earlier precedents. In
all he probably went
beyond them. The
resulting structure of
government was
formidably strong.
***
Orderic wrote
enthusiastically about the
new cathedrals, monastic
buildings and village
churches permitted by
Henry’s peace, a peace
which was both ‘law and
order’ and ‘political’ in the
sense of the absence of
civil strife. To the political
peace Henry’s relations
with many of his barons
had made a crucial
contribution. He had
proved adept at exploiting
the bonds which could tie
nobles to the king: the
desire for the status
conferred by a place at
court; the delight in
fighting alongside the king
on military campaigns;
and the rewards that might
come from faithful service.
Henry was constantly
taking counsel from his
barons, both formally in
specially summoned large
assemblies and informally
in his chamber and at the
hunt. Orderic remarked on
Henry’s new men but he
also declared that the king
had ‘won the loyalty of
magnates by treating them
with generosity and
adding to their estates’ – of
which we have already
seen many examples. In
particular, just like his
father, Henry had sought
to make close family
pillars of the regime. He
had raised up his
illegitimate son Robert, his
nephew Stephen and his
brother-in-law King David.
Indeed, in a crucial move
in 1125 Stephen had been
married to a great heiress,
the daughter of the count
of Boulogne, gaining the
highly strategic county of
Boulogne itself and also
lands centred on Essex
which with the honour of
Eye made him the most
powerful landholder in
south-east England.
Meanwhile Stephen’s
clever and articulate
brother Henry had become
bishop of Winchester
(1129–1171).
One leading Henrician
scholar, C. W. Hollister,
has argued that Henry left
behind a largely
harmonious political
system, yet this may be to
claim too much. While old
magnates and new men
rubbed shoulders at court,
there was tension between
them. ‘The noblest men in
the kingdom grudged
[Henry’s new men] their
distinction because they
were of the lowest origins
and exceeded in wealth
and power those far better
born than themselves,’
wrote the author of the
Gesta Stephani. While,
moreover, many barons
enjoyed the king’s favour,
significant numbers felt
they did not. There was
tension, too, over the
king’s continued
exploitation of his feudal
rights. Rufus’s own
exploitation of inheritance
payments, wardships and
marriages had clearly
antagonized many barons,
resulting in Henry I’s
promises in his Coronation
Charter, but these
promises were not kept.
There were also many
families burning with the
desire to regain lands of
which they felt they had
been deprived. This
situation had not arisen
because Henry had denied
the principle of hereditary
succession; in fact the
principle was implicit in
many clauses in his
Coronation Charter. In
practice, of the 193
baronies existing in 1135,
102 (52 per cent) had
descended in the male line
since 1086. But that still
left plenty of room for
royal interference through
the processes of marriage
and forfeiture, interference
necessitated by the
circumstances of Anglo-
Norman politics described
at the start of this chapter.
Forty-seven baronies (24
per cent) had come into
royal hands between 1087
and 1135, mostly through
forfeiture, usually to be
granted out again to those
in the king’s favour.
Twenty-one (11 per cent)
had been gained by new
families through the
marriage of heiresses. All
this created material for
dispute. Gilbert de Lacy
wanted to recover the
honour of Pontefract,
which Henry I had taken
from his father in 1114 for
suspected treason and
given ultimately to
William Maltravers, a man
whose origins are quite
obscure. Simon de Senlis
wanted the honour of
Huntingdon which Henry
had given King David on
his marriage to Waltheof’s
daughter, Simon being the
son of her first marriage.
Payn fitz John, and Roger,
son of Miles of Gloucester,
disputed possession of the
honour of Weobley with
the Talbots and another
branch of the Lacys. Under
Stephen, these and many
other ‘family history’
disputes and claims
flooded to the surface and
turned the mills of the
civil war. The issue was
not hereditary succession
(which both sides freely
conceded) but who should
enjoy it.
There was also potential
tension between the
centralizing ambitions of
the crown and the
decentralizing ones of the
nobility. As Judith Green
has remarked, the nobles
were both collaborators of
the king and his
competitors in the pursuit
of power, that competition
being particularly sharp in
the local arena. The aim of
an ambitious lord was to
assert his rule in the
localities by combining his
castles and feudal
structures with office and
privileges received from
the king – an earldom with
real power, a private
hundred, a royal castle,
and a sheriffdom held
either by himself or one of
his men. If the king
wanted to reward a great
lord and gain a powerful
local agent he might well
condone such ambitions.
Yet there were clearly
dangers in doing so,
especially if a baron’s hold
on local office became
hereditary. Equally, if the
king’s immediate priority
was cash paid into the
exchequer, the last thing
he wanted was such great
local agents for they
aspired to keep much of
the king’s revenue for
themselves. Henry I, as we
have seen, combated these
centrifugal tendencies,
preventing the sheriffdoms
becoming hereditary and
hesitating to set up
palatine earldoms. But the
result unfortunately was to
leave a body of disgruntled
magnates who nursed
claims to such possessions,
and resented those who
held local office. Earl
Roger of Warwick clearly
detested the way his
activities were monitored
by the sheriff Geoffrey de
Clinton, established at
Warwick castle. Earl
Ranulf II of Chester (who
succeeded c. 1129) and his
half-brother, William de
Roumare, had claims to
the castle and sheriffdom
of Lincoln, while Geoffrey
de Mandeville eyed up the
Tower of London and the
sheriffdoms of London and
Middlesex, and Essex and
Hertfordshire, which
Henry had taken from his
grandfather. When he
finally recovered them
under Stephen he secured
a concession enabling him
to exclude the justices in
eyre (see below, p. 175).
Those outside the regime
must also have resented
the power of the
exchequer which recorded
their debts and if ordered
to do so exacted them for
the crown. The pipe roll of
1130 shows Geoffrey de
Mandeville owing £846;
Earl Ranulf II of Chester
£1,613; his mother Lucy,
£646; and Earl Roger of
Warwick £218. In all this
too there were strains
which were to explode
after Henry’s death.
In the very last years of
Henry’s reign, problems
were also looming on the
frontiers. The native rulers
in Glamorgan were
seething with discontent
over Earl Robert of
Gloucester’s expansionary
rule. In Gwynedd, the sons
of Gruffudd ap Cynan
threatened to be far less
accommodating than their
venerable father. In 1135
the incursions of the rulers
of Powys into Shropshire
were making Henry plan a
return to Britain. In
Scotland, King David owed
much to Henry, yet had
been thwarted over
Carlisle. Henry’s wealth
and power enabled him to
hold all these tensions in
check. ‘No one dared
injure another in his time,’
wrote the Anglo-Saxon
chronicler. When his
successor ran out of money
it would be a different
story.
And who was that
successor to be? Henry, as
we have seen, wanted it to
be his daughter Matilda,
‘the Empress’ as she
proudly styled herself,
being the widow of the
Emperor Henry V. The
king’s intent was
strengthened after she had
given birth to a son, the
future Henry II, in 1133.
But her path would not be
easy. Quite apart from the
fact that she was a woman,
there was the question of
the role to be played by
her husband, Geoffrey,
count of Anjou, for whom
the Anglo-Norman
magnates had no brief. In
1130 Henry had extracted
another solemn
undertaking to accept his
daughter’s succession, but
he had granted her lands
and castles neither in
England nor in Normandy,
despite Geoffrey’s
demands for the latter.
Therefore she had no
power base from which to
stake her claim. Nor did
Henry crown the Empress,
or associate her in any
way with his rule – unlike
Baldwin II, king of
Jerusalem (1118–31)
when he made his
daughter Melisende his
heir, an example widely
known since Melisende’s
husband was none other
than Fulk V of Anjou,
Geoffrey’s father. Henry,
now well into his sixties,
would not give way. He
wanted no rival. And while
he had failed to secure the
position of the Empress, he
had built up those of both
Stephen and Robert, thus
laying the foundations for
the former’s usurpation
and the latter’s
championship of the
Empress’s cause, the heart
of the civil war.
6

Britain
Remodelled:
King Stephen,
1135–54, King
David, 1124–
53, and the
Welsh Rulers

When Henry I died on 1

December 1135, Stephen
was superbly placed to
seize the throne. He was
the son of Stephen, count
of Blois, and Adela, the
Conqueror’s daughter, and
was thus of illustrious
descent. True he was only
a younger son (his elder
brother Theobald became
count of Blois), but the
patronage of Henry I had
none the less made him
the greatest baron in the
Anglo-Norman world. On
one side of the Channel he
held the counties of
Mortain and Boulogne, the
latter in particular
strategic and valuable. In
England he was lord of the
honours of Lancaster and
Eye as well as other lands.
His brother Henry was
bishop of Winchester. It
was in Boulogne that
Stephen heard the news of
Henry’s death, while the
Empress, the old king’s
daughter and chosen
successor, was far away in
Anjou. He immediately
crossed the Channel, won
over the Londoners, and
then hurried to Winchester
where, with the help of
Bishop Henry, he secured
the late king’s mammoth
treasure and the crucial
support of Bishop Roger of
Salisbury, head of the
administration. On 22
December Stephen was
crowned king in
Westminster Abbey. In the
words of the old dictum,
‘one cannot serve two
masters’, success in
England carried the day in
Normandy, where the
Empress and Geoffey of
Anjou advanced up the
well-trodden route from
the south as far as
Argentan, but got no
further. Stephen’s
Coronation Charter was
the briefest of affairs, in
sharp contrast to Henry I’s
tissue of promises, and
next year he received
confirmation from the
pope.
From then on it was
steadily downhill. In 1136
royal and baronial power
in Wales was shaken by a
native revival; in 1139
King David secured much
of northern England, while
the Empress invaded and
thereafter held sway over
significant parts of the
country. By 1144
Normandy was lost to
Geoffrey of Anjou. ‘In this
king’s time there was
nothing but disturbance,
wickedness and robbery,’
declared the Peterborough
chronicler. Some challenge
to Stephen’s position was
always likely. His title,
based on election by clergy
and people together with
papal confirmation, might
always seem inferior to
that of the Empress,
derived from hereditary
right. The force of the oath
to the Empress continued
to prick consciences,
despite stories of Henry’s
deathbed change of mind.
Yet Henry’s own title to
England had been open to
challenge, and he had
virtually no title to
Normandy. Stephen’s
failure was partly because
of the formidable problems
he inherited, sketched at
the end of the last chapter.
It was also because of his
character and his mistakes.
‘Everyone ought to
regard the king as an
angry lion,’ remarked the
chronicler John of
Worcester, but no one
could see Stephen in that
light. As a count he had
been famed for his
amiability and he
continued in the same vein
as king. According to the
Gesta Stephani, the best
chronicle of the reign, on
occasion he forgot his
exalted rank and treated
those around him very
much as equals The
expectation of such
behaviour after Henry I’s
intimidating conduct was
one reason for making him
king in the first place. ‘He
was a man of energy but
little judgement, active in
war, of extraordinary spirit
in undertaking any
difficult task, lenient to his
enemies and easily
appeased, courteous to all;
though you admired his
kindness in promising, still
you felt his words lacked
truth and his promises
fulfilment,’ wrote William
of Malmesbury in his
brilliant sketch of the king.
Stephen’s difficulties,
culminating in his
captivity, created space for
one person in particular:
his own queen, Matilda.
On her marriage she had
no expectation of
queenship, though she was
of impeccable pedigree.
Through her father, count
Eustace of Boulogne, she
was descended from
Charlemagne, and through
her mother (a daughter of
Queen Margaret and King
Malcolm of Scotland) from
the line of the Wessex
kings. Astute, loyal and
courageous, and with
Boulogne a great heiress
(unlike her predecessors
since the Conquest), she
came to play a major part
in diplomacy, politics and
warfare. Without her
Stephen might not have
survived.
At once Stephen faced
trouble across his frontiers.
On 15 April 1136, Richard
fitz Gilbert de Clare of
Ceredigion was ambushed
and killed by Morgan and
Iorwerth, rulers of
Gwynllwg in east
Glamorgan. They then
went on to seize Caerleon
and Usk, together with
other parts of lowland
Gwent, recovering much of
the kingdom held by their
grandfather King Caradog.
The killing itself was a
signal for a general rising
led by the dynasties of
Gwynedd and Deheubarth.
The sons of Gruffudd ap
Cynan from the north,
Owain and Cadwaladr, and
Gruffudd ap Rhys and his
sons from the south, fell
upon Ceredigion, burned
Aberystwyth, defeated a
force of Normans and
Flemings outside Cardigan,
and then returned home
with ‘captives, costly
raiment and fair armour’,
the Brut recounts. There
was no royal response,
even when in the next
year, 1137, the marcher
lord and sheriff, Payn fitz
John, was also killed. So
later in 1137, in a highly
significant shift of tactics,
plunder turned to political
control, the rulers of
Gwynedd seizing
Ceredigion. Meanwhile the
sons of Gruffudd ap Rhys
(not at all set back by
Gruffudd’s murder)
secured much of Dyfed,
parts of Ystrad Tywi and,
triumph of triumph, the
royal castle of Carmarthen,
with help from the rulers
of Gwynedd. What a
contrast to the one
miserable commote to
which Gruffudd ap Rhys
had been reduced in the
1120s!
Apart from the loss of
Gwynedd in the 1090s,
these were the most
significant defeats suffered
by the Normans in Wales.
Miles of Gloucester still
held Brecon, Earl Robert of
Gloucester Cardiff and
parts of southern
Glamorgan, and Gilbert
fitz Gilbert de Clare
(brother of the murdered
Richard) Chepstow and
parts of Gwent. But
Stephen had lost
Carmarthen and in effect
Pembroke too, for in 1138,
powerless to give it
assistance, he had made
Gilbert fitz Gilbert earl
with virtually royal rights.
Given Stephen’s
preoccupations elsewhere,
his failure to respond was
understandable. For the
same reason, Robert of
Gloucester, whose
advances in Glamorgan
had done much to provoke
the trouble, recognized the
conquests of Morgan and
Iorwerth and added to
them, thus securing
valuable allies. But
Stephen, unlike Henry I,
never had the opportunity
to reassert his authority.
Indeed the earl of Chester’s
disaffection and Earl
Robert’s rebellion soon
shut him out of Wales.
In the north, Stephen’s
losses were even more
catastrophic. Early in 1136
King David of Scotland,
having recently seen off
internal rebellion, moved
south and seized Carlisle
and Newcastle, the two
great royal bases in the
north of England. In the
west his aim was to make
good longstanding Scottish
claims to Cumbria south of
the Solway (or
Cumberland and
Westmorland as it was
coming to be called). To
the east, ancient claims to
Northumbria were given
added force by his
marriage to the daughter
of Waltheof,
Northumbria’s last Anglo-
Saxon earl. Stephen
responded with more
vigour than he was to
show in Wales. With a
large mercenary army
hired from the treasure of
Henry I, he marched north
to Durham and in
February 1136 agreed
terms. David abandoned
his Northumbrian
conquests. In return, his
son Henry did homage to
Stephen, for his father’s
earldom of Huntingdon,
and for Carlisle and
southern Cumbria as well.
Nominally the latter were
still within the English
realm; in practice they
were now part of the
Scottish kingdom. Whether
David had ever
acknowledged Henry’s
overlordship of that
kingdom is unclear. He
certainly never
acknowledged Stephen’s.
David, however, soon
felt he could improve on
the 1136 settlement. In
1138, professing support
for the Empress, he
launched no less than
three invasions into
England. Stephen marched
north to counter the first,
but, with tension rising
elsewhere in the kingdom,
ignored the second, which
ravaged the lands of the
bishopric of Durham and
penetrated as far south as
Craven in Yorkshire. The
Scots and Galwegians in
the armies committed
appalling atrocities
(tossing babies on the
points of their spears,
according to one
testimony), and drove long
columns of naked and
fettered women off to
prostitution and slavery.
All this was but the
prelude to the third
invasion which began in
late July and soon
progressed across the Tees
into Yorkshire. A sizeable
chunk of the northern
nobility supported David,
but faced with the
atrocities, and with his
long-held views about the
integrity of the English
realm, the aged
Archbishop Thurstan of
York saw resistance as a
holy cause. His forces
made their stand on 22
August at Northallerton,
under the standards of the
northern saints (hence the
battle of the Standard) and
won what seemed a God-
given victory.
The battle saved
Stephen’s throne, but
failed to drive David from
the north. He retained
Carlisle and by November
had forced the surrender
of Walter Espec’s castle at
Wark on Tweed. With
Eustace fitz John at
Alnwick in David’s
allegiance, Northumbria
lay open. So at Durham in
the April of 1139 another
settlement was brokered
by Stephen’s queen,
Matilda, David’s niece and
friend. Stephen confirmed
David and Henry his son in
possession of Carlisle,
Cumbria south of the
Solway and the earldom of
Huntingdon. He then gave
way on the main issue,
and granted Henry
Northumbria between the
Tweed and the Tyne,
saving the castles of
Bamburgh and Newcastle
upon Tyne, although these
too were soon in Scottish
hands. In return, David
and Henry promised
Stephen their fealty.
Stephen had eliminated
the danger from the north.
In the next year Henry
fought for him, while
David watched the
Empress and Earl Robert
struggle in choppy waters
until their victory at
Lincoln in 1141 and then
hurried south to encumber
them with help. Yet the
price was momentous. In
practice Northumbria and
southern Cumbria were
now part of King David’s
realm. Would it indeed
expand even further
south? After all, Stephen’s
troubles had hardly begun.
***
Fundamentally, Stephen
had abandoned Wales and
the north because of
anxieties about his English
heartland. But here,
floated by Henry’s
treasure, he had enjoyed
initial success. At Easter
1136 he received the
homage of Robert of
Gloucester, momentarily
impressed by the
mercenary forces which
had just confronted King
David. This was a major
coup. Robert, illegitimate
son of Henry I and thus
the Empress’s half-brother,
was by far her greatest
potential supporter. He
was lord of Glamorgan and
had wide lands in
Gloucestershire, Wiltshire
and the west country,
centered on Bristol and its
castle. He also held Bayeux
and Caen in Normandy.
Robert was well educated,
phlegmatic in adversity,
self-mocking with his
intimates, ruthless,
stubborn and daring; if he
remained on side, Stephen
was safe.
Already, however, there
were signs of trouble. In
April 1136 Stephen issued
a new charter, one far
more comprehensive than
that vouchsafed at his
coronation. He promised
to abandon the areas
which Henry I had taken
into the royal forest,
extirpate the oppressions
of the sheriffs and deal
justly in law cases, all
concessions which
reflected the unpopularity
of Henry’s rule. Stephen
also promised neither to
interfere in appointments
nor exploit vacant
bishoprics. On the face of
it, royal control over the
church had been
abandoned. Stephen was
also hit by a great wave of
demands for ‘estates,
castles, anything which
took their fancy’ (as
William of Malmesbury
put it) from potential
supporters, many of
whom, as we have seen,
had felt thwarted or
disinherited by Henry. For
many the whole point of
King Stephen was to look
favourably on such
petitions. Stephen wisely
sought to build up his own
party of supporters,
gaining the loyalty of
Gilbert de Lacy by
restoring his honour of
Pontefract (confiscated by
Henry in 1114), something
Lacy’s men had facilitated
by murdering the ‘new
man’, William Maltravers,
whom Henry I had
installed there.
Stephen also added
spectacularly to the
number of earldoms: in
1135 there were seven; by
1140 at least twenty-two.
Some were largely titular.
Others were associated
with grants of all the royal
castles, lands and forests in
the shire, and even the
homage of the tenants-in-
chief. Stephen hoped that
the beneficiaries ‘would be
bound the more straightly
to [his] service’, as John of
Worcester put it of a later
grant, and act as powerful
local agents who could
stand up to the mounting
trouble. To this end, after
the battle of the Standard
Stephen gave William
d’Aumale the earldom of
York in order to block
further advance from King
David. Likewise his
installation of Waleran of
Meulan in Worcestershire
was designed as a counter-
weight to Robert of
Gloucester. Waleran and
his twin brother, Robert,
were the sons of Henry I’s
great minister Robert de
Beaumont, earl of
Leicester, who died in
1118. Waleran, a fiery,
swaggering, jesting soldier,
had inherited his father’s
lands in central Normandy
as well as Meulan in the
French Vexin. Robert, staid
and statesmanlike, a future
justiciar of England under
Henry II, inherited the
English lands with the
earldom of Leicester,
though he was also
through marriage lord of
Breteuil in Normandy. The
twins also had powerful
relations. Earl William de
Warenne III was their half-
brother, their first cousin
was the earl of Warwick,
their brother-in-law,
Gilbert fitz Gilbert de
Clare, earl of Pembroke
(through Stephen’s grant)
and their younger brother,
Hugh Poer, castellan and
earl of Bedford. It was on
the Beaumonts and their
kin that much of Stephen’s
early rule rested both in
England and Normandy.
One trouble with all
this, as William of
Malmesbury noted, was
that when Stephen refused
patronage on the grounds
that the possessions of the
crown would be depleted,
those who were
disappointed resorted to
violence. In 1136 Hugh
Bigod seized Norwich
castle and had to be
ejected; Baldwin de
Redvers, hoping perhaps
for the earldom of Devon,
put his men into Exeter
and it took a three-month
siege throughout the
summer to remove them.
Given the complex web of
competing family claims to
land and office, patronage
to one man often meant
thwarting the claims of
another. Bedford castle
had to be besieged to get
Miles de Beauchamp out
and Hugh Poer in. Waleran
of Meulan’s installation at
Worcester antagonized
William de Beauchamp
who had his own claims to
its castle and sheriffdom.
No wonder people doubted
the worth of some of
Stephen’s promises.
Stephen’s handling of
the early troubles also
damaged his reputation.
He brought the siege of
Exeter to an end and
conciliated Robert of
Gloucester who urged
clemency by allowing the
garrison to go free. But the
lesson was obvious. ‘When
the traitors understood
that he was a mild man
and gentle and good and
did not exact the full
penalties of the law, they
perpetrated every
enormity,’ commented the
Peterborough abbey
chronicler. Meanwhile,
Stephen’s one campaign in
Normandy in 1137
succeeded in gaining
recognition from Louis VI
of France, but failed to
dislodge Geoffrey of Anjou
from Argentan in the south
of the duchy. Stephen was
also running out of money,
as the chronicler William
of Newburgh later noted.
This shortfall was due to
his heavy expenditure on
the armies of 1136–7 and
the decline in his cash
revenues, the latter the
inevitable downside of the
endowment of earldoms
with ‘landed estates and
revenues which had
belonged to the king in his
own right’, as William of
Malmesbury perceptively
put it. Waleran of Meulan,
indeed, as earl of
Worcester, referred
specifically to the ‘geld of
the king which belongs to
me’ and forest rights
‘which before were the
king’s and afterwards
mine’.
As the number of
Stephen’s mercenaries
declined in parallel with
his cash resources, so the
loyalty of Robert of
Gloucester came
increasingly into question.
If Stephen could not trust
him, as clearly was the
case, then the best policy
was his elimination, just as
Henry I had eliminated the
Bellêmes. During the
Norman campaign of 1137
Stephen attempted just
that, but the ambush
designed to kill or, more
likely, capture Robert
miscarried. Stephen
disclaimed responsibility,
but Robert thenceforth
began to plot the
Empress’s bid for the
throne.
 The war began in 1138
with a series of co-
ordinated actions, partly
fuelled by private disputes
over land and office. In
May, while David ravaged
the north, Geoffrey Talbot,
alienated by Stephen’s
preference for Roger, son
of Miles of Gloucester’s
claims to the honour of
Weobley, seized Hereford.
Then William fitz Alan
asserted his supposed
rights to the castle and
sheriffdom of Shrewsbury
by seizing the town. Soon
after 22 May Robert of
Gloucester in Normandy
formally defied Stephen,
only for his arrival in
England to be delayed for
over a year by the initial
failure of Geoffrey of
Anjou’s invasion of the
duchy. This should have
given Stephen his
opportunity to take Bristol,
‘almost the richest city in
the country’, and break
Robert’s power at its heart,
just as Rufus had broken
the 1088 rebellion by
taking Rochester. He did
indeed commence
operations but then, in the
words of John of
Worcester, ‘weary of the
tedious blockade he went
away to besiege the earl’s
other castles’. It was the
greatest mistake of his
career. If he could not take
Bristol when it was
commanded by one of
Robert’s sons, he would
never do so once Robert
and the Empress were
installed there.
Before that happened in
September 1139, Stephen
had been further
weakened, again partly
through his own mistakes,
understandable though
they were. At the end of
1138, he secured the
election of Theobald,
abbot of Bec, as the new
archbishop of Canterbury,
thus rewarding Waleran of
Meulan, Bec’s patron, for
his sterling defence of
Normandy. But the
appointment alienated the
man whose early support
had been so critical,
Stephen’s brother, Bishop
Henry of Winchester, who
coveted the position for
himself. And next year
Henry’s power was
increased when he became
papal legate. Within the
context of obedience to the
pope, Theobald was quite
aware of the duty he owed
the king, but he was no
Stephen man, as later
events were to show.
By 1139 Stephen was
bracing himself to meet
invasion, hence his
momentous concessions to
King David that April;
hence too the
extraordinary events of the
Oxford council in June.
There Stephen suddenly
arrested Roger, bishop of
Salisbury, and his nephew
Alexander, bishop of
Lincoln. By this means he
rid himself of suspected
traitors, gained castles
which would have taken
months to siege, and
destroyed the family’s
spidery hold over central
government which was so
much resented by the
Beaumonts and other
baronial families. The
chancery continued to
function normally and no
bishops joined the Empress
before 1141. Altogether an
effective coup de main. But
there were humiliating
consequences. According
to canon law, ecclesiastics
and their properties should
be subject to the
jurisdiction of the church,
not the king, and Stephen
had promised as much
under his 1136 charter.
Bishop Henry himself
convoked a legatine
council at Winchester and
demanded action against
his brother. In the event,
no action was taken and
Bishop Roger died at the
end of the year. But
Stephen was forced to
appear and plead his case.
The whole episode
reflected the advance in
ecclesiastical
independence since the
trials of Bishop Odo and
William of St Calais of
Durham in the 1080s,
when the idea (which
Stephen tried to advance)
that the king acted against
bishops as barons and not
as churchmen had been
universally accepted and
Lanfranc himself had acted
as chief accuser.
On 30 September 1139,
only a month after the
synod at Winchester, the
Empress and Robert of
Gloucester landed at
Arundel. Robert,
apparently with Bishop
Henry’s acquiescence, rode
on to Bristol. Stephen
surrounded Arundel only
to allow the Empress a safe
conduct to join her
brother. This was another
turning-point in the war,
for surely Stephen should
have captured the Empress
and imprisoned her for
life, just as Henry I had
imprisoned his brother
Robert. As it was, seduced
(so Henry of Huntington
thought) by ‘perfidious’
council, he believed it
would be much easier to
overcome Robert and his
sister when they were
together in one part of the
country – a remarkable
testimony to the pathetic
quality of his decision-
making. In fact, Miles of
Gloucester immediately
went over to the Empress
(who made him earl of
Hereford) and the base at
Bristol became
impregnable. Miles was
followed more
altruistically, for he was
much more vulnerable, by
Brian fitz Count, a protégé
of King Henry, whose
castle at Wallingford
thereafter remained the
Empress’s eastern outpost
and a constant thorn in
Stephen’s side. With
castles proliferating, the
fighting in 1140 was
inconclusive. It took a
great battle in 1141 to
break the deadlock.
The bouleversement of
1141 turned on baronial
ambitions of long standing.
Ranulf, earl of Chester and
his half-brother William de
Roumare had long
nourished claims to
Lincoln since their mother
was probably the daughter
of a pre-Domesday sheriff.
At the end of 1140
through a trick, played by
their wives (an intriguing
glimpse of noble-women in
politics), they had seized
its castle. The following
January Stephen marched
north to recover it. Up to
this point Ranulf had
shown scant regard for
either side, but now he
made terms with Robert of
Gloucester. And Robert
saw his chance. He
marched to Lincoln, placed
the disinherited in the van
of his army, and on 2
February won a
comprehensive victory.
Stephen, who had fought
to the last, was taken off to
captivity at Bristol.
The Empress now
moved to enter her own.
In April 1141 she was
proclaimed by Bishop
Henry as ‘Lady of England
and Normandy’, a title
which indicated immediate
royal authority and
heralded an imminent
coronation. There was
certainly no precedent in
England for female
succession, but neither
contemporary ideas nor
practice ruled it out. The
Anglo-Norman elite were
well aware that Melisende
and her husband Fulk of
Anjou, Count Geoffrey’s
father, had succeeded to
the kingdom of Jerusalem
in 1131. Indeed, on Fulk’s
death in 1143 Melisende
had governed by herself
until superseded by her
son in 1152. She had
earlier successfully resisted
Fulk’s bid to ignore her,
itself an encouraging
precedent for those, like
Robert of Gloucester, who
supported the Empress but
had little brief for Geoffrey
of Anjou. There were also
biblical precedents for
female succession (Robert
cited the case of the
daughters of Zelophehad)
and for women as rulers,
for example Esther and
Judith. And then there
were models from classical
mythology, for instance
the virago, the man-
woman, and the Amazons,
that legendary race of
martial women. Both
terms were applied to
twelfth- and thirteenth-
century women in
complimentary fashion. To
be sure, in these
stereotypes women only
succeeded by adopting
male characteristics. As St
Bernard put it in a letter to
Melisende, ‘although a
woman you must act as a
man… so that all may
judge you from your
actions to be a king rather
than a queen’. Yet he
could also be more
positive, encouraging her
to be a ‘strong woman’ and
a ‘great queen’.
The Empress gained
control of Oxford and
Devizes, received the
congratulations of King
David (who hurried
south), entered London,
and made plans for her
coronation. It was at this
juncture, however, that
another woman stood
forth in heroic fashion:
Stephen’s queen, Matilda.
With the mercenary
captain William of Ypres
she held Kent and ‘by
prayer and price’ did all
she could to gather an
army. This gave comfort to
the Londoners who, from
the start, had been
reluctant to desert King
Stephen, both because of
their trading links with
Boulogne, and his
reduction of the farm, the
annual payment they
rendered to the exchequer.
The Empress’s entry into
the city had been
facilitated by the
Londoners ‘mortal enemy’
Geoffrey de Mandeville
who controlled the Tower,
and whom she quickly
confirmed as earl of Essex.
But to secure Geoffrey’s
complete loyalty a further
grant of the sheriffdoms
and local justiciarships of
London and Middlesex
(held by his grandfather)
was required. That,
however, would
antagonize the Londoners
even more since these very
offices had been granted
them by Henry I.
This then was a
situation which required
that mixture of strength
and astuteness which
Bernard recommended to
Melisende and for which
Stephen’s queen was
praised. But the Empress
was not astute. ‘She
alienated nearly all hearts
by her intolerable pride,’
wrote Henry of
Huntingdon. Unlike the
affable Stephen, she was
haughty and aloof. Unlike
the generous Stephen, she
believed in being tight
with patronage; as she
said, one trains a hawk by
keeping it hungry.
Doubtless she modelled
herself on her father, but
what was acceptable for a
king of immense power
was quite unacceptable for
a prospective queen in a
fragile political situation.
Thus the Empress
alienated Bishop Henry, in
part by refusing to confirm
Boulogne to Eustace,
Stephen’s son and Henry’s
own nephew. And she
infuriated Londoners by
replacing Stephen’s easy
regime by demands for
taxation. On 24 June, with
the city in tumult, she fled
to Oxford. At the end of
July she occupied
Winchester, only to be
besieged there by Queen
Matilda and Geoffrey de
Mandeville with a
formidable army. On 14
September the Empress
fled again, reaching
Gloucester strapped to a
litter ‘like a corpse’. Earl
Robert, travelling more
slowly to cover her retreat,
was captured. On 1
November 1141, in return
for his release, Stephen too
was freed.
With the release of
Stephen and Robert the
game resumed, but with
Stephen now down more
pieces. As soon as he heard
of the king’s capture,
Geoffrey of Anjou invaded
Normandy. By this move
he weakened Stephen’s
position in England, for
those who deserted in the
duchy naturally did so in
the kingdom also. In the
latter half of 1141 Waleran
of Meulan himself went
over to the Empress, acting
as one of Geoffrey’s
commanders during the
final conquest of
Normandy in 1144. In
England his defection
meant that he now held
Worcestershire, where
Stephen had installed him
with virtually regal
powers, in the interests of
the Empress. With the
latter’s authority radiating
out from Bristol and
Devizes while Stephen was
strong in the south-east,
the conflict ebbed and
flowed along the routes
from London to the west,
but with neither side able
to gain a decisive
advantage. In 1142
Stephen took the Empress’s
eastern headquarters at
Oxford, but the Empress
herself, disguised in white,
escaped on foot across the
snow to Wallingford. Next
year Stephen was defeated
by Earl Robert in a battle
at Wilton, and lost control
of Sherborne.
Spewed out in the wake
of this struggle for the
throne were a whole series
of dark, swirling vortexes,
composed of the private
demands and disputes
which had confronted
Stephen during his brief
peace, and now twisted
round both candidates
with all the intensity of
war. Both were forced into
auctions to gain support.
At the end of 1141
Stephen tried to buy the
loyalty of Geoffrey de
Mandeville, earl of Essex,
by confirming all the
Empress had given him in
a last belated attempt to
keep his loyalty. In 1146
he granted his own honour
of Lancaster, as well as
Lincoln castle, to the earl
of Chester, giving way on
that tender point. Yet he
continued to suspect both
men and resent the way
they usurped royal rights.
He arrested both at court,
Mandeville in 1143,
Chester later in 1146,
much as he had earlier
arrested Bishop Roger. As
a result the Tower was
regained, and so was
Lincoln. Yet Stephen
lacked the strength to
detain either noble, in
contrast to Henry I who
imprisoned Robert of
Bellême for the rest of his
life after seizing him at
court in 1112. Mandeville,
by the time of his death in
September 1144, had
devastated the area around
Ely and Ramsey, while
Chester took his trade
elsewhere and secured
opulent concessions from
the Empress’s son, Henry
fitz Empress, the future
Henry II.
The numerous private
disputes were one reason
why the conflict was so
hard to settle. When a
magnate deserted to the
Empress, his rival had
every incentive to remain
with Stephen, or to return
to him. Just as Stephen’s
support for Miles of
Gloucester’s claim to the
honour of Weobley had
been a major factor in the
rebellion of his rivals, the
cousins Gilbert de Lacy
and Geoffrey Talbot, so
Miles’s reconciliation with
the Empress led eventually
to Gilbert’s return to
Stephen’s side. Likewise
King David’s relations with
the Empress secured
Stephen the unshakeable
loyalty of the rival
claimant to the Waltheof
inheritance, Simon de
Senlis, who was rewarded
from 1141 with David’s
earldom of Huntingdon. If
Robert, earl of Leicester,
remained at least
nominally on Stephen’s
side despite the defection
of his twin brother
Waleran, it was partly
because of his dispute with
Miles of Gloucester over
control of Herefordshire.
The brothers kept a foot in
both camps, Robert
looking after their interests
in England and Waleran
those in Normandy.
Other factors worked
against a military solution.
Old castles were
strengthened and at least
forty new ones (including
fifteen siege works) built.
Geoffrey of Anjou
remained fearful of
rebellion in Normandy and
never came to England,
despite pleas to do so. He
sent Henry fitz Empress
over on three occasions
between 1142 and 1149,
but without enough troops
to make a decisive
breakthrough. Meanwhile
the rebellion had reduced
Stephen’s resources even
further, indeed
catastrophically so. He
continued to control
London and the counties of
the south and east (Kent,
Surrey, Sussex, Essex and
East Anglia), where he
held most of his private
lands from the honours of
Eye and Boulogne. Outside
these heartlands Stephen’s
hold was at best
intermittent. After 1142
there was a dramatic
decline in the number of
writs produced by his
chancery and most were
now issued within sixty
miles of London. Even in
areas still nominally
subject to his control, his
authority was often non-
existent. In Yorkshire the
earl, William d’Aumale,
took over both royal and
private hundreds and
seemed, in the words of
William of Newburgh,
‘more truly king beyond
the Humber than King
Stephen’. In a treaty
regulating their respective
spheres of influence in the
midlands, the earls of
Chester and Leicester did
not refer to the king at all,
merely to the ‘liege lord’,
and then they placed limits
on service they owed him.
Such magnates were not
reluctantly shouldering
burdens forced on them by
the collapse of central
authority. Rather, they
often were realizing
longstanding ambitions
incompatible with Henry I
style centralized rule. In
the charters he extracted,
Geoffrey de Mandeville
stipulated that he was to
hold the sheriffdoms of
London–Middlesex and
Essex–Hertfordshire in
hereditary right in return
for the same annual farms
as those given by his
grandfather, thus
preventing additional
payments like those which
Henry I had demanded
from eleven counties in
1130. Likewise he
stipulated that no justices
were to enter his
sheriffdoms to hold pleas
except with his permission,
in this way restricting the
activities of justices in
eyre. He secured the
pardon of all his debts,
getting the exchequer off
his back. Such men might
well covet a place at the
king’s or the Empress’s
court, but the influence
they gained made it all the
easier to combine
earldoms, sheriffdoms and
private hundreds with
their own castles and
honours to construct,
however shakily and
temporarily, spheres of
power and influence
largely outside central
control.
The most striking
testimony to the
decentralization of this
period lies in the state of
the coinage. Stephen’s first
coinage had been issued
by mints throughout the
country from dies
produced in London.
Stephen’s second and third
types, which ran between
1145 and 1154, although
they maintained their
weight were minted only
in the south and east.
Elsewhere, the Empress
issued coins in her own
name from Bristol, Cardiff,
Oxford and Wareham; so
did some great barons, for
example Earl Robert of
Leicester from Leicester,
and Eustace fitz John from
York. King David minted
coins in the north. There
were also some thirty-five
coin types minted in
Stephen’s name but from
unauthorized dies,
doubtless by magnates
nominally loyal but
outside his effective
control. The royal
monopoly of coinage, the
greatest achievement of
the pre-Conquest kings,
had utterly broken down.
What all this meant in
financial terms is
suggested by the early pipe
rolls of Henry II (none
survives between 1130 and
1156). Stephen had
alienated some £3,000 of
royal demesne. He must
also have pardoned
numerous debts and failed
to generate others to
replace them: in 1155–6
the money the crown
could claim from old debts
incurred in previous years
(that is under Stephen)
was under £500. In 1130 it
had been £42,000. In 1130
total cash income was
£23,000. In the first two
full years of Henry II’s
reign it averaged £7,032.
Stephen’s income must
have been much smaller.
He was cataclysmically
less powerful than Henry I.
The weakening of
Stephen’s authority made
it more difficult to control
ecclesiastical affairs where
developments, becoming
apparent before 1135,
were already working
against him. Papal power
was growing as were
notions concerning
freedom of the church.
Both were championed by
the new Cistercian order
with its charismatic leader,
Bernard of Clairvaux. By
the end of Stephen’s reign,
England had fifty
Cistercian houses. Bishop
Henry of Winchester,
however, with whom
Stephen was reconciled
after 1141, was a Cluniac,
and his legatine authority,
which had lapsed in 1143,
was certainly not going to
be renewed by the
Cistercian Pope Eugenius
III (1145–53). In 1147 the
pope consecrated the
Cistercian abbot of
Fountains, Henry Murdac,
as archbishop of York,
having deposed Stephen’s
candidate, his nephew
William fitz Herbert – a
novel demonstration of
papal power. Next year, in
best Henrician fashion,
Stephen allowed only
three bishops to attend the
papal council at Lyons, but
was defied by Archbishop
Theobald who went too,
although forbidden to do
so. In response to these
challenges, Stephen was
able to exclude both
Theobald and Murdac
from their sees, only then
to allow both back. With
Murdac he established a
working relationship; with
Theobald he did not.
Meanwhile, other elections
to abbeys and bishoprics
(like Gilbert Foliot’s to
Hereford in 1148) often
went through with little
reference to the king;
hence in part the reform-
minded prelates faced by
Henry II.
The chroniclers of this
period, all ecclesiastics,
were clear that the
withering of central
authority had led to
anarchy in the sense of a
breakdown of law and
order. Modern historians
have been more cautious.
Whatever the tensions
within Stephen’s
diminished realm, for
example in Kent, for much
of the time he maintained
reasonable order within it.
In Essex, at least after the
fall of de Mandeville, he
retained control over the
forest which covered much
of the county, despite
promises of deforestation
in his charter of 1136. In
Suffolk he was able to
enforce payment of a £20
amercement on a knight
‘for a certain enormity
committed in the locality’.
The exchequer continued
to function and justices
went out to hear royal
pleas. Chroniclers
themselves praised both
King David and Earl
Robert, in varying degrees,
for establishing peace and
issuing laws in their
dominions. Individual
barons certainly exploited
the disorder, but they had
clear political objectives in
the recovery and retention
of land, office and rights.
They wanted to exercise
local rule, not create an
anarchy which would
destroy their estates and
shake the allegiance of
their knightly tenants.
Private attempts were
made to limit the violence,
such as the treaty between
the earls of Chester and
Leicester, a treaty which
itself reveals Leicester’s
problems in asserting
authority over one of his
tenants, William de
Launay. The chroniclers do
not always sing the same
tune; that of Peterborough,
having given the most
lurid of all the descriptions
of the anarchy, added that
‘during all this evil time’
Abbot Martin rebuilt the
church, planted vineyards,
held great commemoration
feasts and generally
provided the monks and
guests with everything
they wanted. According to
one calculation 171
religious houses of all
types were founded in
Stephen’s reign, a 50 per
cent increase in the
number existing in 1135.
The thirty-two founded in
Yorkshire between 1140
and 1154 suggest the
relative stability of the
area under the count of
Aumale.
Yet there is another
side. Religious houses
could be founded precisely
as acts of atonement.
Ailred, as abbot of Revesby
south of Lincoln, was
eager to accept grants of
land from knights, because
otherwise how would they
be saved ‘in times so
chaotic with slaughter and
harrying’? The treaty
between the earls of
Chester and Leicester,
referred to above, still
allowed them to attack
specified enemies and each
other after fifteen days’
notice, while the earl of
Chester could use the
castle of Mountsorrel in
Leicestershire to make war
on whoever he liked.
There were certainly
places and periods of
intense violence and
destruction, especially at
the points between London
and the west where
Stephen and the Empress
confronted each other.
This may well explain why
an average 32 per cent of
the sums demanded for the
geld early in the reign of
Henry II from Oxfordshire,
Berkshire, Wiltshire,
Gloucestershire and
Worcestershire were
pardoned because of
‘waste’. In Leicestershire
the figure was 51 per cent.
Armies did not destroy for
destruction’s sake. They
plundered for supplies and
then burnt fields and
villages, so that, as
Stephen’s advisers put it in
1149, ‘reduced to the
extremity of want, [your
enemies] might at last be
compelled to surrender’.
But the political purpose
did not make the result
seem any the less
appalling. ‘You could
easily go a whole day’s
journey and never find
anyone occupying a
village, nor land tilled…
Wretched people died of
starvation,’ wrote the
Peterborough chronicler.
Towns were particular
targets. Hereford,
Worcester, Tewkesbury,
Wilton, Winchester,
Nottingham and Lincoln
were all sacked. The local
chronicler, John of
Worcester, gives a graphic
account of the assault on
his city by a force from
Gloucester: the citizens
rushing with their
possessions into the
cathedral; the enemy
rabble repulsed at one
quarter, breaking in at
another; the burning of the
north of the town; the
seizure of immense
quantities of booty, and
the sad columns of people
strung together in couples
‘like hounds’ led away to
captivity and ransom.
Above all, letters,
miracle stories and
chronicles all testify to this
being the great age of the
castellans. ‘We suffer as
many kings as the castles
which burden us,’ ran a
letter of Gilbert Foliot
when abbot of Gloucester
in the 1140s. It took the
miraculous intervention of
St Germanus to protect the
area round Selby abbey in
Yorkshire from the tyranny
of knights based in a
nearby castle. ‘When the
castles were built, they
filled them with devils and
wicked men’ (the
Peterborough chronicler).
In order to supply such
garrisons and assert their
local rule, castellans, often
with scant allegiance to
either side, routinely
engaged in imprisonment
and torture in order to
exact ransoms and tenserie
(a kind of protection
money) from the
surrounding population.
Some castellans were
knights who were escaping
the jurisdiction of their
lords. William de Launay,
for example, from his
castle of Ravenstone, was
waging his own private
plundering war in
Leicestershire. And not all
the violence was coolly
political. These men
enjoyed what they did.
Robert fitz Hubert, who
seized Devizes for a time
in 1140, boasted (to the
horror of William of
Malmesbury) that he had
once seen eighty monks
burnt to death in a church,
and would do the same
again and again in
England: ‘May God never
be grateful to me!’
Waleran of Meulan
boasted after an attack on
Tewkesbury ‘that he had
scarcely ever, in
Normandy or in England,
accomplished such a
burning’. At certain times
and in some areas anarchy
was very real, and the
peasantry, ‘the wretched
people’, were the main
sufferers.
There was no point, the
chronicler Henry of
Huntingdon opined of this
period, in recording where
the king spent Christmas
or Easter, for his treasure
had gone and the
solemnities at court had
wholly evaporated. It was
very different in the realm
of King David in the north.
***
The situation in England
gave David ample
opportunity to build on his
earlier success. He
consolidated his hold over
southern Cumbria and
asserted overlordship over
northern Lancashire,
extending his realm in the
west to the Ribble. In the
east, according to the
northern chronicler
William of Newburgh, he
ruled in peace as far south
as the Tees.
 Fuelling the southern
expansion, and being
fuelled by it, was the
transformation David
brought about in the
government and society of
Scotland itself. If never a
dashing knight in the
Stephen mould, he was
plausible and pious, the
piety being the result of
his mother’s upbringing.
Around forty when he
came to the throne in
1124, he was also
experienced and
impatiently ambitious.
Above all, through his
time at the court of his
brother-in-law, Henry I,
and his tenure of the
earldom of Huntingdon, he
was steeped in everything
Anglo-Norman. He
introduced to Scotland
Anglo-Norman nobles and
structures of government,
giving his kingship an
altogether new power.
Even before Henry I’s
death David had made
important advances. His
own accession meant that
Cumbria north of the
Solway, with key lands
around both Ayr and
Lanark, which his brother
Alexander I had granted
him as an appanage, now
came directly under the
king. He had also
reasserted royal authority
in Moray, the region
running westwards from
the Spey, where there
were strong separatist
tendencies. In 1130 its
ruler, Angus, appears as
earl of Moray in Anglo-
Norman sources, which
was doubtless David’s
view, but as its king in
Irish annals. Angus also
had claims to the Scottish
throne itself for he was the
grandson of Lulach, king
briefly in 1058, the son of
Macbeth. In 1130, with
David away at the English
court, Angus sought to
make good these claims.
He was joined by Malcolm
MacHeth, of royal blood
according to Orderic
Vitalis and perhaps the son
of a ruler of Ross, the
province to the north-west
of Moray, certainly a man
of high status and married
to a sister of Somerled,
lord of Argyll. The upshot
was a great Davidian
victory. In 1130 Angus
was killed, in 1134
Malcolm captured and
imprisoned. David now
seized control of the fertile
coastal plain where
Moray’s wealth lay. He
recovered the royal
thanages in the area,
abolished the earldom and
granted some of its lands
to trusted followers. Other
lands he retained and
these became the base for
a string of castles. All this
was decisive in at last
anchoring Moray into the
kingdom.
 Meanwhile significant
changes were taking place
in the structure of
government. After the
death of his wife (the
Conqueror’s niece) in
1130–31, leaving a son,
David did not re-marry
and it was to be over fifty
years until the next
Scottish queen. There is no
sign of a Scottish
exchequer, but David’s
court and household, with
its steward, constable,
marshal and chamberlain
(responsible for keeping
and spending the king’s
money), must have seemed
very much like that of
Henry I’s in miniature,
especially when these
posts were themselves held
by Anglo-Normans. A
chancellor and a seal had
both appeared in the
reigns of David’s brothers.
But David almost certainly
increased the output of
documents, issuing writs
(brieves) very much on the
English model in order to
govern his expanding
realm. David also
maintained a substantial
body of household knights,
who were Anglo-Norman.
One, Alexander de St
Martin, was granted ten
marks a year from the
king’s chamber, until his
half fee in land was made
up to a whole one; an
arrangement (probably
learnt from Henry I) which
shows David’s canny use of
patronage, his cash
resources, and his general
wealth.
David’s household
knights (like Henry’s) may
also have been employed
as sheriffs and castellans in
the localities. Sheriffs were
ultimately to spread
throughout royal Scotland
as the king’s chief local
agents and they appear for
the first time under David,
being based south of the
Forth at Berwick,
Roxburgh and Edinburgh,
and north of it at Perth.
The thanages and the
thanes who ran them,
collecting the traditional
renders in kind due to the
king, survived, but they
did so within the
jurisdiction of the sheriffs.
Many sheriffs, though not
all, were based in castles,
and it was almost certainly
David who introduced the
castle to Scotland. His
local agents had far more
power than before; they
may also have been more
active in holding courts for
the settlement of land
disputes, and also for the
punishment of crime if, as
seems likely, the isolation
of certain serious crimes as
being crown pleas (much
as in England) began in
David’s reign. Related to
these developments was
another royal official who
appears intermittently
under David, namely the
justiciar (justitia), who may
have fulfilled a role similar
to that of the English local
justiciar. David was also
active on his own account.
He intervened to command
the hearing of law cases,
and as he travelled the
realm heard those of the
old and poor sitting at the
entrance to his hall.
 David’s ecclesiastical
work was important in
‘modernizing’ Scotland.
His command that ‘teinds’
(tithes) be paid to local
churches was central to
the establishment of
parishes through endowing
the priests and
determining boundaries,
the latter a necessary
condition for deciding
which church should
receive the teinds. David
was also a patron of the
religious orders. In the
heart of the old kingdom
he built the church at
Dunfermline, with its great
columns reminiscent of
Durham, and raised it from
a priory to an abbey. He
completed the
introduction, begun by his
brother, of Augustinian
canons to serve the
cathedral at St Andrews.
He founded religious
houses in the north and
south of his kingdom, well
aware of their importance
as bases of royal authority.
He placed a daughter
house of Dunfermline at
Urquhart in Moray, while
in Lothian he established
the highly successful
Tironensian monastery at
Kelso and the first
Cistercian house in
Scotland at Melrose. Since
the latter was colonized
from Rievaulx in
Yorkshire, David thereby
reduced the significance of
the Tweed border.
It was not only for
monks that David looked
south. By far the most
important development in
his reign was the
establishment of Anglo-
Norman nobles in
Scotland. This was the
point at which the
histories of Scotland and
Wales fundamentally
diverged. In Wales the
Normans came as
conquerors. They created
their own areas of rule,
and never integrated
within the native
kingdoms. In Scotland it
was the opposite. The
Anglo-Normans came as
royal invitees. They
became part of the existing
kingdom, in the process
transforming its structure
and ultimately creating a
new Scottish race. Many of
those introduced, like
Hugh de Moreville, were
tenants of David’s honour
of Huntingdon. Others
were men he had probably
befriended at the royal
court, like Henry I’s
protégé Robert de Bruce,
ancestor of the line of
kings. Bruce (now Brix)
was in western Normandy,
Henry I’s base before his
accession. In Lothian and
along the eastern coastal
plain between the Forth
and the Dee, the grants of
land were usually quite
small, like the half fee near
Haddington given to
Alexander de St Martin. In
places between the Solway
and the Clyde, some large
provincial lordships were
established. Walter fitz
Alan was placed in
Renfrew and Kyle, Hugh
de Moreville in
Cunningham, and Robert
de Bruce in Annandale,
where he controlled the
key route from
Cumberland to the north.
The aim was to establish
men with sufficient power
to combat the independent
rulers of Galloway and
Argyll while at the same
time tying the periphery to
the centre; for all these
men had also places at
David’s court: Robert de
Bruce until 1138 was the
leading counsellor, Hugh
de Moreville the constable
and Walter fitz Alan
(ancestor of the Stewarts)
the steward. Meanwhile
the lands of the earldom of
Moray were granted to
Freskin, probably a
Fleming, the first of a
great dynasty, whose
tenure of other lands in
Lothian prevented him
‘going native’. Such great
lords in their turn
enfeoffed their own
followers, so that between
1160 and 1241 one can
trace around 100 vassals,
tenants and dependants of
the fitz Alans, many from
their family lands in
Shropshire. It was these
new lords, great and small,
and their descendants who
were largely responsible
for the encastellation of
Scotland. As many as 318
possible motte sites have
been revealed, the great
majority between the
Clyde and the Solway, but
also considerable numbers
in the east between the
Firths of Forth and Moray.
The terms on which
David granted land were
the ‘feudal’ ones he knew
in England. Although
evidence is lacking he
probably received homage,
demanded inheritance
fines, and controlled
wardships and marriages.
He certainly exacted
knight service, and the
contingents brought by his
barons probably served
with the forces of the royal
household. At the battle of
the Standard, according to
John of Worcester, these
were 200 strong, a
respectable number given
that Henry I’s household
knights at the battle of
Bourgthéroulde were only
a hundred more. Scottish
armies, hitherto largely
‘bare-buttocked’ foot, as
Henry of Huntingdon had
called them, were now
potentially far more
formidable.
David, therefore, as a
Scottish chronicler put it,
‘wisely taking thought for
the future had furnished
his kingdom with castles
and weaponry’. He had
brought his kingdom’s
military technology into
line with that of the rest of
western Europe. Just
where the land to endow
the new aristocracy came
from is, in the absence of
an equivalent to Domesday
Book, one of the unsolved
mysteries of Scottish
history. The large
enfeoffments between the
Solway and the Clyde may
well have come in part
from the lands which
David had held before his
accession. In Moray the
lands of the fallen earl
were employed, while
between the Forth and
Aberdeen earldom lands
were also perhaps the key,
since the earldom of
Gowrie at some unknown
time had come into the
king’s hands, as had some
of the lands of the
earldoms of Mearns and
Angus. But the endowment
must also have involved
the expropriation of native
landholders. David himself
acknowledged that others
might have just claims to
the land he was granting
to Walter of Ryedale, near
Jedburgh in Lothian.
David was able to
contain tensions (which
broke out on several
occasions under his
successors) because much
of old Scotland remained
in place. The royal
thanages of the south and
east were neither
destroyed by the
sheriffdoms nor used to
endow the incomers. Just
as well, since many native
thanes aspired to hold
their offices in hereditary
right. Around the thanages
the ‘outer ring’ of native
earldoms – Menteith,
Strathearn, Atholl, Mar
and Buchan – were left
undisturbed. David seems
rarely to have visited those
regions or issued writs
concerning matters within
them. Apart from
expanding southwards to
take in Newcastle and
Carlisle, his itinerary,
although evidence is
limited, was largely
confined to the area
between the Tay, the
Clyde and the Tweed, with
Scone, Perth, Edinburgh,
Stirling and Dunfermline
being the most favoured
centres. David did not,
however, simply ignore
the native Scots. If he had,
he could scarcely have
mobilized ‘the common
army’ so effectively for his
southern expeditions. The
bishops, outside St
Andrews and Glasgow,
remained Scottish. One of
the earls within the core of
the kingdom, Duncan of
Fife, became a leading
councillor. If there was to
be a standard-bearer for
the disaffected, the
obvious candidate was
William fitz Duncan,
whose descendants indeed
made several bids for the
throne. He was the son of
David’s half-brother
Duncan, who had been
king briefly in the 1090s.
But fitz Duncan’s loyalty
was totally secured by
David’s judicious favours.
Another potentially
dangerous kinsman,
Madad, earl of Atholl,
David married to a
daughter of the earl of
Orkney, recognizing their
son, Harald Maddadson, as
earl of Caithness. It was
thus through diplomacy
and conciliation that David
sought to extend his
influence in the far north,
and protect his conquest of
Moray.
David’s expansion
southwards made an
essential contribution to
his ability to transform
Scotland. He gained the
resources to hold down
resentment at home and
offset his loss of royal and
earldom lands in the great
endowment of his
followers. The farms of
Northumberland and
Cumberland alone were
worth around £350 a year,
judging from later figures.
The Cumberland mines at
Alston provided the silver
for the first coins struck by
a Scottish king. These,
minted at Carlisle,
Newcastle, Edinburgh and
Perth, were of a full 22-
grain standard, in marked
contrast to the debased
private issues elsewhere in
England. Apart from
bringing him an altogether
new prestige, which was
why he minted at Perth in
the heart of the old
kingdom, the new coins
helped David to pay
household knights with
money from his chamber.
His income was no longer
simply in kind. Southern
cash and silver were also
part and parcel of a much
wider commercial
expansion in Scotland
which produced cash
income from the burghs
David had established (see
above, p. 48).
In striving to
consolidate his rule in the
south, the new technology
was vital. King Malcolm
had ravaged and departed.
King David built castles
and stayed: he
constructed, or completed,
the great keep at Carlisle
and perhaps also built
those at Lancaster,
Warkworth and Bamburgh.
But the old methods could
be equally effective The
prospect of further
barbaric visitations, like
those of 1138, was a
powerful incentive to
accept David’s rule,
especially when David
himself (getting the best of
both worlds) seemed so
apologetic about it. When
Abbot Richard of Hexham
came to Carlisle at the end
of 1138 to complain,
almost before he could
open his mouth, David was
promising reparations.
 David also did all he
could to foster cross-
border landholding. In
1135 only one of the
northern barons held land
in Scotland – Robert de
Bruce, who combined
Annandale with Skelton in
north Yorkshire. Quite
probably Henry I had
forbidden such cross-
border holdings on the
principle that one cannot
serve two masters. Now
David installed his
constable, Hugh de
Moreville, in
Westmorland, gave Gilbert
de Umfraville, lord of
Prudhoe in
Northumberland, land in
Lothian and Stirlingshire,
and, most striking of all,
married William fitz
Duncan to the heiress of
the honours of Egremont
in Cumberland and
Skipton in Craven, the
latter strategically placed
astride the east–west pass
through the Pennines.
David was also ‘one of us’
and made every effort to
demonstrate it. At the end
of 1138, having taken
Wark, he allowed the
garrison to go free with
their arms and gave them
twenty-four horses: the
right chivalric stuff. It was
likewise to seem
conciliatory that David’s
son, Henry, acted as earl in
Northumberland so that
the area seemed less
directly subject to Scottish
rule.
It was not all plain
sailing, however. The
failure to make Durham a
base (he never controlled
its mint) was a serious
weakness. In 1141 David
had supported the
candidacy of his former
chancellor, William
Cumin, for the bishopric,
but this thoroughly
alienated the cathedral
monks; Cumin never
gained possession and was
finally removed by the
pope in 1144. In 1152 the
monks elected as bishop
Stephen’s nephew, Hugh
de Puiset. While few of the
northerners had extensive
landholdings either in
England or in Normandy,
their lands in Yorkshire
made them hesitate before
joining David if they
calculated his rule might
fail to reach so far south.
Thus in 1138 while
Eustace fitz John sided
with David in order to
secure his great lordship of
Alnwick in
Northumberland, Walter
Espec plumped for
Stephen, losing Wark on
Tweed but keeping
Helmsley in Yorkshire with
its adjoining monastery at
Rievaulx, which he had
founded. Robert de Bruce
himself, lord of Annandale
in Scotland and Skelton in
North Yorkshire, was
similarly torn and begged
David to make peace,
much as the Anglo-
Norman barons had tried
to keep the peace between
king and duke. But when
there was war he chose
Stephen. The solution here
in the next generation was
a division of the properties
between Robert’s sons.
Another threat to
David’s realm in the 1140s
was presented by Ranulf,
earl of Chester, who was
pressing his own claims to
Lancaster and still made
something of his father’s
loss of Carlisle. And then
there was the Empress’s
son Henry, the future
Henry II, who was
gradually assuming the
leadership of his cause.
Since 1141 David had
remained nominally within
the Empress’s allegiance.
But if Henry one day
gained the crown, would
he accept all David’s
conquests? In 1149 David
tried to solve these
problems. He welcomed
Henry to Carlisle along
with Earl Ranulf and
Henry Murdac, whom
Stephen was excluding
from the archbishopric of
York. Ranulf surrendered
his claims to Carlisle, and
received instead the
honour of Lancaster which
extended as far south as
the Ribble. A swap, but
one which left David as
Lancaster’s overlord. At
the same time Henry fitz
Empress promised that he
would never deprive
David’s heirs of ‘any part
of the lands which had
passed from England to his
dominion’, a definitive
recognition, or so it
seemed, that
Northumberland, Cumbria
south of the Solway and
the honour of Lancaster
were now in David’s
kingdom. After these
agreements, the plan was
to march to York, install
Murdac and then go south
to put Henry on the
throne. But Stephen acted
with his normal decision.
He hurried to York himself
and the hostile invasion
fell apart. In 1151 he came
to terms with Murdac,
removing the archbishop
from David’s camp. Yet
David, old though he was,
was not finished. In the
same year he marched
south and put William fitz
Duncan firmly in
possession of Skipton,
characteristically giving
silver chalices to the
churches robbed by the
Scots along the way.
David had created a
new realm in the north of
Britain. To the core of the
Scottish kingdom
(including Lothian) he had
bound or re-bound both
Moray and Cumbria north
of the Solway. He had then
expanded his realm to take
in the whole of the far
north of England. To
secure the future, David
had, perhaps as early as
1136, made his son Henry
‘king designate’, in
imitation of Capetian
practice. The harmony in
which Henry was groomed
for kingship, in such stark
contrast to the quarrels of
the Conqueror and Henry
II with their sons, was not
the least of David’s
achievements. And then in
1152 Prince Henry died.
David was now nearly
seventy. He ordered
Duncan, the native earl of
Fife (an astute choice), to
take Malcolm, Henry’s
eldest son, around the
realm and proclaim him
heir. He himself went to
Newcastle and persuaded
the leading men of
Northumberland to accept
the over-lordship of
Henry’s second son,
William – ominously
having to take hostages as
security. Next year David
himself, the greatest of all
the Scottish kings, died at
Carlisle. Malcolm was only
twelve. The future of the
newly-expanded realm
would depend very much
on events in England.
***
The turmoil in England
after 1141 also benefited
the Welsh rulers. They
consolidated the gains
made between 1136 and
1138, and advanced
beyond them. True, in
1144 Hugh de Mortimer of
Wigmore re-established his
position in Maelienydd
and Elfael in the area
between Wye and Severn.
In 1147 the pope
pronounced against Bishop
Bernard’s passionate
attempt to establish a
metropolitan see at St
Davids. His successor, like
the new bishops of Bangor
and Llandaff (in 1139–40),
all professed obedience to
Canterbury. However, in
1146 the rulers of
Deheubarth and Gwynedd
combined to see off a
formidable effort by
Gilbert de Clare, earl of
Pembroke and lord of
Chepstow, to establish
himself at Carmarthen and
recover his family’s hold
over Ceredigion. In 1147,
when Gilbert might have
renewed the struggle, he
was embroiled in
Stephen’s quarrel with the
earl of Chester. He died in
1148 or 1149, leaving a
teenage son, and the
pressure was off. In 1150
it was Cadel ap Gruffudd
of Deheubarth who rebuilt
the castle at Carmarthen
‘for the strength and
splendour of his kingdom’.
Advances were likewise
made by Madog ap
Maredudd, who held sway
in Powys from 1132 to
1160, the greatest of its
rulers and a ‘firm anchor
in a deep sea’, as the poet
sang. In 1149 Madog
moved beyond the border
into Shropshire and built a
castle at Oswestry, an
advance made possible by
the enfeeblement of its
lord, William fitz Alan, in
the civil war. The ‘county
now called Shropshire
once belonged to Powys,’
wrote Gerald of Wales.
Perhaps it might again.
In the north Owain ap
Gruffudd ap Cynan of
Gwynedd also moved east.
He captured the earl of
Chester’s castle at
Rhuddlan and in 1146
destroyed the castle at
Mold, which guarded the
pass through the
mountains from the Clywd
valley to the Cheshire
plain. Earl Ranulf’s
reaction was to seek help
from Stephen. But the
result was not an
expedition to Gwynedd but
his arrest at Northampton,
whereupon the Welsh
invaded Cheshire.
Although Owain was
driven back, his power
now embraced the whole
of the Four Cantrefs from
the Conwy to the Dee.
Ranulf’s death in
December 1153, leaving a
six-year-old son as heir,
seemed to make this
enlarged Gwynedd secure.
But by this time Owain’s
position had been shaken
by family strife: between
1150 and 1152 he
imprisoned his son Cynan,
drove his brother
Cadwaladr into exile, and
blinded and castrated a
nephew. This turmoil
probably explains how the
rulers of Deheubarth at
this time wrested
Ceredigion from Gwynedd,
expelling Owain’s son
Hywel, and securing their
conquest with castles. By
1155 three princes
dominated Wales: Owain
of Gwynedd, Madog of
Powys and Rhys ap
Gruffudd of Deheubarth.
Would they be able to
keep their gains in the new
world after 1154?
Some of the signs were
encouraging. The Welsh
had learnt from the Anglo-
Normans, and not merely
militarily. Stephen had
consoled himself after his
early disasters, according
to the Gesta Stephani, with
the thought that the Welsh
would soon begin
slaughtering each other.
Yet in fact political
conduct in native Wales
was beginning to imitate
that in the Anglo-Norman
realm where murders and
political executions were
rare. Indeed there were
none at all, so far as great
nobles were concerned, in
the whole of Stephen’s
reign. Tensions certainly
existed within Gwynedd in
the 1150s, as elsewhere in
Wales, but the bloodletting
and competition paled
before that of the past. The
rulers of Gwynedd and
Deheubarth co-operated
effectively in the
campaigns of 1136–7 and
1146, and again in the
1160s. In Powys the
killings within the ruling
house earlier in the
century cleared the way
for the long and stable rule
of Madog ap Maredudd. In
Deheubarth, the four sons
of Gruffudd ap Rhys each
held sway in turn. The
brothers Morgan and
Iorwerth, grandsons of
King Caradog, co-operated
effectively as they
recovered Caerleon and
other family lands in
Gwent. Their careers
illustrate another point.
The Welsh were nothing if
not pragmatic; if they were
enemies of the Anglo-
Normans, they were also
their allies. Morgan and
Iorwerth’s early success
depended on their
agreement with Robert of
Gloucester, Morgan even
fighting for the earl at the
battle of Lincoln. Later
Morgan was recognized as
a king by Earl Roger of
Hereford and (here
masquerading as a
marcher baron) he was
confirmed in possession of
‘the honour of Caerleon’
by Henry II himself.
In all this the Welsh
were fired by an
increasingly self-confident
patriotism, the product in
part of Geoffrey of
Monmouth’s rediscovery of
their history and re-
invention of their greatest
king – King Arthur himself
(see above, p. 20).
Caerleon, which King
Morgan had recovered,
had hosted courts of
Arthur. In the north, the
biography of Gruffudd ap
Cynan saw its hero
specifically as another
Arthur, ‘king of the kings
of the isle of Britain’. No
wonder an Anglo-Norman
survey of Britain in the
1150s lamented how the
Welsh ‘threaten us…
openly they go about
saying, by means of Arthur
they will have [the island]
back… They will call it
Britain again’. All this was
very different from the
apprehensive mood in
which the Scottish court
faced the accession of
Henry II.
***
There was nothing
inevitable about Henry’s
emergence, however. In
1147 Stephen had
knighted his young and
warlike son Eustace. There
was therefore a clear
potential heir. Meanwhile
death had removed the
Empress’s chief supporters,
Miles of Gloucester in
1143, and Earl Robert
himself in 1147. Of their
sons, Roger, earl of
Hereford, played his own
hand while William, earl
of Gloucester, proved more
a knight of the
bedchamber than the
battlefield. Then in
February 1148 the
Empress retired to
Normandy. Her long,
lonely, courageous sojourn
at Devizes after 1141,
where she had
consolidated support by
the judicious use of
patronage, had been the
most impressive part of
her career.
None of this exactly
cleared the way for
Stephen and Eustace. The
issue was no longer the
succession of the crusty
Empress, but of her
dynamic and dextrous
sixteen-year-old son, the
future Henry II. Henry’s
plans in 1149 had been
thwarted by Stephen’s
swift march to York. But
across the Channel, by his
father’s concession, he had
become duke of
Normandy, and then in
1152, in a remarkable
coup, duke of Aquitaine,
this through his
momentous marriage to
Eleanor of Aquitaine, the
divorced wife of Louis VII
of France. The match
altered the political shape
of Europe with results that
lasted for 200 years. But in
the short term it threw
Louis, shocked at his wife’s
re-marriage, into the arms
of Eustace. In 1152 they
campaigned together in
Normandy, while in
England Stephen was able
to take Newbury. There,
with characteristic
humanity and humour, he
saved the boy William
Marshal, a future regent of
England, from being
catapulted into the castle
when his father refused its
surrender, and took him
off to play in his tent.
In 1153 Henry arrived
in England, but with
Normandy’s resources
depleted by his father’s
concessions, he brought no
overwhelming force. There
were stand-offs at
Malmesbury (where rain
stopped play) and at
Wallingford. The fact was
that the magnates were
reluctant to fight a
decisive battle. They too
had suffered from the
disorder, which had
weakened their hold over
some of their knightly
tenants. They wanted
peace, but not some
dominant victor who
might retrieve their gains
from the crown and
threaten their local power.
They preferred, as Henry
of Huntingdon put it, to
keep Stephen and Henry
‘in fear of each other’ so
that ‘the royal authority
should not be effectively
exercised against them’. In
these circumstances it was
vital for Stephen to secure
Eustace’s coronation, but
this the pope and
Archbishop Theobald
refused to sanction.
Building on a papal ruling
of 1143, they were
doubtless influenced too
by their own clashes with
the king. But Theobald
equally did not declare for
Henry, for that would only
have infuriated Eustace
and ensured the
continuation of the war.
Fundamentally the church
sat on the fence and
waited for a victor.
In the end, a stalemate
war could only end in a
compromise peace, and
the way for that was
opened by Eustace’s
sudden death in August
1153. In terms of conduct
and attitudes, Stephen
himself had never really
made the transition from
count to king, and
William, his surviving son,
was very ready to go back
to being a count. A
settlement, the Treaty of
Winchester, was agreed on
6 November 1153. Henry
confirmed William in all
Stephen’s possessions
before 1135, and granted
him Norwich castle, all the
king’s rights in Norfolk
and much else besides.
Then a dispute which had
raged for twenty-four
years was settled in a few
crisp lines. Stephen made
Henry his heir and
successor, and granted him
the kingdom in hereditary
right. Henry on his part
accepted Stephen as king
for the rest of his life.
But what then of the
magnates’ disputes with
one another, and the royal
lands and offices which
they had extracted from
Stephen, the Empress and
indeed from Henry
himself? At Winchester it
was agreed that the new
castles built during the
war should be demolished,
a necessary condition of
peace. It was agreed too,
according to the chronicler
Robert of Torigny, that
‘possessions seized by
invaders’ should be
restored to the ‘legitimate
possessors’ in place under
Henry I. This, of course,
might prove highly
contentious, but no
mechanisms were set up to
bring it about. In any case
what constituted ‘invasion’
and ‘legitimate
possession’? Henry
probably felt the
settlement licensed him to
recall all grants of crown
property since 1135, but
Stephen was not going to
act in that spirit. There
was no way he would
resume the grants to his
own supporters.
Fundamentally everything
was still to play for. The
peace threatened a
continuation of the war by
other means. Henry was
not to succeed at once as a
mighty conqueror, but at
some unknown time in the
future with all Stephen’s
pieces still on the board.
This was indeed a
magnates’ peace.
Stephen enjoyed a brief
Indian summer in which
he dismantled some of the
new castles and issued a
coinage once again from
mints throughout the
country. He died on 25
October 1154. Henry
succeeded without
difficulty but faced a
monumental task in
rebuilding royal power.
7

King Henry II,

Britain and
Ireland, 1154–
89
Henry II inherited a very
different realm from that
seized by Stephen nineteen
years earlier. Royal
revenue was down by two-
thirds; royal lands,
together with castles and
sheriffdoms, had been
granted away, often in
hereditary right; earldoms,
often with semi-regal
powers, had proliferated;
control over the church
had been shaken; the
former royal bastions in
south Wales had passed
into the hands of barons
and native rulers; and the
far north of England was
now subject to the king of
Scots. The picture was
much the same in
Normandy, where Geoffrey
of Anjou had alienated
extensive ducal land in his
struggle for the duchy and
had also (as the price for
his support) conceded
Gisors and the Norman
Vexin to King Louis.
England and Normandy
were now part of a much
larger political entity
which historians often call
(without any precise
constitutional meaning)
‘the Angevin empire’. Its
ruling dynasty came from
Anjou, Henry having
inherited Anjou, with its
satellites of Maine and
Touraine, from his father.
He had also gained the
duchy of Aquitaine by his
marriage. No Anglo-
Angevin or Anglo-
Aquitainean nobility ever
developed to equal the
Anglo-Norman. But the
kings of England now had
far wider preoccupations
than ever before. Might
not that militate against
any recovery of royal
authority in England,
leaving it truncated in the
north and fragmented into
a collection of earldoms?
In fact nothing like this
happened. Henry restored
royal authority in England
and fashioned the common
law. He subjected Scotland
and conquered Ireland.
Across the Channel he
rebuilt ducal power in
Normandy and established
his lordship over Brittany.
These extraordinary
successes owed everything
to Henry himself. He was
domineering, passionate,
wily and highly intelligent,
speaking Latin and French
and understanding English.
He had a sure grasp of the
facts of power: ‘No, I can’t
depose a bishop,’ he cried,
‘but I can certainly push
him out,’ making a gesture
with his hands at which
his courtiers dutifully
dissolved into laughter.
Henry had an agile, stocky
body, a large head and
fine face. Often ‘crucified
with anxiety’ over crises in
his dominions, in the
words of his clerk, Roger
of Howden, his speed of
movement was legendary:
‘The king of England is
now in Ireland, now in
England, now in
Normandy, he seems
rather to fly than to go by
horse or ship,’ exclaimed
Louis VII. No wonder
Henry relaxed in long days
of hunting and preferred
sometimes to dine apart.
The determination to
restore his authority in
England and Normandy to
the heights achieved under
his grandfather, Henry I,
was a leitmotiv of Henry’s
rule. He was equally
concerned to preserve law
and order. Henry had a
strong sense of ‘the general
care of his subjects given
him by God’, as the
Dialogue of the Exchequer
put it. Indeed, the duty
imposed on him by the
Coronation Oath to govern
and protect his people was
his stated reason for
refusing to crusade. But
Henry was far more than
simply a conservative
restorer. Whereas Henry I
decided against exploiting
potential rights in Maine
and north Wales, Henry II
pushed his rights to their
limits and beyond. In
Ireland he conquered
where he had no rights at
all. Thus to Jordan
Fantosme, a clerk of
Bishop Henry of
Winchester, he seemed the
greatest conqueror since
Moses, Charlemagne only
excepted.
What role was there for
the wife of this bully with
brains and brawn, that
figure of legend and
romance, Eleanor of
Aquitaine? In terms of
personality Eleanor was
easily her husband’s equal.
She was fiery, courageous,
resourceful and – so the
rumours went – flirtatious:
far too hot for the dull,
conventional Louis VII to
handle. That, and the
failure to beget male heirs,
was the reason for the
divorce (see above, p.
188). She too was
physically strong and
though a decade older
than Henry and subject to
numerous pregnancies
outlived him by fifteen
years. Eleanor had brought
her own inheritance to the
marriage, the whole of
Aquitaine. Henry at once
assumed the ducal title but
accepted that the duchy
remained in some ways
Eleanor’s rather than his
own: he made no mention
of it in his will. In Poitou,
the northern half of the
duchy and the home of her
dynasty, Eleanor at times
held her own court where
she patronized poets (her
grandfather had been a
famous troubadour) and,
so those poets liked to
imagine, debated issues of
courtly love. Eleanor’s
dynastic interests in Poitou
were central to her
politics. In England, her
position was in one way
significantly different from
that of her predecessors
since before the Conquest.
She was not given
substantial lands by Henry,
being supported instead,
when she was in the
country, by ad hoc cash
payments (‘corrodies’)
from the sheriffs. Since
this set a precedent
queenship, potentially at
least, had been
significantly weakened.
Yet there was no intention
here to diminish Eleanor.
Royal land was in short
supply and she had her
own abundant resources
from Aquitaine. Like
Matilda, wife of Henry I,
Eleanor acted as regent
and was far more than a
mere figurehead. And then
there were Eleanor’s
children. Four sons and
three daughters survived
beyond infancy and she
played a major part in
their upbringing. Through
them too she gained a
political role.
Eleanor thus had many
potential avenues to
power, and she was
anxious to parade down
them. Yet it was only after
Henry’s death, as queen
mother, that she did so in
full state. Her role before
that depended on the
space Henry allowed her,
which in the later part of
his reign was none at all.
***
 ‘There is nothing left to
send to bring the king back
to England but the Tower
of London.’ It was easy to
see the joke, recorded by
the dean of St Paul’s,
Ralph of Diss. Henry spent
43 per cent of his reign in
Normandy, 20 per cent
elsewhere in France
(mostly in Anjou, Maine
and Touraine) and only 37
per cent in Britain. This
was not because Henry
undervalued his kingdom.
It supplied ‘the honour and
reverence of the royal
name’, as Richard of
Poitiers put it, and a major
part of his revenues. Yet
the pressures and the
opportunities remained
greater across the Channel.
In Normandy Henry
quickly restored order and
recovered ducal rights, yet
he rarely felt secure. In
part this was because of a
paradox in the political
structure he had created.
He possessed far wider
dominions than his
predecessors, but far more
than they, he recognized
the over-lordship of the
king of France. Henry I
had never performed
personal homage to the
French king. Henry II did
so on several occasions,
the first, as crowned king,
in 1156. His motives were
pragmatic; in 1156 they
were to shut out his
brother Geoffrey, who had
claims to a share of the
Angevin dominions. But
the result was that Henry
was now restricted by the
oath of loyalty he had
sworn, and punishable by
forfeiture of his fiefs for its
breach. Under his son
John, that is exactly what
happened.
Henry’s dominions also
lacked defensible frontiers.
The great rivers from
which their prosperity
stemmed all flowed into
(and sometimes from)
‘enemy territory’. In the
north, Henry in 1160
managed to recover Gisors
and the Norman Vexin,
and thus restore the
traditional frontier with
the French royal demesne
along the Epte, but Louis
continued to resent their
loss. He was amiable and
peace-loving yet knew
how to exploit Henry’s
weaknesses. Henry’s
reaction to these problems
was the reverse of
defensive. The counts of
Anjou indeed had always
been acquisitors, gaining
Maine, Touraine and
ultimately Normandy.
Henry was born in Le
Mans and it remained his
favourite city. In its
outskirts he built the
hospital whose ranging,
spacious three-aisled hall
still reflects his expansive,
self-confident character.
Buoyed up by his early
success in England and
Normandy, Henry moved
against Toulouse. He could
claim the county in right
of his wife, for Eleanor
was the granddaughter of
Count William IV who had
died in 1093. Louis himself
had tried to assert
Eleanor’s rights in 1141
with total lack of success.
If Henry succeeded he
would hold all the south of
France. With an army
enlarged with men from
all his dominions, in 1159
he invaded the province
only to duck a direct
assault on his overlord,
Louis VII, who was
standing shoulder to
shoulder with Count
Raymond in Toulouse
itself, a first indication of
the importance of the
1156 homage.
The failure of the 1159
campaign, the greatest
defeat of his career,
changed Henry’s attitude
to the south of his
dominions. In 1170 he
betrothed his daughter
Eleanor to Alfonso VIII of
Castile and apparently
promised their
descendants possession of
Gascony after Eleanor of
Aquitaine’s death. With its
great vineyards the duchy
was wealthy, but ducal
lands were exiguous and it
was not till the late
thirteenth century that the
customs on wine exported
from Bordeaux made the
revenues substantial. In
Poitou, the northern half
of the duchy, authority
could be exercised from
ducal castles, but there
were also powerful noble
families (Lusignan,
Thouars, Parthenay, and
the counts of Angoulême
and La Marche) who held
their fiefs in virtual
independence. Eventually
Henry installed his son
Richard in Poitou as count
with his mother alongside
him. Henry’s own itinerary
largely centred on
Normandy, Maine and
Anjou. Normandy, in terms
of revenues, was by far the
most valuable of his
continental possessions,
and to its east lay the
duchy of Brittany. Here
Henry remained
aggressive. In 1166 he
married his second son
Geoffrey, then aged seven,
to Constance, daughter of
Count Conan IV of
Brittany. He then forced
Conan into retirement and
took possession of the
duchy in right of his son
and daughter-in-law. He
had thus converted the
overlordship over Brittany,
long claimed by the
Norman dukes, into its
actual possession. The
acquisition was hardly
trouble free. Henry
campaigned in Brittany in
1167, 1168 and 1173. In
1168 he also put down a
revolt in Poitou. These and
other continental
preoccupations meant that
Henry was out of England
between 1158 and 1163,
and 1166 and 1170.
However, Henry had not
neglected England. Indeed
everything else had
depended on his success in
rebuilding royal authority
there.
***
Looking back from the
perspective of the 1190s,
the chronicler William of
Newburgh marvelled at
the way Henry at the start
of his reign had restored
unity to a kingdom
‘mutilated’ by the loss of
royal lands and the
overrunning of its
frontiers. This success
revolved around a series of
spectacular and high-risk
assaults on leading
magnates, assaults which
deprived them of royal
demesnes, counties, castles
and earldoms. At the start
of his reign Henry I had
broken the Bellêmes;
Stephen at the start of his
had tamely released the
garrison of Exeter castle.
Henry II knew whose
example to follow. In 1155
he marched to the north
and destroyed the semi-
regal position which
William, count of Aumale,
had enjoyed in Yorkshire.
He then wrested the royal
castle of Bridgnorth from
Hugh de Mortimer and
denied Walter, brother of
Roger, earl of Hereford,
who had died in October
1155, succession to both
the earldom and the royal
castles of Gloucester and
Hereford – one of several
baronial deaths which
cleared the way for Henry
in these early years. In
1157, having returned
from quashing his brother
Geoffrey’s revolt in Anjou,
he forced William, King
Stephen’s son, to surrender
the castles of Norwich,
Pevensey, Eye and
Lancaster, all this in clear
breach of the Treaty of
Winchester. In the same
year he also made King
Malcolm of Scotland
surrender Newcastle upon
Tyne, Bamburgh and
Carlisle and all his
possessions in the north of
England, thus restoring the
old frontier along the
Tweed and the Solway,
while breaking the
promises he had made to
King David in 1147. The
kingdom was whole once
more.
All this was part of a
wider policy of resuming
royal lands which had
been alienated during the
civil war. Here the terms
of the peace settlement
gave Henry some support
(see above, p. 189), and he
had other arguments
ready. In 1157 he furiously
rebuked the bishop of
Chichester for seeming to
challenge the inherited
and God-given majesty,
dignity and rights of the
crown. The concept of the
incorporeal crown, to
which rights and
possessions attached (as
opposed to them being
attached to the person of
an individual king), had
come to prominence under
Henry I. The ‘pleas of the
crown’ are mentioned in
the pipe roll of 1130, its
lands and castles in the
peace of 1153. At his
coronation Henry II quite
probably took an
additional oath which
bound him to maintain
and recover the crown’s
possessions, an
undertaking perhaps
modelled on a similar
promise made by bishops
at their consecration with
regard to the estates of
their churches. Certainly at
the start of his reign Henry
mounted an inquiry into
the lands possessed by his
predecessors down to
1135, and commanded
those alienated under
Stephen (worth at least
£3,000) to be surrendered.
Charters of Stephen were
now considered invalid
and even those of the
Empress and of Henry
himself before his
accession deemed subject
to review.
Henry in this early
period completed the
expulsion of foreign
mercenaries and the
demolition of unlicensed
castles which Stephen had
begun. He also erased the
memory of the baronial
coinages by issuing in
1158 a penny with a new
cross and crosslet design.
Forgoing the revenue from
the frequent changes of
design customary in the
past, he continued to mint
this penny down to 1180,
a deliberate mark of
stability. Henry had also to
cope with the numerous
private disputes which
were the stuff of anarchy
and which had generated
so much violence and
disorder. The peace treaty
had promised restoration
of their inheritances to
those who had lost them to
‘invaders’ during Stephen’s
reign, a stipulation which
threatened a nightmare
scenario of claim and
counter-claim (see above,
p. 189). In part Henry
dealt with the problem
through his general
measures to maintain law
and order, and facilitate
litigation over land (this
will be discussed later). A
series of ad hoc settlements
also took place, sometimes
private, sometimes
brokered or imposed by
the king. Henry himself
gave Weobley to the Lacys,
ending the longstanding
dispute with the family of
Miles of Gloucester. He
conceded the earldom of
Lincoln to neither of the
rival claimants (William de
Roumare and Gilbert de
Gant) and twisted and
turned over the earldom of
Huntingdon (claimed by
Simon de Senlis and the
kings of Scotland). Several
of these cases, like that
over Lincoln, flared up
again in John’s reign, amid
claims that Henry had
acted unjustly and without
judgement. The key fact
was that Henry’s
restoration of royal
authority made him
powerful enough to keep
the lid on this simmering
pot (excepting the
rebellion of 1173–4).
This success was partly
because after reasserting
royal authority on his
accession, Henry did not
then relax. Of the castles
he acquired in the 1150s
he retained thirty,
beginning the process
which converted 225
baronial and 49 royal
castles of 1154 into 179
baronial and 93 royal
castles of 1214, a shift in
ratio of 5:1 to 2:1. Over
the reign as a whole,
Henry expended some
£21,500 on castle-
building, an average of
£650 a year. The great
square keep at Dover with
two lines of curtain walls
is his creation. As Allen
Brown put it, Henry
‘literally dug himself in’.
The royal lands which he
recovered at the start of
his reign he quickly
granted as rewards to his
own supporters, but
thereafter grants of royal
demesne virtually ceased,
in striking contrast to the
methods of Stephen and
indeed of Henry I. The
value of alienated royal
land stood at around
£3,000 in 1159 and at
much the same sum thirty
years later. This was
closely linked to a ruthless
and retentive attitude to
forfeitures and escheats. In
the 1180s there were
thirteen baronies in the
king’s hands with lands
worth some £2,900 a year.
The danger of much of
England falling into the
hands of earls wielding
near royal powers in the
counties was also over.
Since Henry created no
new earldoms, their
numbers steadily declined.
According to one
calculation there were
twenty-four in 1154 and
twelve in 1189. Apart from
Chester, moreover,
earldoms were no longer
linked to the possession of
a large slice of the king’s
rights in the county. Most
of them were largely
titular, as had sometimes
been the case in earlier
times. The chief local
government official was
once again the sheriff and
here too Henry repeatedly
demonstrated his
authority. At Michaelmas
1155 the sheriffs of two-
thirds of the counties were
replaced; in 1162 another
sweep covered roughly
half the counties; and then
in 1170 Henry mounted a
major inquiry (the ‘Inquest
of Sheriffs’) into the
sheriffs’ activities, after
which nearly all were
sacked. Henry had no
objection to the right
magnates holding
sheriffdoms (they were
anyway often curiales) but
he also employed county
knights and, especially
after 1170, knights of the
royal household, some of
whom (like William
Brewer and Geoffrey fitz
Peter) were beginning
spectacular careers in the
royal service.
Henry also revived the
workings of royal forest
law, which had lapsed in
many areas during
Stephen’s reign. Henry’s
agent here was his chief
forester, ‘the odious’ Alan
de Neville. The whole
exercise was highly
unpopular because forest
law was concerned much
more with making money
than protecting actual
hunting, and it ran not
merely in the king’s own
demesne woods but also in
woods and lands held by
numerous private
individuals. Indeed it
embraced most of Essex.
Offences under the law
included waste (created by
cutting down trees for
timber or firewood), assart
(clearances to create new
arable land), and
purpresture (making of
enclosures), all of which
were punishable by fines.
Consequently those
unlucky enough to find
their own woods within
the royal forest, whether
bishops, abbots, barons,
knights, or freeholders,
were prevented from
exploiting them, a
restriction all the more
vexatious given the
pressure on land created
by the rising population.
There were also offences
against the protected
beasts of the forest,
namely deer and wild
boar, and here punishment
for the poor might be
death or mutilation. All
punishments were anyway
entirely a matter of the
king’s will. Forest law as
here defined was probably
introduced by the
Conqueror, but the areas
subject to it were evidently
expanded by Henry I
because Stephen in 1136
promised to abandon his
predecessor’s
afforestations. Whether
Henry II simply restored
the forest boundaries to
their 1135 state or went
beyond them became a
matter of intense dispute.
Certainly by the end of the
reign parts of more than
twenty counties were
subject to forest law. From
1166 onwards Alan de
Neville headed visitations
of forest judges who heard
the offences and imposed
penalties, a lucrative and
deeply resented exercise.
Restoration of royal
authority in the localities
was impossible without
strong central institutions,
something also required by
a cross-Channel state, now
more far-flung than before.
The ultimate centre was,
of course, Henry’s court
and household. Within
England its itinerary was
largely southern based,
much like that of Henry I.
Ranked according to the
number of surviving writs
and charters issued from
them, the tally was as
follows: Westminster-
London (268); Winchester,
Clarendon, and the
surrounding area (200);
Woodstock (103);
Northampton (80);
Windsor (45), with only
Nottingham (51) in the
north. Henry did not,
therefore, have to travel
for the purposes of routine
government. It was the
constant alarms and
excursions which sent him
shuttling round his
dominions at breakneck
speed. When across the
Channel he was pursued
by a stream of petitioners
from England: the abbot of
St Albans found him in
Normandy, the litigious
Richard of Anstey as far
south as Auvillar on the
Garonne. The response
was an equally constant
stream of writs to the
English regents, ordering
them, among other things,
to hear law cases or
prevent shrieval
oppression.
In the early years, in
dealing with such petitions
and issuing the writs one
minister, always travelling
with the king, was central:
the chancellor Thomas
Becket, a former clerk of
Archbishop Theobald,
whose flamboyance Henry
found amusing and whose
energy and ambition he
embraced as like his own.
The output of Henry’s
chancery was almost
certainly much higher than
that of his grandfather
Henry I, the total of known
documents (of course only
a fraction of the whole)
averaging 120 a year as
against forty in the earlier
period. The reign also saw
the culmination, or near
culmination, of
longstanding
developments in what the
chancery produced, the
Anglo-Saxon sealed writ
having evolved certainly
by 1199 into three distinct
types of document, namely
charters, writs patent and
writs close. The last two in
the thirteenth century
were equally described as
letters patent and letters
close. Charters, since they
usually conferred rights
and properties in
perpetuity, were the most
solemn documents the
chancery issued. They
were addressed to all the
king’s subjects, usually
recorded the names of
many witnesses and had
the seal appended by
silken threads. The
difference between writs
patent and writs close was
that the latter were closed,
that is folded up, with the
seal being broken on
opening, while the former
were patent or open, the
seal being attached to a
tongue cut from the
bottom of the document.
Writs close, usually
addressed to a single
individual or institution
and with a single witness,
were used for the mass of
routine administrative
orders on which
government depended, as
well as for the writs
initiating the comon law
legal procedures described
later. Writs patent, with a
general form of address
like charters but usually
with a single witness, were
used to grant exemptions,
make appointments and
proclaim a range of
government decisions.
Around 1160 the head
of the English government
in Henry’s absence was
Queen Eleanor. She was
appealed to over the heads
of senior officials, and
issued written commands
(sometimes more effective
than theirs) to magnates,
sheriffs and the exchequer.
Alongside her were two
great ministers, Robert,
earl of Leicester, and
Richard de Lucy, whom
contemporaries saw
increasingly as holding a
formal office, that of
‘justiciar of England’ or
‘chief justiciar of the king’.
In fact their position was
very similar to that
enjoyed by bishop Roger
of Salisbury under Henry I;
with Queen Eleanor
increasingly overseas they
came to act formally as
regents in the king’s
absence, continuing as
chief ministers when he
was present. At the heart
of their power was the
exchequer, where they
presided, the detailed
work being controlled by
the treasurer, Richard fitz
Nigel, nephew of the great
Bishop Roger. His
triumphal labours in
reviving an office, running
in 1154 at a sluggish pace,
are reflected in his
Dialogue of the Exchequer
(1178), a book of proud
and passionate precision
which describes the whole
process of the exchequer’s
work from collecting the
money, through to the
final audit of the accounts,
and its record on the pipe
roll.
Lucy and Earl Robert
worked together
harmoniously until the
latter’s death in 1168.
Lucy, who was no yes-
man, continued alone till
his resignation ten years
later. Richard fitz Nigel
held office as treasurer
from c. 1159 to 1196.
Henry depended
absolutely on such loyal,
expert and long-serving
ministers. Some of them
were ecclesiastics (fitz
Nigel became bishop of
London); others were
laymen, very much of the
type employed by Henry I.
Richard de Lucy himself,
whom Henry took on from
Stephen, came from a
family of knightly status.
Geoffrey fitz Peter and
William Brewer were both
sons of royal foresters.
Henry followed the advice
of his mother, the old
Empress, and trained such
men as he would hawks,
keeping them eager by
keeping them hungry.
Lucy never became an earl
and had to supplement his
grants from the royal
demesne, worth an annual
£125, with numerous
private acquisitions. His
chief property at Chipping
Ongar came from William,
son of King Stephen. If
such men lost royal favour,
the vultures would gather
round.
The transformation of
Henry’s position is
revealed most tellingly in
his revenue recorded in
the pipe rolls. The average
for 1155 to 1157, his two
first full years, in cash and
authorized expenditure
amounted to some
£10,300, as against
£24,500 in 1130. In the
1160s the annual average
rose to £16,700, in the
1170s to £19,200; in the
last eight years of his reign
it was £23,300. On three
occasions the figure for
1130 was exceeded (this in
a period of relatively
stable prices). There is
little question but that
England was by far the
most valuable of Henry’s
dominions. In Normandy
there had been a similar
policy of recovering ducal
lands and rights, doubtless
masterminded by the
Norman exchequer. But
the one surviving Norman
pipe roll for the reign, that
for 1180, indicates a
revenue equivalent to only
£6,750 in English money.
Two years later, in his
will, Henry distributed
5,000 marks for pious
purposes in England, 3,500
marks in Normandy and
only 1,000 marks in
Anjou. England was the
paymaster for the rest of
the empire. As early as
1159 it provided some
£8,000 for the Toulouse
campaign.
In managing his money
Henry was an innovator.
He was the first king (at
least as far as the evidence
goes) to use credit on a
large scale, borrowing
around £12,000 (and
possibly much more) from
various lenders between
1155 and 1166, and
repaying them from local
revenues. Over half this
sum came from one great
financier, the Fleming
William Cade, who had
probably made his money
in the wool trade. Cade
died around 1166 and had
no Christian successors,
partly because of changing
attitudes to usury. For a
while Henry borrowed
money from the Jews until
he realized it was much
simpler to tax them, thus
opening up a new and
major source of royal
revenue.
Henry’s increasing
wealth underpinned other
policies designed to
reassert authority over the
baronage. In 1166 he
demanded that all his
barons send him in writing
the names of their tenants
and how much knight
service each of them owed.
Part of the background
here was scutage. This was
a money payment a baron
could make, if the king
agreed, instead of
providing military service.
The rate varied between
different scutages but was
often a pound for every
knight owed. Scutage had
existed under the Norman
kings although it is only
after 1154 that hard
evidence survives of its
operation. The aim in
1166 was to gain
information enabling the
tax to be levied, not on the
number of knights a baron
owed the king as hitherto,
but on the total number he
was himself owed by his
tenants, which, as the
inquiry showed, was
sometimes considerably
more. Another aim (which
was why Henry wanted to
know the names of the
under-tenants) was to
make sure they had
actually sworn allegiance
to him – very much the
1086 Oath of Salisbury
over again. There was to
be no one in Henry’s
England immune from his
authority. In 1170 the
Inquest of Sheriffs inquired
into the malpractices of
baronial as well as royal
officials. In 1178 the
Dialogue of the Exchequer
asserted the principle that
the king could employ
whoever he liked in his
service no matter from
whom they held their land.
From this point of view
Henry’s rule seems
dangerously abrasive. It
certainly spawned the
baronial malcontents who
joined the rebellion of
1173–4. It also, notably in
the working of the forest
law, created wider
disaffection. Yet there was
another side, and indeed
without it Henry would
never have survived. The
new procedures for civil
litigation were highly
popular with under-
tenants (see below, p.
240); and one major
concession benefited the
realm as a whole. This was
abandonment of the geld,
the great land tax the
Normans had inherited
from the Anglo-Saxon
kings. The levy of 1161–2
was the last. In the long
term the significance of
this was potentially
immense. Had the tax
continued on an annual
basis and been levied at
gradually higher rates it
could have solved the
financial problems of
English monarchy in the
thirteenth century, in
which case, since the geld
required no consent,
parliamentary taxation and
parliament itself might
never have developed! As
it was, Henry decided to
forgo the £2,500 a year
the tax had raised under
Henry I, in this regard
quite definitely not
returning to the days of his
grandfather. To some
extent the gap was filled
by other measures, notably
tallage, a lump sum
assessed on cities,
boroughs and royal
manors (with origins in
the reign of Henry I), but
this was neither annual
nor nationwide.
There was also another
side to the king’s relations
with his barons. Few of
them were placed under
much financial pressure by
the crown. If scutage had
sometimes to be paid on
the total number of fees,
only seven were levied in
the reign. Although Henry
had nine opportunities to
exact a fine or relief for a
succession to an earldom,
he did so only once. In
terms of the financial
pressures placed on his
barons, Henry’s rule was
very different from King
John’s which led to Magna
Carta. The barons also
benefited from the peace,
which enabled them to re-
establish a hold over
knightly tenants. Indeed
the very process of the
1166 inquiry, which forced
them to identify and
define the services they
were owed, did that. At
the centre, all Henry’s
major governmental
measures were issued with
the ‘advice and assent’ of
the lay and ecclesiastical
barons. The barons, as the
Constitutions of Clarendon
made clear in 1164, gave
judgements in law cases
before the king. Such men
also featured among
Henry’s principal
counsellors. As justiciar,
Richard de Lucy shared
power not with some
Bishop Roger type but
with that veteran of the
nobility, the worldly-wise
Earl Robert of Leicester,
his loyalty secured by the
restoration of the family
fiefs of Breteuil and Pacy
in Normandy. Likewise
Geoffrey de Mandeville,
earl of Essex, having had
his castles seized in 1157,
ended up as one of Henry’s
judges. His son, William de
Mandeville, was Henry’s
leading counsellor in later
years and was made
mightier still by his
marriage to Hawisia,
heiress of Holderness and
Skipton in England and
Aumale in Normandy.
Henry, therefore, in
reviving royal authority
had struck a delicate
balance between taking
and giving, one which
helps to explain the great
rebellion of 1173 and why
Henry triumphed over it.
How would he get on in
re-establishing royal
authority over the church?
***
‘What miserable traitors
have I nourished in my
household who let their
lord be treated with such
shameful contempt by a
low-born clerk!’ With these
anguished words, or ones
very like them, Henry II
triggered the murder of
Thomas Becket in 1170
and bloodily consummated
the greatest of all clashes
between the medieval
church and state.
From the start of his
reign Henry was
determined to recover the
customary rights over the
church lost under Stephen.
Accordingly he reasserted
control over appointments,
took the revenues from
vacant bishoprics and
abbeys, and insisted that
barons could not be
excommunicated without
his consent. He also made
clear that contact with
Rome required his licence,
and berated bishops and
abbots when they appealed
to papal authority in
derogation of royal rights.
Yet for long there was no
open conflict partly
because Theobald, the wily
old archbishop of
Canterbury, was expert in
giving way on some issues
to get his way on others:
thus his clerk
Bartholomew, a learned
canon lawyer, became
bishop of Exeter with
Henry’s consent. On
Theobald’s death in 1162,
Henry made Becket his
successor. By this time, so
Becket believed, Henry
was gearing up for a much
wider assault on the
church. The contrary view
was that the assault was
provoked by Becket
himself. The truth lay
somewhere between the
two. Certainly Henry
wished to place more of
the bishoprics under his
own men; Becket’s
appointment was just the
start. Probably, too, he
meant to assert his
authority over clerks
accused of serious crimes.
Yet he did not envisage a
regional church protected
from the papacy behind
some ring fence, as
modern historians have
sometimes suggested. In
1163, after all, he allowed
all the English bishops to
attend the papal council at
Tours. Equally Henry had
not ready and waiting a
list of customs he wished
to impose; in 1162 there
seemed no need. Becket,
Henry’s faithful servant,
was now to combine the
chancellorship with the
archbishopric. In so far as
Henry wished for tighter
control, Becket would
achieve it.
Nothing like that
happened. Becket at once
resigned the
chancellorship and
plunged into a series of
acrimonious disputes with
the king, initially over the
defence of Canterbury’s
rights and properties, a
defence which was an
important sub-text to the
whole dispute. All bishops
had a sacred trust to
protect the possessions of
their sees and Becket in
standing up for
Canterbury’s was following
in the footsteps of his
predecessors. But they,
perhaps, might have set
about it more
diplomatically. Certainly
his new primate’s
behaviour came as a total
surprise to Henry. He had
worked intimately with
Becket for seven years but
he had utterly mistaken
his man. Henceforth all
Becket’s passion and
energy were to be diverted
from the service of the
state into the service of the
church.
Given Becket’s
background, this
transformation was less
surprising than it seemed.
A later archbishop of
Canterbury, Hubert
Walter, who doubled up
gleefully as chancellor,
had laboured all his life in
royal service. Becket had
not. Born around 1120, the
son of a London merchant,
his formative years were
spent in the household of
Archbishop Theobald from
where he had moved to
the chancellorship in
1155. In Theobald’s
service Becket was
surrounded by learned
clerks, many of them
destined like himself for
high ecclessiastical office.
After an initial degree in
arts, these men had often
studied theology in the
Paris Schools, or canon
and civil law in the
Schools of Bologna. They
had lectured and had
gained the coveted title of
‘master’. Their learning
was intimidating. The
canon lawyers revelled in
citations from Gratian’s
‘Concordance of
Discordant Canons’ or
Decretum published in
Bologna around 1140. The
theologians, with their
encyclopaedic knowledge
of the Bible and its
stunning allegorical
meanings revealed by the
‘Great Gloss’ (the
commentaries of the Paris
theologian Peter
Lombard), could punch
any untrained opponent
out of the ring. And Becket
himself was relatively
untrained. He had studied
arts in Paris and law at
Bologna and Auxerre, but
had never become a
master. A proud man, he
stood in awe; the mark left
was indelible. The whole
dispute with the king is
unintelligible outside this
wider European
background.
 On becoming
archbishop, Becket thus
returned to his roots. Like
Theobald he surrounded
himself with scholars. One,
Herbert of Bosham,
abrasive and flamboyant,
taught him theology and
urged him to fight the
good fight. Ultimately, all
the new learning in
theology and canon law
came back to the pope; it
asserted his supremacy
over secular powers in
theory, and intensified his
headship of the church in
actual practice. The
learning of the Schools
was indeed very practical.
Theology prepared future
priests and prelates for a
ministry in the world. The
image of the good prelate,
forthright and
incorruptible, influenced
Becket from the start and
spurred on his defence of
Canterbury’s rights.
Equally important was the
way in which the Schools
had sharpened old ideas
about the relationship
between church and state.
For Becket, the clergy
formed a separate and
distinct body under Christ,
subject to its own laws and
discipline, and superior to,
indeed the ‘constituter’ of,
the secular power. ‘Since it
is certain that kings
receive their power from
the church and the church
receives hers not from
them but from Christ…
you do not have the power
to command bishops to
[obey your rules] simply
because they are customs,’
Becket wrote to Henry on
one occasion, getting to
the very heart of their
quarrel.
At the Council of
Woodstock in July 1163
Becket refused Henry’s
demand that a traditional
payment due to the
sheriffs from Canterbury
lands (‘sheriffs aid’) should
henceforth be made direct
to the treasury. By this
time Henry was greatly
incensed by what he saw
as the treachery and
ingratitude of his low-born
protégé. He now drove
matters on with the aim of
either subjugating Becket
or breaking him, and
because he met resistance,
the quarrel escalated at an
explosive pace. At the
Council of Westminster in
October 1163 Henry
demanded that clerks
accused of serious crimes,
having been convicted in
ecclesiastical courts and
stripped of their clerical
status, should then be
handed over to royal
officials for secular
punishment in the form of
execution or mutilation;
this in contrast to being
punished merely by what
Henry saw as the
inadequate spiritual
penances imposed by the
church, which had no
deterrent effect at all. The
issue of criminous clerks
Henry would probably
have tackled in 1158,
faced by a particularly
notorious clerical crime,
had he not been recalled
to France by his brother’s
death. In 1163 there was
another cause célèbre and
the judges warned of a
threat to public order.
Even Herbert of Bosham
later admitted that Henry
was moved by zeal for the
public peace. The
procedure Henry now
demanded had probably
been customary until
eroded under Stephen, but
for Becket it was
anathema. In spirit if not
in letter it challenged the
whole concept of the
clergy as a separate order.
It also conflicted with the
best interpretations of
canon law and violated
scripture, which declared
that God would not judge
and thus punish twice for
the same offence, a
passage cited in
Policraticus, the great work
of another of Becket’s
famous clerks, John of
Salisbury. So Becket stood
firm and the bishops with
him.
Henry immediately
raised the stakes and
demanded that the bishops
observe his ‘royal
customs’. By the time a
council met at Clarendon
in January 1164 these had
been formulated in
writing: criminous clerks
were to be punished as
outlined above; tenants-in-
chief were not to be
excommunicated without
royal permission; revenues
from vacancies were to
flow to the treasury;
elections of bishops and
abbots were to take place
in the king’s chapel and
thus be subject to royal
control. There were also
restraints on contact with
Rome: ecclesiastics were
neither to leave the
kingdom nor pursue
appeals beyond the
archbishop’s court without
royal licence. The
Constitutions of Clarendon
may well have been, as
they claimed, the customs
in force under Henry I. But
to codify them for the first
time threatened a much
more exact and exacting
regime than in the past,
and in an age far less
prepared to bear it. Becket
rallied the bishops in
defiance of the
Constitutions, only then in
an extraordinary volte-face
to give way and accept
them.
For Henry this was too
little, too late. He was
resolved to be rid of his
archbishop, who in any
case soon made no secret
of regretting his
submission. So in October
1164 Henry summoned
Becket to Northampton to
answer purely secular
charges, some related to
misappropriation of funds
while chancellor. Becket
refused to resign (the real
object of the exercise) and
before he could be
sentenced to forfeit the
lands he held by barony,
he had fled. He would not
return to England for six
years, and then only to
meet his death.
At Northampton several
bishops had urged Becket
to step down, and none
had given him much
succour. This might seem
surprising given that most
of the bench were
churchmen, not royal
administrators. They had
close links with the papacy
and several had enjoyed
distinguished careers in
the European Schools. If
they felt that the church
was under threat, they
were just as likely, in
terms of training, to resist,
as was Becket. Until
Northampton, up to a
point they had done so.
Not one claimed that
submission at Clarendon
was more than a necessary
evil. Yet later in 1164
Gilbert Foliot, bishop of
London and a
distinguished lawyer,
declared that the whole
quarrel had arisen over a
minor matter which could
easily have been settled
had Becket displayed ‘a
discrete moderation’.
When angry, Foliot was
more pithy: ‘He always
was a fool and always will
be.’ The implication was
that a concession over
criminous clerks, where
the king’s case had some
support in canon law,
could have prevented the
Constitutions in the first
place. In reply Becket (and
who knew the king
better?) would have urged
the impossibility of
appeasing Henry. And was
not Foliot a man with
personal grudges, having
aspired to Canterbury
himself? Yet at
Northampton even the
sympathetic Bartholomew
of Exeter had declared that
the quarrel was personal,
not general. Becket should
be sacrificed rather than
the church. The teaching
of the Schools and the
ambitions of the king had
narrowed the parameters
and made conflict more
likely, but not inevitable.
The missing ingredient had
indeed been supplied by
Becket himself. Not for
nothing did one
contemporary dream of
him as a prickly hedgehog.
Before and after
Becket’s departure in 1164
there remained room for
manoeuvre. Henry himself,
for all his aggression,
never advanced exalted
theoretical claims for the
secular arm. He hinted
that he held his power
direct from God rather
than from the church, but
fundamentally he just
stood on custom. And then
there was the position of
the pope. Alexander III
(1159–81) was a
celebrated canonist. He
expressed horror at the
Constitutions of Clarendon
and absolved Becket from
his oath to observe them.
Yet he never issued a
formal condemnation and
frequently prevented
Becket from
excommunicating his
enemies. The problem was
that from 1159 through to
1177 Alexander faced a
series of anti-popes
sponsored by the Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa. His
first priority was
inevitably the freedom of
the papacy itself. Perhaps
Henry II could not have
brought his dominions into
Frederick’s camp, but he
was adept at hinting
otherwise. Alexander
dared not take the risk.
Henry, however, remained
under pressure to reach a
settlement. He was unable
to make episcopal
appointments while the
conflict lasted and had to
endure both Becket’s
excommunication of Foliot
in 1169 and his dalliance
with the king of France.
Then in 1170 he scored
what seemed a colossal
victory. That July his
eldest son was crowned
king of England at
Westminster by Roger,
archbishop of York (see
below, p. 223). The
ceremony was a flagrant
violation of Becket’s rights
as archbishop of
Canterbury. He was
desperate to reach a
settlement so that he could
reassert his authority and
punish the offenders.
Henry, on the other hand,
hoped a settlement would
reconcile Becket to what
had happened. Thus he
restored the properties of
the archbishopric and
allowed Becket to return to
England. As for the
Constitutions of
Clarendon, nothing was
said, which allowed Becket
to think they were dead,
and Henry that they were
still very much alive.
Becket landed on 1
December, having already
suspended the bishops
involved in the coronation
and renewed the
excommunication of
Foliot. When news of these
proceedings reached Henry
in Normandy, he let fly the
fatal words, and four
household knights acted
upon them. On 29
December they reached
Canterbury, saw Becket in
his chamber, and were
chased out with shouts of
defiance, much to the
dismay of the fearful John
of Salisbury. An hour or so
later, in the gathering
dusk, the four found the
archbishop again in his
cathedral. They probably
intended arrest rather than
murder, but when Becket
resisted, they hacked him
to death.
No single event in the
central Middle Ages, apart
perhaps from the fall of
Jerusalem in 1187, so
profoundly shocked
western Christendom. As
the news spread, Henry
was hit by great waves of
revulsion. The monks of
Grandmont near Limoges
stopped work on their
buildings and sent away
the workmen Henry had
provided lest they be
tainted by the deed. ‘The
gold of your crown is
tarnished and the roses
which adorn it have
fallen,’ lamented a former
prior of the monastery.
Even before Becket was
canonized in March 1173,
Henry was forced into
concessions, though their
precise significance is open
to debate. At Avranches in
1172, in return for his own
absolution he agreed to
abolish the evil customs he
had introduced; in practice
this meant the end of the
Constitutions of
Clarendon. They were
never cited again as good
law, however much some
of the individual practices
continued. Yet arguably
Becket had done no more
than destroy the written
definitions he himself had
provoked. The
Constitutions of Clarendon
were the consequence of
the dispute as much as its
cause. There was no
equivalent to the conflict
elsewhere in Henry’s
dominions. Four years
later, in 1176, Henry freed
criminous clerks from
secular punishment. If as
seems likely such
punishment had always
been Henry’s intention,
Becket’s victory was here
unalloyed. It secured
‘benefit of clergy’ down to
the Reformation, at some
cost to law and order. In
1172 Henry had also
promised not to impede
appeals or visits to the
pope. Thereafter large
numbers of appeals
certainly went to Rome
and were usually resolved
by judges delegate
appointed to hear the
cases back in England. The
papal decrees on points of
law spawned by such cases
were brought together in
decretal collections, like
those compiled by bishops
Bartholomew of Exeter
and Roger of Worcester,
both of whom were very
active as judges delegate.
When an official collection
of Decretals was issued by
the papacy in 1234, 180 of
the 470 decrees were
addressed to England. The
kingdom was thus fully
within the compass of
papal government. Yet it is
far from clear that these
developments were the
result of the Becket
dispute. It did not take
1172 to open the
floodgates between Rome
and England. The flow had
been increasing gradually
throughout the century.
Henry’s concession in
1172 (in form at least)
meant the end of a
licensing system which
dated back to the
Conqueror, yet outside
times of emergency kings
had always seen this as a
sieve rather than a fence.
They had little interest in
the great bulk of matters
which went to Rome,
many involving minor
disputes within and
between ecclesiastical
institutions over rights and
jurisdiction. Nor in
practice could they stop
such business without
great difficulty, because
the pope was not forcing
his justice down people’s
throats. The demand came
from below, from within
England itself (as from
elsewhere in Europe), and
was the product of the
attitudinal change wrought
by the general movement
of reform and the study of
canon law and theology.
 On occasions when
Henry did need to
safeguard the rights of the
king and kingdom, he still
had weapons to hand. He
sometimes had papal
judges delegate hear their
cases in his presence.
Under the settlement of
1172 he was allowed to
take securities for good
behaviour from anyone
going to Rome whom he
suspected. Cases
concerning both advowson
(the right to appoint to a
church living) and church
land held in return for
secular services continued,
in accordance with the
Constitutions, to come
before secular courts.
Above all, Henry retained
control over the areas
most vital to him: namely
appointments and
vacancies. ‘I order you to
hold a free election but
forbid you to elect anyone
save Richard [of Ilchester],
my clerk.’ So Henry
allegedly wrote to the
electors of Winchester in
1173 about their new
bishop, and Ilchester was
indeed elected, as around
this time were several
other royal clerks. If
Becket’s successors as
archbishop, Richard of
Dover and Baldwin of
Ford, were not king’s men,
neither caused trouble. In
1176 Henry had also
promised not to keep
bishoprics and abbeys
vacant for more than a
year save in cases of
urgent necessity, but
necessity pressed often,
especially when the sees
were wealthy: York was
vacant from 1181 to 1189.
During the course of the
twelfth century the church
in England embraced
papal government and was
transformed in the process.
The king’s hold in some
areas, however, remained
strong, and was bitterly
criticized by conscientious
churchmen. How could a
diocese be healthy when it
had a bishop absorbed in
secular affairs or indeed no
bishop at all? But, on the
other hand, how could
bishops do their work if
standing up for
ecclesiastical rights led to
titanic struggles between
church and state? There
had to be a middle way,
and there was. Richard of
Ilchester was twice
excommunicated by
Becket, yet as bishop of
Winchester he acted as a
judge delegate and elicited
important rulings on legal
points for the pope. He
also continued in the royal
service, yet won the tacit
approval of the dean of St
Paul’s and former Paris
Schoolman Ralph of Diss
for so doing. The divisions
between church and state
were rarely as clear-cut as
the rhetoric of the Becket
dispute suggested. Bishops
like Richard of Ilchester
created the harmony
between church and state
in which pastoral work
could flourish. There was
much of it to do. Late in
life one of Becket’s former
clerks, Gervase of
Chichester, lamented the
immorality and
worldliness of clergy and
lay people alike. In
response to such problems,
in 1175 Archbishop
Richard of Dover
promulgated important
canons at a great
provincial council. It was
work like this which
pointed the way forward
for the bishops of the
thirteenth century (see
below p. 437).
 ***
At the start of his reign,
King Henry had moved
decisively to repair the
mutilated state of his
kingdom in the north,
recovering all that had
been lost to King David.
For David’s grandson,
Malcolm IV, who had
succeeded to the Scottish
throne at the age of twelve
in 1153, this was a deep
humiliation. He had also
to face the internal
tensions which the new
Davidian state had
created. Yet Malcolm
emerged triumphant.
Rebuffed in the south, he
expanded his power west
and north, a re-orientation
which, continued by his
successors, ultimately
created a new Scottish
kingdom.
For the northern
chronicler William of
Newburgh, writing in the
1190s, Malcolm seemed
chiefly remarkable for his
pious chastity, which
survived, so it was said,
the planting of a virgin in
his bed. He also burnt with
knightly ambition and
impressed Newburgh with
his ‘royal authority and
severity’. But given his
youth and his kingdom’s
internal problems, there
was little he could do to
resist King Henry. In 1157,
he surrendered all David
had gained south of the
Solway and the Tweed.
However, Malcolm
remained part of the
Anglo-Norman world. His
mother was Ada de
Warenne, his ministers the
Anglo-Norman magnates
inherited from his father,
notably the steward Walter
fitz Alan, and constable
Hugh de Moreville. Henry
II, as a sop and a control,
had granted him his
father’s old earldom of
Huntingdon and also land
in Tynedale, the
beginnings of an important
lordship held by the
Scottish kings in that area.
It was to cut a dash on the
wider stage, and to fulfil
his obligations as an
English earl, that Malcolm
went on the Toulouse
expedition of 1159 (see
above, p. 194), being
knighted by Henry in the
bishop’s meadow at
Périgueux – some 750
miles from Edinburgh, and
a remarkable testimony to
the extent and pulling
power of the Angevin
state.
Henry II remained
acutely conscious of his
northern frontier, not
surprisingly after past
events. He retained and
rebuilt Wark castle on the
Tweed border, and looked
on testily as Malcolm
invaded Galloway (1160)
and married his sisters to
continental nobles. In
1163 he made Malcolm
come south to Woodstock
to renew his homage,
though probably just for
Huntingdon and Tynedale
rather than the Scottish
kingdom. At least Malcolm
had avoided that. As
security for the fidelity he
owed, Malcolm handed
over his brother David,
Henry having initially
pressed for castles within
Scotland itself.
Malcolm had bowed to
King Henry partly because
of his internal
preoccupations. In 1153,
at the start of the reign, he
faced a rebellion led by
Somerled, ruler of Argyll,
and his nephews, the sons
of Malcolm MacHeth, who
‘perturbed and disquieted
Scotland in great part’ (as
the Holyrood Chronicle
recorded). They were
joined by ‘very many men’
and doubtless exploited
the resentments against
the Anglo-Norman
Davidian state. If
MacHeth’s descent was in
some way royal, and his
confinement in prison
since capture in 1134
suggests as much (see
above, p. 179), this may
well have been a threat to
the throne itself. It was a
threat which Malcolm
overcame. In 1156 Donald,
one of MacHeth’s sons,
was taken and next year
there was a settlement,
MacHeth being released
and ultimately becoming
earl of Ross. Malcolm was
lucky, for the interests of
the MacHeths’ ally, the
great Somerled, were
essentially elsewhere.
Somerled (in Norse,
‘summer warrior’) was of
Scoto-Norse extraction. In
the 1120s and 1130s he
recovered his family’s
position in Argyll,
doubtless helped by his
alliance with the
MacHeths (Malcolm
MacHeth had married his
sister), and his own
marriage to the daughter
of Olaf, king of Man, who
dominated the Western
Isles. The year 1153 had
seen the death of two
kings, Olaf himself as well
as King David. The second
might open up chances in
Scotland, but it was the
first which concerned
Somerled more
immediately because it
threw the western seas
into turmoil. There
Somerled competed with
Godfrey, Olaf’s son, and
the king of Dublin for
mastery in the area, with
the nominal overlord, the
king of Norway, making
only noises off. In fact no
Norwegian king intervened
directly in the Western
Isles between 1098 and
1264. Given the instability
in Norway, they were
usually powerless to do so.
Essentially in this cold and
choppy North Sea world,
periphery to the Scottish
kingdom, central to the
contestants, the rulers of
Argyll, Galloway, Dublin,
and the Isle of Man fought
things out for themselves.
In 1156 Somerled defeated
Godfrey in a great naval
battle and two years later
drove him from Man into
Norwegian exile. In the
words of an Irish annal, he
was ‘king of the Hebrides
and Kintyre’; probably he
was king of Man as well.
Malcolm’s defeat of the
MacHeths was not the end
of his problems. When he
returned in 1160 from the
Toulouse campaign and
reached Perth he was
confronted by Earl Ferteth
of Strathearn and five
other earls determined to
take him prisoner. The
Melrose chronicle states
they were ‘enraged against
the king because he had
gone to Toulouse’, which
suggests native hostility to
Malcolm’s Anglo-Norman
outlook and policies.
Threatened by the new
Anglo-Norman lordships to
his north and east, the
conspiracy was joined by
the veteran Fergus, ‘king
of the Galwegians’, who,
married to an illegitimate
daughter of Henry I, had
both unified Galloway for
the first time and had
expanded its frontiers.
Having avoided capture,
Malcolm, according to the
Melrose chronicle, went
thrice into Galloway with
a large army and subdued
his enemies. This was an
important moment in the
westward expansion of
royal authority. Malcolm
forced Fergus into
retirement and established
a royal base at Dumfries
on the Nith; he planted his
chamberlain, Walter of
Berkeley, astride the Urr,
the ancient eastern
boundary of Galloway,
behind which Fergus’s
sons, Uhtred and Gilbert
(never described as more
than ‘lords’), were pinned.
Malcolm could now glare
across the Solway at King
Henry in Carlisle.
Meanwhile Malcolm
established a group of
Flemings in Clydesdale
and set up a sheriffdom at
Lanark (or at least in the
records one now appears
there). He also increased
the lordship of his
steward, Walter fitz Alan,
ancestor of the Stewarts,
around Renfrew,
something which proved
too much for Somerled. In
1160 he had settled with
Malcolm, perhaps
acknowledging his
overlordship of Argyll.
Now in 1164 he gathered
160 ships, teeming with
warriors including some
from Dublin, and attacked
Renfrew itself, only to
meet his death there. His
achievement survived.
Godfrey, son of Olaf,
recovered Man, Skye and
Lewis but Somerled’s
descendants (the
MacSorleys) long held
sway over Argyll, Kintyre
and the adjoining islands.
Malcolm also held the
line in the ecclesiastical
field. The loss of the south
made York’s claims to
metropolitan authority
over the Scottish church
far less tolerable than in
David’s heyday, and in
1159–60 Malcolm begged
the pope to give such
status instead to St
Andrews, raising it to an
archbishopric. He had no
success, but at least, in
clear rebuttal of York’s
pretensions, the pope in
1164 personally
consecrated Ingram,
Malcolm’s chancellor, as
bishop of Glasgow, and in
the next year authorized
the consecration of a new
bishop of St Andrews,
Malcolm’s chaplain, by the
Scottish bishops
themselves. By this time
Malcolm was a sick man,
but when he died in
December 1165 the
dynasty was secure, a
tribute to his own work,
and also to the structure
and balances of the
Davidian state. William,
Malcolm’s brother,
succeeded without
challenge to a political
system which worked.
***
King Henry had put the
clock back in Scotland. He
also aimed to do so in
Wales, where the native
rulers in Stephen’s time
had made substantial gains
at the expense of both the
king and the marcher
barons. In the 1150s three
great rulers held sway in
native Wales. In the north
Owain had dominated
Gwynedd since the death
of his heroic father
Gruffudd ap Cynan in
1137; in the north-east
Madog ap Maredudd had
(temporarily) unified
Powys, while in the south
in Deheubarth, the young
Rhys ap Gruffudd was just
beginning his illustrious
career.
 Owain, however, was at
odds with Madog from
whom he had wrested Iâl
in north-west Powys, with
Rhys to whom he had lost
Ceredigion, and with his
own brother Cadwaladr
whom he had expelled
from Anglesey. Henry was
quick to exploit these
divisions. He forced Madog
to surrender Oswestry, and
then in 1157, with Madog
in his army, invaded
Gwynedd. He had a secure
base from which to
advance, for the earldom
of Chester was in his hands
during the minority of the
heir (1153–1163). Having
survived an ambush in the
woods of Coleshill, Henry
marched on relentlessly to
Rhuddlan, near the mouth
of the Clwyd. Owain did
homage and resigned
Tegeingl, the cantref
between the Dee and the
Clwyd which he had seized
from the earl of Chester.
Thus Henry’s approach
was strikingly different
from that of Henry I who
had accepted Gwynedd’s
expansion at the earldom’s
expense. In the south,
Henry had already denied
Pembroke to Richard fitz
Gilbert de Clare and it
remained a royal base
throughout the reign,
leaving Richard just with
Chepstow. Now Rhys ap
Gruffudd hastened to court
and resigned Carmarthen
to the king, Ceredigion to
Earl Roger de Clare, and
Cantref Bychan in Ystrad
Tywi to Walter de Clifford.
Wales was back to where it
had been in 1135.
 Almost at once Rhys
repented and went on the
warpath, to be spared
retribution by a factor
which, as Gerald of Wales
observed, saved Wales
again and again in this
period: the king’s
continental priorities. In
July 1158 Henry’s brother
Geoffrey died at Nantes.
The Loire valley and
control of Brittany, or the
Tywi valley and control of
Deheubarth? There was no
contest. Henry crossed the
Channel and did not return
for over four years. In
1159, as Henry advanced
on Toulouse, Rhys
besieged Carmarthen, and
defeated royal forces with
their Gwynedd allies. Next
year Madog died, and
Powys became divided
between four segments of
his kin; a decisive moment
in its history, for unity was
never restored. Henry
needed to reassert his
authority and in 1163 he
returned to Britain. He
marched into Rhys’s
fastness of Cantref Mawr
and forced his submission.
That July at Woodstock he
received the homages of
Rhys, Owain Gwynedd and
the rulers of Powys.
 All this, however, was
but a signal for a general
rising. In 1164 Rhys
ravaged Ceredigion and
seized Dinefwr on the
Tywi, the ‘principal seat’
of Deheubarth. Early next
year Owain’s son Dafydd
invaded Tegeingl in an
attempt to reverse its loss
in 1157. Henrician revenge
seemed certain and in July
1165 Owain, Rhys and the
rulers of Powys united
their forces at Corwen in
the Dee valley to meet it.
Henry indeed struck hard,
marching his army up onto
the great range of the
Berwyn hills, 2,000 feet
above sea-level, only to be
driven back by torrential
rains. Apart from the
Toulouse campaign, it was
the greatest defeat of his
career. It was also a
critical moment for the
Welsh rulers, for little
would have remained of
their independence had
Henry descended from the
hills and scattered their
armies. The fear that
Henry would try again the
following year prompted a
response from Owain
which shows a remarkable
grasp on his part of the
wider European stage. In
1165 those in the know
across the Channel had
calculated that Henry
would not attack the
Welsh until he had
reached a settlement with
King Louis. Owain saw the
connection too and wrote
on three occasions to the
French king, ultimately
suggesting that they
should co-ordinate military
operations. This is the first
known occasion on which
a Welsh ruler had
established contact with a
European monarch. In the
event Louis was not
needed, because a
rebellion in Brittany took
Henry once more across
the Channel in 1166 and
he did not return for four
years.
So in the north Owain
was able to consolidate his
hold of Tegeingl, turning
Rhuddlan into ‘the noble
castle’ where his son
entertained Archbishop
Baldwin and Gerald of
Wales ‘most handsomely’
in 1188. His ambitions
also reached beyond the
territorial expansion of
Gwynedd to the assertion
of dominion over all native
Wales. He was doubtless
influenced by the way
minor rulers had sought
the protection of his
father, Gruffudd ap Cynan
– at least according to
Gruffudd’s Life. Probably
there were also memories
of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn,
king of ales ‘from end to
end’ before his defeat by
Harold in 1063. In his first
two letters to Louis, Owain
described himself as ‘king
of Wales’ and ‘king of the
Welsh’. In his last letter to
Louis, Owain went further
still, styling himself not
king but ‘prince of the
Welsh’, the first native
ruler to use this style. He
thus proclaimed both his
uniqueness and his
independence for in
Roman law ‘prince’
indicated a sovereign
ruler, which was why
Henry was so angry when
he heard about Owain’s
use of the title. By calling
himself ‘prince of the
Welsh’ Owain was also, of
course, asserting his
supremacy over the other
native rulers. It was that
which Owain’s
descendants were to
achieve in the thirteenth
century.
 Owain died in 1170
with Gwynedd once more
extended to the Dee, and
while making claims for a
wider hegemony. How
those played with the
other rulers if they were
ever presented to them we
do not know – badly, one
would think, given their
own ambitions and fierce
independence. That was
always the obstacle to any
single overlordship. The
Brut saw 1165 not as a
national movement, but
one simply of co-
operation: ‘All the Welsh
united to throw off the
rule of the French.’ As it
was, Owain’s sons and the
rulers of Powys were soon
at each other’s throats. The
future lay with Rhys ap
Gruffudd of Deheubarth,
the Lord Rhys (Yr
Arglwydd Rhys), as he was
often described in the Brut.
In November 1166 he took
Cardigan and ended at
long last the Clare
connection with
Ceredigion. He also ousted
the Cliffords from Cantref
Bychan and wrested
Cilgerran and Emlyn in
northern Dyfed from
William fitz Gerald. This
time it was not the
continent that saved Rhys,
but Ireland.
In 1171 Henry led a
great army to Pembroke,
whence he sailed for
Ireland. This was a
decisive moment in Welsh
history. Henry’s
intervention in Ireland
made the security of south
Wales an absolute
necessity. Had he met
resistance he would
doubtless have achieved it
by force. Instead it was
achieved by Rhys’s
immediate submission, a
submission so spontaneous
and dignified that it
immediately won Henry’s
trust. Next year, as Henry
passed through Wales on
his way back to
Normandy, he made Rhys,
in the words of the Brut,
‘justiciar on his behalf in
Deheubarth’. Rhys’s policy
in 1171 had been
masterly, and represented
a complete change of tack.
He saw he would gain far
more from co-operating
with King Henry than
competing with him. His
new position meant the
king recognized his
conquests and would
protect them from attack
by royal officials and
marcher barons. In return
Rhys would ensure that
the native rulers of
Deheubarth kept the
peace, an obligation
which, of course, enhanced
his own authority.
Henceforth if in one role
he was Henry’s justiciar, in
another, as Roger of
Howden put it, he was
‘king of South Wales’.
 ***
In the years after 1171
Ireland in significant part
was conquered and
colonized by the English,
or so the invaders were
usually called because they
came either from England
or from England’s colonies,
the marcher baronies of
Wales. This was the
beginning of England’s
baleful attempt to
dominate Ireland. The
Vikings had attacked and
settled in Ireland in the
ninth century (Dublin,
Wexford and Waterford
remained very much Norse
towns in the twelfth) but,
apart from that, as
contemporaries observed,
the island had never
before been conquered,
not even by the Romans.
These events, therefore,
were both momentous and
extraordinary and they
were recorded by the
victors themselves in two
great works of literature,
Gerald of Wales’s The
Conquest of Ireland
(finished in 1189) and The
Song of Dermot and the
Earl, a celebratory poem
dating, in its original form,
to soon after 1176.
 The English came to
Ireland because they were
invited by Dermot
MacMurrough to help
recover his kingdom of
Leinster and defeat Rory
O’Connor, king of
Connacht, his rival for the
‘High Kingship’. Ireland
was a land of many kings
(like earls elsewhere, said
The Song of Dermot) and
there was constant conflict
between them for control
of the provincial kingdoms
and, among the greater
kings, for possession of the
High Kingship of all
Ireland. This was partly
because there were no
clear rules of succession;
kings might have many
sons by many wives, all of
whom could be considered
throne-worthy. It was
partly too (though this was
changing) because
kingship had little
institutional content, and
hegemonies based on
oaths, tribute and military
aid easily rose and fell.
MacMurrough’s recruits
came from the marcher
magnates of south Wales
and in particular from a
group of men of mixed
Welsh and Norman blood,
to which Gerald of Wales
himself belonged. These
were the descendants of
Nest, daughter of Rhys ap
Tewdr, and the various
Normans, including Henry
I, with whom she had had
relationships. The power
of these marcher lords had
been severely trimmed by
the triumphs of Rhys ap
Gruffudd in the south.
They were as eager to go
as Rhys was to wave them
on their way: to that end
he actually released from
imprisonment Robert fitz
Stephen, son of Nest by
Stephen, castellan of
Cardigan. In May 1169 fitz
Stephen arrived in three
ships with 30 knights, 60
men at arms and 300 foot
archers. He was followed
by Raymond le Gros,
Maurice fitz Gerald, Meiler
fitz Henry (a grandson of
Henry I and Nest), and
Robert and Philip of Barry,
Gerald of Wales’s brothers.
With such help
MacMurrough was
astonishingly successful
and soon recovered control
of much of Leinster. Then
a baron of even greater
power came to his aid.
This was Richard fitz
Gilbert, lord of Chepstow
in Wales and son of Gilbert
fitz Gilbert de Clare,
Stephen’s earl of
Pembroke. His usual
nickname ‘Strongbow’ is
not contemporary and
gives him an altogether
false glamour. Fitz Gilbert
was intelligent,
circumspect, and highly
temptable; as a former
supporter of Stephen,
Henry had refused to
recognize him as an earl,
and had deprived him of
Pembroke. Fitz Gilbert
landed in August 1170
with 200 knights and
1,000 other troops.
Waterford was captured at
once, and then on 21
September the combined
English and MacMurrough
forces took Dublin, already
recognized as the ‘head of
the kingdom’.
 The most fundamental
feature of the invasion
now became apparent. The
English had not come for
pay and plunder on a ‘here
today, gone tomorrow’
basis. They had come for
land and meant to stay.
‘Whoever shall wish for
soil or sod richly shall I
enfeoff them,’ proclaimed
MacMurrough, according
to The Song of Dermot and
the Earl. With this in view
he gave fitz Stephen
Wexford, and promised
Richard fitz Gilbert the
hand of his daughter Aife
and, with her, succession
to the kingdom. When
MacMurrough died in May
1171 it seemed that fitz
Gilbert might indeed
become king of Leinster
and perhaps even High
King of all Ireland. This
was too much for King
Henry. He could not
possibly have disaffected
barons carving out
kingdoms for themselves
in Ireland. But this was not
the only reason for the
expedition he now
planned. Before it sailed
fitz Gilbert, brought to
heel by the confiscation of
his Welsh and English
lands, had already
surrendered Dublin,
Water-ford and Wexford
and agreed to hold the rest
of Leinster from the king.
The truth was that Henry,
as William of Newburgh
put it, wanted to have ‘the
glory of such a famous
conquest’ and its proceeds
for himself.
There was a wider
background here. Ireland
was the reverse of remote.
It had longstanding trading
links with Bristol and
Chester. Welsh rulers had
often gone there in exile.
Rumours that kings of
England might conquer
Ireland had been prevalent
since the time of William I.
Rufus, according to one
story, had boasted of
building a bridge of boats
across the sea. Such ideas
were strengthened by the
extraordinary success of
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
History of the Kings of
Britain, for Ireland had
been conquered with
remarkable ease by its
hero Arthur. Already in
1155 Henry himself had
held a great council at
Winchester to discuss the
plans for ‘the conquest’.
Some of the initiative here
may have come from
Archbishop Theobald, who
hoped to reestablish
Canterbury’s claims to
authority over the Irish
church: in 1152 its
independent diocesan
structure had been
recognized by the pope.
But Henry also saw Ireland
as a fitting kingdom either
for his younger brother
William or, after William’s
death, for his youngest
son, John. The only
problem was that he had
no clear and convincing
right to it. But here Pope
Adrian IV came to the
rescue. In 1155–6, hoping
to further the cause of
reform among its church
and people, he issued a
bull which could at least
be interpreted as granting
Ireland to Henry II in
hereditary right. (The only
purported text, however,
known as Laudabiliter, was
probably concocted by
Gerald of Wales.)
The idea for conquest
was there. The activities of
fitz Gilbert and his fellows
were the catalysts, as was
Henry’s desire both to
please the pope and vanish
after Becket’s murder. In
October 1171 Henry
crossed from Milford
Haven to Waterford with
(according to Gerald) 500
knights and numerous
mounted and foot archers.
He gained the peaceful
submission of at least
fifteen Irish kings,
including those of
Desmond and Thomond,
together with the native
archbishops and bishops.
The conquest immediately
revealed the face of its
‘civilizing’ mission: a
council at Cashel, attended
by nearly all the Irish
bishops, legislated for
lawful marriages and the
proper payment of tithes.
But it was not all plain
sailing. The kings of Meath
and Ulster remained
defiant, as did Rory
O’Connor of Connacht,
who declared that he
‘ought to be king and lord
of Ireland’. For the
summer of 1172,
therefore, Henry planned a
further campaign. The
history of Ireland might
have been very different
had he carried it out and
completed the conquest.
Instead, learning that
papal legates were in
Normandy ready to discuss
a settlement of his rift with
the church, he hastily
departed and on 21 May
1172 was reconciled to the
church at Avranches. The
pope had already rejoiced
at events in Ireland, and
had issued bulls which
seemed to confirm
dominion over the island
to Henry and his heirs.
Higher priorities meant
that Henry never came
back to Ireland. Without
the immediate catalysts in
1171 he might never have
gone there. Yet he often
threatened to return, and
regarded its affairs as
‘great matters’ to be
closely monitored and
controlled. The richest
pickings were to be his,
not fitz Gilbert’s. Before
leaving, Henry placed
Waterford, Wexford and
Dublin with their
surrounding territories
under his own officials.
For the rest he made
Leinster and Meath great
fiefs to be held for knight
service and the other
conditions of feudal
tenure. The former was to
be held by fitz Gilbert and
the latter by Hugh de Lacy,
lord of Weobley and
Ludlow.
Henry’s aim was to
create a stable and
wealthy kingdom for his
son John, but he faced
problems from both the
native kings and English
invaders. In 1174, after
Henry had pulled fitz
Gilbert and others out of
Ireland to meet the crisis
elsewhere in his
dominions, ‘all the people
of Ireland with one
consent rose against the
English’ (so wrote Gerald
of Wales). Meath, which
Hugh de Lacy was busy
wresting from its native
rulers, was a particular
centre of the rising. These
events encouraged Henry
the next year to reach a
settlement with the
greatest of the native
rulers, he who had defied
him in 1171: Rory
O’Connor. Under the 1175
Treaty of Windsor Rory
was to hold Connacht
under Henry and, as
recognition of his High
Kingship, have authority
over the rest of Ireland
outside the English areas.
But the agreement soon
collapsed and the English
advance continued. In
1177 Henry gave Robert
fitz Stephen and Miles de
Cogan the opportunity to
seize the kingdom of Cork,
while Limerick he
eventually passed to Philip
de Braose. Both were to be
fiefs held by knight service
but with the towns of Cork
and Limerick reserved for
the crown. In the same
year John de Courcy,
granted Ulster by Henry ‘if
he could conquer it’, began
his extraordinary career, a
career which was to lead
to the subjection of the
ancient native dynasty and
the creation of one of the
greatest of the new English
lordships. Nothing
exemplified more clearly
how a fortune could be
made in Ireland, because
John, a younger son of the
Courcys of Stogursey in
Somerset, had started his
career almost landless.
And nothing better
demonstrated the
importance of English
connections: the Courcys
had important interests in
northern England,
particularly in Cumbria,
only seventy miles from
the Ulster coast, and it was
from there that the men
who supported John’s
conquest came, stepping
across the sea all the more
easily after he had married
Affreca, daughter of the
king of Man.
Sometimes Henry was
incensed by rumours that
Hugh de Lacy or John de
Courcy was aspiring to
create independent
kingdoms; hence his joy at
de Lacy’s murder in 1186.
To keep control he sent in
commissions of
investigation, appointed as
viceroy his steward
William fitz Audelin,
played Lacy off against fitz
Gilbert, and in 1173 made
the latter prove his worth
in Normandy before
allowing him back to
Ireland. After fitz Gilbert’s
death in 1176, leaving
only infant children, the
whole of Leinster came to
Henry in wardship, where
it remained till the end of
the reign. Henry’s ensuing
Ordinance for the
government of Ireland,
issued from Oxford in
1177, in its display of
colonial mastery and
power anticipates Edward
I’s statute of 1284 after his
conquest of Wales.
 In 1177 Henry had
designated John as king of
Ireland. Eight years later
in 1185, now nineteen,
John arrived. His Norman
entourage offended the
native nobles by pulling
their flowing beards; Hugh
de Lacy and John de
Courcy, not surprisingly,
given the challenge to
their own positions, were
unco-operative, and John
was home in six months,
expressing no desire to
return even when a crown
of peacock’s feathers
arrived from the pope.
Nevertheless the
expedition gave fresh
impetus to the English
settlement, for John’s
followers received grants
in both Louth (Bertram de
Verdon and Gilbert Pipard)
and Munster (William de
Burgh and Theobald
Walter), grants which it
was up to them to
transform into reality by
conquest. Meanwhile,
structures of government
for the areas under the
king’s direct control were
developing very much on
English lines. An
exchequer was formed at
Dublin and the
administration placed
under a justiciar, while the
chief local agent became
the sheriff. By the end of
Henry’s reign the conquest
was secure, although, of
course, incomplete. It had
been well worth it. In the
thirteenth century Ireland
provided kings of England
with revenue and sources
of patronage, yet they had
to go there only once. The
best type of colony.
 Fundamentally the
struggle for Ireland had
been between two very
different economic, social
and political systems. The
Irish had no armour,
cavalry or castles and so
were extremely vulnerable
to invaders who possessed
all three. The cavalry
forces introduced by
Dermot MacMurrough
were small, yet again and
again they faced his
enemies with devastating
results as though they
were some utterly novel
secret weapon, which
indeed they were.
He charged them
speedily without any
pause
And the Irish who
had no armour
They scattered
 themselves
By sevens and eights,
by threes and fours
So that they did not
hold together
And the earl then
slew of these men
Seven score and ten.
In these words The Song of
Dermot describes a charge
by Richard fitz Gilbert.
These were men on the
make, with limited
prospects at home, ‘strong-
limbed barons of bold
heart’, as the Song
described Miles de Cogan.
When the army was held
up by the river Shannon
outside Limerick, Meiler
fitz Henry charged to the
front on his white horse,
plunged into the water and
was carried across to the
other side. ‘Pass over,
knights. Why do you
tarry?’ he shouted. Who
indeed could tarry with
such leaders? ‘And the earl
then slew of these men
seven score and ten.’ The
English also learnt from
the Irish. After some
debate they soon
abandoned the chivalric
ways of Anglo-Norman
warfare and politics. They
killed in battle, murdered
prisoners en masse, and
publicly executed Irish
kings, throwing the body
of one of them to the dogs.
Having won the battles,
it was above all by the
castle that the English
conquest was, in the words
of The Song of Dermot,
‘well rooted’. That at Trim
was the centre of Lacy
power in Meath. In Louth,
some twenty-three motte
and motte-and-bailey
castles have been traced.
Even more important were
the men who built the
castles – not just the great
lords but the under-tenants
whom they introduced.
Well might the Song
triumphantly list the thirty
or so vassals who were
endowed with ‘rich fiefs
and fair lands’ by fitz
Gilbert and Hugh de Lacy.
These men, tenants and
associates from Normandy,
Wales and above all from
England, formed manors
and introduced peasants to
exploit them. Given that
they were not great
barons, John de Courcy in
Ulster and Verdon and
Pipard in Louth did not
have the same reserves of
tenants to draw on, but
they were quite able to
recruit from England,
Courcy as we have seen
from the north, Verdon
and Pipard from their
kinsmen, neighbours and
connections in the west
midlands and Shropshire.
These under-tenants would
fight tooth and nail to
have and to hold. They
formed the backbone of
the English conquest of
Ireland.
However potent their
weaponry, the English
with their small numbers
would never have survived
the dangerous early days
in Ireland without the
support of Dermot
MacMurrough. No wonder
native annals stigmatized
him as ‘the ruin of the
Irish’. Yet Dermot’s own
conduct itself points to
another side, which helps
to explain both the
conquest’s success and
Irish survival: the Irish,
like the Welsh, were quick
to accommodate
themselves to the new
order, the bishops because
they genuinely welcomed
the reforms, the kings
because they had no
alternative. But at least
Henry made the
submissions easy and not
unlike those offered to
High Kings in the past. He
held his court at Christmas
1171 in a palace built of
wattles by the Irish kings
‘according to the custom of
the country’. Native kings,
moreover, did not only
survive in the
unconquered areas. In
Leinster fitz Gilbert
allowed Dermot’s son and
nephew to act as ‘kings of
the Irish of the country’. In
Meath, while Donnel
O’Melaghlin of the native
dynasty was hanged at
Trim, his brother Art was
left ruling in the west.
Up to a point the
conquest was an accident
waiting to happen. From
the moment that the
Normans with their
devastating military
superiority arrived in
Wales, warring Irish kings
must have contemplated
an appeal to them. Yet the
price was high, and only
the desperate (like
MacMurrough) would pay
it. It had to be paid in land
because there was no
coinage; indeed in fitz
Gilbert’s case by the offer
of a kingdom, an offer
which (although this is
debated) did violence to
Irish custom. Even then it
took the narrowing of
opportunities in Wales for
the offers to be accepted.
In fact the conquest was
never completed. That was
partly because of the
techniques of
accommodation practised
by the Irish kings, but also
because the movement ran
out of steam. The richest
part of Ireland lay in the
east and had been taken at
the start. If the English
kings sometimes hoped for
more, they would not go
out to get it. John’s
expedition of 1210 was to
discipline the barons, not
to eliminate the native
rulers. The second
generation of baronial
conquerors quarrelled
among themselves, and
sometimes had many
interests elsewhere.
Thus the threefold
division of Ireland, already
apparent under Henry II,
remained: the areas under
direct royal control, the
great fiefs and the
surviving native kingdoms.
Like the Normans in
Wales, the English came to
Ireland as piecemeal
conquerors. For the most
part they retained their
own identity and
constructed their own
distinct polities, in part
because there was no
single kingdom to conquer;
hence the fundamental
differences between the
histories of Scotland on the
one hand and Wales and
Ireland on the other.
***
Having restored royal
authority in England and
Normandy, conquered
Ireland and settled the
Becket dispute, Henry
seemed at the height of his
power. Yet he was almost
at once engulfed by a
massive rebellion which
constituted the greatest
crisis of his reign, just as
his ultimate victory was
his greatest triumph. In
Britain the result was to
confirm Rhys’s dominance
in south Wales and to
destroy Scotland’s
independence.
The rebellion began
within the royal house, the
product of Henry’s wish to
provide for his sons and
settle the future
government of his
dominions. In 1170, with
the act which so offended
Becket, Henry’s eldest son
(also named Henry),
having done homage to
King Louis for Normandy,
was crowned king of
England in deliberate
contrast to Henry I’s
failure to crown the
Empress. In 1172 Richard,
Henry’s second son, now
aged fourteen, was
invested with his mother’s
county of Poitou. Geoffrey,
the third son, was through
his marriage to be duke of
Brittany; John, the
youngest, was to be lord of
Ireland. Henry envisaged
his sons gradually gaining
more authority in their
dominions and ruling them
in harmonious splendour
under his supervision. But
for the moment the Young
King, as his eldest son was
called, felt he was simply a
‘paid servant’, with
councillors who were
‘more masters than
ministers’. His ultimate
inheritance also seemed
threatened by Henry’s
scheme to endow John not
just with Ireland but with
castles in Touraine. In
March 1173 he fled from
court to join Louis VII, his
father-in-law, in Paris.
The Young King was
soon joined at Louis’s side
by his brothers Richard
and Geoffrey, dispatched
there by none other than
their mother, Eleanor of
Aquitaine herself. Matilda,
the Conqueror’s queen,
had sent funds to support
her son Robert, but this
was rebellion on an
entirely different scale.
Since 1170 Eleanor had
been holding her own
court in Poitou, and was
thus quite able to act
against her husband. She
had good reason to do so.
After John’s birth in 1166,
she had been replaced by
mistresses. She had also
seen her rights in
Aquitaine flouted, most
notably when Henry
himself received the
homage of the count of
Toulouse in 1173.
The explosion within
the royal family provided
an opportunity for all
Henry’s internal and
external foes. Only
Gascony remained
relatively quiet. Since the
Young King aimed to make
himself ruler in Nomandy
and England (‘Here is the
king of England,’
proclaimed Louis) he could
promise much. Roger of
Howden gives separate
lists of the Norman and
English rebels, but the two
revolts were inseparable
and several of the great
English rebels had
extensive lands in the
duchy. Their grievances
are starkly apparent.
Hugh, earl of Chester, for
example, had never
succeeded to the lands and
castles granted to his
father by Henry before his
accession; Earl William de
Ferrers had failed in his
claims to the Peverel
inheritance of his mother,
and had been denied the
title earl of Derby; Hugh
Bigod, earl of Norfolk, now
promised Norwich by the
Young King, had been
forced to pay £666 to
recover his castles of
Framlingham and Bungay
and had then been
threatened by the brand-
new royal castle at Orford;
Robert, earl of Leicester,
had had to pay scutage –
unlike his father, the great
justiciar – and been
amerced £333 for breach
of the peace. The great
revolt posed difficult
choices for the Welsh and
the Scots. Hywel ab
Iorweth ‘while the king
was contending beyond
the sea’, as the Brut put it,
recovered his castle of
Caerleon which Henry had
seized in 1171, and
plundered around
Chepstow. The Lord Rhys
of Deheubarth, in contrast,
calculated he had most to
gain from backing Henry
II, to whom of course he
owed his overlordship in
the south. He sent a son to
serve in Normandy, and
himself laid siege to Earl
Ferrers’s castle at Tutbury.
In Gwynedd, Dafydd, son
of the great Owain,
struggling for power both
with his brothers and the
earl of Chester, made a
similar calculation. In
Scotland, King William
reacted very differently.
He checked first with King
Henry, who offered
nothing, and then threw in
his lot with the Young
King, who promised
Carlisle and the northern
counties. There would
never be a better chance to
restore King David’s realm.
 Henry met this the
greatest crisis of his reign
with a combination of
calculation and anger,
sang-froid and demonic
energy. In August 1173 he
drove King Louis from
Verneuil and then galloped
into Brittany where the
earl of Chester (who was
also viscount of
Avranches) surrendered. In
England the justiciar
Richard de Lucy besieged
Leicester and then moved
to counter King William’s
invasion of the north.
William took no major
castles, but he ravaged
Northumbria and reduced
it to famine before
agreeing a truce.
Meanwhile Henry’s cause
was boosted by the
capture of the earl of
Leicester (in October, near
Bury St Edmunds) and
Queen Eleanor herself,
who was making her way
to the French court
disguised as a man (an all
too brief glimpse of her
spirit and resource). All
this, however, was just
round one. In 1174, King
William, King Louis and
the Young King co-
ordinated their operations.
In May, William once more
invaded the north. Again
he took no major castles,
but he wasted Cumbria,
and Carlisle agreed to
surrender if the town
could not be relieved by
29 September. In the
midlands, William’s
brother David secured
control of the earldom of
Huntingdon, made alliance
with Earl Ferrers and took
Nottingham. Earl Bigod
took Norwich. Messenger
after messenger pleaded
for Henry’s return. He
crossed the Channel on 8
July in a great storm
(declaring that if God
wanted him to win
through he would be safe
enough), made straight for
Canterbury and on 12 July
did penance at Becket’s
tomb. Next day God
responded, or so it seemed.
A northern force surprised
King William at Alnwick
and took him prisoner. On
26 July, his legs pinioned
beneath his horse, he was
delivered to an exultant
Henry at Northampton.
The capture of King
William soon brought the
revolt in England to an
end. Would Henry now
descend on Wales and
recover Caerleon? A Welsh
seer assured Iorweth
otherwise, because a great
city across the sea was
under siege. He was right.
Henry crossed the Channel
on 6–7 August with a large
force of Welshmen
supplied by Rhys. Four
days later he entered
Rouen in triumph, the
besieging forces of Louis,
the Young King, and the
counts of Flanders and
Blois melting away as he
approached. Henry then
proceeded to Poitou where
he received Richard’s
tearful submission, and by
the end of September both
the Young King and
Geoffrey, with Louis’s
agreement, had also
submitted.
Henry’s victory owed
much to ‘an abundant
hoard of money in the
royal treasury’, as William
of Newburgh put it, which
he used to hire large
numbers of Brabantine
mercenaries. And while he
had clearly provoked some
barons, Howden’s list of
supporters ‘in England’
included ten earls, many
with important interests in
Normandy. Just before the
crisis broke, moreover,
Henry had been able to
insert his men into six
bishoprics. By contrast,
contemporaries were quick
to criticize King William’s
‘wild rashness’, as Jordan
Fantosme put it. He had
made little impression on
Henry’s well-prepared
northern castles, hampered
as he was by his lack of
siege engines and hardly
helped by the 3,000 or
more Scots, ‘naked men’
according to Jordan, from
the kingdom’s common
army. But at the least the
latter’s ravaging and
brutality demonstrated
William’s power. The real
disappointment was that,
apart from Roger de
Mowbray, Richard de
Moreville and the bishop
of Durham, he won little
support from the northern
nobility, the men whom
David had worked so hard
to bind to his regime. The
fact was that in the north
Henry had built well,
inserting his men, like
Robert de Vaux, the
defender of Wark, into
northern baronies and
making the loyalist
Stuteville brothers
(enemies of Mowbray)
sheriffs of Yorkshire and
Northumberland.
One result of the
collapse of royal authority
during the revolt had been
a whole series of
encroachments on the
royal forest, and these
were punished by a forest
eyre of Alan de Neville
which imposed
amercements totalling an
exorbitant £12,000 (in
1176–8). But Henry was
also merciful. His aim, as
Ralph of Diss observed,
was to restore peace and
harmony as quickly as
possible. Queen Eleanor
remained in custody, but
Henry’s sons were soon
restored to favour. As for
the rebels, not one was
executed or even kept in
prison. Henry destroyed
their castles (the ruins
long testified to his
victory) but returned their
lands. The Welsh loyalists
now reaped their reward.
In 1174 Henry married his
half-sister Emma, an
illegitimate daughter of
Geoffrey of Anjou, to
Dafydd of Gwynedd.
According to the Brut he
‘thanked Rhys much for
his fidelity’, and called
him his ‘right loving
friend’. Rhys’s position as
Henry’s justiciar over
Deheubarth was now
doubly secure.
Only Scotland was
exempted from this
magnanimity. By the
Treaty of Falaise in 1174
William was released, but
in return for
acknowledging that his
kingdom was henceforth a
fief held from the king of
England. Henry was also to
receive the homage and
fealty of the earls and
barons and other men ‘of
the land of the king’. And
all this was to be
guaranteed through the
surrender by King William
of the castles of Roxburgh,
Berwick, Jedburgh,
Edinburgh and Stirling.
Henry had cut his way into
the Scottish kingdom and
he had done so potentially
on a permanent basis, for
the agreement was to last
in perpetuity. While the
Scottish church, under the
treaty, was to owe its
‘customary’ subjection to
the church of England,
there was no attempt to
justify the subjection of
the kingdom as
‘customary’, which
suggests indeed that David
and his successors had not
in fact done homage for it.
Henry was quite happy to
see this as something new.
The king could now
glory in dominions which
stretched ‘from the last
bounds of Scotland to the
mountains of the
Pyrenees’, as William of
Newburgh put it. Within
the British context, Henry,
so Gerald of Wales opined,
had conquered Ireland and
Scotland and had ‘included
by his powerful hand in
one monarchy the whole
island of Britain’,
something never achieved
before, even by the
Romans. The reality did
not quite measure up to
this unificatory rhetoric.
Britain was rarely at the
top of Henry’s agenda, as
his failure to return to
Ireland and his
postponement of Welsh
campaigns shows. Nor was
Henry’s attitude at all
consistent. In Ireland he
conquered and took the
best part of the land under
his direct rule. In Wales he
became content to assert
over-lordship over the
native rulers. In Scotland,
he wanted a loyal vassal
king, but his essential
policy was reactive and
defensive. In his formative
years King David had
dominated northern
England, and Henry
naturally dreaded a
renewal of the invasions
which had brought that
about. The events of 1173–
4 confirmed his worst
fears. The royal and
baronial castles in the
north had proved no
defence. He needed to try
something new. The
extreme measures, the
subjection of the king and
his nobles, and the taking
of castles within Scotland
(first mooted in 1163),
were a measure of the
threat, not a base for
conquest. In fact Henry
never garrisoned Stirling
in the heart of the Scottish
realm, and after William
had proved his
dependability, in 1186
Henry actually returned
Edinburgh to him. These
moves would have been
inconceivable had he
really planned to expand
his authority within
Scotland.
 After 1174 the
situations of the Welsh
rulers and King William
were very different. The
former could build on
success, the latter had to
come to terms with failure.
***
In 1188, on his great
tour with Archbishop
Baldwin to preach the
crusade, Gerald of Wales
was entertained by the
Lord Rhys at Cardigan and
by Dafydd ab Owain
Gwynedd at Rhuddlan, the
former sometimes
described by
contemporaries as ‘king of
South Wales’ and the latter
as ‘king of the North’.
Having thrown back the
yoke of its English
conquerors, native Wales
seemed to Gerald to have
‘increased remarkably in
population and in
strength’. This was a
golden age.
In the south, Rhys’s
power centred on the
cantrefs of Mawr and
Bychan in Ystrad Tywi
with their great pastures
and mountain fastnesses.
In the former, above the
river Tywi which divided
the two cantrefs, lay
Dinefwr, ‘the royal seat’, as
Gerald of Wales put it, of
the rulers of Deheubarth.
Rhys also held sway in
Ceredigion and parts of
Dyfed, which he had
wrested from the Clares,
the Geraldines and other
marcher barons. Outside
these areas, Rhys’s
authority over the native
rulers of the south was
loose and unobtrusive,
owing much to the ties of
kinship that he had in part
created: the native rulers
between Wye and Severn
and in Glamorgan included
his sons-in-law, nephews
and a cousin. The co-
operative nature of his rule
is reflected in the earliest
of the Welsh law books
(‘the Cynferth redaction’),
which was put together in
south Wales during his
time. While its allegiance
was clearly to the ‘lord of
Dinefwr’, it accorded the
symbols of royalty to all
the Welsh rulers. (The
Welsh jurists who
compiled the law books
recorded not legislation
and official law codes, but
their own views of
customary rules and
practices.)
 For a while Rhys also
maintained good relations
with Henry II, acting
dutifully as his justiciar of
Deheubarth. In 1175 and
1177 he presented the
rulers of the south at
Henry’s court. In 1179
Henry, for his part,
punished Roger Mortimer
and his men when they
murdered the ruler of
Maelienydd. Meanwhile
Rhys married sons and
daughters into the marcher
families and, always
courteous and quick-
witted, elicited
compliments from the
Clares over his conquest of
Ceredigion: they could not
have lost it, they said, to a
more ‘noble and valiant
prince’, an exchange which
took place over breakfast
during a pleasant meeting
at Hereford in 1188.
These were the
conditions in which Rhys’s
rule flourished. He
increased his cash
revenues by changing
renders in kind into
money, and perhaps
sponsored the Welsh law
books we have referred to,
books which begin by
listing the rights of the
king. Rhys also won the
favour of God,
strengthened his hold on
Ceredigion, and showed
his integration into the
wider European world by
richly endowing the new
Cistercian monastery at
Strata Florida. He also
affirmed the preeminence
of Deheubarth by
promoting the cult of St
David as the premier saint
of Wales; it was at St
Davids that he himself was
buried. At his new castle
of Cardigan in 1177 he
held the first Eisteddfod.
Well might poets,
chroniclers and the scribes
of his own and later
charters trumpet his
praises: ‘Rhys the Great’,
‘Rhys the Good’, ‘rightful
prince of South Wales’,
indeed ‘the Unconquered
Head of all Wales’.
In the north, Dafydd’s
power never equalled that
of Rhys, for he shared
Gwynedd with his
nephews and his brother
Rhodri. Yet his basic
approach was much the
same, with his marriage to
Henry II’s sister, and his
alliance forged by 1177
with the earl of Chester.
But there was no way such
arrangements could bring
any permanent stability to
Wales. That was partly
because both Rhys and
Dafydd wished to use their
English-derived power
against their Welsh
neighbours. As Ralph of
Diss put it, Dafydd hoped
‘to strike terror into the
other Welsh as a result of
his new affinity’, referring
here to his marriage to
Henry’s sister. In 1177 he
and the earl of Chester
invaded northern Powys.
In the same year Rhys
secured a grant of
Meirionydd, Gwynedd’s
southernmost district
bordering Ceredigion,
from Henry II (who thus
demonstrated his lordship
over all of Wales), only to
be repulsed by Dafydd’s
nephews. Deep fissures
could also open up
between the Welsh rulers
and the marcher barons.
William de Braose might
have married a daughter
to one of Rhys’s sons, yet
he was also implicated in a
terrible massacre in 1177
at Abergavenny after
which ‘none of the Welsh
dared place trust in the
French’. For all the
compliments bobbing
between Rhys and the
Clares everyone knew that
in Wales the ebb and flow
of battle might at any time
recommence.
There was also a
gradual shift in Rhys’s
relations with the king,
product of a series of
minorities among marcher
barons which between
1176 and 1184 brought
Chepstow, Lower Gwent,
Glamorgan and Gower into
royal hands. As a result the
pressure from the marcher
barons was off. But instead
Rhys found himself hedged
round by royal bases under
assertive officials. Urged
on by an aggressive brood
of sons now reaching
manhood, Rhys changed
tack. Between 1182 and
1184, while Henry was out
of England, he ‘devastated
the king’s land and killed
his men’ (Roger of
Howden). When in 1184
this produced Henry’s
return, Rhys immediately
submitted, but then,
Henry’s campaign
abandoned, he refused to
implement promises he
had made. In the next few
years Rhys, with all his old
tactical skill, was testing
the ground to see just how
far he could go. His aim
was to take Gower,
Kidwelly and above all
Carmarthen, where royal
officials controlled traffic
on the Tywi and
monitored events some
fifteen miles away at
Dinefwr. It was to be a
policy pursued with vigour
after Henry’s death in
1189.
***
The Treaty of Falaise
left King William in an
appallingly dangerous
situation. Since he now
held his kingdom as a fief
from King Henry, it was
liable to forfeiture for any
act of disloyalty, much as
Scotland was ultimately
forfeited by John Balliol in
the 1290s. At the same
time his capture and
humiliation released all
the tensions within the
realm, rather as the
succession of the boy king
Malcolm had, back in
1153. William’s reaction
was the reverse of
unintelligent and hot-
headed. On the contrary
his flexible determination
saved the monarchy from
King Henry and increased
its authority over his
native subjects.
Henry’s overlordship
was far from merely
nominal. He garrisoned
the castles of Edinburgh,
Roxburgh and Berwick,
and thus virtually
excluded William from the
richest burghs in the
kingdom. As a
consequence, William
shifted his itinerary and
spent a much higher
proportion of his time
north of the Forth, notably
at Perth, Stirling and
Forfar. Henry also
summoned William to his
court. He was there in
eight of the fourteen years
between 1175 and 1188,
as against only two of the
seven years up to 1172.
The climax to this career
as the Angevin dynasty’s
‘house’ king came in 1186
when William married in
the royal chapel at
Woodstock the bride found
for him by King Henry,
namely Ermengarde,
daughter of the vicomte of
Beaumont, a lady of status
but few resources. Yet his
concurrence paid
dividends. Henry made
Ermengarde’s dowry the
castle of Edinburgh. He
had also been conciliatory
over William’s English
fiefs. He had never
confiscated Tynedale and
in 1185 returned the
earldom of Huntingdon,
allowing William to grant
it to his younger brother,
David.
In one area the Treaty
quickly came to nothing.
Its stipulation that the
Scottish church should
owe its ‘customary’
subjection to that of
England had an immediate
background in Malcolm’s
attempt to secure
metropolitan status for St
Andrews, thus freeing
Scotland from the claims
of York. ‘Customary’,
however, was deliberately
vague and almost
anticipated the upshot, a
renewal of the
Canterbury–York dispute
over where subjection was
due. In 1176 Pope
Alexander III kicked the
whole matter into touch
when he ordered the
Scottish bishops to
acknowledge the authority
of neither, and condemned
the ecclesiastical clauses of
the Treaty outright as a
shocking intrusion into
church affairs. This was
not something Henry much
regretted, having learnt
the dangers of powerful
archbishops. The
immediate sequel in
Scotland was a long
dispute over St Andrews,
where William in 1178
tried to force his chaplain,
Hugh, into the bishopric in
place of the cleric elected
by the canons, John the
Scot. Both the pope and
King Henry intervened. In
1181 William was briefly
excommunicated and his
kingdom placed under an
interdict, but he emerged
victorious. He excluded
the monk’s candidate and
on the death of his own in
1188 he succeeded in
placing his chancellor in
the bishopric. In 1192 the
pope issued a celebrated
bull (Cum Universi) which
confirmed and amplified
the verdict of 1176. The
‘Scottish church’, with its
nine named bishoprics,
was henceforth to be
subject directly to the
papal see. William had
retained his hold over
ecclesiastical appointments
and severed the Scottish
church definitively from
that of England.
The list of the Scottish
church’s bishoprics
included neither Argyll,
suggesting it was still
tenuously connected to the
kingdom, nor Galloway,
the latter acknowledged to
be subject to York. In fact
in Galloway, under cover
of Henry’s overlordship,
William had gone far to
reassert an authority
shaken in the aftermath of
the débâcle of 1174. The
native rulers, Gilbert and
Uhtred, hitherto held west
of the ancient frontier of
Galloway on the Urr, had
then destroyed both the
castle of Walter of
Berkeley astride the river
and Malcolm’s castle base
at Dumfries, expelling the
royal bailiffs from
Nithsdale. The number of
English settlers like Walter
was small. Some had been
introduced by Uhtred
himself from Cumbria,
Uhtred having married the
daughter of the lord of
Allerdale. Gilbert and
Uhtred’s father, Fergus,
had himself married an
illegitimate daughter of
Henry I and founded the
Premonstratensian house
at Soulseat. Galloway was
changing. Yet the brothers
probably exploited
widespread resentment.
Even today the motte at
Urr (the largest in
Scotland), sticking up like
a great thumb, seems an
awesome intrusion in the
landscape. King Henry’s
anxiety over security in
the north inevitably led
him to monitor events in
Galloway. It was the
recruiting ground for
violent soldiers, notorious
for their atrocities during
the Scottish invasions of
England. Events in the
province impinged on
Cumberland and Carlisle.
Henry’s policy was to use
King William to discipline
the native rulers, much
like the Lord Rhys in
Wales. Thus in 1176
William took an army into
Galloway and brought
Gilbert, who by this time
had murdered Uhtred,
south to swear fealty to
King Henry. When a
succession dispute arose
following Gilbert’s death
in 1185, Henry himself
marched to Carlisle and
made the new ruler,
Uhtred’s son Roland, agree
to stand to right ‘in the
court of the king of
England’ for the lands
claimed against him by
Gilbert’s son, who was
later compensated with the
earldom of Carrick. Roland
also swore fealty to Henry
and his heirs, this ‘by
command of the king of
Scotland’. Henry was not,
therefore, trying to prise
Galloway from its tenuous
place within the Scottish
realm. Indeed, with
Henry’s acquiescence
William rebuilt his castle
at Dumfries and saw
Walter of Berkeley
restored to Urr.
William’s harmonious if
humiliating relations with
King Henry also allowed
him to deal with problems
in the far north of his
realm. There royal
Scotland, the Scotland of
royal castles, thanages and
sheriffdoms, effectively
ended with Moray. Beyond
that stretched two
provinces with extensive
Norse settlement, namely
Ross, with its great timber
resources, and Caithness,
whose earl held Orkney
and Shetland from the
king of Norway. The
bishoprics of Ross and
Caithness were part of the
Scottish church in 1192
but the king of Scotland’s
overlordship over the
provinces was loose
indeed. Worse, Ross was
now to become the base
for a series of intermittent
but dangerous challenges
to the throne which lasted
down to 1230. They were
mounted by the MacHeths
and the MacWilliams, the
descendants of Malcolm
MacHeth and William fitz
Duncan. Malcolm MacHeth
(see above, pp. 179, 211)
had died as earl of Ross in
1164, after which no
successor appears in the
earldom, which suggests
the district’s
independence. The family,
perhaps in some way
throneworthy, had caused
trouble since the 1130s.
The MacWilliams were
certainly ‘descended from
the ancient line of the
Scottish kings’, as the
Barnwell annalist put it,
and had also nothing to do
with the dynasty of King
Malcolm and Queen
Margaret which had
introduced the Anglo-
Normans. Instead William
fitz Duncan was the son of
the King Duncan killed in
1094, the son of Malcolm
III’s first marriage, not his
second to Margaret. If
William fitz Duncan had
been turned by David’s
patronage into a pillar of
the throne (see above, p.
183), his son Donald
emerged in the 1180s as
its greatest challenger. He
enjoyed, according to
Howden, considerable
support from Scottish earls
and barons, and exploited
resentment against the
Anglo-Norman court. It
was while explaining the
MacWilliam risings that
the Barnwell annalist
remarked on how ‘the
modern kings of Scotland’
had reduced the Scots to
servitude, counting
themselves French and
keeping only Frenchmen in
their household.
The trouble in the
1180s centred on Ross and
Moray, to which Donald
may have had a claim
through his mother, and
was finally ended by the
killing of Aed, grandson of
MacHeth, in 1186, and of
Donald himself in the
following year. His death
seemed to contemporaries
to mark a turning-point
between years of
disturbance and the ‘great
peace’ that followed.
Certainly it was not till
1211–15 that the
MacWilliams and
MacHeths again caused
trouble. In Moray, William
built a new castle and
burgh at Nairn to control
the crossing to Cromarty,
and in the 1190s and
1200s he was able to
assert his power in
Caithness (see below, p.
256). He had therefore
triumphed over adversity.
In 1188 he led a unified
resistance to King Henry’s
demanded for taxation to
support his forthcoming
crusade. He was soon to
throw off the English yoke
altogether.
 ***
King Henry’s power in
Britain and elsewhere had
depended on the
rebuilding of his revenues
in England. His reign also
saw the foundation of the
common law. For that
reason more than any
other it constituted a
watershed in English
history. At the heart of the
common law lay new
procedures for civil
litigation which ultimately
transformed the nature of
kingship, government and
society. These have to be
placed in the wider
context of the structure of
courts in Henry’s day and
his insistent concern with
the punishment of crime
and the maintenance of
order.
 Henry II’s own court,
held in his presence
whether in England or
overseas, remained the
forum for great political
cases, notably those
between powerful barons,
or between a baron and
the king. But for less
important and more
routine cases other courts,
no less the king’s though
not held in his presence,
existed. At the centre the
chief officials of the
exchequer, increasingly
sitting at Westminster, did
not merely exact and audit
the revenue, they also
heard civil pleas. They had
done that intermittently
under Henry I. Now, at
least from the late 1170s,
they did so on a regular
basis. Alongside the
exchequer, and carrying a
far heavier load of
business, were the king’s
judges sent on visitations
(or eyres) around the
counties. There had been
judicial eyres under Henry
I but those of Henry II
were far more impressive.
Firstly, they were much
more frequent. In the
1120s the judges seem to
have covered the country
gradually. From 1174–5
onwards they travelled the
whole of England every
other year on average.
This was achieved by the
regular commissioning of
nationwide or ‘general’
eyres, with the entire
kingdom divided into
circuits in which separate
panels of judges operated
simultaneously; this
differed from the practice
under Henry I where the
judges confined their
activities at any one time
to one particular locality.
Secondly, the eyres of
Henry II did far more
business and in a far more
regular and systematized
way. This was partly
because the eyres as a
result of being so frequent
were able to take over
from sheriffs and local
justiciars the hearing of
the pleas of the crown,
thus giving the king a
much tighter control over
law and order.
The pleas of the crown,
as we have seen, had their
origins in Anglo-Saxon
times, and included all
major offences (‘felonies’)
against persons and
property – homicide,
robbery, serious theft and
assault, arson, rape – pleas
now for the first time
actually described as
‘criminal’ as distinct from
‘civil’: Glanvill or The
Treatise on the Laws and
Customs of England, written
c. 1189 by the legal circle
around Ranulf Glanvill,
Henry’s chief justiciar,
divided all pleas into those
two categories. In asserting
his control over ‘the
peace’, Henry faced one
developing problem. This
lay in the way that kings
since the Conquest had
often, as a form of
patronage, conceded
control of hundreds (and
the profits of their courts)
to great lords, lay and
ecclesiastical, sometimes
recognizing a de facto
situation which had
existed before 1066. The
jurisdiction of these courts
was over small debts, and
fights and brawls which
did not involve a breach of
the king’s peace. Such
cases of minor disorder
might also be heard in the
manorial court, with
whose jurisdiction there
was a great deal of
overlap. The Norman
kings, like their
predecessors before 1066,
had also granted lords the
right to have private
gallows on which to hang
thieves caught red-handed,
a liberty (‘infangenthief’)
which could be attached to
either a manorial or a
private hundred court. In a
private hundred it might
be the lord rather than the
sheriff who held every
Michaelmas the ‘view of
frankpledge’, which meant
checking to see that the
peasants were in their
tithing groups, a lucrative
exercise since the groups
could be subject to all
kinds of amercements.
This was essentially
‘magistrate court’
jurisdiction, which was
why kings were prepared
to give it away. Yet it still
meant that lords gained
powerful social controls
over the local population
and played a significant
part in the maintenance of
the peace. Henry was
determined to supervise
what was going on. A
government measure in
1166, the ‘Assize of
Clarendon’, laid down that
the sheriffs were to enter
all private courts, even if
held in castles, to check
personally that the
peasants were in their
tithing groups. At the same
time, no one was to
prevent sheriffs entering
their lands and
jurisdictions to arrest those
accused or outlawed for
serious crime.
All this was part of
major drive in 1165–6
designed to ‘keep the
peace’. Those accused of
serious crimes, if caught,
were to be tried by the
ordeal of water, an old
procedure, but now
apparently to replace all
others. Those convicted
were to lose a foot; ten
years later, by the assize of
Northampton ‘for the sake
of stern justice’ they were
to lose a hand as well.
Even those acquitted were
to leave the kingdom, if
they were of ill-fame. The
accusations which initiated
the procedures were the
responsibility of juries
composed of twelve
knights and freemen from
each hundred. Such juries
of presentment or
accusation can be traced
back to Anglo-Saxon times.
What seems to have been
new in 1166 was the king’s
insistence that they were
to operate throughout the
land.
Down to the 1160s, in
the absence of itinerant
justices the sheriffs and
local justiciars heard the
pleas of the crown, but
they did not always prove
very efficient. So in 1166,
by the Assize of Clarendon,
Henry placed the new
procedures under the
justices in eyre. Once their
visitations became regular
in the 1170s the whole
work of trying cases of
serious crime came to
depend on the connection
established between the
king’s judges and the local
juries. On it, too,
depended the maintenance
of royal rights, about
which the jurors had also
to answer a whole series of
questions. What lands, for
example, should be in the
king’s hands through
wardship or escheat? All
this was crown plea
business. The questions
(known as the ‘Articles of
the Eyre’) grew in size
from one visitation to the
next and came to embrace
the malpractices of local
officials, both royal and
baronial. The eyre thus
became a powerful
weapon in the king’s battle
to maintain his authority
in the localities.
Although much is
obscure about how Henry’s
measures worked in
practice, they do seem to
have brought about
significant changes. The
ordeal, instead of being a
procedure of last resort,
now appears to have
replaced other customary
methods of arriving at
guilt or innocence, such as
attempts to establish the
facts, and where these
were unclear, the swearing
of oaths. The usual
punishment, however,
remained death by
hanging. The ordeal might
be either by hot iron or by
water, in both the idea
being that it was God who
gave the verdict. In the
ordeal by water, those
accused were bound and
lowered into a pit full of
water. If they sank they
were innocent, and if they
floated, guilty, in the one
case being in effect
embraced by God and in
the other rejected. The
procedures were presided
over by the ecclesiastical
authorities. It was when
they were forbidden to
participate by the Fourth
Lateran Council in 1215
that the ordeal was
replaced by trial by jury.
Up to that point there was
a curious contrast between
the rationality of the new
procedures for civil
litigation introduced by
Henry, and the
irrationality of the
criminal. As for the
methods of accusation, the
generalization of the juries
of presentment seems to
have ended prosecution by
sheriffs and local justiciars,
but prosecution by
individuals continued (as
intended). Whether in fact
the maintenance of law
and order was better
served by all these
measures is unknowable.
Statistics from the
thirteenth century (see
below, p. 483) are not
encouraging. What is
certain is that the eyres
began to raise large sums
of money for the king: by
the 1240s the proceeds of
a nationwide visitation
amounted to over £20,000,
with judges sending back
regular reports about how
much they were making.
Two-thirds of the proceeds
from an eyre came from
the crown plea business –
from amercements
imposed on the juries of
presentment for such
things as concealment and
false presentation, from
the murdrum fine paid by
the hundred (see above, p.
102), and from the chattels
of convicted or outlawed
criminals, individually
small (since most criminals
were poor) but collectively
lucrative. The kings had
long been entitled to the
chattels forfeited through
crown pleas, but in 1166
Henry made a point of
stressing that they were
his and subsequently took
measures to ensure that he
got them.
Financially oppressive,
the crown pleas side of the
eyre was highly
unpopular. The civil side
was different, and it was
there that the really great
leap forward took place.
What made the eyres of
Henry II decisively
different from those of
Henry I was that they
heard civil pleas on an
altogether novel scale.
This was thanks to a series
of new legal procedures
called assizes which
brought such pleas before
them. These new
procedures lay at the heart
of the common law. The
most important of these
new assizes were mort
d’ancestor: a remedy for a
freeman denied succession
to his inheritance; and
novel disseisin: a remedy
for freeman disseised (that
is, dispossessed) of
property unjustly and
without judgement.
Neither of these assizes
were concerned (at least in
the first instance) with
questions of ultimate right
to land. Novel disseisin
turned on whether the
plaintiff had been
dispossessed without
judgement of a court, not
whether he had any right
to the property in the first
place. This greater
question of right was
decided by another new
procedure, that of the
grand assize. (Mort
d’ancestor, novel disseisin
and other similar
procedures were called, in
contrast, the petty assizes.)
Mort d’ancestor was
introduced in 1176 and
the grand assize in 1179.
Novel disseisin in its final
form may well have come
some years later. The key
point is that all these
assizes were well
established by the end of
the reign, when their
workings were explained
by Glanvill.
Grand assize was a
complex procedure. The
petty assizes, by contrast,
all ran on straightforward
and very similar lines. In
novel disseisin, for
example, the plaintiff,
having suffered disseisin,
went or sent a messenger
to the king and obtained
from the chancery the writ
which initiated the action.
If the king was overseas,
this would be issued by the
chief justiciar. The writ
was addressed to the
sheriff and ordered him to
bring a jury of twelve free
and law-worthy men
before the king’s justices
on their next visitation to
say, having viewed the
land, whether the plaintiff
had indeed been disseised
unjustly and without
judgement. The sheriff also
returned the writ itself to
the justices (hence it was a
‘returnable writ’) so that
they could see, by reading
it, what the case was
about. On the appointed
day the jurors gave their
verdict, and if it was for
the plaintiff the judges
gave judgement in his
favour and issued a writ in
the king’s name ordering
the sheriff to put him back
in seisin. They also, at
least in later practice,
awarded damages.
 There were, of course,
problems here. Sheriffs
might be inefficient and
juries corrupt. Obtaining
the originating writ was
clearly more expensive, in
terms of time and money,
the further one lived from
the king’s or justiciar’s
usual itinerary in the
south. Yet the new
procedures were entirely
voluntary. That people
throughout the country
came to use them in such
growing numbers shows
how valuable they were.
The procedures dealt with
issues that were central to
a society based on land
and over whose possession
there was so much dispute.
The politics of Stephen’s
reign had seemed nothing
but a universal dispute
over seisin and
inheritance. Now there
was an alternative to the
round of violence which
might be triggered by self-
help. This implies the new
legal procedures were
significantly better than
the old and, with due
allowance for lack of
evidence, this was indeed
the case. Their distinctive
features were as follows:
 1. There had always
been legal actions over
disseisin and inheritance,
but each of the new
actions dealt with a clear
and distinctive problem,
defined by the question to
the jury. Has A disseised B
unjustly and without
judgement? Did A die
possessed of the property
‘in fee’ and is B his nearest
heir? It was thus evident
to plaintiffs what the
actions were about and
which one suited their
needs. It was equally clear
to juries what they had to
decide.
2. There was a new
emphasis on speed in
reaching a verdict, an
emphasis which in
Glanvill’s account of them
ran explicitly through all
the assizes, reaching a
climax in novel disseisin
where the defendant was
not allowed a single
essoin, that is excuse for
non-attendance, and the
jury gave its verdict
whether or not he
appeared.
3. The verdict was by a
jury, the rationality of
which Glanvill specifically
contrasted with trial by
battle, the means by which
such cases had sometimes
been decided in the past.
4. The cases came
before the king’s judges, as
opposed to the county
court or the honourial
court of a lord, a key
advantage if the lord
himself had committed the
disseisin or had kept the
plaintiff out of his
inheritance. The king’s
judges, moreover, now had
a far more important role
than in the past. Under
Henry I those on eyre had
merely presided over civil
cases, with judgements
being given by suitors to,
that is those attending, the
county courts. Under
Henry II the judges gave
the judgements themselves
after receiving the verdict
from the jury. It was the
new assizes, excluding the
county suitors and relying
on the verdict of a small
jury selected by the sheriff,
which opened up this role.
The uniformity of the
assizes also invited the
judges to formulate
standard rules of
procedure (Glanvill is full
of them), which did much
to create the common law,
something impossible in
the past because of the
multiplicity of procedures
followed by the county
courts.
5. Before the new
assizes kings from Anglo-
Saxon times had issued
writs commissioning juries
to hear civil cases. But
they did so ad hoc as acts
of favour, perhaps
sometimes in return for
large sums of money. Now
the writs which originated
the new assizes were
issued routinely and at low
prices. Quite probably the
6d. per writ, for which
there is later evidence, was
the usual fee from the
start. With a day’s wage
for a labourer about a
penny, that was a sum
within the reach of the
humblest freeman. More
than anything else it was
the low cost and routine
issue of the writs (called
writs de cursu, ‘of course’)
which made possible the
great expansion in royal
justice.
Writs, sheriffs, juries
deciding civil actions, and
the concepts of seisin,
inheritance and right had
all existed long before
Henry II. Henry I had been
determined to supervise
the jurisdiction of private
courts and, if necessary
remove cases from them
(see above, p. 157). But
hard creative thinking was
needed to put all this
together to form
procedures of such
supreme utility. The idea
of ‘utility’ indeed ran
throughout Henry II’s
administration. As the
author of the Dialogue put
it, he wrote of things not
theoretical but useful (non
subtilia sed utilia). Likewise
Glanvill when discussing
the grand assize declared
that the judges should
always strive to make it
‘more useful and equitable’
(utilius et equius). Utility
and equity were closely
linked and lay behind
many key features of the
assizes, including the
numerous rules governing
procedure and the way
judges, on eyre and at the
exchequer, were by the
end of the reign recording
the cases they heard on
rolls, the beginnings of the
plea rolls.
 Essential to the running
of Henry’s system of law
were his judges and in
particular a core group of
under twenty who served
either on several eyres or
for long periods at the
exchequer, sometimes
both. It was these men
who must have done the
thinking which made the
developments possible.
Roughly half were clerks
and three were university
masters. Certainly the
development of law under
Henry II, like the Becket
dispute, is
incomprehensible outside
the wider developments of
European learning.
Knowledge of Roman law
both sharpened the
distinction between right
and seisin and provided
Glanvill with his categories
of criminal and civil pleas.
The new learning was
apparent in the whole
drive to categorize and
record seen in the writing
of Glanvill and the
introduction of the plea
rolls. To this academic
knowledge was joined a
wealth of practical
experience brought by the
lay contingent among the
judges. Ranulf Glanvill’s
father was a Suffolk knight
who had spent long years
attending the local courts.
Glanvill himself had held
several sheriffdoms (and
captured the king of Scots
in 1174) before moving to
the higher reaches of the
royal service and
ultimately the
justiciarship.
Henry II himself,
according to Ralph of Diss,
took immense care over
the selection of his judges.
He may well have
participated in their
discussions about the new
civil procedures. He also
showed great skill in
settling difficult lawsuits
(according to Walter Map),
discussed the precise
wording of charters with
his ministers and devised
formulas to get round legal
problems. His general
concern for peace and
justice drove on the
developments in both
criminal and civil law.
According to William of
Newburgh, he was
‘extremely studious’ and a
‘fitting minister of God’ in
punishing malefactors and
preserving the public
peace. Ralph of Diss saw
him as ‘the father of the
English’, ‘more and more
solicitous of the common
health’ and ‘most intent on
exhibiting justice to
everybody’, precisely what
the new assizes did. Well
might Glanvill describe the
grand assize as a ‘royal
benefit granted to the
people’. Henry was
certainly well aware that
justice was profitable, but
that was not a major
motive behind the assizes.
The small individual sums
paid for the writs went to
the chancellor; the value
of the amercements was
significant but not
overwhelming.
The assizes did,
however, help to enhance
royal authority, chiming
exactly with Henry’s
determination, much like
his grandfather’s to
maintain a direct
relationship with under-
tenants, and assert his
authority over private
courts and jurisdictions. If
a dispute over seisin or
inheritance was between
tenants of the same lord,
or between a tenant and
his lord, then the new
procedures opened up the
king’s court for the under-
tenants involved, taking
the case out of the
honourial court of their
lords. The king also
developed a direct
relationship with the
under-tenants by using
them to staff the juries on
which the new procedures
depended. Though
certainly welcoming the
gradual flow of business
into his courts, Henry’s
aim was less to subvert
than supervise private
jurisdiction. If the action
of novel disseisin was
aimed particularly at lords
who had been disseising
their tenants, the
implication was that the
latter should secure
judgements in their courts
before doing so. It was
likewise to monitor rather
than undermine that the
legal rule described in
Glanvill was established,
namely that anyone
wishing to bring a
property action in the
court of a lord had to
commence his case with a
writ from the king, the
‘writ of right’ ordering the
lord to do justice in the
case, and declaring that
the king would, if he failed
to do so.
Glanvill resonates with
pride at the procedures it
describes, yet it can
scarcely have anticipated
the sheer scale of their
success. On the Wiltshire
eyre of 1194, the first eyre
for which records survive,
there were fourteen
actions of novel disseisin
and fourteen of mort
d’ancestor. On the eyre of
1249 there were
respectively 105 and 109.
And there would have
been similar increases in
every county. These
procedures had proved
immensely popular, and
they had come to be
surrounded by many
others which worked on
similar lines. As Glanvill
remarked, ‘it is easy to
formulate writs to deal
with different matters’,
thus pointing the way
forward for the whole
future of the common law.
That law came to be
viewed increasingly as a
series of separate
procedures each originated
by its own ‘original’ writ.
By the time of Glanvill
there were already fifteen
such writs. By 1272 there
were over sixty-five.
Absolutely central to
the success and
significance of the
procedures was the range
of their appeal, an appeal
essentially to sections of
society beneath the
baronage. The litigants
came from the county
gentry, from the kind of
middling under-tenants
who staffed the hundred
juries (see below, p. 411),
and from the free
peasantry. The amounts of
land involved were often
very small: 60 per cent of
identifiable properties in
cases on the 1240 Suffolk
eyre were under ten acres
in extent. More than
anything else, the growing
number of litigants using
royal procedures before
royal judges widened the
scope, enhanced the utility
and ensured the future of
royal government. Magna
Carta in 1215 condemned
much of what Angevin
kingship had done, but
welcomed the petty assizes
of Henry II.
Whatever Henry’s
intentions, in the long
term the effect of the
assizes was certainly to
weaken a baron’s control
over his tenants. Although
as early as the reign of
Henry I the latter had
sometimes challenged and
escaped the jurisdiction of
the honourial court, they
could now do so much
more easily. Mort
d’ancestor did not create
hereditary succession for
under-tenants (many fees
had been hereditary since
their creation after the
Conquest), but it certainly
made it more difficult for
lords to deny it. Likewise,
novel disseisin made lords
less ready to discipline
their tenants by seizing
their land (having to go
through a tedious court
process or face novel
disseisin). The earl of
Warwick when he
disseised one tenant,
Richard of Claverdon, for
default of service did take
the precaution of getting a
judgement of his court
first, but Richard still
brought and won an action
of novel disseisin against
him before the eyre at
Coventry in 1221, and the
earl was amerced £27.
That lords resented the
interference is shown by
the clause in Magna Carta
which prevented cases
being removed from their
courts by the use of a
particular writ, praecipe.
Yet ‘feudal’ jurisdiction
was still important in the
thirteenth century, and
continued to stand with
other pillars of baronial
power. (For further
discussion, see below, pp.
403–10.) In Henry’s reign
and those of his sons, what
seemed more serious for
the barons (or at least
those out of favour) was
that, when litigating
against each other, they
were excluded from the
benefits of the cheap,
regular, standard-form
litigation offered by the
assizes. This was because
as tenants-in-chief they
were subject directly to the
jurisdiction of the king and
had to litigate in his
presence. While judgement
ought ultimately to be by
their ‘peers’, that is their
social equals and thus
their fellow barons, there
were all kinds of traps the
king could spring before a
case got that far. This
helps to explain a paradox
in Henry’s reputation. On
the one hand he was
praised by contemporaries
for his zeal for justice, on
the other condemned for
the way he delayed and
sold it. The contrast is
between the routine cases
involving unimportant
men covered by the great
bulk of the assizes, and
those between great men
where ‘justice’ was really a
branch of patronage and
where it might indeed be
sold or (for good
prudential reasons)
delayed or denied; hence
the way Henry dealt with
the disputes arising from
Stephen’s reign, favouring
some barons, disfavouring
others. Henry’s successors
acted in a similar fashion,
and were ultimately
brought to book by Magna
Carta.
 If the baronage were
prevented from using the
new procedures, at least
when litigating against
each other, so were a
proportion of the
peasantry. Indeed it was
worse than that. One result
of the measures was
decisively to depress a
section of the peasantry’s
legal status. The rigid
dividing line between the
free and the unfree
(discussed above, p. 53)
was very much the product
of the new assizes, because
the king’s judges decided
to prevent peasants who
performed labour services
from using those assizes
against their lords. To do
so they deemed such men
unfree villeins and laid
down that the new
procedures were only open
to the free. For all matters
connected with their land
and services (though not
their lives and limbs)
unfree peasants were now
legally subject to the
jurisdiction of their lords.
Intentionally or not, the
latter had received a quid
pro quo for the new assizes
being open to their free
tenants. For a significant
proportion of the
population, the common
law was not common at
all.
This was not something
that bothered
contemporary
commentators on the legal
system. Indeed it seemed
absolutely right. So did the
fact that women, even
when free and noble, were
certainly not equal under
the law (see below, pp.
416–17). In the thirteenth
century contemporaries
spoke increasingly and
without apology of ‘the
common law’, by which
they meant the legal
procedures common to the
whole kingdom both in
terms of their form and
their general applicability.
These ‘general’ laws and
customs of the king’s court
were the avowed subject
of Glanvill, not the
procedures of other courts
(county, hundred and
private) for these were, as
Glanvill said, simply too
numerous to write down.
The foundations for the
common law had been laid
in both the Anglo-Saxon
period, with the royal
monopoly over cases of
crime, and in Anglo-
Norman times, with the
beginnings of the eyre and
the general customs of
feudal tenure. But it was
under Henry II that the
structure really came into
being.
***
Henry loved his sons
and quickly forgave their
rebellion. He still wanted,
as Ralph of Diss observed,
to make them ‘lords of
great nations’ whose
peoples they would govern
‘with moderation’,
terrorizing tyrants and
destroying enemies.
Richard was restored to
Aquitaine where he
suppressed local revolts, in
the process performing
extraordinary feats of
arms. In Brittany, Geoffrey
(after he at last married
Constance in 1181)
enjoyed considerable
independence and presided
over important
administrative reforms.
The Young King went on a
joyous round of
tournaments and was
praised by Henry for his
exploits. He was also
involved in the
government of England
and (in 1177) helped make
good his father’s claims to
the great castle of
Châteauroux in Berry. In
the late 1170s, when he
also made a bid for
Angoulême, Henry seemed
as assertive as ever. As he
told the Young King, he
had lost nothing of his
rights when he ruled
alone, and it would be
shameful to lose them now
when he had sons to rule
with him.
Yet in the last decade of
his life Henry mellowed.
He declared he would no
longer appoint prelates for
other than spiritual
reasons, and made the
saintly and courageous
Carthusian, Hugh of
Avalon, bishop of Lincoln.
According to William of
Newburgh, he became
increasingly sick of war
and anxious not to stir it
up. Yet peace he did not
have. In 1183 friction
between himself and the
Young King and between
the latter and Richard
exploded in a violent
conflict which was ended
only by the Young King’s
sudden death on 11 June
1183. The death of
Geoffrey in 1186, leaving
an infant child, Arthur, by
his wife Constance as heir
to Brittany, meant that of
Henry’s sons only Richard
and John survived.
Richard now wanted to be
recognized as heir to
England, Normandy and
Anjou, but Henry, after his
experiences with the
Young King, would not
indulge him – or not
unless Richard surrendered
Aquitaine to John, which
he utterly refused to do.
These problems might
have been contained had it
not been for the
involvement of the king of
France. Here Henry found
himself faced with a new
and dangerous antagonist.
Louis VII had died in 1180
and been succeeded by his
fifteen-year-old son Philip,
one day to be called
Augustus. Philip was wily,
unscrupulous, and
unwaveringly clear about
his main objective: to
increase his power and
diminish that of Henry II
and his successors. In the
short term he wished to
defeat Henry II’s challenge
in Berry and to recover
Gisors and the Norman
Vexin. Ultimately, in a
reign which lasted until
1223, he was to destroy
the Angevin empire
altogether. Philip naturally
sought to weaken Henry
by championing Richard’s
demands, demands given
an added impetus by a
new factor which was soon
to transform European
politics. This was the
overwhelming imperative
of the crusade.
 Henry II’s attitude to
the crusade had been
sympathetic but non-
participatory. He sent
considerable sums of
money to the Holy Land
but refused to go there in
person, even in 1185 when
he was urged to do so by
the patriarch of Jerusalem.
Two years later these
hesitations were swept
away by Saladin’s crushing
victory at the battle of
Hattin (3 July 1187) and
his capture that October of
Jerusalem itself. Henry
took the cross, as did
Richard and King Philip.
Richard, however, was
determined to have the
succession settled before
his departure. When it was
not, he defied his father
and formally threw in his
lot with Philip, who in
November 1188
recognized him as heir to
the Angevin dominions. In
May 1189 the two of them
drove Henry from Le Mans
(his birthplace) and early
in July forced him to agree
a humiliating settlement.
Henry cursed the traitors
who had deserted him
(they now included John)
and vowed revenge. But
the poison from an ulcer
was gradually spreading
through his body. He
retreated to Chinon and
died there on 6 July. A few
days later he was taken
down the river Vienne for
burial by the nuns at
Fontevraud.
Clerical writers found it
easy to explain Henry’s
tragic end. It was surely
God’s punishment for his
persecution of Becket and
his initial refusal to join
the crusade. Other groups
had their own grievances:
peasants excluded from
the common law;
magnates denied justice
(or what they thought was
justice); the numerous
victims of the forest law.
Yet chroniclers like Ralph
of Diss, William of
Newburgh and Ralph of
Coggeshall also expressed
immense admiration for
the king. Again and again
Diss pictured him
returning to England
having secured peace
throughout his dominions,
dominions which stretched
from the mountains of the
Pyrenees to the Breton
ocean and from there to
the borders of France. ‘The
whole of human fate
seemed to respond to the
nod of the king.’ Here also
was a king with a real
sense of care for his
kingdom, who had
restored its mutilated
frontiers, recovered the
rights of the crown,
restored peace and order
and built the common law.
His successor was to be
very different.
8

Richard the
Lionheart,
1189–99, and
William the
Lion
King Richard I, conqueror
of Cyprus, crusader
extraordinary (the
sobriquet ‘Lionheart’ was
contemporary), spent less
than six months of his ten-
year reign in England. Yet
his crusade and his
subsequent wars with the
king of France which
explain that absence
placed the kingdom under
novel pressures, which
culminated under King
John with the rebellion of
1215 and Magna Carta.
Richard’s reign was
equally consequential for
the dynasty’s wider
dominions. Normandy’s
defences were significantly
undermined,
foreshadowing its ultimate
loss to the king of France
in 1204. Scotland, under
King William, recovered its
independence. William’s
own sobriquet, ‘the Lion’,
was not contemporary, but
it was deserved.
At turns affable and
intimidating, depending on
his audience, Richard was
domineering in the council
chamber and supreme in
the field of war. A master
of logistics, strategy and
battlefield tactics, he led
from the front, aware of
the risks but also of the
valuable example. Outside
Gisors in 1198, against all
advice, he plunged into the
fray, unhorsed three
knights with a single
lance, and then publicized
the exploit throughout his
dominions. Here then was
a ‘great and fierce
character’, as William of
Newburgh put it, and he
had as his helper an
‘incomparable woman’, to
quote Richard of Devizes,
namely the queen mother,
Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Before his arrival in
England, Richard had
already sent letters
ordering her release from
captivity; and although in
her mid sixties, instead of
retiring to Poitou she had
gone on a progress,
opening the prisons and
receiving oaths of
allegiance to her son and
herself. Assigned an
extensive dower, some of
it (like Exeter)
traditionally associated
with queens, Eleanor was
now to play a central role
in the diplomacy, politics
and government of the
Angevin empire, acting at
times as virtual regent in
England. Although she
interceded for John, her
youngest son, she was
utterly loyal to Richard on
whose authority, formal
and informal, her power
depended.
Richard’s accession
brought a temporary halt
to the conflict with King
Philip. The two agreed to
crusade together and
Richard succeeded to the
Angevin dominions
without difficulty. On 13
August 1189 he landed in
England. On 3 September
he was crowned. On 11
December he departed.
Throughout the three
months, preparations for
the crusade overshadowed
everything else. For
Richard the Mediterranean
hardly seemed remote. His
sister had married the king
of Sicily. The descendants
of his great-grandfather,
Fulk of Anjou, had been
kings of Jerusalem. For
someone often prey to a
morbid sense of his own
sinfulness, the spiritual
benefits of the crusade,
with the promise of
remission of all sins, were
compelling. So was the
chance to exercise martial
talents, as St Bernard had
so often said, not against
fellow Christians but
against the infidels, and at
a time when the issue was
the very survival of the
crusader state and the
recovery of Jerusalem
itself. (For further
discussion of crusading see
below, pp. 455–9.)
Richard’s commitment
to the cause of Christ won
him immense respect, nor
was he heedless of the
security of his dominions.
In 1190, before his
departure, he toured
Aquitaine and protected its
southern boundaries by
arranging to marry
Berengaria, daughter of
the king of Navarre.
Likewise he took steps to
keep in check both King
William of Scotland and
the Welsh rulers. The five
ministers on England’s
regency council were
trustworthy and
experienced. Richard
secured the loyalty of one
of them, William Marshal,
by marrying him to the
daughter of Richard fitz
Gilbert (Strongbow) thus
making him a great baron
in Ireland, Wales and
Normandy. Richard’s
overriding aim, however,
was to gain the resources
for his crusade. In England
he received money for
making men sheriffs and
for conceding to heirs and
claimants a wide range of
lands which Henry II held
in hand through wardships
and forfeitures. The results
were spectacular. The
revenue recorded in the
pipe roll of 1190 was
£31,000, £10,000 more
than in 1188. Yet there
was also a cost. At the very
top of the government
Richard’s arrangements
were shambolic, for the
new justiciar, Hugh de
Puiset, bishop of Durham,
who had been appointed
not from ‘zeal for justice’
but simply for the money
he offered, clashed
repeatedly with William
Longchamp, bishop of Ely,
Richard’s chancellor and
protégé. Instability was
also inherent in the
extraordinary favours
Richard bestowed on his
younger brother John,
who now demanded
recognition as heir to the
Angevin dominions. This
Richard refused to
concede, but he tried to
kill discontent with
kindness. John was
already lord of Ireland and
count of Mortain. Richard
now married him to
Isabella, whose inheritance
included the earldom of
Gloucester and lordship of
Glamorgan. The union had
long been planned by
Henry II, but it is difficult
to believe that Henry
would have given John in
addition six castles and
total control of seven
English counties, counties
which now simply
disappeared from the pipe
rolls, the chief records of
the exchequer.
William of Newburgh
criticized Richard for
dismembering his
kingdom, and showing a
lack of care for its subjects,
criticism which shows just
how powerful the
Henrician model of good
kingship had become.
Roger of Howden
remarked testily how
‘everything was for sale,
counties, sheriffdoms,
castles and manors’. Yet
when daring councillors
objected that Richard was
alienating the possessions
of the crown, the king
merely laughed, declaring,
‘I would sell London if I
could find a buyer.’ He
saw nothing permanent
about the concessions and
resumed many of them on
his return in 1194. In any
case, his agenda and
situation were different
from his father’s. Richard
was used to the
decentralized form of rule
in Aquitaine. The kingdom
he inherited was wealthy
and at peace. Instead of
labouring to restore royal
rights he could happily
give them away to please
John and fund the crusade.
That crusade moreover
was in many ways a
triumphant success. ‘Many
famous and magnificent
deeds were done by him in
those parts, so that he
triumphed in every
conflict and freed the
greater part of that land
from the enemies of
Christ.’ So said Abbot
Ralph of Coggeshall,
succinctly summing up the
achievement.
Richard arrived in
Sicily, on his way to
Palestine, in September
1190. He immediately
plunged into a quarrel
over the dower of his sister
Joan, widow of the last
Norman king of Sicily,
seizing the city of Messina
in the process. Then, as
part of the settlement, he
recognized his nephew
Arthur, son of Geoffrey of
Brittany, as his heir and
agreed he should marry
the daughter of Tancred,
the new Sicilian ruler.
Richard knew this would
grievously offend John
back home but the funds
and support which the
agreement gained for the
crusade seemed far more
important. Having
wintered in Sicily, Richard
sailed for the east on 10
April 1191. By the end of
May he had conquered
Cyprus, thus securing a
valuable base to support
the crusade. On 8 June he
joined King Philip at the
siege of Acre, before its
capture by Saladin the
greatest city and port of
the old crusading
kingdom. He drove the
siege forward with a new
vigour and on 12 July the
city surrendered. Early in
August King Philip
returned to France to make
good his rights to Artois
following the count of
Flanders’s death. Richard
knew that Philip might
threaten his continental
dominions, but he had no
intention of returning
himself, a telling
illustration of the two
kings’ different priorities.
In any case Richard with
Philip had always been, as
Richard of Devizes put it,
like a cat with a hammer
tied to its tail.
 In the year and two
months in which he
remained in the east,
Richard twice advanced to
within twelve miles of
Jerusalem, only to retreat
because he lacked
resources for a lengthy
siege. However, he
extended the crusading
kingdom southwards,
notably by taking and
fortifying Jaffa, so doing
much to ensure the
kingdom’s survival for
another hundred years. He
also established his
nephew, Henry of
Champagne, as ruler in
Jerusalem and
compensated a rival
candidate, Guy de
Lusignan, with the gift of
Cyprus, which the
Lusignans were to rule till
1489. Truly no king of
England had ever wielded
such power on the
European stage. His
atrocities and exploits
became the stuff of legend:
the beheading of some
3,000 prisoners taken at
Acre; his decisive charge at
the battle of Arsuf; his
jumping into the sea and
leading his knights ashore
to rescue Jaffa; and the
silver shackles which he
made for the ruler of
Cyprus, thus fulfilling his
promise not to put him in
irons!
Richard sailed from
Acre on 9 October 1191.
The plots of John and King
Philip made his swift
return essential. But the
journey was a disaster.
Weather in the
Mediterranean, the
enemies along its shores,
forced him to travel in
disguise through Austria.
Outside Vienna on 20
December he was taken
prisoner, eventually
passing in March 1192
into the hands of the
Emperor Henry VI. Henry,
a claimant to Sicily
through his wife, was
trying to wrest the
kingdom from Tancred,
Richard’s ally. For
Richard’s release he
demanded a ransom of
£100,000, money he
would use to conquer
Sicily.
While Richard had been
away, his government in
England had proved
incapable of keeping the
peace. The principal
victims were the Jews who
suffered in 1190 a series of
horrific attacks on their
lives and properties.
Henry II’s sponsorship
of the Jews, declared
William of Newburgh, had
disfigured his rule, here
expressing a general
opinion made all the
sharper by the crusading
fervour. There was envy of
Jewish wealth,
ostentatiously displayed in
great townhouses, and
while men needed their
credit, they loathed the
usury which necessarily
went with it. Usury took
several forms, all of them
having been practised
equally by Christian
financiers like William
Cade. The interest rate
might be one or two pence
a pound per week, that is
22 per cent or 44 per cent
per annum. It could run
from the moment the loan
was contracted or, as a
kind of penalty clause (this
more acceptable to the
church), from the moment
repayment was due. Most
loans were short-term and
became due after a year.
The loans were often
secured on land, with the
result that a great deal of
it came into Jewish hands.
Alternatively, those unable
to pay often raised the
money by selling land to
fellow Christians, even to
the point of ruin. Most of
the loans were of small
amounts to men of small
estate. But the bulk of the
money (and thus the
greatest profit) was tied up
in significant sums from
tens to hundreds of pounds
loaned to the great, loaned
that is to knights, barons
and ecclesiastical
institutions; precisely the
classes most able to make
their resentment felt.
Religious intolerance
gave an extra edge to this
resentment. The Jews were
not merely infidels. They
were also the murderers of
Christ. The Third Lateran
Council in 1179 stressed
the dangers of spiritual
contamination through
contact with them.
Throughout Europe violent
assaults on Jewish
communities were on the
increase – at Blois, for
example, in May 1171. But
it was in England that the
powerful and pernicious
belief originated that the
Jews ritually parodied the
murder of Christ by seizing
and crucifying small
Christian boys; the source
of the belief was the
alleged murder of a boy,
‘little St William’, at
Norwich in 1144, after
which there were further
‘martyrdoms’ at Gloucester
(1168), Bury St Edmunds
(1181) and Bristol (1183).
On top of all this was the
growing fervour over the
crusade. By despoiling the
Jews, those who had taken
the cross could both fund
their expeditions and make
an early start assaulting
the infidel.
By 1189 these waves of
antipathy were held back
only by the stout banks of
Henrician power. Under
Richard they gave way. On
the day of the coronation
the city mob and those
gathered in town for the
ceremony slaughtered
London Jews and
plundered and fired their
properties. Richard was
furious but his
punishments for once were
inadequate. Next year,
with both Justiciar Puiset
and Chancellor
Longchamp across the
Channel, similar outrages
occurred at King’s Lynn,
Norwich, Bury St
Edmunds, Stamford and
Lincoln. The climax was
reached at York. The
Jewish community there
had been established in
the 1170s. By 1189 it
numbered around 150
men, women and children
and was dominated by two
great financiers, Benedict
and Josce (the former
fatally wounded on the
day of the coronation),
whose great houses were a
source of wonder and
envy. There was also a
celebrated Jewish scholar,
Rabbi Yomtob of Joigny.
The Christian assailants,
whose background and
circumstances were well
analysed by William of
Newburgh, were led by
local barons and knights
heavily in debt to the
Jews, often with their
lands in pledge. They were
joined by crusaders
looking for plunder, a
fanatical
Premonstratensian hermit,
and clergy, youths and
workmen from the town;
the city magnates stood
aside, fearing royal
reprisal. After the initial
attack on their houses, the
Jews found safety in the
castle, only then to shut
out the castellan, not
surprisingly since he was
Richard Malebisse, a
northern baron who was
himself heavily in debt.
Malebisse mounted an all-
out siege and by 16 March,
the eve of the Jewish
‘great Sabbath’, the
position in the castle was
hopeless. Rabbi Yomtob
persuaded his fellows to
follow the course
sanctioned by long
precedent. Fathers cut the
throats of their wives and
children; Rabbi Yomtob
cut the throats of the men,
concluding with Josce’s
and his own. A dissident
group, who hoped to live
by embracing Christianity,
were slaughtered by the
Christians as they
surrendered. The
murderers, combining
barbarity with business,
then proceeded to the
minster where they
destroyed the evidence of
their indebtedness by
burning all the ‘bonds’, the
written records of Jewish
loans, which were
deposited there.
 The massacre sent shock
waves through the Jewish
communities of Europe
and inspired at least three
Hebrew elegies. In May
1190 Chancellor
Longchamp descended on
York to restore order. If he
inflicted no corporal
penalties, he certainly
confiscated the lands of
murderers and imposed
substantial fines. The Jews
eventually returned to the
city and formed one of the
wealthiest English
communities in the
thirteenth century. For the
Jews as a whole the events
of 1189–90 proved but a
temporary setback.
Attitudes to them were far
less immutable than those
events implied. Admittedly
even the humane and
judicious William of
Newburgh considered the
attacks, at least on
property, a judgement of
God on the Jews’
burgeoning pride. Yet the
attackers too, covetous and
unauthorized, were evil.
Their actual slaughter of
the Jews seemed forbidden
by the Psalmist: ‘Slay them
not lest my people forget’,
a passage made famous by
St Bernard which was also
quoted by Ralph of Diss in
connection with the
killings. The Jews, in
short, were to be preserved
as a reminder of Christ’s
passion, and also as
material for conversion to
Christianity. If they were
also to live humbly and
apart, that was never
compatible with their
credit activities which
continued to be
desperately needed. In
practice Jews often
established reasonable
working relationships both
with their clients and their
neighbours, hence their
ability to store bonds in
York Minster.
Above all, the Jews
survived and flourished
because they were
generally protected and
promoted by the king. The
Jews and all their
possessions had always
belonged to the crown. As
Henry II came to realize,
the king could levy tax or
‘tallage’, as it was called,
on them at will. Between
1186 and 1194 the total
demanded was well over
£13,333. The king could
also extract money on the
death of a Jew for
allowing the family to
succeed to his property,
which was mostly
composed of the portfolio
of debts. Alternatively, as
was done with Aaron of
Lincoln, the king could
retain the property in his
own hands and collect the
debts for himself, which
meant that numerous
Christians ended up
making their repayments
to the king. The king could
also impose large financial
penalties for a range of
often trumped-up offences.
In 1130 the London Jews
owed £2,000 for allegedly
murdering a sick man. The
greater the exploitation,
the greater too the
pressure on the Christian
debtors, so the king was
sailing here in dangerous
waters politically. But the
profits were large and the
king had every reason to
protect their source. For
this reason, a royal castle
was always the resort of
Jews in time of trouble. It
was security as much as
business which tied them
to the towns.
In the aftermath of the
events of 1189–90 the
government developed
new institutions and
procedures both for
exploiting and protecting
the Jews. A group of
officials had been
appointed to deal with the
numerous debts seized by
the king on the death of
Aaron of Lincoln. In the
1190s, described formally
as ‘the justices of the
Jews’, they and their
successors took on a wider
role. Sitting with Jews
appointed by the king (the
chief was called the ‘arch-
priest’) they were
responsible for collecting
Jewish taxation and the
debts owed by Christians
which had come into the
king’s hands. They also
ordered the sheriffs to help
Jews collect their debts,
and provided a less
prejudiced forum for
Jewish litigation against
Christians than that
offered by local courts.
Essentially a sub-branch of
the main exchequer, in the
thirteenth century this
body became called ‘the
exchequer of the Jews’. In
1194 the whole process of
Jewish money-lending in
the localities was also
regulated, in part to
prevent the kind of
destruction of records
which had taken place in
1190. Henceforth the
contracting of loans and
their repayment was to be
confined to six or seven
main towns under the
oversight of two
Christians, two Jews and
clerks of the central
justices. Each town was to
have a chest (an archa)
where a copy of the bond
recording the loan was to
be deposited, the other
copy being kept by the
Jew. All the bonds and
repayments were also
recorded on separate rolls.
These arrangements, with
some modifications (the
number of towns was soon
increased to seventeen),
survived until the
expulsion of the Jews in
1290.
 The Jews had been in
the eye of a more general
storm stirred up by
Richard’s absence and
arrangements. Having
sought to placate John by
giving him great power, he
had then provoked him by
promising the succession
to Arthur. It was William
Longchamp who had to
pick up the pieces. Having
finally supplanted Puiset
in June 1190 he was now
justiciar as well as
chancellor. He had also
secured a legatine
commission from the pope.
Longchamp was quick-
witted, courageous and
completely loyal to
Richard. He was also an
experienced and
innovative administrator.
It was he who introduced
for the first time to
charters and writs a
concluding clause, party
modelled on papal
practice, which gave their
date of issue. (Before that
only the place of issue had
been included.) But
Longchamp imitated his
master’s arrogance and
was soon widely
stigmatized as a misshapen
little monkey of a man,
who came from Norman
peasant stock and despised
English customs – an early
sign of national feeling! A
virtual civil war in the
summer of 1191, when
Lincoln castle was
defended by its Amazonian
lady castellan Nicola de la
Haye, was concluded by an
agreement between John
and the government which
read like a treaty between
two independent states.
Then in September
Longchamp arrested
Geoffrey, archbishop of
York (Henry II’s
illegitimate son), and was
ousted in the ensuing
outcry. John was
recognized as Richard’s
heir. The government was
taken over by an
acceptable Norman,
Walter, archbishop of
Rouen, a change Richard
himself had sanctioned
back in February on
hearing news of
Longchamp’s performance.
King Philip’s return to
France at the end of 1191
brought fresh strains. He
had left as Richard’s friend
and he came back as his
enemy. The immediate
reason centred on his sister
Alice. She had long been
intended as Richard’s bride
and to that end had been
brought up at the Angevin
court. Philip indeed had
agreed to resign his claims
to Gisors and the Norman
Vexin to their heirs. Henry
II, however, had refused to
allow the marriage to go
ahead. Now it could. Yet
Richard married
Berengaria instead. There
were strategic reasons for
that marriage, but they
only operated once Alice
had been rejected, rejected
because she had been
Henry II’s mistress. Queen
Eleanor was so opposed to
the match that she herself
brought Berengaria out to
Richard at Messina. For all
the proffered
compensation, Philip
remained bitterly
offended. On Richard’s
capture in December 1192
he offered Alice to John
(whose wife could be
divorced) and took his
homage for all the
continental lands. John
falsely proclaimed that
Richard was dead and
demanded recognition as
king of England.
In England, Queen
Eleanor held the line. It
was in Normandy that the
real damage was done,
partly because the English
government, debilitated by
John’s endowment and the
great sale at the start of
the reign, was unable to
give its customary help,
revenue having fallen back
to an annual £11,000 –
much the same as at the
start of Henry II’s reign. In
April 1193 Gisors, which
Richard had carelessly
promised to Philip if he
himself died without heirs,
was surrendered. ‘That
famous and mighty castle’,
as Gerald of Wales put it,
with its 700 metres of
perimeter walls (the
longest in Normandy) and
its great motte topped by
Henry II’s state of the art
octagonal keep, visible for
miles as a symbol of
Angevin power, had
guarded the vital frontier
defences along the river
Epte. Philip could now
consolidate his hold over
much of Normandy.
In these dire
circumstances Richard’s
release was absolutely
imperative. With England
making a large though
unknown contribution,
enough of the £100,000
demanded was raised to
secure Richard’s freedom
on 4 February 1194. ‘The
devil is unchained,’ King
Philip warned John. On 14
March the devil landed in
England and extinguished
the remains of the revolt.
Soon afterwards, thanks to
Eleanor’s intervention,
Richard restored John to
favour. The condescending
attitude to his kid brother
(‘not a man to win a
kingdom’) which had
governed his policy all
along had proved justified,
in England at least. The
situation in Normandy was
not so easily restored.
***
On the death of Henry
II, the Lord Rhys went to
war. Richard took notice.
After his coronation, he
journeyed to Worcester to
receive the homage of the
minor rulers of south
Wales, and sent John, now
through his marriage lord
of Glamorgan, to raise
Rhys’s siege of
Carmarthen. Rhys indeed
came under safe-conduct
to Oxford only to depart in
dudgeon when Richard,
either standing on his
dignity or pressed for time,
would not come to meet
him. It did not take much
to set Rhys and his sons on
the warpath, for they had
been prospecting its
possibilities in the last
years of the old king. Rhys
now secured both St Clears
and Kidwelly on either
side of the Tywi, thus
cutting off Carmarthen
from the sea, and in 1192
moved east and besieged
Swansea. His sons,
however, were grievously
at odds. The intended
succession of Gruffudd, the
eldest, strong in Ystrad
Tywi and usually
supported by Rhys Gryg,
was challenged by the
impulsive and charismatic
Maelgwn, ‘the man in the
world [Gruffudd] most
hated’ (as the Brut put it),
who was based in
Ceredigion and had the
backing of another
brother, Hywel Sais. In
1189 Rhys imprisoned
Maelgwn, only (in 1194)
to be imprisoned by him.
Disputes between the
brothers broke up the
siege of Swansea in 1192.
At least there was no
blood-letting, but all this
contrasted with the co-
operation between Rhys
and his brothers in the
Deheubarth of the 1140s
and 1150s.
Rhys also met violent
resistance from William de
Braose, Gruffudd’s father-
in-law, who was the royal
castellan at Carmarthen
and Swansea. In 1191
William took possession of
Elfael, the region north of
the Wye valley, linking up
his own lordships of
Radnor, Builth and Brecon.
In 1195 he followed this
up by taking St Clears,
Rhys having already lost
Kidwelly. But Rhys was
not finished. In 1196 he
burnt Carmarthen, and
then marched on Elfael
where he briefly secured
the new Braose fortress at
Painscastle – its heroic
defence by William’s
formidable wife Matilda de
St-Valéry (later starved to
death by King John) led to
the English calling the
castle thereafter ‘Castle
Matilda’. Rhys died next
year. His magnificent
successes had depended on
knowing when to co-
operate with the English
government, and when to
exploit its weakness. His
son Gruffudd tried to
follow in his footsteps,
hurrying to seek
recognition from Richard’s
deputies. But he soon
found himself ousted by
his brother Maelgwn. The
continuing quarrels
between Rhys’s
descendants effectively
ended Deheubarth’s
greatness.
 With Gwynedd also
divided, Gwenwynwyn,
ruler of southern Powys
(Powys Wenwynwyn, as it
came to be called) was
able briefly to take centre
stage. He supplied the
force which enabled
Maelgwn to oust Gruffudd
from Ceredigion, and in
1198 gathered his Welsh
allies to eject William de
Braose from Elfael by
laying siege to Painscastle.
But the situation was now
very different from that
which existed early in the
1190s. A stable and well-
funded government in
England was in place
under the justiciar Hubert
Walter. Gwenwynwyn was
utterly defeated and
reputedly over 3,000
Welsh were killed. Braose’s
hold of Elfael was
affirmed; Gruffudd, who
had helped the English
campaign, was restored in
Deheubarth (though
Maelgwn kept Cardigan);
and Gwenwynwyn’s
dreams of emulating Rhys
were shattered for good.
***
While Rhys waged war
on Henry II’s death, King
William opened
negotiations. He was
aware that in the great
sale in England by far the
biggest item in the shop
window was a kingdom,
the kingdom of Scotland.
With Richard in a hurry, a
bargain was quickly
struck. William gave
£6,666 to recover the
castles of Berwick and
Roxburgh and free his
realm from the subjection
to England imposed in
1174. No longer would
William have to parade as
a vassal king at the
Angevin court, act as the
English monarch’s virtual
justiciar in Galloway, and
stand in danger of
forfeiting his kingdom for
contumacious conduct. He
had freed the realm from
‘the heavy yoke of
domination and servitude’,
as the Melrose chronicler
later put it.
‘But alas the grief, that
so great and magnificent
an honour should vanish
from the English crown for
a price not worth naming,’
lamented Gerald of Wales.
Richard’s perspective was
different. If he lost a sub-
king, he gained money and
an ally. During the crisis of
1193–4, King William did
not repeat his northern
invasion of twenty years
before. On the contrary, he
contributed to Richard’s
ransom. He still hoped to
recover the northern
counties, but by diplomacy
rather than by force. In
1194 he peppered Richard
with requests and offers
and got nowhere. Next
year he did better,
negotiating a remarkable
agreement which might
ultimately have brought
Northumberland,
Cumberland and
Westmorland once more
within the Scottish realm.
For that indeed was what
Richard promised if his
nephew, Otto of
Brunswick, should marry
Margaret, William’s
daughter and heir. Richard
thus hoped to instal as
king of Scots his protégé
Otto, who had grown up at
the Angevin court
following the exile of his
father Henry the Lion,
duke of Saxony. The cost
would have been
dismemberment of the
kingdom, but then, as J. C.
Holt has remarked,
Richard probably viewed
the north of England much
as he regarded Gascon
lordships in the foothills of
the Pyrenees.
In fact the marriage
never took place and the
agreement came to
nothing. In 1198 William’s
son, the future Alexander
II, was born. Frustrated if
only for the moment (as he
hoped) in the south, King
William compensated in
the north. Here Caithness,
with its Norse population
and fertile lands adjoining
the Pentland Firth, was
ruled by Earl Harald
Maddadson (1159–1206).
He wielded considerable
power in Ross, was
married to a daughter of
Malcolm MacHeth (see
above p. 211), and held
his earldom of Orkney
from the king of Norway.
He rarely if ever appeared
at the Scottish court:
altogether a dangerous
man. Constricted by the
loss of Shetland in 1195,
Harald resented the
growing power of the
crown and its vassals in
Moray and Cromarty. In
1196 he invaded Moray.
William responded with
three expeditions during
1196 and 1197, destroying
Harald’s castle at Thurso
in the far north of
Caithness and replacing
him with a rival. The
removal was not
permanent and in 1202
William, having gone
north once again, decided
to accept Harald’s position
as earl in return for a
proffered £2,000. But at
least he had removed the
threat to Moray and
asserted some authority
over Caithness.
Although troubled in
the closing years of his
reign down to 1214 by the
demands of King John and
the resurgence of the
MacHeths and
MacWilliams (see below p.
277), King William had
achieved a remarkable
transformation since the
débâcle of 1174. He had
thrown off English
overlordship and expanded
his power in the north and
west. That success was
very much underpinned by
the consolidation and
development of the
governmental and political
structure created by King
David.
After the recovery of the
southern castles in 1185
and 1189, Edinburgh
resumed its Davidian place
as a pre-eminent royal
centre, within an itinerary
which continued to
revolve around the
traditional eastern core of
the kingdom. At court,
under the chancellor, there
was a growing staff of
professional clerks (a
dozen can be identified
over the reign) writing the
king’s writs and charters
which themselves followed
the English model. In the
1170s the form king ‘by
the grace of God’, little
used in the pevious
decade, was permanently
adopted. From 1195 dates
of issue were included,
imitating in part the new
practice in England.
 William continued the
policy of enfeoffing
followers with land,
usually in return for the
service of one or two
knights or a serjeant.
Forty-one acts of
enfeoffment are known,
twenty-nine of them north
of the Forth, being
especially numerous
between the Tay and
Aberdeen. The chief
beneficiaries, as before,
were men of Anglo-
Norman descent, as their
names show: Giffard,
Berkeley, Montfort,
Melville, and so on. In this
way William secured
knight service and castle
guard to set beside the foot
soldiers of the common
army. There was also a
development of
sheriffdoms so that their
putative numbers
increased from seventeen
to twenty-three during the
reign, some reflecting the
expansion of royal
authority to the north and
west. Thus a sheriff
appears in Moray in the
1170s, in Galloway in the
1190s, and, around the
turn of the century, at Ayr,
Nairn and Inverness. There
was a growing move to
commute the revenue
collected by the sheriffs
from kind to cash. Cash
revenue was also boosted
by the foundation of
burghs, whose payments to
the king were entirely in
money. Although the great
bulk of the specie was
English, William enhanced
his prestige and the money
supply by minting his own
coins, in 1195 introducing
a new design based on
Henry II’s short-cross
penny of 1180. Both the
growth in the money
supply and what William
of Newburgh called ‘the
threat of royal power’
were reflected in the
ability to raise Richard’s
£6,666, some of it
probably coming from a
tax on land, like the geld
now abandoned in
England.
William also enhanced
the king’s role in the
maintenance of the peace,
building on the way David
had probably isolated
certain major crimes as, in
effect, pleas of the crown.
In 1197, influenced again
by initiatives in England,
he ordered everyone in his
kingdom to swear to keep
the peace. In another
measure of unknown date
he stipulated that sheriffs
should be present in lords’
courts to see that justice
was done and also by
implication to ensure that
the crown pleas, specified
as murder, rape, plunder
and arson be reserved for
the court of the king. That
court was probably
convened by the sheriffs
but presided over by
justiciars, who travelled
their regions to hold pleas.
There was one justiciar for
Lothian, one for Scotland
north of the Forth, and
one, at least for a while
towards the end of the
century, for Galloway. The
justiciars also heard civil
pleas, partly through the
development of the king’s
appellate jurisdiction
which apparently involved
the introduction of an
equivalent to the English
‘writ of right’.
Despite William of
Newburgh’s comment
about the threat of royal
power, royal government
in Scotland remained
much less intrusive and
pervasive than in England,
and this was true of the
‘inner core’ sheriffdoms
and even more of the
‘outer ring’ native
earldoms and new
provincial lordships. There
was neither a Scottish
exchequer nor any
equivalent, as yet, to the
common law assizes. A
much higher proportion of
the sheriffdoms than in
England were probably in
the hands of magnates.
Although William reserved
for himself the hearing of
crown pleas (or pleas
belonging to his ‘regality’,
as he put it) within the
Bruce lordship of
Annandale, it is far from
clear whether that was a
general rule, and whether,
in any case, it worked in
practice. It is unlikely to
have applied to the ‘outer
ring’ earldoms, which, as
in the past (like the new
provincial lordships), seem
largely to have been
immune from royal
visitations, orders and
enfeoffments. This lack of
pressure was vital in order
to retain the loyalty of the
new nobility and to sedate
the resentments of the old,
resentments which fed the
MacHeth and MacWilliam
risings. Equally important
was the continuing
accommodation between
new and old. Native
ecclesiastics acted as
ministers and bishops.
Patrick of Dunbar and
Duncan II of Fife, earls
from within the inner core
of the kingdom, were
important councillors,
both acting as justiciars.
The Barnwell annalist
alleged that William and
his court were ‘French’ in
their way of life and that
they despised the Scots,
but members of the
Scottish nobility were
becoming ‘French’ too (see
below, p. 424). The ruler
of Galloway (the son of
Uhtred) was often called
‘Roland’ rather than the
Celtic Lachlan, had a
largely Anglo-Norman
household, founded the
Cistercian monastery at
Glenluce, married the
daughter and heir of
Richard de Moreville, and
bore the title justiciar
(presumably of Galloway
itself). Before his death in
1200, he seemed to be
tying the region more
firmly into the kingdom. It
was a kingdom far more
stable politically than that
subject to the pressures of
Angevin kingship south of
the border.
***
Richard sailed from
England on 12 May 1194,
never to return. The
struggle to recover his
continental losses was
rightly the supreme
priority. England’s
resources were vital, yet
they could be secured from
a distance. Richard greeted
petitioners crossing the
Channel to see him with
glares, violent gestures and
bullying demands for
money. He kept the
English government on its
toes by sending the abbot
of Caen from the Norman
exchequer to stamp out the
peculations of the sheriffs.
When there was delay in
executing one abrasive
order, he threatened to
dispatch his mercenary
captain Mercadier. ‘You
English are too timid,’ he
declared.
Who would govern
England for such a master?
Neither Queen Eleanor nor
Queen Berengaria.
Richard’s mother now
returned to Poitou; his
wife never left the
continent. Fortunately, on
this occasion getting an
appointment absolutely
right, Richard found the
ideal man: Hubert Walter,
an astute politician and a
brilliantly inventive
administrator. Born
around 1140–45, Hubert
was the nephew of the
chief justiciar Ranulf
Glanvill and throughout
the 1180s had sat at the
exchequer. He was the
epitome of those ministers,
fertile, precise, self-
confident, whose labours
were reflected in Glanvill,
The Dialogue of the
Exchequer, and the
developing forms of the
chancery’s writs and
charters. Hubert had
accompanied Richard on
crusade and been one of
the first to seek him out in
captivity. In May 1193
Richard insisted on his
election to the
archbishopric of
Canterbury and in
December made him chief
justiciar, a post he held till
his voluntary retirement in
July 1198. The humane
and scrupulous Bishop
Hugh of Lincoln urged
Hubert to lay down the
justiciarship and
concentrate on his
archiepiscopal duties. Yet
the church benefited from
the combination. If Hubert
was ostentatious and testy,
he was also accessible
(allowing monks to sleep
around his bed) and
sympathetic, smoothing
out Bishop Hugh’s own
quarrels with Richard, and
trying to restrain some of
Richard’s more arbitrary
acts. He also took his
ecclesiastical duties
seriously, holding
reforming councils for the
provinces of York and
Canterbury.
As justiciar one part of
Hubert’s task was to
maintain peace and
dispense justice. He
probably had much to do
with hiving off from the
exchequer in the 1190s a
separate court at
Westminster for the
hearing of civil litigation
which came to be known
as ‘the common bench’ and
later as the ‘court of
common pleas’. He was
directly responsible for
devising the tripartite final
concord by which
agreements between
litigants reached before
the king’s judges were
recorded thrice over, with
one copy, the ‘foot’, being
kept by the government
for the security of both
parties. The attraction of
having agreements
recorded in this way
became another major
factor in drawing litigation
to the king’s courts, indeed
such litigation was often
initiated with the concord
already in mind. No less
than 42,000 ‘feet’ survive
in the Public Record Office
for the period to 1307,
their even distribution
throughout the country
showing there was nothing
‘home counties’ about the
common law: Yorkshire
was only just beaten into
first place in numbers of
‘feet’ by the most populous
shire, Norfolk. Hubert
Walter also tightened up
procedures on the criminal
side, introducing in 1194
three knights and a clerk
in each county who were
to hold inquests on dead
bodies and keep a record
of the pleas of crown the
eyre was to hear. This was
the origin of the office of
the coroner.
A major reason for
staging judicial eyres was,
of course, to make money
and Hubert boasted about
the amounts he had raised.
But the almost continuous
warfare after 1194 was
very different from the
intermittent campaigns
down to 1189, and far
more voracious, especially
as Richard depended very
much on paid mercenaries.
Hubert was full of
expedients. He made the
sheriffs answer for
increments worth an
annual £700 above the
ancient farms of the
counties, commissioned
the justices in eyre to
tallage the royal demesne,
tried (without spectacular
success) to revive a land
tax, and appointed special
officials (‘escheators’) to
exploit the lands which
had been seized from
John’s supporters. The
years after 1194 have
indeed been seen by
historians as marking a
new stage in the financial
exploitation of the
kingdom, which eventually
led to Magna Carta.
Certainly Abbot Ralph of
Coggeshall, writing in
1201, affirmed that no
king had exacted more
from his kingdom than had
Richard between 1194 and
1199. The abbot believed
that for all his crusading
lustre his death was a just
judgement of God. In fact
Richard’s revenue between
1194 and 1198, as
recorded on the pipe rolls,
averaged some £25,000 a
year, little different from
that achieved by Henry II
in his last years, and
failing to parallel the
striking increases in
Normandy. But this came
on top of the tax for
Richard’s ransom, which at
a quarter of everyone’s
rents and movable
property was by far the
heaviest levied in medieval
England. There was also
the problem that a
decreasing proportion of
royal revenue was being
derived from politically
acceptable sources like
crown lands and escheats.
Although Richard had
recovered control of some
of the lands he had
alienated in 1189, by the
end of the reign he had
given away royal lands
worth some £2,000, in
striking contrast to Henry
II who jealously guarded
such assets. As a result
Richard had to exploit
other more sensitive
sources of revenue. In
1198 many widows of
tenants-in-chief were made
to offer money to stay
single or marry whom they
wished. The pressures on
great barons too were
increasing. Henry II’s earls,
in his thirty-four-year
reign, paid some £3,540
into the exchequer.
Richard’s earls, in his ten
years, paid in £11,231.
Some of this money was
freely offered to purchase
land and rights which
Henry would not sell. But
while Hubert Walter
counselled caution,
Richard also demanded
large sums from his barons
to succeed to their
inheritances and have
‘justice’ in law cases. He
also inflicted swingeing
penalties for offences,
£800, for example, being
exacted from the northern
baron Robert de Ros for
allowing a prisoner to
escape.
There were already
signs of the demands
which were finally to
surface in Magna Carta.
One baron, William of
Newmarket, defined a
‘reasonable relief’ as being
£100, just like the Charter.
Another, the earl of
Norfolk, Roger Bigod,
asked that he should only
be deprived of property by
judgement of his peers, in
other words not simply by
the ‘will’ of the king, here
again anticipating the
Charter. Equally striking
was William of
Newburgh’s comment that
Richard had elevated
Longchamp, a foreigner of
low birth, ‘without the
counsel and consent of the
great men’. The
implication that the king’s
ministers should be natives
and chosen by common
consent foreshadowed a
central constitutional
demand of the thirteenth
century. The role of great
councils during Richard’s
absence supported such
ideas: after Longchamp’s
fall the new form of
government was
established ‘by the
common decision of the
king’s faithful men’; in
1215 the Charter similarly
forbade taxation save with
the ‘common counsel of
the realm’. Politics and
government were also
opening up to sections of
society beyond the great
barons. Knights were
appointed as coroners and
(in 1195) as keepers of the
peace. Equally apparent
was the importance of
London. The refusal of the
citizens to support
Longchamp in 1191 was
crucial to his fall, and they
were rewarded by the
grant of a commune,
permission that is to bind
themselves together in a
sworn association. In 1215
the Charter formed a
‘commune of all the land’.
Between his departure
from England in 1194 and
his death in 1199, Richard
was involved in warfare on
the continent, interrupted
occasionally by truces and
one formal peace, that
made at Louviers in
January 1196. This was a
war not of great battles
but of attrition, fought by
small bodies of troops, and
centred round the siege of
castles and the ravaging of
land. King Philip proved
ominously resilient. After
facing Richard for nearly
five years he still retained
Gisors, building a great
cylindrical tower at the
castle’s south-east corner.
Yet in this period Richard’s
outstanding qualities were
never more apparent: as a
builder of castles, a
constructor of alliances, a
judge of priorities, a
mobilizer of resources, and
as a fighting knight. He
recovered most of
Normandy, re-took Loches
on the eastern frontiers of
Touraine and reasserted
his authority further south
by seizing Taillebourg and
Angoulême.
To protect Normandy
Richard built the great
complex of fortifications at
Les Andelys, west of
Gaillon. Medieval military
experts often debated
whether to build castles
high on hills, or down by
rivers. At Les Andelys,
Richard did both. He sank
a wooden stockade across
the Seine, fortified the
little island in its middle,
joined the island by bridge
to a new walled town on
the river bank, and then
on the great limestone
rock above threw up an
extraordinary castle, which
he called his ‘beautiful
castle of the rock’, or
Château Gaillard, his
‘impudent castle’. On all
this Richard expended
some £11,500, more than
was spent on his English
castles during his entire
reign. He could now block
Philip’s moves down the
Seine to Rouen and had a
base for the ultimate
recovery of Gisors.
Richard’s success was
also built on diplomacy.
With his clear,
unsentimental insight, he
realized that Normandy
was far more valuable
than his old bases in the
south. So in 1197 he
conceded rights and
territory in Aquitaine to
bring about the marriage
of his sister Joan, widow
of the king of Sicily, to the
count of Toulouse. He thus
ended forty years of
intermittent warfare and
was free, as William of
Newburgh put it, ‘to return
untrammelled to his war
with the king of France’.
Richard also succeeded in
prising from King Philip
the counts of Boulogne
and Flanders, the latter by
an embargo on wool
exports on which the
Flemish cloth industry
depended. With these
alliances topped off by the
elevation of Richard’s
nephew Otto to the
kingship, not of Scotland,
but of the Romans on
Henry VI’s death in 1197,
the final expulsion of King
Philip from Normandy
seemed but a matter of
time.
It was not to be. In
1199 Richard laid siege to
the viscount of Limoges’s
castle of Châluz, seeking to
punish him for defecting to
King Philip. He was struck
by a crossbow bolt, and
died on 6 April. There was
nothing irresponsible
about Richard’s last
campaign, but it was in
Normandy, not the
Limousin, that the future
of his empire would be
decided. Richard was
buried beside his father at
the abbey of Fontevraud.
The effigies, imposing and
impassive, erected over
their tombs still seem to
radiate with the power of
the dynasty. That power,
however, was about to
collapse.
9

The Reign of
King John,
1199–1216
On the night of 10 April
1199 Hubert Walter was
roused from his sleep in
Rouen priory by the news
of Richard’s death. There
were, as he at once
observed, two possible
candidates for the
succession: Richard’s
youngest brother, John,
and Richard’s nephew,
Arthur. But Arthur, twelve
years old, allied to the
king of France and brought
up in Brittany (to which he
was heir through his
mother Constance), had
few connections with the
great Anglo-Norman
barons, as one of them,
William Marshal (who had
flung on his clothes and
gone to waken Hubert),
pointed out. Thus John’s
accession in the north
went without a hitch. On
25 April he was invested at
Rouen with the duchy of
Normandy; on 27 May he
was crowned king of
England at Westminster. It
was the start of one of the
most disastrous and
momentous reigns in
history. John was to lose
Normandy and Anjou,
concede Magna Carta, and
die in the midst of a civil
war. By then a French
prince controlled more
than half of England, the
king of Scotland was
established in Carlisle, and
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth of
Gwynedd was dominant in
Wales, a dominance he
retained till his death in
1240.
On his accession John
was thirty-three years old,
slightly built (though later
he grew corpulent), and
five foot six and a half
inches tall. His body,
entombed in Worcester
cathedral, is the first of an
English king to survive. He
had behaved irresponsibly
in Ireland in 1185 and had
rebelled against his father
and his brother. Yet the
picture of John as an evil,
godless tyrant for whom
hell was too good, as the
chronicler Matthew Paris
put it, was essentially the
product of the reign itself
and later legend. John had
fought loyally and
successfully for Richard
between 1194 and 1199.
In 1199 the jury was still
out.
After his coronation
John hurried back across
the Channel, and with the
help of his mother, Queen
Eleanor, now well into her
seventies, beat back
Arthur’s challenge in
Maine and Anjou. Under
the Treaty of Le Goulet in
May 1200, King Philip
accepted John’s succession
to all the Angevin
dominions, a major
concession since it meant
abandoning Arthur and
with him the longstanding
Capetian ambition to
break up the dominions.
Arthur was to have only
Brittany and to hold it
from John as duke of
Normandy, not from Philip
as king of France. John on
his part, however,
forswore alliances with
both his nephew Otto,
recently crowned emperor,
and the count of Flanders.
He also accepted the loss
of the Evreçin, which
Philip had overrun on
Richard’s death. So
another deep hole was dug
in Normandy’s frontier. In
England John was
lampooned in some circles
as ‘softsword’, yet he was
also praised as a
peacemaker who
understood far better than
Richard the burdens
imposed by the seven
years’ war since 1193.
When in November 1200
John settled a quarrel with
the Cistercians, Ralph of
Coggeshall, a monk of the
order, erased previous
criticisms from his
chronicle and wrote of a
wise and pious king,
touched by the hand of
God. Coggeshall’s tune was
soon to change. Within
four years of the Le Goulet
treaty the whole edifice of
John’s continental empire
had come crashing to the
ground. At one level that
was very much the result
of his character and the
mistakes he made.
In August 1200, having
divorced his first wife,
John married Isabella,
daughter and sole heir of
the count of Angoulême.
Strategically, in knitting
together his southern
dominions the match was
a masterstroke. But instead
of compensating Hugh de
Lusignan, the great
Poitevin noble to whom
Isabella had been engaged,
John tried to bully him
into submission. Hugh
appealed for justice to the
king of France, and thus
gave Philip his chance. His
court in the spring of 1202
sentenced John to forfeit
all his continental fiefs. In
the ensuing war, John at
first triumphed. At
Mirebeau in July 1202 he
captured Arthur, the
Lusignans and all his
Poitevin enemies. But he
then made another great
mistake by antagonizing
the great Angevin
magnate, William des
Roches, the main architect
of his success. By the
spring of 1203 the
defection of William with
his allies had given King
Philip both Maine and
Anjou.
Normandy, however,
was the real prize, its
revenues greater than the
rest of the continental
possessions put together.
Here the north-east, centre
and south-west of the
duchy, as Daniel Power
has shown, came under
different pressures. The
south-eastern frontiers had
never been threatened by
the king of France, but the
nobles there (like Robert,
count of Sées and Alençon)
had close connections with
their fellows in Maine and
Anjou and were influenced
by their conduct. In
January 1203 Count
Robert breakfasted with
John in the morning and
defected to Philip in the
afternoon, thus prising
away the south of the
duchy and blocking John’s
route onwards into Maine.
By this time the cruel
treatment of the prisoners
taken at Mirebeau and
ugly rumours about
Arthur’s fate were staining
John’s reputation. John
took no heed. On 3 April
1203, in a drunken rage,
he murdered Arthur at
Rouen. Richard had
starved to death one of
John’s partisans, but to
murder a great prince in
this manner was shocking
and unprecedented. Had
not Henry I kept his
brother Robert all those
years in prison? The
immediate consequences
were again in the south-
west, on the frontier with
Brittany. Arthur’s mother
Constance, and her
husband, Guy de Thouars,
joined Philip and played a
large part in disrupting
John’s hold on eastern
Normandy.
It was in the north-east
that King Philip could
bring most pressure,
thanks to his acquisition of
the Amienois, his alliance
with the count of Ponthieu
(married to Richard’s
discarded Alice), and his
possession of Evreux,
Gisors and the Norman
Vexin. The Norman
nobility in these areas, like
Hugh de Gournay and the
count of Meulan, often
held land across the
frontiers from the king of
France or his vassals, and
had no alternative but to
flow with the tide. In these
circumstances supreme
importance attached to
maintaining Richard’s
northern alliances. But
John lacked Richard’s
prestige and was unable to
outbid Philip. As a result,
in 1201 the warrior count
of Boulogne followed the
count of Flanders (who
was soon to be absent on
crusade) into Philip’s
camp. The Emperor Otto’s
own troubles in Germany
ruled out any succour from
that quarter. Philip was
free to attack.
Angevin rule was most
secure in central
Normandy between Caen
and Rouen, but it was
precisely this area and its
towns that had borne the
brunt of Richard’s
mounting exactions. John
made matters worse. In
August 1202 he appointed
a low-born and aggressive
seneschal, William le Gros,
to run the duchy; he then
stationed his mercenaries,
under Louvrecaire, not on
the frontiers but at Falaise,
where they offended
Anglo-Norman barons, like
the earl of Leicester, and
pillaged ‘as though they
were in an enemy country’
(so the Life of William
Marshal recorded). ‘For
such things was he hated
and betrayed by the
barons of the land,’
commented a Caen
burgess.
 Philip began his
invasion in the summer of
1203 and in August laid
siege to Château Gaillard.
John made only one
attempt to relieve it.
Everywhere, as Ralph of
Coggeshall observed, he
suspected betrayal. He had
betrayed his father and his
brother and expected the
same conduct from
everyone else. In the end
he was right, but partly
because his suspicions, so
openly displayed, became
self-fulfilling. ‘He who
trusts no one is distrusted
by all the world,’
commented The Life of
William Marshal. In the end
John’s nerve cracked. In
December 1203 he slunk
back to England, a fugitive
in his own land. How
different it would have
been with Richard! John’s
aim was to gather
resources to return. But he
was too late. On 6 March,
as he arranged to send his
dogs back to Normandy,
Château Gaillard fell. On
24 June Rouen
surrendered. Normandy
was Philip’s.
There was more to
come. The death of
Eleanor of Aquitaine on 1
April 1204 shook John’s
hold on Poitou and the
Touraine. In August 1204
Philip held court in
Poitiers, and next year
took the great fortresses of
Loches and Chinon, the
latter long defended by an
English hero, Hubert de
Burgh. Further south King
Alfonso VIII of Castile
overran part of Gascony,
determined to make good
the promise of its
possession after Eleanor’s
death, made to him – or so
he claimed – on his
marriage to Henry II’s
daughter. It was not till
1206 that John at last
launched an expedition to
reverse his losses. He
landed at La Rochelle in
Poitou, evicted Alfonso’s
garrisons from Gascony,
and then marched north to
Angers only to retreat in
the face of Philip’s army. A
truce in October left Philip
in control of all the
country north of the Loire,
as well as Poitiers, and
with the allegiance of the
Lusignans to the south.
The expedition of 1206
showed the measure of
John’s task. It was one
thing (with limited
interference from Philip)
to dabble in the shifting
allegiances of the barons
south of the Loire, and win
back the Gascon towns.
Indeed he had never lost
Bordeaux and Bayonne. It
was quite another to
recover Normandy. He had
neither ports nor, having
lost Anjou and Maine,
contiguous frontiers from
which to invade. Philip
held Normandy in a vice,
becoming 70 per cent
richer thanks to its
abundant revenues. He
cleared out those he
distrusted, comparing
them to soiled toilet tissue,
and installed his own men
in the key castles. Learning
from John’s mistake, he
left Anjou and Maine
under William des Roches,
but further south he
retained Saumur, Chinon,
Tours and Poitiers. Just to
get near Normandy, John
had to advance through
hostile territory.
Mean in triumph where
Richard had been
generous, despairing in
disaster where Richard had
been supremely confident,
an unremarkable fighting
knight where Richard had
been a legend, John
inspired fear and loathing,
Richard fear and respect.
These were the differences
between the loss and
retention of the empire.
Yet there was also more to
it than that. King Philip
was a far more formidable
opponent in 1200 than he
had been in the 1180s.
That was partly because of
his seizure of Gisors and
the Norman Vexin. It was
also (though more
arguably) because
Capetian revenues had
been increasing faster than
those of the Angevins. The
revenue of England had
remained comparatively
static under Richard; and
if Richard in the 1190s
had on occasion tripled his
revenue from Normandy in
comparison with the level
in 1180, this was by
resorting to loans and
tallages that were difficult
to sustain. The Capetian
increases, on the other
hand, were soundly based
on administrative reforms
and the acquisition of new
territory, notably Artois
and the Amienois. By the
1200s the resources King
Philip had for the war in
Normandy were almost
certainly larger than those
of John. In the financial
year 1202/3 (for which a
set of accounts survives)
‘ordinary’ Capetian
revenue was some
£42,000, while
‘extraordinary’ levies
brought in another
£10,000: total, £52,000.
These sums enabled Philip
to sustain, throughout the
year, over 2,300 troops of
whom 500 were mounted
knights and sergeants, a
formidable force. If the
loans and tallages found in
the Norman pipe roll for
1198 were indeed still in
place, then the duchy’s
annual revenues on the
eve of the war totalled
some £24,000. The
revenue from England
between 1199 and 1202
(including an estimate for
an ‘extraordinary’ tax in
1200) averaged almost
exactly the same, John
having notably failed to
expand it in this period.
The total for England and
Normandy was £48,000
and to it should be added
perhaps a thousand or so
pounds apiece from Maine,
Anjou, Aquitaine and
Ireland. But if the
combined Angevin total
was much the same as the
Capetian, it could not be
transferred to Normandy
by the flick of a switch.
Indeed, the revenues from
Maine, Anjou and
Aquitaine were probably
absorbed locally. Only
Normandy and England
really entered the
equation, and the treasure
of England had to be
transported across the
Channel, whereas Capetian
resources came from a
compact, lucrative royal
demesne, adjoining the
Norman frontier. The
Capetians also had one
other advantage. Their
revenue rivalled that of
the Angevins but provoked
far less political
discontent, largely because
a much higher proportion
came in easily and
uncontentiously from land.
‘The French kings got rich
without strain,’ in R. W.
Southern’s classic phrase.
Whereas a sense of
community and national
identity in England
developed in opposition to
the crown, in France it was
exactly the reverse. There
was no chance that John’s
cause would be helped by
any kind of Capetian
political collapse.
In this period of
intensive warfare, John,
like Richard, faced the
problem of how to
mobilize his full military
potential. At the heart of
royal armies were the
household knights. At any
one time, John had over a
hundred of them
supported by money and
(more often) by grants of
wardships, marriages and
escheats. If their numbers
seem smaller than the
several hundreds
sometimes ascribed to
Henry I, the comparison
may be misleading. John’s
knights could well have
been more heavily
equipped. We also know of
their numbers from record
sources as opposed simply
to the statements of
chroniclers. Closely linked
to the household
contingent were the
fluctuating mercenary
forces under such experts
as Mercadier and
Louvrecair. And then each
individual tenant-in-chief,
lay and ecclesiastical, had
to provide the king with
knights in return for the
tenure of their fees. Such
feudal service, however,
was supposed to last only
for forty days, long enough
for a foray into Wales or
Scotland, but useless for
long periods of
campaigning on the
continent. Indeed some
claimed it was not owed
for service on the
continent at all. There was
also the question of just
how many knights feudal
service could raise.
According to the survey of
1166, which perhaps
reflects the quotas imposed
by the Conqueror, the
grand total of knights the
tenants-in-chief owed the
king was around 5,000.
Record evidence from
John’s reign, however,
shows both that his armies
were much smaller (he
took 800 knights to Ireland
in 1210) and that his
tenants-in-chief mustered
contingents which were
only a fraction of their
1166 quotas. Gilbert de
Gant went to Ireland with
six knights, not the sixty-
eight he supposedly owed.
The 1166 quotas seem
chiefly relevant for the
levying of scutage. Had he
not campaigned, Gant
would certainly have paid
on the full sixty-eight
knights. (The rate in 1210
was £2 per knight.) To
what extent all this
represents a dramatic
decline in the military
obligations of the
baronage, and if so when
and why it took place, is
difficult to say given the
lack of hard evidence for
the actual size of earlier
contingents. There is also
once again the question of
different levels of
equipment. However, that
kings from Henry II
onwards felt feudal
military service was
unsatisfactory is clear. To
have replaced it altogether
with scutage would have
weakened their authority,
even if the paid forces on
whom to spend the money
were available. So they
attempted reform. Richard
and Hubert Walter
demanded that the
tenants-in-chief as a whole
provide 300 knights to
serve abroad for a year.
John, for his part, kept
armies in the field by
giving knights ‘prests’, that
is loans of money (often
left unpaid), which
apparently they felt were
more dignified than wages.
It was not easy,
therefore, to exploit the
military potential of
England, and much
depended on the general
supportiveness of its
barons and knights,
something itself connected
with how far they had a
stake of their own in
Normandy. Among the
county knights at the heart
of English local society,
that stake was very
limited. In the twelfth
century only seven of the
seventy leading families in
Warwickshire and
Leicestershire held land in
the duchy. There were
equally numerous Norman
landholders with no base
in England: of the thirty-
eight Normans known to
have deserted John in
1203, only eight had
English lands which he
could confiscate. Cross-
Channel ties had
weakened over the
century. Few new Norman
families were established
in England after the
immediate post-Conquest
period. The number of
individuals holding land in
both England and
Normandy diminished as
families split property
between branches on
either side of the Channel.
By 1200 all but one of the
seven Warwickshire and
Leicestershire families
mentioned above had lost
their continental
possessions. This is not,
however, the whole story,
for even in 1200 there
remained significant
numbers of barons who
did hold land in both the
kingdom and the duchy.
Indeed acts of royal
patronage could recreate
such families: the marriage
Richard arranged for
William Marshal made him
lord of Longueville in
Normandy as well as
Chepstow in Wales and
Leinster in Ireland. Of the
199 Norman tenants-in-
chief in 1172, 107 (or
their descendants) held
lands on both sides of the
Channel in 1204. Likewise
(and the groups
overlapped) some of the
greatest members of the
English nobility held
substantial lands in
Normandy: for example
the earls of Chester,
Leicester, Warenne, Clare,
Hereford, Arundel and
Pembroke (William
Marshal), together with
William de Mowbray and
Robert de Ros. If these
men did not fight with
more vigour, it was partly
because of John’s flaws of
character. It was also
because until the last
moment they hoped for
some arrangement
whereby they could indeed
serve two masters, holding
their lands in England
from John and those in
Normandy from Philip.
William Marshal secured
such a concession. His
subsequent refusal to go
on the 1206 campaign
shows how right John was
to force a choice on
everyone else. If barons
did homage to King Philip,
then they forfeited their
English lands and Philip
naturally responded with
equivalent seizures in
Normandy.
The Capetian conquest
of Normandy was a
turning-point in European
history. It made the
Capetian kings dominant
in western Europe, and
ended the cross-Channel
Anglo-Norman state. True,
even in political terms
England did not cease to
be part of the ‘community
of Europe’. It was not till
1259 that John’s son
formally resigned his
claims to Normandy and
Anjou, and even then he
retained Gascony. Yet the
days of the absentee kings
were over. Gascony,
lacking revenues and great
ducal palaces, had never
attracted more than
infrequent visits before
1204, nor did it afterwards
even when its revenues
increased. From 1204, in
terms of their itineraries
kings of England for the
first time since 1066 were
just that. The fact that
John returned to England
in 1206 after just six
months across the Channel
was symptomatic. The
mutual seizures of
property had also helped
to bring the cross-Channel
nobility to an end.
Henceforth the high
aristocracy would be born
and hold lands only in
England. They could
become as English as
everyone else. The
consequences of these
changes for the political
structure of Britain would
be profound.
 ***
At the start of his reign
John had continued to
keep Geoffrey fitz Peter in
office as justiciar while
recalling Hubert Walter to
the colours as chancellor.
From any role at the
centre, however, one
person was absent: the
queen John had acquired
at such cost, Isabella of
Angoulême. Since she was
only about twelve on her
marriage that was
inevitable. Subsequently
John used her to beget
heirs, two sons (the eldest
the future Henry III, born
in 1207) and three
daughters. But despite her
magnificent coronation in
1200, he used her for little
else. He treated
Angoulême as his own and
granted Isabella no land in
England for her support.
Her dower (much of it
formerly held by Eleanor
of Aquitaine) she was to
receive only on his death.
Isabella was therefore
totally dependent on
John’s supplies of money
and played no discernible
part in the politics and
government of the reign,
despite being, as later
evidence shows, a
passionate and highly
political woman.
Under the fitz
Peter/Hubert Walter
partnership England
enjoyed a ‘tranquil peace’,
according to Gervase of
Canterbury, during which
Hubert introduced
significant changes to the
practices of the chancery.
Hitherto it had kept only
one annual roll, a record
of ‘fines’, that is the money
offered to the king for
concessions and favours.
Now it opened three more
rolls to record charters,
writs patent, and writs
close (see above, p. 199).
With another roll, hived
off from the close rolls in
1226, to record writs
dealing with the
expenditure of money,
these chancery rolls
became a permanent
feature of English royal
government, transforming
the materials available to
later historians. The record
they provided of
concessions and orders
meant the king could
potentially rule his agents
and subjects with novel
precision.
 This ‘tranquil’ period
came to an end with the
loss of Normandy in 1204,
a watershed on the road to
Magna Carta. John now
spent more time in
England than any king
since 1066, excepting only
Stephen. For ‘ten furious
years’ (J. C. Holt) he
lashed his court round the
country, rarely staying for
more than a week in one
place. His aim was to
amass the treasure to win
Normandy back. His need
for money was
accentuated by the rapid
inflation which occurred
around the start of his
reign (see above, p. 35),
with prices more than
doubling. A mercenary
knight had to be paid 8d. a
day under Henry II and 2s.
a day under John, a
threefold increase, though
possibly one influenced by
the need for heavier
equipment. Income
derived from selling
agricultural produce on
the market rose with the
prices and was thus
protected, but a far smaller
proportion of royal than
baronial revenue came in
that way. Instead, with the
depletion of the royal
demesne under Stephen
and Richard, kings relied
increasingly on other
sources of income, sources
which bore down directly
on individuals, and were
far more unpopular than
land, whose exploitation
only harmed the
peasantry.
John’s revenues have
been investigated by Nick
Barratt. Between 1199 and
1202, they averaged
around £24,000 a year,
much the same as the best
figures attained by Richard
I and Henry II, and much
the same indeed as Henry
I’s revenue in 1130.
Between 1207 and 1212,
the average was some
£49,000 a year, double the
earlier sum. If we make
the reasonable assumption
that two-thirds of a
£44,000 tallage levied on
the Jews in 1210 were
paid, then the average
becomes some £54,000. In
real terms, allowing for the
inflation, John’s revenue
between 1207 and 1212
(including the Jewish
tallage) was running at
roughly 25 per cent a year
more than that of Henry I
in 1130. And Henry I, of
course, was a king of
fabled wealth. Probably
the years after 1207 saw
the greatest level of
financial exploitation since
the Conquest. None of this
takes account of the
revenue John got from the
church during the
Interdict: some £100,000,
more than half of which he
probably never returned.
No wonder that by 1214
John had a treasure of
some £130,000.
The new financial
policies were signalled in
1204 when John
appointed new sheriffs
who, building on the
precedent of 1194, were
expected to raise
substantial additional sums
above the ‘ancient’ farms
of their counties (see
above, pp. 155, 260). As a
result, between 1207 and
1212 they owed on
average an extra £1,400
per annum to the
exchequer. Having less
money for themselves,
they recouped their losses
through a series of illicit
extortions. John also
exploited the royal forest,
mounting forest eyres in
1207 and 1212 which
imposed amercements
totalling some £11,350,
the most oppressive since
those of Henry II in the
1170s. In 1210 he
demanded a £44,000
tallage from the Jews. A
Bristol Jew, according to
one story, had a tooth
knocked out each day until
he paid up. The more
normal penalty was the
seizure of Jewish assets,
with the result that
Christian borrowers ended
up owing their money to
the king. One way or
another, pressure on the
Jews put pressure on
everyone who owed them
money, from barons down
to peasants. John’s most
lucrative measure,
however, was the great tax
(or ‘aid’) he levied in
1207, with the common
consent of the realm, or so
he said. The demand was
for 13 per cent of the
value of everyone’s rents
and movable property,
largely corn and animals.
There were precedents for
such taxation, notably in
the aid for Richard’s
ransom, but this is the first
for which the take is
known: a stupendous
£60,000, which dwarfed
the £2–3,000 raised by
scutage. Not surprisingly
the tax pointed the way
forward for the whole
future of English royal
finance.
These financial policies
affected not just magnates
and the church but
knights, freemen and
peasants, ‘the miserable
provincials’ as the
Barnwell annalist called
them. But there were also
exactions which were
borne more directly by the
baronage, at least in the
first instance. John
expanded Richard’s policy
of charging baronial
widows large sums for
staying single or marrying
whom they wished: there
were 149 such fines in the
reign, averaging £185, as
against sixty-eight
averaging £114 between
1189 and 1199. The
barons were likewise put
under pressure by the
increasing incidence of
scutage: the product of
John’s campaigns both on
the continent and in the
British Isles. Henry II had
levied eight scutages in
thirty-four years, Richard
three in ten years; John
levied eleven in sixteen
years, and at higher rates
than before. John also, like
Richard, demanded large
sums for ‘justice’ and
succession to inheritances.
Between 1199 and 1208
magnate indebtedness to
the crown increased by
380 per cent. The rebellion
of 1215, as J. C. Holt has
remarked, was indeed a
rebellion of the king’s
debtors.
While John took too
much from his subjects in
money, he gave back too
little in the form of justice.
The new procedures for
civil litigation, introduced
by Henry II, had proved
highly popular with the
gentry and free tenants
(see above, p. 240). By
developing them the king
could win the support of
those sections of society
and outflank the great
barons. John certainly
showed an interest in the
routine of justice, yet
instead of playing his
strongest card he threw it
away. Fearful of rival
centres of authority during
the Interdict, and
distrustful of his justiciar,
Geoffrey fitz Peter,
between 1209 and 1214 he
virtually closed down both
the common bench at
Westminster and the
judicial eyres in the
counties. Instead, even
routine assizes had to be
heard by judges who were
with the king; impossibly
inconvenient for litigants,
given John’s hectic
peregrinations around the
country. Barons litigating
against each other,
meanwhile, continued to
be subject to the venal and
arbitrary processes
determined by the king,
rather than the routine
procedures of the common
law (see above, p. 241).
Sale and denial of
justice, as well as financial
extortion and arbitrary
disseisin, are all illustrated
by the interlocking
histories of two Yorkshire
baronial families, those of
Stuteville and Mowbray.
The Stuteville lands,
forfeited in 1106, had been
given by Henry I to his
protégé, Nigel d’Aubigny,
whose descendants took
the name of Mowbray
after the centre of their
Norman estates. The
Stutevilles had
subsequently worked their
way back into royal
favour, and in 1200
William de Stuteville
began a legal action to
recover his inheritance,
offering John £2,000 to
receive ‘right’ in the case.
William de Mowbray
countered by offering
£1,333 ‘to be treated justly
according to the custom of
England’. In the event a
compromise was arranged
in 1201, and Mowbray was
not made to pay the
money immediately. In
1209 he still owed £1,200.
But then, as John
tightened the financial
screw, matters changed.
By 1212 Mowbray had
been forced to reduce his
obligations by £560, only
then to be saddled with
another £400 thanks to his
Jewish debts being taken
into the king’s hands.
Mowbray’s small frame (he
was as small as a dwarf)
must have seethed with
resentment. No wonder he
was a leading rebel in
1215. Meanwhile, William
de Stuteville had died. His
lands had come into royal
wardship and been
ruthlessly exploited by the
king’s agent, Brian de
Lisle. Eventually in 1205
William’s brother, Nicholas
de Stuteville, succeeded
him, but his payment to
enter his inheritance was
not the £100 widely
claimed as the reasonable
figure for a barony but an
exorbitant £6,666 (10,000
marks). This time John did
not want the money. He
wanted the Stuteville
castle of Knaresborough
and retained it as security
for payment. This was
regarded by the Stutevilles
as arbitrary disseisin ‘by
will of the king’. No
wonder Nicholas joined
the rebels.
The Stuteville–Mowbray
story reveals another
failing of John’s rule,
namely the narrowing
circle of ‘ins’ and the
widening circle of ‘outs’. In
the end, John lost the
Stutevilles as well as the
Mowbrays. To be sure,
with his cynical political
intelligence the king
understood well enough
the need for the carrot as
well as the stick. At the
start of his reign he gave
William de Ferrers some of
the Peverel inheritance
and recognized him as earl
of Derby (see above, p.
224); henceforth Ferrers
remained ‘on side’. So did
Ferrers’s brother-in-law,
Ranulf, earl of Chester,
after he received the
honour of Richmond in
1205. Yet in other cases it
all went wrong. John, for
example, brought Henry
de Bohun in by making
him earl of Hereford but
then cast him out by
seizing Trowbridge,
another alleged act of
dispossession ‘by will’. The
growing number of
hostages taken from his
barons and of fines to
recover royal favour were
a measure of John’s
mounting isolation and
distrust.
As John’s baronial
supporters fell away, so it
seemed that those who
took their place were
parvenus and foreigners.
At first this was least
apparent at the centre.
Hubert Walter had died in
1205 but Geoffrey fitz
Peter, self-made but
courteous and acceptable,
whom John created earl of
Essex, remained as
justiciar until his death in
1213. In the localities it
was different. There a set
of aggressive royal agents
became entrenched in
office. Some were not
merely ‘new men’ but also
aliens like Engelard de
Cigogné, sheriff of
Gloucester, from Touraine,
and all the more ruthless
for their lack of English
ties. All kings needed ‘new
men’ in their service, but it
was a great mistake to give
the impression, as John
had also done in
Normandy, that such
creatures alone had his
trust.
Resentment against
John’s style of government
was particularly strong in
the north. The financial
burdens born by
northerners like William
de Mowbray and Nicholas
de Stuteville created wide
circles of antagonism.
Mowbray’s pledges in
1209 for the repayment of
his debts included Eustace
de Vesci, Robert de Ros
and Roger de Montbegon,
all great northern barons
and leading rebels in 1215.
The royal forest in the
north was extensive: the
eyres of 1207 and 1212
each demanded more than
£1,200 from Yorkshire.
Pressure also came from
revenue demanded above
the county farms; the
income for which the
sheriff of Yorkshire
accounted in 1212 was
roughly twice that of 1204
and treble that of 1199.
The north was also the
home of some of John’s
most ruthless agents: Brian
de Lisle (whose origins are
totally obscure) took over
at Knaresborough; Philip
Mark (from Touraine)
became sheriff of
Nottingham. Then in 1214
another Tourangeau, Peter
de Mauley (rumoured to
be Arthur’s murderer), was
established at Doncaster
through marriage. Of
course, such tensions were
not unique to the north,
but they seemed more
novel since the northern
counties had only
gradually, from Henry II’s
reign onwards, felt the full
force of royal government.
John indeed came north in
every year of his reign bar
four – far more frequently
than any of his
predecessors. The face he
showed was minatory. The
leading part played by ‘the
Northerners’ in the
ultimate rebellion was the
result.
While John drove
forward the government of
England, he also plunged
into a great quarrel with
the papacy. Hubert
Walter’s death in July
1205 was followed by a
dispute over the election
of his successor, with the
monks of Canterbury, or a
party among them,
choosing their sub-prior
and then being forced by
John to plump instead for
John de Grey, an effective
bishop of Norwich and a
trusted royal agent, later
to be justiciar of Ireland.
Next year Pope Innocent
III quashed both elections,
summoned a delegation of
the monks of Canterbury
to Rome and made them
elect Stephen Langton.
Langton was an
Englishman from a modest
Lincolnshire family
(Langton is near Wragby).
He had spent twenty years
in the Schools of Paris,
becoming a master both in
arts and theology. His
lectures on the Bible,
disputations and sermons
had given him a towering
reputation. In 1206
Innocent summoned this
academic superstar to join
the cardinals at Rome and
was impressed by the
purity of his life and the
wisdom of his counsel.
John saw things
differently. University
professors did not swim
into his orbit very often
and he did not know this
one. The old custom that
the king should at least
influence the election and
consent to its outcome had
been flouted. Langton
might be English by birth
but he had spent twenty
years in the Capetian
capital. What a contrast to
Hubert Walter, steeped in
Angevin service before his
election and continuing in
harness thereafter! There
would be no help like that
from Langton. His
appointment spelt one
thing: trouble.
John refused to accept
him. His predecessors
would have done the
same. The result was that
in March 1208 an Interdict
was imposed on England
and in November 1209
John was
excommunicated. Under
the terms of the Interdict
no church services and
offices were to be
permitted save the baptism
of infants and the
confession of the dying.
The laity were left without
the Mass, and without
burial in consecrated
ground. ‘O what a horrible
and miserable spectacle it
was to see in every city the
sealed doors of the
churches, Christians shut
out from entry as though
they were dogs, the
cessation of divine office,
the withholding of the
sacrament of the body and
blood of our Lord, the
people no longer flocking
to the famous celebrations
of saints days, the bodies
of the dead not given to
burial according to
Christian rites, of whom
the stink infected the air
and the horrible sight
filled with horror the
minds of the living’: these
were the comments of
Abbot Ralph of Coggeshall
on the much shorter
Interdict in France in
1200. His feelings about
the English Interdict were
so extreme that after
John’s settlement with the
pope he excised them from
his chronicle.
 John, however, was
made of sterner stuff.
Although he founded the
Cistercian abbey at
Beaulieu, he was not a
pious man: his household
accounts are full of
offerings to the poor to
atone for hunting on feast
days or eating meat on
Fridays. ‘How fat that stag
has grown without ever
attending Mass,’ ran one
reported joke. In any case,
the Interdict did nothing to
affect the basic processes
of government. Indeed the
church revenues, seized
during its course, made a
major contribution to
John’s great mulct of the
kingdom.
And yet John found
himself under increasing
pressure to reach a
settlement. The bishops,
forced to choose between
king and pope, chose the
pope. Once John de Grey
had gone off to be justiciar
of Ireland in 1208, only
one bishop, the
Tourangeau Peter des
Roches, bishop of
Winchester, remained by
the king. Even those who
were former chancery
clerks and exchequer
officials recognized
Langton and went into
exile. There could be no
more striking testimony to
the growth of papal
authority over the
previous hundred years.
Innocent was also lucky in
that he could exploit both
John’s unpopularity in
England and his conflict
with the king of France.
His hints that John might
be deposed fell on fertile
soil, and John became
increasingly nervous,
travelling with a large
retinue. In 1211 he at last
indicated that he would
accept Langton, but he still
haggled over the amount
of compensation due to the
church.
***
After 1204, John had
one overriding ambition:
to recover his lost
continental empire. Yet his
involvement in Britain was
of an unparalleled
intensity, partly because
he was now confined
there. Like Henry and
Richard, he was
determined to neutralize
any threat from Scotland
and also, far more actively
than they, to increase his
lands and revenues in
Ireland and Wales.
Baronial politics too
assumed a British, rather
than Anglo-Norman,
mould. When William
Marshal and William de
Braose fell from favour
they did not go to
Normandy but to Ireland.
At the start of his reign
John had brushed aside
King William’s renewed
claim to the northern
counties and thereafter
tensions remained not far
below the surface. In 1209
they exploded. John
suddenly heard of a
scheme for one of
William’s daughters to
marry none other than
King Philip of France. He
immediately marched
north and imposed the
exigent Treaty of Norham
on the Scottish king in
August 1209. Under its
terms, John received both
William’s daughters into
his custody and agreed to
marry one to his eldest son
and the other to an English
noble. In return for these
unpalatable favours,
William was made to
promise £10,000, of which
at least £6,700 was paid.
He now no longer had the
resources, either
diplomatic or financial, to
cause John trouble. His
situation soon deteriorated
further. In 1211 Guthred,
son of the Donald Mac
William killed in 1187,
arrived from Ireland and
gained support both in
Ross and Moray. William,
faltering with age, began
to fear for the very
succession of his son
Alexander, born in August
1198. His fears were
shared by Alexander’s
mother, Ermengarde de
Beaumont, the French
noblewoman Henry II had
married to William in
1187. It was thus
Ermengarde, a striking
image of a Scottish queen
in politics, who helped
early in 1212 to negotiate
the agreement which
brought John to the
rescue. With some vague
talk of Northumberland as
her marriage portion, the
latter betrothed his infant
daughter Joan to
Alexander, made him a
knight, and sent him back
to Scotland with a force of
Brabantine mercenaries.
With these, Alexander
soon put down Guthred’s
revolt, Guthred himself
being caught and hanged.
To the Barnwell annalist it
looked as though the
Scottish kingdom itself had
been formally entrusted to
John’s care.
***
John’s involvement in
Scotland was not merely to
prevent a French alliance.
It was also related to the
state of affairs in Ireland.
John had been effectively
‘lord of Ireland’ since his
visit in 1185. He enjoyed
the status, and retained
the title after becoming
king. Ireland provided
both sources of patronage
and money. Year after year
a thousand pounds or so
were shipped across the
sea to swell his English
treasure. John’s primary
policy, in parallel with
that in England, was to
make those revenues
larger, which could be
done by gaining more land
and exploiting it more
effectively. In 1203 he
therefore ordered his
justiciar to take over the
best ports and villages in
Connacht, and invest the
revenues in building
castles, founding more
villages and doing
everything possible for
royal ‘profit’. It was
likewise with the aim of
making money that John
in 1207 instituted the first
Irish coinage. His lordship
did indeed mark a decisive
period in Ireland’s history.
He achieved a large and
lasting expansion in the
areas under direct royal
control, annexed
(temporarily) two of the
great settler lordships, and
established the procedures
of English common law.
The political conditions
in Ireland facilitated
John’s forward policies.
There was not merely
conflict between Irish
kings and English lords.
The kingly families in the
west – the MacCarthys of
Desmond, the O’Briens of
Thomond, and the
O’Connors of Connacht –
competed against each
other and were themselves
divided into rival and
often warring segments.
The great English lords –
the justiciar Meiler fitz
Henry, Walter de Lacy in
Meath, John de Courcy in
Ulster, William Marshal in
Leinster (through his
marriage to the daughter
of Richard fitz Gilbert) –
likewise presented no
united front. All this was
grist to John’s
manipulative mill. He had
no fixed policy towards
either the native Irish or
the settler lords, and he
cosseted or caned them as
seemed expedient. This is
not to say he saw them in
the same light. John had
pulled the beards of the
Irish rulers when he
arrived in 1185, and
always regarded them as
objects of ridicule. He
could maltreat them,
moreover, without
repercussions outside
Ireland, whereas with
settler lords he had always
to remember the wider
stage. Yet just for that
reason John could tolerate
the independence of the
former more readily than
he could the latter.
In the 1190s John had
made major advances at
the expense of both
English lords and native
kings. In the north his men
had pushed Walter de Lacy
out of Drogheda, which
then (with its castle)
developed into a royal
base, though one Walter
always aspired to recover.
In the southwest, the death
of Donnell O’Brien, king of
Munster in 1194, and the
quarrels between his sons,
enabled John to gain
Limerick. Occupying a
highly strategic position at
the mouth of the Shannon,
it opened up a whole new
field of royal power.
John’s other major gain
arose from exploiting the
contest for the succession
to Connacht, playing off
his protégé, William de
Burgh, against competing
members of the O’Connor
family. In 1205 John,
discarding William,
conceded to Cathal
Crovderg two-thirds of
Connacht for the
customary tribute, and a
third (the best) in
hereditary right as a
barony. Here was a
striking example of a
native ruler attaining his
ends by accommodation.
By going baronial, Cathal
hoped to ensure the
succession of his son Aedh,
and also to guarantee his
lands from further English
attack. In return, after
various exchanges, John
eventually acquired two
cantrefs near Athlone.
There in 1210 a great
castle was erected above
the Shannon. Right in the
centre of Ireland, between
Meath and Connacht, this
long remained a pivotal
royal base. John’s
guarantees were never
worth very much,
however. On the same day
in 1215, he issued one
charter granting Connacht
to Cathal Crovderg and
another to Cathal’s rival
Richard de Burgh,
William’s son!
William de Burgh
merely fell from favour in
the early 1200s. John de
Courcy, the conqueror of
Ulster, lost everything. In
1201 the chronicler Roger
of Howden had placed him
in a list of European rulers
alongside the pope and the
kings of England, France
and Germany; not bad for
a near landless younger
son, but too much for King
John. He backed the Lacys
in a war which ended with
de Courcy’s defeat and
capture. In 1205 John
granted Ulster to Hugh de
Lacy. These tensions paled
before John’s quarrel with
William de Braose, which
became one of the defining
events of the reign. Lord of
Bramber in Sussex and
wide lordships in Wales,
Braose had started as one
of John’s leading
henchmen and been
rewarded in 1201 (despite
William de Burgh’s
presence in the area) with
a grant of the honour of
Limerick. John, however,
retained the chief prize,
the town of Limerick itself.
It was needed, so John’s
justiciar Meiler fitz Henry
insisted, to control the
king’s lands in Cork and
Connacht. So possession of
Limerick town became a
great bone of contention,
and there was yet another.
Braose had promised to
pay £3,333 at £666 a year
for his grant. By 1207 he
had managed a mere £468.
As trust disintegrated,
John began to regret the
early favour he had shown
Braose including in Wales
a hereditary grant of the
lordship of Gower. John
eventually seized chattels
in Wales to enforce
payment of the debt. The
result was a violent
conflict which culminated,
during the winter of
1208/9, in Braose’s flight
to Ireland. There he was
welcomed by his son-in-
law Walter de Lacy and
William Marshal, who had
retreated to his Leinster
lordship (where he busily
developed the port of New
Ross) after falling from
grace for refusing to join
the Poitevin expedition of
1206. In effect, the great
barons of Ireland were in
rebellion against the king.
 In 1209 John marched
north to ensure the rebels
received no help from
Scotland (the occasion for
the Treaty of Norham) and
then, in the summer of
1210, crossed to Ireland.
He came to terms with
some of the native kings,
but made the mistake of
laughing when he saw
Cathal Crovderg riding
bareback. He then caused
further offence by
demanding hostages and
tribute from both Cathal
and Aedh O’Neil, king of
Cenel Eoghain in the
north, who thereafter
remained a thorn in the
side of royal government.
John, however, could
afford to be careless. Flush
with money, he had
brought over 1,000 foot
soldiers and at least 800
knights, probably the
largest army ever seen in
Ireland, all supported by
payments out of the
chamber. William de
Braose, having returned to
Wales, had already tried to
submit before John’s
crossing, but John was
determined to show his
power. He chased Braose’s
wife Matilda, together
with Walter and Hugh de
Lacy, out of Ireland.
Matilda was captured in
Galloway and sent to John.
She was already celebrated
for her efficient household
management, her defence
of Painscastle in the 1190s
(thereafter renamed Castle
Matilda), and her fiery
refusal to surrender her
sons as hostages – ‘Arthur’s
fate reveals what happens
to boys in John’s custody,’
she declared. John’s own
account of the quarrel
shows he regarded
husband and wife very
much as a team. Once in
John’s hands, Matilda was
made to offer £33,333
merely for the life and
limbs of herself and her
family. Wretched but
courageous, she insisted on
seeing her husband, who
came under safe conduct
and then fled to France
(where he died in 1211),
leaving Matilda to her fate.
When the king’s ministers
came to her in prison and
demanded the first
payment of the monstrous
sum, they found but £16
and a few pieces of gold.
She and her eldest son
(married to a daughter of
Richard de Clare, earl of
Hertford, and already
acting as lord of Brecon)
were starved to death in
the dungeons of Windsor
Castle. Stories of the
pathetic attitudes in which
their bodies were found
were soon on every
baronial lip. Here again
was a shocking and
unprecedented crime.
John’s expedition,
however, had been a
triumph. Both in Wales
and Ireland the Braose
lordships were in his
hands. So in Ireland were
the Lacys’ Meath and
Ulster. In 1212, to control
the latter and secure
contingents of Galloway’s
violent soldiery, he
granted Ulster (abortively,
in the end) to Galloway’s
lord, Alan fitz Roland.
During his 1210 visit, John
had also taken major steps
to settle the whole
governmental structure of
Ireland. He wanted to
monitor and exploit
Ireland yet had no desire
to go there, as he once
confessed to Gerald of
Wales. He relied on
sending letters (usually in
great batches after the
advent of messengers) and
summoning the justiciar,
head of the government, to
court. From 1208 until his
death in 1214 the post was
held by the ultra-loyal
John de Grey, bishop of
Norwich, an accomplished
administrator who had no
personal axe to grind in
Ireland – unlike his
predecessor, Meiler fitz
Henry. Grey built the
castle at Athlone and did
much to develop law and
government. As justiciar
he presided over the
exchequer which was
based in Dublin castle,
built in 1204 to control the
city and store treasure.
The pipe rolls of the Irish
exchequer are lost, but a
partial copy of that for
1212 suggests procedure
was similar to that in
England. It shows that the
king’s lands were grouped
under three sheriffs, for
Dublin and Drogheda, for
Munster (embracing
Limerick and Tipperary),
and for Waterford and
Cork. The Lacy lordships
of Meath and Ulster in
John’s hands were under
stewards.
In 1210 John, in a
charter which built on
initiatives in 1204 and
1207, laid down that
English laws and customs
were henceforth to be
observed in Ireland. The
pleas of the crown, which
included cases of serious
crime, were reserved for
hearing by the justiciar or
by judges sent to the
localities. The justiciar was
also empowered to issue
the same writs to initiate
civil litigation as existed in
England. Later in 1210 a
register of those writs was
sent to Ireland. The
English common law had
arrived. It operated first
and foremost for the
English within the king’s
own lands. But John was
more ambitious than that.
In 1208 he clamped down
on the Marshal’s Leinster
and de Lacy’s Meath by
reserving for himself in
both the hearing of the
pleas of the crown. In
Meath he also reserved for
himself the issuing of the
common law writs. In fact
in the thirteenth century,
in both Meath (restored to
Walter de Lacy in 1215)
and Leinster, these
restrictions were not
upheld. But at least
lordship law was the king’s
law of England, not
marcher law as to some
extent it was within the
great lordships of Wales.
John was equally keen
to extend his authority
within the native
kingdoms. His
proclamation about the
pleas of the crown in 1207
had been ‘to everyone of
the whole of Ireland’ and
such pleas were reserved
in the grant of Connacht to
Cathal Crovderg in 1215.
The implication is that the
Irish in the native
kingdoms were to be
subject to such pleas, as
they probably were
(although contemporary
evidence is non-existent)
within the royal lands. Yet
John was realistic. As he
put it in 1207, his
authority ran ‘through all
our land and power of
Ireland’. In practice his
power within the native
kingdoms was negligible.
They escaped the
‘blessings’ of English law.
So, when it came to civil
litigation, did the native
Irish even within the royal
lands. Perhaps that was
partly by choice. They
preferred their own
customs, which royal
government made no
effort to eliminate. Later
they were denied the
choice, being deemed
unfree and thus excluded.
It might have been
different had John’s
aggressive rule continued
to subject both the
lordships and the native
kingdoms to royal ‘power’.
 ***
In Wales, as in Ireland,
John exploited chances to
increase his territories at
the expense of both the
native rulers and the
English barons. He knew
Wales better than any of
his predecessors. Having
obtained Glamorgan
through his first marriage
in 1189, he retained it,
despite his divorce, until
1214. He imposed his
authority on the native
rulers with a new
sharpness and precision,
thus foreshadowing
tensions which exploded
later in the century. Yet
John never dealt with
Wales, any more than
Ireland, in isolation,
something encapsulated in
his attitude to an
archbishopric of St Davids,
plans for which he
encouraged or discouraged
depending on whether his
relations with the
archbishop of Canterbury,
Hubert Walter, were bad
or good, as Gerald of
Wales who aimed to be
archbishop noted
dyspeptically. Again, it
was as a reward for easing
through his accession that
John recognized the claim
of William Marshal,
hitherto just holding
Chepstow, to the earldom
and lordship of Pembroke
– a major concession, since
Pembroke had been in
royal hands since Henry II
had denied it to the
Marshal’s father-in-law,
Richard fitz Gilbert (see
above, p. 217). Against
this, John made an early
gain through exploiting
the divisions between
descendants of the Lord
Rhys in Deheubarth. In
return for confirming his
tenure of Emlyn in
northern Dyfed, John
received from Maelgwn,
son of the Lord Rhys,
acting ‘in hatred of
Gruffudd his brother’, the
cession in perpetuity of
Cardigan. This ‘lock and
stay of all Wales’ (as the
Brut put it) which the Lord
Rhys had finally wrested
from the Clares in the
1160s was now for the
first time in royal hands,
marching with the existing
base at Carmarthen. As in
Ireland, however, it was
rash to trust John’s
bargains. In 1204 he
allowed William Marshal
to drive Maelgwn from
Emlyn. In the north, John
had similarly tried to
exploit divisions among
the Welsh, but by 1202
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (the
future Llywelyn the Great)
had emerged as master of
all Gwynedd ‘from the Dyfi
to the Dee’. So John
changed tack and in 1205
gave his illegitimate
daughter, Joan, in
marriage to Llyelyn. He
thus hoped to secure the
latter’s loyalty, not least as
a counterweight to the earl
of Chester.
The Welsh rulers
submitted to John to gain
his support in their
fratricidal quarrels and
immunity from royal and
baronial aggression. The
terms of their submissions
were set out in a series of
charters and other
documents, which were
themselves then copied
onto the new chancery
rolls. The relations
between the king and the
Welsh rulers, recorded in
writing apparently for the
first time, thus gained a
novel exactitude. The
Welsh themselves regarded
these charters later in the
century as marking a new
start in their dealings with
the English crown. John
made it very clear that the
rulers in Deheubarth,
Gwynedd and Powys held
their lands from him in
return for homage and
service ‘against all
mortals’. Breach of this
faith involved forfeiture. In
Llywelyn’s case ‘the
magnates of his land’
swore fealty too so that
John was asserting
authority within Gwynedd
itself, an ominous
precedent for the future.
An agreement of 1202
with Llywelyn also gave
the king in some
circumstances the right to
send his own officials ‘into
the land of Llywelyn’ to
hear law cases. The Welsh
rulers were becoming
trammelled up in the law
and bureaucracy of
England; ultimately it
would strangle them.
After the loss of
Normandy in 1204, John
visited Wales or the March
in every year down to
1211. On William de
Braose’s fall in 1208 he
took possession of the
Braose lordships of
Radnor, Elfael, Builth,
Brecon, Abergavenny and
Gower, gaining an
altogether new power in
Wales. He placed these
territories under the
Tourangeau, Gerard
d’Athée, erstwhile
castellan of Loches. Also in
1208 John imprisoned
Gwenwynwyn, ruler of
southern Powys, and
seized his lands. Llywelyn,
however, like a beast
scavaging its share of the
prey, managed to take the
western districts of
Arwystli and Cyfeiliog for
himself, controlling as a
result the great east–west
pass through central
Wales. He went on to drive
Maelgwn out of Ceredigion
and seize Aberystwyth.
John was furious. In 1211,
building on his Irish
triumph, he invaded
Gwynedd with an army
which included both
Maelgwn and
Gwenwynwyn, the latter
now back in favour. This
was the first royal
expedition to Wales since
that of Henry II in 1165
and it penetrated to
Bangor, further west than
any of its predecessors.
Llywelyn, with the wisdom
he showed throughout his
career, sent his wife Joan
to beg for terms. They
were harsh. John was to
have hostages, a large
tribute in cattle, and the
allegiance of any of
Llywelyn’s men he wished
(the stipulation of 1202
once again). He was also
to have in perpetuity the
Four Cantrefs between the
Conwy and the Dee, and to
become heir to the rest of
Gwynedd if Llywelyn
himself had no heirs by
Joan. He thus truncated
Gwynedd and, in the
future, might have it
altogether. Meanwhile in
the south John’s Norman
military captain, Falkes de
Bréauté, in a separate
expedition from Cardiff
advanced into Ceredigion,
captured Aberystwyth and
built a new castle there for
the crown. ‘Thus in
Ireland, Scotland and
Wales there was no one
who did not bow to the
nod of the king of England,
which, as is well known,
was the case with none of
his predecessors,’ wrote
the Barnwell annalist.
***
John, then, seemed
triumphant in Britain. He
was also moving towards a
settlement of the Interdict,
and building up the
continental allies
necessary for the recovery
of his empire. In May 1212
he reached an agreement
both with Reginald, count
of Boulogne and the
Emperor Otto, the latter
braced to meet the
challenge in Germany of
the future Emperor
Frederick II. John then
began to assemble a fleet
at Portsmouth only to call
the expedition off,
probably because he had
failed to reach an
agreement with the count
of Flanders. His fortunes
were beginning to spiral
inexorably downwards.
Llywelyn, after
attending John’s 1212
Easter court, had made a
bid for freedom. He
brought, or so he claimed,
‘all the princes of Wales’
into a confederation, made
an alliance with the king
of France (like his
grandfather Owain
Gwynedd), and seized
back the Four Cantrefs,
determined to break his
enemies’ castle-enforced
‘yoke of tyranny’. Llywelyn
was joined by John’s
erstwhile ally Maelgwn,
who had already destroyed
the royal castle at
Aberystwyth, and by
Gwenwynwyn of southern
Powys. John, following
Henry II’s precedent in
1165, in revenge killed
Maelgwn’s hostage sons
(two died after castration,
and one, although only
seven, was hanged), and
then planned an
expedition which would
effectively have ended
Welsh independence. Over
8,000 labourers were to
assemble, a castle-building
force double that deployed
by the eventual conqueror
of Wales, Edward I. But
Llywelyn had not been
foolhardy; he had been in
league with the English
barons.
 On 16 August 1212 at
Nottingham, John
suddenly learnt of a
baronial plot either to
murder him or leave him
to his fate during the
campaign in Wales. Of the
two known conspirators
one was the cagey,
independent Eustace de
Vesci, the lord of Alnwick
in Northumberland. The
other was Robert fitz
Walter, lord of Little
Dunmow in Essex and
Baynards Castle in London.
Something of fitz Walter’s
valour and connections
can be sensed in his silver
seal die, now in the British
Museum. It shows him in a
grim flat-topped helmet,
brandishing his sword, and
galloping along on a
splendidly caparisoned
horse, the heraldic devices
proclaiming his links with
both the Clares and the
Quencies. Fitz Walter
nursed grievances over
debts and thwarted claims
to Hertford castle. He also
put it about that John had
tried to seduce his
daughter. Vesci, if a later
story can be believed,
resented similar attentions
to his wife. Both Henry I
and Henry II had been
promiscuous, but never
with political
repercussions. In John’s
case accusations that he
tampered with the wives
and daughters of his
magnates were widespread
and not always without
foundation. An entry on
one of the chancery rolls
reveals John apparently
joking with his mistress,
the wife of Hugh de
Neville, over what a night
back with Hugh was
worth; the answer, a
ridiculous 200 chickens.
Together with his murders
such activities show why
hostility to John took on
such a personal hue. They
do not explain Magna
Carta, but they were a
major factor in the
rebellion which led up to
it.
 The depth of the 1212
crisis can be measured
from John’s reaction. He
called off the Welsh
expedition and marched
north to assert his
authority, forcing fitz
Walter and Vesci to flee to
France. He also made a
series of concessions
‘worthy of remembrance
and praise’, as the
Barnwell annalist puts it,
abandoning revenues he
was exacting above the
county farms, investigating
the abuses of the sheriffs
and foresters, and
promising to relax
repayments of money
owed to the Jews. Having
stabilized his position,
however, he did not revive
his Welsh expedition
because he was facing a
much graver threat. By the
spring of 1213, in touch
with English dissidents and
encouraged by papal hints
of John’s imminent
deposition, King Philip
was preparing a great
invasion to be led by
Louis, his eldest son. In
May John gathered a large
army in Kent to meet the
threat. He also realized he
must now settle with the
pope. On 13 May 1213 he
agreed to receive back
Langton, the other exiled
bishops, and also Vesci
and fitz Walter who had
somehow joined their
cause to that of the
church. Two days later he
made both England and
Ireland fiefs to be held
henceforth from the
papacy. In return, he was
absolved from
excommunication, by
Langton himself, on 20
July. The Interdict itself
was finally lifted a year
later, after compensation
had been set in train. John
had been forced to accept
an archbishop he
distrusted – with reason,
as things turned out. Yet
he probably repaid less
than half the £100,000 he
had extracted from the
church, and now had the
pope as his staunchest
friend: hence ultimately
the survival of his dynasty.
God too conferred an
immediate reward. On 30
May the earl of Salisbury
and the count of Boulogne
destroyed the French
invasion fleet at Damme
and the danger was over.
John could go on the
offensive, and it was not in
Wales. Having now
received the allegiance of
the count of Flanders, and
with the diplomatic
breaches so disastrous in
the loss of Normandy
finally repaired, John
sailed in February 1214 for
Poitou, without many of
his barons, but with a
large treasure and
numerous paid knights.
The strategy was to split
the French forces in two.
The Emperor Otto, the
counts of Flanders and
Boulogne, and the earl of
Salisbury attacked from
the north and John from
the south. In June he
advanced beyond Angers;
only then, confronted by a
large French army and
deserted by his Poitevin
allies, was he forced to
retreat. By 9 July he was
back at La Rochelle. On 27
July his northern allies
were comprehensively
defeated by King Philip at
the battle of Bouvines.
Bouvines deservedly ranks
among the world’s decisive
battles. In Germany it
undermined Otto and set
up Frederick II. In
Normandy it ended the
chance of Angevin
recovery. In Europe it
made King Philip supreme.
In England it shattered
John’s authority and paved
the way for Magna Carta.
John had left a kingdom
seething with discontent,
which had mounted during
his absence. This was
partly due to the
extraordinary man he had
left behind as justiciar,
Peter des Roches, bishop
of Winchester. Peter, from
the Touraine, was a skilled
administrator and a
military expert (he later
fought at the battle of
Lincoln) who had risen in
John’s service and had
been the only bishop not
to desert him during the
Interdict.
The warrior of
Winchester, up at the
exchequer
Sharp at accounting,
slack at the scripture,
ran one lampoon (in
Michael Clanchy’s
rendering). Regarded
as an abrasive
foreigner by many
barons, and certainly
very different from his
cautious predecessors,
Peter strove to raise
the scutage John
demanded from those
who had not come on
the 1214 expedition,
only to find that in
Yorkshire in particular
resistance made that
impossible. On John’s
return in October
1214, ‘the
Northerners’, as they
are called in many
sources, emerged as a
distinct body, leading
the resistance. They
included, at this early
stage, Eustace de
Vesci, William de
Mowbray and Roger
de Montbegon
(another baron heavily
in debt to the crown),
who had all refused to
go on the 1214
campaign. They sent
envoys to the pope and
by early 1215 had
forced John into
negotiations,
demanding at the very
least that he confirm
the Coronation Charter
of Henry I. There had
been, therefore, a
decisive change in
objectives since the
plot to murder the
king in 1212. The aim
now was not to
eliminate him but to
bind him to
conditions. This was
not because he seemed
any more trustworthy
or salubrious. It was
just that murder or
deposition, especially
when there was no
obvious replacement,
seemed harder to
contemplate now that
John, instead of being
excommunicated, was
 a favourite son of the
church.

John played for time,

and postponed
consideration of these
matters to a council due to
meet at Oxford at the end
of April 1215. Yet his
position continued to
weaken. Offers to Llywelyn
and Maelgwn did not
prevent them combining
with the barons. The pope
remained supportive but
he was distant, and
Langton refused to
excommunicate the
dissidents. To be sure, in
November 1214 John had
tried to buy Langton’s
support and that of the
church in general by
issuing a charter which
promised free and speedy
canonical elections to
abbeys and bishoprics. But
this was less momentous
than it seemed. John still
hoped that his candidates
would be elected; he could
still, under the terms of
the charter, refuse his
assent to elections, in
which case he would
retain the vacancy
revenues until a successor
was appointed. Langton
therefore increasingly
played the role, not of a
supporter of the king, but
of a mediator between the
two sides and one largely
in sympathy with baronial
aims.
The opposition barons
did not come to the Oxford
council at the end of April.
Instead they mustered in
arms at Stamford in
Lincolnshire and on 5 May
formally defied the king.
By now the original
Northerners had been
joined by the earls of
Hereford, Norfolk and
Essex, as well as the clever
and charismatic Saer de
Quency. John had made
the latter earl of
Winchester and a chief
official at the exchequer,
but had denied him the
castle of Mountsorrel; de
Quency was left an earl
without a castle – almost
as disastrous as a knight
without a horse. Military
leadership of the
movement was assumed by
Saer’s brother-in-arms,
Robert fitz Walter, under
the grandiloquent title
‘Marshal of the Army of
God and Holy Church’.
The war which began
on 5 May was transformed
within twelve days.
Despite John’s charter
early in the month giving
them the right to have a
mayor, on 17 May the
Londoners let the rebels
into the city. Its financial
resources were now theirs;
the security of its walls
theirs also. (London
remained the principal
baronial base until the end
of hostilities in 1217.)
There was no way John
could now bring the war
to a speedy end, especially
as he was also faced by the
rebellion of large numbers
of knights. In part that was
because knightly tenants
followed their lords,
something very clear in
the north where baronies
were compact and the tie
of tenure was reinforced
by that of neighbourhood.
But it was also because
many knights were
sympathetic to the rebel
cause. Ralph of
Coggeshall’s statement that
John’s leading supporters
were all deserted by their
knights was an
exaggeration (the loyalist
earl of Derby was
remarkably successful in
keeping his tenants in
line), but it indicates the
flow of the tide. Some
knights like Thomas of
Moulton and Simon of
Kyme, both ex-sheriffs of
Lincolnshire, were as
wealthy as many barons
and clearly made their
own decisions to rebel. So
did those from areas
without dominant lords,
such as the counties of
Northampton, Bedford,
Cambridge and
Huntingdon where at least
seventy-eight knights were
in the rebel camp. Many
knights had grievances of
their own; William fitz
Ellis, for instance, alleged
that his manor of Oakley
in Buckinghamshire had
been taken from him by
King John ‘by will,
unjustly and without
judgement’. (For the fitz
Ellises, see below, p. 395.)
The general administration
of the shires and forests
had been harsh, and was
the harder to bear now
that knights were
increasingly staffing juries,
holding office and
developing the view
(reflected in Magna Carta)
that they should control
local government
themselves.
 For all their support
there was equally no way
the barons on their part
could win a quick victory,
or not without the hazard
of a battle which might go
either way. John still held
his castles throughout
England, many
commanded by ruthless
military experts. Scraping
together money, he had
also recruited a
considerable body of
foreign mercenaries. He
retained the allegiance of
the earls of Chester, Derby,
Warenne, Salisbury and
Pembroke; the last,
William Marshal, had been
secured by a wise grant in
January 1214 of the
custody of Cardigan and
Carmarthen. Marshal’s
adherence helped to secure
the position in Ireland, and
this meant that John could
still draw supplies from
the province. To make
doubly sure, he had also
patched up his quarrel
with Walter de Lacy, in
1215 restoring him to
Meath, a striking example
of how English politics
impacted on Ireland.
Stalemate produced
negotiations, which took
place from 27 May under
cover of a truce. The
baronial programme was
rapidly developing. In one
surviving draft, the
Coronation Charter of
Henry I was linked to
twelve entirely fresh
provisions (called by
modern historians the
‘Unknown Charter’). By 10
June, when John agreed
‘The Articles of the Barons’
as a basis for a settlement,
the Coronation Charter
had been forgotten and the
new provisions numbered
forty-nine. There followed
five days of intense
negotiations. Runnymede,
the great meadow beside
the Thames, where the
baronial tents were
pitched and the talks held
with John who rode down
from Windsor castle, is still
redolent of those long
summer days. Finally the
negotiators reached
agreement and John,
seizing the initiative, went
ahead at once and issued
the Charter, later called
Magna Carta, which
embodied the terms. The
date was 15 June. It was
left to the baronial
negotiators to sell the
results to the assembled
barons, many of whom
(especially a group of
Northerners) would have
liked something much
more radical. As a result, it
was not until 19 June that
the deal was accepted and
peace proclaimed: a poor
omen for the future.
***
The restrictions placed
by Magna Carta on the
workings of kingship were
unprecedented and
profound. In sixty-two
interlocking chapters, the
Great Charter sought to
limit the king’s ‘money-
making’ operations, make
his justice more equitable,
reform the abuses of his
local agents, and prevent
him acting in an arbitrary
fashion against
individuals. ‘No free man
shall be taken or
imprisoned or disseised or
outlawed or exiled or in
any way ruined… except
by the lawful judgement of
his peers or the law of the
land,’ ran chapter 39; ‘To
no one will we sell, to no
one will we deny or delay
right or justice,’ ran
chapter 40. Intended as
fundamental bars to
tyranny, these are the
chapters of Magna Carta
still on the Statute Book
today. The Charter
concluded with its
‘security clause’, setting up
twenty-five barons whose
task was to compel the
king to keep its provisions.
Henceforth he was to be
subject to the law, the law
Magna Carta itself laid
down.
 Yet the Charter’s view
of kingship was far from
entirely negative. It
accepted the new common
law legal procedures of
Henry II and sought to
make them more readily
available. Thus chapter 17
implied that the bench of
justices was to sit
permanently at
Westminster to hear
common pleas; under
chapter 18, judges were to
tour the counties four
times a year to hear the
petty assizes. So the king
was not to be reduced to a
mere feudal overlord. The
huge expansion of royal
justice begun by Henry II’s
procedures was to
continue. In other areas,
where the desire was to
restrict kingship, the
Charter was less radical
than many hoped, largely
because it was a
negotiated document, not
one dictated to John after
military defeat. Whereas
the ‘Unknown Charter’ had
called for the reversal of
the massive afforestations
of Henry II, Magna Carta
postponed the issue into
some indefinite future. It
did little about debts owed
to the Jews, and apart
from dismissing some
foreign sheriffs and
castellans, left John free to
chose his local agents.
Above all, John retained
complete control of central
government. The chancery
still issued writs and
charters on his sole orders.
He could appoint whom he
liked as his great ministers
and, generally speaking,
give patronage to whom
he liked. These gaps in the
Charter were to be the
battleground of politics
later in the thirteenth
century.
The early clauses of the
Charter benefited baronial
families first and foremost
since they were designed
to limit the king’s ‘feudal’
rights and revenues –
those which derived from
the tenurial relationship
between him and his
tenants-in-chief. Earls and
barons were now to
succeed to their estates on
payment of a fixed £100
relief and the king was
only to take ‘reasonable
issues’ from wardships.
Heirs of tenants-in-chief
were to be married
without disparagement,
that is only to their social
equals, and their widows
were to enter their
inheritances and dowers
without payment. They
were also not to be forced
to re-marry, a clause
which had a significant
impact on the position of
noblewomen in the
thirteenth century (see
below, p. 421.) The
assembly which was to
give consent to taxation
was to be made up of lay
and ecclesiastical tenants-
in-chief. Yet the Charter
was far from simply a
baronial document.
Chapter 1 guaranteed the
liberty of the church and
confirmed the earlier
charter which had already
granted free elections.
Chapter 13 confirmed the
liberties of all cities and
boroughs, including
London, whose mayor was
one of the twenty-five
barons. The baronial
tenants-in-chief had to
pass down the concessions
they received to their own
tenants, and were
restricted in the number of
‘aids’ (that is taxes) they
could take from them. The
Charter gave special
prominence to the knights.
Twelve from each county,
elected locally, were to
investigate and abolish
abuses by the king’s local
officials. Four knights,
again locally elected, were
to sit with the judges
coming to the counties to
hear the petty assizes: a
striking testimony to both
the expertise of the knights
and their desire to control
local government
themselves. The Charter as
a whole was granted ‘to all
freemen’, a vast and
diverse group of people,
including many peasants.
It was all freemen, not just
barons, who were to enjoy
the guarantees in chapter
39. Likewise it was all
freemen who were to
benefit from chapters 17
and 18, which sought to
make the common law and
the petty assizes more
available. And then, under
the terms of the security
clause, everyone –
apparently the free and
unfree alike – would form
‘the community of the
land’ bound by oath to
help the twenty-five
barons enforce the
Charter. Up to a point,
though only up to a point,
the Charter did indeed
reach out to the unfree.
The chapters regulating
amercements (20–22) were
explicit in covering all
ranks in society, villeins as
well as earls, barons,
clerks and freemen.
Chapter 23 was of
exclusive benefit to the
peasantry, laying down
that ‘no village or man’
could be forced unlawfully
to build bridges. In a more
general way, everyone
stood to gain from the
clauses which limited the
exactions of the sheriffs,
notably chapter 25 which
freed them from having to
raise money above the
‘ancient farms’ of their
shires. Again, everyone
was included when John
promised in chapter 40
that ‘to no one will we
deny right or justice’.
There, however, was the
rub. For it was the law
itself which held the
unfree in thrall, denying
them access to the king’s
courts. Only freemen
conspicuously benefited
from the promises in
chapter 39, and freemen,
as we have seen, were the
grantees of the Charter.
The barons might speak of
‘the common Charter of
the realm’ but it was far
more common for some
than it was for others.
The Charter had been
created by the financial
pressure of royal
government both on the
barons and wider sections
of society. Some of the
strains were of long
standing. The Coronation
Charter of Henry I had
itself dealt with baronial
grievances over relief,
wardships and marriages.
In that sense Magna Carta
sought to resolve the
tensions which stemmed
from the feudal
relationships established
by the Conquest. Such
pressures had been limited
under Henry II but they
had escalated rapidly
under Richard and John,
thanks to the growing
burden of defending and
recovering the Angevin
empire. As for wider
sections of society, here
Henry II had created (or so
it was thought) the
extensive and oppressive
jurisdiction of the royal
forests; while Richard (in
1194) exacted money in
excess of the ancient farms
of the counties, a policy
carried further by John
and banned, as mentioned,
by chapter 25 of the
Charter. And it was
Richard and John (Richard
for his ransom, John in
1207) who for the first
time since the Anglo-Saxon
kings raised really large
sums from taxation. No
wonder the Charter
insisted that such taxes
needed consent. It did the
same for scutages, a clear
reaction to the large
number John had levied.
Ralph of Coggeshall
affirmed that the rebellion
of 1215 was against the
abuses of Henry and
Richard, and those which
John had added. Yet
John’s additions were far
more than a final straw.
They were a large part of
the burden. Under Richard
the financial pips had
squeaked, under John they
had screamed.
Another important
thrust of the Charter was
to end the arbitrary way in
which the king had treated
individuals, his
manipulation of
inheritances, his denial
and sale of justice, and his
seizure of property ‘by
will’ and without
judgment: hence the
importance for great men
of chapters 39 and 40.
Again, such grievances
were often of long-
standing: the Charter
referred to the arbitrary
disseisins of Henry II and
Richard. Those of John
‘without lawful judgement
of peers’ were to be
redressed, if necessary by
the twenty-five barons of
the security clause; so
were the fines and
amercements which John
had imposed ‘unjustly and
contrary to the law of the
land’. In fact over fifty
restorations were made at
Runnymede or soon after,
twelve to members of the
twenty-five: Nicholas de
Stuteville was now to
recover Knaresborough,
and the earl of Hereford,
Trowbridge; at the
knightly level William fitz
Ellis was to get Oakley.
Closely related to the
king’s behaviour in these
areas was the issue of
patronage. The stipulation
that heirs should be
married without
disparagement was clearly
an attack on marriages like
that of the Tourangeau
Peter de Maulay to the
Doncaster heiress. Another
clause dismissed from
office the hated northern
sheriff Philip Mark and his
associates.
‘Instead of law there
was tyrannical will,’
commented the Waverley
abbey annalist on John’s
rule, reflecting another
background to the
Charter’s reforms. Views
about government had
been developing. John was
far more hedged round by
such ideas than Henry I
had been a hundred years
before. Of course, some of
the key ideas in 1215 were
already very old, notably
the call for judgement by
peers; that had been
mentioned as correct
procedure in Henry I’s
agreement with the count
of Flanders back in 1101.
Equally old was the idea
that the king should
govern lawfully and with
the advice and consent of
his great men. But around
such basic concepts the
Schoolmen of the twelfth
century had created a far
more elaborate system.
Central to the thought of
John of Salisbury in his
influential Policraticus was
the distinction derived
from Gregory the Great
and St Augustine between
the just prince and the
tyrant: the prince governs
according to the laws for
the good of his people; the
tyrant tramples on the
laws, oppresses his people
and consults only his
private will.
Such ideas became
commonplace. In the
1200s they were
interpolated into a
compilation of older legal
texts (the so-called ‘Laws
of Edward the Confessor’)
by a London author who
quite possibly moved in
the circle of the baronial
leaders. ‘Right and justice,’
the tract opined, ‘ought to
reign in the kingdom more
than depraved will.’ The
king should ‘do all things
rightfully in his kingdom
by judgement of the
magnates of his kingdom’.
Archbishop Langton fed
his own ideas into the
heady mix. In his lectures
on Deuteronomy at Paris
he had criticized the
avarice of ‘modern kings’
and urged them to study
the law. He believed
obedience was not
obligatory if a king acted
wilfully and without
judgement. And his
general view of the
congregation of clergy and
people, from whom
temporal authority derived
and in whose interests the
king should rule, reflected
the way the whole
‘commune of the land’
benefited from the
Charter, or at least was
assembled to support it.
John’s opponents were
also quite able to justify
their rebellion. As we have
seen, they simply issued a
formal act of ‘defiance’
and renounced their
homages to the king. This
was a procedure that could
be traced back at least to
the reign of Stephen, and
one which, whatever the
king thought about it,
allowed rebels to believe
that their conduct was
proper and legitimate. Nor
was there any difficulty in
contemplating the murder
of the king, as in 1212.
John of Salisbury in his
Policraticus had reviewed
the fate of evil rulers and
stated, if in passing, that
tyrannicide was justified.
The idea of a charter, once
murder was off the
agenda, was easy to
conceive. Urban
communities had long
been obtaining charters
from the king conferring
trading and governmental
privileges. John himself
had set a more general
precedent when he issued
in November 1214 the
charter which conceded
the church free elections.
More crucial still was the
Coronation Charter of
Henry I. It formed the
dissidents’ first known
programme and the
foundation on which
further demands were
built. It dealt not with
general principles, but
with the kind of detailed
issues with which Magna
Carta was most concerned,
and was also, if not in so
many words, conceded to
the whole realm. There
was also, if attempts at
restriction failed, no
difficulty about deposing
the king and choosing
another, for the idea
persisted that the royal
office was elective. Later
in 1215, after the rebels
had offered the throne to
Louis, eldest son of the
king of France, his
explanation for what had
happened was succinct:
the barons ‘by the common
counsel of the kingdom
judging [John] unworthy,
chose us as king and lord’.
Surrounded by a forest
of such opinions, the
Angevins made limited
efforts to hack their way
out. Henry, Richard and
John, through ritual and
display, sought to enhance
the status of their
kingship. They spent large
sums on crowns, robes and
great ceremonial feasts.
Their language stressed the
rights and dignity of the
crown (see above, p. 196).
Their royal seals, following
the model since the
Conquest, on one side
showed them armed and
galloping on horseback
like any other noble, and
sitting with orb and
sceptre, crowned in
majesty, on the other,
utterly unique. Anointing
at the coronation had
poured into them the
blessings of the Holy
Spirit, and these gifts they
sought constantly to renew
and proclaim; hence
Henry’s penance at
Becket’s shrine and
Richard’s crusade; hence
the customary round of
alms-giving and
pilgrimages. Spiritual gifts
were not solicited simply
for personal salvation.
Henry II endowed religious
houses for the souls of his
family and also ‘for the
peace and stability of the
kingdom of England’. But
there were other factors,
some of their own making,
some not, which inevitably
dulled these God-given
qualities. Henry I’s
abandonment of lay
investiture meant that
kings could no longer
claim priestly functions.
Careful with his money,
Henry also scaled down
the triennial crown-
wearing ceremonies, while
Henry II, impatient and
secure, abandoned them
altogether. At times Henry
II deliberately dressed
down and cultivated
informality. Charisma, in
any case, rarely survives
contact with real
personality, and the
Angevins had to be very
real. In terms of genuine
piety only Richard,
shimmering in his royal
robes, assiduous in his
attendance at Mass and
indeed conducting the
choir, was the true
embodiment, and even his
death seemed (to Ralph of
Coggeshall) a just
judgement of God. Henry
was Becket’s murderer,
and John’s later rule, if it
was divinely ordained, was
surely just as punishment.
Up to a point, the
charisma of kingship was
diminished by its
routinization, something
reflected in the very
appearance of the writs
which originated the
common law assizes,
scrappy little things in an
everyday hand with the
king’s name and titles
highly abbreviated and his
seal, if applied at all,
broken on opening. Yet
these were the royal
documents which people
saw more often than any
others.
The Angevins also did
little to elevate their
kingship by drawing on
ideas from the revival of
Roman law. The latter was
certainly studied in
England in the second half
of the twelfth century first
at Lincoln and then at
Oxford. The maxims ‘the
prince is free from the
laws’ and ‘the will of the
prince has the force of law’
were well known.
However, when The
Dialogue of the Exchequer
observed that some of the
king’s revenues came not
by process of law but by
his ‘arbitrary will’, it
seemed embarrassed about
it. Glanvill, though written
by one of the king’s
judges, referred to the will
of the prince having the
force of law, only then to
observe that in England
the prince was not the sole
lawgiver since laws were
settled ‘on the advice of
the magnates’. Roman law
was itself contradictory,
for some passages stressed
that the prince was
beneath the law, and that
law derived its force from
‘the will of the people’. A
more solid defence of
kingship was the stand on
custom. Henry II
constantly said he was
restoring the customs of
his grandfather. John often
stressed he was acting in
accordance with the law
and custom of the realm
and could fairly impugn
the baronial demands of
1215 as ‘novelties’. After
all, the fixed £100 relief
and the ban on revenue
above the county farms
contradicted rather than
confirmed existing
practice. John could also
claim that some of the
arbitrary disseisins of
which he stood accused
moved in grey areas where
right was far from clear.
The trouble, of course, was
that however much John
said he had acted lawfully,
as in his dealing with the
Braoses, many disbelieved
him. And something could
be customary without
being right. The
Coronation Charter of
Henry I had specifically
abolished ‘evil customs’
which had oppressed the
realm. The church,
moreover, was able to
condemn such customs as
contravening its own
canon law. The secular
barons were in a more
difficult position. They
could only appeal to the
‘Laws of Edward the
Confessor’ (vague and
apocryphal) and Henry’s
Coronation Charter (of
uncertain status). But in
the end, however much
they pretended otherwise,
they were quite able to
make new law in the
Charter.
The Angevins thus
fought in the same forest
as their opponents, indeed
they had done much to
plant it. John proclaimed
in 1199 that he had
succeeded by hereditary
right, ‘divine mercy’, and
‘the unanimous assent and
favour of clergy and
people’, thus precisely
stressing the elective
element later used against
him. In 1205, faced with
possible invasion, he had
formed ‘a commune
throughout all the
kingdom, which everyone
from the greatest to the
least from twelve years
upwards should swear to
observe’, an anticipation of
the commune of the land
formed against him to
defend the Charter. ‘We do
not wish that you should
be treated henceforth save
by law and judgement, nor
that anyone shall take
anything from you by will,
nor that you be disseised
of your free tenements
unjustly and without
judgement.’ So spoke John
himself, not under duress
in 1215, but in his
proclamation to Ireland in
1207. He was, of course,
doing no more than
enunciating the principles
on which the petty assizes
of Henry II turned. The
year 1215 marked the
moment when the realm
demanded that the king
obey his own rules.
Ideas were important in
shaping the Charter. So
was the balance of power
in English society
(discussed in chapter 13),
hence essentially the way
it was far more than
simply a baronial
document. The barons did
not rule in lordly isolation.
Indeed, if they resented
the common law sapping
the jurisdiction of their
private courts, the power
of knightly under-tenants,
among that law’s chief
beneficiaries, meant they
could do little about it.
Conversely, it was the lack
of power of the unfree
which explained their
exiguous entries in the
Charter. Indeed, in some
cases when they did
appear it was potentially
to the benefit of their lords
who, as in the clause on
amercements, might hope
to preserve their men from
oppression by the king so
as to have more to take
themselves. That the
unfree featured at all,
however, was not just due
to baronial self-interest or
idealism. It also reflected
the real yet limited extent
to which peasants too
were part of the political
community. The Charter
was very much a
commentary on the
structure of power within
England’s political society.
It was the immediate facts
of power which
determined its fate.
***
For John, Magna Carta
was an end, for the barons
a beginning. On that
difference the agreement
foundered. John hoped the
Charter, having brought
peace and a restoration of
his authority, would
become a toothless
symbol. It was to that end
that he had seized the
initiative at Runnymede,
issuing the Charter on 15
June before the twenty-
five barons of the security
clause had been chosen,
thus keeping their names
out of the document. The
barons, on the other hand,
expected the Charter to be
rigorously enforced and to
lead to further reform. The
barons, in the short term,
got their way. The reversal
of John’s arbitrary fines
and disseisins commenced
at once, as did the
abolition of the evil
practices of the local
officials revealed by the
twelve knightly
investigators in each
county. In the north it was
soon open season on the
royal forests. By the
middle of July, John had
had enough. He sent
envoys to the pope asking
for the condemnation of
the Charter, and the
resulting bull, issued on 24
August, arrived in England
towards the end of
September. There was
little to prevent this
outcome. Langton’s
mediatory role was at an
end. He was eventually
suspended by the pope for
refusing to excommunicate
the barons, and left
England for the papal
court. Since the Charter
was unsustainable, the
barons turned to other
remedies. At a great
assembly held sometime in
September, they deposed
John and offered the
throne to Louis, the eldest
son of the king of France.
Louis had the vestiges of a
hereditary claim (his wife
was the granddaughter of
Henry II). He was
uxorious, pious, and
chivalric, so different from
John. Most crucial of all,
which was why the barons
did not look to King
Alexander of Scotland, he
could deploy the
superabundant resources
of the French monarchy.
The Capetian prince would
oust the Angevin tyrant.
At the start of the war,
the rebels held London and
were strong in the eastern
counties and the north,
where they set up their
own local administrations.
But the king’s castellans
held a spine of castles
through the centre of
England, protecting the
chief bases of royal power
to the west, where the
barons of the Welsh March
(apart from the Braoses)
remained loyal. From
there John could receive
help from Ireland where
the rebellion had no
footing, thanks to William
Marshal in Leinster and
Walter de Lacy. There
were also two royal castles
of vital importance deep in
rebel territory: Dover
under Hubert de Burgh,
and Lincoln held by the
redoubtable widow Nicola
de la Haye. (Her
inheritance had included
the castellanship of the
castle.) Seizing the
properties of the rebels
within his reach, John
built up his treasure and
soon had around 800
knights in the field, many
of them Flemish
mercenaries. His aim was
to win the war before
Louis could intervene.
From 13 October 1215,
like a great cat hissing at
some rival, he sat still
besieging Rochester castle.
Then, with the castle taken
on 6 December, he was off
in great bounds to the
north to chase away not a
cat, but a red fox, as John
called him, King Alexander
of Scotland.
Magna Carta was a
British document. There
were chapters, reflecting
their co-operation with the
barons, in favour of both
Llywelyn and King
Alexander, the latter
having succeeded to the
Scottish throne at the age
of sixteen on the death of
his father in December
1214. The twenty-five
barons, nine of whom had
Scottish connections, had
also adjudged to Alexander
possession of Carlisle and
the three northern
counties. Perhaps the
moment had come for him
to gain those long-coveted
prizes, either as fiefs held
from the English king or
indeed, if opportunity
offered, as part of Scottish
realm. The ground seem
favourable. In June 1215
an end had been put to a
rising, again in Ross and
Moray, led by Kenneth
MacHeth and Donald
MacWilliam, sons of the
insurgents killed in 1186–
7. Alexander was secure in
Scotland. In England, the
north was a major seat of
the rebellion against King
John, however firmly the
latter retained many of his
northern castles.
Numerous cross-border ties
of landholding and
kinship, arguably more
intense and influential
than at any time since
1157, might also ease
Alexander’s take-over. He
himself was lord of
Tynedale, while the
leading northern rebels,
Eustace de Vesci and
Robert de Ros, were his
half-brothers, having
married illegitimate
daughters of William the
Lion. Above all, Carlisle
was already Alexander’s,
for John had unwisely
made Ros constable of its
castle in 1213, and had
overtaxed its burgesses
and alienated the canons
of the cathedral by
appointing a Serbian
bishop. To Alexander
himself, therefore, as to
the sober councillors
inherited from his father,
it must have seemed like
now or never. In October
1215, he laid siege to
Norham on the Tweed
border and received the
homages of the barons of
Northumberland. Early in
the New Year some barons
even from Yorkshire
followed suit. But
Alexander had
miscalculated, because
John was far from
finished. With an army of
around 450 knights, most
of them foreign
mercenaries, he marched
north, recovered Carlisle,
reached Berwick in mid
January and went on to
ravage Lothian. He then
returned south via East
Anglia, burning the lands
of his enemies and taking
their castles. But while he
was triumphing in the
north, his position had
disintegrated in Wales.
Towards the end of
1215, with John bound for
the north, Llywelyn took
Carmarthen, ‘for seventy
years the centre of royal
power in the valley of the
Tywi’ (as Sir John Lloyd
put it), and then captured
Cardigan, John’s great
gain early in his reign.
William Marshal hung on
to Pembroke. But with
Glamorgan now with the
rebel earl of Essex (son of
Geoffrey fitz Peter)
through his marriage to
John’s divorced wife,
John’s dominance of south
Wales had been utterly
destroyed. West of
Hereford he had nothing.
On 21 May 1216 Louis
landed in Kent. He brought
several great French
nobles and 1,200 knights,
a formidable force that
John feared to face. Louis
took Rochester, entered a
cheering London and then
seized Winchester. John
was deserted by a good
number of his household
knights, by the earl of
Salisbury (his half-brother
whose wife he had
seduced), and by Hugh de
Neville (whose wife had
offered the 200 chickens).
In August, Carlisle was
surrendered to Alexander
who then came south to do
homage to Louis for the
northern counties. The
next month, with Louis
besieging Dover, John
marched north to relieve
Lincoln, where he made
Nicola de la Haye sheriff
of the county in
recognition both of her
character and local
prestige. Then, returning
from King’s Lynn by a
short-cut across the
Wellstream estuary, his
baggage train was trapped
by the tide, the so-called
loss of his treasure in the
Wash. By this time John
was racked by dysentery.
He reached Newark and
died there during the night
of 17–18 October as a
great storm howled round
the castle, whipping up
from the flat empty valley
of the Trent. Was this also
the end for his dynasty?
10

The Minority
of Henry III
and its Sequel,
1216–34,
Llywelyn the
Great, 1194–
1240, and
Alexander II,
1214–49

No king of England came

to the throne in a more
desperate situation than
Henry III. He was only
nine and commanded less
than half his kingdom.
Louis, eldest son of the
king of France, to whom
the rebels had offered the
throne, held London and
the allegiance of nineteen
of the twenty-seven
greatest barons. Henry’s
coronation on 28 October
took place perforce not at
Westminster but at
Gloucester, and there it
was disturbed by news of a
Welsh attack on Goodrich,
less than eighteen miles
away. Meanwhile in the
north King Alexander had
recovered Carlisle and
done homage to Louis for
the northern counties.
Nevertheless it was not
all gloom. For fifteen
weeks through the summer
and autumn of 1216 Louis
had personally directed
the siege of Dover castle,
and had been repulsed by
its great castellan, Hubert
de Burgh. The castle was
indeed, as Hubert put it,
‘the key to England’.
Towering above and
controlling Dover port, its
possession meant the
Angevins could still sweep
the Channel and threaten
Louis’s communications
with France. The next year
Dover was to prove vital to
victory. John’s party of
castellans and magnates
also remained solid. The
former, often parvenu
foreigners, had nowhere
else to go; the latter were
often kept in place by
private disputes with those
on the other side. There
was no point in Ranulf,
earl of Chester, deserting
when his rival for the
earldom of Lincoln, Gilbert
de Gant, was one of Louis’s
leading supporters. As for
William Marshal, earl of
Pembroke, his defection
would give the green light
to his enemies in Ireland.
In any case, he had hedged
his bets (and protected his
lordship of Longueville in
Normandy) by condoning
or at least failing to
prevent the rebellion of his
eldest son. William’s own
explanation of his conduct
was more inspiring and no
less true. He would never
desert the young king, he
declared, even if it meant
carrying the boy on his
shoulders from country to
country, begging for bread.
‘No man will ever have
earned such glory on
earth,’ cried William’s
faithful steward John of
Earley, who provided
much of the information
behind The Life of William
Marshal, the brilliant verse
biography which the
family commissioned in
the 1220s.
The Marshal made his
declaration when he had
just been chosen ‘ruler of
the king and the kingdom’,
in effect regent, by Henry’s
supporters assembled for
the coronation. His power
– lord of Chepstow,
Pembroke and Leinster –
made him a natural
choice. So did his over-
whelming prestige. True,
the Marshal was only a
younger son of a middling
Berkshire–Wiltshire
magnate, the John Marshal
who had been castellan of
Marlborough in Stephen’s
reign. Yet his rise had been
not through a series of
acrimonious wheels and
deals but a great marriage,
to Richard fitz Gilbert’s
(Strongbow’s) daughter.
And that marriage, gift of
King Richard, was a
tribute not to his exactions
as an administrator but to
his staunchness as a
councillor and his prowess
as a knight – indeed, as
victory in countless
tournaments across France
had shown, the ‘greatest
knight in the world’. Now
nearly seventy, Marshal
was still a beau sabreur,
but he was also a
calculating general and a
canny politician: right at
the start he delayed his
election as regent until
Ranulf, earl of Chester, his
only possible rival, could
arrive and agree to it. No
one was better equipped to
shoulder the young king’s
cause.
Above the Marshal was
Guala, the papal legate.
John had made England a
papal fief and Pope
Honorius III (who had
succeeded Innocent III in
1216) now gave Guala the
fullest powers. Although
not involved in day-to-day
government, or of course
in the fighting, his
ultimate supremacy was
uncontested, a remarkable
testimony to papal
authority. Eye-catching in
his red robes, astride his
white horse, this Italian
cardinal, whose foundation
of a house of canons at
Vercelli was closest to his
heart, acted with
extraordinary energy and
commitment in England,
excommunicating Louis
and his supporters and in
1217 turning the war into
a crusade. Louis might
control Westminster
Abbey, but deprived of
significant ecclesiastical
support, there was no one
to crown him. This was a
crucial factor in his failure.
John had demanded
that all those submitting to
him forswear the Charter.
Now the regent and Guala,
with no time to consult the
pope, executed a
momentous volte-face. In
November 1216 they
issued in the king’s name,
under their own seals
(Henry’s had yet to be
introduced), a revised
version of Magna Carta.
This was the first step in
its survival. The regent,
like the rest of John’s
baronial supporters, had as
much to gain from the
Charter as the barons on
the other side. The hope,
of course, was that the
latter, their cause
conceded, would now
return to the Angevin
camp. That was slow to
happen, both for reasons
of honour and the private
disputes which we have
mentioned. The final
arbitrament was by war. In
the spring of 1217, King
Alexander once again
invaded the north. Louis
split his army: he himself
renewed the siege of Dover
while sending the rest of
his French forces to help
his English allies who were
inside Lincoln besieging
the castle, gallantly
defended by Nicola de la
Haye. The regent, in the
supreme decision of his
career, exploited the
division. Battles were rare
events because they could
be devastatingly decisive,
as Bouvines had shown.
Now he would fight one
‘with all for all’. On 20
May, after a daring
personal reconnaissance by
Bishop Peter of Winchester
had discovered a way
through the walls, the
Angevins charged into
Lincoln (the regent himself
so eager that he nearly
forgot his helmet) and won
a complete victory. The
battle had been typically
chivalric. Among the
nobles, only the count of
Perche, the French
commander, died, the
result of a chance thrust
through the eye-piece of
his helmet, about which
everyone was sorry. Robert
fitz Walter, William de
Mowbray, Nicholas de
Stuteville, Gilbert de Gant
and the flower of the
baronial party simply
surrendered. Perhaps the
issue of the Charter, the
succession of an innocent
boy and resentments
against Louis’s Frenchmen
had indeed sapped their
will. It remained for
Hubert de Burgh to deliver
the coup de grâce. On 24
August he sailed out of
Dover (Louis having
abandoned the siege on
the news of Lincoln) and,
in a great battle off
Sandwich, destroyed the
fleet bringing French
reinforcements. The
French captain, the fabled
but non-noble Eustace the
Monk, was captured and
given one option: where
on the ship was he to be
beheaded? Chivalry was
assuredly for the upper
classes.
Louis was finished.
Under the Treaty of
Kingston-Lambeth in
September he resigned his
claims to the throne and
returned to France, having
secured good terms for his
lay supporters. They were
to be absolved from
excommunication and
recover their lands as held
at the start of the war. The
Charter was part of the
package. In November
1217, as many former
rebels renewed their
homage to the king,
another version of it was
issued, again sealed by
Guala and the regent, but
this time with an entirely
new charter alongside it
regulating the bounds and
administration of the royal
forest. The name Magna
Carta first appeared to
distinguish it from its
smaller forest brother.
The war was won, but
the regent faced terrible
problems. King Alexander
soon resigned Carlisle, but
Llywelyn was determined
to retain his gains in
Wales. Overseas, once the
truce expired in 1220 King
Philip might invade Poitou
and Gascony, where in any
case the king’s seneschal
was so impecunious that
(as he complained) he was
treated like a little boy. In
England royal authority
had collapsed, much as it
had done during the civil
war of Stephen’s reign.
The king’s revenue
between 1217 and 1219
averaged some £8,000 a
year, only a third of John’s
in 1199, even without
adjusting for inflation, and
a mere bagatelle compared
with his later takings. In
November 1217 the king
had only seven household
knights, as opposed to
John’s hundred. There had
been a huge transfer of
power from the centre to
the localities. During the
war the loyalist castellans,
some of them great barons
like the earl of Chester,
others foreign military
experts, had necessarily
spent the revenue from
their sheriffdoms
themselves rather than
passing it to the
exchequer. They had also,
with or without John’s
consent, taken over royal
lands. They saw no reason
why things should change
with the peace. Indeed
they had (or so they said)
taken an oath to King John
not to surrender their
offices until his son came
of age, which – if baronial
practice was followed –
would not be until he was
twenty-one in October
1228. Meanwhile there
was another danger. Many
of these local commissars
refused to return
possessions they had
seized from rebels, a
refusal which threatened
to re-ignite hostilities. The
loyalist castellans, having
been the heroes of the war,
became the villains of the
peace.
At the start of his reign
Henry II had quickly
reasserted royal authority.
For the minority
government of his
grandson it was a far more
tortuous process. The
regent looked after his
own interests (especially in
Wales) but also made a
start on the king’s behalf.
In July 1218, with an
army to which many
former rebels were
summoned, he turned
Robert de Gaugi (John’s
Flemish knight) out of
Newark castle and
returned it to the bishop of
Lincoln. Then in November
1218 a great council
introduced a seal for the
king and commissioned
judges to tour the country,
hearing all pleas both
criminal and civil; this was
the most comprehensive
eyre since that of 1176.
With a bench of justices at
Westminster in session
since early 1218, the
Charter’s demand for the
king’s justice to be more
available and at a fixed
place was thus fulfilled.
The regent resigned in
April 1219 and died a
month later, confident to
the last in his values: ‘The
argument of the clerks
must be false or no one
could be saved,’ he
declared, reflecting that he
could not now return a
lifetime’s winnings. The
government was initially
taken on by a triumvirate
composed of Pandulf, the
papal legate (who, equally
determined in his
methods, had replaced
Guala), the justiciar
Hubert de Burgh, and the
king’s tutor, Peter des
Roches, bishop of
Winchester. From these
arrangements one person
was absent: John’s widow,
Henry III’s mother, Isabella
of Angoulême. She had
played no discernible part
in politics under John, but
in 1217, now in her late
twenties, had pushed her
way into the negotiations
with Louis for the end of
the war. Fiery and
ambitious, she almost
certainly aspired to a
regency role like that soon
to be played in France by
Blanche of Castile, the
mother of Louis IX. Its
refusal may explain her
decision, placing power
above parenthood, to
return to 1218 to
Angoulême where her
rights as countess were
uncontested. There in
1220 she married the great
Poitevin noble Hugh de
Lusignan and produced a
second family which later
played a divisive role in
English politics.
The future lay with
Hubert de Burgh, who was
to dominate English
government and politics
down to his fall in 1232.
He was the younger son of
a Norfolk knightly family
which came from Burgh
next Aylesham, near
Norwich. Hubert’s elder
brother William had
followed John to Ireland
and founded the Irish de
Burghs – a connection
important throughout
Hubert’s career. Hubert
himself had made his
name as a heroic castellan,
at Chinon (in 1205) and
then at Dover. In 1215
John had made him
justiciar in place of Bishop
Peter, but it was only with
the regent’s resignation
that he received the
powers the office implied.
Hubert could read and he
was highly intelligent. He
had clear objectives, yet
moved stealthily towards
them. His first aim was to
oust Bishop Peter from
central government: a case
of kill or be killed, for
Peter deeply resented
Hubert’s position as he
himself had aspired to
follow the regent. By the
time of the king’s
fourteenth birthday in
October 1221 when Peter
ceased to be his tutor, this
objective had largely been
achieved. With Pandulf’s
withdrawal in the same
year, Hubert ruled alone.
Hubert’s second aim
was to do his duty as
justiciar and restore the
authority of the crown.
That meant recovering
crown lands and
dismissing the entrenched
sheriffs and castellans, a
programme which Pandulf
and the papacy had been
urging since 1219. It was a
programme which chimed
well with Hubert’s own
interests since it was
Bishop Peter and his allies
who held the largest share
of local office. These
included Ranulf, earl of
Chester, and a whole
group of foreigners: the
Poitevin count of Aumale;
the Norman Falkes de
Bréauté and Engelard de
Cigogné, Philip Mark and
Peter de Maulay, all, like
Bishop Peter, from the
Touraine or its borders.
This foreign component
was immensely significant
for it meant the conflict
could be regarded as one
between a party of native
magnates and ministers,
led by Hubert de Burgh on
the one hand, and
irresponsible and
oppressive foreigners on
the other. That was not
how the foreigners
themselves saw it. ‘All you
native born men of
England are traitors,’ raged
Falkes de Bréauté, an
outburst relayed by his
enemies to Hubert, which
shows that these tensions
were felt by the actors
themselves and were not
simply the invention of
chroniclers. Although
foreshadowed before 1216,
the scale of the struggle
between the English and
the aliens was altogether
new. It was to envenom
politics throughout the
reign of Henry III.
Hubert and his allies
moved forward gradually.
In 1220, after a brief siege,
the count of Aumale
vacated the royal castle of
Rockingham. Early next
year another siege turned
Aumale out of Castle
Bytham in Lincolnshire
and it was restored to its
lord, the former rebel
William de Coleville. In
June 1221, after trumped-
up charges of treason,
Peter de Maulay was
prised from the royal
castle of Corfe. A year
later, following several
false attempts, the
government carried
through a resumption of
crown land.
 The conflict reached a
climax in 1223, sparked
off by papal letters
ordering the king to be
given control of his seal,
and the castles and
sheriffdoms to be
surrendered. Hubert now
consolidated an alliance
with William Marshal II,
earl of Pembroke (1219–
31), the regent’s
formidable son, by
supporting his campaign
against Llywelyn in south
Wales. Then he came to
terms with Archbishop
Langton. Langton had
returned to England in
1218. If he believed John
a tyrant, he had nothing
against kingship per se. On
the contrary, it needed to
be strong though subject to
the law in order to fulfil its
function: the protection of
clergy and people. Langton
was therefore a natural
ally of Hubert, especially
given the latter’s positive
attitude to Magna Carta. In
December 1223
archbishop and justiciar
combined to enforce the
papal mandate. The king,
nominally at least, took
control of his seal and thus
of central government,
although the ban
introduced in 1218 on
grants made in perpetuity
stayed. In practice Hubert
remained in charge at the
centre, although joined
there by the Langtonian
bishop of Salisbury. At the
same time all the sheriffs
and castellans were
summoned to
Northampton where,
intimidated by the size of
the king’s forces and
Langton’s threats, they
surrendered their
custodies, which soon
ended up in the hands of
Hubert’s supporters.
These changes hit one
man especially: Falkes de
Bréauté. Of peasant stock,
or so it was said, he had
begun his meteoric career
as one of John’s serjeants-
at-arms and called simply
‘Falkes’. His name was said
to derive from the scythe
with which he had killed
someone in Normandy.
Falkes certainly stood out.
He was little in stature,
but clever, ruthless and
valiant. Having been
appointed during the war,
he commanded until 1223
no less than six Midlands
counties, together with
their royal castles. He had
married the widow of the
earl of Devon and had
been given custody of the
earldom during the
minority of the heir,
becoming ‘the equal of an
earl’. Sharp of tongue, as
we have seen, and
embroiled in many private
quarrels over land, he
seemed to many the
epitome of the jumped-up,
disobedient, over-mighty
foreigner, ‘more than king
in England’, as the
Tewkesbury annalist put it.
Falkes had surrendered his
custodies at the end of
1223, but the next year his
brother William seized a
royal judge and
imprisoned him in Bedford
castle, Falkes’s chief base.
From 20 June to 15
August 1224 the royal
army lay siege to the
castle, taking it bit by bit.
Falkes, although he was
not inside, tearfully
submitted and died in
exile. His brother and
members of the garrison
were hanged.
Royal authority had
been affirmed in England,
and in Ireland also. Early
in 1224 Hugh de Lacy had
entered the lordship,
aiming to recover the
earldom of Ulster which he
had lost in 1210. He was
allied with his half-
brother, William de Lacy,
who now intruded into
Meath at the expense of
the third and loyalist Lacy
brother, Walter, restored
by John in 1215. In May
1224 the government
responded by sending to
Ireland as justiciar William
Marshal II, earl of
Pembroke and lord of
Leinster. Rewarded by
marriage to the king’s
youngest sister, Eleanor,
the appointment fitted
perfectly with the
Marshal’s wider interests.
In attacking the Lacys he
was attacking their allies,
namely Llywelyn and the
earl of Chester, who were
both his enemies. He was
also indirectly attacking
Falkes de Bréauté, ‘that
inconstant and mendacious
man’ as the Marshal put it,
with whom Chester was
closely linked. With the
politics of Ireland, Wales
and England so closely
intertwined, this was then
a very British crisis. In
Ireland it ended with the
Marshal driving William
de Lacy from Meath (after
a siege of Trim) and Hugh
from Ulster. Although the
government eventually
restored Hugh in 1226–7,
it was only for the term of
his life.
It was a different matter
in France. In 1220 Philip
Augustus had renewed the
truce. In 1224 his son and
successor Louis VIII
(1223–6), the erstwhile
invader of England,
refused to do so. While
Henry III laid siege to
Bedford, Louis VIII
conquered Poitou. Then
Hugh de Lusignan, to
whom Louis had granted
Bordeaux, overran much of
Gascony. This crisis on the
continent led to the final
establishment of Magna
Carta in England.
 A supreme effort was
needed to save Gascony,
and the government made
it. In 1225 it dispatched an
army under the earl of
Salisbury and the king’s
younger brother, Richard,
now sixteen and beginning
his long political career.
With Bordeaux and
Bayonne remaining loyal,
and Louis (content with
Poitou) not helping Hugh
de Lusignan, they expelled
the latter’s forces from
Gascony. It remained in
English hands until 1453.
This success owed much to
ample funds. In 1225 a
great council agreed to
levy a tax, a fifteenth on
movables, which raised
some £40,000. In return,
in February 1225 the king
issued new versions of
Magna Carta and the
Charter of the Forest,
versions witnessed by
those who had stood on
opposite sides in the civil
war, including eight of the
twenty-five barons
appointed to enforce the
original Charter back in
1215. Here, then, was the
final reconciliation.
Although not very
different from those of
1217, the Charters of 1225
were the first to be
authenticated with the
new king’s seal. They
became definitive;
subsequent kings did not
issue new versions, they
simply confirmed those of
1225. Clauses of the 1225
Magna Carta remain on
the Statute Book today.
From that time on, the
Charters were ‘official’.
This had not been
achieved without
controversy. In 1223 the
rebarbative William
Brewer with a career in
Angevin service which
stretched back to Henry II
declared that the Charters,
extorted by force, should
not be confirmed. He was
silenced by Archbishop
Langton and certainly
ecclesiastical and baronial
opinion made the Charters
inevitable. Hubert de
Burgh appreciated as
much. He had long
enjoyed a reputation as a
moderate. His
appointment to succeed
Bishop Peter at
Runnymede was itself
clearly a conciliatory
gesture by King John. In
the early 1220s his
personal fortune was still
to be made. He had every
reason to tread carefully
and court magnate favour.
The restrictions on
kingship finalized in 1225
were both less and more
stringent than those of
1215, reflecting the desire
of ministers in the
intervening period to
maintain the rights of the
crown on the one hand,
and appease the country
on the other. Alongside
Magna Carta, there was
now the Charter of the
Forest (unchanged from
1217) which regulated for
the first time the forest’s
bounds and
administration. The 1225
Magna Carta itself had a
large chapter (number 35),
also introduced in 1217,
which regulated the
frequency of the shire
courts and limited the
exactions of the sheriffs at
their annual check in the
hundred court of the
tithing groups (the ‘view
of frankpledge’). The
clause reflected the size of
the political community,
for it dealt with grievances
of both the gentry, for
whom attendance at the
county court could be a
burden, and the peasantry,
who had to pay the
exactions at the view of
frankpledge (see below, p.
413). Against this,
however, John’s promise
of free ecclesiastical
elections, dropped by
Guala in 1216 (when it
would only have meant
freedom to elect Louis’s
supporters), was never
restored, to Langton’s
disappointment. Also
dropped for good in 1216
was the requirement for
general consent to be
given to taxation, although
in practice, as in 1225,
such consent remained a
necessity. More significant
was the continued
exclusion of the chapter
dropped in 1216, which
forbade the exaction of
revenue above the old
farms of the counties, a
gap which Henry
vigorously exploited later,
causing much discontent
(see below, p. 350). There
was a final excision, the
most significant of all. The
security clause of 1215,
which empowered twenty-
five barons to enforce the
Charter, disappeared in
1216, and was never
replaced. As a result, the
Charter was left without
constitutional means of
enforcement.
So would the Charters
be enforced? For baronial
families, looking
particularly to the
regulations on relief,
wardship, widows,
marriages, amercements
and arbitrary disseisin, the
signs under Hubert’s
government were
encouraging. If their great
law cases were still subject
to delay and manipulation,
at least justice was not
sold, the huge sums
routinely offered before
1215 being things of the
past; a highly significant
change that both reduced
royal revenue and the
king’s ability to control
barons through their debts.
The clauses of most
concern to local society
proved more controversial
and county knights were
particularly active in their
exploitation and defence.
In 1226 knights in
Lincolnshire complained
that the sheriff was
breaching the new chapter
on the holding of local
courts. In the following
year panels of knights,
elected in each county,
were instructed to bring to
the king their complaints
about contraventions of
the Charter by the sheriffs.
Most important of all was
the struggle over the
forest. Under chapter 2 of
the 1217 Forest Charter,
the areas made forest by
Henry II were to be
deforested. Since it was
Henry who was generally
blamed for the vast extent
of the forest this was a
major concession, and one
which John had refused to
make. How right he was,
for in some counties the
local knights now
commissioned to establish
Henry II’s afforestations
demanded almost total
abolition of the forest. As a
result, the regency
government tried to stall,
arguing that deforestation
was only meant to apply to
what Henry II had made
forest de novo, not to what
he had simply recovered
after the losses of
Stephen’s reign. In
Huntingdonshire the
distinction made the
difference between the
whole county being
deforested and no
deforestation at all. It was
not till the Forest Charter
of 1225 that the
government gave way on
the issue, hoping to
encourage payment of that
year’s tax, and major
deforestation took place.
When the king finally
assumed full powers two
years later, some of the
concessions were reversed
and the bitterness over
these events lingered.
None the less considerable
deforestation did take
place between 1225 and
1230. In effect, a
compromise was achieved
over the boundaries,
which survived for the rest
of Henry’s reign.
Meanwhile the Charters
were becoming well
known across society. The
versions of 1217 and 1225
were sent to every county.
Copies were made by
monasteries and also by
knightly families (like the
Hotots, lords of Clopton in
Northamptonshire). The
Magna Carta of 1225
dispatched to Wiltshire
was deposited for
safekeeping in Lacock
abbey by the county
knights. There might be
confusion between the
different versions, but
detailed clauses (like those
on deforestation,
judgement by peers, and
the local courts) and the
general principle that the
king was subject to the law
were widely known. In the
minority of Henry III the
Charters had taken root.
The minority was
constitutionally important
in another way because it
reinforced the old view
that the king should
govern with the counsel
and consent of his
magnates. Great councils
made decisions on a range
of important issues; they
made William Marshal
regent in 1216 and Hubert
de Burgh his effective
successor three years later.
Ideas about the powers of
such assemblies were
vociferously expressed, for
example by the northern
magnate Robert de Vipont,
who affirmed that an order
for the dismantling of a
castle had no validity since
it had been taken ‘without
the common counsel and
consent of the magnates of
England who are held to
be of the chief council of
the king’. The authority of
such councils was to
become the central
political issue later in
Henry’s reign.
The great tax of 1225
had saved Gascony, and
the young king hoped that
would be just a start. In
1229 a royal letter cried
out against ‘the injustice
with which the power and
violence of our enemies
has kept us disinherited
and excluded from our
rights’. The desire to
recover his lost dominions
dominated Henry’s
thinking into the 1240s. It
would not be easy. By
1230 the royal revenues
had recovered and stood at
£22,300, but that was still
three or four times smaller
than that of the Capetians.
‘The children of King John
have neither as much
money nor as much power
to defend themselves as
had their father,’ Philip
Augustus remarked with
grim satisfaction. The
logistical problems had
been compounded by the
loss of Poitou. The nearest
port in Angevin hands was
now as far south as
Bordeaux. The acquiring of
allies who would help the
king ‘recover all your lost
land’ (as an envoy put it in
1225) became the central
aim of diplomacy, but such
allies did not come cheap.
‘The emperor thirsts for
nothing save money and
its accumulation,’ the same
envoy reported. In any
case, from 1228 the
emperor Frederick II was
ruled out of contention by
his crusade and quarrel
with the papacy. But
fortune’s wheel could turn.
In November 1226 Louis
VIII suddenly died, leaving
a twelve-year-old son,
Louis IX (1226–70), under
the regency of his Castilian
mother, Queen Blanche. It
was to exploit the
opportunities that Henry,
not yet twenty-one,
assumed full power in
January 1227, which
meant he could now make
grants in perpetuity. One
man above all proved
temptable. In 1229 Peter
de Dreux, duke of Brittany
(in right of his wife), did
homage to Henry.
Brittany, with frontiers
contiguous with Normandy
and Anjou, was indeed an
ideal base for a campaign.
In May 1230 Henry
arrived there with an
army. But he then avoided
the battle with Louis IX
which might have brought
him victory, and instead of
surging into Normandy
tiptoed southwards to
Bordeaux, giving pensions
to many Poitevin nobles
but failing to take the
towns or recover the
allegiance of his mother
and Hugh de Lusignan,
their price being the
cession of Bordeaux. By
the autumn of 1230 Henry
was back in England.
Henry had shown no
military drive and it was
certainly not going to be
supplied by the ministers
and magnates (including
nine earls) who dutifully
went on the expedition.
True, a Caen burgess in the
1220s believed that the
prospect of recovering
their lands in Normandy
would galvanize the
English nobility. But this
expedition had not gone to
Normandy. In any case,
was the burgess right in
his analysis? The fact was
that many magnates who
had lost lands in the duchy
had been compensated
(like William de Warenne,
who received Stamford
and Grantham); the
compensation was in the
form of lands in England
confiscated from Normans
who had taken the French
allegiance in 1204. Indeed,
these ‘lands of the
Normans’ were the great
bank on which English
kings drew for patronage
throughout the thirteenth
century. If Normandy was
recovered, such lands in
England were to be
surrendered. Of course, the
implication was that the
grantees would then
recover their Norman
estates, but the mechanics
of that were quite obscure.
For many, a bird in the
hand was worth two in the
bush. Warenne did not go
on the 1230 expedition at
all. There were also many
ministers (like de Burgh)
who held ‘lands of the
Normans’ without any land
in Normandy to recover.
Reunification thus
threatened a tenurial
maelstrom which many
thought best avoided. The
prospect was equally
unappealing to the
Normans. Re-conquest, for
example, threatened
Andrew de Vitré with
losing the lands of the earl
of Chester and the
Mowbrays granted him by
the king of France. And
would he recover his
estates in Cornwall? The
experience of Fulk Paynel,
the only important
defector in 1230, was not
encouraging.
Despite his setbacks in
1230, Henry III had not
given up. He retained the
allegiance of Duke Peter,
and was determined to
succour him and strike
again once the truce which
had closed the hostilities
ended in 1234. That desire
was to be one factor in the
fall of Hubert de Burgh.
After Henry’s
assumption of full power
in January 1227, Hubert
de Burgh stuck like glue to
his side, and continued in
practice to control much of
day-to-day government.
‘The royal will waxed hot
and fervent,’ wrote one
observer in 1230, only (he
continued) to be soon
deflected by Hubert’s
‘various stratagems’. The
king’s assumption of
power in 1227 and with it
the ability to issue charters
and make grants in
perpetuity meant that
Hubert could now reap his
rewards, all the more vital
since his marriages had
not led to the acquisition
of wealth, however much
the second (to the sister of
King Alexander II) had
enhanced his status. So
now Hubert became earl of
Kent; and then (arguably
irresponsible alienations
from the crown) received
in hereditary right the
royal castles and lordships
of Montgomery, Cardigan
and Carmarthen. Having
already prised ‘the Three
Castles’ of Grosmont,
Skenfrith and White-castle
in Monmouthshire from
the Braoses, Hubert had
become a great marcher
baron. The time had also
come to install his
nephew, Richard de Burgh,
in Connacht. Here the
family claims dated back
to John’s grants to
Richard’s father William in
the 1190s, and to Richard
himself in 1215. But in
practice these had never
been implemented, and
both John and the
minority government
accepted Cathal Crovderg
O’Connor as king. In 1224
Cathal’s son Aedh
succeeded although
without recognition of the
hereditary right Cathal had
been so desperate to
obtain. Supreme in
England, Hubert could
now decisively change the
government’s policy, in the
process beginning a major
expansion in the area
under English rule. In May
1227 Richard de Burgh
received a royal charter
granting him the ‘land’ of
Connacht in hereditary
right. Next year he became
justiciar of Ireland as well.
Exploiting divisions
between various segments
of the O’Connors, he
gradually established
himself in Connacht.
With his link through
marriage to the Scottish
court, Hubert’s tentacles
seemed everywhere, yet he
was becoming ‘isolated in
his greatness’, in the words
of Sir Maurice Powicke.
William Marshal had
opposed Richard de
Burgh’s installation in
Connacht, hence his own
removal from the
justiciarship. On the
Marshal’s death in 1231
Hubert quibbled over the
succession of his brother,
Richard Marshal, because
he had been holding the
family’s Norman estates
and was in the allegiance
of the king of France.
Hubert’s relations with the
king’s younger brother
Richard were also
fractured. Richard had
become count of Poitou in
1225 and earl of Cornwall
in 1227, but it was not
until 1231 that he was
granted Cornwall, and the
honours of Wallingford
and Berkhamsted in
hereditary right. In 1227 a
large number of earls had
rallied to Richard’s support
in a near violent quarrel
with Henry and Hubert,
and they had cleverly
linked his cause to that of
the county knights
complaining about
breaches of Magna Carta.
Meanwhile Langton had
died in 1228 and in 1232
the see of Canterbury was
again vacant.
The stage was set for
Peter des Roches, bishop
of Winchester. In 1223 he
had sworn ‘if it cost him
all he had’ to pull the
justiciar from power. In
August 1231 he returned
to England after four
years’ absence on crusade
and seized his chance. He
had left as a discredited
former tutor and returned
as an international
statesman who had
hobnobbed with emperor
and pope. He now ascribed
the failures in Brittany and
Wales to the poverty of the
crown, and with some
justice. If by 1230 the
revenue at some £22,000
was back to the level of
1199, thanks to inflation it
was actually worth half as
much. In March 1232
extraordinary expedients
were needed to scrape
together £4,000 due the
duke of Brittany, by this
means saving the Breton
alliance. And was not all
this, Peter suggested,
caused by the way the king
had granted away his
lands, wardships and
escheats, no beneficiary
being more favoured than
Hubert himself? Half
convinced, between June
and July 1232 Henry
placed much of central and
local government under
the control of Bishop
Peter’s kinsman, the clerk
Peter de Rivallis. And then
Bishop Peter had one last
trump card. He tarred
Hubert with responsibility
for the riots sweeping
parts of the country
against Italian clerks
appointed by the pope to
English livings. At the end
of July Henry at last sent
his justiciar packing. In the
next months the once all-
powerful minister was
dragged from a chapel in
which he had taken
sanctuary, imprisoned in
the Tower of London and
(rather than stand trial)
forced to surrender all he
had gained from the
crown.
Bishop Peter’s
government at first seemed
well founded, with Richard
Marshal, earl of Pembroke,
almost continuously at
court. A great council in
September voted the tax (a
fortieth on movables,
raising some £16,000)
which it refused Hubert in
March, the only time a tax
was granted without a quid
pro quo in the whole of
Henry’s reign. With the
money, the new regime
supported Duke Peter of
Brittany and the king’s
Poitevin allies. In one
week in April 1233 they
received some £6,666 from
the exchequer. Yet even
here Bishop Peter was
soon thinking of simply
renewing the truce. His
vaunted financial reforms
proved almost entirely
illusory. He made a start
by reviving taxation on the
Jews, but did nothing to
investigate the revenues
from which the sheriffs
drew their county farms,
the essential first step
towards getting them to
answer for realistically
larger sums. At the core of
the regime was a faction
composed of the sheriffs,
castellans and ministers
whom Hubert de Burgh
had ousted in and before
1223, men such as Peter
de Maulay, Engelard de
Cigogné and Brian de
Lisle. Their essential aim
was to punish Hubert, gain
power and make good
their losses, hence their
drive to recover properties,
usually ‘lands of the
Normans’ which they had
received from King John
and lost under Hubert. In
February 1233 the king
took the manor of Upavon
in Wiltshire from Gilbert
Basset and returned it to
Peter de Maulay. No one
was closer to Bishop Peter
than Maulay; few families
were closer to the
Marshals than the Bassets.
Richard Marshal, with his
spurs still to win, dared
not desert Gilbert. Nor
would Bishop Peter desert
Maulay. The result by the
autumn of 1233 was civil
war.
Magna Carta itself
seemed at stake. ‘No
freeman shall be acted
against save by lawful
judgement of his peers or
the law of the land,’ ran its
most famous chapter. In
1233 both the Marshal and
Gilbert Basset constantly
demanded judgement by
their peers, only (so they
said) to be denied it. The
clause was also designed
to prevent arbitrary
disseisin ‘by will of the
king’ (per voluntatem regis),
which was precisely what
Gilbert Basset seemed to
have suffered, for the
dispossession of Upavon
overturned a royal charter
of 1229 granting him the
manor in hereditary right.
(Maulay’s previous tenure
had no such fortification.)
Basset’s case did not stand
alone. Between November
1232 and February 1233
six others suffered disseisin
per voluntatem regis as
grants made in thirteen
royal charters and letters
patent were overthrown.
One victim was the
treasurer of the exchequer,
Walter Mauclerc, bishop of
Carlisle, who was replaced
(under de Rivallis) by
Robert Passelewe, a former
clerk of Falkes and agent
of the 1223 dissidents at
Rome. All this seemed not
merely tyranny, but worse,
tyranny practised by
foreigners, by ‘Poitevins’
as the St Albans abbey
chronicler, Roger of
Wendover, called them
(although in fact Bishop
Peter came not from
Poitou but the adjoining
Touraine). Of course, the
regime had important
English ministers, notably
Hubert’s successor as
justiciar Stephen of
Seagrave, but foreigners
were close to its heart:
Bishop Peter and Peter de
Rivallis themselves, Peter
de Maulay, Engelard de
Cigogné, and two
youngsters now starting
their careers, Mathias
Bezill (a kinsman of
Engelard) and the Norman,
John de Plessis. Given that
Bishop Peter, Maulay and
Engelard had been agents
of King John and
dissidents in 1223–4, it
became easy to view the
whole of English history
since the 1200s as a
struggle between the
English and the aliens. In
1233–4 the demand was
soon that Henry should
dismiss the latter and
‘adhere to the counsels of
the native men of the
kingdom’, as the Margam
annalist put it.
There was something
incongruous about the
Marshal championing this
constitutional movement.
Holding the family estates
in Normandy and married
to a Breton heiress, he was
a last Anglo-Norman
baron, not a first English
patriot. He himself had
profited from Henry’s
arbitrary disseisins, and
only complained when
they touched his man,
Gilbert Basset. However,
this did not make his
stance any the less
effective. ‘He fought for
the cause of justice, and
the laws of the English
race against the oppression
of the Poitevins,’ wrote
Roger of Wendover. This
impression was the easier
to cultivate because of
Bishop Peter’s conduct.
Arrogant and assertive,
irascible and impatient,
the armour-plated prelate
would teach Henry at last
to be a king. He scoffed at
the clause in Magna Carta
promising judgement by
peers and asserted that the
king could try anyone
through judges he himself
had appointed. He justified
arbitrary disseisins by
referring to ‘the plenitude
of royal power’, and
scorned the idea that the
king should govern
through native subjects: on
the contrary, he needed
ministers (doubtless
thinking of those like
Falkes) who would punish
the latter’s pride and
perfidy.
 Characteristically,
Bishop Peter sought a
solution through war. In
Ireland, the justiciar
Maurice fitz Gerald and
the Lacys soon overran the
Marshal lordship of
Leinster. In Wales it was
different. Twice Henry led
armies to destroy the
Marshal’s bastions in the
south, only to abandon a
siege of Usk in September
1233 and suffer
humiliation in a skirmish
at Grosmont in November.
The Marshal meanwhile
allied with Llywelyn (an
extraordinary diplomatic
bouleversement) and in
October 1233 wrested
Glamorgan from Peter de
Rivallis, who had
succeeded Hubert as
custodian during the
minority of Richard de
Clare. If the great barons
did not side with the
Marshal, they were
reluctant to fight against
him. Gilbert Basset and
another valorous Marshal
knight, Richard Seward,
plundered the properties
of ministers and rescued
Hubert de Burgh from
Devizes. Had he too not
saved England for the
English? By early 1234
Henry had shot his bolt,
and the end of the Breton
truce was only months
away.
It was at this point that
a churchman very different
from Bishop Peter took
centre stage. At papal
insistence, Edmund of
Abingdon was elected
archbishop of Canterbury
in February 1234. An
ascetic academic but with
the common touch, he was
determined like his mentor
Langton to affirm the
values of Magna Carta and
bring peace to a troubled
realm. That, as he made
clear during a series of
great councils, could only
be achieved by the
removal of the two Peters.
Henry saw the light. On 15
April he began the process
of dismissing Peter de
Rivallis from his plethora
of offices. Bishop Peter
himself also left the court.
Meanwhile there was
trauma in Ireland. The
Marshal had gone there in
February and had been
wounded in battle. He died
on 16 April. There had
been no murder plot (he
was well on his way to
recovery when gangrene
set in) but it was easy to
suspect otherwise. The
ensuing scandal brought
the downfall of Stephen of
Seagrave, a ‘flexible man’,
as Wendover put it, who
might otherwise have
survived. The final
settlement took place in
May at a great council
held at Gloucester. Henry
received the rebels back
into his allegiance and
accepted Gilbert Marshal,
Richard’s younger brother,
as successor to the family
estates and earldom of
Pembroke. Penitently he
admitted denying
magnates judgement by
their peers and committing
disseisins ‘by will’. A
decision of his court
restored Upavon to Gilbert
Basset. Bishop Peter’s
regime had tested the most
fundamental principle of
Magna Carta and proved
its strength. The king was
indeed now subject to the
law, and could not
arbitrarily deprive his
subjects of their rights and
property.
The events of 1232–4
were a terrible indictment
of Henry’s weakness and
poor judgement, but as he
wriggled free from the
bishop’s regime,
chroniclers were full of
praise for his humility
when submitting to
Archbishop Edmund and
his sorrow when hearing
of Richard Marshal’s
death. He was truly a
‘most pious king’. That
reputation at least would
stand him in good stead in
the years to come. It was
of little help, however, in
dealing with the
immediate situation in
Brittany, Wales and
Ireland.
In Brittany, there was
little Henry could do. With
the truce expiring on 24
June, he sent out ninety
household knights and a
body of Welsh foot
soldiers, but only a major
expedition like that of
1230 could have stalled
the French invasion. In
November, Duke Peter
submitted to King Louis.
The whole basis of English
policy since 1229 had
collapsed. Between 1230
and 1234 Peter had drawn
simply as a pension at
least £13,333 from
England. It had been spent
in vain.
 In Wales, the aftermath
of the war left Henry
virtually powerless. He
granted Gilbert Marshal
both Cardigan and
Carmarthen in hereditary
right until the family’s
Norman estates, now
confiscated, were
recovered, although in
practice under a truce of
June 1234 Cardigan
remained with Llywelyn.
Gilbert also received
custody of Glamorgan
during the Clare minority.
Ruling most of the south
from Chepstow to
Pembroke, no Marshal had
been more dominant. In
Ireland, it seemed as
though Henry might assert
himself. There, after all,
the Marshals had
unequivocally lost the war.
The fall of Hubert de
Burgh had also impacted
on the position of his
nephew, Richard. He had
lost the justiciarship and
seen his castles in
Connacht destroyed by
Felim O’Connor, another
of Cathal’s sons. In 1234,
soon after the death of the
Marshal, a royal official in
Dublin urged Henry to
hasten to Ireland. He
should keep Leinster for
himself and, if he returned
Connacht to Richard de
Burgh, retain castles and
cities throughout its
length. His gains could
now far outweigh his
father’s. But Henry never
came, although the
circumstances were
comparable with those in
1171 and 1210 which had
brought Henry II and John
to Ireland. Henry remained
content with drawing
money and men from the
lordship (several Anglo-
Irish lords joined the
Breton expedition of
1230). He also used it as a
source of patronage. His
failure to exploit the
situation in 1234 was
partly the result of his
personality and lack of
resources, but it also
reflected two fundamentals
about the relationship
between England and
Ireland in this period.
The first at the baronial
level was the intimate
connection between
English and Irish politics,
something already clear in
the events of 1224 and the
fortunes of Richard de
Burgh. Now in 1234 it was
the political situation in
England which meant
Henry had no alternative
but to return Leinster to
Gilbert Marshal. This
interrelationship of politics
was not surprising given
that there remained many
cross-Channel landholders
both at the knightly and
baronial levels. Indeed
royal patronage could
renew their numbers,
hence the establishment in
Ireland of the knightly
family of Pitchford in the
1220s. Ultimately all those
with ambitions in Ireland
had to resort to the English
court, because only the
king could make the grants
of title on which all the
lordships ultimately
depended. The events of
1234 also reflected a
second fundamental,
namely the power of the
colonial lords themselves,
which was why Henry
hesitated to move against
them. After the initial
grants, they and their
forebears had carved out
their own lordships with
little help from the English
crown. The inscription on
the grave of Meiler fitz
Henry in 1220 described
him as ‘the indomitable
dominator of all the people
of Ireland’. In 1234 the
colonial lords, led by Hugh
de Lacy (doubtless
remembering the events of
1224), had defeated
Richard Marshal. One of
their number was Richard
de Burgh, who with deft
footwork had ended up on
the winning side. Henry
was not prepared now to
disown him and the other
victors. In England the
king turned on the
enemies of the Marshals;
in Ireland he thanked them
and in October 1234
restored Connacht to
Richard de Burgh. Next
year, de Burgh
recommenced its conquest
from the O’Connors. This
time it was to stick.
The whole period from
the plot against John’s life
in 1212 to the death of
Llywelyn the Great in
1240 was one in which
English royal power was at
a discount throughout the
British Isles. In Ireland the
colonial lords were able to
fill the gap. It was very
different in Wales.
***
In a career which lasted
from 1194 to 1240
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth,
Llywelyn the Great, gained
far greater power than any
previous ruler of Gwynedd
and conceived a new
vision of Wales’s political
unity, a vision of unity
under his authority.
Overcoming numerous
shocks and setbacks, his
staying power was
remarkable. He was indeed
the greatest ruler of
medieval Wales.
Gwynedd was the most
impregnable of the major
Welsh regions. Powys had
a long eastern border with
Shropshire and its centre
at Welshpool could easily
be approached down the
Severn valley from
Shrewsbury, less than
twenty miles away.
Deheubarth was eaten up
by the great marcher
baronies of the south.
Gwynedd was quite
different. Its wealth
derived from the flocks
and herds on its hills and
the corn grown on the
lowlands of Llŷn and
Anglesey. The wealth was
well protected. At the
heart of Gwynedd was the
great Snowdon range
which shielded Llŷn to the
west. If both Llŷn and
Anglesey were attacked
from the sea, that would
require a major operation.
Landwards, Snowdonia
was itself shielded by two
ragged scythes of
mountains, the outer
sweeping round from the
Dyfi to the Dee, the inner
sprawling over the whole
area between the summits
of Ardudwy and the
northern valleys of the
Conwy and the Clwyd. The
castles of Llywelyn and his
successors were
constructed as much to
control Gwynedd as to
defend it (see below, p.
499). Essentially, defence
rested on the mountains
and the rivers.
In terms of character,
Llywelyn was superbly
qualified to exploit
Gwynedd’s advantages. He
was a flinty warrior, but
also a sinuous politician.
Again and again he knew
when to fight the English
crown and when to submit
to it. He had a tremendous
sense of his honour,
destiny and personal
integrity, yet the
confidence and charisma
to give way without losing
face. Llywelyn had begun
his career merely as one of
several descendants of the
great Owain Gwynedd
(died 1170) who were
struggling for power in the
1190s. In 1194 in the
Conwy estuary he won a
great victory over his
rivals: ‘Many were the foes
of my lord,’ sang the poet,
‘but there fell of them in
the fight seven times the
number of stars.’ By 1202
Llywelyn had gained
control of all Gwynedd
from the Dyfi to the Dee.
He still faced internal
dissent. The castle he built
at Bere was partly
designed to protect
Meirionydd from the
claims of his second
cousins and his own
illegitimate son. But from
1202 onwards he
remained the sole ruler of
Gwynedd. It was the
foundation for his power,
all the more significant for
the disunity elsewhere in
native Wales. Deheubarth
remained hopelessly
divided between the
competing descendants of
the Lord Rhys. Powys was
divided north and south
into Powys Fadog and
Powys Gwenwynwyn, with
two further branches of
the ruling dynasty
established in Mechain,
and in Pennlyn and
Edeirnion.
In 1205 Llywelyn took
another step of decisive
importance in his career.
This was his marriage to
Joan, King John’s
illegitimate daughter. The
Welsh law texts of the late
twelfth and the thirteenth
centuries hardly suggest
that the wives of Welsh
rulers, though bearing the
title of queen, played
much part in politics and
government. Indeed they
say virtually nothing about
their activities. They do,
however, accord them an
establishment of four
officers, steward, priest,
chambermaid and groom,
and say that the king
should give them a third of
his ‘goods from land and
earth’. If kings actually did
so, then queens were rich.
They could also be
important in helping to
create political alliances.
In that context, Dafydd ab
Owain Gwynedd,
Llywelyn’s uncle, had
already demonstrated the
advantages of marrying an
Angevin princess. Despite
Joan’s illegitimacy, which
the pope corrected in
1226, she certainly
conferred high status on
Llywelyn’s dynasty,
something reflected in the
coat of arms given to
Gwynedd in thirteenth-
century English sources, a
differenced version of the
royal arms of England.
This status explains both
Llywelyn’s determination
that he should be followed
by his son by Joan, and his
ability to marry his
daughters by her to
English barons. Above all,
Joan gave Llywelyn a link
with the English court
which was central to his
career. Joan herself was
the reverse of a cipher. She
was proud, passionate and
highly political, playing an
important part in
negotiations with her
father King John and her
half-brother, King Henry.
She betrayed Llywelyn
twice, once in politics by
revealing the 1212 plot to
her father (or so it was
said), and once, as we
shall see, in love. Her role
is reflected in the
Gwynedd law texts of her
time which double the
queen’s officials from four
to eight. Since the new
officials include a
chamberlain and a cook
they suggest that Joan was
maintaining an
establishment separate in
some degree from that of
Llywelyn – indeed that
would have been very
necessary for some of her
activities. The best tribute
to Joan’s role is that paid
by the implicit criticism of
it in the law texts (which
were not official
productions). Although
giving the queen more
officials, they also stressed
their subordination to the
officials of the king, and
implied that the queen’s
place was in her chamber,
not the wider court.
Llywelyn’s early success
had depended very much
on his co-operation with
King John, sealed by his
marriage to Joan.
Relations had then broken
down, however, and in
1211 John had invaded
Gwynedd (see above, pp.
283–4). Even Joan’s
intercession had not saved
Llywelyn from an exigent
peace in which he lost the
Four Cantrefs between the
Conwy and the Dee. The
year 1212 was the turning-
point in Llywelyn’s career.
He brought the native
rulers into a confederation,
made an alliance with
King Philip of France,
joined the baronial plot
against John’s life,
recovered the Four
Cantrefs which he never
afterwards lost and
destroyed John’s general
hegemony in Wales. In
December 1215, having
married his daughter
Gwladus to Reginald de
Braose (now head of the
house), Llywelyn was free,
in alliance with the rulers
of Deheubarth, to sweep
through the south, taking
the royal castles of
Cardigan and Carmarthen,
destroying the Marshal
hold on Cilgerran and
Emlyn in northern Dyfed,
and throwing out the
lesser marcher families
from St Clears, Kidwelly
and the surrounding area.
Apart from Gower, held by
his ally Reginald de
Braose, the only English
base – baronial or royal –
in the south-west was the
Marshal’s Pembroke,
where the great water-
defended castle with its
new ultra-modern circular
keep resisted any attack. In
1216, Llywelyn presided
over a great court at
Aberdyfi where the spoils
of the campaign were
distributed between the
fractious segments of the
house of Deheubarth,
though Llywelyn kept
Cardigan for himself. Left
out of this division was
Llywelyn’s old foe,
Gwenwynwyn, which may
have prompted the latter’s
desertion later in 1216 to
King John, tempted in part
by the grant of
Montgomery. The response
was devastating. Llywelyn
summoned almost all the
rulers of Wales to his
army, drove Gwenwynwyn
into English exile, and
took southern Powys and
Montgomery for himself.
He held southern Powys
for the rest of his life,
greatly increasing his
revenues. For the time
being, Montgomery gave
him a base at the very
hinge of Wales. He could
challenge the Mortimers
and the Braoses (the latter
uncertain allies) for
possession of Ceri,
Maelienydd and Elfael, the
regions between the Wye
valley and the Severn,
which were the key to
Gwynedd’s power in the
south.
Within Gwynedd,
Llywelyn strove to increase
his princely authority,
especially by extending his
jurisdiction over crime
(discussed below, p. 497).
His cash income was
almost certainly increasing
with the development of
commerce and the
commutation of renders in
kind into money. He was
able to raise formidable
military forces, taking
1,600 foot soldiers on
John’s northern expedition
of 1209. His vision of
Gwynedd as a ‘modern’
state, fully integrated into
the rest of Europe, was
strikingly demonstrated by
his religious patronage. He
established the Knights
Hospitallers at Dolgynwal,
the Cistercians at Conwy,
the Franciscans at Llan-
faes, and the Augustinians
on Bardsey Island, one of
the holiest places in Wales,
previously under the
jurisdiction of the ancient
clas church at Aberdaron.
In the triumphal years
after 1215 Llywelyn was
also staking out claims to
status and authority. He
was not obliged (so he
said) to attend any
conference outside the
boundaries of Wales. He
was ‘of no less a liberty
than the king of Scotland,
who receives outlaws from
England with impunity’.
And above all he held a
‘principality’ within which
the other native rulers
were to do homage to him,
and he alone was to do
homage to the king of
England. By this means the
latter was excluded from
any direct relationship
with the native rulers.
Books of Welsh law, edited
in Gwynedd during
Llywelyn’s time, shared
this vision of Wales. And
they added that ‘the word’
of the ruler of Gwynedd,
or the king of Aberffraw as
they called him after his
principal seat in Anglesey,
‘prevails over that of all
kings [of Wales] and the
word of no [other king]
prevails over his’.
Llywelyn’s vision was
almost certainly a response
to King John’s practice, for
John had much more
formally than before
demanded homage from
the native rulers (see
above, p. 283). The vital
and distinctive element in
the ceremony was that it
involved a man swearing
loyalty for the land he held
from his lord. If the Welsh
rulers held their territories
formally from Llywelyn, if
they ‘received’ them from
him as the law books put
it, that meant he would
confirm – indeed perhaps
determine – the descent of
those territories and in
particular how they were
divided between family
claimants. Given the
prevalence of such
divisions, the position of
‘feudal’ overlord gave far
more potential power in
Wales than it did England.
The territories of the
Welsh rulers would also, of
course, be liable to
forfeiture for any breach of
the due loyalty and
service. If, then, a
principality could be
constructed along these
lines, its ruler would have
formidable powers. Yet for
Llywelyn this remained an
ambition. Such a
principality was ultimately
created by his grandson. It
was never created by
Llywelyn himself.
The first obstacle lay
with the king of England.
In 1218 in the great
settlement after the civil
war Llywelyn was made to
come to Worcester; he was
therefore attending a
meeting outside Wales. He
acknowledged that he
would receive no enemy of
the king in Wales, and so
he was ‘of lesser liberty’
than the king of Scotland.
Above all, he promised
that ‘all the magnates of
all Wales’ should come to
the king to do homage to
him as their liege lord. In
other words there was to
be no Welsh principality in
which Llywelyn alone did
homage to the king and
the other magnates of
Wales did homage to
Llywelyn. At Worcester,
Llywelyn had preferred to
bargain not for
constitutional forms,
however important, but
territorial power. Under
the treaty, he kept all his
gains from the war.
Southern Powys and
Montgomery were granted
to him in wardship until
the majority – many years
away – of Gwenwynwyn’s
heir. Although he formally
surrendered Cardigan and
Carmarthen he at once
received them back as the
king’s bailiff until the king
came of age, which might
not be till 1228. Equally
striking was the
recognition of Llywelyn’s
practical authority over
the other Welsh rulers. It
was Llywelyn who was to
prevent outlaws being
received in Wales. He was
also to ensure that ‘the
magnates of all Wales’ did
homage to the king, and
surrender the lands they
had seized in the war. In
practice, he enforced no
such restorations and
permitted only one
magnate to do homage.
The Treaty of Worcester
made Llywelyn less the
prince of Wales than
Henry III’s justiciar, much
the position the Lord Rhys
had held under Henry II.
Llywelyn himself
frequently posed thereafter
as the king’s loyal if
sometimes disregarded
councillor. His readiness to
accept a position from the
English crown is largely
explained by his marriage
to Joan, which always
gave him an entrée to the
English court, and by his
early career, which had
shown the dangers of
challenging the king (as in
1211) and also the benefits
of co-operating with him.
Just like the Lord Rhys and
other Welsh rulers he saw
that a link with the crown
would help him dominate
the native rulers. It was
the latter who presented
the second obstacle to his
wider ambitions.
In 1211 a good number
of the Welsh rulers had
fought for John against
Llywelyn. In 1212, they
had ‘unanimously
confederated’ under
Llywelyn against John. By
1215–16, when the
Chronica Wallia described
him as ‘holding the
monarchy and principality
of nearly all Wales’,
Llywelyn had probably
made them do him
homage. Yet the fact that
the homage of
Gwenwynwyn had to be
secured by hostages and
ended in desertion shows
that this formal supremacy
was as likely to be
challenged by the Welsh
rulers as it was to be
denied by the English
crown. Gwynedd’s law
books, as we have seen,
gave supremacy to the
king of Aberffraw, but
those drawn up in the
south either gave the
symbols of royalty to all
rulers (see above, p. 228)
or accorded equal
supremacy to the kings of
Aberffraw and Dinefwr,
the latter the chief seat of
the rulers of Deheubarth.
In 1215 it was Maelgwn,
according to the Chronica
Wallia, who had been the
‘head’ of the princes of
south Wales. He can only
have resented Llywelyn’s
description of the castle of
Dinefwr as ‘once famous
now ruinous, to which, as
the head of south Wales,
the dignities of all south
Wales once belonged’.
 In dealing with the
native rulers, Llywelyn
was as careful as he was
with the English
monarchy. Both indeed
could be relatively relaxed
about his use of titles.
Llywelyn’s grandfather had
adopted the title ‘prince of
Wales’ (see above, p. 215).
Yet while Llywelyn
certainly called himself
prince (increasingly the
only Welsh ruler to do so),
he proclaimed himself
prince only of ‘north
Wales’, which might mean
no more than Gwynedd. As
his power grew, both
Welsh and English
chroniclers began to call
him ‘prince of Wales’.
Llywelyn himself spoke of
‘the state of Wales’ as
though he was its
guardian. His wife styled
herself ‘lady of Wales’.
However, Llywelyn himself
when he changed his title
(in or a little before 1230)
called himself not ‘prince
of Wales’ but ‘prince of
Aberffraw and lord of
Snowdon’. ‘Lord of
Snowdon’ impressed by
the reference to its
unconquerable mountains.
‘Prince of Aberffraw’, in
Gwynedd circles,
suggested a supremacy
over all of Wales, but this
was an assertion, as we
have seen, which one
could take or leave. It was
‘left’ by the English
government who were
perfectly happy with the
new title. So apparently
were the rulers of the
south. Llywelyn did not
lose sight of his vision of a
Welsh principality subject
only to himself but, as he
remarked in a different
context, ‘neither a skilled
dicer nor yet a valiant
knight may always win his
heart’s desire’. He was out
for the reality of power
and for that he needed to
be flexible, hence his
stipulation in his
agreement with John in
1202 that he could choose
whether his lawsuits were
heard under Welsh or
English law. His flexibility
was evident, too, in his co-
operation with English
barons. The ‘yoke of
tyranny’ he rebelled
against in 1212 was that of
the Angevin dynasty, not
the English. Eventually he
married all four of his
daughters by Joan to
English barons, two of
them not once, but twice
over. Co-operation with
one baron above all was
vital to Gwynedd’s safety.
In 1211 the support of
Ranulf, earl of Chester,
had made possible John’s
invasion. In 1218 Llywelyn
reached a settlement with
the earl, one affirmed in
1222 by the marriage of
Ranulf’s ward and
eventual heir in Chester,
John le Scot, to Helen,
Llywelyn’s daughter. With
the route of hostile armies
blocked off, Gwynedd
remained free from
invasion for the rest of
Llywelyn’s life. Thus
secure, in 1220 Llywelyn
demonstrated his authority
in the south against Welsh
ruler and marcher baron
alike. He forced the
submission of Rhys Gryg
(Maelgwn’s brother),
ravaged the lands of the
earl of Pembroke (William
Marshal II, son of the
regent who had died in
1219), and took revenge
on a former ally, Reginald
de Braose, by installing his
nephew and rival, John de
Braose, in the old family
lordship of Gower. Of
course, Reginald had
married one of Llywelyn’s
daughters – but then so
had John.
Then came disaster. The
old regent’s great gain
from the 1215–17 war had
been Caerleon, which he
had seized from its Welsh
ruler Morgan, great-
nephew of King Morgan of
the 1140s. Yet the
Marshals (once themselves
royal bailiffs of Cardigan
and Carmarthen) were
grievously affected by
Llywelyn’s rise to power in
the south, as the events of
1220 had shown. In April
1223 William Marshal II,
having gathered a large
army from his estates in
Ireland, took his revenge.
He descended on south
Wales, and seized
Cardigan and Carmarthen,
where he was soon
recognized once again as
the king’s deputy. The
smaller marcher lords in
the south-west at last
recovered the lands they
had lost in the 1215–17
war. William Marshal had
replaced Llywelyn’s
supremacy with his own.
There was also defeat
further north where the
minority government, led
by Hubert de Burgh,
recovered Montgomery for
the crown, replacing the
old castle down in the
valley with a new one high
up on the far tip of the
Ceri hills. Faced with these
blows Llywelyn submitted
almost at once, without
meeting his enemies in the
field. This was nothing like
1211, for Gwynedd,
protected by the alliance
with the earl of Chester,
remained unscathed. In
practice, Llywelyn also
retained southern Powys
and the allegiance between
Wye and Severn of the
native rulers of Elfael at
Maelienydd, something
accepted by the rival
claimant, Ralph Mortimer
of Wigmore, when (in
1230) he married
Llywelyn’s daughter
Gwladus, widow of
Reginald de Braose.
 Llywelyn’s recovery was
helped by the crown’s lack
of vigour. It was Hubert de
Burgh, not the king, who
asserted himself in the late
1220s, acquiring Cardigan,
Carmarthen and
Montgomery in hereditary
right. In 1228 a perceived
threat to Montgomery led
Hubert and Henry to
summon an army and
commence building a
castle in the Ceri hills.
Characteristically placing
substance over form,
Llywelyn dutifully did
homage to the king, as did
the Welsh magnates who
were with him. Henry and
Hubert then abandoned
their castle and went
home, leaving William de
Braose, captured in the
fighting (he had succeeded
his father Reginald in
1228), a prisoner in
Llywelyn’s hands. Under
the arrangements for his
release in 1229, William
agreed that his daughter
Eva should marry Dafydd,
Llywelyn’s son and heir,
and have Builth as her
marriage portion. Llywelyn
had long coveted Builth.
Astride the upper valley of
the Wye, it put pressure on
Elfael and controlled the
great pass (followed by the
present railway line) down
the valleys of the Irfon and
the Tywi into south-west
Wales. Llywelyn held it for
the rest of his life.
Llywelyn soon had a
chance to break up the
Braose patrimony (Radnor,
Hay, Brecon and
Abergavenny) altogether.
In 1230, having found
William de Braose, on a
return visit, in his wife’s
bedchamber, he executed
him with great publicity.
This was the end of the
senior line of the Braoses
(the junior continued in
Gower) because William
had no son and his
lordships passed to his
four daughters, including
Eva. For the moment,
however, the lands were
given by the king in
wardship to William
Marshal, whose bailiffs in
Brecon were soon clashing
with those of Llywelyn in
Builth. The Marshal’s
sudden death in 1231 gave
Llywelyn his chance. So
did tensions in Glamorgan
where the native rulers
(notably Morgan Gam of
Afan) resented the harsh
lordship of Gilbert de
Clare, earl of Gloucester
and Hertford, and were
now off the leash thanks to
the earl’s death. The
descent of Glamorgan,
usually linked with the
earldom of Gloucester,
illustrates the importance
of heiresses; through them
it had passed from Robert
fitz Hamon to Robert, earl
of Gloucester, illegitimate
son of Henry I, thence to
King John and (briefly) the
earl of Essex, before
ending up (from 1217)
with the Clare earls of
Hertford. In 1223, with the
odds stacked against him,
Llywelyn had wisely
avoided fighting his
enemies. Now in 1231 he
led a great expedition
through the south which
burnt Radnor, Hay and
Brecon, razed the castles of
Neath and Kidwelly, and
ended up with the seizure
of Cardigan from Hubert
de Burgh. Llywelyn had
asserted his authority over
a new generation of native
rulers, and until his death
he allowed Maelgwyn
Fychan (son of Maelgwn
ap Rhys, who had died
earlier in the year) to hold
Cardigan as his deputy.
 Henry and Hubert made
a static response to this
lightning campaign. In the
summer of 1231 they
brought an army to Castle
Matilda (Painscastle) and
rebuilt it with two lines of
concentric walls and great
dry moats. The aim was to
secure Elfael, which Braose
and Llywelyn satellites had
disputed for so long, and
block off Llywelyn’s
shortest route from Builth
into the Herefordshire
plain. But his was to inflict
a wound in the flank, not
at the heart. No attempt
was made to recover
Cardigan or attack Builth,
let alone Gwynedd.
Two years later, in a
remarkable turn-around,
Llywelyn was in alliance
with the Marshals – in
alliance, that is, with
William’s brother and
successor, Richard
Marshal, in his war against
King Henry. He helped
Richard in his conquest of
Glamorgan, and with the
rulers of Deheubarth laid
long though ultimately
fruitless siege to
Carmarthen. The war
ended, as we have seen,
with Richard’s successor,
Gilbert Marshal, dominant
throughout south Wales,
though in fact he did
nothing to disturb
Llywelyn’s and Maelgwn’s
hold of Cardigan. Llywelyn
also retained Builth and
southern Powys. He had
maintained a territorial
power throughout Wales
and had also kept alive the
wider vision of his
principality. This was
inseparable from the
whole question of the
succession.
Llywelyn had long
determined that his heir
should be his son Dafydd,
offspring of his marriage
to the regal Joan. This was
bound to cause friction
within Gwynedd because it
meant excluding his
illegitimate eldest son,
Gruffudd, and overturning
what Llywelyn himself
called (another sign of his
Europeanization) ‘the
detestable’ Welsh custom
which placed legitimate
and illegitimate children
on the same footing.
Another problem was
whether Dafydd was to
succeed simply to
Llywelyn’s territories or to
some kind of wider
principality embracing the
other rulers. After 1218
Llywelyn’s relationships
with those rulers had
taken various forms. In
1226 he extracted an oath
of fealty to Dafydd ‘from
the great men of Wales’.
They did not apparently do
him homage. In 1228,
during the brief Kerry
campaign, he seems to
have been head merely of
a confederation of rulers,
all of whom did homage
(as we have seen) to King
Henry. Yet in 1238 the
English government
believed that Llywelyn was
trying to get ‘the magnates
of Wales’ to do homage to
Dafydd, though in the
event what he secured
(according to the Welsh
chronicles) was simply
fealty. Llywelyn’s
approach remained
consistent. He kept alive
the idea of a homage-
based principality, but did
not try to impose it.
Above all, Dafydd’s
succession depended on
the English government.
Whatever political entity
he held, he would hold it
from the king. In fact, King
Henry was happy to accept
Dafydd, after all his
nephew, as the future ruler
of Gwynedd, but he
insisted that the homage of
the other rulers belonged
to the crown. There was to
be no wider principality.
Henry, however, continued
to recognize that native
Wales was in practice
subject to Llywelyn. The
yearly truces after 1234
were always with Llywelyn
and his ‘adherents’. Any
attack by the earl of
Pembroke on the castle of
Morgan, erstwhile lord of
Caerleon, was to be
regarded as a transgression
against Llywelyn himself.
Llywelyn died in 1240,
three years after Joan. A
visionary and a realist, a
warrior and a diplomat,
aspiring to rule the
principality of Wales yet
also masquerading as a
loyal councillor of the
king, this extraordinary
man was called ‘the Great’
soon after his death by
both English and Welsh
chroniclers.
***
King Henry III’s
personality and lack of
resources were equally
important when it came to
Anglo-Scottish relations,
for they helped to create a
long period of peace
between the two
kingdoms, the essential
context for the policies of
King Alexander II (1214–
49). Alexander began his
reign leading armies into
England and attempting to
make good ancient claims
to the northern counties.
He ended it on the island
of Kerrera in the Firth of
Lorn, leading an
expedition to wrest the
Western Isles and the Isle
of Man from King Hakon
of Norway. The contrast
reflects a fundamental re-
orientation of Scottish
monarchy, though one
long foreshadowed.
Alexander’s aim was to
expand his kingdom north
and west, not south into
England. Appropriately it
was King Hakon’s Saga
which described him ‘a
great chief and ambitious
for this world’s honours’.
But Alexander was far
more than simply a
military leader. His legal
innovations marked the
birth of the Scottish
common law.
 The Treaty of Worcester
in 1218 had allowed
Llywelyn to keep his
material gains from the
war, not surprisingly for
he had won them himself
and was firmly
entrenched. Alexander’s
situation was different. In
the north-east he had
gained no strongholds. In
the north-west certainly he
held Carlisle, where indeed
the canons of the cathedral
elected one of his clerks as
their bishop. The leading
barons of Cumberland and
Westmorland, often with
Scottish connections, had
joined the rebellion, as had
many knights. But once
Louis had surrendered
there was no way
Alexander had the
resources to keep these
men on side, let alone
continue by himself. In
any case many northern
rebels had been captured
at the battle of Lincoln.
Alexander’s formal
excommunication by the
legate Guala in September
1217 made matters worse.
So in December of that
year Alexander, now
nineteen, came to terms.
He surrendered Carlisle
and was allowed to keep
Tynedale and the earldom
of Huntingdon. His
humiliation, aggravated by
an Interdict briefly placed
on his kingdom in 1218,
was fundamental to the re-
orientation of his kingship.
He could never, he knew,
have a better chance of
southern expansion, yet he
had failed utterly.
Henceforth his policy was
to live in peace with
England. To the success of
that policy Henry III’s
reluctance to raise the
issue of England’s
overlordship over Scotland
in any aggressive way was
equally important. The
mutual decision to live in
peace was affirmed in
June 1221 when
Alexander married Henry
III’s eldest sister, Joan, the
first of those marriages
between the dynasties
which did so much to
harmonize relations in the
thirteenth century. The
chronicler Fordun saw this
first union as the start of a
peace ‘which was to last
time without end’, and
certainly Alexander’s army
of July 1217 was the last
to fight across the border
for nearly eighty years.
Almost at once (as Joan
assured her brother)
Alexander refused to help
Hugh de Lacy in his bid for
Ulster (see above, p. 306).
Peace with England
enabled Alexander to
attend to dangers in the
north of his kingdom.
There royal Scotland, the
Scotland of royal castles
and sheriffdoms,
effectively ended at
Inverness and Dingwall,
beyond which stretched
Ross and Caithness (see
above, p. 232). In 1215
Ross had been the centre
of another MacHeth and
MacWilliam rising, this
one led by Donald and
Kenneth, sons of the dead
leaders of 1186–7. Both
sons were killed. It was
obviously a major aim of
royal policy to prevent
uprisings of this kind and
one way was by
establishing loyalist
ministers in the north. So
in 1212 the justiciar north
of the Forth, William
Comyn, became earl of
Buchan through marriage,
the first native earldom to
pass to an incomer.
Another preoccupation
was to sustain the
bishopric of Caithness
(established around 1147–
51) which had freed the
region from the
jurisdiction of the bishop
of Orkney. In 1222, when
the bishop was murdered,
Alexander took an army
into Caithness, briefly
expelled the earl, John
Haraldson (1206–31), and
saw to the election of a
new bishop from the
loyalist Moray (Murry)
family. A further challenge
from the MacWilliams
followed until in 1230 its
leader, Gilleasbuig, was
caught and killed. His
infant daughter had her
brains dashed out in Forfar
market-place. The
brutality (which contrasted
with MacHeth’s long
imprisonment by King
David) is a measure of the
threat and also of the
sense that it could be
ended. This was indeed a
decisive moment for the
security of the dynasty,
being the last MacWilliam
challenge to the throne.
Earl John Haraldson
died violently in 1231. In
1236 his successor attested
a royal charter, the first
earl of Caithness to do so.
Meanwhile Alexander
weakened the earldom by
making a Murry earl of
Sutherland in its south,
and he secured Ross by
appointing as earl, the first
since Malcolm MacHeth’s
death in 1168, Farquhar
MacTaggart, a native of
the area who had put
down the rising of 1215.
Alexander also established
the Comyns in the lordship
of Badenoch, the
mountainous but highly
strategic part of Moray.
There were still no royal
castles or sheriffdoms in
Caithness itself. As late as
1264–6 Dingwall was still
the northernmost outpost
of royal power and its
bailiffs had no revenues
worth speaking of.
Nevertheless, Alexander
had greatly enhanced his
authority in the north.
 Alexander was equally
successful in the west,
though here too he started
from a fairly low base.
Man and the Isles, like the
Orkneys, were subject to
the king of Norway.
Alexander’s overlordship
was confined to the
mainland where his direct
authority was limited to
the castle and sheriffdom
at Ayr, created by William
the Lion. For the most
part, he relied on the great
Anglo-Norman families
established in the twelfth
century, above all that of
Stewart which, advancing
from its original base in
Renfrew, had secured Bute
around 1200 and built a
castle at Rothesay.
Between 1226 and 1231
great storms of conflict
swept through the sea
lanes of the west over
control of Man and the
Isles. At the eye of the
storms was the rivalry
between Reginald, king of
Man (1188–1226), and his
brother Olaf, who ruled in
Lewis. Throwing in their
lot on one side or the other
were the MacSorleys,
descendants of the great
Somerled, who, divided
into three often warring
segments, were lords of
Argyll, Kintyre, and
several of the western
islands. It was the
MacSorleys who built the
remarkable thirteenth-
century castles which still
ring the western coast.
And then beside them,
ranging with giant strides,
was Alan, son of Roland,
lord of Galloway. Roland,
in accepting appointment
as justiciar of Galloway,
had apparently helped to
tie the region to the
centre. From one point of
view Alan seemed to do
the same. He had married
a daughter of Earl David,
King Alexander’s uncle. He
bore the title of Constable
of Scotland, inherited from
his Moreville mother. He
had raised armies for King
John and been with him at
Runnymede. He had
married his daughters to
Anglo-Scottish barons.
However, this was the
periphery of his activity.
The core (which he had no
particular desire to tie to
anything) was the struggle
to construct a great
seaborne empire between
Galloway and Ulster, the
latter having been granted
him by John in 1212 in a
bid to keep out the Lacys.
Able to raise a thousand
foot soldiers and fleets of
200 ships, boasting that he
could easily invade
Norway, he was, in the
words of Hakon’s Saga,
‘the greatest warrior… He
plundered about the
Hebrides and made great
warfare widely throughout
the western lands.’
 Yet it was not Alan who
emerged victorious from
‘the great dispeace’
between 1226 and 1231.
He had to accept Hugh de
Lacy’s recovery of Ulster
and failed to sustain his
ally, Reginald, in Man. The
real victor was the king of
Norway. King Hakon,
having seen off his
domestic foes, became the
first Norwegian king to
intervene effectively in
Scottish waters since
Magnus Barelegs in 1098.
It was he who punished
the murderers of Earl John
of Orkney and Caithness. It
was his fleets which
sacked Bute, established
Olaf as king in Man,
plundered Kintyre and
Lewis, and generally (as
his own Saga put it) ‘won
great honour for King
Hakon in the west beyond
the sea’.
Alexander himself
(according to Fordun) led
armies into Argyll against
the MacSorleys in both
1221 and 1222. He may
have established a castle at
Tarbert on the narrow
tongue between the
mainland and Kintyre. But
during the great dispeace
he had virtually looked on
while King Hakon
triumphed. There was,
moreover, a dangerous
connection between
disturbances in the north
and west, for Gilleasbuig
MacWilliam had drawn
support from the Western
Isles and timed his bid to
coincide with the disorders
there. Alexander’s chance
came with Alan of
Galloway’s death in 1234,
because Galloway was
then divided between the
three Anglo-Scottish
magnates who were
married to Alan’s
daughters. There was no
chance of them plundering
about the Western Isles.
Indeed there was now a
vacuum which soon
Alexander aspired to fill by
taking Man and the Isles
for himself. With Alan’s
demise he was able to
develop his own position
in Galloway. He turned
Alan’s chief seat at
Kirkcudbright into a royal
castle and probably set up
a sheriffdom at Wigtown;
an important expansion of
royal power and a step
towards achieving his
wider ambitions.
 The royal and baronial
take-over of Galloway was
eased by long-term
changes which had already
brought this great Celtic
province into the Anglo-
Scottish world. Anglo-
Scottish nobles, sometimes
tenants of the crown
elsewhere in Scotland,
formed Alan of Galloway’s
immediate entourage, as
they had that of his father.
Alan’s family had founded
or helped to found two
Cistercian abbeys
(Dundrennan and
Glenluce) and three
Premonstratensian houses
(one at Whithorn). Many
houses from Scotland and
Cumberland acquired
property in the province,
like Holmcultram’s grange
at Kirkgunzeon, north-east
of Urr. But Galloway was
also conquered, as the
thick spread of mottes in
the area testified. A
thirteenth-century effigy of
an abbot in Dundrennan’s
ruins shows him with a
dagger in his breast but
still managing to trample a
semi-disembowelled kilted
tribesman under foot. The
Galwegians had initially
supported as Alan’s
successor his illegitimate
son Thomas who gained
the support of Hugh de
Lacy and native Irish
chiefs. It took two
substantial expeditions in
1235 and April 1236 and
two battles before
Alexander came out on
top. Thomas surrendered
and spent some sixty years
in prison; two Irish chiefs
were pulled apart by
horses in Edinburgh and
the land and churches of
Galloway were ravaged
with great violence and
cruelty (so the
contemporary annals of
Dunstable and the later
Fordun tell us). A further
expedition was required in
1247 to restore Roger de
Quency (earl of
Winchester), married to
one of Alan’s daughters,
after a revolt against his
rule.
To be free to
concentrate on Galloway,
Alexander reached a final
settlement with the king of
England – already, of
course, his brother-in-law.
At York in September 1237
he surrendered all claims
to the northern counties,
and received in return
£200-worth of land based
on Tynedale, to be held
from the English king with
extensive liberties. A
whole phase of Scottish
royal history was thus at
an end. The aim of
securing the northern
counties, which had
provided the driving force
of the kings of Scotland for
centuries, was abandoned.
Henry III spoke joyfully of
a ‘firm peace’, and scaled
down the costs of his
northern castles. He too
had shown statesmanship.
The overlordship of the
king of England,
established by Henry II in
1174, had been formally
abandoned by Richard in
1189. But John may well
have revived the issue in
1209 and 1212, as
presumably Henry did in
1221 when the pope
refused Alexander a
coronation on the grounds
that ‘the king is said to be
subject to the king of
England’. Henry had raised
his claims again with the
pope in 1235, drawing
attention to the homages
owed him by the earls and
barons of Scotland, a
recollection of the treaty
of 1174; but when it came
to it in 1237, Henry made
no reference at all to his
claims and the settlement
was essentially one
between two sovereign
states. At this very time
Henry was insisting, in his
dealings with Llywelyn
and Dafydd, that the
homages of the Welsh
barons were his. But that
was practical politics.
Overlordship over
Scotland was not. Henry
was opposed to a
coronation which would
clearly change the status
of the Scottish kings, but
he had no wish to pursue
his claims if it meant
disrupting a happy family
peace between the
kingdoms.
That family relationship
was threatened in 1238 by
Joan’s death, although her
influence had always been
limited by her failure to
produce an heir. In the
following year Alexander
married Marie de Coucy,
daughter of a great French
baron. But the family ties
with England were soon
renewed. In 1242, with
King Henry anxious to
secure the north during his
campaign in Poitou, an
agreement was reached for
the marriage of
Alexander’s baby son to
Henry’s eldest daughter.
Alexander’s success in
defending and expanding
his frontiers owed
everything to his ability to
mobilize armies: in 1221,
1222, 1228–30, 1235,
1236, and later in 1244
and 1249. The cavalry was
presumably (for there is no
evidence) composed of
household forces and the
contingents furnished by
the barons, while the foot
came from the quotas of
the ‘common army’,
mustered on the basis of so
many men from units of
land (ploughgates or
ouncelands). In 1244
Matthew Paris, well
informed about northern
affairs, noted that the
Scots did not have
valuable horses from Spain
or Italy, but he praised the
size and discipline of their
army, which he put at
1,000 horsemen (many
probably sergeants) and –
with some exaggeration –
100,000 foot. If Paris was
impressed, how much
more must have been the
men of Caithness, Argyll
and Galloway!
 Such armies reflected
Alexander’s authority
within his realm, an
authority he was eager to
enhance. The traditional
inauguration ceremony of
the Scottish kings at Scone
differed from coronations
elsewhere in Europe in
that it lacked the crucial
element of anointing. In
1221, as we have seen,
Alexander sought papal
sanction for a full
coronation, which would
put him on a par with the
king of England. Papal
refusal did not damage
Alexander’s hold over the
church, which remained a
mainstay of his rule,
thanks above all to his
influence over
ecclesiastical elections.
Both in Caithness and
Galloway (in the bishopric
of Whithorn) he placed his
own men. His chancellor
William de Bondington
became bishop of Glasgow
(1232) and his
chamberlain David de
Bernham, bishop of St
Andrews (1239).
Alexander also defended
the church’s independence
and, with it, that of the
realm. He was sticky about
admitting papal legates,
and doubtless helped to
secure the bull of 1225
which allowed the Scottish
church to govern itself
through a national
provincial council,
confirming earlier rulings
about its independence
from York.
Little is known of
Alexander’s revenues
although they were almost
certainly expanding.
Certainly expanding was
the scope and authority of
royal justice. Throughout
the reign the justiciars of
Lothian, and of Scotland
north of the Forth, were
probably travelling
through the sheriffdoms
twice a year to hear the
royal pleas (murder,
premeditated assault,
robbery, rape, arson).
There is no evidence for a
justiciar of Galloway,
though one may have
existed. A provision in
1245 tightened up
procedures, marking the
beginning of process by
‘dittay’ or indictment,
under which local juries
(as had long been the case
in England) revealed to the
justiciars those whom they
suspected of wrongdoing,
the miscreants then being
arrested and brought
before the justiciars for
trial. The chattels of those
convicted of the serious
crimes which constituted
the royal pleas, the 1245
provision stressed, were to
be forfeit to the crown –
again as in England, and
an indication of the
financial motives for
getting a tighter grip on
justice.
The advances on the
civil side were even more
important. In 1230 a
statute set up the action of
novel dissasine, a remedy
for anyone deprived of a
tenement ‘unjustly and
without judgement’.
Perhaps in the same year,
or possibly somewhat
later, a parallel action of
‘mortancestry’ was
inaugurated, a remedy for
anyone denied succession
to their inheritance. The
procedures were modelled
on the English actions of
novel disseisin and mort
d’ancestor introduced by
Henry II. They were
initiated by a ‘brieve’ (a
writ), which had to be
obtained from the king or
one of the justiciars, and
ordered the truth to be
recognized by a jury of
‘good men of the country’
before either the sheriff or
the justiciar, probably the
justiciar’s eyre being the
usual forum. In sharp
contrast to England, there
are virtually no surviving
records of Scottish courts
from this period, so it is
impossible to trace the
growing use of these
procedures. By the 1290s,
however, the brieves of
novel dissasine and
mortancestry, with some
others, were described as
brieves ‘of course’ (de
cursu), which meant – as in
England – that they were
issued in standard form
automatically and at small
cost. The new procedures
were thus readily available
and offered access to a
jury, replacing in the last
resort the judicial duel.
The new procedures might
also transfer cases from
courts of lords into the
more impartial, or so it
could be hoped, courts of
the king. In protecting
seisin and inheritance,
they reduced the need for
self-help and helped to
maintain law and order. In
bringing a whole new
range of business into
royal courts before the
justiciar or the sheriffs,
they increased the whole
scope and authority of
kingship.
Ecclesiastics like the
prior of Coldingham made
use of the new procedures
to protect their properties.
Women resorted to them
to protect their right to
inherit in the absence of
brothers, in the face of
much pressure in favour of
collateral males. Another
group to benefit may have
been rent-paying tenants,
quite low down on the
social scale, who claimed
their holdings were
hereditable. This
highlights another feature
of the procedures, one of
cardinal importance: they
were open to those of
Scottish, English, Norman
and any other descent.
There was to be no legal
apartheid in Scotland, as
there was in Ireland and in
a different way in Wales,
where English law was
chiefly for the English. In
that respect, in Scotland
the new law really was
‘common’. This was an
important factor in the
growth of national unity.
On the face of it the
losers from the procedures
were the lords. In the
twelfth century the king
had already been
developing his appellate
jurisdiction from their
courts. Now the brieve of
novel dissasine explicitly
envisaged the plaintiff’s
lord as the disseisor
(though not exclusively
so). It was the lord, too,
who was most likely to be
guilty of obstructing the
course of an inheritance
and becoming the target in
an action of mortancestry.
The rule also evolved in
the thirteenth century
(again based on one in
England) that no
freeholder need answer for
his lands save by action
brought by the king’s
brieve. Lords, however,
still wielded great
jurisdictional power. In the
first place the procedures
operated primarily in royal
Scotland, the Scotland of
the sheriffdoms, because it
was to the sheriffs that the
writs were addressed. The
justiciar’s eyres likewise
operated in the same areas
and never went north of
Dumbarton in the west or
Inverness in the east. The
procedures of civil (and
criminal) justice therefore
had a limited impact in the
great provincial lordships
and the ‘outer rim’
earldoms. They were
probably unknown in
Caithness and Argyll. Even
within the core of the
kingdom private courts
continued to flourish
alongside the new
procedures, partly because
they retained disciplinary
jurisdiction over defaults
of service and because
they enjoyed other
jurisdiction (often by royal
grant), including at the
most basic criminal level
(as in England) the right to
hang thieves taken red-
handed. There was also a
great deal of overlap
between private courts and
the courts of the justiciars
and sheriffs. Laymen
continued to take their
property disputes to
ecclesiastical courts, while
the church complained
vociferously about cases
concerning ecclesiastical
property going to secular
courts (another sign of
Alexander’s control). The
common law of Scotland
in this period never
paralleled the size and
complexity of the law in
England. There was no
legal profession, and no
equivalent to the bench at
Westminster or the court
of king’s bench, both
staffed by professional
judges. The justiciars and
many of the sheriffs were
members of the nobility.
 All this helps to explain
the relative harmony of
Scottish politics in
Alexander’s reign. The
king was accused by the
laity neither of financial
oppressions, nor of
arbitrary disseisins and
denial of justice. ‘A good
man, just, pious and
generous, beloved by all as
well by the English as his
own subjects and
deservedly,’ wrote
Matthew Paris of
Alexander II, though the
Galwegians would have
been less complimentary.
When the last political
crisis of Alexander’s reign
occurred in the 1240s it
was essentially a factional
struggle at court between
new families who had
risen in the service of the
crown. Tension between
nobles of Anglo-Norman
and Scottish descent
seemed a thing of the past.
Indeed both groups had
co-operated in putting
down the MacWilliams
The most successful of
the new families was that
of Comyn. Coming to
prominence under William
the Lion, it remained at
the centre of Scottish
politics and government
until brought down by
Robert Bruce. There came
to be two principal
branches descended from
the two marriages of
William Comyn, one
producing earls of Buchan,
the other lords of
Badenoch and (by the
marriage of Walter Comyn
around 1234) earls of
Menteith. The fifteenth-
century historian Walter
Bower wrote freely of ‘the
Comyns’, and certainly
from the 1240s they often
seemed to have acted as a
cohesive family group. Yet
their rise was remarkably
uncontested by established
families, perhaps because
their marriage alliances
had cast a wide net, with
one of William Comyn’s
daughters marrying the
earl of Mar and another
the earl of Ross. (For
further discussion of the
family, see below, p. 423.)
The Comyns did sterling
service for the king,
although in the later
writings of Fordun and
Bower they often appear
as archetypal over-
powerful subjects – a
judgement in which there
was at least an element of
truth. The crisis of 1242
centred on a conflict
which had arisen with the
Bissets, another family
who had risen through
royal service. After the
latter had been accused of
murdering Patrick of
Atholl, nephew of Alan of
Galloway, the young
Alexander, earl of Buchan,
and John the Red of
Badenoch, ‘a keen fighter
and most outstanding
participant in all knightly
encounters’, pinned Walter
Bisset down in his castle at
Aboyne and ravaged his
surrounding lands. King
Alexander kept calm and
told everyone not to
mistake flies for eagles and
mice for lions, but he had
to call out the common
army of Mar to conduct
Walter to Forfar to stand
trial. Ultimately the Bissets
‘were outlawed from
Scotland by judgement of
all the nobles’ in
November 1242.
The forms of law had
been observed, but only
just. Alexander had come
under humiliating
pressure. What is
impressive is the way in
which he now reasserted
his authority. He dismissed
the twin justiciars of
Scotland north of Forth for
failing to act against the
Comyns and replaced them
with Alan Durward, an
appointment which
influenced Scottish politics
into the 1260s. Durward,
the name deriving from
the post of usher or
doorkeeper at court,
represented another curial
family very much on the
make. From an original
base at Lundie in Angus,
the family had benefited
from the northern
expansion, for example in
gaining the lordship of
Urquhart on Loch Ness.
Rivalries at court, in the
north, and over claims to
the earldoms of Mar and
Angus, ensured that Alan
Durward would stand up
to the Comyns.
The crisis of 1242 had
repercussions on relations
with King Henry. Walter
Bisset fled to the English
court, and put it about that
the Scots were negotiating
with King Louis, that they
were stirring up trouble in
Ireland and building
border castles. In August
1244 Henry took an army
to Newcastle and
Alexander marched to
meet him, conspicuously
declining to lay waste the
country as he approached.
A peaceful settlement
quickly followed, and one
that did little to detract
from Scotland’s
independence. The affair
was a storm in a teacup.
The treaty of 1237 and the
marriage agreement of
1242 were confirmed.
Alexander acknowledged
King Henry as his ‘liege
lord’ and agreed not to
enter alliances with his
enemies unless oppressed
‘unjustly’, a qualification
that rendered the pledge
almost worthless. There
was in any case no
suggestion that Henry’s
overlordship operated for
anything other than the
estates Alexander held in
England. Therefore Henry
did not entertain Bisset’s
appeals for justice, and
Alexander, as befitted his
kingly status, did not
swear in person to the
treaty. True, a large
number of Scottish
magnates took oaths to
uphold it, but that Henry
saw these essentially as
security for the agreement
rather than as a prelude to
the recovery of their
homages was amply
demonstrated by the
events of the next decade.
Alexander was keen to
settle with King Henry
because he had more
important things to do in
the west. In 1244 he sent
the first of many embassies
to King Hakon offering to
purchase the lordship of
Man and the Isles. King
Hakon was contemptuous.
He had, he said, no need
of such silver. Instead he
continued to make his
lordship of the west a
reality: in 1248 King
Harald of Man (son of
Olaf) and a MacSorley,
Ewen of Lorn, were both at
his court, the former in
order to marry his
daughter and the latter to
seek the title ‘king of the
Isles’. When Harald was
drowned later in the year,
Hakon sent Ewen to take
charge of Man. This was
too much for Alexander.
He raised a great fleet and
sailed into the Firth of
Lorn. ‘He made it plain to
his men,’ declared Hakon’s
Saga, ‘that he intended not
to turn back until he had
acquired all the Norwegian
king’s dominion to the
west of the Solunder sea.’
Alas for such hopes.
Alexander died suddenly
in July 1249 during the
expedition. It was King
Hakon who settled the
future of Man, eventually
installing there Harald’s
brother, Magnus.
Nevertheless, Alexander
had redirected the Scottish
monarchy and laid the
foundations for the
conquest of the west.
11

Britain During
the Personal
Rule of King
Henry III,
1234–58
Until 1234 Henry III had
been overshadowed by
two great ministers
inherited from his father,
first Hubert de Burgh and
then Peter des Roches.
Much of the political
agenda had been set by
quarrels over power and
property that had
originated during the early
minority. Now Henry
could determine his own
course. In some ways he
did so with success. During
the near quarter-century of
his personal rule he gave
England peace and at least
for a while increased his
revenues. Money and
stability enabled him to
play a far stronger hand
than before in both Wales
and Scotland. Overseas he
eventually reached a
statesmanlike settlement of
the old quarrel with the
Capetian kings of France.
There was, however,
another, less satisfactory
side to Henry’s rule. The
settlement with the
Capetians meant accepting
the final loss of the
Angevin empire. The
attempt to offset this
defeat by establishing the
dynasty as a
Mediterranean power was
a fiasco. At home, Henry’s
policies created factional
struggles at court, and
widened rather than
reduced the political
chasm between monarch
and nation which had
opened under the
Angevins. As a result, the
most fundamental
developments during his
rule, the emergence of
parliament, the widening
of the political community
and the growing sense of
xenophobic national
identity were shaped by
opposition to royal
policies. Ultimately in
1258 Henry’s personal rule
was ended by a political
revolution far more radical
than Magna Carta in 1215.
Henry’s ideology and
ability were central to
both his successes and
failures. ‘A simplex and
God-fearing man,’
remarked the Osney abbey
chronicler, picking up two
of Henry’s key
characteristics. Henry’s
piety was intensely
personal and also highly
political. He strove to
recover what the Angevins
(Richard for a while aside)
had seemed to lose: the
image and the reality of a
kingship protected and
inspired by God. Henry
multiplied the days on
which his choirs chanted
the ceremonial hymns
invoking the aid of Christ
for himself and his realm
(the Laudes Regiae),
attended Mass assiduously
and fed 500 paupers daily;
on special occasions the
halls at Westminster were
filled with thousands of
them. There were no
beggars in the Strand in
Henry’s day. At every
place on his itinerary he
made gifts to the local
monasteries, friaries,
hospitals and leper houses.
Above all, from 1245
Henry rebuilt Westminster
Abbey in honour of the
saint who lay there, his
patron saint Edward the
Confessor, canonized in
1161. Entering by the
great north door, the eyes
of the worshipper were
swept up to the statue of
the Confessor high up in
the south transept giving
his ring to a pilgrim. The
sequel was as well known,
and so was the moral, for
the pilgrim was St John
the Evangelist, who would
soon conduct the
Confessor to heaven. The
latter was a saint ‘of
mighty power’ supporting
the dynasty in this life and
ready to lead Henry to the
next.
Henry’s status as a rex
piissimus had already
steered him out of the
crisis of 1234, and helps
explain how his personal
rule lasted as long as it
did. There was also
nothing very objectionable
about his wider political
ideology, although that
has sometimes been
suggested by modern
historians. True in 1250, in
a conversation with
Matthew Paris, Henry
asked plaintively why he
could not abrogate rashly
granted charters just like
the pope, certainly a
highly threatening
question. Later an
opposition tract, The Song
of Lewes, written in 1264,
implied that Henry
defended his right to
choose his own ministers,
the great battleground of
the reign, by citing the
Roman law maxim, ‘the
will of the prince has the
force of law’. Henry’s
ideology, however, formed
little part of the general
case made against him in
and after 1258. His stated
position was that he
wished to govern in
accordance with the law
and custom of the realm. It
was on custom that he
usually stood when he
defended his right to
choose his ministers, that
and on a homely analogy
between the king and his
magnates. If they could
choose their own servants,
why could not the king?
Henry confirmed Magna
Carta both in 1237 and
1253 with every
appearance of sincerity.
Fundamentally, after the
disasters of the des Roches
regime, he was at one with
the great law book
Bracton, the work of his
chief minister from 1234
to 1239, William Ralegh,
which stressed that the
king was subject to the
law, and must not disseise
freemen of property ‘by
will’. After all the
Confessor himself, as
Henry knew him from
Matthew Paris’s Life, had
been wise, courteous, just
and peaceable, giving ease
to all. Henry was thus well
aware of the need to stand
at one with his subjects.
The crown’s rights needed
to be secure, he declared,
so that under its wings the
rights of everyone else
could flourish. ‘I depend
on you and you on me. If I
am rich you are rich, if I
am poor you are poor,’ he
told the assembled
bishops.
Henry might seem an
ideal king to tread
carefully in the post-
Magna Carta world, even
more so because he had no
martial talents and coveted
the comfortable life. In
place of John’s hectic
itinerary, Henry spent long
periods at Westminster
both for business and
pleasure and then, as far as
possible, toured his
southern palaces and
palace castles (Woodstock
the most northern),
commissioning glazed
windows, paintings, tiled
floors, and wainscoting.
‘White bread, chambers
and tapestries… to ride
like a dean on a docile
mount. The king likes
better all that than to put
on a coat of mail,’
commented a Poitevin
satirist.
 What then went wrong?
The answer lay in an
unfortunate combination
of armchair enthusiasm
and naivety. Henry might
not lead in war, but he still
schemed to recover his lost
empire and otherwise play
a part on the European
stage. His expansive,
warm-hearted personality
sought an outlet not
merely in building and
piety but in open-handed
favours to those he liked
and loved. Such impulses
were dangerous in one
described by the Osney
annalist and many others
as simplex. The word could
be used as a compliment,
meaning guileless and
straightforward. It could
also mean plain stupid.
Where Henry was
concerned, it mostly meant
naive. Henry’s long
minority, surrounded by
flattering ministers, had
offered a poor political
education. He found it
very difficult to calculate
what was practical, and
see the likely consequences
of his actions. As a result,
the king who wished in his
heart to stand with his
nation ended by being
separated from it. Whereas
Louis IX, the great
contemporary king of
France, seized the
initiative and carried
through a series of
domestic reforms in the
1240s and 1250s, in 1258
Henry III had reform
forced upon him.
***
After 1234 Henry’s
court was of his own
making. His first protégé
was a noble much of his
own age, Simon de
Montfort. Montfort’s rise
was extraordinary, for he
was simply the younger
son of a great French
noble, the Simon de
Montfort who had led the
Albigensian crusade. In
1230 he arrived in
England seeking to make
good a tenuous claim to
the earldom of Leicester
(his father, nephew of the
last Beaumont earl, had
briefly held the title under
King John). Quick-witted
and silver-tongued,
Montfort carried all before
him, gaining a share of the
Leicester estates in 1231,
the title earl in 1236, and
in 1238 (by which time he
was a leading councillor)
the hand of Henry’s sister
Eleanor, the widow of
William Marshal II. Henry
had indeed been bowled
over, yet he came to
realize that Montfort was a
man without ‘give’, quite
different from himself,
useful but demanding and
dangerous.
Montfort’s arrival was
followed by Henry’s
marriage in 1236, a
turning-point in the reign.
His bride was Eleanor,
daughter of the count of
Provence. Her elder sister,
Margaret, was already
married to Louis IX of
France. Her maternal
uncles, from the ruling
house of Savoy, had
tentacles reaching
throughout Europe: one,
Thomas, became count of
Flanders through marriage
(1237–44) and then a
count in Piedmont.
Eleanor was therefore a
wife of the highest status,
yet she was only twelve on
her marriage and brought
no inheritance with her.
She was vulnerable in
other ways. In 1236 no
queen consort had played
a part in English
government and politics
since Eleanor of Aquitaine
in the 1160s. Since then
the framework in which
queens operated had
shifted to their
disadvantage. The custom
of giving queens
substantial landed estates
for their support had
lapsed after 1154. Instead
they simply received
dower lands on the king’s
death. Arguably too the
growing bureaucratization
of government gave
queens less scope than the
informal structures of
earlier ages. Certainly the
loss of Normandy in 1204
had much reduced the
opportunity for them to
act as regents. If the
increasing popularity in
sculpture and painting of
the coronation of the
Virgin, with Mary depicted
praying before Christ, gave
by extension some added
force to queenly
intercession, it was force
in a rather humble and
subordinate role. Eleanor
of Provence cut through all
this, wielding more power
than any of her post-
Conquest predecessors.
Partly this was a matter
of personality, for Eleanor
grew up to be far tougher
and more determined than
her husband, while Henry,
indulgent and admiring,
gave her plenty of space in
which to operate. Apart
from some heated remarks
during occasional quarrels,
he felt they were very
much a team. In the great
hall at Dublin castle he
ordered a painting of a
king and queen sitting
with their baronage; either
side of the muniment room
at Westminster Abbey
(perhaps a throne room)
were twin royal heads,
large, confident and
serene: Henry and Eleanor.
Eleanor built up her own
household (over a hundred
strong), and soon ceased to
be supported simply by
Henry’s financial
advances, gaining control
of queen’s gold (a
percentage levy on money
offered the king for
favours), and amassing
and harshly exploiting a
substantial landed estate
derived from wardships.
Eleanor’s far-flung family
naturally gave her a role in
diplomacy. It also gave her
a power base in England,
something no English
queen had possessed since
the Confessor’s Edith.
Edith’s family was
indigenous. She was the
daughter of the great Earl
Godwin. Eleanor’s was
imported. All the kings
since the Conquest had
taken queens from outside
the kingdom, but they had
not taken their relations
with them. Henry was
different. Of Eleanor’s
uncles, Henry made
William, bishop-elect of
Valence, his chief
councillor (until his death
in 1239), Peter of Savoy in
1240 lord of the great
honour of Richmond, and
Boniface of Savoy in 1241
archbishop of Canterbury.
Alongside these stars there
were numerous satellites,
including Peter
d’Aigueblanche, bishop of
Hereford (1240–68) and
Imbert Pugeis who became
steward of Henry’s
household. Eleanor also
gained a major role
through her children, who
were brought up in her
care at Windsor. She gave
birth to the future Edward
I in July 1239. Another
son and three daughters
followed. Eleanor’s
determination to advance
her offspring and further
the interests of her
Savoyard kin both in
England and overseas
formed the core of her
politics.
Neither the introduction
of Simon de Montfort
(after an initial spat over
his marriage) nor that of
the Savoyards proved
initially too disruptive.
Peter of Savoy behaved
with caution and
sensitivity. Boniface
became a respected and
reforming archbishop.
Perhaps encouraged by
this success, in the late
1240s Henry introduced
another wave of
foreigners. These were his
half-brothers, the sons of
his mother’s second
marriage to the great
Poitevin noble, Hugh de
Lusignan. In 1247 one of
the brothers, William de
Valence, married an
heiress, gaining both
Pembroke and lands in
Ireland. (The last Marshal
earl of Pembroke had died
childless in 1245 and the
inheritance had been split
between the daughters of
William I Marshal and
their descendants, of
whom Valence’s wife was
one). Supported as well by
money fees worth £833 a
year and Hertford castle,
Valence took up almost
permanent residence at
court. In 1250 Aymer de
Lusignan, youngest of the
brothers, became bishop-
elect of Winchester.
Meanwhile Geoffrey and
Guy de Lusignan were
granted pensions and
wardships and made
frequent visits to England.
By binding the family to
him, Henry hoped to keep
a foothold in Poitou and
protect the northern
frontiers of Gascony. He
also established a trusted
family in England. William
and Aymer were young
(hence the latter remained
bishop-elect) and very
much his creatures.
Nevertheless Henry had no
vision of a foreign court
dominated by Lusignans
and Savoyards, from which
native magnates were
excluded. In the 1250s the
young and ambitious
Richard de Clare, earl of
Gloucester and lord of
Glamorgan, became a
leading councillor. So did
Hugh Bigod, younger
brother of the earl of
Norfolk. Both Norfolk and
the earl of Hereford were
themselves frequently at
court. Above all, Henry
depended on the loyalty
and loans of his canny and
wealthy brother Richard,
earl of Cornwall, who had
taken as his second wife
Sanchia, Queen Eleanor’s
younger sister. From the
numerous marriages
arranged between English
families and Lusignans and
Savoyards, in the latter
case with urging from the
queen, Henry hoped a
harmonious court would
emerge in which both
native nobles and his
foreign relations could
flourish.
There were other ways
in which Henry sought to
appease his great nobles,
native and foreign alike, to
ensure peace and
tranquillity. If lawsuits
between magnates were
still subject to
manipulation and delay,
there was no return to the
disseisins ‘by will of the
king’ which had defiled
des Roches’s period of
power. Thus the revolution
of 1258, unlike that of
1215, was not followed by
the restoration of property
to large numbers of
individuals complaining of
unjust dispossession by the
king. Nor – again in
contrast to 1215 – was
1258 a rebellion of the
king’s debtors. Henry
rarely harried magnates to
pay what they owed, and
the level of their
indebtedness was in any
case reduced by Magna
Carta’s financial
provisions. Here the
minority had not proved a
false dawn. ‘Justice’ was
still not sold; baronial and
comital reliefs remained at
£100; widows were not
charged nearly as much,
and then infrequently, for
permission to marry or
stay single (see below, p.
421). Nor, with one or two
exceptions, were they
pressured into marriage.
 In spite of these
accommodating policies,
Henry failed to create a
harmonious court. For a
start, the foreigners did
not form a united front.
On the contrary, by 1252
the conflict between the
Lusignans, usually
supported by the king, and
the queen’s party of
Savoyards was acute. One
reason was the
competition over
patronage. Henry formed
queues, trying to bring
some order to the chaos,
but then jumped forward
whoever was in favour,
usually the Lusignans. Part
of the problem was that
Henry no longer had a
large stock of crown land
on which he could freely
draw, so much of it having
been given away by his
predecessors. To safeguard
what remained, after 1234
the doctrine that crown
land was inalienable began
to correspond with actual
practice. Henry could still
bestow money but it was
land people really wanted,
and for that he was
dependent on the chancy
flow into his hands of
escheats, wardships and
marriages. The immediate
problem was that these
were far less plentiful in
the 1250s than they had
been a decade earlier
when the Savoyards were
being established. As a
result, only eight members
of the Lusignan circle
received land in England
as opposed to twenty-eight
Savoyards, but given the
intensified competition,
the favours to the former
still created keen
resentment. The Lusignans
also had themselves to
blame. Young and
irresponsible, they fought
out their quarrels with
reckless abandon. It was
one thing for legal actions
brought against them by
knights and lesser folk to
be obstructed; quite
another for the king to
take their side in disputes
over land and jurisdiction
with the earls of Norfolk
and Hereford, Archbishop
Boniface, and Simon de
Montfort who claimed
Pembroke from William de
Valence as his wife’s
dower. By 1258 there was
a great deal of combustible
material at court waiting
to explode.
***
 Another factor
destabilizing Henry’s
government was the
failure of his continental
policies. By 1258 their
condition seemed as
farcical as they were
infuriating.
The collapse of the
Breton alliance in 1234 did
not mean that Henry had
given up hope of
recovering his lost empire,
but it was hard to see a
way forward. Neither the
marriage of his sister
Isabella to the Emperor
Frederick II in 1235, nor
his own marriage in 1236,
were of much practical
help. Then in 1242 the
chance seemed to come.
Alienated by the
establishment of Louis IX’s
brother in Poitou, Henry’s
mother and her husband,
Hugh de Lusignan, at last
looked for English help.
Lusignan hostility had
been fatal to Henry’s
expedition in 1230. Now
the hour for which he had
kept up pensions to the
Poitevin barons had come.
His letters about the
campaign breathed a
passionate commitment.
Yet when in July 1242
Louis IX gallantly led his
army across the Charente
at Taillebourg, Henry, his
funds already exhausted,
beat a hasty and
humiliating retreat to
Bordeaux. The failure in
1242 ended any hope of
recovering his lost empire.
With Louis IX’s brothers
installed in Poitou,
Toulouse and after 1246 in
Provence itself, the
Capetians seemed utterly
dominant. In 1250 Henry
transferred the rivalry to
other fields when, inspired
by Louis IX’s crusade, he
took the cross. To fund the
expedition he amassed a
treasure all in gold, gold
being the currency in the
east. In the event the
treasure had to be spent in
Gascony.
 After 1224 Gascony,
broadly the land running
south and south-east
between the Gironde and
the Pyrenees, was all that
remained of the Angevin
continental empire. Since
the eleventh century it had
marched with Poitou to
the north and had been
subject to the same
dynasty, forming together
the duchy of Aquitaine. Its
retention by the Angevins,
however, was far from
impractical because the
province, with its great
town of Bordeaux, was
tied to England by the
wine trade. ‘How could
our poor people subsist if
they could not sell their
wines or procure English
merchandise?’ demanded a
fourteenth-century
Bordelais. The problem
was that ducal revenues in
the 1230s were perhaps
£1,500 a year, no more
than those of a great
English baron. Since the
towns were largely self-
governing and the nobility
had much allodial land,
the pattern of local power
was like a patchwork quilt,
with the patches of ducal
authority few and
scattered. An attempt to
expand them was bound to
cause dispute. Gascony
was also under external
threat, with the kings of
Castile and Aragon both
nursing claims to the
duchy, thanks to their
descent from Eleanor,
daughter of Henry II. By
1248 the situation in the
province was anarchic.
Henry turned to Simon de
Montfort, self-confident,
militaristic, and with many
connections in the area.
But Montfort’s abrasive
rule soon set the duchy in
flames, and prompted
Alfonso X of Castile to
assert his claims. So Henry
sacked de Montfort and in
August 1253 set sail for
Gascony himself, leaving
Queen Eleanor as regent (a
striking vote of
confidence), counselled by
Richard of Cornwall.
Henry’s expedition was by
far the most successful of
his three overseas. Sieging
castles on the one hand,
showering concessions on
the other, he recovered
hold over the duchy. In
November 1254 Edward,
Henry’s son and heir,
married Alfonso X’s half-
sister, thus extinguishing
the Castilian threat,
Gascony forming part of
Edward’s appanage.
Henceforth, it was stated,
the duchy was to be
inseparable from the
English crown. It seemed
the Angevins were now
indeed an English dynasty
with possessions overseas.
Even before Henry was
free from his Gascon
difficulties, entirely new
vistas had opened up.
Frederick II, king of Sicily
and as emperor of the
Romans titular ruler in
both Germany and Italy,
had died in 1250. The
papacy looked for a
candidate who would
wrest the Sicilian kingdom
(in its view a papal fief)
from his Hohenstaufen
successors. Henry was that
candidate. In March 1254
he accepted the throne on
behalf of Edmund, his
second son. The kingdom,
which included Naples and
southern Italy, was
wealthy. With no hope
now of recovering the lost
dominions in France, the
dynasty would become
instead a Mediterranean
power. An extraordinary
coup seemed to support
such ideas. In January
1257, with the legitimate
Hohenstaufen line now
represented by a child,
Henry’s brother, Richard
of Cornwall, scattering
money on the electors, was
chosen as king of
Germany, or at least that
was his popular title.
Officially he was king of
the Romans, and the next
step for every king of the
Romans was to try and
secure papal coronation as
emperor itself. Were the
Angevins about to become
the dominant power in
Europe?
To concentrate on these
new horizons, Henry
finally settled the great
conflict with the kings of
France. The eventual
Treaty of Paris was ratified
in December 1259, after
Henry had lost control of
government, but
negotiations were in train
well before the 1258
revolution. Under the
treaty’s terms, Henry was
to resign all claims to
Normandy, Anjou and
Poitou, and do liege
homage for Gascony,
retaining the title duke of
Aquitaine. He thus had to
abandon the titles duke of
Normandy and count of
Anjou, although on his
new seal (to the pope’s
amusement) he
compensated by sitting on
a much grander throne
than before. Later, when
the vexatious
consequences were
apparent, lawyers argued
that Henry had foolishly
converted Gascony,
hitherto an allod held in
full sovereignty, into a fief
held from the king of
France. Yet there is no sign
at the time that Henry was
aware of this alleged
allodial status. He saw the
treaty as bringing security
to Gascony and friendship
with the king of France.
He was right to abandon
empty titles. Neither he
nor King Louis looked at
the settlement in neat
accountancy terms. They
had met for the first time
in Paris in 1254 and made
friends. Louis certainly
was a far stronger
character. But the kings
were united both by their
piety, though Louis’s was
more ascetic and
intellectual, and their
family life. Henry and
Louis had married sisters.
Relations between the
courts were enlivened by
teasing jokes at which
Margaret, Louis’s queen,
was adept, and a shared
sense of values: courtesy,
generosity and good
nature, essentially
débonnaireté (see below, p.
429). Henry and Louis
wanted peace between
their peoples. The
aspiration was both
laudable and realistic. The
Treaty of Paris was to keep
the peace for twenty-five
years.
But there was no happy
ending to the Sicilian
affair. By the summer of
1255 Manfred, Frederick
II’s illegitimate son, had
secured the whole of the
Sicilian kingdom and was
threatening the papal
states to the north. That
April, Henry had already
been required to lead or
send an army to expel him.
Before doing so, he was to
pay the pope the £90,000
so far expended in the
struggle. Thomas of Savoy,
with his lordships in north
Italy, had promoted the
scheme, but in November
1255 he was captured by
his enemies, and Savoyard
money and diplomacy
were thenceforth diverted
to securing his release.
Richard of Cornwall was
occupied expanding his
exiguous authority in
Germany and never
obtained papal coronation
as emperor. In England,
the church raised £40,000
towards the money
demanded by the papacy,
but it had little effect on
Manfred’s position, and
seemed totally wasted.
That the pope preferred
Henry’s cash to Henry’s
army (for it was pointed
out he could have one but
not both) showed how
desperate he was and how
little faith he had in
English military
intervention. Henry had
looked at things
differently. He could never
forget, as he often said,
how papal legates had
helped save his throne at
the start of the reign. His
devotion to the pope was
profound. Surely a gift
from him was a gift from
God, and God and the
Confessor would find a
way. Yet the hard fact was
that Henry had returned
from Gascony heavily in
debt. His chances of
securing money and
military support from
parliament, given the
general unpopularity of his
government, were non-
existent. To be sure, the
scheme blocked for some
years any Capetian move
on Sicily. Ultimately it was
Louis IX’s younger brother,
Charles, who ousted
Manfred. Yet such
advantages were totally
outweighed by the
appalling damage done to
Henry’s reputation in
England, illustrating all
too clearly what Matthew
Paris called his ‘supine
simplicity’.
***
The tensions at court
and the fiasco over Sicily
were central to the
revolution of 1258. But it
would never have taken
the form it did had not
Henry also alienated wide
sections of local society, in
the process expanding the
size of the political
community and
strengthening its sense of
national identity.
Initially Henry seemed
to strike an acceptable
balance between revenue
on the one hand and good
governance on the other.
From 1234 a court headed
by professional judges (the
first was William Ralegh)
travelled with him. Later
called ‘the court of king’s
bench’, this gave the king
greater expertise than
before in both hearing
great political cases and
challenging encroachments
on royal rights. In April
1236, urged on by
William, bishop elect of
Valence, who had arrived
with his niece, the new
queen, Henry formed a
sworn council of twelve
ministers, apparently the
first time such a formal
body had existed. They
overhauled the running of
the sheriffdoms and
concentrated the king’s
lands in the hands of two
special custodians
(hitherto they had been
run by the sheriffs or
dispersed in the hands of
numerous individual
keepers). These reforms
increased the king’s
income by some £1,500 a
year. This was also a
period of remarkable
legislative activity, shaped
above all by William
Ralegh. Striking a balance
between the claims of the
king and competing groups
of his subjects, a series of
statutes introduced new
legal procedures, clarified
the workings of courts,
and restrained the abuses
of local officials. This was
all part of the long-term
trend in which more and
more people sought the
king’s justice both at the
common bench at
Westminster and before
the general eyres. Indeed
the eyres had such
quantities of work that
they now visited
individual counties
roughly once every seven
years, the gap being filled
by the appointment of
judges – often county
knights – with
commissions to try
criminals detained in gaols
or to hear petty assizes.
The demand of Magna
Carta of 1215 (watered
down in the subsequent
versions), for assize judges
to travel the counties four
times a year and sit with
four knights elected in the
county court, a demand of
great concern to local
society, had not been
fulfilled to the letter, but it
had in spirit.
 It was testimony to this
co-operation that in
January 1237 Henry once
again confirmed Magna
Carta and the Charter of
the Forest (for the first
time when of full age) and
a great council conceded
him a tax on movable
property. But all this was
an end, not a beginning.
William Ralegh left court
in 1239 to become bishop
of Norwich and then, after
a long conflict with Henry,
bishop of Winchester. It
was not till 1270, despite
request after request, that
Henry secured another tax
on movables, the result of
increasing alienation from
the political nation. None
the less, for a while his
revenues stood at a level
considerably higher than
earlier in the reign.
Between 1241 and 1245
they averaged some
£36,500 a year, against
around £22,000 in 1230.
Henry’s court increased in
size and splendour. Its
food and drink cost an
average £6 a day in the
late 1220s and probably
some £20 a day twenty
years later. Henry was able
to mount the 1242
expedition to Poitou,
enforce his power in
Wales, and spend (after
1245) some £2,000 a year
on Westminster Abbey.
The trouble was that this
money depended on
exploiting sources of
revenue which merely
exacerbated the
unpopularity which had
prevented him securing
taxation in the first place.
 One result was that, for
all his personal piety,
Henry had alienated the
institutional church long
before the final
denouement of the Sicilian
affair. The revenues in the
1240s had owed a great
deal to the ruthless way in
which royal agents, in
clear breach of Magna
Carta, had exploited
bishoprics while they were
in the king’s hands, as
Winchester was for six
years following des
Roches’s death in 1238. To
be sure, Henry did not
deliberately keep sees
vacant (an important
change) but the long
disputes which followed
his attempts to manipulate
elections produced the
same result. Another
ecclesiastical grievance
was the way the king’s
judges challenged the right
claimed by many abbots
and bishops to have the
amercements levied on
their tenants. In 1257 an
ecclesiastical council drew
up a long schedule of
complaint covering these
and other issues.
Another group which
suffered from Henry’s
exactions were the Jews.
In the early part of the
reign, taxation on Jews
had not been heavy,
probably because their
substance had been wasted
by John’s exactions and
the 1215–17 civil war. All
this changed between
1241 and 1255 with
demands totalling some
£66,000, probably
amounting to half the total
wealth of the community.
In 1233 Henry had made
clear that he only allowed
to remain in the kingdom
Jews who were of service
to the crown. With their
wealth now being broken
by taxation, the general
expulsion of 1290 moved a
step closer. Religious
attitudes were also
sharpening. Henry was
keen to convert Jews and
founded a special house
for such conversi in what is
now Chancery Lane. But
beyond that, his statutes in
1233 and 1253, influenced
by the decrees of the
Fourth Lateran Council,
and measures in Capetian
France, sought to prevent
contact between Jews and
Christians. In 1255 Henry
put to death nineteen Jews
from Lincoln on the
grounds that they had
kidnapped and crucified a
small Christian boy (‘little
St Hugh’), the first time
the government itself had
sanctioned belief in such
delusions. The Jews
themselves had no
political clout, but the
king’s exactions had a dire
effect on those who owed
them money – an
increasing proportion were
members of the gentry –
from whom the taxation
had ultimately to come.
Aware of the source, the
government was reluctant
to intervene and concede
such debtors lenient terms
for their repayments. All
this was part and parcel of
a more general discontent
with Henry’s rule which
spread through the shires
of England.
 Part of the problem
centred on the activities of
the sheriffs, who were
made by the exchequer to
answer for sums of
increasing size (called
‘increments’) above the old
farms of their counties: by
1258 the total demanded
stood at £2,500, as
opposed to £1,540 in 1242
and £750 in 1230. The
result was that the sheriffs,
with little left for their
own upkeep, resorted to
bribes, forced
entertainment, and other
illicit exactions. At the
same time, upstanding
county knights (like those
appointed in the reforms
of 1236) seemed to be
replaced as sheriffs by
knights from other shires
or minor professional
administrators, men
unconstrained by local
loyalties and more
amenable to exchequer
control. Burdensome too
were the justices of the
general eyre, at least on
the crown pleas side. The
nation-wide eyre of 1246–
9 raised some £22,000, a
year’s annual revenue on
the 1230 figures, and
considerably more than
the proceeds of the eyre of
1234–6. The forest eyres
were likewise onerous,
penalties totalling some
£18,200 being imposed
between 1244 and 1252;
the demands were the
highest since the reign of
Henry II.
Alongside the
unpopularity of the king’s
local officials, there was
also a rising tide of
complaint against the
abuses of magnates and
their bailiffs, the first time
such grievances had
reached the political
agenda. One grievance
concerned the way that
great lords had forced men
to attend their private
courts where attendance
before had not been
customary, an issue (‘suit
of court’) dealt with in
great detail by legislation
in 1259. Another
allegation was that during
Henry’s personal rule
lesser men found it
impossible to obtain writs
to begin legal actions
against the king’s foreign
relations, and other
magnates and ministers. If
lawsuits were conmenced
then the judges feared to
give judgements against
such men and were even
in their pay. ‘If I do wrong
who is there to do you
right?’ taunted William de
Bussey, estate steward of
the Lusignans. The
increasing use of
professional administrators
like Bussey helped the
magnates spread their
power in the shires. So did
a change in the nature of
the sheriff’s office. In the
past, kings had usually
appointed a significant
number of curiales as
sheriffs. Often they were
household knights. Their
closeness to the king and
the fact they were allowed
to keep a good slice of the
revenues from the farm
meant they maintained a
powerful royal presence in
the localities. After 1236
the policy already
mentioned of securing
increasing revenue above
the old farms of the shires
meant the replacement of
these curial sheriffs by
county knights and minor
administrators who were
more amenable to paying
in such additional sums.
Although such sheriffs
were perfectly able to
enforce the king’s rights
against the general run of
the population, they were
much less able than their
curial predecessors to do
so against magnates and
their officials. As a result
great men were better able
than before to usurp the
king’s rights and oppress
their tenants and
neighbours, this at the
very moment when wider
social changes made the
latter better able to protest
about such oppression (see
below, p. 410).
In the shires the
sufferings under Henry can
scarcely have approached
those under John, for royal
revenue even at its height
never rose to pre-1215
levels. But this was a fast-
fading perspective,
especially when Henry’s
exactions were no longer
balanced, as they had been
briefly after 1236, by
much attempt to reform
the realm. True, in 1250
Henry made a speech to
the assembled sheriffs
telling them to maintain
his rights, cease their
oppressions and monitor
magnates’ treatment of
their men. That magnates
should themselves observe
Magna Carta was indeed
one of his constant
refrains. Yet Henry’s
pronouncements lacked
teeth. ‘Discuss with the
king’ minuted his justices
when they discovered
cases of local malpractice,
but if the magnates were
the culprits little came of
such discussions. The fact
was that the king’s need
for money, his desire to
indulge and placate those
important at court and his
general lack of drive
meant that he turned a
blind eye to the abuses of
both royal and magnate
officials. His rule brought
peace but it was peace
with injustice.
The alienation of the
localities was compounded
by important changes in
the structure of central
government, one related to
the crucial question of
access to and processes at
court. The small number of
men who spent long
periods of time with the
king – the justiciar, the
chancellor, the stewards,
the leading household
knights, the keepers of the
chamber and wardrobe –
had a tremendous
opportunity to further
people’s affairs, and
doubtless profit from so
doing. ‘Now is the time
and place since the king is
with a small household
and few magnates are with
him,’ wrote one petitioner
asking Ralph de Neville,
Henry III’s chancellor, to
intercede for a favour. The
justiciar and chancellor
were particularly
important because they
controlled the use of the
royal seal. Sometimes
consulting the king,
sometimes not, depending
on their judgement, they
had the power in response
to petitions to issue writs
to the exchequer, to
judges, sheriffs and all
other branches of the
administration furthering
people’s affairs. Such writs
were called ‘writs of
grace’, thus stressing their
discretionary nature and
the distinction between
them and standard ‘writs
of course’ which initiated
the common law legal
procedures. Even the latter
those in charge of the seal
had the power to block,
wrong though that was.
One of the strengths of
Henry III’s early rule had
been his great ministers.
Ralph de Neville, bishop of
Chichester, had held the
seal for twenty years from
1218 to 1238. Judging
from the encomia of
Matthew Paris, he
discharged his office in an
open, independent and
even-handed manner. So,
up to a point, had the
justiciar, Hubert de Burgh,
between 1219 and 1232.
Then everything changed.
After Stephen of
Seagrave’s dismissal as
justiciar in 1234, Henry
did not appoint a
successor. After Bishop
Neville was deprived of
the great seal in 1238,
Henry gave it to minor
officials rarely dignified
with the title chancellor.
The most trusted
councillor in the 1240s
and 1250s was the clerk
John Mansel, who was
conciliatory and
courageous yet lacked
official position or
independent status. It was
precisely the independence
Henry wanted to be rid of.
The disappearance of
the great officers of state
did not matter for the
nobles at court who
always had access to the
king. It was much more
serious for those on the
outside, minor magnates,
knights, freemen and small
ecclesiastical institutions
in the shires. For them,
defined and navigable
channels of
communication between
the centre and the
localities were closing
down at the very moment
when their grievances
were mounting.
Correspondingly the new
structure was much easier
for those on the inside to
manipulate and corrupt,
hence the complaint that it
was impossible to obtain
writs to begin legal actions
against great men while
the latter obtained
whatever writs they
wished. The formation of a
small sworn council in
1236 did nothing to
remedy the situation. It
may well have remained in
being down to 1258, but
no attempt was made to
proclaim its personnel or
(before the drawing up of
an elaborate oath in 1257)
define its duties.
Henry had alienated the
political nation and
expanded its size, making
groups outside the
baronage more vocal than
ever before. There was
another quite different
reflection of that, namely
the appearance in Henry’s
reign of stories about
Robin Hood. In 1261 an
exchequer clerk, as some
kind of joke, altered the
name of a man called
William, son of Robert
Smith, to William
Robehod. Clearly he
thought the alias
appropriate for Smith who
was a fugitive criminal.
Clearly too he was aware
of tales about Robin Hood.
The evidence for Robin
Hood can indeed be found
earlier still, as David Crook
has shown. In 1225 the
sheriff of Yorkshire seized
the movable property of a
fugitive called Robert
Hood. In the same year he
was ordered to hunt down
and behead a notorious
outlaw, Robert of
Wetherby. Evidently he
succeeded because he soon
acquired a chain to hang
up Wetherby’s body. Was
Robert Hood the alias of
Robert of Wetherby? Was
Wetherby the original
historic Robin Hood? It is
far from impossible.
Robert and Robin were
interchangeable in
common speech.
Barnsdale, Robin’s haunt
in the early stories (which
only survive in written
form from the fifteenth
century) was in Yorkshire,
the county in which
Wetherby was hunted
down. In those stories
Robin’s enemy was the
sheriff of Nottingham and
it was indeed as sheriff of
Nottingham that the
Yorkshire sheriff Eustace
of Lowdham, who
captured Wetherby, had
made his name. The
unpopularity of Henry III’s
sheriffs, justices and forest
officials provided fertile
ground for stories which
transformed an outlaw
into a hero. Robin himself
belonged to the class of
freemen between the
gentry and the peasantry.
The tales about him
appealed across society to
all those who felt
oppressed by authority.
The unpopularity of
Henry III’s government
had served to consolidate
that sense of community
formed in opposition to
the crown which had
developed under the
Angevin kings and been
strikingly expressed in ‘the
community of the land’
formed in 1215 to protect
Magna Carta. Henry had
also given to that
community a new sense of
its identity, its English
identity, by pursuing
policies which appeared to
make the English a people
under threat; this through
the amount of favour he
gave to his foreign
relations and the
objectionable way in
which some of them
behaved. There was a
wider background here.
The loss of Normandy in
1204 completed the long
process by which all the
king’s subjects could
regard themselves as
English (see above, p. 8).
Criticism of royal ministers
as foreigners
contemptuous of English
customs can be traced
from the 1190s. During
Henry’s minority such men
had seemed to form a
distinct and highly
disruptive faction.
Between 1232 and 1234
that faction had captured
the king and imposed ‘the
Poitevin tyranny’ on the
English.
Once Henry’s personal
rule began he was well
placed to close this gap
between monarchy and
people. He was far more
English than any king
since 1066. He lived
almost exclusively in
England and called it his
homeland. His devotion to
Edward the Confessor,
after whom he named his
eldest son, linked the
dynasty to the Anglo-
Saxon past. But in fact the
gap widened rather than
contracted. ‘He loved
aliens above all the
English,’ the Osney abbey
chronicler dolefully
remarked about Henry. In
the 1240s and 1250s
Matthew Paris ranted on
and on about the king’s
favourites: how they fed
on the wealth of England
and oppressed its people
so that the very race
seemed in danger.
Whether such views were
exactly shared by the great
English families around
the court who had often
intermarried with the
king’s foreign relatives is
questionable. For the
victorious faction in 1258
the revolution was aimed
at one group of foreigners,
the Lusignans, not
foreigners as a whole.
Indeed the Savoyards were
actually part of the
revolutionary party. More
generally, the workings of
commercial and
ecclesiastical life depended
absolutely on England
being a full member of the
community of Europe. Yet,
for all these qualifications,
there can be little doubt
that Paris’s views were
widely shared, particularly
outside the court. The
great tides of xenophobia
which swept England in
the 1260s are
incomprehensible on any
other basis. The issue was
particularly live at the
frequent parliaments of the
1240s and 1250s, hence
the constant demand there
that the king should
govern in concert with his
‘natural’, that is native-
born, subjects. At such
assemblies, composed as
we shall see of far more
than just a small number
of great magnates, the
king’s foreign courtiers
must have been very
obvious. Stories of the
marriages arranged for
such men, the castles they
held (including Gloucester
and the Tower of London)
and the oppressions of
their local officials
doubtless spread. If those
officials were little worse,
and certainly far less
numerous, than those of
the great English earls,
their foreign connections
gave an entirely different
dimension to their
misdeeds. Thus a
Lincolnshire knight
abusively described
William de Bussey, chief
local agent of the
Lusignans, as a Poitevin
although in fact he was
English, a striking example
of how the issue of
foreigners played in local
society. Not surprisingly
therefore it is in a schedule
of demands from 1258
which reflected the views
of the wider community
that the most striking
expression of xenophobic
national identity appears.
In the view of the ‘Petition
of the Barons’ (as it is
misleadingly called),
strategic castles should
only be entrusted, and
women only married, to
men ‘born of the English
nation’. Otherwise the
realm would be in danger
and women ‘disparaged’.
Here what unified the
English was their hostility
to foreigners.
We have mentioned
parliament as the focus of
opposition to Henry III and
its development was
indeed the central
constitutional fact of the
reign. Up to a point when
the name first appeared in
an official record in 1237,
to be used with increasing
frequency thereafter, it
was simply a new word for
an ancient body, one
called the ‘witan’ under
the Anglo-Saxon kings and
the ‘council’ or ‘great
council’ under the
Normans and Angevins.
Yet a new name was
apposite because under
Henry III fundamental
changes took place in the
power of such assemblies,
foreshadowing equally
fundamental changes in
their structure.
It was the king’s novel
need for taxation that gave
parliament its new power.
The background here was
the financial weakness of
the crown. Even at their
height in the 1240s,
Henry’s revenues were still
around £20,000 a year less
than John’s between 1207
and 1212, and probably
half those of the Capetians.
Valiant efforts to build up
a reserve between 1250
and 1253 yielded a gold
treasure worth some
£20,000, a puny sum
compared with the
£133,000 John boasted in
1213. In peace, Henry
could live within his
means as the saving of his
gold treasure showed, but
he could scarcely
accumulate the resources
to fight a prolonged war.
After 1255, moreover,
Henry’s annual revenue
(thanks in part to the
appanage created for
Edward, his eldest son, the
exhaustion of Jewish
wealth, and the general
bestowal of patronage) fell
back to under £30,000,
leading in part to his
failure in Wales in 1257
and his inability to resist
the revolution of 1258.
Faced with this problem,
what could the king do?
John’s general mulct of the
kingdom, exploiting all
available sources of
revenue, required great
energy and had provoked
Magna Carta. An easier
way out was simply to levy
general taxation in the
form of percentage levies
on movable property. The
tax of 1225 had raised
£40,000 and saved
Gascony. But in practice
such taxes, however much
the clause on consent had
been left out of later
versions of the Charter,
could not be levied
without the sanction of the
realm. None of this had
bothered the twelfth-
century kings. They hardly
needed such taxation, but
the changing face of royal
finance placed their
successors in a very
different position.
The great lever, refusal
of supply, which was the
source of all parliament’s
power against the king,
had thus appeared.
Between 1232 and 1257
Henry demanded taxation
at fourteen or more
assemblies, and only
obtained it at two of them
in 1232 and 1237. In the
1240s and 1250s he was
refused supply at
parliament after
parliament save on
conditions he deemed
unacceptable. At the
debates in these assemblies
the tensions between the
king and the political
community came to a
head. In the process
parliament itself gained an
altogether new sense of its
identity and place in the
constitution, one the
reforms of 1258 sought to
enshrine with the
stipulation that parliament
should meet three times a
year to discuss the affairs
of the kingdom.
Parliament had indeed
arrived.
Intimately related to the
power of Henry’s
parliaments was the way
they came increasingly to
represent the wider realm,
a development which
foreshadows the
establishment of the House
of Commons. Magna Carta
had stipulated that to gain
common consent for
taxation the greater barons
were to be summoned
individually by letter, and
the lesser tenants-in-chief
generally through the
sheriffs. Despite the
omission of the clause
from subsequent versions
of the Charter, this was
almost certainly the way
great assemblies were
convened from the start of
Henry’s reign. Although
not all the lesser tenants-
in-chief attended, many
probably did and they
embraced a wide social
spectrum, including many
minor landholders of
knightly or even less than
knightly status. Henry’s
parliaments were therefore
able to focus the debate
between the king and the
whole political
community. Even so, there
was a growing feeling that
this informal and
haphazard representation
of the wider realm was not
enough. In 1254 the
county courts were
ordered to elect two
knights to come and grant
taxation ‘on behalf of
everyone in the county’.
This was the first known
occasion when
representatives of the
shires were summoned to
parliament. In 1225, 1232
and 1237 tenants-in-chief
alone had given ‘common
consent’ to taxation, just as
envisaged in Magna Carta.
Thereafter no tax was ever
granted without the
consent of knights from
the shires. The need for
such consent was the main
factor in establishing the
commons in parliament in
the later part of the
thirteenth century.
Ideas were important
here, as was ecclesiastical
example. The Roman law
tag ‘what touches all shall
be approved by all’ had
been familiar in England
since at least the 1220s.
The same principle, when
it came to taxation of the
church, was enshrined in
canon law. Bishops in
resisting taxation by both
the pope and the king
made it plain (in 1226 and
1240) that they could not
answer for the lower
clergy (deans, priors,
archdeacons and parish
priests). The latter must be
separately consulted. In
1254 representatives of the
lower clergy were
summoned to parliament
together with the knights
from the shires. If,
however, theory was
important, more important
still were the simple facts
of power (discussed in
more detail below, pp.
395–410). One of the
knights nominated to serve
for Middlesex in 1254,
Roger de la Dune, had
only one principal manor,
yet he served as a collector
of the tax granted by the
1237 parliament and as a
justice of assize. Some of
his colleagues in other
counties had soldiered in
royal armies. Few had
discernible connections
with great magnates.
These men could not be
taken for granted. Dune
himself refused to accept
election in 1254, probably
protesting against the
proposed tax which indeed
was never conceded, the
conditions doubtless being
unacceptable to the
government.
Initially the demands
made in return for taxation
had been palatable enough
for the king. In return for
the tax of 1225 he
conceded the definitive
versions of Magna Carta
and the Charter of the
Forest; for the tax of 1237
(granted by the first
parliament eo nomine), he
issued the first
confirmation of the
Charters while of full age.
Yet the belief was gaining
ground that the Charters,
although they had made a
difference, were not
enough. Even if they were
enforceable, which they
were not, they said
nothing about who the
sheriffs were to be and on
what financial terms they
were to hold office.
Likewise they said nothing
about the conduct of
magnates and their
officials. All these were
important issues for those
in the localities. Magna
Carta was also silent about
control of central
government. The king
remained free to choose
ministers, bestow
patronage and determine
policy just as he liked.
That freedom as Henry
exercised it brought to a
head longstanding
problems over counsel and
consent.
The Norman and
Angevin kings often
proclaimed that legislation
had been issued and major
decisions taken with the
‘counsel and consent’ of
their lay and ecclesiastical
magnates. It may be that
such assemblies both
before and after 1215 were
usually summoned in the
way laid down by Magna
Carta, but they had no
precise constitutional
powers. If in practice both
taxation and legislation
required common consent,
Henry had been quite able
to sign up for Sicily
without any consent at all,
as was frequently pointed
out. In any case kings
rarely dealt with their
magnates in a single body
even during great councils.
Nothing is more revealing
of royal methods than the
accounts, found in
monastic chronicles, of
Henry II, Richard I and
John settling (or trying to
settle) disputes on such
occasions, now conferring
with small groups (‘You,
you and you, the rest wait
outside’), now with much
larger ones, moving all the
time according to the size
of the meeting between
chapel, chamber, chapter
house and refectory, in a
kind of ritual of the rooms.
There was also a whole
range of decisions,
especially in the vital area
of patronage, which kings
routinely made outside
great councils, taking
advice as they wished from
the ministers and
magnates (often
overlapping groups) who
happened to be at court. In
the hands of an able
monarch, these structures
could work well. It was a
different matter if the king
was malevolent or
incompetent. And under
Henry the king’s
incompetence was given a
new framework both by
the disappearance of the
great offices of state and
the formation of a small
council, with the resulting
question of its powers and
personnel. There were no
lack of ideas about how to
deal with these difficulties.
The twelfth and thirteenth
centuries were a great age
of constitution-making, in
towns, universities,
monasteries and the
international religious
orders of the Cistercians
and the Friars. Everywhere
there were elected officials
and large and small
councils or chapters, hence
ultimately the king’s small
council in 1236. The idea
that the great council in
England should wield
considerable authority had
been sanctioned by
practice during Richard’s
crusade and captivity. In
1215 Magna Carta laid
down that it needed to
consent to taxation. During
Henry’s minority the great
council had chosen the
king’s ministers. Ralph de
Neville indeed, appointed
to keep the king’s seal in
1218, had resisted
dismissal by the king in
1236 on the grounds that
only a great council could
remove him. His
reputation for fairness and
independence seemed to
demonstrate the value of
ministers chosen in that
way.
All this was the
background to the so-
called ‘Paper Constitution’
concocted at a parliament
in 1244 (‘Paper’ because it
was never implemented).
The Constitution sought to
deal with the problem of
counsel at its two vital
levels, that of the great
council and the small. It
thus stipulated that the
great council or parliament
should have sole authority
to appoint and remove
four of the king’s small
council, including the
justiciar and chancellor,
those offices thus being
restored. These four were
then to manage the king’s
treasure, hear everyone’s
complaints, and choose the
justices of the common
bench and the officials of
the exchequer. In effect
they were to control
central government. The
kind of scheme in the
‘Paper Constitution’ could
certainly appeal to
ministers and magnates at
court who might feel that
decisions over lawsuits,
patronage and policy
would be better taken if
Henry had to listen to their
advice. This indeed was
the background to the
councillor’s oath drawn up
in 1257, under which the
councillors swore to refuse
patronage offered by the
king unless their fellows
consented – a remarkable
attempt to restrict the king
from inside the regime
itself. ‘The ‘Paper
Constitution’ had even
more attractions for the
lesser magnates, knights
and freemen in the shires
who had suffered most
from the disappearance of
the justiciarship and
chancellorship, and were
represented in parliament,
as we have seen, by the
minor tenants-in-chief.
They had an additional
incentive to be vocal: more
than anyone else, they
would have to pay the
taxation which was to be
offered in return for the
Constitution’s acceptance.
The kind of demands
found in the ‘Paper
Constitution’ were put, in
various forms, at
parliament after
parliament after 1244 and
were finally implemented
in 1258. Their proponents
did not find them hard to
justify. The Song of Lewes
was hardly treading new
ground when it averred
that since ‘the government
of the realm is the safety
or ruin of all’, the whole
realm was rightfully
concerned about who was
set over it. Henry was thus
drawing a false analogy
when he sought the same
freedom to choose his
ministers as any earl or
baron. There was equally a
widespread view that if
the king ruled badly it was
the duty of the baronage,
representing the
community, to ‘bridle’
him. The baronage had in
effect done just that at the
Gloucester council of May
1234, an episode alluded
to by Bracton and not with
disapproval. In any case,
since in form the
revolution of 1258 was
carried out with the king’s
consent and in his name,
no elaborate justification
proved necessary. It was
indeed only later
chroniclers, like Thomas
Wykes, who grasped the
revolutionary significance
of what had occurred.
***
The crisis of 1258 was
set off by the
intensification of the
struggles at court. By this
time Edward, the heir to
the throne, was nineteen,
and already masterful and
martial. After his marriage
to Eleanor of Castile in
1254 he had received an
appanage including
Gascony, Bristol and the
king’s lands in Wales and
Ireland. He was therefore
badly affected by the
resurgence of Welsh power
in the 1250s, and in 1258
he turned to the Savoyards
for help. When they could
not supply it, stretched by
their continental
commitments, he got
money instead from the
Lusignans. Edward was
already irked by
restrictions imposed by his
father on the running of
his appanage, and bored
by his rather staid
entourage (including Peter
of Savoy), mostly selected
by his mother. He found
the young William de
Valence and his flashy
circle far more congenial.
Queen Eleanor was
horrified. She seemed to
be losing her son to her
greatest enemies. She was
quite ready to condone,
perhaps encourage, the
ensuing revolution.
In this tense atmosphere
the touch paper was set
alight. On 1 April 1258 at
Shere in Surrey, during a
dispute over the
advowson, a posse sent by
Aymer de Lusignan,
bishop-elect of Winchester,
attacked men of the
magnate/courtier John fitz
Geoffrey, killing one of
them. A week later, a great
parliament opened at
Westminster. The harvest
of 1257 having failed, it
was a time of famine, with
villagers flocking to
London for food and
vagrants dying everywhere
of starvation. At the
parliament fitz Geoffrey at
once demanded justice
from the king; Henry
excused the bishop and
refused it. John was
incandescent. The whole
episode seemed to sum up
the arrogance of the half-
brothers and how Henry’s
protection placed them
pre-eminently above the
law. Debates over Wales
made matters worse.
William de Valence (with
his lordship of Pembroke
attacked) accused both
Montfort and the earl of
Gloucester of conniving
with the Welsh, while
Montfort demanded justice
against Valence, probably
referring to his wife’s
claims to Pembroke. On 12
April Montfort, the earls of
Gloucester and Norfolk,
Hugh Bigod, Peter of
Savoy, John fitz Geoffrey,
and Peter de Montfort (no
relation of Simon), all
courtiers or close to the
court, banded together.
Savoy’s presence reflected
the blessing of the queen.
They intended to deal with
the Lusignans and reform
the realm.
 The Sicilian affair, the
reason for the summoning
of the parliament in the
first place, produced the
denouement. A papal
envoy, Arlot, threatened
the king with
excommunication and the
realm with Interdict if the
money owed the pope was
not forthcoming. Henry,
having oppressed his
subjects, failed in Wales,
and denied justice to John
fitz Geoffrey, now dutifully
requested the necessary
tax, a tax heavier than that
of 1225. The answer came
on 30 April. Unrestrained
by Richard of Cornwall
who was away in
Germany, a group of
magnates led by Roger
Bigod, earl of Norfolk,
marched in full armour
into the king’s hall at
Westminster. Henry was a
sitting target. His small
treasure had been
exhausted by the 1257
campaign in Wales, the
number of his household
knights had dwindled, and
there was still a gap in the
new walls of the Tower of
London on which (after a
scare in 1238) he had
initially spent large sums
of money. For a
frightening moment he
thought he was a prisoner.
Instead he was made to
accept a general reform of
the realm. It was to be
more than seven years
before he fully and finally
recovered power.
The crash of Henry’s
regime in 1258 should not
obscure the fact that for
nearly a quarter of a
century it had brought
peace to England.
Indeed, apart from the
castle sieges of the
minority, and the Marshal
war in 1233–4 (largely
confined to Wales and
Ireland), there was peace
in England from 1217 to
1263. It was that which
made possible the
proliferation of markets
and fairs, the accelerating
money supply (helped by
Henry’s re-coinage with a
new style ‘long-cross
penny’ in 1247), and the
general economic recovery
after the 1215–17 civil
war. The stability of
Henry’s regime owed
something to the resources
of Ireland. It also enabled
him to be far more
assertive than before in
Wales and Scotland.
***
For twenty years after
1234 Ireland provided
Henry with valuable
support. Treasure was
constantly shipped across
to England, between 1240
and 1245 averaging some
£1,150 a year. Henry also
turned to Ireland for the
patronage he so
desperately needed, the
beneficiaries being
Savoyards, Lusignans and
native English courtiers. In
the process there were
significant changes in the
political structure of the
lordship. Henry was
helped by a remarkable
succession of deaths in the
1240s which brought a
stream of wardships,
widows and heiresses into
royal hands. As in Wales,
exercise of the king’s
‘feudal’ rights in such
circumstances could
quickly transform patterns
of local lordship. Henry
made one gain himself:
Ulster reverted to the
crown on the death of
Hugh de Lacy in 1242. The
year before, on Walter de
Lacy’s death, Meath was
divided between his two
granddaughters, one of
whom (in 1252) married
the queen’s lifelong friend
Geoffrey de Joinville,
Ireland thus becoming a
mainstay of his
extraordinary international
career (see above, p. 25).
Meanwhile Leinster, with
the childless death of the
last Marshal earl in 1245,
was divided between the
descendants of the old
regent’s daughters, with
Wexford (as well as
Pembroke) passing to the
wife of William de
Valence. Henry also
resorted, much as John
had done, to speculative
grants of land in territory
largely held by native
rulers. In Thomond,
beneficiaries were the
queen’s first household
steward, Robert Mucegros,
and John fitz Geoffrey,
justiciar of Ireland (1245–
54), later to play that key
role in the crisis of 1258,
another man very close to
the queen. On the other
hand, in the ‘King’s
Cantreds’ between Meath
and Connacht, Henry
granted land worth £500
to Geoffrey de Lusignan. If
these grants could be
implemented they would
bring a considerable
expansion in the territorial
extent of the lordship.
In 1254 Ireland formed
part of the appanage
granted to Henry’s son, the
Lord Edward. As with
Gascony, the grant
stipulated that the lordship
should never be separated
from the English crown,
ruling out the kind of
concession to a younger
son that Henry II had
made to John. Ireland’s
future as a crown colony
was assured.
***
The 1240s saw a
transformation in the
king’s position in Wales.
During the two previous
decades Henry had made
limited efforts to challenge
the dominance of Llywelyn
the Great, apart from
trying to maintain the
1218 Treaty of Worcester’s
baseline by denying him
the homages of the native
rulers. One reason for
inaction had been
Llywelyn’s alliance with
successive earls of Chester,
which effectively ruled out
any invasion of Gwynedd.
In 1237, however, the last
earl had died without
direct heirs. Previous kings
had often held the earldom
in wardship. Now Henry,
wisely counselled, bought
out the numerous co-heirs
and acquired Cheshire for
the crown, perhaps the
best move of his career. He
was to go on to replace
Gwynedd’s dominance in
Wales with his own. Yet
for all these advances,
Henry’s policy towards
Wales still showed
something of the lack of
ambition characteristic of
earlier years.
On the death of his
father Llywelyn the Great
in 1240, Dafydd did
homage to King Henry for
the whole of Gwynedd,
including the Four
Cantrefs; his elder brother
Gruffudd was therefore
excluded, the object for
which Llywelyn had
laboured for so long. If
Dafydd was accorded no
princely title in royal
letters, he was knighted by
Henry and at the same
ceremony wore a coronet
‘the insignia of the
principality of North
Wales’, as the Tewkesbury
annalist described it.
Henry thus accepted
Dafydd as a ruler of
unique status while (in
line with previous policy)
making him repeat
Llywelyn’s
acknowledgement of 1218
that the homages of the
other native rulers
belonged to the crown.
Dafydd’s real trouble lay
less with the king than
with the territorial
ambitions of the
marcherbarons and Welsh
rulers who claimed to have
been disappropriated by
his father, often in breach
of the 1218 Treaty. In the
south, on Llywelyn’s death
Gilbert Marshal had
immediately seized
Cardigan, at last
possessing what the king
had granted him in 1234.
Between Wye and Severn,
Ralph de Mortimer soon
made good his claims to
Maelienydd. Gruffudd ap
Gwenwynwyn was equally
determined to recover
southern Powys, for the
tenure conceded to
Llywelyn in 1218 had
expired years ago with his
majority.
It was Dafydd’s
resistance, courageous and
resourceful, to these and
other threatened losses
(like that of Mold) which
produced King Henry’s
invasion of August 1241.
Like John in 1211, he
enlisted native rulers from
all over Wales, including
Gruffudd ap
Gwenwynwyn, and (from
within Gwynedd itself) the
long-excluded claimants to
Meirionydd. He also
envisaged partitioning
Gwynedd between Dafydd
and Gruffudd, giving
dangerous currency to the
belief that the division of
princely inheritances was
sanctioned by Welsh law.
Henry penetrated as far as
Rhuddlan, whereupon
Dafydd submitted.
Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn
recovered his portion of
Powys and Dafydd
surrendered Builth, a
grievous blow to his
position in the south. He
also agreed that should he
rebel again or have no
heirs by his wife then
Gwynedd should be forfeit
to the crown. Curtains! Yet
in other ways the
settlement was less severe
than John’s in 1211.
Dafydd was deprived not
of the Four Cantrefs but
only the most eastern,
Tegeingl, which Henry
now held down by
building a castle at
Diserth, high above the
valley of the Clywd. For
the rest, the rulers of
Meirionydd were restored
and did homage to Henry,
but no major division of
Gwynedd was
implemented. Gruffudd
simply swapped Dafydd’s
prison for the Tower of
London.
In 1241 the king did not
merely profit at the
expense of Dafydd. When
Gilbert Marshal died in a
tournament in June, Henry
accepted his brother
Walter’s succession to the
earldom of Pembroke but
secured his surrender of
Cardigan and Carmarthen,
although held by the royal
grant of 1234 in hereditary
right. Thus the two great
royal bases in the south
which John had lost to
Llywelyn in 1216, and
Henry had foolishly
granted away to de Burgh
and then to the Marshals,
were recovered. In his
triumph, the king’s
attitude to both Dafydd
and the men of Tegeingl
(who were to be treated
according to Welsh law)
was conciliatory, partly
because his mind was now
set on an expedition to
Poitou. But his new
officials both in the north
and south were highly
aggressive. Even the loyal
Gruffudd ap Madog of
northern Powys needed
reassurance about their
activities. Dafydd, of
course, could never be
reconciled to his losses and
the death of his half-
brother Gruffudd, killed in
a fall while trying to
escape from the Tower of
London in March 1244,
freed him from a rival and
created grievances he
could exploit. In 1241 the
Welsh rulers had for the
most part sided with King
Henry. Now (apart from
the two Gruffudds of
Powys), having
experienced the reality of
English rule, they did the
reverse. Dafydd showed
remarkable resource. He
sent envoys to Louis IX,
offered to hold ‘his part of
Wales’ from the pope (thus
declaring independence of
King Henry) and,
significantly, adopted the
title ‘prince of Wales’. That
title had been used by his
great-grandfather, Owain
Gwynedd, but had been
avoided by Llywelyn for
fear it would provoke
English king and Welsh
ruler alike. It was now a
symbol of Dafydd’s
leadership in a national
cause.
Henry’s response was
sluggish. In August 1244,
according to Matthew
Paris he preferred ‘the
delight and rest’ of
Westminster to a campaign
in Wales. The next year,
however, with Felim
O’Connor, native king of
Connacht, enlisted to
ravage Anglesey, Henry
gathered an army
comparable to Edward I’s
in 1276–7, only then (as in
1223, 1228, 1231 and
1241) to sit down and
build another castle, this
time on the rock at
Deganwy above the Conwy
estuary. Dafydd himself
died in February 1246. By
his own agreements,
Gwynedd was now doubly
forfeit because of his
rebellion and his
childlessness. Surely, with
his new base at Deganwy,
and with his captain
Nicholas Molis having just
marched up from Cardigan
to maraud through the
heart of Gwynedd, Henry
would now move in and
take possession. He had no
continental or other
distractions. He was in
funds. And yet he did
nothing. Under the Treaty
of Woodstock (April 1247)
Henry came to terms with
Owain and Llywelyn, sons
of the hapless Gruffudd,
and thus grandsons of
Llywelyn the Great. The
brothers ceded the Four
Cantrefs to the kings of
England in perpetuity, but
they kept the rest of
Gwynedd undivided:
Henry did not partition it
between them or even
retain the homage of the
ruler of Llŷn, Gwynedd’s
westernmost cantref,
which he had taken earlier
in the year. If the brothers
broke the agreement they
would forfeit their lands
for ever. But nothing, in
contrast to 1211 and 1241,
was said about Gwynedd
escheating if they did not
have heirs by their wives.
Instead the grant was
made more widely to them
and their heirs, and the
chances of escheat were
thus much reduced.
If Gwynedd had been
truncated, Henry had
positively willed the
survival of its heartland.
He was similarly lenient in
the south. He kept
Maelgwn Fychan’s lands
around Aberystwyth
(seized by Molis on his
great march), but allowed
him to recover commotes
adjoining Cardigan. The
rest of Ceredigion, apart of
course from Cardigan
itself, remained with
Maredudd ab Owain and
Maredudd ap Rhys, who
had made an early
submission in 1245 and
accompanied Molis on his
campaign. Henry’s attitude
was not simply the result
of lack of ambition. He
was also responding to
wise advice from some of
the marcher barons of the
south, namely that the
Welsh were controlled
most effectively by men ‘of
their own tongue’. But
once again this was only
part of the story. The
king’s agents were
frequently English, not
Welsh, and their
oppressions soon laid the
foundations for another
resurgence of Gwynedd.
The rise in royal power
within ten years had been
remarkable and was meant
to be permanent. In 1247
the king announced that
Chester and the Four
Cantrefs were to remain
annexed to the crown. In
the south he held Builth,
Cardigan, Carmarthen and
northern Ceredigion. The
division of both the Braose
and Marshal baronies
between coheiresses (after
1230 and 1245) had
enhanced his dominance.
None the less, given his
power, opportunities and
rights (as he could have
defined them), Henry’s
policies might have been
far more aggressive. The
fact was the actual
conquest of Wales, unlike
the recovery of the
Angevin empire, was not
something he was
prepared to devote energy
and resources to achieving.
The king’s forward
policies were also limited
in another area, that of the
privileges or ‘liberties’
claimed by the marcher
barons. Here there was
every reason for action.
‘All wish to have nearly
royal power and liberty,’
wrote a royal agent in
1234 about the barons of
Ireland. The same was true
in Wales. The fitz Alans of
Clun and Oswestry, the
Corbets of Caus and the
Mortimers of Wigmore
were all determined to
remove their lordships
from the jurisdiction of the
neighbouring sheriffs, and
make them part of the
March. The liberties of the
March had originated in
the powers wielded by
Norman lords when they
made and defended their
original conquests. One of
the most longstanding was
thus the right of private
war. In the thirteenth
century the liberties were
seen equally as a way of
governing and exploiting
the lordships more
effectively. Magna Carta
itself had distinguished the
law of the March from that
of Wales and England. The
precise content of March
law was never defined (it
varied greatly) but its
essential umbrella was the
claim, made specifically in
1199 and 1221, that the
marchers enjoyed all the
king’s rights (‘regality’),
and virtual autonomy
within their lordships. The
king’s writ did not run, the
lords controlling the whole
process of criminal and
civil justice. Faced with
these problems, Henry did
make some response. The
court of king’s bench
became the forum for
cases involving both
marcher barons and Welsh
rulers. In 1243 it
summoned the earl of
Gloucester (no less), as
part of a general test case
against the marchers, to
show what rights he had
over the bishopric of
Llandaff during a vacancy.
Then in 1247, the earl was
made to acknowledge
(after a complaint had
been made against him by
his tenant Richard Seward)
that the king could review
and correct judgements
passed in his court of
Glamorgan. Henry had
made important points of
principle, yet in the
March, as in England, he
did little in practice to
follow them up. Indeed his
pressure, such as it was,
prompted the marchers to
define their liberties all the
more closely, the whole
period being a watershed
in that process of
definition. In practice
Richard de Clare
succeeded in
disappropriating Seward,
retained control over the
Llandaff’s issues during a
vacancy in the 1250s, and
generally extended his
authority within
Glamorgan. While the
Welsh within the great
lordships often retained
their own courts and law,
for the English the
marcher barons issued the
same types of common law
writs which ran in the
king’s name in England. In
Henry’s reign, even when
his power was at its
height, marcher kingdoms
in miniature were
developing.
***
 Henry III’s policies in
Scotland showed a mixture
of assertion and restraint
similar to that seen in
Wales. On his accession in
July 1249 Alexander III
(Alexander II’s son by
Marie de Coucy) was still
two months short of his
eighth birthday. The seal
made for his minority bore
the legend, ‘Be you as
prudent as a serpent and
as pure as a dove’, which
when interpreted in its
biblical context suggested
the evil men from whom
Alexander might be in
danger. Certainly politics
were soon factionalized
into two rival camps, each
appealing at different
times to Henry III for help.
Yet the period cemented
rather than serrated the
cordial relations between
the two monarchies.
The government of the
young king was a
continuation of the old
with Alan Durward, the
justiciar of Scotland north
of Forth, its leading figure.
Marie de Coucy, perhaps
denied a regency role like
that played by Louis IX’s
mother Queen Blanche,
soon returned to France
where she re-married, an
action which closely
paralleled Isabella of
Angoulême’s desertion of
Henry III. In July 1249
Alexander was inaugurated
in the traditional
ceremony at Scone, sitting
on the famous stone kept
reverently at the
monastery. There were
plans to enhance the king’s
dignity further when the
pope was asked to sanction
a full coronation ceremony
with anointing. The king’s
seal indeed depicted him
crowned, unlike those of
his father and grandfather.
The trouble was that all
this seemed linked to the
greater glory of Durward
as much as to that of the
king. The movement
against Durward was led
by Walter Comyn, earl of
Menteith, and his kin. The
Comyns had been out of
royal favour in the last
years of Alexander II, but
had widespread support
among magnates and
clergy. King Henry became
involved in their plot. At
Christmas 1251, amid
much joyful celebration,
the marriage agreed in the
1240s between his
daughter Margaret, now
eleven, and Alexander
took place at York.
Immediately afterwards
Durward and his allies
were removed and
replaced by a government
dominated by the Comyns.
Before the coup Henry
had protested, much as he
had in 1221, at the plans
for a Scottish coronation
and anointing. At York he
had gone further and
asked Alexander to do
homage for the kingdom of
Scotland. When, however,
the latter politely refused,
Henry gracefully dropped
the matter and never
raised it again. Instead the
relationship established
was warmly paternal.
Alexander now regarded
Henry as ‘his dearest
father’ and sought his
counsel and protection.
Accordingly Henry
appointed two northern
magnates, Robert de Ros
and John de Balliol, to act
as guardians of the young
king and queen. It was
Henry’s anxieties as a
father, not resentment at
the limited role which Ros
and Balliol actually played
in Scottish government,
which created the next
crisis.
After his fall, Alan
Durward went south to
poison King Henry’s mind.
That was not difficult once
Queen Margaret (in 1255)
complained that Ros was
preventing her sleeping
with the king, and not
allowing them out of
Edinburgh castle. In
September 1255 the royal
couple were rescued from
the fortress by the earl of
Gloucester and John
Mansel and brought to
King Henry just across the
border. Alexander
dismissed his Comyn
councillors and appointed
a new ruling council (with
fifteen members). This was
the high point of Henry
III’s intervention in
Scottish affairs. Under an
agreement, his sanction
was necessary for the
dismissal of councillors
and for the termination of
the council’s authority.
Otherwise it was to last
until September 1262,
when Alexander would be
twenty-one. Henry fiercely
denied that he intended
anything that would
damage the ‘liberties,
rights and state of the
kingdom of Scotland’,
which shows that such
fears were current at the
time. Yet his denials had
the ring of truth. He
promised that the new
arrangements were not in
any way to compromise
the rights of the kingdom,
which indeed, so he
declared, his whole aim
was to protect, ‘bound as
we are to King Alexander
by the chain of paternal
love’.
Alan Durward was back
as one of the new
councillors, but it was
soon musical chairs all
over again. The ousted
Comyns petitioned Henry
III for help, as they had in
1251. When this failed
they resorted to the kind
of coup de main which they
had suffered in 1255,
seizing the king at Kinross
in October 1257. For much
of the next year the
kingdom stood on the
brink of civil war, the
Comyns making an
alliance with Llywelyn
under which neither was
to aid the other’s enemies.
A month later, in April
1258, Henry III was
removed from the scene by
the political revolution in
England, an event which
perhaps helped the
emergence of an eventual
compromise in Scotland.
In October 1258 a new
council was created in
which nominal headship
was given to the king’s
mother, Marie de Coucy,
and her new husband.
Alan Durward again
became a councillor, but
for the rest both the higher
and lower reaches of
government (especially the
sheriffdoms) were
dominated by the Comyns
and their allies.
It was in this uneasy
situation that Alexander in
the early 1260s assumed
full control of government.
The minority had been a
traumatic time, with
politics factionalized, the
king twice seized, and the
king of England in novel
fashion involved in
appointing and dismissing
ministers. Henry, however,
had treated Scotland quite
differently from Wales. On
Llywelyn’s death he had at
once asserted and enforced
his rights to the homage of
the native rulers. In
Scotland, on the death of
Alexander II, while he had
registered old claims to
overlordship he had done
nothing to enforce them,
although he must have
known he would never
have a better chance. The
difference was that in
Wales, Henry felt sure of
his rights. They had been
set out in the Treaty of
Worcester in 1218. In
Scotland the position was
much less defined. Thus
Alexander and Margaret
remained part of an
affectionate family circle,
with Alexander enquiring
solicitously in his letters
about the health of Queen
Eleanor, ‘our beloved
mother’, and her children.
‘Never did any of the
English or British kings in
any past time keep his
pledges towards the Scots
more faithfully than this
Henry; for nearly all the
whole time of his reign he
was looked upon by the
kings of Scotland, father
and son, as their most
faithful neighbour and
adviser.’ So said the
Scottish chronicler Fordun,
writing in the fourteenth
century. These good
relations fundamentally
influenced Alexander’s
policies during the
collapse of Henry’s power
in the years after 1258.
12

The
Tribulations of
Henry III, the
Triumphs of
Alexander III
and Llywelyn,
Prince of
Wales, 1255–
72

In the Westminster
parliament at the end of
April 1258, Henry III had
agreed that the realm
should be reformed by
twenty-four men, half of
them chosen by himself
and half by the barons.
Those close to him were in
both camps because the
court had split apart, but
Henry’s twelve were far
less powerful and included
only one English earl, John
de Warenne of Surrey. The
work of reformation was
to begin in June at a
parliament summoned to
Oxford. It met in an
atmosphere of great
tension, for under the
pretext of a proposed
campaign in Wales both
sides had summoned their
military forces. It was
therefore to prevent any
royalist revanche that the
reformers immediately
stripped the king of
physical power by putting
their own men into the
royal castles. They then
took control of central
government. A panel
drawn from the twenty-
four appointed a new
council for the king with
fifteen members, amongst
whom the king’s
opponents (including
Simon de Montfort and the
earls of Gloucester and
Norfolk) were in a large
majority. The council was
to choose the king’s chief
ministers and control the
whole running of central
government, the key
stipulation being that the
chancellor was not to seal
charters and writs (other
than those which were
routine) without its
permission. This was
utterly revolutionary.
Henry was in practice
reduced to a cipher. The
council was to rule. Yet it
was to do so in co-
operation with parliament
which was to meet at least
thrice annually to ‘deal
with the common business
of the realm and of the
king together’.
At Oxford the king’s
Lusignan half-brothers,
William de Valence,
Bishop-elect Aymer, Guy
and Geoffrey, all of them
on Henry’s twelve, quickly
realized they were marked
men. Losing their nerve
they fled to Winchester.
The barons followed in hot
pursuit and expelled them
from the country. Some
leaders of the regime may
well have thought their
main objectives were now
achieved. But the Oxford
parliament, crowded with
knights, had already
embarked on a much
wider reform of the realm
designed above all to deal
with the local grievances
which had arisen during
Henry’s rule. The totality
of the reforms down to
October 1259 were known
loosely by contemporaries
as ‘the Provisions of
Oxford’ after the place
where the movement had
begun.
At Oxford Hugh Bigod,
brother of the earl of
Norfolk, had been made
justiciar. The office was
thus revived but with a
new remit. Earlier
justiciars had been in
general charge of central
government. Bigod’s task
was more specifically to
hear complaints and
dispense justice. He was to
deal with grievances of
great men; the first case he
heard was that of John fitz
Geoffrey (see above, p.
360). But he was also from
the first expected to tour
the country and give
justice to all. Individuals
could bring actions before
him simply by verbal
‘complaint’ (querela), a
deliberate attempt to make
justice more readily
available by removing the
bother of obtaining writs.
At the same time Bigod
also heard complaints
brought to light by the
investigations of panels of
four knights appointed in
each county in August
1258. By July 1259 he had
heard around 268 cases,
determined most of them
quickly and was lauded by
the St Albans abbey
chronicler for the
impartiality of his justice.
In November 1259 his
efforts were supplemented
by those of groups of
judges whose eyres were
designed to cover the
whole country.
 The reforms also dealt
with grievances over
sheriffs. At Oxford it was
decided that they should
hold office only for a year,
that they should be major
county knights and receive
an annual salary or
allowance. In practice the
allowance proved
unworkable, but the same
result was achieved in
1259 by allowing the
sheriffs to answer for
smaller increments above
the county farms than
those in force in the 1250s,
leaving more money for
their upkeep. Then in
October 1259 legislation,
known to modern
historians as ‘the
Provisions of Westminster’,
dealt (among other things)
with the abuses of the
justices in eyre. They were
no longer to amerce
villages because all males
over the age of twelve had
not attended coroners’
inquests; nor were they to
levy the murdrum fine in
cases of death by
misadventure – a reform
prompted by the large
numbers of unidentifiable
vagrants left dead by the
recent famine. Both these
concessions were of
particular value to the
peasantry (see below, p.
413).
A striking feature of the
reforms was that they were
concerned as much with
the malpractices of the
barons as with those of the
king, thus reflecting
another problem which
had grown during Henry’s
personal rule. The leading
reformers in a
proclamation of
February/March 1259
promised not to obstruct
complaints brought against
themselves and their
bailiffs, and Hugh Bigod
and his colleagues did
indeed hear many cases
involving baronial
officials. Likewise the
Provisions of Westminster,
in three long, detailed
clauses right at the start,
dealt with the issue of ‘suit
of court’ (see above, p.
350). Tenants could no
longer be forced to attend
the courts of lords unless
such attendance had been
customary before 1230 or
was a duty specifically
mentioned in a charter of
enfeoffment.
In stipulating that
sheriffs were to be local
knights, introducing the
querela, remedying lordly
as well as royal abuse, and
above all in taking control
at the centre, the measures
of 1258–9 were far more
radical and wide-ranging
than those of Magna Carta.
Richard de Clare for one
was unhappy about how
the local reforms impinged
on his local power – not
surprisingly, given the
uniquely large network of
courts and officials he
controlled as earl of
Gloucester and Hertford.
Others may have felt the
same way. But having
coerced the king, the new
regime needed support.
Therefore the early
reforms were explained in
a proclamation of October
1258 issued, uniquely, in
English as well as French
and Latin, a striking
indication of the desire to
reach as wide an audience
as possible. The regime
also remained under
pressure from below. Thus
the Provisions of
Westminster, with their
regulations on private
courts so unpalatable for
Clare and his like, were
only promulgated after a
protest at parliament by
‘the community of the
bachelry of England’,
probably knights in
magnate entourages,
speaking here for powerful
forces in the counties – the
knights increasingly
holding office in the shires
and the substantial
freemen running the
hundreds.
 Some of the reformers,
for instance Roger de
Mortimer who was seeking
to recover the manor of
Lechlade in
Gloucestershire, were
driven on by personal
grievances. But the
movement was also
influenced by political
ideas, ideas all the more
precise and pervasive
through being elaborated
at a new base (Oxford
university) and propagated
by a new movement (the
Friars). Franciscan
teachers in Oxford, like
John of Wales, following
John of Salisbury,
frequently compared the
body politic to a human
body in which the health
of the whole was
dependent on that of all its
parts, an analogy used by
the council of fifteen in a
letter to the pope. It
followed that reform
should benefit everyone,
hence in part at least the
attention to peasant
grievances. The embrace
of the movement was
summed up by a term used
again and again in this
period, the ‘community of
the realm’. It was this body
which was said both to
sanction reforms and profit
from them. Admittedly,
the ‘community of the
realm’ spoken in one
breath could sometimes
become ‘the community of
the barons’ in the next,
showing where the
leadership lay. But the
term was also employed
quite genuinely to mean
everyone in the land.
Indeed such a community
had actually been formed
at the start in 1258 by the
oath taken by ‘all faithful
and loyal men’ to support
the reforms and treat
opponents as mortal
enemies.
Nowhere was the
interaction between
idealism and self-interest
more blatant and more
baffling than in the case of
Simon de Montfort
himself. He was the
brother-in-law of the king,
but from the outset the
special force of his
attachment to the
Provisions was quite
apparent. In 1259 he both
upbraided Richard de
Clare for dragging his feet
over local reforms and
made support for ‘the
common enterprise’, as he
called it later, a condition
of his alliance with the
heir to the throne, the
Lord Edward. Again and
again he pointed to the
oath all had sworn to
uphold the Provisions. He
almost certainly came to
see them as a crusading
cause for which he would
fight, and if needs be die,
just as his father had died
leading the crusade against
the Albigensians.
Montfort’s attitudes had
been shaped by Robert
Grosseteste, bishop of
Lincoln and former
chancellor of Oxford, the
greatest theologian of the
age who died in 1253, and
Grosseteste’s friend Adam
Marsh, professor of the
Oxford Franciscans.
Montfort had seen the
tract in which Grosseteste
(drawing on Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics) had
elaborated the distinction
between just rule and
tyranny: ‘a tyrant devotes
himself to his own
interests; a king to those of
his subjects’. And could
anyone say Henry had
done that? Grosseteste also
ordered the malpractices
of his estate officials to be
investigated and redressed,
just as Montfort in his will
of February 1259 sought to
compensate the ‘poor
people and cultivators of
his land’ whom he had
harmed. But for all his
concern for others,
Montfort also thought the
baronial enterprise should
do justice to himself; it
was easy therefore,
especially for those on the
inside, to think that he was
driven on by private
grievances and ambitions.
Montfort certainly hoped
that the 1258 regime
would secure for Eleanor,
his wife, the portion of the
dower she had never
received as the widow of
William Marshal II. By
1259 the arrears, so the
Montforts claimed,
amounted to some
£24,000! He also thought
she should have a landed
endowment fit for a king’s
sister, not just a money
pension – all the more
vital since Montfort’s
Leicester lands, all he held
in hereditary right, were
only worth £500 a year.
He was thus left as one of
the poorest earls with little
to endow five sons (and
also with far less to lose
from local reforms than
Clare). In 1259 the council
indeed granted the
Montforts at least
temporary custody of royal
manors worth £400 a year,
thus in effect succumbing
to blackmail, because
Eleanor refused otherwise
to make the renunciations
required of her by the
Treaty of Paris. And there
was one other factor
driving the steely Montfort
on, namely his contempt
for the waxen king. Henry
had been too craven to
settle the question of the
dower (for it had to be
prised from the Marshal
heirs), too indulgent to
others to afford Eleanor a
proper settlement, and too
fearful of the protests to
back Montfort to the hilt
in Gascony. ‘You should be
taken and locked up like
Charles the Simple,’
Montfort had burst out
prophetically in 1242,
comparing Henry to the
ill-starred Carolingian
king.
Not surprisingly,
Montfort was at the centre
of the crisis in 1260 which
revealed the first serious
cracks in the baronial
regime. Henry, still in
France after the
ratification of the Treaty of
Paris, and achieving a
measure of independence,
forbade the February
parliament to meet in his
absence. Montfort, in
England, insisted it should
go ahead, being one of the
thrice-yearly meetings
stipulated in the
Provisions. He also
threatened a hot reception
to the king if he returned
with foreign mercenaries,
and warned the justiciar,
Hugh Bigod, not to send
him any money. What
made this even more
serious was that Richard
de Clare stood by the king,
while the Lord Edward,
seeking to gain his own
independence, was in
alliance with Montfort. In
the end violence was just
avoided. Montfort and
Clare patched up their
differences and the council
remained in control. At the
October 1260 parliament
Bigod (a broken reed in
Montfort’s eyes) was
replaced as justiciar by
Montfort’s own man, Hugh
Despencer, Clare’s price
being an ordinance which
gave the magnates power
to hear complaints against
their bailiffs, the
implication being that
special eyres would no
longer do so. Inevitably
these events weakened the
council and early in 1261
its authority collapsed.
Henry recovered control
over the chancery, once
more issuing his own writs
and charters. He then
moved to the Tower of
London, and launched a
bid formally to destroy the
Provisions of Oxford. He
was aided by Richard of
Cornwall, temporarily
back in England, and by
the queen, alarmed when
Peter of Savoy left the
council in 1260, and now
reconciled to a recalled
William de Valence
(Aymer had died in exile).
Henry also had money
from Louis IX under the
terms of the Treaty of
Paris, which he used to
retain household knights
and hire mercenaries. In
June he published a papal
bull, which he had
contrived to obtain from
Alexander IV, quashing the
Provisions, and then
dismissed the justiciar,
Hugh Despencer, and the
reform regime’s sheriffs.
 These moves provoked
stiff resistance in the
localities where rival
sheriffs were set up in
many shires. In
Gloucestershire the local
knight, William de Tracy,
challenged the king’s
appointee Matthias Bezill,
calling him a Frenchman
set up in contravention of
the Provisions. With
Montfort and Clare
standing together,
resistance was partly
orchestrated by the
baronial leaders – Tracy
indeed was in Gloucester’s
retinue. The king cleverly
proclaimed that the
reforms as a whole had
simply been devices to
increase baronial power,
the 1258–60 sheriffs being
their creatures.
Nevertheless the strength
of the resistance also
reflected genuine support
for the reforms among
knights and those below
them in local society. In
the end it was the
leadership which fell
apart. Henry won over
Richard de Clare, and by
the end of 1261 Montfort
was alone in refusing to
accept the overthrow of
the Provisions. Instead he
withdrew to France,
declaring that he would
rather die landless than
depart from the truth and
be perjured.
Henry’s recovery of
power proved short-lived.
His prestige was damaged
by the failure to defeat
Llywelyn in Wales. His
support was reduced
through antagonizing
Gilbert de Clare, heir to
the earldom of Gloucester,
by preventing him
succeeding while still
under age on his father
Richard’s death in 1262.
Even more important was
the conduct of the Lord
Edward. Aged nineteen in
1258, since the revolution
he had aimed essentially to
free himself from the
restrictions imposed by the
baronial regime. Now in
1262 he broke with own
entourage, notably Roger
of Leybourne and Roger of
Clifford, accusing them of
peculation. He was urged
on by the queen. She had
condoned the revolution of
1258 because it rid
Edward of the Lusignans;
now she turned on another
group of undesirables,
thereby inadvertently
causing another
revolution. In this crisis,
Edward’s disgraced
friends, who included John
de Warenne, earl of
Surrey, and several
marcher lords, held
together. Needing an
upheaval to restore their
fortunes, they turned to
Montfort to provide it, a
man with a cause and the
cutting edge to sustain it.
Only Montfort had
remained true to the
Provisions. He alone had
consistently urged that
they should be defended
by force. When he
returned to England in
April 1263 it was above all
the return of a general.
Montfort was joined by the
ex-Edwardians, Gilbert de
Clare, and his own affinity.
The latter, including Peter
de Montfort (no relation)
and Hugh Despencer, was
largely composed of
knights and magnates from
the midlands where the
great Montfortian base was
at Kenilworth castle. Also
rallying to Montfort were
several young magnates
(‘boys’, as the chronicler
Thomas Wykes
contemptuously called
them), like John fitz John
(son of John fitz Geoffrey)
and Henry de Hastings. As
a whole, the party was a
rag-bag, but Montfort’s
leadership was dynamic.
Justified by the oath of
1258, he ravaged the
estates of the royalists,
secured the Channel ports,
and then forced the
surrender of the king, who
was quailing in the Tower
of London. The queen,
made of sterner stuff, had
tried to escape up the
Thames but had been
driven back by missiles
pelted down on her from
London Bridge. On 16 July
1263 the Provisions of
Oxford were reimposed,
which meant essentially
that Henry was once more
subjected to a council,
which Montfort, of course,
led.
 Meanwhile, with
consummate skill
Montfort, short of major
supporters, had
transformed the nature of
the reform movement. A
foreigner himself, he had,
as the Melrose chronicler
put it, become ‘the shield
and defender of the
English’ against the
terrible threat posed by
foreigners. This period
between 1263 and 1265
saw the apotheosis of all
the xenophobia that had
been gathering force
during Henry’s reign.
Under Montfort’s
leadership such feelings
gave ‘the English’ a new
sense of cohesion and
identity. For the baronial
leaders the revolution of
1258 had been aimed at
only one group of
foreigners, the Lusignans.
The queen’s uncles, Peter
and Boniface of Savoy, had
actually been on the
council of fifteen. But
outside the court there was
already, as we have seen
(above, pp. 353–4),
hostility to foreigners in
general. After 1258 such
sentiments had intensified.
The queen was blamed for
overthrowing the
Provisions in 1261 and
then for purging Edward’s
entourage in 1262. In
1263, for his abortive
campaign in Wales,
Edward had returned to
England with large
numbers of foreign
knights. Might they not be
used to oppress the king’s
native subjects? As early as
1260 Montfort had
declared that Henry
seemed to place his trust
more in foreigners ‘than in
men of his own land’.
Now, in 1263, he
channelled the xenophobic
tide to sweep him into
power, beginning the war
by arresting the Savoyard
bishop of Hereford, Peter
d’Aigueblanche, and then
sanctioning attacks on the
properties of the queen, on
Italian clerks provided to
English livings and on
foreign money-lenders.
When the king submitted
on 16 July he was made to
issue an extraordinary new
‘statute’, one which
marked the high-water
mark of antipathy to
foreigners in medieval
England. The statute
confined office in England
to native-born men, and,
with certain qualifications,
expelled foreigners
altogether from the
country ‘never to return’.
Such a programme had
wide appeal. It enabled
Edward’s ousted followers
to punish the queen, and
Gilbert de Clare to rid
himself of rivals at court.
It also enabled those in the
localities from knights
down to peasants to
punish the Savoyards and
Lusignans for their
oppression and get the
better of foreigners like
Matthias Bezill. In 1261 he
had dragged William de
Tracy through the mud.
Now it was his turn to be
humiliated. Although the
numbers who had actually
suffered from the tyranny
of the aliens and their
agents was very small,
stories of their activities
were on every lip. The St
Albans abbey chronicler
caught the flavour of
popular xenophobia in
1263 when he observed
that ‘whoever did not
know the English tongue
was despised by the
masses and held in
contempt’. Meanwhile
churchmen resented the
foreigners presented by the
pope to English benefices
and also entered fully into
the more general
xenophobia. The Song of
Lewes, written in the
aftermath of Montfort’s
great victory in 1264 by a
learned friar in the
entourage of the bishop of
Chichester, opined that
during Henry’s personal
rule ‘certain men had
aimed to blot out the name
of the English’. Montfort
stuck through thick and
thin to the ban on aliens
holding office. More than
anything else the issue
unified his movement and
gave it meaning, so much
so that chroniclers came to
see the oppression by
foreigners as the sole cause
of the revolution of 1258.
A common resistance to
this purported threat sent
for the first time since
1066 a sense of a shared
membership of an English
race resonating through all
classes of society.
Montfort, however, still
failed to hold on to power.
The revolution of 1263,
brought about by a noble
faction, was quite different
from that of 1258, which
commanded wide noble
support. Hugh Bigod,
symbol as justiciar of the
1258 reforms, now sided
with the king. So did his
brother the earl of Norfolk,
who had led the armed
march that had begun the
1258 upheaval. Such men
regarded Montfort as
violent, power-hungry and
extreme. To accept his
leadership was anathema.
Soon Montfort’s own party
began to break up. In
August 1263 Edward, now
full square behind his
father, bribed back his
former followers –
probably what they had
wanted all along. In
October Henry himself
shook himself free from
Montfort’s control and the
realm divided into armed
camps. All that could be
agreed was to refer the
quarrel to the arbitration
of Louis IX. Hitherto Louis
had been cautious about
expressing his views, but
the truth was, as he said
later, he would rather
break clods behind the
plough than live under the
Provisions. His verdict, the
Mise of Amiens (January
1264) condemned them in
toto and restored Henry to
all his powers. This
judgement Montfort and
his followers refused to
accept and the result was
civil war.
Even with the
adherence of Gilbert de
Clare, Montfort had far
less noble support than the
king. His power centred on
London and on his bases in
the midlands, radiating out
from Northampton,
Leicester and Kenilworth.
Henry and Edward placed
themselves aggressively in
between at Oxford and on
5 April by a surprise attack
seized Northampton,
taking many prisoners.
Montfort’s response to this
disaster showed the
measure of the man, for he
now drove on the war with
daring and judgement.
First he mounted a brief
siege of Rochester castle,
bringing the king’s army
south as he had intended.
Then on 6 May he
marched out of London,
determined to meet his
enemies and fight ‘with all
for all’. On 14 May 1264,
having led his army up
onto the Sussex Downs
during the night, he
charged down the hill
above Lewes and won a
crushing victory, making
Henry, Edward and
Richard of Cornwall
prisoners. The next month,
in the spirit of the
Provisions, a council of
nine was imposed on the
king, chosen by and
responsible to three
electors: Montfort himself,
Gilbert de Clare and the
bishop of Chichester.
Although the three were to
be responsible to the
prelates and barons in
parliament, in practice
Montfort was dominant.
He was the first noble in
English history to seize
power and rule the
country in the king’s
name.
Montfort had now to
stabilize his government,
and it was not easy. Queen
Eleanor, who had
remained overseas after
the Mise of Amiens,
gathered an army in
Flanders with Louis IX’s
support and threatened
invasion. The papal legate,
Guy de Foulquois,
excommunicated Montfort
and his supporters,
although he was kept out
of England. Meanwhile the
great marcher baron,
Roger de Mortimer,
unwisely released by
Montfort after Lewes
despite a bitter private
feud, refused to accept the
regime’s authority. Gilbert
de Clare, now earl of
Gloucester, was Montfort’s
only supporter from
among the earls. The
young earl of Derby,
Robert de Ferrers, played a
lone hand, obsessed by his
claims for possession of
the Peak, part of the
Peverel inheritance which
the Ferrers had long
coveted.
Montfort’s reaction was
to base his regime on
sections of society outside
the great barons and he
had good grounds for
doing so. Even the
unfriendly London
alderman Arnold fitz
Thedmar acknowledged in
his chronicle that Louis
IX’s verdict had been
rejected by ‘the
community of the middle
people of the kingdom of
England’. To the
parliament of June 1264,
which approved the new
constitution, Montfort
summoned four knights
from each county, chosen
by the county court to
‘discuss the business of the
realm’. To his parliament
of 1265 he summoned
burgesses from the towns
as well, the first occasion
they had been summoned.
Here truly was the House
of Commons in embryo.
All this marked an
important shift since 1258.
Knights had certainly been
present and influential at
the parliaments of 1258–9,
as the protest of the
community of the bachelry
showed. But the Provisions
of Oxford had not called
for any formal
representation of the shires
and boroughs, despite the
precedent of 1254. Now
Montfort took that
momentous step.
Of all the cities, by far
the most important for
Montfort was London,
which gave him massive
support, providing a whole
division at Lewes, just as it
had supported the rebels
in 1215. To be sure, the
ruling elite of aldermen
were tied to the court
through supplying it with
wine, cloth and precious
metals. Yet some also
resented Henry’s attempt
to tax the city at will and
establish a fair for
Westminster Abbey. In
1258, before the political
revolution, Henry had
purged his enemies on the
city council and his
supporters remained in
power thereafter; London,
therefore, was a safe base
for the king’s recovery of
power in 1261. It was a
political and social
revolution in 1263 which
changed the situation. This
ousted the aldermanic
regime and handed power
to the folkmoot, the
general assembly of the
citizens, which elected a
Montfortian mayor,
Thomas fitz Thomas, a
member of the old elite
but with connections to
those purged in 1258. Fitz
Thomas permitted crafts,
previously held down by
the aldermen, to organize
for the first time, and told
the king to his face that
the city’s loyalty depended
on his good behaviour.
Montfort also, as his
summons to parliament
shows, coveted the support
of the knights, both for
fighting and also for
control over local
government. (By this time
there might be fifty or so
knights active in a
medium-sized county like
Oxfordshire.) Montfort was
not altogether successful.
A large majority of the
knights employed to
investigate grievances in
1258 and as sheriffs in
1258–9 played no
discernible part in
subsequent events,
doubtless keeping their
heads down. On the other
hand, of a sample of 123
knights drawn from
Northamptonshire,
Warwickshire,
Cambridgeshire and
Staffordshire, sixty-eight
(or 55 per cent) opposed
the king in some way or
other, or at least were
accused of so doing,
between 1263 and 1265,
this against only sixteen
(though the evidence here
is much less full) who
were active royalists. The
midlands were Montfort’s
heartland so the
proportions were probably
smaller elsewhere, but the
figures are still impressive.
Some knights had direct
personal grievances
against the king or
members of his regime,
like Gilbert of Elsfield (in
Oxfordshire) who
complained of disseisin by
William de Valence. Many
seem to have been situated
in regional pockets
surrounded by other
contrariants, a pattern also
seen in 1215 – Gilbert
himself died at Evesham
alongside his neighbour,
Robert fitz Nigel of Iffley.
Clearly neighbourhood
was very important in
determining political
allegiances. So, within that
context, was the power of
lordship, with tenure,
reward and coercion all
coming into play. Given
the paucity of earls in his
party, Montfort relied
increasingly on a group of
minor barons. Some, like
Ralph Basset of Drayton,
he made keepers of the
peace to act alongside the
sheriffs after Lewes.
Others, like Ralph de
Camoys, he placed on the
council of nine, a very
different body from the
earl-dominated council of
fifteen in 1258. It was men
of this stamp, in particular,
whom Montfort helped by
alleviating the debts they
owed the Jews. They were
also helped by a brutal
attack on the London
Jewry led by John fitz
John. In some areas the
political allegiances of
such magnates depended
more on the course of their
local disputes than on the
merits of the national
cause. Thus in the west
midlands Ralph Basset of
Drayton, mixing litigation
with violence, was
struggling for regional
dominance against the
local royalists, Roger de
Somery of Dudley and
Philip Marmion of
Tamworth. In that respect
the conflict in the 1260s
resembled those during the
civil wars of Stephen and
of John.
It was not merely
knights and magnates who
were politically active in
this period. Many ordinary
freemen and peasants took
part in local raids, fought
in the armies, and
slaughtered the royalists
fleeing from the battle of
Lewes. When Montfort
rallied the nation to resist
the queen’s threatened
invasion in the summer of
1264 – invasion by ‘a great
multitude of aliens’ – he
summoned four to eight
men from each village to
Barham Down in Kent. The
response was
overwhelming and the
atmosphere on the Downs
perhaps rather like that in
England in 1940. Equally
impressive was the support
of churchmen, despite the
hostility of the pope. No
less than five bishops were
later suspended from office
for supporting Montfort,
including Walter de
Cantilupe of Worcester,
one of his oldest friends.
Such prelates were
inspired by Montfort’s
ascetic brand of personal
piety and the connections
they had all shared with
the saintly Grosseteste. All
would probably have
shared the passionate
commitment to reform
which runs through the
968 mesmeric, throbbing
lines of The Song of Lewes.
The Song stands as an
eternal warning against an
explanation of Montfortian
support simply in terms of
local conflicts, personal
grievances and the power
of lordship. The
churchmen who are
known to have preached to
the populace about the
great earl must have
spoken, like the Song, of
how he stood for the
community of the realm
and was saving England
for the English. In 1265
the peasants of Peatling
Magna in Leicestershire
attacked a royalist captain
on the grounds that he was
‘going against the
community of the realm
and the barons’. Even
villagers, therefore,
understood the concept,
and believed they were
members of the
community of the realm.
For all his support,
Montfort failed once again
to stabilize his regime. He
had to keep both the king
and the Lord Edward as
virtual prisoners. His
decision to extract
Cheshire from the latter in
March 1265, to be held
henceforth by the
Montforts in hereditary
right, shows that he
thought reconciliation
impossible. Faced with a
choice between King
Henry and King Simon,
which was what de facto it
boiled down to, most
magnates preferred the
former. Montfort’s
overweening power (a
condition of survival, he
would have said) led to
the disastrous defection of
Gilbert de Clare. In May
1265 Edward himself
escaped, reaching
Wigmore where he was
welcomed by Matilda de
Mortimer, Roger’s wife,
who was in command of
the castle. Edward quickly
struck an agreement with
both Mortimer and Clare.
Their army trapped
Montfort’s much smaller
force at Evesham on the
morning of 4 August 1265.
Montfort, spurning
suggestions that he should
take refuge in the abbey
(‘churches are for
chaplains; the field is for
knights’), marched out of
the town and up Green
Hill where he was
surrounded, killed and
horribly mutilated, his
head being sent to Lady
Mortimer. Montfort’s son
Henry, Peter de Montfort,
Hugh Despencer and over
thirty other knights
suffered with him.
‘The murder of Evesham
for battle was it none,’
wrote the chronicler
Robert of Gloucester. The
slaughter was indeed
unprecedented and
reflected the fear and
hatred Montfort had
inspired. That bitterness
also prevented any easy
post-war settlement.
London was punished by a
fine of £13,333. The return
of rebel lands which had
closed the 1217 war was
not repeated. Instead, the
estates of the Montfortians
were first pillaged by the
victors ‘in an irresistible
wave spreading outwards
from the battlefield’ (Clive
Knowles), and then,
having been officially
confiscated, were
distributed by the king
among his supporters in
woefully haphazard
fashion. Not surprisingly
this led to a renewal of the
war. One group of
disinherited was defeated
in a skirmish at
Chesterfield in May 1266.
Another, under the
leadership of Henry de
Hastings, set up their
standard at Kenilworth
castle, which the king in
June 1266 began to
besiege. Meanwhile wiser
counsels prevailed, thanks
in good part to the labours
of the remarkable papal
legate Ottobuono (later
Pope Adrian V) who had
now arrived in England. In
October 1266 the Dictum
of Kenilworth was issued,
which allowed former
rebels to redeem their
lands at up to seven times
their annual value,
depending on the gravity
of their offences. These
were still harsh terms,
however, and the
Kenilworth siege
continued till the
garrison’s provisions were
exhausted in December, its
length a remarkable
tribute to Simon de
Montfort’s skill in
developing the castle’s
water defences. Another
group of rebels continued
to hold out in the Isle of
Ely, ravaging the
surrounding area. In June
1267 Gilbert de Clare,
with scant personal reward
from rebel lands despite
having led the initial
pillage through his
network of officials,
intervened. He occupied
London and forced an
improvement in the
Dictum’s terms. Next
month Edward
extinguished the last
resistance in the Isle of Ely
and the war was over.
 However, this was
hardly peace. The earl of
Derby, captured at
Chesterfield, was saddled
with a deliberately
unpayable redemption fine
of £50,000 and had to
surrender his lands to
Edmund, Henry’s younger
son, marking the end of
the Ferrers earldom.
Edward himself quarrelled
acrimoniously with Gilbert
de Clare. The king,
pitifully short of money,
formed patronage queues
reminiscent of those of the
1250s, put stops on
payments out of the
exchequer, and then
nullified the effect by
coming up with all kinds
of exceptions. Meanwhile
the site of Montfort’s death
and his ‘shrine’ in
Evesham abbey became
places of miracle and
pilgrimage. Yet there were
more positive signs. The
government soon after
Evesham had looked after
the wives and widows of
the Montfortians, allowing
them their inheritances
and a proportion of their
husband’s lands (usually
between a quarter and a
third). Such provision was
helped by family
connections across the
rebellion. For example the
two daughters of one of
the most respected
loyalists, Philip Basset,
were married to Hugh
Despencer and John fitz
John. Moreover, although
the financial cost was
high, the great majority of
the Montfortians –
magnates, knights and
lesser men – did recover
their lands, usually as soon
as the redemption
agreement was made. To
some extent their cause
was won. The king could
not live with the central
controls of 1258, but he
could certainly accept the
Provisions of Westminster,
the legislation of October
1259, which aimed at
controlling the abuses of
sheriffs and justices, and
limiting attendance at
private courts. In January
1263, struggling for
support, Henry had indeed
reissued them. In
November 1267 he did so
again, definitively, in the
Statute of Marlborough.
Another lesson was learnt.
Between 1268 and 1270
Henry sought taxation to
support Edward’s
projected crusade. He
negotiated with parliament
after parliament,
summoning to them
knights and on at least one
occasion burgesses as well.
In the end he secured a
tax, after imposing
restrictions on the Jews
and confirming Magna
Carta. Legislation which
conciliated the counties,
the summoning of
representatives to
parliament and the
granting of taxation: that
was the way in which the
monarchy could begin to
close the gulf which had
opened between it and the
nation.
On 13 October 1269
Henry translated the body
of Edward the Confessor to
its shrine within the new
church at Westminster. He
had spent well over
£40,000 on the works, a
sum which could have
built three or four of the
castles with which his son
later conquered Wales. But
it was worth it. The new
church was considered the
finest in Christendom. The
God-given nature of
Henry’s rule, which he had
done so much to stress,
had not saved him from
revolution, but it may well
have saved his throne.
There was no attempt to
depose Henry as there had
been King John. Henry
died in November 1272.
Edward was still away on
his crusade. Not the least
of his problems was the
transformation in the
political shape of Britain
produced by the collapse
of English royal power.
 ***
In 1247 Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd shared the rump
of Gwynedd with his
brother Owain. Twenty
years later he was prince
of Wales.
Welsh poets and
chroniclers portrayed the
movement Llywelyn led as
one of national liberation
against ‘the grievous
bondage of the English’,
and with considerable
truth. In the south, the
rulers of Ystrad Tywi had
long resented the
jurisdictional claims of the
king’s bailiff at
Carmarthen. In the north,
the English administration
of the Four Cantrefs was
becoming increasingly
harsh, especially after their
conferral in 1254 on the
Lord Edward, along with
Chester and the other
royal lands in Wales. The
English chroniclers
themselves wrote in terms
of a tyrannical attack on
Welsh law and custom.
The boast in 1252 of Alan
la Zouche, justiciar at
Chester, that ‘all Wales lies
obediently and peacefully
subject to English laws’
reveals official attitudes all
too clearly. Having stoked
the fires, the English
government was soon
powerless to put them out.
The long period of
revolution, reform and
civil war between 1258
and 1267 destroyed royal
authority and absorbed
baronial energy. It was not
the king who brought
down Llywelyn, but
Llywelyn who twice
brought down (or helped
bring down) the king by
his successes in 1257 and
1262–3.
There were Welsh
rulers, however, who
would have grimaced at
Llywelyn’s stance as a
national hero, not least in
Gwynedd itself where he
had come to the top by
eliminating his brothers.
The decisive moment had
been the great victory at
Bryn Derwin in 1255, a
battle fought ‘for a
kingdom’ and won by a
‘lion of the warband’, as a
court poet put it. The
captured Owain was held
prisoner for over twenty
years, along with another
brother Rhodri. Only
Dafydd, Llywelyn’s
youngest brother,
remained free, his
disruptive career amply
justifying the
imprisonment of the
others. On the back of this
success, Llywelyn went on
(in 1256) to wrest the Four
Cantrefs from the Lord
Edward (save the new
castles at Deganwy and
Diserth) and Meirionydd
from his own kinsman,
Llywelyn ap Maredudd. He
was now master of all
Gwynedd. He at once
demonstrated his authority
in the south by invading
Ceredigion and seizing
Edward’s lands around
Aberystwyth. This time,
however (as the Brut
noted), ‘he took nothing
for himself save the glory’,
preferring to reward his
allies in Deheubarth. Next
year (1257) he led a great
plundering expedition
which threatened the
marcher lordships of
Glamorgan, Gower and
Pembroke.
The English
establishment had every
reason to respond to these
events, yet it received
scant leadership from the
king, whose eyes were
firmly set on Sicily. Henry
talked big. He would seize
Anglesey with a fleet from
Ireland and keep it for the
crown. But no fleet
arrived. Henry reached
Deganwy in August 1257,
re-provisioned the castle,
and then hurried back to
Westminster in time for
the feast of Edward the
Confessor. Llywelyn was
free to expel the king’s ally
Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn
from southern Powys.
After these triumphs,
Llywelyn in 1258 assumed
the title prince of Wales,
which had been defiantly
adopted by Dafydd
towards the end of his
career. Of course ‘prince’
implied a ‘principality’,
and Llywelyn was clear
about the kind he
envisaged. As he later told
the pope, ‘the principality
of Wales is such that all
the Welsh barons of Wales
hold their lands in chief
from us and our heirs and
do homage and fealty to us
and our successors… for
which we and our
successors are bound to do
homage and fealty to the
king and his successors’.
This of course had been
the vision of Llywelyn the
Great, and in realizing it
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd
faced the same obstacles as
his grandfather, obstacles
which had persuaded the
latter not to assume the
title. One problem was the
opposition of the English
crown, which claimed the
homages of the Welsh
rulers for itself. Another
was that the rulers
themselves were hardly
crying out for Gwynedd’s
overlordship. The
unpleasant penalties for a
breach of homage and
fealty owed the prince
were made plain in 1259
when Maredudd ap Rhys
of Ystrad Tywi, an early
Llywelyn ally, was
imprisoned and deprived
of his lands. If Welsh
political unity was
necessary to stand against
English officialdom, such
men might think it could
be achieved as in the past
through confederation, not
Gwynedd’s supremacy.
Llywelyn’s task was also
impeded by the factional
strife which divided the
ruling families. A
condition of Maredudd ap
Rhys’s return to Llywelyn’s
‘unity’ in 1261 was that he
should not have to ally
with either his nephew
and rival, Rhys Fychan, or
Maredudd ab Owain of
Ceredigion. Such conflicts
overrode any ‘patriotic’
considerations. If one side
was with Llywelyn, the
other was as likely to be
with the king. A major
reason why Llywelyn
needed recognition from
the king was to deprive the
native rulers of their
English escape route.
In these treacherous
waters, Llywelyn
navigated at first as
though piloted by his
cautious grandfather. He
was not merely a mighty
warrior, as the bards at his
court frequently
proclaimed; he was also, at
least early in his career, a
sinuous politician. He
adopted the title ‘prince of
Wales’ in 1258, almost at
once to abandon it. With
the Welsh rulers, he
continued at times to talk
of mutual pacts and
alliances. With the English
government, under cover
of a series of truces, he
opened negotiations for a
settlement. But the
political revolution which
had removed the crown as
a threat had also deprived
it of the ability to make
decisions. So in 1260, as
England hovered on the
verge of hostilities,
Llywelyn turned once
again to war, depriving
Edward of Builth, Dafydd’s
old strategic base in the
upper valley of the Wye.
At the same time, building
on moves in 1256,
Llywelyn established
control over much of the
area between Wye and
Severn, while his chief
rival, Roger de Mortimer,
was distracted by his suit
for the Gloucestershire
manor of Lechlade and
(from the end of 1263) by
a personal feud with
Simon de Montfort. From
Builth, Llywelyn could
move south and in 1262
he received homages from
parts of Brecon, thus
bringing his power to the
northern fringes of
Glamorgan. In all this he
was aided again by the
English conflict, for
Humphrey de Bohun,
eldest son of the earl of
Hereford, the lord of
Brecon, was fatally
wounded at Evesham, after
which there was a
minority till 1271. As for
Glamorgan, after the death
of Richard de Clare in
1262, so long its astringent
ruler, his son Gilbert first
endured a period of
wardship and then
plunged into the English
civil war. To the west,
Pembroke was in the
hands of Henry III’s half-
brother, William de
Valence, who was expelled
temporarily from England
in 1258 and did not visit
the lordship till 1265.
From the late summer
of 1262, Llywelyn began
once again to call himself
prince of Wales, and this
time he continued to do
so. It was no empty title.
In March 1263, from
north, south and west
Wales he mustered an
army (so the English
estimated) of some 10,000
foot. Edward’s response in
1263 was a damp squib of
a campaign, despite having
tempted Dafydd into his
camp. That August and
September, while Edward
and his father struggled to
free themselves from
Montfortian shackles,
Llywelyn finally forced the
surrender of Deganwy and
Diserth, long lone outposts
in the Four Cantrefs. At
the end of the year
Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn
reluctantly did him
homage. What Llywelyn
still desperately needed,
however, was recognition
from the English
government, just as Simon
de Montfort desperately
needed all the support he
could get. Out of that
mutual need emerged a
treaty in June 1265. The
puppet King Henry
recognized Llywelyn’s
principality and his
‘dominion’ over all the
native magnates of Wales.
In return Montfort gained
a large contingent of
Welsh foot soldiers. They
let out a blood-curdling
shout before the battle of
Evesham six weeks later,
but for all their readiness
for the fight they were
unable to save Montfort
from death at the hands of
Roger de Mortimer.
Evesham destroyed
Montfort, but did nothing
to weaken Llywelyn. It was
not till July 1267 that
even a semblance of peace
returned to England.
Edward wished now to
fight, not in Wales but on
crusade. The government
was desperately short of
money. So Llywelyn made
an offer it could not refuse
and in September 1267 the
Treaty of Montgomery was
concluded. Llywelyn was
to pay £16,666 (25,000
marks), £3,333 at
Christmas 1267, the rest at
a rate of £2,000 a year. In
return, Henry accepted the
bulk of Llywelyn’s
conquests. He was to
retain the Four Cantrefs,
Cedewain and Ceri
between Wye and Severn,
together with Builth and
his gains in Brecon. Even
more significantly, he was
given ‘the principality of
Wales’ and was henceforth
to be called ‘prince of
Wales’ and have the
homage of ‘all the Welsh
barons of Wales’. Only he
as prince was to do
homage to the king. All of
this was conceded to
Llywelyn and his heirs in
perpetuity. He had
established his
principality. Would he
sustain it?
***
When English royal
power collapsed in the
1215–17 civil war, King
Alexander II had allied
with the baronial rebels
and invaded England to
reassert his claims to the
northern counties. The
conduct of his son,
Alexander III, was very
different. He sent a large
Scottish force which
fought for King Henry at
the battle of Lewes and
was about to dispatch
another when news
arrived of the battle of
Evesham. His policy was
therefore the exact
opposite of Llywelyn’s,
who allied with the
Montfortians. Indeed had
Evesham been fought a
few weeks later, it might
have seen a confrontation
between the Welsh and the
Scots. Alexander’s
behaviour was a measure
of the long period of peace
between the two kingdoms
and the family ties which
now bound the English
and Scottish courts
together, cemented by his
own marriage to Henry
III’s daughter. Alexander
thus remained true to the
reorientation of Scottish
policy achieved by his
father. During the period
of English weakness,
instead of moving south he
moved west and secured
control over the Isle of
Man and the Western Isles,
thereby achieving a major
expansion of his kingdom.
This is not to say
Alexander did not profit
from the English vacuum.
A powerful English state
might possibly have
obstructed his conquest of
Man whose kings,
although they owed
allegiance to Norway, had
also sometimes been
knighted at the English
court.
If the fifteenth-century
chronicler Walter Bower
was basing himself on a
reliable earlier source,
then Alexander was tall
and well-built, and very
much a ‘hands-on’ ruler.
With a picked retinue, and
accompanied by the
justiciar to dispense
justice, he travelled the
kingdom almost every year
and was welcomed into
each sheriffdom by a body
of local knights who acted
as escorts – quite the
reverse of King Henry’s
sedentary rule. Alexander,
at times masterful and at
others conciliatory,
quickly liquidated the
factional struggles of his
minority and never
allowed them to revive.
Those struggles had
originated in the last years
of his father with the
conflict between the
Comyns and Alan
Durward. The compromise
of 1259 had brought
Durward back onto the
council, but left the
government very much in
Comyn hands. The family
remained prominent
thereafter in the
sheriffdoms and
ecclesiastical office. At the
centre Alexander Comyn,
earl of Buchan, was
justiciar of Scotland north
of Forth for the whole
period from 1258 until his
death in 1289, and was
more frequently at court
than any other magnate.
The tearaway of 1242,
however, was now the
sagacious councillor, with
his daughters married to
the earls of Dunbar,
Strathearn and Angus and
his son to the countess of
Fife. That the Comyns
formed no monolithic
faction of which the king
was the prisoner was
shown by the events of
1261. On the death of
Walter Comyn, earl of
Menteith, three years
before, the earldom had
passed to his widow (in
whose right he had held it)
and her new husband John
Russell, an English knight.
This infuriated Walter’s
nephew, John Comyn of
Badenoch, who seized the
Russells and forced them
to make the earldom over
to himself, an act which
recalled the Comyn
violence back in 1242. But
John was soon put in his
place. The magnates
decided against his claims
and conferred the earldom
on Walter, younger
brother of Alexander
Stewart.
Politically, Alexander
was therefore well placed
to renew his father’s
attempt to replace
Norwegian lordship over
Man and the Isles with his
own. In 1261–2 he
combined offers to buy out
King Hakon with a violent
assault on Skye, led by the
earl of Ross. According to
King Hakon’s Saga,
churches were burnt and
men, women and children
slaughtered. ‘The Scottish
king,’ the Saga affirmed,
‘intended to lay under his
authority all the Hebrides.’
King Hakon, aged though
he was, was determined
not to let him. He built a
new ship entirely of oak
with a long prow
surmounted by a gilded
dragon’s head, and in July
1263 set sail from Bergen.
His fleet, when joined with
Hebridean forces,
numbered between 100
and 200 vessels. If this was
the Norwegian sunset, its
rays were to be red and
bloody.
Hakon made his first
base in Orkney; its earl,
Magnus Gilbertson, who
was also earl of Caithness,
had joined him in Bergen.
King Magnus Olafson,
ruler of Man and Skye, and
most of the MacSorleys
(some of them threatened
by the Stewart advance
into Arran and Knapdale)
likewise rallied to his
cause. From Orkney,
Hakon proceeded
westwards through the
Western Isles into the Firth
of Clyde. He then sent the
king of Man and the
MacSorleys inland to
ravage Walter Stewart’s
earldom of Menteith. King
Alexander kept his nerve.
His tactics were to hold his
fortresses, defend the
coastline and wait for
Hakon to go away. Then
he could assert his own
dominance over the native
rulers. In the north
Alexander, earl of Buchan,
and Alan Durward (a
striking co-operation
between two old rivals)
were placed in command
and they extracted
hostages from Caithness
and Skye. In the west
Walter Stewart, earl of
Menteith, commanded the
king’s main base at Ayr
where ships were built and
the castle held by 120
sergeants. On 4 October on
the shore at Largs, under
the looming Cunningham
hills, there was a great
fight between the two
sides with the Scots,
according to Hakon’s Saga,
commanding 500 horse.
Certainly the accounts of
Alexander’s chamberlain in
1264 show £710 being
spent on horses and
saddles.
The campaign of 1263
had, in fact, ended in a
draw. King Hakon had
demonstrated Norwegian
power in the west on a
scale (as his Saga
commented) unseen since
Magnus Barelegs’
expedition in 1098. Yet he
had not dented
Alexander’s pretensions to
the area and therefore he
planned to winter in
Orkney and renew the war
in 1264. It was not to be.
On 16 December the aged
hero, consoled by readings
from the Sagas of his
predecessors (he had first
listened to Latin books,
doubtless of a devotional
nature, but had not
understood them), died in
the bishop’s palace on
Orkney. Alexander at once
saw his chance. He
assembled a fleet and
prepared to invade Skye, a
move which brought
Magnus of Man’s
submission and proffer of
hostages. After that
Alexander Buchan,
Durward and the earl of
Mar (who had 200
sergeants under his
command) invaded the
Western Isles where
(according to Fordun)
‘they slew the traitors who
the year before had
encouraged the king of
Norway’, and returned
with much plunder.
Alexander now renewed
his offers to buy out the
Norwegians, and found
Hakon’s pacific son, King
Magnus, ready to accept
them. The result in 1266
was the Treaty of Perth,
the first of the great
thirteenth-century
documents of conquest.
Magnus retained Orkney
and Shetland, but resigned
Man and the other western
islands to Alexander and
his heirs. All the ‘vassals’
of the islands were to be
‘subject to the laws and
customs of the kingdom of
Scotland’. However, the
islanders were to be
pardoned for injuries done
in support of the king of
Norway and could leave if
they wished. In return for
all this, Alexander paid
£2,666 and promised
Norway an annual fee of
£66. For some of the
native chiefs the Scottish
conquest was a disaster,
their fate foreshadowing
that of the native rulers
swept aside by the
Edwardian conquest of
Wales twenty years later.
Dugald, lord of Garmoran
refused to submit to
Alexander; his son Eric
threw in his lot entirely
with the king of Norway.
Murchaid of Knapdale
(whose son was a hostage
in 1264) fled to Ireland,
where he was captured
and imprisoned. Nothing
more is heard of Rhodri,
the MacSorley to whom
Hakon had given Bute.
In Man, it was not just
the ruling family who
suffered. King Magnus had
died in 1266 before the
conclusion of the Treaty of
Perth. The claims of
Godfrey, his illegitimate
son, to succeed were
ignored and the island was
governed by royal bailiffs.
They may well (as
permitted by the Treaty)
have set about subjecting
the islanders to the laws
and customs of the
Scottish kingdom, much as
Alan la Zouche had
subjected the Welsh of the
Four Cantrefs to English
law in the 1250s. The
result was that when in
1275 Godfrey, son of
Magnus, returned to Man
he was accepted as king
‘universally and
unanimously’. Alexander
gathered a large fleet and
army from Galloway and
the Isles and placed the
Anglo-Scottish baron John
de Vesci in command. A
battle was fought in which
(according to the local
chronicle) 537 Manxmen
perished. Godfrey and his
wife escaped to Wales but
it was the end of his
ancient dynasty. The
monastery of Rushen was
sacked, the monks
dispersed and the land was
ravaged. Thus had King
Alexander brought the
west within his kingdom.
As so often, there was
another side to the
conquest, one of more
peaceful integration. The
Treaty of Perth was
different from the 1284
Statute of Wales. The one
was negotiated between
equals; the other imposed
after the defeat of a
general rebellion. The
Perth Treaty protected
Norwegian supporters in
the Isles from
disinheritance, provided
they were now faithful to
the king of Scotland; the
Statute of Wales followed
an almost general
forfeiture. Likewise,
although the Treaty spoke
of Scottish laws and
customs, outside Man they
were only gradually
established: it was not
until 1293 that Argyll and
the Isles were finally
divided into three
sheriffdoms. One of the
sheriffs, that of Lorn, was
none other than
Alexander, son of Ewen of
Lorn, the MacSorley who
in the 1240s had boasted
the title ‘king of the Isles’.
From king to royal official:
this might seem to sum up
the decline of the
MacSorleys. Nevertheless
the western sheriffs were
men of high status within
the Scottish realm:
Alexander’s colleagues
were the earl of Ross and
the head of the Stewarts.
Alexander of Lorn also
retained wide
independence within his
own lordships. He was not
alone in coming to terms
with the Scottish crown.
Another MacSorley, Alan
of Garmoran, as well as
Alexander, were involved
in the final conquest of
Man in 1275. The
arrangements in 1284 for
succession to the throne
were witnessed by three
MacSorleys (including
Alexander), and the earl of
Orkney, all described as
‘barons of the realm of
Scotland’. In their use of
Latin charters, adoption of
knighthood, marriages and
naming patterns
(Alexander married a
daughter of John Comyn),
these nobles were all
coming within the Scottish
realm and the wider
European polity of which
it was part. The expansion
of the kingdom was
achieved both by violence
and accommodation.
***
The politics of England
also helped set back the
English position in Ireland,
facilitating a recovery of
the native rulers, just as
happened in Wales. To
some extent this would
have occurred anyway
with the demise of both
the Lacys and the Marshals
in the 1240s, and the de
Burgh minority between
the death of Richard in
1243 and the succession of
his son Walter in 1250. A
generation of self-
confident conquerors had
come to an end. The
English situation made it
difficult for successors to
become established. The
obstruction of Edward as
the new Lord of Ireland
effectively nullified the
grant of land worth £500
to Geoffrey de Lusignan
(see above, p. 361). Then
John fitz John’s
Montfortianism meant that
he could do nothing to
consolidate the grant in
Thomond made to his
father, John fitz Geoffrey.
The movement led by
Brian O’Neill, ‘king of the
kings of Ireland’, was
ended by his defeat and
death in 1260, but in the
following year the
MacCarthys killed John
fitz Thomas, to whom
Edward had granted the
lordship of Desmond. Then
from 1265 Aedh O’Connor,
from his base in
Roscommon, began to
disturb the position of
Walter de Burgh in
Connacht.
By this time Edward’s
difficulties in England had
led to a major
restructuring in Ireland,
Walter de Burgh being the
beneficiary and the crown
the loser. In 1263 Edward
conceded Ulster, in royal
hands since Hugh de
Lacy’s death in 1242, to
Walter, thus joining
Connacht and Ulster under
de Burgh lordship. Like
King John’s restoration of
Meath to Walter de Lacy in
1215, this concession was
entirely due to the
political situation in
England. It took place on
15 July 1263, the day
before Henry III
surrendered to Simon de
Montfort and became once
more a cipher. At this
moment of supreme crisis,
Edward was enlisting de
Burgh and his Irish
resources for the
continuation of the fight in
England. He was not
entirely disappointed. The
immediate effect of de
Burgh’s installation was a
violent conflict with the
fitz Geralds who feared for
their own position in
Ulster, but with peace
restored (by Geoffrey de
Joinville), the main Irish
barons crossed over to
help Edward around the
time of the battle of
Evesham. The crisis in
England had, however,
destroyed the prospect of
Ulster becoming a new
royal base in Ireland.
 If Edward wished to
reassert royal authority in
Britain and Ireland, he
would have first, like
Henry II, to reassert it
within England itself. If
the limbs were weak, the
fundamental trouble
concerned the heart.
13

Structures of
Society

The upheavals in England

in the 1260s had brought
all sections of society into
play: barons, knights,
townsfolk, freemen and
peasants. Significant roles
had been taken by noble
women; even peasant
women were well
informed about events.
The growing production
and survival of record
sources enables English
society in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries to be
studied in ever greater
detail. The rest of Britain
is less well served. This
chapter concentrates on
England in these centuries
before considering salient
features of society in
Scotland and in Wales. The
wider economic
framework has already
been discussed in chapter
2.
 ***
The political importance
of the towns, seen in the
summons of burgesses to
parliament, reflected their
increasing wealth and the
control they had achieved
over their own affairs,
usually by charter of the
king – hence ‘chartered
borough’. Henry II (1154–
89) granted nearly fifty
municipal charters,
building on the example of
Henry I. There was
considerable overlap in the
terms of the various
concessions (sometimes
explicitly so), their effect
being to confirm or
establish the
distinctiveness and
independence of the
townsmen by, for example,
conceding them freedom
from tolls throughout the
kingdom and allowing
them exemption from
attending courts other
than the borough’s. The
most important privilege
and also the hardest to get
was that of accounting
directly to the exchequer
for the town’s farm, the
annual payment due to the
king, for this was nearly
always linked to the right
to choose the official who
would do the accounting.
In effect this emancipated
the town from the
authority of the sheriff and
secured self-government
under the king. Eight
towns had this right by
1199, twenty-four by 1216
and forty-eight by the
1300s. To take one
example: in 1200 the
burgesses of North ampton
were allowed to choose ‘by
common counsel of their
vill’ two ‘provosts’ to
answer for the farm and
four other men to keep the
pleas of the crown and
check that the provosts
treated both rich and poor
justly. Elections by
common counsel, one
group of officials
monitoring another, justice
to rich and poor, all these
were pervasive themes
between 1258 and 1265,
and all long familiar at
Northampton. That
burgesses positively
wished to elect
representatives to
parliament is clear at St
Albans, where ‘the
community of the town’
insisted that the abbot
should allow them to do
just that.
 ‘Treat justly poor as
well as rich.’ Within town
society the variations in
wealth increasingly
generated tension. The
privileges of self-
government did not come
cheap and townsmen had
banded together to buy
them. Such associations
had various names, and
the great law book Glanvill
(c. 1189) treated the two
most usual, ‘commune’ and
‘gild merchant’, as
virtually interchangeable.
Some of the town charters
were actually granted to
the ‘gild merchant’, or
gave the townsmen the
right to form one. It was
only the members of these
associations, however
described, who enjoyed
the privileges conferred in
the charters, and were
technically burgesses.
Their position was
exclusive. ‘Nobody not a
member of the gild shall
carry out their trade in the
town,’ ran Henry II’s
charter to Oxford. There
was no room here for
labourers, artisans
(including in some towns
weavers), and women.
Moreover, although all
householders probably
qualified as burgesses,
when it came to
government a series of
complex checks and
balances usually kept
control in the hands of a
wealthy elite, something
that becomes very clear
from a study of the rulers
of York and Newcastle
upon Tyne in the
thirteenth century. Not
surprisingly this could
create conflict. At Oxford
in the 1250s, the
‘burgesses of the lesser
commune’, as they called
themselves, drew up a
series of complaints
against the thirty-two
‘burgess magnates’ who
effectively monopolized
the mayoral office and the
advisory council of fifteen
‘jurats’.
 The chronicler Wykes
averred that in 1263
‘conjurations of ribalds’
rose up against the great
men of nearly all the
towns, although only for
London is there hard
evidence. There, citizens
and their families made up
perhaps a third of the
population, the rest being
artisans, servants,
labourers and paupers.
Within the citizen body
there was again a
dominant elite who
controlled the government
in its own interests.
London had always had its
own sheriffs who were
responsible for financial
payments to the king, and
under Henry I the citizens
secured the right to choose
them. Later in 1215 they
also gained the right to
choose their mayor, a man
‘suitable for rule of the
city’, an office which had
first appeared in the
1190s. The popular view
was that the mayor should
be elected in the
traditional gathering of all
the citizens, the folkmoot,
but this was vigorously
contested by the aldermen,
who claimed the right
belonged to them ‘since
they are as though the
heads and the people are
the limbs’. It was the
aldermen for the most part
who got their way.
The city was divided up
into twenty-four wards
each with an alderman as
its executive and legal
officer (he gave judgement
in the ward courts), an
arrangement which
probably went back to
long before 1100. Since
the aldermen were elected
for life, and in practice by
the leading citizens of each
ward, they naturally
formed an elite. It was
essentially to them, ‘the
barons of London’, that
John had conceded the
right to elect the mayor in
1215. Seventy per cent of
the aldermen who held
office before 1263
belonged to sixteen
interrelated families, most
of them established in
London since the early
twelfth century. This was
not, however, a closed
oligarchy for new families
if they had sufficient
wealth were able to join its
ranks, often gaining
integration through
marriage. The grandfather
of the alderman Arnold fitz
Thedmar, who wrote a
detailed history of the city
during the reign of Henry
III, had come from
Cologne.
The wealth of London’s
elite, like that of York and
Newcastle upon Tyne,
came from property, from
trade, and from luxury
crafts, notably
goldsmithing. Fitz
Thedmar himself had a
great hall, shops, houses,
rents, and a wharf all
within All Hallows
Haywharf parish. In York
early in the thirteenth
century the mayor, Hugh
of Selby, exported wool to
Flanders, and imported
wine from France, sending
some of it to the king. In
London exporting wool
and importing wine were
likewise fundamental
activities, together with
supplying wine and luxury
goods, cloth, gold and
jewels to the court. The
mayor, John de Gisors,
who married fitz
Thedmar’s sister, provided
the king in the 1250s with
wine worth some £250 a
year. This connection with
the court was strengthened
by London citizens holding
both the chamberlainship
of London, which gave
them responsibility for
buying the king’s wine,
and the keepership of the
London mint and
exchange.
Fitz Thedmar’s
chronicle of the city
breathes the whole spirit
of London’s rulers, jealous
of their privileges and
hostile to the lower orders.
The aldermen used and
protected their position by
preventing other
‘mysteries’ from
organizing, arguing that
the latter were only
seeking their own benefit
to the disadvantage of
everyone else, both
customers and workforce.
Fitz Thedmar portrayed
the uprising of the 1260s
as one of the ‘people’, and
many non-citizens may
well have flooded into the
meetings of the folkmoot.
But the leaders headed the
‘mysteries’ which had been
held down by the
aldermen, and now briefly
got their trade ordinances
ratified. Of these, far and
away the most important
were the fishmongers and
the cordwainers. The
former bought from the
ships at the wharves (trade
with the Baltic in
particular was expanding),
while the latter made high-
quality goods from leather
imported from Cordoba in
Spain. A master
cordwainer might well
have eight men working
for him in his shed. These
and other ‘mysteries’ saw
their new charters nullified
in 1274, but they could
not be held down
indefinitely and by the end
of the century fishmongers
were becoming aldermen.
The rulers of London,
York and Newcastle upon
Tyne were typical among
urban elites in acquiring
property in the country as
well as the town. It was
often from the country
that they or their forebears
had come. Around 1300
the rulers of Newcastle
included both the younger
son and the heir of local
gentry families, the latter,
Peter Graper, using his
success in the town to re-
establish his position in
the country. Around this
time leading citizens of
York and Newcastle were
being knighted by the
king. In terms of outlook
and way of life there was
much which held the
urban and rural elites
together. All this helps to
explain how town and
country could co-operate
politically, with the mayor
of London being one of the
twenty-five barons
appointed to enforce
Magna Carta in 1215, and
later, of course, knights
and burgesses joining
together in parliament.
***
The political role of the
country gentry in the
1260s, and especially of
the knights who were its
leaders, was as striking as
that of London. Knights
fought in the armies, held
local office as sheriffs, and
at the national level
appeared as
representatives of the
shires in parliament. The
records of the lawcourts
and the chancery which
appear from the start of
the thirteenth century
make it possible for the
first time to trace the
careers of such men in
detail and to sense their
importance. Take the
example of William fitz
Ellis, who flourished in the
decades after 1190. His
chief seat was the
substantial manor of
Waterperry in south
Oxfordshire. He was also
lord of nearby Oakley in
Buckinghamshire, and held
other property in
Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.
If his income was around
£50 a year, it was less than
the median income of the
couple of hundred barons,
which was around £115 a
year according to one
sample, and was dwarfed
by that of the dozen or so
earls, some of whom in the
thirteenth century had
annual revenues of several
thousand pounds. None
the less his income, if we
are right in our estimate,
was well above the
minimum required to
qualify for knighthood,
which the government set
from the 1220s at £15 or
£20 a year. It made him a
very substantial member of
the knightly class. Fitz
Ellis was a fighting knight
and went to Ireland in
John’s army of 1210. The
military might of the
knights remained vital to
their power. Equally
important was their role in
the administration of law
and local government. Fitz
Ellis attended the
Oxfordshire county court
and gave judgements there
with his fellow knights. He
also sat on numerous
common law juries, and
served the king on various
local commissions: in
Oxfordshire he assessed
and collected the great tax
of 1225 in return for
which the final definitive
version of Magna Carta
was issued. In the Charter
fitz Ellis had indeed a
personal interest. Under its
terms he had in 1215
secured the return of
Oakley, which King John
had taken from him ‘by
will, unjustly and without
judgement’. Lordship or
the lack of it was also
important to fitz Ellis’s
career. The family’s chief
seat at Waterperry had
originally been held from
the d’Oillys, Oxfordshire’s
greatest baronial family,
and in other circumstances
this feudal link might have
been highly significant. In
fact, however, the bond
had been weakened by a
settlement in the 1180s
which placed a tenant
between the fitz Ellises
and the d’Oillys, a tenant
from whom Waterperry
was thenceforth held. In
any case Henry d’Oilly (c.
1180–1232), the last of the
male line, was an
incompetent nonentity.
Fitz Ellis himself seems to
have acted independently
of any lord. Other d’Oilly
tenants entered the service
of a rival local magnate,
Thomas Basset of
Headington, who was
Oxfordshire’s sheriff in the
1200s.
The power of men like
fitz Ellis, therefore,
derived in varying degrees
from their property,
military prowess, and
tenure of local office. They
might be independent of
great lords or profit from
their service. Many such
families sustained their
power over generations. A
hundred years after
William fitz Ellis, his
descendant, Robert fitz
Ellis, was still lord of
Waterperry and Oakley.
He also acquired property
through marriage, raised
troops for the Scottish
wars, served the great
magnates Roger Mortimer
and Hugh Despencer,
worked for the king as
Oxfordshire sheriff and
escheator, and left a
magnificent knightly effigy
in Waterperry church by
the same sculptor as that
of the earl of Cornwall in
Westminster Abbey. By
this time family pride was
displayed in a coat of arms
which in its fleur de lys
made punning reference to
the fitz Ellis name.
Central to the survival
and success of the fitz
Ellises was the way their
principal properties were
kept intact down the
generations. The structure
of the family and the way
it handled property were
fundamental to the
workings of society. We
have already discussed the
view that the Norman
Conquest accelerated the
transition from clan to
lineage, from the extended
to the dynastic family, so
that property, instead of
being divided widely on
death, descended through
primogeniture, that is to
the eldest son (see above,
p. 87). Certainly such was
the case with the chief
properties of large
numbers of families in the
twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. The sense of
lineage thus created was
often emphasized by the
use of the same selection
of first names and the
adoption of a surname
either derived from an
ancestor, as with the fitz
Ellises, or from a place,
usually of the family’s
principal property.
Throughout the thirteenth
century the lords of Rycote
(in Great Haseley) in south
Oxfordshire were called
‘Fulk of Rycote’. When a
son and heir was at last
born to Fulk II on 16
November 1295, he gave a
great pair of gloves to his
steward and joyfully
dispatched letters and
messengers announcing
the birth to his neighbours
and relations: the line
would continue.
The primacy of eldest
sons did not mean that
siblings were left without
provision. A study of the
gentry of Angevin
Yorkshire by Hugh Thomas
has shown how in practice
a modified form of
primogeniture was
common, with the
principal property
descending to the eldest
son while arrangements
were made to give younger
sons an endowment and
daughters a marriage
portion. Since by law as
well as custom all property
held on death descended
by primogeniture, such
arrangements had to be
made during life. The
property used could come
from acquisitions but also,
if necessary, from the
inheritance. The amounts
involved varied according
to the wealth of the
family. In minor gentry
families, younger sons
might have endowments of
as little as fifty or sixty
acres, which made them
no more than substantial
freemen. A family like the
fitz Ellises could afford to
be more generous. William
fitz Ellis provided some
hundred acres of land as a
marriage portion for one
daughter, and his
descendants later parted
with whole manors
(Corton in Wiltshire and
Tiddington in Oxfordshire)
to set up a junior line.
In terms of the descent
of property, family
structure thus seems
‘nuclear’. Parents provided
for their children, not for
their wider kin. Likewise
when King John took
hostages it was sons he
wanted, not kinsmen. Yet
kin continued to matter,
and people knew all about
it because the prospect of
failure of direct heirs and
of an inheritance passing
to a collateral branch gave
every incentive for the
study of genealogy. There
was also an assumption
that the wider family
might be relied on for
support. Hence those
related to litigants by
blood (de consanguinitate)
were removed from juries;
hence the promise in the
Coronation Charter of
1100 that children and
their lands should be
placed in the custody of
their widowed mother ‘or
another of their relations’.
At the high political level
the Beaumont family,
brothers, brothers-in-law
and cousins, were an
important faction in
Stephen’s reign. As
administrators the
Glanvills, brothers, cousins
and relations through
marriage, had their hands
in many branches of Henry
II’s government. Great
ministers like Ranulf
Glanvill and Hubert de
Burgh naturally sought to
promote their relations,
just as their relations
looked to them for
promotion. In such
circumstances the kin
could become, in the
words of J. C. Holt, ‘a
mutual benefit society’.
 There was, however,
nothing necessarily
cohesive about family
units, whatever their form.
In both the 1215–17 and
1263–7 civil wars fathers
and sons sometimes took
opposite sides, mirroring
the conflict between Henry
II and his sons which lay
at the heart of the civil
war of 1173–4. Moreover,
in one significant area the
law of inheritance gave
rise to dispute, in part
because it touched upon
the very claim of the royal
house to the throne. After
Richard’s death without
children in 1199, John had
become king at the
expense of Arthur, the son
of his elder brother,
Geoffrey of Brittany, who
died in 1186. In
comparable circumstances,
did the better claim to
succeed lie with the child,
like Arthur, of a deceased
elder brother who had
never inherited, or with
the latter’s younger
brother? Rather than
settling the matter, John’s
accession simply ensured
that it was kept open.
Between the Mandevilles
and the Says, and within
the families of Percy,
Braose and Quency, there
were disputes along
equivalent lines, disputes
whose course was
determined more by
politics than by law.
Within the nuclear family
itself the fact that all the
children had some
expectation of provision
could also lead to friction,
pitching sons, daughters
and sons-in-law against
each other. The closer the
family relationships the
more significant they were
likely to be, but that might
be significance as a source
of conflict just as much as
a source of co-operation.
The celebrations
surrounding the birth of
Fulk III of Rycote in 1295
reveal another aspect of
local society, namely the
tremendous importance of
ties of neighbourhood. It
was to the villages within
a ten-mile radius of Rycote
– Shabbington, Chalgrove,
Ewelme – that the letters
and messengers
announcing the arrival
went out. It was from men
living in that area that
Fulk II had drawn his
steward, clerk and squire.
And it was from the other
gentry families in that area
that Fulk had found both
his wife and a husband for
his daughter. In all this he
was absolutely typical.
Such local associations
could also be carried into
national politics, which
accounts in part for the
way rebels in the 1260s
were so often concentrated
in regional pockets (see
above, p. 379).
 In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries the
basic structure of the
family seems to have been
remarkably stable. Ties of
neighbourhood had always
been important. But
society in this period was
also changing in
significant ways. Families
like the fitz Ellises and the
Rycotes were part of what
historians often call ‘the
gentry’, that group of men
found in each county who
were lords of one or a few
main properties and were
active in local affairs. The
thegns were the gentry of
late Anglo-Saxon England
and the county knights the
gentry of the early
thirteenth century. In the
course of the thirteenth
century, however, the
nature of knighthood
altered radically, laying
the foundations for the
gentry of the later Middle
Ages, one stratified into
knights, esquires and
gentlemen. At the same
time the gentry were
becoming involved far
more intensively than
before in litigation and
local government, and
were also operating within
changing frameworks of
magnate power.
Central to the
emergence of the late
medieval gentry was the
decline in the number of
knights which took place
in the thirteenth century.
In the 1200s, according to
the calculations of Kathryn
Faulkner, there were
roughly 4,500 knights
throughout the counties of
England, judging, that is,
from the numbers of men
who appeared as such on
juries and in the
performance of other legal
and administrative tasks. A
middle-sized county like
Oxfordshire might have
had something over a
hundred knights,
Lincolnshire three times as
many. A hundred years
later the number of
knights had shrunk to as
few as 1,250. The knights
of the 1200s had varied
greatly in their wealth.
The most numerous were
lords of single manors with
incomes of between about
£10 and £20 a year. Above
this group were better-
endowed families like the
fitz Ellises, and below it
knights who had only very
small manors or parcels of
land not in manorial form
– some perhaps the
descendants of the
professional soldiers given
small amounts of land
after the Conquest.
Essentially what happened
in the course of the
thirteenth century was that
knighthood became
confined to higher-echelon
families like the fitz
Ellises. Then in the
following centuries the
descendants and successors
of the families who had
given up the honour
adopted status titles of
their own, at the upper
level that of esquire and at
the lower that of
gentleman.
Within the context of
the thirteenth century, the
decline in the number of
knights was significant
because it created a high-
status elite of knights who
acted as leaders of the
gentry, considerably
increasing the influence of
the body as whole. The
decline in numbers seems
to have taken place fairly
rapidly in the first half of
the century. The growing
number of juries,
commissions and offices
which (so the king said)
needed to be staffed by
knights made it
increasingly important to
define, at the local level,
who exactly held the rank.
Many of those who
appeared as knights on
juries in the 1200s were
probably accepted as such
because they vaguely
looked the part. But
increasingly that was not
good enough. To be a
knight it became necessary
to go through a formal
initiation ceremony which
involved being girded with
the sword of knighthood.
But those conferring the
honour, either the king
himself or a great lord,
were not prepared to
admit anyone to a rank
they had long considered
highly honorific. They
expected the candidates to
have the right equipment
(to take up knighthood
was called ‘to take military
arms’) and a fitting
retinue. Not surprisingly,
therefore, it was only the
upper levels of the old
knightly class of the 1200s
who could still afford the
rank. Even some of those
who did have the
wherewithal refused to
assume the honour, hoping
to avoid knighthood’s
military and
administrative
responsibilities.
One important
hypothesis also links this
decline in numbers with a
much wider social and
economic crisis which, it is
argued, engulfed
descendants of the knights
in the thirteenth century.
Such men ran into debt
and were compelled to sell
property, sometimes to the
point of extinction, to
religious houses and royal
ministers. It was these
difficulties, so the
argument runs, which
explain both the general
pressure for local reform in
1258–9 and the
Montfortianism of many
individual knights. In
1255, for example,
Stephen de Chenduit, lord
of Cuxham in Oxfordshire
and Cheddington and
Ibstone in
Buckinghamshire, owed
£55 to the Jew Abraham
of Berkhampstead. During
the civil war, Chenduit
deserted his lord, Richard
of Cornwall, and threw in
his lot with Montfort who
obligingly pardoned the
interest on his Jewish
debts. Afterwards, having
survived Evesham but with
his finances worsened by
the penalties of rebellion,
he sold up to the king’s
chancellor, Walter of
Merton, who used his
lands to endow his new
Oxford college. One cause
of such crises, it is
suggested, was the rising
cost of knighthood. Thus
the expense of assuming
the honour was the stated
cause of the debts of
Nicholas of Whichford in
1233. Stephen de Chenduit
himself may well have
overspent in the flashy
circle of Richard of
Cornwall. Another cause
was the inflation early in
the century, for middling
and smaller landholders, it
is argued, were far less
able to counter this than
the great – less able, that
is, to increase manorial
rents, and to create large
demesnes in order to sell
more corn on the rising
market.
There is no doubt that
decaying knights like
Stephen de Chenduit were
familiar figures in the
thirteenth century.
Whether they were typical
is less clear. A study of a
large group of knights
from the midlands
involved in the 1260s
rebellion has not revealed
any pattern of pervasive
debt. Studies of
representative groups from
Oxfordshire,
Buckinghamshire and
Warwickshire seem to
show that families which
began the century with at
lest one manor of
reasonable size usually
came through (if the male
line survived) with the
bulk of their property
intact and sometimes
enlarged. Families in
difficulties, like the
Whichfords, often showed
remarkable resilience and
staying power. Around
1200 the fitz Ellises
themselves lamented their
great need, but the need
was for money to finance
litigation and this
eventually considerably
increased their properties.
The costs of knighthood
can scarcely have
paralysed the whole group,
because most simply
declined the honour. If
general economic
conditions were more
difficult than in the twelfth
century, knightly lords
were quite able to put up
rents (like the Rycotes),
and increase the size of
their demesnes, as Stephen
de Chenduit’s father did at
Cuxham. Many knightly
manors had demesnes
quite as large as those
envisaged by the great
expert on husbandry,
Walter of Henley.
Meanwhile the class was
constantly being
replenished by the
successful lawyers and
administrators who
married into old families
or bought up the
properties of those on the
way down. In short the
general political
importance of the gentry
in the thirteenth century
should be seen against a
background of underlying
economic strength rather
than of weakness.
At the time in the early
thirteenth century when
the stratification of the
gentry into ranks was
beginning, it was also
being transformed in
another way, namely
through its increasing
involvement in litigation
and local government. Of
course, the gentry had
always been involved in
both. The cry ‘Act like
thegns’ which went up
before the thegns gave an
important judgement in
the Herefordshire county
court in the time of King
Cnut would have struck a
chord with the knights
who gave similar
judgements in the
thirteenth century. But
now alongside their role in
the county courts, which
met much more frequently
than in the Anglo-Saxon
period, the gentry staffed
the juries on which the
new common law
procedures depended,
monopolized the old office
of the sheriff, and filled
the plethora of new offices
called into being by royal
government, acting as
coroners, escheators,
keepers of the peace,
assessors and collectors of
taxation, justices of assize
and gaol delivery, and so
on. The common law
brought gentry litigation
into the royal courts on an
altogether novel scale:
between the 1190s and the
1220s William fitz Ellis
and his mother were
involved in over fifteen
separate actions before the
justices in eyre and the
common bench at
Westminster. The whole
framework of gentry life
was being transformed.
At the centre of this
activity there usually
emerged a small group of
knights, bearing the main
burden. Nicknamed
‘bigshots’ (buzones) they
appear constantly as
jurors, commissioners,
office-holders, and
attenders at the county
court. Robert Damory,
Ralph fitz Robert, Gilbert
of Finmere, Fulk I of
Rycote, Richard Foliot of
Rousham – these were
some of William fitz Ellis’s
colleagues in Oxfordshire
in the early thirteenth
century. While such men
all had ties to their
immediate neighbourhood,
they were also very much
part of what
contemporaries called ‘the
community of the shire’.
Of course such
communities could be the
reverse of cohesive. When
William fitz Ellis and a few
colleagues gave a
controversial judgement in
the Oxfordshire county
court in 1222, ‘nearly all
the knights of the shire’
rose up as they did not
wish to be involved. But
the question of how the
county was run and
represented inevitably
gave everyone in the shire
a common and exclusive
concern, for each county
had its own local officials
and its own MP; indeed
the latter specifically
represented ‘the
community of the shire’.
MPs and coroners were
both elected in the county
court. Its regular monthly
or six-weekly meetings
brought together the
gentry and the stewards of
the great magnates (the
two were often one and
the same), who gave the
judgements. Nor were its
meetings without
significance for it retained
jurisdiction over minor
cases of debt and detention
of chattels, while a
growing number of writs
enabled other litigation to
be initiated there. From
such county concerns grew
national political
programmes. Essentially
the gentry wanted the
holders of local office to be
chosen from and by itself,
thus achieving congenial
government ‘by one of us’.
When in the 1200s the
Somerset knight Richard
Revel spoke of ‘native men
and gentlemen of the
country’, he was precisely
contrasting such men with
the outsider sheriff. In
calling in the gentry to
staff local offices, the king
was in part giving way to
demand. Several counties
in John’s reign bought the
right to have a sheriff
chosen ‘from themselves
and wholly resident in the
county’ and it was
essentially sheriffs of that
type who were appointed
under the reforms of 1258.
It was in response to
similar pressures that
Magna Carta in 1215 had
laid down that the king’s
judges touring the shires to
hear civil assizes were to
sit with four knights of the
county chosen by the
county court, a striking
testimony to the ambition,
expertise and self-
confidence of the knights.
In general in the later
Middle Ages the gentry
achieved their ambition
and largely monopolized
local office. How far they
had achieved ‘self-
government at the king’s
command’, in the words of
the historian A. B. White,
depended on the local
power of great lords. In
some regions throughout
the medieval period –
regions which varied
according to the rise and
fall of families and the
changing structures of
great estates – that power
was limited, and the
gentry could make their
own political decisions and
create their own local
order or chaos. Yet there
were equally times and
places where great lords
were dominant. Alongside
the ties of family and
neighbourhood, the power
of lordship was often
fundamental to the
workings of local society.
Here too important
changes were taking place
affecting the way that
power was exercised, a
change sometimes
described by historians as
the transition from
‘feudalism’ to ‘bastard
feudalism’.
The feudal structures
which the Normal
Conquest introduced into
England have already been
described (see above,
pp.84–7). They turned on
the relationship between
the baron (as a major
tenant-in-chief was called)
and his tenants. This
relationship was initiated
by the ceremony of
homage in which the
tenant became the ‘man’ of
his lord, and swore loyalty
for the land he held from
him. In return for the land,
the baron was owed the
service of a specified
number of knights by each
tenant, or a money
payment, scutage, in its
place. He could also profit
from what historians have
called ‘the feudal
incidents’, exacting a
payment (a ‘fine’ or
‘relief’) from a tenant to
enter his inheritance,
taking the revenues from
tenanted estates during
minorities, and controlling
the marriages of widows
and (when in wardship)
those of heirs and
heiresses. Tenants were
also obliged to attend the
lord’s honourial court
where, among other
things, disputes over the
possession of tenanted
land and the services owed
for it could be judged. The
entity formed by the
baron’s tenants and
demesne manors (the
manors he kept in hand) is
variously described by
modern historians, with
some contemporary
warrant, as his ‘fee’,
‘barony’ or ‘honour’ (hence
‘honourial court’). Since it
was passed on to the
baron’s heir, it had some
kind of continuous life.
There has been much
debate among historians
about the strength of these
feudal structures in the
period down to 1166 and
the pace of their decline
thereafter. This is not
surprising because from
the start barons could
exploit their feudal rights
in different ways and with
different consequences.
They might see them as a
source of loyal service or
simply of revenue. They
might retain authority
over some tenants but not
others. And they might
deal with tenants simply as
individuals or as part of
some kind of honourial
community. Honours also
had very different histories
and structures. One should
think less of a set of neat
feudal pyramids than of a
range of hills like that
around Wastwater in
Cumberland, hills of all
shapes and sizes, merging
into one another, some
solid, others with their
sides slipping into the lake.
Honours might have just a
handful or large numbers
of tenants. The proportion
between land held by
tenants and that kept in
demesne also varied
widely. In the twelfth
century between 150 and
200 baronial honours were
in existence but it was
only with the stipulation
in the 1215 Magna Carta
that a baron should pay a
£100 relief for his ‘barony’
that any clear distinction
emerged between estates
which were baronies and
which were not.
Within a large honour
there was also a great
diversity among the
tenants themselves. In the
Ferrers honour of Tutbury,
for example, there was a
group of around ten major
tenant families, including
the Shirleys and the
Bacquepuits (see above,
pp. 79–83), most with
traceable origins in
Normandy, who were
established soon after the
Conquest, each usually
receiving several
properties of substantial
size. Such leading tenants,
found on most large
honours, were sometimes
described by the lord in
the early twelfth century
as his ‘barons’, probably as
a general recognition of
their status rather than as
an indication of any
precise position. Below
such major players there
was a much larger and
diverse group of tenants,
some with very small
holdings, others middling
members of the gentry. All
told in 1166 the Ferrers
honour had forty-five
tenants owing a notional
service of around seventy-
nine knights, the Shirley
lord at the top of the scale
owing nine knights, and
many of the smaller
tenants at the bottom only
one. The honour was
scattered across fourteen
counties, but had a solid
core in west Leicestershire,
north Staffordshire, and
Derbyshire, a core watched
over by the great castle of
Tutbury, rising on a cliff
above the river Dove. Its
jagged ruins still seem to
dominate the southern
Derbyshire plain.
Honours from the start
were neither self-contained
institutions, as we shall
see, nor the sole bases for
baronial power. From the
first, barons sought
jurisdictional privileges
from the king (like private
hundreds and
wapentakes), and coveted
the office of sheriff either
for themselves or for one
of their men. Until
earldoms became largely
titular under Henry II, they
too might be an important
source of local authority.
In Stephen’s reign the
Ferrers appear as earls of
both Nottingham and
Derby (the latter was their
title from 1199), while
their steward was for a
time sheriff of both
counties. Their local power
was also strengthened by
the tenure of the
Derbyshire wapentakes of
Wirksworth and Appeltree,
the first held initially
under Henry I, the second
finally acquired under
King John.
When all the
qualifications have been
made, however, there can
be little doubt that within
the total mix of baronial
power under both the
Norman and Angevin kings
feudal structures were very
important. At the very
least the feudal incidents
provided the baron with a
unique set of rights that
were simply not present in
any other type of
relationship. There was
also more to feudalism
than simply making
money. The ceremony of
homage was solemn and
significant. As Glanvill
explained, it was supposed
to create a ‘bond of mutual
trust’ between lord and
tenant, with the latter
owing services and the
former protecting the land
from which they were due.
The idea of the loyalty a
tenant owed his lord and a
lord his tenant was
integral to the society of
the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. Two factors
helped turn theory into
practice. One was that
honours often mirrored
that of Tutbury in having a
solid geographical core.
Feudal structures were
always most effective
when underpinned by ties
of neighbourhood. The
second was that honours
often had a high
proportion of tenants
lacking substantial
property held from other
lords. A legal tract in the
reign of Henry I, The Leges
Henrici Primi, avowed that
a man’s chief loyalty was
owed to the ‘liege lord’
from whom he held his
principal property, and for
many tenants in the
twelfth century it was
perfectly clear who that
should be.
There is abundant
evidence from the twelfth
century of a close
relationship between lords
and their tenants. Both
Earl William III de
Warenne (died 1148) and
Robert, earl of Gloucester
(died 1147), are seen in
the witness lists of their
charters very much in the
company of their leading
men. It was from their
tenants in the first half of
the twelfth century and
beyond that barons often
drew their stewards and
other officials. In
cementing such relations,
and in making the honour
a real community, an
important part could be
played by mutual
attachment to religious
houses. A charter of Earl
Robert de Ferrers (1101–
39) making a grant to
Darley abbey was
addressed ‘most especially
to all the barons and men
of my honour’. Darley, like
the abbey at Tutbury, had
been founded by the
Ferrers, and together they
served very much as
honourial monasteries
receiving benefactions
from many of the tenants.
Likewise, many tenants
responded when their lord
Gilbert fitz Richard (1090–
1117) urged them to make
gifts to the monastery he
was founding at Clare.
Evidence for the
functioning of the
honourial court is limited
but Henry I stipulated that
it should deal with land
disputes between tenants
of the same lord. In the
first century after 1066
one should not underrate
the utility of its justice and
over-estimate that offered
in the courts of the king.
In the 1160s it was in the
court of Earl Ferrers, not
that of Henry II, that an
important agreement was
reached settling the future
of the Shirley inheritance.
If Henry II’s new legal
procedures served to
weaken baronial authority,
the increasing incidence of
scutage under Henry and
his successors had the
opposite effect, since
barons had to control their
tenants in order to collect
it. The result was almost
certainly to invigorate
honourial administration.
Viewed from many angles,
England in the 1200s still
seems very feudal. Magna
Carta regulated the
exploitation of the feudal
incidents, and took for
granted the existence of
the honour and the loyalty
of tenants to their lords.
During the 1215–17 civil
war, if there were many
independent knights like
William fitz Ellis, there
were equally many barons
who were followed by
their tenants either in
rebellion or, as in the case
of William de Ferrers, earl
of Derby, in loyalty to
King John (see above, p.
288). The honour as a
community can still be
sensed in several
agreements in the 1200s:
the tenants of the
Worcestershire Beauchamp
honour, for example,
offered King John £1,333
(2,000 marks) to have
control of their lord and
his lands during his
minority.
 This feudal theme can
be pursued deep into the
thirteenth century. Lords
collected a scutage from
their tenants with
reasonable success in
1235, continued to exploit
reliefs, marriages and
wardships, protected such
rights by striving to
prevent the creation of
intermediate or ‘mesne’
tenancies (like that at
Waterperry), and insisted
on the obligation to attend
their private courts (hence
the need for legislation on
the subject in 1259).
Before he finally forfeited
everything for rebellion in
1266, Earl Robert de
Ferrers, last of the line, is
seen in his charters
surrounded by tenants,
many of whom now bore
coats of arms which were
derived from the Ferrers’
own. It was entirely in
feudal terms that the
Ferrers knight Richard de
Vernon justified his
conduct between 1263 and
1266: ‘In the time of the
war he stood with his lord,
Robert de Ferrers, earl of
Derby, from whom he held
his land and to whom he
had done homage.’
 By this time, however,
such ideas of feudal
loyalty were increasingly
losing touch with reality.
Vernon himself seems in
fact to have left the service
of Earl Ferrers for that of
the Montforts. Although
impossible to measure in
any detail, the civil war of
1263–7 wears a distinctly
less feudal aspect than that
of 1215–17. While,
moreover, great barons
continued to exploit the
feudal incidents, the
number who exercised
such rights over an
extensive body of tenants
was almost certainly
diminishing. Honours like
that of the Ferrers which
continued to have some
kind of communal life
were probably exceptional.
That was partly because
the life of an honour had
always been liable to
disruption or termination.
They could be forfeited for
treason and then granted
out again, in whole or in
part, to entirely new lords.
An honour might equally
pass to a new family
through the marriage of an
heiress. If there were
heiresses, then it was
divided between them and
ceased to exist as a single
entity. No less than fifty-
four of the 189 baronial
honours existing in 1166
had passed into the female
line at least once since
1086. The Ferrers were
lucky indeed in continuing
the male line all the way
down to their forfeiture in
1266. Alongside barons
from ancient families,
there were always new
men, often royal servants
(like William Brewer), who
were building up large
estates, composed of
demesne manors and a
hotchpotch of feudal
tenants, which were not
baronies at all. As the
number of such estates
increased while that of
undivided honours
declined it became
impossible to regard the
great men of the realm
simply as those who were
baronial tenants-in-chief.
Under the terms of Magna
Carta in 1215 it had still
been the latter who were
to receive a personal
summons to parliament,
but in practice in the
thirteenth century the king
came to summon whoever
was wealthy and
important, irrespective of
whether they enjoyed
baronial status.
Even where honours
remained intact, there
were factors which helped
tenants escape the control
of disagreeable or
ineffective lords. The
greater tenancies seem to
have been hereditary from
an early stage. Lower
down the scale, lords
retained some power to
chop and change (certainly
this seems the case in the
honour of Clare), but
gradually in the twelfth
century the lesser
tenancies too became
heritable. That tendency
was reinforced by the new
legal procedures of Henry
II, which also diminished a
baron’s ability to discipline
his men through seizing
their lands. There were
other ways too in which
tenants might gain
independence. Many lords
were as ineffective as
Henry d’Oilly in
preventing the creation of
mesne tenancies. The Leges
Henrici Primi already
considered the problems
which could arise if
tenants lived far from the
baronial centre or held
significant lands outside
the honour from other
lords. While such conflicts
of loyalty often affected a
minority of tenants, as we
have said, that minority
often included the
wealthiest members of the
honour. The honourial
court itself was certainly
no self-contained
institution. Under Henry I
cases were almost
certainly transferred from
it for default of justice to
be heard by the county
court or by the king
himself. Under Henry II it
no longer required default
of justice to effect such
transfers, for the new
common law legal
procedures opened up a
range of ways in which
tenants could litigate
directly before royal
judges. Likewise it was the
under-tenants who staffed
the juries required by the
new procedures and came
to hold the array of new
local offices called into
being by Angevin kingship.
As the structures of
feudalism weakened, so in
the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries new forms of
magnate power developed,
forms of what historians
have called bastard
feudalism. Driving on this
development, as Peter Coss
has argued, was the threat
posed to magnates by the
direct relationship the king
was forging with under-
tenants. The relationship
had always existed, but the
Angevins, as we have seen,
strengthened it many times
over. In effect, bastard
feudalism was the
response. Here there were
three interrelated strands.
The first was that lords
retained whoever they
liked in their service,
whether or not they were
tenants. Clearly this was
an absolutely necessary
response to the king’s own
claim, enunciated in The
Dialogue of the Exchequer in
1178, that he himself
could employ any man in
his service, no matter from
whom that man held his
land. Lords had to be able
to do the same if they
were not to be left behind.
It was the competition for
good service as well as
good lordship which
weakened the honour,
breaking it up from above
as well as from below. No
ambitious lord could
afford to be stuck with a
circle of dud tenants, just
as no ambitious tenant
could afford to be stuck
with a dud lord. In the
second half of the twelfth
century, therefore, retinues
which owed little to
tenurial connections begin
to appear, as David Crouch
has shown: William
Marshal, earl of Chepstow
and Pembroke (1190–
1219), had no tenurial
links with twelve of the
eighteen knights closest to
him. The second feature of
bastard feudalism was the
way in which great lords
sought particularly to
retain men whom the king
appointed to local office,
thus nullifying the threat
to themselves implicit in
such employment. In the
1220s the earl of Warwick
seems to have been
constructing a following
very much of this kind. If
great lords had long
sought to control the office
of sheriff, they now strove
to bring a much wider
range of officials within
their orbit. In spinning
such webs of local control,
magnates were helped by
changes in the structures
of local government in the
thirteenth century which
arguably gave the king a
less powerful presence in
the shires (see below, p.
492). In the 1260s the
complaint was that the
sheriffs and bailiffs were
the creatures of the
magnates and the king’s
judges their ‘tributaries’,
implying that they were
retained with annual
money payments or ‘fees’.
 Reference to such fees
reflects the third feature of
bastard feudalism, that
rewards took the form of
money rather than of land.
‘Its quintessence was
payment for service,’
wrote K. B. McFarlane of
bastard feudalism. The fact
was that after the initial
bonanza following the
Norman Conquest, land
was in increasingly short
supply. The great majority
of the tenancies revealed
by the great survey of
1166 had been created
before 1135, while those
of later date were often
small in size. Clearly lords
were becoming cagey
about parting with land,
the most valuable of all
commodities. Most of
William Marshal’s
followers seem to have
been rewarded not with
land but with offices and
other favours. They may
also have received money
‘fees’, for whereas land
was scarce, cash – with the
huge expansion of the
money supply (see above,
p. 40) –was abundant.
Scott Waugh has
demonstrated how lords in
the thirteenth century
increasingly rewarded
their servants with such
fees, beginning with their
legal advisers and estate
stewards, and then moving
on to their knights as well.
In this they were imitating
the king. He had always
used money to recruit
mercenaries to fight in his
armies. Now in the
thirteenth century he
began to use money fees
on a regular basis as a
reward for household
knights, judges and other
senior officials. That
retention through money
was becoming the norm
was revealed in 1270
when the Lord Edward, at
a cost of 22,500 marks,
entered into formal
contracts with eighteen
English lords who were to
supply him with 225
knights for his crusade.
The implication was that
the lords would use the
cash to recruit their own
retinues.
During the course of the
twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, at a pace uneven
both chronologically and
geographically, the
structures of feudalism had
waned and those of
bastard feudalism had
waxed. In managing the
transition, great lords
certainly preserved the
essentials of their power
but the new structures
were more fluid and
kaleidoscopic than the old,
leaving the gentry
correspondingly more
independent. That after all
was the view of the
government. Under the
terms of Magna Carta it
was the barons and other
lesser tenants-in-chief who
were still to answer for the
kingdom in matters of
taxation. Taxes were
indeed granted by such
feudal assemblies in 1225,
1232 and 1237. But from
the 1250s the crown felt it
necessary to summon
knights representing the
counties to give their own
assent. This surely
reflected a major shift in
how society was perceived.
In 1215 the barons could
still answer for the realm
because it could still be
seen, in certain lights, as
composed of a series of
honours in which each
baron commanded the
allegiance of a defined
body of knightly tenants.
Fifty years later this no
longer seemed to be the
case. The knights and
through them the men of
the shires must answer for
themselves. The
appearance of the knights
in parliament is the best
measure of the new society
which was emerging in the
thirteenth century.
***
Beneath the lords of the
manors, but above the
peasantry (because they
did not labour
themselves), were large
numbers of freemen
holding, at a rough
estimate, between forty
and a hundred or so acres
of land. This group has
been little studied by
historians, yet it was
immensely important for
the functioning of local
society. The group was fed
from below by men rising
from the ranks of the
peasantry and from above,
as we have seen, by the
establishment of junior
branches of minor gentry
families. Some members
were descendants of the
soldiers established on
small parcels of land after
the Conquest, others of the
kind of English families
found on the hundred
juries which had given
evidence for the making of
Domesday Book. These
freeholders were essential
to the running of the
hundred, indeed were
formed inevitably into a
kind of community by so
doing. At the three-weekly
sessions of the hundred
courts they gave
judgements in cases of
minor debt and disorder,
and reviewed the more
serious crimes which were
passed up to the king’s
justices on their eyre
visitations. At the eyres,
they usually outnumbered
lords of manors on the
hundred juries which gave
evidence to the judges. Of
the jurors at the 1263
Surrey eyre, 70 per cent
appeared again as jurors at
other eyres. When such
men litigated they
generally did so for
property within their
hundred. These groups
were therefore
experienced, tightly-knit
and local. They acted as a
hinge between the
peasantry and the gentry.
In so far as there was a
genuine community of the
realm, they did much to
forge it.
 Peasant society itself
has been studied far more
intensively than that of the
freemen just above it,
though such studies mostly
begin at the end of our
period, being facilitated by
the advent of manorial
court rolls. At the peasant
level the nuclear family of
parents and children
remained the central social
institution. Indeed, if life
expectancy was lower
among the peasantry, then
three-generational families
were correspondingly less
common than higher up
the social scale. Zvi Razi’s
work on the manor of
Halesowen in Shropshire
suggested that tenants
aged twenty could expect
to live another twenty-five
to twenty-eight years.
Given that their normal
age of marriage was
around twenty, there was
little time to enjoy
grandchildren. On the
other hand, some parents
did live long enough to
surrender their property to
their sons. Formal
maintenance agreements
were exceptional. Children
had an obligation to look
after their aged parents.
 Inheritance customs
among the peasantry
varied. In the south and
east, especially in Kent and
East Anglia, partible
inheritance was prevalent
with equal division among
all the sons. Elsewhere the
heir was more usually
either the eldest son
(primogeniture) or the
youngest son
(ultimogeniture). Under
both systems daughters
only inherited in default of
sons. Even where
inheritance was
impartible, however,
nuclear families felt a very
strong obligation to
provide for the non-
inheriting children, thus
enabling them to marry.
Sometimes that might
amount, as with one
couple at Houghton-cum-
Wyton (Hunting-donshire),
to no more than a room in
the house or a dwelling in
the courtyard together
with ‘all the necessities of
life’. But more often the
aim was to endow younger
sons and daughters with
land in order to help them
set up separate
households. If necessary
that land came from the
inheritance, but it was
clearly better if it could be
acquired. The acquisition
of small parcels of land in
order to provide for
younger sons and
daughters was one of the
main engines driving the
village land market. How
far the establishment of
non-inheriting children
created extended families
as a significant force in
village life depended very
much on local economic
conditions. At Brigstock in
Northamptonshire, where
the resources of the
neighbouring forest
relaxed pressure on the
land, conjugal households
appear (in Judith Bennett’s
study) as comparatively
distinct and autonomous.
At Halesowen, on the
other hand, where land
was at more of a premium,
and a family’s main house
and holding might be
surrounded by the cottages
and smallholdings of its
junior members, the
extended family was a
working unit. At the
village level, of course,
families quarrelled over
the allotment of property
just as they did higher up
the social scale, but the
imperative to co-operate
was also much stronger –
indeed co-operation could
quite literally be a
condition of survival.
Peasant society was
stratified between
smallholders with
tenements of a few acres at
the bottom of the scale
and substantial families
with thirty-acre holdings
at the top. There were also
individual peasants, often
officials such as the reeve,
who through the workings
of the village land market
succeeded in building up
more substantial estates. If
these were then broken up
to provide for younger
children, occasionally a
family (like the Knivetons
in Derbyshire) ascended
over several generations
into the knightly class. It
was the poor smallholders
who were most at risk
from the economic
conditions of the
thirteenth century. At
Halesowen, while the top
and middling families
seem to have kept their
lands relatively intact from
the 1270s down to 1348,
only 35 per cent of the
smaller families did so,
sometimes selling out to
their wealthier neighbours.
Within each manorial
complex the peasant
condition depended very
much, of course, on the
level of the lord’s
exactions. It depended too,
if the peasants were
villeins (that is, unfree), on
how far the lord exploited
his consequent rights, a
much debated subject (see
above, pp. 53–4). Even the
half of the peasant
population which was
unfree, however, had a
direct relationship with
royal government, and was
thus very much part of the
wider realm. For a start,
the king drew on all his
subjects for defence of the
realm; hence the ‘Assize of
Arms’, which laid down
the arms required by
everyone according to
their wealth, made no
distinction according to
status, and insisted that all
who were able-bodied
should at least have bows
and arrows. Peasants were
therefore armed by
government decree. They
were also very much
embraced by the king’s
maintenance of the peace
because serious crime was
always the concern of the
crown, even if committed
by the most lowly peasant.
At the most basic level of
law enforcement the
peasants were organized
into ‘tithings’, groups of
ten men who provided
collective security for each
other’s good behaviour. It
was on entering such
groups at the age of twelve
that peasants took their
oath of fealty to the king.
Some lords obtained or
usurped the right to carry
out themselves the annual
check on whether the
peasants were all arrayed
in their tithings (‘the view
of frankpledge’), but if not
this was done by the
sheriff at the hundred
court. If a tithing failed to
arrest a delinquent
member, then it was
punishable by the king’s
judges. It was the village
communities too which
had to pay the murdrum
fine to the king when they
could not prove a dead
body was that of an
Englishman – in practice,
this meant a peasant. The
reeve and men from each
village nearest to which
bodies were found also
had to attend coroners’
inquests. It is striking
testimony to the way local
concerns reached the
national level that both
Magna Carta in 1217 and
the Provisions of
Westminster in 1259
alleviated peasant burdens
in these areas, the former
by limiting exactions by
the sheriff at the checking
of the tithing groups, and
the latter by abolishing the
murdrum fine in cases of
misadventure, and
preventing a judge
amercing a village because
all adult males had not
attended an inquest. A
combination of lordly self-
interest and idealism
contributed to such
reforms; but peasants were
also quite able to protest
for themselves.
 Manorial court rolls are
full of fines for bad
ploughing and default of
reaping. At Little Ogborne
(Wiltshire) the whole
village was punished for
not coming to wash the
lord’s sheep. Resistance
could also be violent. The
villeins of Brampton in
1242 chased the lord’s
bailiffs back to
Huntingdon and rescued
‘with axes and staves’ the
animals they had taken.
The culprits could not be
named individually since
‘the greater part of the
village’ was there. There
were also numerous
lawsuits in which the
peasants complained of
increased burdens imposed
on them by their lords.
Unfree peasants, of course,
were denied access to the
king’s courts in any
matters concerned with
their lands and rents, but
such cases proceeded
when the peasants claimed
either to be free sokemen
or the specially privileged
class of peasants who lived
on ‘ancient demesne’
manors, that is manors
anciently in the king’s
hands. In the latter case
the plaintiffs were perhaps
imagining a mythical time
when everyone had been
directly subject to the king
and had access to his
courts. Since lords always
responded to these claims
by saying the peasants
were actually villeins, the
cases turned on the
question of status. In one
suit the peasants of Mears
Ashby (Northamptonshire)
litigated from 1249 to
1261 until at last they
secured victory, appearing
before the justices of the
common bench, king’s
bench (this during the
great revolutionary
parliaments at Oxford and
Winchester in 1258), and
then before the justiciars
of the reforming regime,
Hugh Bigod and Hugh
Despencer.
 This movement at
Ashby was led by
substantial peasants, each
with around thirty acres of
land, who fought the case
‘for themselves and the
other men of Ashby in
common’. The community
of the village was the
lowest rung of the
communities in England
created by the needs of
government, in this case
the need to govern the
workings of the manor. Up
to a point the peasants
were forced to do that in
the lords’ interests, but
they could also do it in
their own, especially as
they gave the judgements
at the manorial court and
assessed the amercements
imposed by it. At
Brightwalton (Berkshire)
the villeins gave verdicts
‘according to the custom of
the manor’ on complex
disputes over inheritance,
put up candidates to act as
reeve and, as the ‘whole
community of the villeins
of Brightwalton’, reached
an agreement with their
lord (the abbot of Battle)
over rights of common.
Village society was
stratified and competitive
yet could co-operate for
the common good. It also
had wide horizons and
plenty of political training,
hence the role of the
peasantry in the
revolutionary period
between 1258 and 1267.
In 1265 ‘the community of
the village’ of Peatling
Magna (Leicestershire) was
able to see itself as very
much part of the wider
‘community of the realm’.
 ***
‘Women differ from
men in many respects for
their position is inferior to
that of man,’ opined the
great law book Bracton,
put together in the 1220s.
The reason, of course, was
partly biblical, going back
to Eve’s role as Adam’s
serpentine temptress.
Other female failings (in
the view of the mid-
thirteenth-century Oxford
friar, John of Wales) were
garrulity, sloth and
ostentation, notably in
dress and make-up. Walter
Map, writing in the 1180s,
declared that women led
to only one thing:
‘mischief’. How necessary
then the injunction in
Ephesians 5:22–23: ‘Wives
submit yourselves unto
your own husbands, as
unto the Lord. For the
husband is the head of the
wife, even as Christ is the
head of the church.’
Women also needed
protection because they
were frail. When Ughtred
Smith of Botland pulled an
arrow out of his head
before going home it was
‘so that my wife may not
see it, for she would
perhaps grieve over much.’
Strong man. Weak woman.
In fact it was not always
as simple as that. Women
were not all weak. In May
1267 when the widow
Desiderata met her friend
William de Stangate
coming along with a
crossbow over his
shoulder, she asked him in
jest (clearly well informed
about national events)
whether he was one of
those sent by the king to
apprehend evildoers. Then,
declaring she could
overcome two or three like
him, she grabbed his neck,
crooked her leg and threw
him to the ground. While
it may be true that the
status of women declined
markedly in theological
writings in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries,
many ecclesiastics
remained remarkably free
of such prejudices,
especially when
confronted with real
women. St Anselm
corresponded extensively
with noblewomen, treating
them as equals and
individuals, respecting
their abilities and stressing
their influence as civilizers
of their husbands and
teachers of their children.
Orderic Vitalis, in the first
half of the twelfth century,
portrayed noblewomen as
co-operators with their
husbands, and
discriminated between
their different
personalities. He certainly
criticized individual
women, but never the sex
as a whole. A hundred or
so years later another
great chronicler, Matthew
Paris, viewed the many
noblewomen of his
acquaintance in a similarly
balanced light.
It is true, of course, that
the positive view of a
wife’s role in marriage
found in writers like
Anselm and later Thomas
of Chobham reflected their
subordination. If they
exercised power it was
through influencing their
husbands. It is equally true
that where women acted
strongly on their own
account they were often
said to act like men, just as
when men acted weakly
they were said to act like
women. Yet this too did
not alter the admiration
for women who did act
manfully and on their
own. Matthew Paris gave a
long account of the way
the widowed countess of
Arundel, ‘a woman but not
acting in women’s fashion’,
upbraided Henry III for his
injustices. In the same way
Orderic Vitalis wrote
enthusiastically of Isabella
de Conches, ‘generous,
daring and light-hearted…
who rode armed as a
knight among the knights’.
Indeed, women who
fought were widely
esteemed. In the mid
thirteenth century the
gentry family of Hotot still
remembered their
ancestress, Dionisia, who
in the troubles of Stephen’s
reign, had charged a
knight and unhorsed him
with one blow from her
lance.
 The position of women,
therefore, as Judith
Bennett has remarked, was
full of ambivalence and
contradictions. In many
ways they were
subordinate, yet they
could be real partners
within marriage, and
independent agents
outside it, especially as
widows. Moreover both
the restraints and the
opportunities were
remarkably similar, with
certain exceptions, at all
levels of society.
The general inferiority
of the female sex in male
thinking and the more
particular subordination of
wives in marriage were
certainly reflected in and
reinforced by the exclusion
of women from many
areas of public life: private
women, public men.
Women did not serve on
juries and did not act as
judges, sheriffs and
castellans save in the rare
cases where they inherited
a family position, like
Nicola de la Haye (see
above, pp. 252, 299).
Within towns they could
be members of gilds but
they never held office.
Within the village they
never acted as reeves or
ale-tasters and were not in
tithings. A limited public
role is also reflected in the
way women were rarely
either the victims or the
perpetrators of crime. In a
Lincolnshire sample of 322
people accused of
homicide in 1202 and
between 1281 and 1284,
only 5.6 per cent were
women, and many of these
were acting with male
accomplices. Only 13.6 per
cent of the 286 victims
were women, mostly as a
result of domestic
violence. As for other
crimes, women were most
likely to be involved in the
non-violent activities of
larceny and receiving,
although even here the
numbers were low: of 341
people accused of larceny
between 1281 and 1284
only twenty-five were
women.
Women were also more
restricted than men when
it came to bringing
‘appeals’ (that is,
accusations) for personal
injury. In law, as stated in
Glanvill, they could only
do this for rape and for the
murder of their husbands
provided they had
witnessed the crime.
Although in practice
appeals for robbery,
wounding and the death of
sons and fathers were also
allowed, increasingly in
the thirteenth century the
judges became more
restrictive and applied the
letter of the law. Success
in rape actions was low.
Not one of twenty-seven
cases from Lincolnshire in
1202 resulted in a
conviction. In twenty-two
of them the victim failed
to prosecute, perhaps
forcing an out-of-court
settlement, perhaps
intimidated by having to
detail the events. Not
surprisingly, the number of
actions fell markedly in
the course of the century.
It should be remembered,
however, that nine out of
ten men accused of rape
are still acquitted today.
Women, especially once
married, were also second-
class citizens when it came
to rights over property.
Under feudal custom and
the common law to which
the law and custom in
towns and manors often
approximated, a daughter
could inherit but only in
default of sons (see above,
p. 89). Within marriage
the husband gained total
control of both his wife’s
inheritance and her
marriage portion
(maritagium), the
endowment given by her
natal family. He could
alienate them on his sole
authority, as he could also
alienate land to which his
wife would be entitled
after his death as dower.
(Dower was supposed to
amount to a third of the
land the husband held on
marriage, together with a
third of any subsequent
acquisitions unless another
amount was stipulated.)
‘Legally a woman is
completely in the power of
her husband,’ wrote the
law book Glanvill.
In some ways, however,
the law also encouraged
co-operation between
husbands and wives. If
wives could not prevent
husbands alienating their
possessions, they could as
widows challenge such
alienations. A wise
husband secured the
consent of his wife. Many
of the grants made by
twelfth-century earls of
Chester were said to have
been agreed by their
countesses. The latter were
also permitted to pursue
policies of their own,
notably in making
endowments to favoured
religious houses. In fact
there were many areas in
which wives worked
closely with their
husbands and not always
as their civilizers. Early in
the twelfth century within
the town of Huntingdon,
the parents of the future
recluse Christina of
Markyate were absolutely
at one in trying to force
her into marriage, and it
was her mother who
resorted to physical
violence. Among the
baronage, one can sense
real political partnerships
between couples like
Matilda and William de
Braose, Matilda and Roger
de Mortimer and Simon
and Eleanor de Montfort.
These were very much the
types of women admired
by Orderic Vitalis and
Matthew Paris. The
household roll of Eleanor
de Montfort in 1265 shows
her moving around with
her large establishment as
it suited the needs of the
Montfortian government,
for a time taking command
at Dover castle. In May
and June 1265, she sent
letters and messengers to
the sheriff of Hampshire,
the constables of
Wallingford and
Kenilworth, the prioress of
Amesbury and the
countesses of Devon and
Lincoln, as well as to her
husband and her son who
was besieging Pevensey
castle.
Within the home itself,
a wife’s role could be of
central importance.
Matilda de Braose was
praised by Gerald of Wales
for the economical way
she ran her household. The
association of women with
household supervision is
shown in the law book
Bracton which opined that
a woman, in some forms of
tenure, would come of age
(and thus be marriageable)
when ‘she knows how to
order her house and do the
things which belong to the
arrangement and
management of a house’. A
wife might also be
involved in educating her
children, as Anselm
envisaged: the baroness
Denise de Montchensy, in
the mid thirteenth century,
taught her offspring
French, the language of
‘husbandry and
management’. In this way
wives forged close
relationships with their
children and naturally
became involved in the
politics of how they should
be endowed and whom
they should marry.
At the level of the
village, the impression
from coroners’ reports on
accidental death is that
women were at home (or
fetching water) and men
were out at work. But that
may simply reflect
women’s non-domestic
work being less dangerous
than men’s – for example
weeding, reaping and
spinning, rather than
ploughing. One striking
fact to emerge from
licensing fines is the
number of women
brewers. The capital
involved in brewing meant
such women were usually
married (hence ‘ale
wives’), often to village
officials and craftsmen like
reeves and smiths. In
villages like Brigstock and
Langtoft (Lincolnshire)
women dominated
brewing, a core of
professionals working on a
regular basis and other
women moving in and out
of the business from year
to year. Women were also
active as brewers in towns.
In Lincoln at different
times in 1292–3 between
twenty-nine and fifty-two
women were involved,
respectively 22 per cent
and 44 per cent of the
total number of brewers.
Other female trades at this
time included those of
seamster, huckster,
mustard-maker, midwife,
salter, girdler, furmager
(cheese-maker),
ironmonger and taverner.
 The marital status of
these Lincoln women is
often unclear. Many were
wives but others were
probably spinsters and
widows, which brings us
to the position of women
outside marriage. As we
have seen, the public
invisibility of women was
partly due to their
supposed subordination to
their husbands within the
conjugal household. Yet
there were also women,
spinsters and widows, who
had no husbands at all,
and were sometimes heads
of their own households.
They did not thereby gain
equality with men in the
public arena – gender
stereo-types were far too
strong for that – but they
did have more
independence for good or
ill than in the married
state.
Spinsters with their own
land were far more
prevalent at the lower than
the higher levels of
society. Indeed among the
nobility it is difficult to
find examples of spinsters
holding substantial
acreages of land. The
church certainly stressed
that the free consent of
both parties was necessary
for valid marriage, but
since women were allowed
to give that consent at the
age of twelve it did not
amount to very much. Any
woman who could expect
a significant inheritance or
endowment was likely to
be married in her teens, as
decided by king, lord or
family, so the question of a
period of independence as
a landed spinster simply
did not arise. Within the
parental home an
unmarried daughter might
be given considerable
responsibility. In
Huntingdon, Christina of
Markyate was not merely
dressed finely, she was
also given custody of her
father’s substantial
treasure. But there was no
question of her setting up
on her own outside
marriage, and it was only
flight which enabled her to
do so. On the other hand,
the smaller the expectation
of land and the less the
local shortage of it, the
more likely it was that a
woman would marry late
or not at all. In that case, if
she had at least some
property, she might well
have her own household.
On the 1240 Suffolk eyre a
striking number of single
women, apparently
spinsters, are found
fending for themselves,
bringing actions of mort
d’ancestor, novel disseisin
and entry, often over just a
few acres. Within the
manor of Brigstock there is
likewise evidence of
landed spinsters, fathers
endowing daughters with
small amounts of land
sometimes years before
they married, land for
which they answered
themselves in the manorial
court, and on which
perhaps they lived. How
far such women were truly
autonomous, and how far,
if they were, they enjoyed
their autonomy, must have
depended in part on the
size of the provision. For
some, without help from
their families,
independence was perhaps
no more than
independence to starve.
Marriage, on the other
hand, might bring security.
The irony was that while a
lack of resources made a
husband necessary, it also
diminished the prospect of
finding one.
 If spinsters, for good or
ill, could have an
independent role as
landholders and litigators,
it disappeared on
marriage, only to reappear
in widowhood. Under
manorial custom widows
recovered control of their
inheritances and
endowments and were also
entitled to a dower,
sometimes amounting to
half of their late husband’s
lands. It was also common
for women to have custody
of the paternal inheritance
when heirs were under
age. All this explains why
in many villages between
10 and 15 per cent of the
holdings were in the hands
of women. Widowhood
could transform the lives
of peasant women,
replacing, in the words of
Judith Bennett, ‘public
reticence with public
assertion’. At Brigstock, for
example, Alice Avice
litigated in the manorial
court far more frequently
as a widow than as a
married woman, and
generally played a much
fuller part in village life.
Higher up the social
scale widows were in a
similar position with
respect to land. Feudal
custom and the common
law entitled them, on the
death of their husbands, to
control their inheritances,
marriage portions and
dowers. Magna Carta in
1215 tried to ensure that
they entered into control
of all three without
difficulty. The growth of
the common law too had
helped widows, notably by
providing them with two
standard form legal
actions. One of these
enabled a widow to
recover land which her
husband, ‘whom she could
not contradict while
living’, had alienated from
her inheritance or
marriage portion; the
other enabled her to
recover her dower. There
were parallel procedures
in the towns. In fact, most
widows gained their
dowers without trouble,
especially if the heir (from
whose land it came) was a
son. But problems arose
when the husband had
alienated the dower (often
actions had to be brought
against large numbers of
his grantees) or where the
inheritance had passed
into other hands or into
wardship. On the Surrey
eyre of 1263 seventeen
widows brought dower
actions, the majority with
success.
The wealthier the
widow, of course, the
greater the pressure to re-
marry since the more
valuable was the prize for
a second husband (see
above, pp. 89–90). In the
case of widows of tenants-
in-chief that pressure
could come from the king,
as it could come from a
baron in the case of
widows of under-tenants.
Despite promises to the
contrary in the Coronation
Charter of 1100, the
twelfth-century kings all
forced widows into re-
marriage or took large
sums of money from them
not to do so. In 1130 Lucy,
countess of Chester, owed
Henry I £333 for
permission to stay single
for just five years. The
pressure on widows
became particularly acute
from the 1190s as the
king’s financial difficulties
multiplied; Magna Carta
therefore reiterated the
Charter promise of 1100.
This time it had real effect.
While in John’s sixteen-
year reign 149 widows
offered an average of 278
marks apiece to avoid
compulsory re-marriage,
the equivalent figures for
the fifty-six-year reign of
Henry III were forty-four
widows and eighty-seven
marks. Widows were freer
to marry whom they
wished and many perhaps
were keen to do so. ‘I re-
married because as a weak
and feeble woman I was
not able and did not know
how to control my dower,
and my inheritance from
my father, and my other
rights and properties’: this
was how the friar Ralph
Bocking imagined female
thinking. After 1215,
however, it was easier to
take the option to remain
single. Some noblewomen
certainly had long
widowhoods in the twelfth
century, including several
countesses of Chester, but
the list is much longer in
the thirteenth: Isabel de
Forz, countess of Aumale
and Devon (1260–93),
Isabella, countess of
Arundel (1243–82),
Matilda, countess of
Gloucester (1262–89),
Alice, countess of Lincoln
(1258–1311), Matilda de
Mortimer (1282–1301)
and Margaret de Lacy,
countess of Lincoln and
Pembroke (1245–66) are
just a selection of its
formidable widows.
The aim of Magna Carta
in 1215 had not been to
create a body of
independent baronial
widows. Rather, the point
was to safeguard the
interests of male heirs who
had no wish to see their
mothers’ extensive lands
taken away by second
husbands. Yet some
widows surely also
enjoyed the power and
freedom that came with
widowhood. They
administered their lands
themselves and, though
they often consulted their
heirs, were entitled to
make alienations from
their inheritances and
marriage portions on their
own sole authority, often
doing so to endow
religious houses and create
portions for younger
children.
The career of Margaret
de Lacy, studied by Louise
Wilkinson, encapsulates
the change between wife
and widow. She was
married at the age of
twelve in 1221 to John de
Lacy, lord of Pontefract,
who was twenty-nine. The
idea was for her to bring
to Lacy the inheritance of
her mother, Hawisia, a
sister of the childless
Ranulf, earl of Chester and
Lincoln, an inheritance
which was planned to
include both the honour of
Bolingbroke and the
earldom of Lincoln itself.
Lacy died in 1240, having
indeed gained the
earldom, and Margaret
made a brief second
marriage to Walter
Marshal, earl of Pembroke,
who died in 1245. After
that, although holding
dower thirds from two
earldoms as well as her
own honour of
Bolingbroke, she remained
unmarried until her death
in 1266, when she chose to
be buried not beside either
of her husbands but beside
her father, who had died
in 1217. As a widow, with
her son and heir Edmund
de Lacy (born in 1230)
married to one of the
queen’s Savoyard
relations, Margaret became
very close to the court. Her
chief aim was to advance
the interests of her family,
and to do it herself.
Instead of passing the
honour of Bolingbroke to
her son (as some widows
did with their inheritances,
although not legally
obliged to do so), she kept
it in hand and vigorously
increased its lands for his
ultimate benefit. She also
headed the team which
negotiated the marriage of
her grandson Henry to the
Longespee heiress, a
marriage too good to be
missed, despite the fact
that both were children.
On her son’s early death in
1258, she and his widow
Alice succeeded in buying
the wardship of his lands
from the king.
 It is very much within
such family contexts that
the careers of noblewomen
should be placed. As girl
brides they were pawns,
but as wives, and even
more as widows,
depending on age,
personality and
circumstance, they could
play important roles in
influencing and shaping
family policies, exploiting
the conventions of the day
just as they had been
exploited by them. The
Coronation Charter of
1100 had given to widows
(safeguarded against
forced re-marriage) the
custody of the lands and
persons of their under-age
children. It was not a
promise which was kept,
nor was it repeated in
1215. A century of royal
exploitation meant that
control over wardships
was something no king
would give up. If they
were obtained by widows
it was only occasionally
and, as with the Lacys, at a
price. Yet the aspiration of
the 1100 Charter remains
significant. There could be
no better indication of the
trust which was placed in
women, trust in their
competence to administer
estates and their
commitment to the future
of the family.
In getting their way
women made use of all
possible contacts, male
and female. But was there
something distinctive –
consciously so – in their
contacts with fellow
women, for example in
those between Eleanor de
Montfort, the prioress of
Amesbury and the
countesses of Devon and
Lincoln? What is certain is
that noblewomen were
surrounded in their
households by other
women. When Margaret de
Lacy was staying at court
in September 1252, the
queen gave brooches to
four of her female
attendants. The same was
also true of wealthy
townswomen. Both her
servants and her wider
female circle are reflected
in the twenty women
(double the number of
men) to whom Avice de
Crosseby, widow of a
Lincoln citizen, made
bequests in her will. In
such ways women were
able to shape a world of
their own.
***
Some of the major
themes emerging from
discussion of the English
nobility and gentry in the
twelfth and thirteenth
centuries are also relevant
in Scotland. Scotland after
all had comparable ‘feudal’
lordships with knightly
tenants, and local
government divisions
(ultimately called shires)
under sheriffs. When King
Alexander III entered each
sheriffdom on his tours of
the kingdom, he was met
by the sheriff and ‘the
chosen knights of the
shire’, according to Walter
Bower, writing in the
fifteenth century but
perhaps using earlier
evidence. It sounds very
English. Within the feudal
lordships inheritance
practices were similar to
those in England, as were
the workings of both the
nuclear and extended
families. The position of
noblewomen was also
comparable with
daughters inheriting
jointly in default of sons
and widows having the
right to a dower third,
with access to action by
writ (‘the brieve of terce’)
to obtain it. Lack of
evidence, however, means
there is no equivalent to
the thousands of English
baronial and knightly
families whose histories
can be worked out in
detail. For that reason it is
hard to chart how the
relations between lords
and followers changed
over time. In significant
ways, moreover, the
framework was different
from that in England. The
Scottish earldoms and
great provincial lordships,
existing as they did outside
the area of the
sheriffdoms, the crown
pleas and the common
law, had no parallel in
England. As a consequence
the great Scottish lords
may well have had a far
tighter control of the lives
of their tenants and
subjects than was the case
with the nobility south of
the border. Equally, within
the sheriffdoms there was
neither the same
proliferation of royal
offices staffed by local men
nor the same volume of
common law litigation as
there was in England, so
the whole texture of local
life was in that respect
very different.
In the thirteenth
century the Comyns
(studied by Alan Young)
provide a striking example
of how an extended family
group could work at the
political level (see above,
p. 335). The family also
illustrates another
important theme, one
peculiar to Scotland,
namely the increasing
accommodation between
old and new, between the
old native nobility and the
new nobility of Anglo-
Norman descent. The
Comyns originated in
Normandy (though they
did not come from a great
noble house) and had risen
in the service of the
Scottish kings. In or soon
after 1212 William Comyn,
justiciar north of Forth,
became earl of Buchan
through his marriage to
Marjorie, daughter of Earl
Fergus. This was the first
Scottish earldom to pass
out of native hands,
Comyn’s installation being
part of the king’s policy to
tie the north, home of
challenges to the throne,
more closely to the centre.
To help establish his
authority, Comyn founded
a Cistercian abbey at Deer,
an ancient monastic centre
and very much within a
Gaelic-speaking area,
where he was buried. He
and his descendants also
built or re-built the castles
(five ringed the earldom)
from which their demesnes
were administered. The
surviving castles
constructed by the
Badenoch and Lochaber
branch of the family at
Lochindorb and Inverlochy
show just how impressive
these must have been.
However, in this new
Comyn regime there was
also substantial continuity
with the past, in part
because Buchan was
already changing. Fergus,
the last native earl, had
himself made grants to his
native followers in very
much Anglo-Norman form,
giving Fedderate and
Ardendraught, for
example, to John, son of
Uhtred and his heirs, ‘as
any earl or lord in the
Scottish realm may infeft
any vassal’. Relief was to
be paid, and the lord’s
court at Ellon to be
attended three times a
year – just the kind of
attendance at private
courts often required of
knightly tenants in
England. John son of
Uhtred’s descendants soon
began to style themselves
‘of Fedderate’ like any
linearly structured English
knightly family. The
witnesses to his charters
shows that Fergus’s
entourage was composed
both of native lords and
knights of Anglo-Norman
descent. The latter can
likewise be found in the
entourages of other native
earls, who were certainly
quite familiar with knight
service and ‘feudal’ tenure.
Thus King William the
Lion granted Gilbert, son
of the earl of Angus, land
to be held in fee and
heredity for the service of
one knight ‘as honourably
as other knights hold their
lands from me in the
kingdom of Scotland’. The
seals of the great native
lords showed them
galloping along in full
armour. Their charters
(like those issued by Alan
of Galloway) might have
come from the Scottish or
English royal chanceries
themselves.
If the Scottish nobility
was changing, Comyn
himself, in taking over the
earldom, came halfway to
meet it. His entourage
included several men from
Fergus’s circle, notably the
latter’s illegitimate son, as
well as John son of
Uhtred, and Cospatric
Macmedethyn. Comyn
granted Cospatric land ‘in
fee and heredity’, but such
native landholders still
remained ‘different’ from
those of Anglo-Norman
descent, for example in
speaking Gaelic. In
associating with them,
Comyn in a sense was
making a conscious effort
to show he was ‘Scots’,
something also reflected in
the way he honoured his
father-in-law by naming
one son ‘Fergus’. In the
administration of the
earldom, Comyn retained
the old Celtic judicial
official of the brithem. He
also accorded an important
role to his wife. Marjorie
both witnessed his charters
and issued ones of her
own, sometimes styling
herself ‘the daughter of
Fergus once earl of
Buchan’ rather than
Comyn’s wife, thus
stressing her independent
status. It was such co-
operation at the local level
which underpinned the
universal Scottishness
emerging in the thirteenth
century (discussed in
chapter 1).
That Scottishness was,
however, perfectly
compatible with members
of the nobility retaining an
English identity as well,
something exemplified in
the history of the Comyns.
At first sight they appear
very much a family based
in northern Scotland, but
this is misleading. In 1264
the marriage of Alexander,
second earl of Buchan, to
one of the heiresses of the
Quincy earls of Winchester
and lords of Galloway
brought properties
throughout England to add
to those in Tynedale which
the family had held since
the twelfth century.
Alexander was reluctant to
travel south, but the
importance he attached to
the English properties is
shown by the way, long
before his death, he
granted some of the most
valuable to his eldest son.
All this was part of a wider
pattern, and one very
different from that in the
twelfth century. Henry I
had prevented cross-border
landholding. Now it was
extensive, and constantly
renewed through
intermarriage. In 1243 the
Umfravilles of Prudhoe in
Northumberland gained
the Scottish earldom of
Angus. The Bruces of
Annandale likewise
substantially increased
their English estates.
Indeed, according to one
story, it was on the family
manor of Writtle in Essex
that the future king,
Robert Bruce, was born.
According to Keith
Stringer’s calculations,
nine of Scotland’s
earldoms and half its
provincial lordships were
held at some time between
1200 and 1296 by lords
who also held estates in
England. Conversely,
fourteen of the twenty-
seven baronies in
Northumberland and
Cumberland were held in
the same period by lords
who held land in Scotland.
In 1290, all told there
were thirty lords and forty
religious houses with
significant holdings on
either side of the border.
Facilitated by the
meshing of the economies,
these links were both
cause and consequence of
the political peace which
illuminated Anglo-Scottish
relations in the thirteenth
century. There was no
problem about a great
Anglo-Scottish baron, John
de Vesci, leading
Alexander III’s punitive
expedition to Man in 1275
and commanding Edward
I’s forces in Anglesey two
years later. At Alnwick,
Vesci founded a hospital
on the spot where his
great-great-great-great-
grandfather King Malcolm
of Scotland was killed in
1093. (Vesci’s
grandmother was an
illegitimate daughter of
King William the Lion.) He
also preserved at Alnwick
a silver reliquary
containing the foot of
Simon de Montfort, with
whom he had fought at
Evesham. With his great
bases at Alnwick and
Sprouston straddling the
border, Vesci was very
much a northerner, but his
mother had also inherited
Kildare in Ireland and
Caerleon in Wales. He
himself died in the service
of Edward I in Gascony.
His body was brought back
for burial at Alnwick,
while his heart eventually
rested beside that of
Edward I’s Castilian queen
at Blackfriars in London.
Such nobles were
genuinely Anglo-Scottish
and were also part of a
much wider world.
***
In Wales the great
marcher baronies were not
unlike the earldoms and
provincial lordships of
Scotland. Compact in size,
beyond the remit of the
sheriffs, and with the
common law writs running
(if they ran at all) in the
name of the lord and
initiating actions in his
courts, the tenants of such
lordships were certainly
subject to much tighter
control than anywhere in
England, hence Richard de
Clare’s ability to deprive
Richard Seward of his
lands in Glamorgan, for all
the latter’s appeal to the
king. Within native Wales,
the cantref and commote,
were comparable to
administrative divisions in
England and royal
Scotland, but the
structures of society were
very different. There was
no equivalent to the
English and to some extent
Scottish hierarchy of
barons, knights, freemen
and unfree peasants.
Below the ruling families,
the only distinction
recognized by Welsh law
books was that between
the free and the unfree, all
the former being noble.
The free gave dues and
renders to the ruler,
including military service,
and lived off the labour
and renders of the unfree.
Free land, moreover, was
very much family land,
partible among all the sons
and grandsons, and
inalienable, according to
the Welsh law books,
without consent of the kin.
The reality of that was
reflected in the way native
grants to Margam abbey
frequently mentioned such
consent. The structure of
the family was thus much
more extended than in
England. After the
Conquest, Edward I
accepted the continuation
of partibility, and very
different customs over
inheritance were one
reason why the marcher
baronies, for legal
purposes, became divided
into Englishries and
Welshries.
However, changes were
taking place. Within Welsh
society there was pressure
to reduce the role of kin,
especially when it came to
liability for crime. The
men of Ceri ‘both great
and small’ asked Henry III
to grant them the ‘law of
the king’s lands’ so that, in
contrast to Welsh law, the
kindred would no longer
bear the responsibility if a
member committed
murder, theft or sedition.
There was also a blurring
of the distinction between
free and unfree families as
some of the former were
reduced in wealth by the
division of their lands
between numerous heirs,
and some of the latter
elevated in status by the
commutation into money
rents of labour services.
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd’s
insistence that both
‘nobles’ and ‘rustics and
ignobiles’ work together in
repairing his court
buildings shows he
thought them much on a
par, although the protests
reveal how cherished
noble status was.
Occasionally, as in
England, the unfree were
able to rise in the world.
One Meirionydd bondman,
Heylin ap Roger, paid for
permission to leave his
home in Tal-y-bont, and by
1292–3 was the wealthiest
taxpayer in the village of
Tywyn.
Most striking of all, at
least in the upper levels of
society, were the changes
in the area of marriage.
Here reforming
ecclesiastics had long
expressed horror at the
Welsh situation. Instead of
being solemnized and
overseen by the church,
marriage was an entirely
secular affair, as the
numerous provisions
concerning it in the law
books demonstrate. It was
common within the
prohibited degrees and,
under Welsh law, could be
ended for a whole variety
of reasons, including
adultery and bad breath.
Failure to produce heirs
was probably another
accepted ground. When it
came to inheritance, the
law placed both legitimate
and illegitimate offspring
on the same footing, which
reflected widespread
concubinage and also the
practice (referred to by
Gerald of Wales) of
marriage only once a
woman had proved herself
to be fertile.
In the twelfth century
Owain Gwynedd and the
Lord Rhys both married
first cousins, the former
braving Becket’s resulting
excommunication. The
succession to Gwynedd
after Owain’s death in
1165 was disputed
between his sons, both
legitimate and illegitimate.
Around the turn of the
century, however,
practices were beginning
to change, in part thanks
to Llywelyn the Great’s
desire to create and secure
the future of his own
dynasty. In 1203 he was
careful to obtain papal
sanction for a possible
marriage to a daughter of
the king of Man. In 1222
he got the pope to confirm
his ordinance giving the
succession to his legitimate
son, notwithstanding the
‘detestable’ Welsh custom
which put legitimate and
illegitimate sons on the
same footing. A growing
number of high-status
Anglo-Welsh marriages
began to take place, which
must presumably have
been in ecclesiastically
acceptable form. All the
rulers of Gwynedd and
southern Powys in the
thirteenth century married
royal or English baronial
women. Llywelyn the
Great married all four of
his daughters to English
barons, two of them twice
over.
These developments
were bound to have
repercussions on the Welsh
when marrying among
themselves. When in 1273
Owain ap Maredudd of
Ceredigion married
Angharad from the ruling
house of Cedewain it was
the possibility of
separation ‘by the church’
that he mentioned,
although he then hedged
his bets and added ‘or by
any other event’. The
Welsh law books
themselves reflected a
state of flux. One passage
defiantly rejected ‘church
law’ and asserted the
equality of legitimate and
illegitimate offspring;
another accepted that
Llywelyn’s ruling had
altered the situation and
that the law was now
contradictory; yet another
simply upheld the church
view of marriage and
inheritance. There were
also signs of change in the
position of women. Here
Welsh law had allowed
women to take the
initiative in ‘parting’, but
in contrast to the situation
in England and Scotland
there was no such thing as
female inheritance. In
default of sons, the
patrimony was simply
divided among the wider
male kin. Therefore there
were neither women
heiresses nor the great
widows so characteristic of
thirteenth-century
England. Women did not
generally hold land at all.
On marriage, provision
both by their kin and their
husbands took the form
(with some exceptions) of
goods, and it was a share
of the goods which a
woman would take away
when widowed or
separated. One passage in
the law books, however,
admittedly a solitary
instance, spoke of female
inheritance in default of a
male heir; this was clearly
influenced by English
practice, and when Owain
ap Maredudd married
Angharad he granted her
the commote of Anhuniog,
effectively as dower. Such
arrangements may well
have been common at that
level of society, although
the practice of providing
for wives and widows by
the concession of movable
goods was deep rooted,
and was another reason for
the division into
Englishries and Welshries.
These changes in
inheritance and marriage
were part of a broader
transformation in which
the society, economy and
politics of Wales were
gaining more in common
with those of England. In
their handwriting and
phraseology the charters of
the minor Welsh rulers
resembled those of English
lesser magnates. The
charters of the rulers of
Gwynedd were similar to
those of English earls and
the king. There was also
some equivalent in Wales
to the English country
gentry. In Meirionydd in
1292–3 there were about
seventy to eighty
substantial uchelwyr, that
is important leaders of
local society. They
supplied the holders of
local office and each had
movable property assessed
at £10 or more, being thus
as wealthy as at least
minor members of the
English gentry. These men
were not knights but then,
given the decline in
numbers, neither were
their counterparts in
England. Higher up the
social scale the ethos of
knighthood was important.
Like the barons of
England, it was as
mounted knights that the
Welsh rulers appeared on
their seals. Indeed they
had done so from the very
first seal of a Welsh ruler
to survive, that of King
Cadell ap Gruffudd of
Deheubarth of c. 1150.
Within the marcher
lordships of the south, the
process by which some of
the native ruling families,
like that of Afan in
Glamorgan, abandoned
claims to independent
status, took up
knighthood, sported coats
of arms and integrated
themselves into the
workings of the lordship
had begun by the mid
thirteenth century. Under
the exigent rule of the
Clares such
transformations were
probably a condition of
survival, but that the
native nobility enjoyed the
world of chivalric culture
is demonstrated by
versions of Chrétien de
Troyes’s Arthurian
romances appearing in
that classic collection of
Welsh epics known as The
Mabinogion. And perhaps
not all Welshmen needed
translations, for some of
the business letters of the
Welsh rulers in the later
thirteenth century (like
such letters in England)
begin to appear in French.
Another reflection of
chivalric attitudes amongst
the elite lay in the field of
political conduct. Murder
and mutilation as a
political weapon were
largely replaced in the
course of the twelfth
century by imprisonment.
After 1216, although
hopelessly fragmented, not
a single member of the
Deheubarth dynasty was
killed or mutilated by a
rival; between 1071 and
1116 no less than seven
had been. In this area, the
Welsh were now just as
‘civilized’ as the English.
***
 In October 1265 Queen
Margaret of France, wife of
Louis IX, wrote to King
Henry III. She was, she
said, hastening the arrival
of her sister to England
lest Henry, tired of
waiting, should marry
someone else, perhaps, she
went on to hint, the
countess of Gloucester.
Margaret was, of course,
joking. Her sister, Eleanor
of Provence, had been
married to Henry since
1236 and was now
returning to England after
her exile during the
Montfortian war. The
letter reveals the closeness
of the family ties which
linked the French and
English courts. It also
reflects the shared
attitudes and values which
made such ‘in’ jokes
possible. Despite the loss
of Normandy in 1204,
despite some laughter at
the way the English spoke
French, a common culture
bound the secular and
religious elites of Britain,
in varying degrees, to the
rest of western Europe.
The closeness of the
connection with both
France and Italy was
epitomized in Britain’s
greatest church, the new
abbey constructed by
Henry III at Westminster
between 1245 and 1269 in
honour of his patron saint,
Edward the Confessor.
Built partly in stone from
Caen in Normandy, the
radiating chapels around
the sanctuary, the censing
angels, smiling and
humane, in the south
transept, and the forms of
the lancet windows, from
which the ‘decorated’ style
of tracery spread
throughout Britain, had
their exemplars at Rheims,
France’s coronation
cathedral. It was from
there that Westminster’s
architect, Master Henry de
Rheims, had come. The
shrine of the Confessor,
the tomb of Henry III and
the great pavement before
the High Altar were
Italian, constructed from
coloured porphyry stones
taken from the buildings of
antiquity by the Italian
Cosmati family. The stones
and craftsmen to make the
pavement were brought to
England by the abbot of
Westminster, Richard
Ware, after a visit to the
papal court. The spread of
papal government of the
church and the wider
development of
ecclesiastical organization,
discussed in the next
chapter, were themselves
important factors in
homogenizing the different
parts of Britain and
integrating them with
Europe.
14

Church,
Religion,
Literacy and
Learning
In the two centuries after
1066 the face of Europe
was transformed by the
growing power of the
papacy. Its supreme
authority was clarified and
proclaimed in the new
study of theology and
canon law. Its ability to
govern the western church
was established through
new administrative
structures. In the course of
the twelfth century
England, Scotland and
Wales became fully
integrated into this papal
world. The consequences
for secular politics and
ecclesiastical life were
profound.
It was to the papacy the
rulers of Gwynedd
appealed in the thirteenth
century to settle the
succession of the
principality and complain
about the oppressions of
Edward I. Likewise it was
to the pope that the kings
of Scotland sent, if
unavailingly, to ask
permission for a full
coronation. In the politics
of England, in part because
King John had made the
kingdom a papal fief, the
role played by the pope
and his legates was as
remarkable as it was
usually constructive. After
John’s death the ultimate
authority in temporal
affairs of the legates,
Guala and Pandulf (1216–
21), was universally
accepted by the king’s
party. Guala, with the
regent William Marshal,
sealed the new versions of
Magna Carta in 1216 and
1217, while Pandulf, after
the regent’s death in 1219,
issued the crucial order
giving control of day-to-
day government to the
justiciar Hubert de Burgh.
Henry III never forgot his
debt to the papacy, hence
in part his trusting and
disastrous entanglement
with the pope over the
affairs of Sicily. During the
subsequent period of
reform and rebellion both
sides constantly made their
case at Rome, the papal
bull quashing the
Provisions of Oxford being
central to Henry III’s
temporary recovery of
power in 1261.
Subsequently Gui
Foulquois, legate in 1263–
4 and later Pope Clement
IV, fulminated against
Montfort’s regime, while
his successor, Ottobuono,
later Pope Adrian V,
laboured wisely and
indefatigably to restore
peace to the country after
Montfort’s death. He also
played a key role in
negotiations between
England and Wales, issuing
the letter which
proclaimed the Treaty of
Montgomery in 1267.
 The involvement of the
papacy in British politics
was in large measure a
response to demand. That
was equally true of the
growing part played by the
papacy in ecclesiastical
government, especially
when it came to the
dispensation of justice. The
background here was the
acceptance that there were
certain categories of plea
which were the concern of
the church, not the state.
In England since before the
Conquest that had been
true of moral and spiritual
causes concerning such
things as marriage,
adultery and wills. The
settlement after the Becket
dispute had likewise
subjected criminous clerks
to ecclesiastical
jurisdiction (see above, p.
208). In the course of the
twelfth century the
division between church
and state was also clarified
when it came to disputes
over property. Those over
advowsons, the right to
appoint parish priests,
were to go to secular
courts, and one of Henry
II’s assizes, that of ‘darrein
presentment’, was
introduced to hear them.
Cases over the property
(and there was a large
amount of it) which the
church held for secular
services, that is for rents or
knight service, were also
the preserve of the state.
On the other hand
property granted ‘in free
alms’ and held simply for
spiritual services was the
concern of church, as were
questions of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction and disputes
over elections to abbacies
and bishoprics.
A considerable body of
these ecclesiastical cases
could be settled in the
court of the bishop, but
the growing awareness of
papal authority
encouraged reference to
Rome either in the first
instance or on appeal.
Cases of major importance,
especially over elections,
were heard at the curia
itself, but in more routine
cases the pope’s response
to appeals was to appoint
local ‘judges delegate’ who
would hear the cases back
in Britain; one of the first
know examples followed
an appeal made by Bishop
Urban of Llandaff in 1132.
More than anything else in
the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries it was the
growing flood of appeals
to Rome and consequent
appointment of judges
delegate to hear them
which (as Jane Sayers has
put it) bound the
provinces to Rome and
Rome to the provinces.
Many such cases were
between ecclesiastics and
involved conflicts over
jurisdiction, and property.
Important laymen resorted
to the pope in disputes
over marriages and wills,
while knights and many
smaller fry frequently
appeared before judges
delegate in cases over
land, tithes and parochial
jurisdiction. A large part of
the life of the country was
embraced by the apparatus
of papal government.
 If the papal role in the
dispensation of justice, like
the growth of the English
common law, was a
reaction to local demand,
that was not the case in
two other areas where,
from the late twelfth
century, the pope became
more directly involved in
dealing with both the
British and the wider
European church: these
areas were taxation and
provisions. In asserting his
right to tax the church the
pope was able to reach a
modus vivendi with the
king of England because
taxation was often –
notably in the case of the
Sicilian affair – for joint
royal and papal purposes.
That did not, however,
make it other than deeply
unpopular with the
church. Even more
unpopular was the way the
pope asserted his right to
provide, in effect to
appoint, where necessary
or convenient, candidates
to ecclesiastical office.
Here he could certainly
come into conflict with
kings, especially when he
intervened in disputes over
elections to bishoprics, the
case of Canterbury under
King John being the classic
example. Later, both John
of Cheam, bishop of
Glasgow (1259–68), and
John Pecham, archbishop
of Canterbury (1279–92),
were provided against
royal wishes. But since the
pope also allowed many
royal candidates, both in
England and Scotland, to
reach the episcopal bench,
here too accommodation
was possible. The real
unpopularity of provisions
came lower down the
scale, when the pope
appointed his officials and
relatives to parish
churches and to cathedral
and other canonries. Those
provided were usually
absentees, simply taking
the revenues. If they did
show up, as Italians they
would not speak the
language. In either case,
they had prevented the
patrons, bishops, abbots,
abbesses, and lay lords (in
the case of parish
churches), from appointing
their own candidates.
Resentment was inevitably
tinged with hostility to
foreigners. In 1232 there
were attacks led by the
Yorkshire knight Robert
Tweng, on the property
and persons of Italian
appointees in several parts
of England. In 1245
complaints about
provisions were loudly
voiced by the English
delegation at the papal
council at Lyons. The
general venality of the
papal court made matters
worse; ‘oiling palms, not
singing psalms’ was often
thought to be the way to
make progress there. The
papacy was well aware of
the unpopularity of
provisions and often tried
to limit their number, yet
it had to support its
officials, as it also required
money to defend its
independence from the
Hohenstaufens and other
enemies in Italy. These
were the necessary
conditions for the
fulfilment of its primary
purpose, the purpose of
the whole church: the cure
or care of souls.
If that mission were to
be fulfilled, all committed
ecclesiastics agreed that
the church needed reform.
Equally, whatever the
criticisms, no one could
doubt that since the mid
eleventh century the
papacy itself had been
reform’s standard-bearer.
To that end under both
William the Conqueror and
Henry I (in 1125) it had
despatched legates to
England who had presided
over reforming councils.
Similarly in the thirteenth
century, councils were
held by the legates Otto
(1238–41) and Ottobuono
(1265–8). The
commissions of both
covered the whole of
Britain. Otto held a council
in Scotland, while
representatives from the
Scottish church attended
Ottobuono’s great
assembly in London in
1268.
Even more important
for papal leadership of
reform were the great
central councils in which
the pope brought together
the whole of the Catholic
church. These were the
Third Lateran Council of
1179 and the Fourth of
1215, the latter attended
by nine bishops from
England, four from
Scotland and two from
Wales. In a modern
English translation the
seventy-one decrees of the
Fourth Lateran Council run
to thirty-three closely
printed pages. The need
for such legislation was
intensified by changing
ideas about the spiritual
life of ordinary people,
ideas which made the
business of the cure of
souls all the more difficult.
Part of the background
here related to the concept
of the afterlife. Both the
Bible and the visions of
holy men revealed how, on
death, one’s soul might
either descend to the
torments of Hell, like the
rich man in the Dives and
Lazarus parable, or (like
Lazarus himself) be carried
away by angels into
Abraham’s bosom, the
state of bliss or Paradise
enjoyed by the righteous.
In either condition one
awaited the reunion with
the body and the ultimate
agony or ecstasy brought
by the Last Judgement.
What though of the
general run of men and
women who deserved
neither Paradise nor Hell?
Here Paris theologians
after 1170, following on
from St Bernard,
developed and popularized
the idea of a definite place
between the two, namely
Purgatory. Certainly one
was punished there, but
the very idea of purgation
implied hope. One might
move up through the
stations of Purgatory, and
perhaps even escape
altogether and reach
Paradise. One English
friar, Warin of Orwell, was
said to have ‘passed
through Purgatory without
delay and gone to the Lord
Jesus Christ’. If such were
the possibilities it became
crucially important to
consider how they could
be realized, and one way
at least of shortening the
time in Purgatory was
through proper confession
and penance here on earth.
In regulations which
opened up a new pastoral
mission for the church and
potentially transformed
the life of the laity, the
Fourth Lateran Council
decreed that ‘everyone of
either sex’ should confess
all their sins at least once a
year to their own priest
and strive to perform the
penance then enjoined.
Penance before 1215 had
often been imposed on a
tariff basis with fixed
penalties for various types
of sin. Now the ideal was
that it should be varied by
the priest in accordance
with the needs of each
individual as discovered in
the confessional. The
priest was to be ‘like a
practised doctor pouring
wine and oil on the
wounds of the injured,
diligently inquiring into
both the circumstances of
the sinner and the sin’.
The Fourth Lateran
Council’s injunction about
confession and penance
was immediately followed
by the statement that all
Christians were to receive
‘with reverence’ the
sacrament of the eucharist
at least every Easter. The
stress here upon the
eucharist reflected the way
the notion of
transubstantiation, as
developed in the twelfth
century, had, in the words
of Miri Rubin, ‘turned
communion into an
enormous event’. By
attending the daily Mass
every Christian could ‘see
his God on earth every
day’, see him at the
moment when the bread
was elevated by the priest
and ‘transubstantiated into
the real body of Christ’, to
quote passages from
English diocesan
legislation of the 1220s
and 1230s. When
communion was actually
taken, the body of God
was not merely seen but
actually tasted. This
supreme experience was
not to be assayed lightly
and was closed to anyone
in a state of sin, unlike
attendance at Mass itself.
Consequently, the decree
of the Fourth Lateran
Council directly linked
communion with
confession and indicated
that for the laity both
might perhaps take place
only once a year.
The responsibilities all
this placed on the priest
were awesome. He alone
could act as a confessor.
He alone could perform
the miracle of turning the
bread and wine into the
body and blood of Christ.
As a confessor, he
represented the church at
its most personal and
individual. As a celebrant
of the communion he
represented it at its most
universal, the same ritual
being performed every day
throughout the parishes,
abbeys and cathedrals of
Catholic Europe. The basic
structures governing the
life of the local priest were
comparable throughout
Britain and Europe and
had both strengths and
weaknesses. During the
twelfth century Scotland
and Wales had followed
England in gaining
episcopal dioceses (ten and
four respectively) with
defined territorial limits
and regular succession of
bishops. The Scottish
bishops had no
metropolitan head and
were accountable directly
to the pope. In England,
where there were fourteen
dioceses, Durham and
Carlisle (together with
Gallo-way in Scotland)
came under the
metropolitan authority of
York. The other English
dioceses were subject to
Canterbury, as were the
dioceses in Wales, Llandaff
and St Davids in the south
and Bangor and St Asaphs
in the north. By 1200 the
English dioceses were
divided into
archdeaconries, rural
deaneries and parishes. A
similar structure was
developing in Wales and
Scotland. By 1300 St
Andrews was fairly typical
of a prosperous British
diocese. It was composed
of two archdeaconries and
seven deaneries, and had
124 parishes.
In some ways this was
an impressive structure
which enabled the life of
the parish to be monitored
by a hierarchy of officials.
Yet it had serious defects.
Since it was often the local
lord who had built and
endowed the church
around which the parish
was formed, he naturally
appointed the cleric, the
rector, who ruled it. As a
result the right of
appointment (the
advowson) was in diverse
hands: king, baron, knight,
bishop or monastery, the
last because it was with
advowsons that many
monasteries were
endowed. The rector
derived his income from
the land attached to the
church (in England, the
glebe) and also from the
right to a tenth of the
produce from the parish’s
land (the tithe). It was
King David’s order that
tithe (‘tiend’) be paid in
Scotland, which really
initiated the parochial
system there. Often these
resources made rectors
very wealthy, many
(according to thirteenth-
century valuations) having
incomes of £15 a year and
upwards, £15 being the
minimum level at which a
layman qualified for
knighthood. It was this
situation which produced
the great evil which
bedevilled the medieval
church: the appointment
to livings of men simply
not interested in the cure
of souls. Patrons
frequently regarded the
advowson as simply an
item of property with
which they could support
clerical servants and
relations, which was why
disputes over advowsons
were the business of the
secular courts. In many
cases such appointees
drew the income and
rarely went near the
parish, hence the scandal
of non-residence. Some
indeed gathered a whole
clutch of livings, hence the
scandal of ‘pluralism’; and
there was yet another
scandal, the failure of
many rectors to take the
trouble to become priests
at all – hardly necessary if
they had no intention of
doing the job. Instead they
remained in minor orders.
Another variant was when
monasteries ‘appropriated’
the churches of which they
had been granted the
advowsons and took over
the entire revenues for
themselves. In all these
cases the parishes were
run by a motley
assortment of deputies,
vicars and chaplains, living
on pittances, often ill-
educated, and not up to
the job. Gerald of Wales
laughed at priests who
confused Barnabas and
Barabbas and Judas and St
Jude! The value of livings
could also have a rather
different tendency, namely
to encourage a married
and hereditary priesthood,
two further evils
stigmatized by reformers,
although such priests
could sometimes be
effective pastors.
It was these problems,
Europe wide, which the
Fourth Lateran Council
faced up to, issuing a
series of decrees designed
to secure an educated,
resident, remunerated,
continent and committed
priesthood; one which did
not, as the decrees said,
play dice, frequent mimes
and taverns, and stay up at
night gossiping and
feasting. The efforts made
by English bishops after
1215 to put these decrees
into practice is one of the
most impressive features of
the thirteenth-century
church. At first sight the
extent of such activity
might seem surprising,
given the number of royal
servants on the episcopal
bench. Although in theory
bishops were to be freely
elected by the canons or
monks attached to their
cathedrals, in practice such
electing bodies, willingly
or unwillingly, often took
full account of the wishes
of the king. So, as we have
said, did the pope if he
intervened. As a result,
between 1215 and 1272
twenty-two of the seventy-
eight bishops appointed in
England were royal
officials associated with
the wardrobe, chancery,
exchequer or law courts.
In fact, however, very few
of these men were simply
uninterested in reform.
Many left royal service on
their appointment, a
striking indication of how
powerful reforming ideas
had become. Thanks in
part to their training in
government, they were
often efficient diocesans.
They also (though not
always) helped to secure
the co-operation between
church and state on which
such work depended. The
king also acknowledged
the need for bishops whose
background was
ecclesiastical. Eight of the
seventy-eight bishops
appointed between 1215
and 1272 were monks,
while as many as forty had
university degrees and
some were celebrated
scholars. The latter were
particularly significant in
linking the church to
wider intellectual currents
in Europe. Paris scholars
included Richard le Poore,
bishop of Salisbury and
Durham (1217–28–37) and
Thomas Cantilupe, bishop
of Hereford (1275–83).
Nicholas of Farnham,
bishop of Durham (1241–
9) had taught medicine at
Bologna, Alexander
Stavensby, bishop of
Coventry (1224–38)
theology at Toulouse, and
John de Pontoise, bishop
of Winchester (1282–
1304) civil law at Modena.
Pontoise was a Frenchman
provided to Winchester by
the pope. Throughout the
thirteenth century a leaven
of foreigners reached the
English episcopal bench, in
part thanks to Henry III’s
patronage of his wife’s
Savoyard kin. Boniface of
Savoy, archbishop of
Canterbury from 1245 to
1270, was no scholar but,
by turns high-handed and
honey-tongued, he
vigorously defended
ecclesiastical privileges,
paid off his predecessor’s
debts and reached sensible
compromises in disputes
over archiepiscopal
jurisdiction. His will made
separate provision for his
burial depending on
whether he died in
England, France or either
side of the Alps.
In their efforts to carry
through reform after 1215,
the bishops were, of
course, building on the
work of their predecessors.
When the Fourth Lateran
Council urged proper
examination of those
chosen for the cure of
souls it was essentially
reinforcing existing
practice. From at least the
mid twelfth century
English bishops had been
asserting the right to
institute those appointed
to livings, which meant
they could reject those
unqualified. Some of
Henry II’s best bishops,
notably Gilbert Foliot of
London, Roger of
Worcester and
Bartholomew of Exeter,
took their duty to find
suitable priests extremely
seriously. Bishops in the
same period were also
(again anticipating the
decrees of the Council)
beginning to set up
‘vicarages’ by stipulating
that where a living had
been appropriated by a
monastic house, a
‘perpetual’ vicar was to be
appointed to run the
parish with a decent and
fixed portion of its
revenues. Archbishops
were also beginning to
hold synods for the whole
of their provinces.
Archbishop Richard of
Canterbury’s was the first
in 1175, and it
promulgated a whole
series of reforming
decrees. How far
individual bishops were
holding diocesan synods in
the twelfth century is
unclear, but they became
characteristic features of
the thirteenth century,
when they were usually
held annually. The decrees
promulgated at his synod
by Richard le Poore,
bishop of Salisbury around
1219, based on those of
the Third and Fourth
Lateran Councils, were
widely copied by other
bishops. They had 114
clauses and encompass
thirty-seven modern
printed pages. The bishops
were also far from issuing
simply a series of ‘dont’s’.
With the Statutes of the
Coventry and Lichfield
diocese was circulated a
tract on confession and
penance, part of a large
body of literature to help
the priest in this
fundamental area.
The work of the bishops
at their best was seen in
the largest of all the
English dioceses, that of
Lincoln. Two of its bishops
had extraordinary
qualities. The first, Hugh
of Avalon (1186–1200),
was made a saint, and the
second, Robert Grosseteste
(1235–53) deserved to be.
Both were outsiders. Hugh
was a Burgundian whom
Henry II in his pious final
phase had plucked from
the only Carthusian
monastery in England, at
Witham. Grosseteste was
an Englishman from a
lowly background who had
studied at the provincial
schools of Lincoln and
Cambridge and perhaps
also at Paris. He had then
worked as a humble
diocesan administrator
before becoming a pre-
eminent teacher of
theology at Oxford. Both
men were elderly on
reaching the episcopate,
yet were utterly fearless in
putting the cure of souls
before everything else.
Both urged worldly
ecclesiastics (like Hubert
Walter and William
Ralegh) to devote
themselves to spiritual
matters. Both showed deep
respect for women. Both
agonized over
appointments and rejected
candidates they thought
unsuitable, infuriating the
king. Few could have
imitated Hugh’s courage
when he got hold of King
Richard and shook him
until his wrath subsided
into laughter. Hugh also
initiated the work which
led to the complete
rebuilding of his cathedral
in the thirteenth century,
golden in its oolitic
limestone, inspirational on
its ridge above the
Lincolnshire plain.
Yet Hugh was more
tolerant and less organized
than Grosseteste, a
reflection of their
contrasting personalities
and of the growth of
administration and
learning between the
twelfth century and the
thirteenth. ‘Three things
are needed for bodily
health, food, sleep and a
joke,’ remarked
Grosseteste, but it was
Hugh who made the jokes.
‘Well, I won’t be the water
for him to drink,’ he
laughed when reminded
that Richard I thirsted for
gold as a hydropsical man
for water. The
combination of righteous
passion, threats, ingenuity
and learning seen in
Grosseteste’s
correspondence with
William Ralegh over
bastardy (so powerful that
one has an almost physical
sense of his presence on
the page) was quite
foreign to Hugh’s humane
and humorous nature.
Hugh was much in
demand as a judge
delegate, but at heart
disliked business, refusing
to attend the hearing of his
own accounts. Grosseteste,
in contrast, composed a
series of rules to guide the
countess of Lincoln
(Margaret de Lacy) in the
administration of her
household. He likewise
innovated when it came to
the visitation of his
diocese.
 Visitations of their
dioceses to teach and
inspect the local clergy
became a key weapon in
the thirteenth-century
bishop’s armoury. Yet
when Grosseteste visited as
bishop of Lincoln he was
told he was innovating, his
predecessors having
simply inspected the
religious houses in the
diocese. In fact
conscientious bishops in
the twelfth and earlier
centuries, like Wulfstan of
Worcester (1062–95), had
gone out to preach,
confirm, and dedicate
churches. Lanfranc
himself, when based on his
manors, had inspected the
neighbouring clergy. What
was new, and an important
change, was the formality
and organization of such
visitations. In each rural
deanery Grosseteste
summoned before him the
clergy and people. He
himself preached to the
former, while the friars
preached to the latter, and
heard confessions and
enjoined penances. At
these meetings in each
deanery Grosseteste issued
statutes governing the life
of the clergy: they were to
know and expound the ten
commandments, seven
sins, seven sacraments,
and what was needed for
the sacrament of true
confession and penance.
They were also to attend
to prayer and the reading
of the scriptures, visit the
sick day and night, teach
the people to bow at the
elevation of the host and
the boys (girls are not
mentioned) the rudiments
of the faith. They were
also, of course, to be
resident, in proper orders,
strangers to taverns and
dice, and both unmarried
and without ‘suspicious’
women in their houses.
Such injunctions were
typical of diocesan
legislation of the period.
Hugh’s own statutes were
perfunctory in comparison.
 Setting off these stars
were other effective
Lincoln bishops.
Grosseteste’s predecessor,
Hugh of Wells (1209–35),
was a former chancery
clerk, yet he devoted
himself to his diocese, and
initiated what is the
earliest surviving bishop’s
register, with one section
devoted to his activity in
setting up vicarages,
another to instituting
rectors and vicars. Such a
record was clearly
important as a safeguard
against pluralism. It also
shows Hugh rejecting
appointees on grounds of
insufficient learning or
accepting them on
condition they continued
to study. A later bishop,
Oliver Sutton (1280–99),
gained the see by means of
family connections, but
was ‘a man most just, most
steadfast and most pure’
(as his registrar put it),
spending almost all his
time in ceaseless
visitations of his diocese.
Below such visitations in
Lincoln and elsewhere, an
important role fell to the
archdeacon who was
supposed to make his own
checks on the local clergy,
holding general meetings
in each deanery once
every four weeks.
How effective these
efforts were in improving
the standing of the parish
priest and by extension the
spiritual life of his flock is
impossible to measure.
Records of visitations and
of the procedures in
decanal courts reveal a
depressing round of
whippings imposed on the
laity for sexual
misconduct, though only
on the lower classes (it
was ‘not seemly for a
knight to do public
penance’). A married and
hereditary priesthood does
seem to have slowly
disappeared from England
in the course of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries,
for what that was worth.
Great strides were
certainly made in setting
up vicarages where livings
had been appropriated by
monasteries, but vicars
employed by other rectors,
together with the crowd of
clerks and chaplains
serving in many parishes,
were less well provided
for. Such clerks (not in
priests’ orders), moreover,
were often married. Of the
nearly 2,000 candidates
for institution to benefices
examined by Hugh of
Wells, the majority do not
seem to have been priests
and thus cannot have
functioned as such in their
parishes, unless they
subsequently took orders.
When a visitation took
place in part of Kent after
Archbishop Pecham’s
death in 1292, only one of
nineteen parishes passed
muster completely. Six of
the rectors were absentees
(as were some of the
vicars), four of them
‘doing no good in the
parish’. The fact was that,
as all the legislation
acknowledged, it was
possible to get
dispensation from the pope
to be non-resident and also
to hold livings in plurality.
Despite Pecham’s valiant
efforts in the area it was
impossible to insist that all
rectors were priests. The
idea that the income from
parish churches should
support clerks working for,
or just connected with,
pope, bishops, king and
nobles was simply too
deeply ingrained to be
overthrown. Grosseteste,
who did put the cure of
souls before anything else,
came into conflict over
appointments with the
pope and fellow bishops as
well as with the king.
It may be wrong,
however, to paint too
gloomy a picture. Even if
many of those he
instituted to livings were
non-resident, it is still
significant that Hugh of
Wells only rejected for
lack of learning 100 of his
nearly 2,000 candidates.
Visitation records were
themselves designed to
criticize, not commend.
Literary sources can
sometimes give a very
different picture. At
Haselbury in Somerset
around 1125 the priest
Brictric spent days and
nights praying and singing
psalms in his church. His
wife, Godida, made
vestments for the services.
After clerical marriage
became impossible, some
at least of the ‘suspicious
women’ found by
visitations in priests’
houses may have been
worthy successors of these
good clergy wives. If their
children could no longer
follow in the living (as did
the son of Brictric and
Godida), perhaps they
worked as chaplains
within their fathers’
parishes and as
incumbents elsewhere.
Chaucer’s parson was
poor, yet learned and
charitable. He preached
the gospel, visited the sick,
and was generally ‘rich in
holy thought and work’.
There may well have been
many like him in the
twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.
Within the English
church there was a
positive desire to help with
the work of reform
elsewhere in Britain. In
1214 Lincoln cathedral
prepared a digest of its
customs for the Scottish
church of Moray. The
progress of reform in
Scotland and Wales is,
however, even harder to
trace than in England.
Certainly there were
Scottish bishops active in
the cause. David de
Bernham, chamberlain of
King Alexander II,
followed the path of many
English royal clerks by
resigning to concentrate
on diocesan affairs when
he became a bishop. At St
Andrews (1240–53) he
issued statutes which
showed the familiar
concern to secure parishes
run by incumbents who
were celibate, resident and
ordained. A provincial
council in 1242 sought to
endow vicarages with a
fixed income (of ten
marks), a particularly
necessary measure in
Scotland where possibly
half the parishes were
appropriated to religious
institutions.
In Wales too there were
particular problems, one
being that livings were
divided between large
numbers of ‘portionists’, a
consequence of the
partibility of inheritances
sanctioned by Welsh law.
Not surprisingly, the
general impression from
Meirionydd’s tax returns of
the 1290s is that the local
clergy were grindingly
poor. The problem of
hereditary succession to
livings was also acute;
priests were either married
or had mistresses, it hardly
mattered which because in
Welsh law sons born in or
out of wedlock were
treated equally. Welsh law
also made marriage a
secular contract and one
very easily ended by a
form of divorce. Far from
universally rebelling
against all this, Welsh
clerics were involved in
producing the thirteenth-
century law books which
contained such
uncanonical passages and
were clearly in sympathy
with their sentiments. And
why not? If Gerald of
Wales condemned the
marriage practices of the
Welsh, he also extolled
their fervent piety. In the
twelfth century, the
religious community at
Llan-badarn Fawr by
Aberystwyth was a family
enterprise, and notable
both for its learning and
pastoral concern.
Attitudes, however, were
changing. The way the
ruling families in
thirteenth-century Wales
made their marriage
practices more
‘respectable’ had already
been noted (see above, p.
427). The Welsh law books
themselves did not all sing
to the same tune and some
accepted the canon law
ban on clerical marriage.
Although we know little of
their activities, there were
bishops whose whole
background must have
made them committed
reformers: Thomas
Wallensis of St Davids
(1248–55), for example,
was a scholar of
international repute who
had been an archdeacon in
the Lincoln diocese under
Grosseteste. Admittedly,
when Archbishop Pecham
visited Wales after the
Edwardian conquest he
still lamented the
portionary churches, and
considered the clergy the
most ignorant he had met.
But then he was scarcely
uncritical about the
situation in England either.
Throughout Britain the
struggle to reform the state
of the local clergy was,
therefore, hard and
unending. It is when we
turn attention instead to
the monastic and religious
orders that the picture
appears brighter. Certainly
the phenomenal spread of
those orders between the
eleventh and thirteenth
centuries revolutionized
the religious and social
face of Britain, as it did
that of the rest of western
Europe.
In 1066 there were
around forty-five
Benedictine monasteries in
Britain, none of them
north of the Wash or west
of the Severn. In Wales
and Scotland there were
clas and Culdee churches,
but these were organized
more like old English
minsters than Benedictine
monasteries (see above,
pp. 115, 122). The
immediate effect of the
Conquest was to re-
invigorate the English
houses and massively
enrich continental ones
with English and Welsh
resources. The new
nobility also began at
increasing pace to found
houses in England and
Wales, some independent,
some daughter houses of
individual continental
monasteries, some (like
the priory at Lewes) part
of the great order of
Cluny. In 1150 ninety-five
Benedictine and Cluniac
houses had been founded
in Britain since 1066,
nineteen of them in Wales.
The movement had
embraced the north of
England and also been
taken (by the royal family)
in a small way into
Scotland. The English and
Welsh monasteries,
initially at least, were very
much houses of conquest,
situated close to castles
and proclaiming that the
new nobility had come to
stay. Like the priory
founded by the Clares at
Clare and later moved a
short distance to Stoke to
be less cheek by jowl with
the castle, they often
helped to foster a sense of
community between lord
and tenants.
There were also
impelling spiritual reasons
for such foundations,
beyond, that is, merely
giving thanks in a general
way for the Conquest.
Monks were very clear that
life in the world was
sinful, especially for
knights habituated to
violence. The way to be
saved was by embracing
the monastic profession.
Confronted by these
arguments, many knights
became monks. The
transition was eased by
parallels between the
professions because
entrants exchanged ‘the
belt of knighthood in the
secular world for the
military service of a monk
in a monastery’, as the
Selby abbey chronicler put
it. Some did so in health,
others when approaching
death. They also placed
their sons and daughters in
monasteries as child
oblates, hence the close
relationship between many
monasteries and the
surrounding nobility and
gentry. Becoming a monk
was thus one solution.
Another (and the two were
not mutually exclusive)
was actually to found or
endow a monastery. This
secured the services of
monks offering prayers for
the donor’s soul and
constituted a great act of
alms-giving; ‘alms
extinguisheth sin as water
does fire’, remarked the
monk bishop Herbert
Losinga.
This spiritual dimension
explains the phenomenal
success of the Cistercians.
Founded at Cîteaux in
Burgundy in 1098 and
energized by Bernard of
Clairvaux (St Bernard), by
the 1150s there were over
300 houses throughout
Europe. The first English
house was founded in
1128 at Waverley in
Surrey, being followed in
the early 1130s by
Rievaulx and Fountains in
Yorkshire. A period of
dramatic growth then
followed, the result being
the establishment of some
eighty-five houses in
Britain, including nineteen
from the order of Savigny
which merged with the
Cistercians in 1147. Of the
total, thirteen were in
Scotland and fifteen in
Wales, the major
expansion in England
being over by 1152 and in
Britain generally by 1201.
The Cistercians were born
of a burning desire to
practise the Benedictine
rule in all its intended
austerity, solitude and
simplicity, shorn of the
comforts, worldliness and
liturgical accretions found
in many contemporary
houses. As so often in the
history of monks and
friars, it seemed far easier
to found a new order than
to reform an old one. The
Cistercians, however,
hoped to preserve their
purity through rules and
organization. Each
monastery was inspected
annually by the house
from which it had been
founded. The governing
body was the general
chapter held every year at
Cîteaux, which had to be
attended by all the abbots.
Cistercian churches were
to be plain, without
triforiums and elaborate
sculptures, while the
houses were to be founded
preferably in regions wild
and remote. Another
unique feature enabled
such wastes to be managed
and the houses to be
supported without
recourse to the world, for
each monastery had its
own ‘in-house’ labour
force composed of laymen,
but laymen who were fully
part of the order. Since
many of these conversi, as
they were called, were
peasants, the order had a
broad social appeal.
Cistercian monasteries
could still of course be
dynastic. Rievaulx’s valley
ran down from the castle
at Helmsley, home of its
founder Walter Espec, the
great minister of Henry I.
Requiring only tracts of
uncultivated wasteland,
and sometimes (as in the
disorders of Stephen’s
reign) receiving land to
which the donor’s title was
disputed, they could also
be inexpensive to
establish. The role of the
order in Wales was
particularly important.
Unlike the earlier
Benedictine and Cluniac
foundations, its houses
were not adjuncts of
conquest. The lifestyle of
the monks and the location
of their houses matched
Welsh temperament and
terrain. Nine of the houses
were either founded by the
Welsh themselves or were
in Welsh-ruled areas.
Eleven received
benefactions, sometimes
substantial, from native
donors. The Lord Rhys of
Deheu-barth embraced
Strata Florida, while Strata
Marcella was founded by
Owain Cyfeiliog of
southern Powys. Although
Margam was established
by Robert, earl of
Gloucester, native donors
considerably outnumbered
Anglo-Norman. The
compelling appeal of the
early Cistercian movement
is revealed in the Life of its
greatest English abbot,
Ailred of Rievaulx (1147–
67), by his disciple Walter
Daniel. In meditation ‘the
whole strength of Ailred’s
mind poured out like a
flood upon God and his
son’; in prayer he made
himself ‘light and easy for
the leap to heaven’. This
spiritual exaltation, far
from turning Ailred proud,
taught him tolerance and
compassion towards others
in their difficulties. Indeed,
he considered those virtues
to be Rievaulx’s ‘supreme
glory’. He was never other
than realistic about human
weakness. No wonder that
under such an abbot
Rievaulx’s numbers rose to
140 monks and 500
conversi and lay servants.
The church on feast days,
as Walter Daniel put it,
was crowded with
brethren ‘like bees in a
hive’.
There was another form
of religious house which
spread with remarkable
speed in the twelfth
century, namely that of the
Augustinian or Black
canons. These were houses
not of monks but of priests
who could go out into the
world, though they lived
together without personal
possessions under the
common rule outlined by
St Augustine of Hippo. A
variant later in the century
was provided by the
Premonstratensian canons
who followed a more
austere way of life
influenced by the
Cistercians. The pastoral
role of such houses, with
the priests supervising and
sometimes serving the
parish churches which
often formed part of the
endowment, was one of
their main attractions,
complementing as it did
the enclosed activities of
the monks. Old minster
churches, for example at
Launceston and Taunton,
were often organized by
bishops as Augustinian
houses, as were the priests
running hospitals and
serving nunneries and
cathedrals. The same thing
happened to clas churches
in Wales, and Culdee ones
in Scotland. Since
Augustinian houses were
usually small and required
limited endowment they
could be founded by minor
barons and knights, hence
in part their popularity.
But the initial drive behind
the foundations in the
early twelfth century came
from the court of Henry I;
it was associated with all
but ten of the forty-three
houses founded by 1135. It
was King Alexander and
King David who brought
the movement to Scotland,
establishing the
Augustinians at Scone and
St Andrews. In native
Wales, where the Black
and White canons fitted as
well as the Cistercians,
Llywelyn the Great
brought the
Premonstratensians to
Gwynedd. By 1300 there
were well over 200
Augustinian and
Premonstratensian houses
in Britain.
 In the mid thirteenth
century Henry III’s
brother, Richard of
Cornwall, established a
Cistercian abbey at Hailes
in Gloucestershire, and his
minister, John Mansel, the
Augustinian house at
Bilsington in Kent. But the
great age of monastic,
foundation and
endowment was over by
1200. Existing houses
continued to acquire
property but through
purchase (often to round
off existing estates) rather
than by pious gifts. Where
nobles continued to be
buried in monasteries, that
reflected more family
tradition than spiritual
empathy with the house
concerned. The fact was
that even the Cistercians
were losing the cutting
edge of their spirituality.
Gerald of Wales described
how they had transformed
their wildernesses into
highly profitable terrain,
often for sheep farming,
and how they built fine
churches and monastic
buildings, and possessed
‘all the wealth you can
imagine’. The cost of
building was probably the
reason why so many
Cistercian houses fell
heavily into debt to the
Jews. A great monastery
like Furness, in a pleasant
valley, with its kitchen,
refectory, chapter house,
dormitory, and infirmary
all in warm red local
stone, together with
running water for drinking
and drainage, offered a
comfortable existence.
That was even more the
case with the old
Benedictine houses. At
Westminster Abbey,
studied by Barbara
Harvey, the monks in the
later Middle Ages
consumed in calorific
terms considerably more
than ‘a rather heavy,
moderately active’ man
does today. Alcohol
contributed 19 per cent of
the daily energy, as
compared with 5 per cent
in today’s average diet. A
great deal of monastic
time was also devoted to
administration and estate
management. At Bury St
Edmunds the hawk-eyed
Abbot Samson (1182–
1211) had far more praise
for the monks involved in
the abbey’s administration
than he did for those in
the choir carrying out their
conscientious and
mellifluous round of
services. According to his
biographer and chaplain,
Jocelin of Brakelond,
Samson’s own deeds
‘worthy of immortal record
and renown’, were those
by which he freed the
abbey from debts,
increased its income and
defended its privileges.
 The decline in monastic
endowment brought into
greater prominence and
quite probably increased
the scale of a different
form of alms-giving; alms-
giving for the support of
the poor and distressed.
Christ himself had made
clear in his description of
the Last Judgement
(Matthew 25:31–35) that
such acts of charity were
absolutely necessary for
salvation. The blessed
were precisely those who
had fed and clothed the
poor and nursed the sick,
in so doing, as Christ
explained, feeding,
clothing and nursing
himself. Christ thus was
present in the poor, just as
he was present in the
bread and wine of the
eucharist. Such charity
could take two forms. One
was the support of the
institutionalized poor who
lived in ‘hospitals’, which
were often in effect
almshouses. The other was
the giving of money or
food directly to the ‘naked
poor’ who ‘beg from door
to door’. There was a
feeling that not all beggars
were deserving. At
Beaulieu abbey
distributions were limited
to the old, the young and
the weak, the able-bodied
by implication being
excluded. The weak,
however, would certainly
have included those weak
from hunger and in the
thirteenth century there
were plenty of such people
about. It was common, in
fact, for the wealthy to
engage in both forms of
alms-giving. King Henry
III, in feeding hundreds of
paupers at court every day
and giving generously to
the hospitals and leper
houses he passed on his
travels, was unique only in
the scale of his activities.
By his time it was far more
common for a successful
man to found a hospital
than a religious house, and
there was a network of
such institutions across
England. A related reason
for such charity was to
‘harvest the prayers’ of
paupers, especially for the
souls of the dead. Henry III
marked the anniversaries
of dead relatives by
ordering thousands of
paupers to be fed – indeed
in the case of his sister
Isabella the number was
over 100,000. In his will
Archbishop Boniface gave
money to numerous
hospitals who were all to
pray for the health of his
soul.
Equally prominent in
Boniface’s will were his
gifts to friaries both in
England and on the
continent. The spread of
the friars throughout
Europe was the most
important religious
phenomenon of the
thirteenth century. It was
they who filled the
spiritual vacuum left by
the monks. To support the
friars, as we shall see, was
to support the poor, and
that was certainly a key to
their success. Even more
important, however, was
the way in which the friars
served the needs of a new
and changing society,
served, that is, an
educated laity who
through confession were
moving towards a more
personal religion, and
through penance and other
forms of piety were
working out their own
salvation in the world,
unimpressed by the
argument that it could
only be found in the
cloister. The crusade, as
we shall see, had taken
away much of the stigma
of knighthood; arms could
be a holy calling. For this
new audience preachers
were essential and so were
effective confessors. The
Fourth Lateran Council,
therefore, enjoined bishops
to appoint men to travel
their diocese to carry out
‘the office of sacred
preaching’, and to place
men in cathedral and
conventual churches
(usually in major towns) to
hear confessions, impose
penances and do
‘everything else for the
saving of souls’. The
Council might well have
been drawing up a job
description for the friars.
The demand, especially
in the towns, for a more
personal and intellectual
religion had already
generated movements in
France and Italy, notably
the Waldensians, founded
by Waldes, a merchant of
Lyons, and the Humiliati,
who became established in
many cities in northern
Italy. The friars shared
certain characteristics with
these movements and were
also strictly orthodox
doctrinally and in their
acceptance of papal
authority. Encouraged by
Innocent III in the most
inspired move of his
pontificate, they canalized
spiritual aspirations which
might otherwise have run
down less orthodox paths
and were a major force in
combating heresy in
Europe and preventing its
appearance in Britain.
St Dominic, a priest
from Castile, had precisely
conceived his movement
as an order of preachers to
battle against the
Albigensian heretics in
France. In 1217 he
extended the mission
world-wide and his
followers were soon
organized into territorial
provinces with an
elaborate system of
elective officials. Dominic
was inspired by a vision of
‘the apostolic life’, the life
led by Christ and his
apostles. This was even
more the case with St
Francis (1181–1226), the
son of a cloth merchant
from Assisi. A revelatory
passage for him had been
Matthew x:7–9 where
Christ sent out his
apostles, declaring,

As ye go, preach, saying the

kingdom of heaven is at hand…
provide neither gold, nor silver
nor brass in your purses…
neither two coats, neither
shoes, nor yet staves for the
workman is worthy of his meat.

Francis’s movement was

therefore based on
preaching and poverty. As
his Rule declared:

The brothers shall possess

nothing, but as pilgrims and
strangers in this world… they
shall confidently seek alms and
not be afraid… This is the
highest degree of that sublime
poverty, which has made you
my dear beloved brethren, heirs
and kings of the kingdom of
heaven.
The brothers were not,
however, to wander as
individuals. Like the
Dominicans, they were to
live in a disciplined way as
members of a family,
usually in town houses for
it was in towns that they
could reach the largest
audiences. Very soon an
elaborate constitution for
the government of the
order was in place. By
1358 the Franciscans had
1,400 houses throughout
Europe and the
Dominicans 635.
The Dominicans arrived
in England in 1221 and
the Franciscans in 1224.
No one could doubt their
commitment, given their
abject poverty. Nor was
their message in any way
simplistic, an important
feature, given the
audience. The preaching
was not haphazard but
was based on model
sermons circulated from
Paris. It was followed up
by the hearing of
confessions and the
imposition of penances.
The Dominicans were all
priests (so they could hear
confessions) and learned,
designedly so. ‘The
purpose of study is
preaching and of
preaching the salvation of
souls,’ remarked Humbert
of Romans, master general
between 1254 and 1263.
The Franciscans too, for
the same reason, became
increasingly a learned
order, and one dominated
by the priestly element.
Indeed the Franciscan
theological school in
Oxford, established
initially under Grosseteste,
became one of the most
famous in the university.
Townsmen, knights,
academics and monks
rushed to join the orders.
The scholar Adam Marsh
became a Franciscan ‘for
love of most high poverty’.
Within twenty years of
their arrival in England the
Dominicans had
established nineteen town
houses and the Franciscans
thirty-nine, the numbers
by 1300 being respectively
fifty-one and fifty-five. A
large house might have as
many as forty members.
The property was usually
given by the townsmen
themselves. In London the
Franciscans’ chapel was
built by the mayor,
William Joyner, who also
gave £200 towards other
buildings. By 1260 there
were also nine houses in
Scotland and five in Wales,
the Franciscans having
been introduced to
Gwynedd by Llywelyn the
Great himself. The friars
were not merely on a
mission to towns and
townsmen. They appealed
equally to kings, princes
and nobles, often acting in
a highly personal capacity
as confessors and spiritual
counsellors. The
Franciscan John of
Darlington was confessor
to Henry III, and Adam
Marsh the counsellor of
the queen and of Simon
and Eleanor de Montfort.
Above all, the friars were
welcomed by the bishops,
who saw them rightly as
exactly the force of trained
preachers and confessors
the Fourth Lateran Council
had demanded.
The success of the friars
inevitably provoked
hostility, some of it
justified. Matthew Paris,
monk of St Albans,
complained that their
buildings rivalled regal
palaces in height. Parish
priests were angered at
losing money from
confessions and burials to
the friars, another area of
mendicant activity. There
were also tensions within
the orders, especially
among the Franciscans,
where the needs of a
properly based pastoral
mission inevitably cut
across Francis’s original
concept of Christ-like
poverty as almost an end
in itself. The order
continued in its refusal to
own property, but needing
houses and churches got
round the problem by
having these held for it in
trust. Some of the original
leaders made desperate
attempts to preserve the
original ideals. The head
of the English province,
William of Nottingham,
appeared at the provincial
chapter in a torn habit
made of the coarsest
material and sat on the
ground. ‘I did not become
a friar for the purpose of
building walls,’ he
declared, and at
Shrewsbury ordered the
stone wall of the
dormitory (built by the
townsmen) to be pulled
down and replaced by one
of mud. But in the end, it
was with a note of despair
that he prayed God to send
a new order to inspire and
stimulate his own in the
way of perfection.
For all their problems,
the friars had a profound
impact on the spiritual life
of the country. In the
twelfth century, as David
d’Avray has remarked, a
sermon by an educated
preacher was an event; in
the thirteenth it was a
normal part of town and
court life. The extent to
which the friars had
entered the fabric of
society was reflected in
wills, for example that of
the clerical administrator
William of Wendling (died
1270). Although the
founder of a
Premonstratensian house
at Wendling in Norfolk, he
made gifts to the
Dominicans at Sudbury, to
the Franciscans at
Yarmouth and Ipswich,
and to both orders at
Norwich, King’s Lynn,
Dunwich and Cambridge.
Joan, wife of Llywelyn the
Great, was buried with the
Franciscans at Llanfaes in
Anglesey, and Beatrice,
Henry III’s daughter, with
the Franciscans of London,
where the heart of her
mother, Queen Eleanor,
was also laid to rest.
There had long been
opportunities for
noblewomen to lead lives
dedicated to religion. One
way of doing this was to
become a recluse. Loretta,
widowed countess of
Leicester, lived as ‘the
recluse of Hackington’ in
Kent from 1211 until
1265, using her contacts to
help the early friars.
Another way was to enter
a religious order. In 1066
there were ten nunneries
in Britain, all south of the
Wash. By 1300 there were
over 150, many of them
situated between the Wash
and the Tees. There were
ten in Scotland though
none north of the Tay, and
four in Wales. Male
founders were diverse,
partly because such houses
were often small, and like
houses of canons were
affordable by minor barons
and knights. However, it
was the Lord Rhys who
established the nunnery at
Llanllÿr in Ceredigion, and
Henry II, as part of his
penance after Becket’s
murder, who re-founded
Amesbury as a daughter
house of Fontevraud. It
was there that Henry III’s
queen, Eleanor of
Provence, retired and was
buried. The chief female
order in England, however,
was not that of Fontevrault
but the native Gilbertines.
This had its origins in a
cell for a group of female
religious established by
Gilbert of Sempringham at
Sempringham in
Lincolnshire around 1131.
By 1216 there were
nineteen Gilbertine houses,
although with two thirds
of them in Lincolnshire
and Yorkshire, this
remained essentially a
local order. Many had four
elements: nuns, lay sisters,
lay brothers living
according to Cistercian
rules, and male canons
who lived according to the
rule of St Augustine, the
nuns and the canons
together making these in
effect ‘double houses’.
Noblewomen, usually as
widows, could also found
nunneries for themselves,
using their inheritances or
marriage portions to do so.
Godstow near Oxford was
established in the 1130s by
Edith, widow of William
de Lancelene. Around a
hundred years later,
Lacock in Wiltshire was
the creation of the
widowed Ela, in her own
right countess of Salisbury.
During her long
widowhood between 1243
and 1282 Isabella,
countess of Arundel,
founded Marham in
Norfolk. Quite apart from
upbraiding Henry III for
his injustices (see above, p.
416), she also enjoyed
close spiritual
relationships with Edmund
of Abingdon, archbishop of
Canterbury, and Richard
Wych, bishop of
Chichester: Lives of both
were dedicated to her.
Edith de Lancelene and
Countess Ela became
abbesses of their
foundations. Many female
heads proved determined
and effective rulers. Those
of Wherwell abbey, near
Salisbury, rebuilt the
house after its destruction
in the violence of
Stephen’s reign, secured
forest privileges from
Richard I and used all the
tricks of the trade to resist
papal provisions in the
thirteenth century.
Female houses,
however, remained
‘inferior’ to those of men,
and not merely because
they were fewer and
generally poorer. The key
difference was that women
could not be priests, hence
the need for the attached
canons who could perform
that function. Also young
unmarried women, far
more controlled by their
families than young men,
could find it much harder
to follow a religious
vocation. Christina of
Markyate came from a
wealthy family of old
English stock based in
Huntingdon, and enjoyed
her father’s trust, keeping
the keys of his treasure
chest. Yet to escape
parental pressure to marry,
having already survived
attempted rape by the
bishop of Durham, Ranulf
Flambard, she had to flee
disguised as a man, and
then live in hiding with
male recluses, enduring
terrible privations in her
tiny cell. Ultimately she
made the same transition
as the foundress of
Godstow (also initially a
recluse), and became the
prioress of a community at
Markyate. As her Life
shows so well, to fulfil her
overpowering sense of
vocation and ‘preserve her
virginity for God’ had
taken quite extraordinary
courage, ingenuity and
hardiness. In pursuing that
vocation she had been
helped as well as harmed
by men. In general, as we
have seen, monastic
writers remained open-
minded about the women
with whom they came into
contact (see above, p.
415). Yet it is also true
that as institutions in the
twelfth century, male
monasteries became
increasingly uneasy about,
and indeed sought to
terminate, arrangements
whereby they had taken
nuns under their wing,
either through the women
living in close proximity or
being formally part of a
double house. Marton in
Yorkshire, for example,
into the reign of Henry II
was a double monastery of
nuns and Augustinian
canons, but the nuns then
moved to Moxby and set
up on their own. Among
the Gilbertines, hints of
scandal eventually led to a
far stricter separation
between male and female
elements. Of the new
orders, the Cistercians
were particularly
unhelpful to women.
Gilbert of Sempringham
had asked for his order to
be taken under the wing of
the Cistercians, only to be
told that they ‘were not
permitted authority over
the religious life of others,
least of all that of nuns’.
Many of the nunneries
founded in the twelfth
century adopted a
Cistercian way of life,
though largely unofficially.
In 1213 such houses were
placed under neighbouring
Cistercian foundations, but
in 1228 further affiliations
were forbidden and
existing links diminished.
The whole attitude – or so
it seemed – was to wish
the women would go
away. The friars were
equally unwelcoming.
Both Dominic and Francis
attracted female followers,
and a female order of
friars would have recruited
heavily. Yet none was ever
sanctioned. The sisterhood
founded by Clare of Assisi,
Francis’s disciple, was
enclosed; so were the
women the Dominicans
incorporated into their
order. Having jumped the
wall themselves, the friars
made sure the women
stayed behind it. William
of Nottingham asserted
that women were deceitful
and malicious and by their
blandishments turned the
heads even of the devout.
The ability of women to
fulfil a religious vocation
was always restricted by
such attitudes.
Just occasionally with
the laity in this period it is
possible to penetrate a
little behind the external
forms of religion. Hubert
de Burgh (died 1243),
justiciar and earl of Kent,
was a self-made man, yet
he did not give thanks, as
he would certainly have
done a hundred years
earlier, by founding a
monastery. Instead he was
a patron of the Dominicans
and gave them his London
house at Holborn. When
they moved to what is now
Blackfriars after he died,
they took his body with
them. Hubert was typical
of the period in founding a
hospital, that of St Mary
Dover, a thank-offering for
his sea victory against the
French in 1217. He must
also have added the
exquisite early thirteenth-
century chancels to the
churches at three of his
properties, Burgh itself,
Grosmont in Wales, and
Banstead in Surrey where
he died. One aid to
Hubert’s devotions was his
psalter: when a fugitive in
1233, ‘he ruminated on
the Psalms of David in the
Psalter he had with him
for comfort’. Earl
Waltheof, executed by the
Conqueror in 1076, was
said to have learnt the
Psalms by heart as a child.
What was new was the
growing number of lay
men and women possessed
of psalters and able to read
them for themselves, a
point we shall return to
later.
As he read his psalter in
1233, Hubert implored the
aid of the Virgin Mary, and
immediately heard a voice
saying, ‘Do not fear, the
Virgin will rescue you.’
The words were repeated
again and again until
rescue came. The Virgin
was naturally the focus of
Hubert’s prayers because
her willingness to
intercede with Christ and
the intimate proximity
which enabled her to do so
were the subject of
contemporary sculpture,
stained glass and painting.
The most pervasive image
was of the Virgin praying
before Christ as he
crowned her; this
depiction of the
Coronation of the Virgin
virtually replaced the
earlier Triumph of the
Virgin, in which she sat
crowned beside the King of
Heaven. Prayers might
also, of course, be offered
to the saints for they too
stood around the throne of
God. Herein lay the value
of pilgrimages because the
saints, it was believed,
were all the more likely to
exert their power when
supplicants were in close
proximity to their remains.
Pilgrimages were also
made to places with relics
associated with Christ
himself. Hubert de Burgh
and Henry III frequently
visited Bromholm priory in
Norfolk where pieces of
the Holy Cross were
preserved. Later Henry III
presented to Westminster
Abbey in a great ceremony
a phial containing drops of
the Holy Blood, outdoing
Louis IX who had built the
Sainte-Chapelle in Paris to
house the Crown of
Thorns. Bodies, of course,
were divisible and those of
some saints were infinitely
divided. The proliferation
of relics made private
collections possible.
Collectors did not have to
go to the saints, they had
them permanently in their
possession. Among the
treasure of Hubert’s wife,
sister of the king of
Scotland, was a silver
cross, double gilt, in which
were set rubies, emeralds
and relics. Bishop Hugh of
Lincoln built up a relic
collection of fabled size
and quality. He needed
frisking on leaving any
shrine for he was always
trying to break bits off
bodies, on one occasion
biting a fragment out of
Mary Magdalene’s arm
bone before slipping it to
his chaplain in classic
pickpocket mode. Henry
III’s collection was equally
impressive. It included
relics of numerous saints
as well as of the golden
gate of Jerusalem, the
Holy Sepulchre, Calvary
and the burning bush.
The importance of
intercession to the Virgin
and the saints was made
all the more important by
the doctrine of Purgatory,
for they surely had the
power to lessen one’s term
there. But – as in Hubert’s
case – they could intervene
in this life too. This was a
world in which the belief
in prodigies, wonders and
miracles was widespread;
hence the space devoted to
them by nearly all the
chroniclers. While out on a
ravaging expedition during
the 1215 civil war, a figure
of Christ crucified
appeared to Hubert de
Burgh in a dream, saying,
‘When you next see my
image, spare me’,
something he did the
following day when a
priest ran up to him
carrying a crucifix,
begging for his church to
be preserved from plunder.
Hubert was convinced this
pious act was the reason
why God restored him to
the king’s favour in 1234.
As he had remarked earlier
in a private letter to the
chancellor, there was no
hope of success in this life
‘unless God gives aid, by
whose grace all effective
work is achieved, and
without whom no one can
triumph over his enemies’.
Nothing is known of
Hubert’s attitude to the
Mass, but it was central to
the daily religious life of
his master, King Henry III,
who was very much in
tune with contemporary
views about the
ceremony’s importance.
There was no question of
Henry doing business
during the service like
Henry II, or hoping it
would be over as quickly
as possible like Henry I.
Henry III’s own records
show that he regularly
attended two Masses a
day, and even three on
great festivals. Like his
bishops in their diocesan
legislation he strove to
ensure that the reserved
host, the bread turned into
the body of Christ kept
permanently in every
church, was decently
housed, and on his
journeys he constantly
made gifts of precious cups
for that purpose. When
Louis IX, reflecting another
strand in contemporary
thought, reminded Henry
that it was important to
hear sermons as well as
attend Masses, Henry
replied that he preferred
rather to ‘see his friend’ (at
the elevation of the host)
than hear about him.
Neither Hubert de
Burgh nor Henry III ever
went on crusade, but both
took the cross and
professed the intention of
going. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries the
crusade was part of the air
that everyone breathed.
The First Crusade was
launched by Pope Urban II
in 1095. It culminated in
the taking of Jerusalem on
15 July 1099 and the
setting-up of crusader
states in the east. Of these
by far the most important
and long-lasting was the
kingdom of Jerusalem,
which survived the loss of
the Holy City itself and
was only terminated by
the fall of Acre in 1291.
The existence of this state
was central to the crusades
because it provided a base
for operations and also –
since the state was
constantly under threat –
the need for them.
Deciding to crusade was a
formal act which required
the sanction of the church
and was symbolized by the
sewing of a cross to one’s
clothes. One became
‘signed with the cross’,
crucesignatus, the word
from which ‘crusade’
comes. It was perfectly
possible for individuals to
seek the church’s sanction
at any time, and groups of
crusaders were constantly
on the move to the east.
There were also, however,
a small number of great
crusades, like the First,
publicly proclaimed by the
papacy and generally
preached throughout the
west usually in response to
some great emergency.
 Duke Robert of
Normandy, the
Conqueror’s eldest son,
was one of the leaders of
the First Crusade, but
participation by the great
Anglo-Norman magnates
was limited. Thereafter the
pattern changed. A
substantial contingent of
Anglo-Norman nobles
went on the Second
Crusade, launched in
1146, including Waleran
of Meulan, earl of
Worcester, William de
Warenne, earl of Surrey,
and William Peverel, the
last two dying on the
expedition. When the
Patriarch of Jerusalem
begged Henry II to crusade
in 1185 the king pleaded
his home duties, but the
refusal damaged his
reputation despite the
money he had been
sending to the east, and
was anyway unsustainable
after the loss of Jerusalem
in 1187. In the event, of
course, it was Richard who
led the Angevin contingent
on the Third Crusade in
1190, taking with him a
large group of England’s
lay and ecclesiastical elite.
Later, magnates from
either side in the civil war
went on the Fifth Crusade
of 1218–21 which was
designed to capture
Damietta. In 1240–41,
contingents departed
under Henry III’s brother
Richard of Cornwall and
his brother-in-law Simon
de Montfort, earl of
Leicester. Henry’s own
response to Louis IX’s
crusade was to take the
cross himself (in March
1250), and although he
never set out, his
commitment was genuine
enough. Ultimately
Henry’s son, the future
Edward I, unlike Henry II
placed the cause of the
crusade above domestic
considerations. Despite the
parlous condition of the
kingdom after the
Montfortian civil war, he
led a large body of knights
to join Louis IX’s second
crusade of 1270,
continuing to the Holy
Land even after Louis’s
death.
From what has been
said so far the crusade
seems essentially an
enterprise involving Anglo-
Norman and English
magnates. But it was not
quite like that. The Welsh
chronicle the Brut took a
close interest in the
crusades and remarked on
the passage of Welshmen
to the Holy Land. Gerald
of Wales’s best-known
work describes his tour of
Wales in 1188 to preach
the Third Crusade with
Archbishop Baldwin, an
enterprise, so he liked to
think, which inspired some
3,000 people to take the
cross. There is evidence
that Scotsmen took part in
all the main crusades,
including the first, where
they were distinguished
more for their piety than
their military equipment.
Later Patrick II, earl of
Dunbar, joined the crusade
of Louis IX, dying at
Marseilles in 1248. Adam,
earl of Carrick, got further
and died in 1270 at Acre.
The crusade, it has been
claimed, was one of the
factors which helped to
integrate Scotland into the
fold of western
Christendom.
Interest in the crusade
was not confined to the
baronial and clerical elite.
There were county knights
from Yorkshire on the
Third Crusade, one group
led by Ralph de Tilly
heroically saving a siege
engine from capture by the
Moslem defenders of Acre.
On the Second Crusade
men from London,
Southampton, Dover and
Ipswich were all present at
the siege of the Islamic
city of Lisbon, which was
attacked on the way to the
Holy Land. Lists from the
early thirteenth century of
those from Cornwall and
Lincolnshire who had
failed to fulfil their
crusading vows included
tanners, blacksmiths,
millers, cobblers, butchers,
ditch-cutters and several
women. In twenty
Lincolnshire cases poverty
was given as the reason for
the failure to fulfil the
vow.
 Clearly, far from
everyone who took the
cross actually went to the
Holy Land. Indeed, the
church increasingly
accepted money payments
for the commutation of
vows. It is easy to see why
initial ardour might cool.
The dangers of the crusade
were great, many
crusaders never returning,
and the financial costs
were high. Yet there were
also compelling reasons for
undertaking the
expedition. Jerusalem
itself was a magnet, the
site of Christ’s crucifixion
and burial, the centre of
the world in thirteenth-
century mappae mundi.
Pilgrimages to Jerusalem
had not dried up with the
Islamic conquest in the
seventh century. They
were frequently enjoined
by the church as penance
for sin, and could be
regarded as the climax of a
man’s spiritual life. To go
on crusade was frequently
described as a peregrinatio,
a pilgrimage. The crusade,
of course, was a
pilgrimage with a
difference. The aim was
not merely to visit but also
to defend or recover
Jerusalem. Here was the
appeal for the warrior elite
of the west, one which
transformed the very
nature of knighthood.
Churchmen had long
stressed the sinfulness of
fighting, but now knights
could fight in a war which
was not sinful but holy.
Instead of their martial
activities necessitating
penance, they were
themselves acts of
penance, at the very least
cancelling out all previous
punishments imposed by
the church in the
confessional. For those
who died on the crusade,
there was also the promise
of remission of all sins and
direct entry into Paradise.
As Guibert of Nogent
declared after the First
Crusade, knights no longer
had to abandon the world
for the monastic life to
achieve salvation. Instead
they could attain God’s
grace while still pursuing
their own careers. Behind
that belief there lay
another cardinal fact about
the crusades, one which
did more than anything
else to certify their worth
throughout Europe. The
crusades were absolutely
‘official’, being made so by
the highest of all
authorities, the pope
himself. It was the pope
who had conceived and
launched the First
Crusade. It was his
authority which
sanctioned all subsequent
crusading activity.
Crusaders could thus
hope for reward in the
next life. They might also
gain name and fame in
this. The exploits of
Richard I in the Holy Land,
depicted in tiles and
paintings, later adorned
the palaces of Henry III.
Henry’s own tutor, the
knight Philip Daubeny
who went to the Holy
Land three times and died
there, earned an obituary
from Matthew Paris: ‘a
noble man, devoted to God
and strenuous in arms’; in
a crusader war and piety
marched together.
Considerations of piety
and reputation, as modern
historians, notably Simon
Lloyd and Christopher
Tyerman, have stressed,
functioned within existing
political and social
structures. Both Richard I
and Henry III were sincere
in taking the cross, but in
doing so they were also
continuing their
competition with the
Capetian kings of France.
The great majority of those
who travelled from
England did so in retinues,
the retinues of great lords,
the king (in 1189) and the
heir to the throne (in
1270). Such retinues were
shaped by the same ties of
tenure, money and
neighbourhood which
operated in society
generally: in 1270 the Lord
Edward built up a force of
225 knights by paying
lords to bring them (see
above, p. 410). Among
those accompanying
Edward there were also
distinct regional
groupings, with
contingents from the
north, East Anglia and the
Welsh Marches. Ties of
family were also important
in bringing crusaders
together. On the Fifth
Crusade the earls of
Chester and Derby were
brothers-in-law, while
John de Lacy was soon to
marry Margaret, Chester’s
niece, a union probably
arranged on the crusade
itself.
Crusading did not
merely reflect existing
society and politics, it also
impacted upon them. The
raising of money to
finance the expeditions of
magnates, knights and
lesser individuals brought
significant amounts of land
onto the property market.
At the highest level, Duke
Robert gained funds for
the First Crusade by
leasing Normandy to
William Rufus, who levied
a tax in England to raise
the required amount.
Later, Richard I’s rush for
money in 1189
destabilized government in
England and enabled
Scotland to recover its
independence. In the early
1250s Henry III built up
the treasure for his
abortive expedition by
selling numerous charters
licensing new markets and
fairs, with important
effects on the economy.
There were those who took
the cross for entirely
secular reasons with little
intention of ever going.
This was because from the
moment of the vow a
crusader, in church
thinking, was entitled to
various privileges, and to
some extent this was
accepted in English law.
For example, taking the
cross could be a way of
delaying lawsuits and
gaining a moratorium on
debts. In Magna Carta
John himself was
conceded the ‘crusader’s
respite’, which lasted at
least three years, for
dealing with several
controversial issues,
including the royal forests.
There was another way too
in which the crusade
entered English politics.
The pope always had the
power to confer the
privileges of crusaders on
those who undertook some
equivalent mission, for
instance fighting against
heretics in what became
known as the Albigensian
crusade. After John’s death
Guala, the papal legate,
had in effect done the
same in England,
promising those who
supported the young King
Henry remission of their
sins and signing them with
the cross ‘as though they
were fighting against
pagans’. So ingrained was
the link between the
crusade and righteous
warfare that in the 1260s
Simon de Montfort, son of
the Montfort who had led
the Albigensian crusade,
moved to exploit it. Before
going into battle he and
his followers confessed
their sins and signed
themselves with the cross.
No one could avoid the
crusades. An elaborate
apparatus was developed
to preach them, of which
Gerald’s tour of Wales in
1188 was part. They also
had in a sense a permanent
presence in Britain, thanks
to the crusading orders of
the Knights Templars and
Knights Hospitallers. These
were founded in the first
half of the twelfth century,
the first to protect the
roads approaching
Jerusalem, the second to
give succour to those who
reached the east. Beyond
that, both orders came to
play very similar roles in
providing expert military
support for the crusading
state. The recruits lived
under a rule, that of the
Templars being influenced
by Cistercian practices and
that of the Hospitallers by
Augustinian. All this had
an impact on the home
front because the orders
set up houses in the west
both to administer the
properties given in support
of their activities and to
act as recruiting centres.
By the end of the
thirteenth century there
were eighty-four houses in
Britain, fifty of them
founded in the thirteenth
century; clearly there had
been no falling-off in
crusading commitment.
Although the great
majority of the houses
were in England, both
orders were important in
Scotland where King David
(1124–53) established
them with extensive
privileges. His successor
King Malcolm granted the
Hospitallers, and probably
the Templars too, one toft
in each royal borough.
Another Hospitaller patron
was Fergus of Galloway
(died 1161). Eventually
both orders came to hold a
string of tiny properties
throughout much of
Scotland as well as some
more extensive baronies.
The international links of
the Templars meant they
began to act as bankers, so
that money deposited at
the London Temple, where
both king and magnates
often stored treasure,
could release money from
the Paris Temple to pay a
debt in France. The
Temple church in London,
like others of the order,
was circular and was
modelled on the church of
the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem. There, under
splendid knightly effigies,
were buried William
Marshal, the regent of
England (died 1219), who
had gone to the Holy Land
in the 1180s, and two of
his sons, a permanent
reminder of the salvation
and the status the
aristocracy hoped to
secure from the crusades.
***
Hubert de Burgh read
his psalter for ‘solace’. The
desire to do that, and to
understand the Latin Mass,
was a major factor in
driving forward lay
literacy, both male and
female. Indeed it was often
for noblewomen that a
new form of devotional
book was produced from
the mid thirteenth century,
the Book of Hours
(essentially a prayer book),
perhaps invented by the
Oxford illustrator William
of Brailes. Hubert’s ability
to read was equally
empowering in his role as
the king’s chief minister,
enabling him to check a
debt in the pipe rolls, or
interpret the letters which
poured in to him with
their requests and
complaints; the sixty or so
from 1219 to 1221 which
survive are a fraction of a
much larger number. The
way English society was
transformed between 1066
and the early fourteenth
century by the escalating
use of documents for
business and the resulting
growth of ‘pragmatic
literacy’, literacy that is for
the practical purpose of
using business documents,
is the theme of Michael
Clanchy’s classic book
From Memory to Written
Record
There may already have
been a good deal of
pragmatic literacy in
England before 1066, and
it continued to develop
thereafter. From around
1090, as David Bates has
shown, individuals
increasingly recorded
agreements in documents
called ‘chirographs’ and
‘conventions’. Since these
often employed narrative
and contextual detail to
explain and affirm the
agreements they recorded,
they suggest a society
working out and
negotiating its own ways
to memorize and
understand transactions,
achieving in the process a
considerable degree of
pragmatic literacy.
It was in this fertile
ground that a huge
increase took place in the
output of documents by
royal government. The
way in which the need to
master this output almost
forced laymen into
pragmatic literacy is a
central argument of
Clanchy’s book. The
number of writs and
charters produced by the
Norman kings may not
have been that large. They
do not seem to have
influenced the forms of
private chirographs and
conventions which were
derived rather from
practice in France and
Normandy. The decisive
increase in the king’s
output probably took place
with the formation of the
common law in the reign
of Henry II (1154–89),
because every litigant
required a writ from the
chancery to initiate his
action. It was also between
1154 and 1199 that the
chancery gave set forms to
the charters, writs patent
and writs close which it
issued, the three types of
document developed from
the Anglo-Saxon sealed
writ. Then from 1199 it
began to record its output
(apart from the writs
initiating the common law
actions) on a series of
annual rolls. In their
modern often highly
abbreviated printed form,
the rolls down to 1307 fill
forty-six volumes and
contain some 23,000
pages. Around four scribes
have been identified as
working in the chancery
around 1130. In the
fourteenth century there
were over a hundred. A
series of rolls, apparently
begun in the 1200s,
recorded the receipts and
issues of the king’s
chamber and the daily
expenditure of his
household on food, drink
and the stables. From the
late twelfth century the
king’s courts began to keep
rolls recording the cases
they heard, rolls which
thereafter grew steadily in
length. There were
corresponding increases in
the size of the pipe rolls
and the other documents
produced by the
exchequer. (For further
detail see below, pp. 474–
5.)
The forms of royal
output and its related
habits of mind had a
profound impact on the
rest of society, something
shown in the way private
chirographs recording
agreements were eclipsed
by the more authoritative
official versions provided
from the 1190s by the
king’s judges: no less than
42,000 of the
government’s copies of
such chirographs survive
down to 1307. During the
twelfth century the
charters issued by great
lay lords came to imitate
very closely royal charters,
just as the mounted
warriors on their seals
imitated the seal of the
king. This was a trend
which came to embrace
the nobility of Wales and
Scotland as well as of
England (see above, pp.
425, 428–9). In the
thirteenth century great
lords, lay and
ecclesiastical, started to
imitate the king in their
use of household records
of daily expenditure on
food and drink, in their
pipe rolls (those of the
bishop of Winchester
began in the 1200s), in the
plea rolls of their courts,
and in their writs giving
orders to local officials:
within a short period in
1250 Richard de Clare,
earl of Gloucester, fired off
three to his bailiff at
Cranborne. The use of
writing was also filtering
down through society.
Members of the gentry
kept numerous records
relevant to the running of
their estates and
sometimes copied them
into cartularies. Even
peasants used charters to
convey land to one
another. A register
compiled by Peterborough
abbey contains over 450 of
such documents.
In order to understand
for themselves what the
documents, so central to
their lives, actually said
rather than relying on
clerks to tell them, people
from all sections of society
had the incentive to
achieve a degree of
literacy. Here reading was
the important skill and one
probably much more
prevalent than writing.
How common the ability
to read was among the
peasantry is impossible to
know, but it seems to have
been widespread among
the freemen and gentry
who staffed most juries:
ten of thirteen men on a
Norfolk jury in 1297
apparently could read. For
members of the gentry
who were having to deal
with a deluge of royal
writs both as litigants and
holders of local office,
reading skills must have
been particularly valuable.
Nearly all the documents
which had to be read
were, of course, in Latin,
so the language had to be
learnt as well as reading
itself. At the lowest level,
perhaps tuition was
provided by parish priests.
Within noble households
there were formal
textbooks, the ‘Book which
teaches us Clergie’ (that is
Latin), doubtless
expounded by mothers and
chaplains. At the highest
level, Simon de Montfort
sent his sons to be
educated by Grosseteste,
with the result that his
eldest, Henry, who was
killed at Evesham, was
able in a fine clear hand to
write his father’s will.
 Hubert de Burgh could
read Latin but no
contemporary described
him as ‘literate’ (literatus).
That was a term reserved
for those with an
altogether superior form of
learning, usually achieved
by formal study at an
institution of higher
education. Such
institutions in the
thirteenth century began
to be called universities.
Some of Henry III’s
household knights were
literate in this sense,
though usually when they
had been educated as
clerks and had become
knights in later life.
Essentially the only people
who were ‘literate’ were
clerks.
In England, clerks
without higher education
could always rise to the
top in government through
the chancery or the
exchequer. Common
lawyers, indeed, had no
alternative other than to
train through the courts,
and were eventually not
clerks at all (see below, p.
481). For many ambitious
men, however, higher
education seemed
absolutely essential. From
the late eleventh century
the content of that
education was being
transformed by the
rediscovery of lost works
of Aristotle, the revived
study of Roman law, the
new collections of canon
law, and the increasing
interest in Arabic medicine
and mathematics. In the
basic arts degree, through
lectures and disputations
in large part on Aristotle,
the student was schooled
in logic, grammar and
rhetoric, thus learning how
to speak and write
correctly and reason
analytically. The skills
achieved were transferable
to all branches of
government and
administration. They also
prepared one for yet
higher studies in law,
medicine and theology.
The great expansion of
ecclesiastical litigation
placed a premium on
canon lawyers. In the
1170s the abbot of Battle
was upbraided for failing
to send his relatives to the
schools to study the law
and the decretals, for they
could then have defended
him in lawsuits. For the
most ambitious,
intellectually and
spiritually, study of
theology had to be the
goal. It was also, for the
friars, a vocational
requirement, effective
preaching depending on
knowledge of the Bible.
In the twelfth century
the great centres of
international learning
were at Paris, Laon, Liège,
Bologna and Salerno. It
was at such schools that so
many English clerics
involved in the Becket
dispute had studied,
including Becket himself.
In the 1200s the masters
(that is, teachers) of the
Paris School began to form
themselves into a formal
corporate body, which
they called a ‘university’,
and masters elsewhere
soon followed their
example. English schools
in the twelfth century
lacked international status,
but several offered a
perfectly good education.
Grosseteste himself studied
at the school of Lincoln. In
the next century two
centres came to eclipse all
the others, forming the
only English universities.
 In 1231 Henry III issued
letters in favour of both
the ‘universities’ of Oxford
and Cambridge. He had
heard that there was a
‘multitude’ of students at
both places who could not
be disciplined by the
chancellor and the
masters. Henceforth no
one was to be allowed to
study who was not under a
‘master of scholars’. At the
same time Henry rejoiced
at the multitude of clerks
flocking to both
universities, including
those from overseas (there
had been trouble at Paris),
‘from which great
advantage and honour
comes to us and our
kingdom’. To sustain this
popularity, he ordered
rents to be fixed ‘according
to the custom’ of each
university. Clearly both
Oxford and Cambridge
were very much going
concerns, and were
conceived as playing
important roles in the life
of the kingdom. The
constitutions of both were
heavily influenced by that
developing in Paris. The
corporate body, the
university, was formed by
the teaching masters, and
as the letters of 1231
implied, no one could
teach who had not been
admitted to it. The chief
officer of the corporation
was the chancellor whose
court (in Oxford) had
disciplinary authority over
the students. In Cambridge
it was more a matter for
the individual masters.
The letters of 1231 treat
the two universities as
equal but in fact Oxford
was both older and more
important. Although it
never really recruited
internationally in the same
way as Paris, it was
described by Matthew
Paris in the 1250s as (after
Paris) ‘the second school of
the church’. There had
almost certainly been a
school at Cambridge
before the 1200s, but the
real inception of the
university came with an
exodus there of Oxford
scholars in 1209 after the
first of the town–gown
disputes. Oxford’s history
as a centre of learning is
traceable (with gaps) back
to Theobald of Étampes,
who was teaching there in
the early twelfth century.
By the 1180s, Gerald of
Wales, at least in his later
recollection, was able to
read his new book about
Ireland to ‘the doctors of
the diverse faculties and
their best pupils’. By the
1200s there were faculties
of law, arts and theology,
the last two being the ones
for which Oxford later
became most famous. The
settlement after the 1209
exodus was followed by
the appointment of the
first chancellor in or soon
after 1214.
The factors which
explained Oxford’s
emergence included its
central location which
made it a frequent
meeting-place for
ecclesiastical councils, and
its two large religious
houses (Osney and St
Frideswide’s) whose
constant litigation before
judges appointed by the
pope required the service
of trained lawyers. Oxford,
moreover, was not the seat
of a bishopric which meant
that (unlike Paris) it could
grow up free from
immediate episcopal
supervision. Even so, the
assertion by the bishop of
Lincoln, in whose diocese
Oxford lay, of his right to
appoint the chancellor
caused constant friction.
Some of Oxford’s
advantages were shared by
other towns, notably by
Northampton where there
was also an important
school. But Oxford had one
key advantage, namely the
Thames, which made it a
much more important
centre of communications.
 In the 1260s the
position of Oxford and
Cambridge was finally
assured. Students had
defected from Cambridge
to Northampton with the
intention of setting up a
university there, this with
the king’s encouragement.
But when Oxford students
sought to join them, the
bishops of the kingdom
protested: harm to Oxford
was harm to the English
church. So the government
closed the new university
down and returned studies
at Northampton to their
previous levels. There was
evidently a clear
conception of the
difference between a
university and an ordinary
school. Not long after this,
the oath taken by Oxford
masters forbade them to
teach anywhere in England
save at Oxford or
Cambridge. There was to
be a monopoly. This did
not apply to Scotland or
Wales, yet no universities
were created there in this
period. Up to a point
Oxford and Cambridge
served the whole of
Britain. Thomas Wallensis
taught the Franciscans
there between spells as a
professor in Paris and
bishop of St Davids.
William Wishart, bishop of
St Andrews, and William
de Bernham, nephew of
David de Bernham,
another St Andrews
bishop, were both
graduates. And it was an
Anglo-Scottish magnate,
John Balliol, and his wife
Dervorguilla (daughter of
Alan of Galloway), who
founded one of the first
Oxford colleges. But it was
to England that the
universities chiefly
ministered. As a royal
charter of 1355 put it,
Oxford had produced
‘most learned men by
reason of which the
kingdom, as well as its
priesthood, has been
adorned and strengthened
in manifold ways’.
 ***
In 1275 Edward I
ordered John de St Denis,
‘custodian of our
privileges’, to ‘transcribe
and register our privileges,
instruments and other
documents as we have
enjoined him’. He was
clearly well aware of the
importance of written
records in the assertion of
his authority. On reaching
the throne he had much
reassertion to do.
15

King Edward I:
The
Parliamentary
State
When Henry III died in
November 1272, Edward
was in Sicily returning
from his crusade. Instead
of hurrying home, he went
to Gascony to set the
province in order. It was
not until August 1274 that
he reached England. His
delay reflected his
confidence in his
ministers. The council left
behind to look after his
affairs had from the start
played a major part in the
government of the
kingdom, designedly so
since it controlled many
sheriffdoms and royal
castles. Now its members,
led by Edward’s clerk
Robert Burnell, took over
the reins at the centre. If
they passed on problems,
they also suggested
solutions. The problems
were formidable. With
former rebels still saddled
with heavy fines to recover
their lands, and with
widespread veneration for
Simon de Montfort shown
in pilgrimages to Evesham,
there were constant fears
of a renewal of civil war.
The government had great
difficulty prising Edward’s
brother Edmund from
Chartley castle which he
seized in April 1273. It
struggled to contain the
conflicts between Llywelyn
and the earls of Gloucester
and Hereford; it failed to
enforce an embargo on
wool exports to Flanders,
making Edward (as he
himself complained) a
laughing stock; and in
January 1273 it suspended
the general eyres then in
progress in the counties,
an act of conciliation given
the eyre’s lucrative crown
pleas business, which
reflected the general
unpopularity of the king’s
government in the shires.
And over everything hung
the financial weakness of
the crown, a long-term
problem exacerbated by
the recent civil war.
Essentially Edward needed
to open up new sources of
revenue, and forge a new
relationship with the
kingdom in order to do so.
His achievement lay in
establishing a new tax-
based parliamentary state,
and making the monarchy
for the first time since
1066 at one rather than at
odds with the Englishness
of its people. Edward by
these means gained the
power to wage his wars
against the Welsh and the
Scots. There were also
certain internal victims of
his rule. The Jews were
expelled from England in
1290. The burdens of his
wars fell with
disproportionate heaviness
on the peasantry.
In 1274 Edward was
thirty-five. Already a
veteran in war and
politics, he had learnt from
his father’s mistakes and
his own early tribulations.
Sketches and paintings
show him with a straight
nose and a massive
rounded chin. When
measured in 1774, his
skeleton was six feet two
inches in height; Edward
stood literally head and
shoulders above most
contemporaries. He had
the personality to go with
the physique. Henry III
had been a rex pacificus.
Edward was a rex
bellicosus. He had taken
part in tournaments across
France in his youth, won
the battle of Evesham, and
then gone on crusade.
Both as a skilled strategist
and a fighting knight (his
personal duel with the
rebel Adam Gurdun
became the stuff of
legend), he fulfilled all the
expectations of the warrior
king, expectations to be
amply fulfilled by his
victories in Wales and
Scotland. Yet Edward also
had a burning sense of the
civilian duties of kingship
– the preservation of the
rights of the crown, the
dispensation of justice and
the maintenance of order.
His father at heart had
been soft and simplex.
Edward by contrast was a
man ‘of tried prudence in
affairs of state’, as the
chronicler Trevet put it. In
his struggles after 1258 to
free himself from baronial
control, he had won over
individual magnates by
acts of patronage, and had
seen how reform of the
realm could conciliate
local society. He was
superbly equipped for
kingship.
Edward’s queen,
Eleanor of Castile, played
no role comparable with
that of Eleanor of
Provence. The elder
Eleanor’s exploits had
received a mixed press
from monastic chroniclers.
On the one hand she had
displayed ‘the serpentine
wiles of a woman’ when
persuading her husband to
overthrow the Provisions
of Oxford. On the other,
she had been the ‘most
powerful virago’ when
raising an army to rescue
her husband after his
capture at Lewes. There
was, however, no
opportunity for the second
Eleanor to be like the first.
She had an important
diplomatic role, thanks to
her Castilian kin and her
inheritance (she gained the
county of Ponthieu
following her mother’s
death in 1279). But unlike
her mother-in-law she had
no family party in
England, for no Castilians
were ever established
there. Although she had
six children who survived
infancy, she died too soon
(in 1290) to play a
political role through
promoting their careers.
There is no reason to think
that Eleanor resented her
position, nor did it reduce
her simply to a meek
intercessor whose ‘pity
should surpass the pity of
all men and women’, as
Archbishop Pecham put it.
Eleanor certainly had a
gentle and pious side. She
protested at the early
marriage of one of her
daughters and was a great
patron of the Dominican
friars. When, however, she
intervened for the earl of
Cornwall in 1287, it was
by arguing that the
charges of incompetence
brought against him were
unjustified, not by playing
the pity card. Indeed,
Pecham himself lamented
that Eleanor seemed more
inclined to push Edward
towards severity than
mercy. She was a clever
operator at court where
Edward’s lasting love (he
was never unfaithful) gave
her unique influence.
Apart from when he was
on campaign and she was
in late pregnancy, the
couple were rarely
separated.
Eleanor’s major
objective, at Edward’s
urging, was to build up for
herself a great landed
estate, giving the same
kind of landed base as the
pre-1154 queens but
without it having to come
from the king (see above,
pp. 192–3). In this she was
doing better than her
mother-in-law who also
acquired land but largely
on a temporary basis
through wardships.
Eleanor monitored the
land market and pounced
on those owing money to
the Jews or otherwise in
difficulties. By the time of
her death she had acquired
properties worth some
£2,600 a year, including
William of Leybourne’s
castle of Leeds in Kent.
Careful about her good
name at court, she seemed
careless about her
reputation in the country.
‘The king would like to get
our gold / The queen our
manors fair to hold’ ran
one satire. Edward’s grief
on Eleanor’s death in 1290
was profound. The great
stone crosses, which
marked the resting places
of her body on its journey
from Lincoln to
Westminster Abbey where
a beautiful gilt-bronze
effigy was placed above
her tomb, were intended
to inspire prayers for her
soul. With their graceful
and imposing statues of
the queen the crosses also
summed up the resurgence
of queenship which the
two Eleanors had effected,
in different ways, in the
thirteenth century.
As soon as he returned
to England in August 1274
Edward set about restoring
the power and authority of
the crown. In one area his
determination was given
striking physical
manifestation. London had
been the great seat of the
Montfortian rebellion, so
between 1275 and 1285
Edward spent some
£21,000 building the
Tower’s present outer
walls, moat and water
gates. In 1285 he
suspended the city’s
liberties, keeping the
government in his own
hands down to 1298. None
of this would have been
possible had Edward not
restored the financial
position of the crown.
Here his task was
formidable. At the start of
the reign revenue was
some £25,000 a year. Back
in 1130 the revenue had
been of similar size but
since then the course of
inflation, particularly in
the early thirteenth
century, had reduced the
real value of money
between two and three
times over. The income
which made Henry I rich
left Edward poor. Nor was
it easy to improve the
situation. Henry III had
been unable to sustain the
higher revenues he
generated for a while in
the 1240s. John’s far more
spectacular efforts had
provoked Magna Carta.
The problem was
compounded by the
decline in the proportion
of easy uncontentious
income from land. In 1130
not far short of£10,000 of
royal revenue had come
from the king’s own lands.
If all of these had been
retained, they might well
have been worth in the
thirteenth century
upwards of £30,000 a
year. The monarchy would
still have been rich. In
fact, however, so much
land was given away for
purposes of patronage
after 1130 that even when
exploited to the full in the
1240s what remained was
only worth around £6,000
annually. There were also
other sources of revenue
which had become less
lucrative. The heavy
taxation between 1240 and
1260 had exhausted the
wealth of the Jews; the
money from general eyres
was coming in more
slowly as, swamped by
business, they took longer
and longer to complete;
respect for the church
meant that Edward, like
his father, did not keep
bishoprics deliberately
vacant so as to take their
revenues; and finally
Magna Carta had made it
more difficult to sell
justice and charge hefty
fines for succession to
inheritances. What made
all this worse was that
while in real terms the
wealth of the English kings
had declined, that of the
Capetian kings of France
had spectacularly
increased.
In this situation Edward
developed a whole range
of policies designed to
increase his revenues,
some more successful than
others. Edward believed
that during his father’s lax
rule privileges (or
‘liberties’) had leaked far
too easily from the crown,
with a commensurate loss
of revenue. In the
localities, for example, lay
and ecclesiastical lords had
set up private gallows, and
usurped the jurisdiction of
the hundred courts by
preventing the attendance
of their men. Edward’s
response came in 1278.
When the general eyre was
revived in that year it
began to hear special quo
warranto cases under
which all who held lands
and ‘liberties’ claimable by
the crown had to show
their warrant for them.
Just how successful the
campaign was is open to
question. It certainly
caused annoyance.
According to one story
John de Warenne, earl of
Surrey, when he came
before the judges flung
down a rusty sword: his
warrant was that his
ancestors had conquered
England with King William
in 1066. The mighty
Gilbert de Clare, earl of
Gloucester, was forced to
disgorge some of his
father’s gains, but many
cases dragged on for years
and never came to a
conclusion. Often
defendants were able to
show that their lands and
liberties had been
conceded in royal charters,
a warrant acceptable from
the start. In 1290 Edward
agreed to confirm all
liberties enjoyed
continuously since 1189,
even if unsupported by
written title. In 1294 with
the suspension of the
general eyres the whole
campaign came to an end.
It had asserted the
principle that a warrant
acceptable to the king was
necessary, and may well
have stopped fresh losses.
But it had done little to
increase royal revenues or
impede developing
patterns of magnate rule in
the shires, to which we
will return.
Edward’s determination
to preserve and increase
the stock of royal lands
was more successful.
Henry III had stopped
alienating royal demesnes,
but had still given away
(often in feckless fashion)
escheats which had come
into his hands, notably
from ‘the lands of the
Normans’. Apart from gifts
to his close family, Edward
stopped alienations
altogether. He also bent
his energies to the
acquisition of land, his
wife’s activities being part
of a much wider
enterprise. Henry III in an
isolated act had bought
out the heirs to the
earldom of Chester. Under
Edward procuring land, in
large amounts and small,
through purchase and
pressure, became a matter
of consistent, insistent
policy. In 1293, in his
most spectacular coup, he
bought the Isle of Wight
for £4,000 from the dying
Isabella de Forz, countess
of Devon. Edward also
acquired two earldoms,
the first (at the end of
Henry’s reign) by saddling
the earl of Derby, Robert
de Ferrers, with an
unpayable £50,000
redemption fine, the
second in 1302 by
purchasing the reversion
of the earldom of Norfolk
from the childless Roger
Bigod. Queen Eleanor’s
lands were kept to form
the dower lands of
Edward’s second wife,
while the earldoms of
Derby and Norfolk were
used to endow respectively
his brother Edmund and
his son by his second
marriage. The original
stock of crown lands thus
remained intact.
 However, the most
important developments
under Edward lay not in
rebuilding old sources of
revenue but in opening up
new ones. This brings us to
the customs, general
taxation and Italian
bankers. Experiments with
customs under King John
and again in 1266 had met
with only mixed success.
The real start came in
1275 when, after
negotiations with
merchants (whom Edward
could threaten with
punishment for breaching
the recent embargo on
wool exports), the April
parliament conceded a
customs duty of a third of
a pound (6s. 8d.) to be
levied on every exported
sack of wool. Wool was
England’s greatest export,
most of it going to support
the Flemish cloth industry.
Buoyant prices meant that
it could easily support the
new customs. From 1275
they were a permanent
feature of English royal
finance, bringing in
around £10,000 a year
with another £1,000 a
year from Ireland.
Edward also had far
more success than
previous kings in levying
general taxation. This
involved the movable
property, essentially the
corn and the animals, of
everyone being valued,
and a percentage of that
value being given to the
king. The movables on the
church’s lands held for
rents and knight service
were also included in the
levy. Only its spiritual
property, essentially tithes
and glebe land (which
might be taxed separately)
and the movables of the
poor were exempt. The
absolutely cardinal fact
about taxation in this form
was the enormous amounts
it could raise. It had the
power to transform the
king’s financial position.
John’s thirteenth of 1207
(that is a levy at the rate of
13 per cent) yielded some
£60,000. The trouble was
that for all practical
purposes such taxation
required the consent of
parliament, consent which
Henry III was consistently
refused between 1237 and
1270. Edward changed all
that. His taxation was new
both in its scale and
regularity.
 Rate
Date of Assessment
Tax

1275 15th £82,000

1283 30th £48,000

1290 15th £117,000

These taxes were collected
with remarkable efficiency
so that the yield was little
short of the assessment.
Edward had opened up
new sources of revenue.
He also handled them in
an entirely new way
through the use of Italian
bankers, the Riccardi of
Lucca. The Riccardi were
one of the great
international banking
firms produced by the
commercial expansion of
the thirteenth century. In
England they were heavily
engaged in the wool trade
and also lent money.
Henry III had done
business with Luke of
Lucca, head of the house
in England, but on a small
scale. Edward used the
firm not for occasional
loans but to fund over
many years a large
proportion of his
expenditure. Above all the
Riccardi supplied cash for
the wardrobe, the great
spending department
travelling with the king, in
some years furnishing
nearly all its money
usually in the form of a
small number of large
advances. The reason the
Riccardi were able to make
these advances was that
Edward had entrusted
them with the entire
management and receipt
of the customs revenues,
and also with a good
proportion of the issues
from taxation. Since they
could also use nearly
£50,000 raised from the
church, which they kept as
bankers for Edward’s
second crusade whenever
it should take place, they
always had money on
which to draw. All this
was in striking contrast
with wardrobe funding
under Henry III when the
money came in dribs and
drabs from the exchequer
and many other sources.
Thus under Edward royal
finance achieved a hitherto
undreamt-of stability and
smoothness.
Edward finally
dismissed the Riccardi in
1294 when they failed to
meet his sudden demands
produced by wars in
France and Wales.
Thereafter wardrobe
finance became much
more hand-to-mouth. Yet
the appalling strains of the
period after 1294 (with
the war with Scotland
soon increasing the
demands on revenues)
revealed the strength of
the Edwardian system. If
the wardrobe by 1307 had
run up debts of £200,000,
that just showed how
successful it had been in
obtaining money and
services on credit. The
flexibility of the customs
was shown by the way the
duty between 1294 and
1297 was raised from a
third of a pound to two
pounds. Although the
amounts raised by
individual taxes declined,
Edward was able to levy
them at an unheard-of
pace and they were still
collected with great
efficiency. Between 1294
and 1307 he raised six
taxes with a total yield of
£270,000, £191,200
coming between 1294 and
1297. Meanwhile taxation
on the spiritual property of
the church brought in
some £224,600. Between
1294 and 1298 Edward
was able to spend some
£750,000 on war.
Some reflection of the
gigantic difference in
power between Edward
and Henry III is provided
by the figures for their
wardrobe receipts
(although these, of course,
were only part of their
revenues). Between 1234
and 1258 they averaged
roughly £12,000 a year.
Between 1274 and 1293
the figure was £38,000,
and between 1294 and
1303 £75,000. Whether
Edward was wealthier
than King John is
debatable, given the
course of inflation and
other difficulties of
comparison. The real point
is that a far higher
proportion of Edward’s
revenues came from
taxation: according to one
calculation, the tax yield
between 1290 and 1307
was some 120 to 200 per
cent higher in real terms
than it had been between
1199 and 1216. Edward
tapped the wealth of all
sections of society in a
way not seen since the
Conquest.
The power and
authority of Edward’s
kingship was revealed both
in its ideology and
governmental apparatus.
The God-given nature of
his rule was as visible as
his father’s, but in a
different way. He was
equally punctilious in
attending Mass, and
making offerings to shrines
and churches as he
travelled the country. But
he no longer fed paupers
at court (giving money
instead), lost interest in
Edward the Confessor,
stopped work at
Westminster Abbey, and
conjured up no ‘St Henry’
to rival St Louis (Louis IX
was canonized in 1297).
As a committed crusader –
he took the cross again in
1287 – Edward had
nothing more to prove. To
gain God’s favour for his
first crusade and his war in
Wales he founded a great
Cistercian abbey at Vale
Royal in Cheshire, here, as
with the Eleanor crosses,
imitating Capetian
practice. Likewise in
imitation of the Capetians
he touched for the
scrofula, on average nearly
a thousand people coming
before him every year. The
face of Edward’s monarchy
was also martial, quite
unlike that of his father. At
the centre of the realm, in
his great chamber at
Westminster, he
surrounded Henry III’s
painting of the Coronation
of the Confessor with tiers
of paintings depicting
battle scenes from the life
of the warrior king of the
Old Testament, Judas
Maccabeus. Edward’s
lawyers, buoyed up by his
might, made higher claims
for royal power than ever
canvassed under John or
Henry. The king was, they
said (drawing here on
Roman law), ‘for the
common utility, by his
prerogative, in many cases
above the laws and
customs used in his
kingdom’.
Alongside the Riccardi,
the scope and power of
Edward’s kingship
depended on the
traditional institutions of
central government: at
Westminster the common
bench and the exchequer;
and travelling with the
king, the chancery and the
wardrobe. All these
institutions worked
through written documents
and together generated a
massive amount of them.
The idea that orders were
more likely to be effective
when they were put in
writing and recorded, that
disputes were more likely
to be settled if the courts
made official records of
the cases they heard, and,
most deep-rooted of all,
that records were vital for
getting in the king’s
revenues and monitoring
how they were spent, these
ideas had long informed
the workings of English
government and
encouraged the increasing
reliance on documents (see
above, p. 460). They were
ideas which in a way
reached fulfilment in the
Edwardian state. Indeed,
at the exchequer there was
a belief that they had been
fulfilled almost to excess.
The extraordinary
expansion in the work of
the common bench under
Edward will be discussed
later. For the exchequer,
on the other hand, the
early years of the reign
saw its partial eclipse. The
exchequer had always
performed two main tasks.
One was to collect, store
and (as ordered) disburse
the king’s revenues, much
of the disbursement taking
the form of sending money
to the king himself where
it was paid into his
chamber or (after 1216)
his wardrobe. (In fact
there was little difference
between the two
departments.) The second
task was to audit annually
the accounts of the sheriffs
and all the other officials
and individuals who owed
money to the king, the
result of the audit being
recorded on the pipe roll.
The first task had always
been subject to one
limitation, that imposed
when the king ordered
sheriffs and others owing
him money to pay it direct
to the chamber or
wardrobe, thus bypassing
the exchequer, something
he was most likely to do
when in urgent need of
cash. This had happened
to such an extent under
Henry III that by 1258
there was a feeling among
reformers and exchequer
officials that financial
affairs would be less
chaotic if revenue was
always paid initially into
the exchequer. This was
not, however, Edward’s
view. On the contrary, the
assignments to the
Riccardi reduced the
proportion of revenue
going through the hands of
the exchequer to an
altogether new low.
The exchequer none the
less remained central to
the workings of royal
finance. Even where
collectors of revenue and
individual debtors paid
their money direct to the
wardrobe or the Riccardi,
it still had to audit the
transaction. Otherwise the
money would continue to
appear on the pipe roll as
being owed to the king.
The auditing functions of
the exchequer thus
remained unimpaired
under Edward. Indeed they
greatly expanded as it
began to take cognizance
of the king’s new revenues,
auditing accounts for the
customs and the taxation
on movables. It also heard
the accounts of the
Riccardi and, with an
annual regularity never
achieved before, the
keepers of the wardrobe.
All this activity was
facilitated by moves to
control the amount of
documentation the
exchequer had to produce.
Since their first
appearance in the twelfth
century the pipe rolls had
grown to unwieldy size.
That for 1242 (the latest
chronologically to be
published) runs to 440
pages of modern print
compared with the 161
pages of the roll of 1130.
In part this was because a
much larger number of
people owed money to the
crown. But it was also
because the rolls were
becoming clogged with a
growing backlog of debts
which there was no hope
of recovering. Already in
1270 a reform had
removed many of these
‘desperate debts’ from the
pipe roll; in 1284 another
measure excised further
redundant sections. The
exchequer was well
prepared for the testing
years after 1290. While its
auditing functions
ultimately fell into
disarray, it came once
again to play a major role
in the collection and
disbursement of royal
revenue, in part thanks to
the fall of the Riccardi. It
was no longer a question
of reducing the
documentation: the
memoranda rolls, which
recorded a great deal of its
business, tripled in size
after 1290 from thirty to
ninety membranes. That
taxation continued to be
collected so efficiently in
this period owed a great
deal to exchequer activity.
In 1274, on his return
to England, Edward gave
the chancellorship to his
faithful clerk, Robert
Burnell. Except for periods
during military campaigns,
the chancery largely
followed the king until
Burnell’s death in 1292. A
large part of the
government of the realm
depended on the
concessions, proclamations
and orders which it wrote
and sealed for the king in
the form of charters,
letters patents and letters
close (see above, p. 199).
Much of this output,
running to several
thousand separate items
each year, was recorded
on the annual charter,
patent, close, liberate and
fine rolls which in 1291–2
took up some seventy
membranes of parchment,
many of them closely
written on both sides. In
fact the rolls had been
much the same size at the
start of Edward’s reign.
The real increase in
chancery business after
1272 was in the
production of the letters or
writs close which initiated
and processed the common
law legal procedures, writs
so numerous and standard
form (‘of course’) that they
were never enrolled. By
the 1320s (when numbers
can first be calculated)
well over 20,000 of these
writs were being issued
annually. It was the
volume of this business
which led to the chancery
in the fourteenth century
ceasing to follow the court
and taking up near
permanent residence at
Westminster.
Even in Burnell’s day,
the chancery with about a
hundred clerks was
essentially separate from
the royal household. The
wardrobe, on the other
hand, was at the
household’s heart. For all
the importance of the
exchequer, it was the real
nerve centre of royal
finance, receiving and
spending a large part of
the revenues, as we have
seen, and vastly expanding
its activities in time of
war. In the later years of
the reign, with the decline
of the Riccardi, wardrobe
officials supplemented the
flow of cash from the
exchequer by actively
seeking out for themselves
money they could take
into their coffers. When
the chancery was
separated from the king,
the wardrobe also had the
task of writing many of his
letters, sealing them with
the private or privy seal of
which it was custodian.
Ultimately in the
fourteenth century, with
the chancery having
moved out of court, it was
through such letters that
the king most often
expressed his wishes.
Under Edward, the
wardrobe was staffed by
able and long-serving
clerks like William of
Louth and Walter Langton,
several of whom went on
to the treasurership of the
exchequer and bishoprics,
thus helping to bind
together the royal
administration as well as
church and state.
The household also had
a military wing headed by
the king’s stewards,
usually one or two of
whom were in office at
any one time. Below the
stewards were (around
1285) some eighty knights,
a hundred esquires and
thirty serjeants-at-arms, all
retained with annual
money fees. Around 1240
Henry III too had been
giving money fees to about
seventy knights, but
Edward’s household was
far more militaristic, in
part because it had a much
higher number of knights
actually ‘staying with the
king at court’, as the
wardrobe accounts put it.
The household knights,
many from families with a
long tradition of service –
Gorges, Leybourne,
Seagrave – might not reap
the landed rewards of their
forebears under Henry
(although they did gain
marriages and wardships),
but they had the honour of
serving a famous king.
Like household knights in
the past, they were bound
by a special oath to report
anything spoken against
the king, and were often
sent out as castellans,
investigators and
diplomats, receiving,
Edward decreed, the same
wages as if they were
actually present at court.
In effect wherever they
were, so was the king.
Some of Edward’s
bannerets (a title now
given to senior knights)
were among the king’s
closest councillors and
received personal
summonses to parliament.
Above all, the household
forces, always quickly
expandable, formed the
nucleus of royal armies,
contributing to the Welsh
war of 1282–3 a third of
the paid cavalry in the
army.
The food, drink and
horse fodder of the royal
household cost around
£12,000 a year in the
1280s, perhaps some
£4,000 to £5,000 more
than thirty years before.
Around 570 members were
in receipt of annual robes.
The household’s records in
1285–6 fill some 250
pages of modern print.
Around the household was
the wider court composed
of the judges of the king’s
bench, who heard the
cases of special concern to
the king (see above, pp.
347–8), the other sworn
councillors, and the
regional magnates who
came in and out as the
king travelled the country.
Such contact with local
society was important, yet
there is little sign that
Edward, any more than his
father, travelled for the
purposes of routine
government. If he was
more itinerant, the
purpose was for fighting or
hunting. The
Northamptonshire and
New Forest hunting lodges
came back into fashion.
Apart from emergencies,
Edward’s remained a
southern-based kingship.
Fundamentally the realm
came to him – above all, as
we shall see, at the time of
parliament.
 The restoration of the
resources and prestige of
monarchy made Edward a
powerful and sometimes
oppressive ruler.
Oppressive was certainly
how he seemed after 1294
when he strained every
nerve to raise men and
revenue for wars in Wales,
Scotland, Flanders and
Gascony. In 1297 he
ruthlessly crushed the
church’s resistance to
taxation of its spiritual
property by sequestrating
its lands. In many ways
Edward’s rule after 1294
was comparable with
John’s after 1204: both
kings were driving forward
their governments in order
to raise money for foreign
war. Yet the political
results were quite
different. John’s
government ended in
Magna Carta and civil war.
Henry III’s rather different
misrule also culminated in
a revolution. Nothing like
this happened to Edward.
He certainly faced serious
unrest and in 1297 and
1300 confirmed Magna
Carta, abolished the extra
duty on wool, agreed that
no taxation could be levied
without consent, and
accepted limitations on his
right to take ‘prise’. This
was the ancient right of
compulsory purchase to
obtain goods for the royal
household, which Edward
had expanded to gain
supplies for his armies as
well. These were
significant concessions but
they were small beer
compared with those of
1258. There was no
attempt to impose a
council on the king, take
the control of government
out of his hands, and carry
through wide-ranging
reforms in the localities.
That was partly because of
Edward’s immense prestige
as a war leader. But it was
also because there was in
his kingship elements that
had been lacking under
John and Henry III – a
political balance and
stability, fruit of his
conciliation of interest
groups and his reform of
the realm.
Outside the great
quarrel in the 1290s,
Edward maintained a good
working relationship with
the church. He twice
accepted Robert Burnell’s
failure to become
archbishop of Canterbury,
the pope appointing
instead two distinguished
churchmen in Robert
Kilwardby (1273–8) and
John Pecham (1279–92).
In return there was always
a spread of curial bishops
including Burnell himself
at Bath and Wells and
John Kirkby at Ely, both of
whom continued in royal
service after their
elevation to the bench.
The pope, until his
unavailing protest in 1297,
permitted taxation of the
church’s spiritual property
and even allowed Edward
eventually to take the
money supposedly
reserved for his second
crusade. (Its withdrawal
from the Riccardi
contributed to their fall.)
 Edward could certainly
treat his magnates in
masterful fashion. He
forced Roger Bigod, earl of
Norfolk, to pay the debts
he owed the crown; in
1290–91 he briefly
imprisoned the earls of
Gloucester and Hereford,
and seized their lordships
of Glamorgan and Brecon
when they defied his
orders and resorted to
violence during a quarrel
in the March. Although
only partially successful,
his quo warranto inquiries
put far more pressure on
the liberties of magnates
than anything attempted
by his father. This was,
however, only part of the
picture. Whatever was said
by his judges, Edward’s
general conduct of
business nearly always
remained within the letter
of the law. In acquiring
property he resorted to
sharp practice, but never
arbitrary dispossession. On
the whole he accepted the
limits set by chapter 39 of
the 1215 Charter. He also
abided by the Great
Charter’s regulations on
relief, the sale of justice
and the treatment of
widows. Edward quickly
rehabilitated some former
Montfortians, notably John
de Vesci (see above, pp.
425–6), John fitz John,
Nicholas of Seagrave, and
Thomas Cantilupe who
became bishop of
Hereford. He was
extremely close to several
of his greatest barons,
including Henry de Lacy,
earl of Lincoln, John de
Warenne, earl of Surrey
(despite his rusty sword),
and Roger de Mortimer,
giving them extensive
lands from the conquest of
Wales. If his tightfistedness
outside his Welsh
conquests meant that he
could not pose as the true
Arthurian king (for whom
largesse was a cardinal
virtue), at least he avoided
the factional struggles and
scrambles for patronage
which had plagued his
open-handed father. If
Edward was mean, he was
at least mean to everyone.
Beneath the magnates,
Edward, far more than any
previous king, reached out
and won the favour of the
knights and those below
them in local society,
precisely the groups who
had, through their
representatives in
parliament, to consent to
the new taxation. Edward
had been profoundly
influenced by the
Montfortian period
between 1258 and 1267.
He had seen how the
realm could be reformed
through the use of
inquiries, eyres, legislation
and parliament. He would
do the same. In 1274–5 he
staged a great inquiry into
both the usurpation of
royal rights and the
malpractices of local
officials. Many of the
abuses brought to light
were dealt with in the
Statute of Westminster I
(1275), legislation
avowedly designed ‘for the
common good and the
relief of those who are
oppressed’.
 Also important for that
relief were changes at the
centre. A major problem
with Henry III’s
government, after the
suspension of the
justiciarship and the
Bishop Neville type
chancellorship, had been
the lack of clear targets at
the centre at which those
in the localities could fire
off their complaints. One
solution in 1258 had been
the revival of the
justiciarship. Edward
would not repeat that
experiment, but he did
have a chancellor very
similar to Neville in Bishop
Burnell. Scion of a
knightly family from Acton
Burnell in Shropshire
(where he built a superb
church and manor house),
Burnell looked after his
own interests but until his
death in 1292 he ran the
chancery in an accessible,
evenhanded manner,
stressing repeatedly the
duty of his officials to act
justly. Edward’s routine
government seemed far
more open and equitable
than that of his father.
One man, however,
could only do so much,
and therefore Edward
innovated, using
parliament in a way never
envisaged before, to hear
petitions for justice and
favour from his subjects.
Until his departure for
Gascony in 1286 at least
two parliaments were held
each year; they were able
therefore to hear petitions
on a regular basis. Before
each meeting,
proclamations were made
calling for such petitions
to be delivered by a
certain date, and they
were then heard, during
the parliament, by the
council or its committees.
The response was
sufficiently overwhelming
to necessitate in 1280 the
introduction of some
filtering measures to
prevent petitions
swamping other business.
For ‘the people’ for whom
Edward so often expressed
concern, the hearing of
petitions was parliament’s
most important function.
Many of the petitions
protested about the abuses
by local officials and a
main thrust of Edward’s
policies was indeed to
make local government
less oppressive. To that
end he eschewed some of
his father’s unpopular
policies: the sheriffs were
never made to answer for
increments above the
county farms of pre-1258
levels; the forest eyres
were never as lucrative as
those held between 1246
and 1251; and in 1278
Edward dismissed most of
the sheriffs and ‘replaced
them with knights from
their own counties’, as the
annals of Dunstable put it.
Thereafter for the most
part it was county knights,
serving in their own shires,
who peopled the office.
The long-standing demand
of the counties for sheriffs
to be such local worthies –
a key feature of the
reforms of 1258 – had thus
been achieved.
 Another important
feature of the reforms of
1258–9 had been to send
the justices round the
shires to hear complaints
or plaints (querelae), which
could be brought by word
of mouth or written ‘bill’.
That had been unpopular
with some magnates who
found their officials under
attack, and the special
eyres ended in 1260.
Edward was more
determined. When he
restarted the general eyres
in 1278, the judges were
empowered to hear and
determine querelae against
all comers. Although on
some eyres few plaints
were heard (for reasons
which are unclear), from
now on they formed a
separate section of the
eyre’s business.
 Many plaints were of
‘trespass’, and it was
essentially in Edward’s
reign that the action of
trespass came to
prominence. As a result a
whole army of new
business ultimately
marched into the king’s
courts. Trespass became
defined as an act by force
of arms and in breach of
the peace which was yet
not serious enough to be a
crown plea. By alleging
trespass it was possible to
bring a range of minor
misdemeanours (assault,
seizure of corn and
animals, for example) into
the king’s courts, the
preferred method
ultimately becoming the
civil writ of trespass. By
the 1300s large numbers
of cases were being heard
by the common bench at
Westminster. This was part
and parcel of a general
expansion of royal justice
which had been continuing
since the time of Henry II
but now gathered quite
extraordinary pace. Here
Edward’s legislation
helped the process by
making technical changes
which maintained the
popularity of old actions
like novel disseisin and
gave others an entirely
new place in the limelight.
Fifty replevin cases (in
which plaintiffs sought the
return of beasts seized by
lords for arrears of service)
came before the common
bench between 1200 and
1267, and 1,500 between
1272 and 1307.
Throughout the century
there was also a steady
growth in the forms of
legal action. There were
fifteen of these in 1189,
sixty-five around 1270 and
well over a hundred in
1307. In order to cope
with the increase of
business, significant
developments took place
during Edward’s reign in
the structure of royal
courts. After 1278 the
general eyre remained in
permanent session, with
no interval between the
completion of each nation-
wide visitation. At the
same time, in the long
gaps between the eyres’
appearance in individual
counties circuit justices
were commissioned more
regularly than before to
hear petty assizes and try
those held in gaols. From
about 1275 justices were
also appointed, frequently
in response to petitions in
parliament, to hear and
determine (‘oyer and
terminer’) specific cases,
often of trespass. And
above all, largely because
that was what litigants
wanted, there was a vast
increase in business done
by common bench at
Westminster, this being
facilitated by widening the
scope of the writs of pone
and recordari which
transferred business there.
One reflection of the
increase is the number of
membranes of parchment
the bench needed to
record its business: forty-
nine in 1200, 352 in 1275,
and a colossal 1,520 in
1306. No wonder by that
time there were twenty-
three clerks writing the
rolls!
In parallel with this
increase in litigation and
development in court
structures, Edward’s reign
saw a transformation in
the judiciary. For the first
time it could be thought of
as fully professional. Since
the reign of Henry II there
had been ministers who
over many years had heard
pleas both at the centre
and in the localities.
Increasingly in the
thirteenth century such
men came to specialize in
legal work to the exclusion
of anything else. Under
Edward these long-serving
professionals (like Ralph
de Hengham and William
of Bereford) were more
numerous than ever
before. It was also
established for the first
time that all the judges of
the central courts (the
common bench at
Westminster and the king’s
bench travelling with the
king) were entitled to
salaries. An important
change was likewise taking
place in patterns of
recruitment. Previously
common bench justices
had been drawn from
clerks of former justices
and from other branches of
administration; by the end
of Edward’s reign, the
judiciary was being
recruited from the small
group of serjeants
(‘barristers’ in modern
terminology) who pleaded
in the central courts,
particularly the common
bench.
 This reflected another
important development in
Edward’s reign: the full
emergence of a legal
profession. In the 1260s
there were around ten
professional attorneys
working at the common
bench. By the early 1300s
there were over 200 of
them. These men
represented their clients in
court but did not actually
plead. That was left to the
serjeant barristers just
mentioned, so already the
division of the legal
profession into barristers
and solicitors was
emerging. Serjeants
formed the cream of the
profession. They had to
know both the standard
form pleadings required by
the numerous writs
originating the actions,
and the labyrinthine
procedural rules governing
the progress of each case.
Hence, of course, the need
for the profession in the
first place. By the 1290s
there were around thirty
serjeants at the common
bench, with entry being
confined to apprentices
trained by sitting in court
and listening to the
arguments. The monopoly
the serjeants ultimately
established over promotion
to the judiciary meant that
judges would be laymen
(for clerks, prevented from
pleading in court, could
not be serjeants), members
of a legal profession, and
graduates of the courts,
not the universities. They
were for these reasons
often unversed in either
canon or Roman law;
much of England’s legal
insularity can be attributed
to this fact.
Under Edward,
therefore, a law state had
emerged as well as a tax
state. Just as far more
people than ever before
paid taxes on a regular
basis, so more than ever
before they were involved
in litigation through royal
procedures in royal courts.
In part this was simply due
to the removal of cases
from lower courts,
especially the county
courts. But it also
represented a real increase
in business, an increase
which can only be
explained by people
positively wanting the
kind of justice the king
provided. The law state
and the tax state were
intimately related. It was
because Edward dispensed
justice and reformed the
realm that his parliaments
were ready to grant him
taxes in a way those of
Henry III had not. The
Statute of Westminster I
was promulgated ‘with the
counsel and assent of the
community of the land’ at
a parliament attended by
knights and burgesses. As
the chronicler Wykes put
it, such reforms served to
‘join the hearts of the
people to the king in the
sincerity of inestimable
love’.
The Statute of
Westminster I was the first
of the great Edwardian
statutes. It was followed
by the Statutes of Jewry
(1275), Gloucester (1278),
Mortmain (1279), Acton
Burnell (1283),
Westminster II, Merchants
and Winchester (all 1285),
and Quo Warranto and
Quia Emptores (1290). In
the years after 1234 Henry
III had made some attempt
to reform the realm
through legislation, but
Edward’s efforts lasted
much longer and were
more detailed and wide-
ranging. West minster II
itself runs to thirty pages
of closely packed modern
print. Not all the
legislation was effective,
but if there was a problem
Edwardian government at
least attempted a solution.
The statutes dealt with a
wide variety of issues
including the workings of
the common law, the
maintenance of order,
debts owed to merchants,
and the difficulties created
for lords by sub-
enfeoffment. Taken as a
whole they struck a
balance between the
claims of various interest
groups, and in effect met
the needs of ‘the
community of the realm’.
They are a remarkable
testimony to the grasp and
hard thinking of royal
officials and the sense of
politics and responsibility
of Edward himself.
One area where
Edward’s legislation
seemed least effective was
that of law and order, but
it was also here that co-
operation between king
and community was in a
sense at its most
impressive. In his Statute
of Winchester of 1285
Edward complained that
there were more robberies
and homicides than ever
and that local juries
refused to indict criminals
when, as was often the
case, they were local
people. Edward’s
government was thus
failing in its most basic
task, the maintenance of
the peace. The structures
of law enforcement were,
of course, very old. While
lords in manorial and
private hundred courts
dealt with cases of minor
disorder and sometimes
had the right to hang petty
thieves caught red-handed,
all major crimes were
included among the pleas
of the crown, as they had
been in effect since Anglo-
Saxon times. In a knife
carrying society there was
plenty of violence about.
Even a small county like
Berkshire had twenty
homicides a year in the
1270s. Some of these
deaths were the result of
domestic violence; others,
like many thefts and
robberies, were the work
of ‘genuine criminals’,
often operating in gangs –
criminals who largely
came from and preyed
upon the poorest sections
of society. Edward’s view
that crime was increasing
finds some support from
statistics drawn from
thirteenth-century eyre
rolls. The rolls also reveal
a chronic failure to arrest
and convict criminals, not
unlike the situation today.
On the Surrey eyre of 1263
(not untypical), of the 232
persons accused of serious
crime (including
homicide), only 105 were
brought before the judges
and of these 73 were
found not guilty, leaving
only 32 who were actually
convicted and hanged.
Meanwhile 125 of the
accused had absconded
and had been outlawed –
joining the ranks of the
‘strangers’ and ‘unknown
malefactors’ increasingly
blamed for crime. (They
were responsible for 35
per cent of serious thefts
reported in Lincolnshire
legal records between
1281 and 1284.)
In his Statute of
Winchester, Edward tried
to address these problems
by reinforcing earlier
measures which had
provided compensation for
victims of robberies and
set up a system of ‘watch
and ward’, with watchmen
in villages and constables
in hundreds. Since Edward
failed (other than
intermittently) to appoint
officials to enforce the
statute, it is hardly
surprising that by 1300 he
acknowledged its failure.
In South-wark the
watchmen had gone off to
the pub and then to bed.
There is, however, a more
positive side to all this.
The hundred jurors, when
they came before the
justices in eyre, did at least
identify large numbers of
those outlawed as
members of tithings, that
is the units of ten men into
which the peasant
population was grouped
for law-keeping purposes
(see above, p. 62). In that
respect the tithing system
was working for thus
placarded it must have
been very difficult for
outlaws to return to their
local communities. Equally
it may be that an accused’s
appearance before the
judges and subsequent
acquittal were often
agreed beforehand within
the local community, and
were part of a process of
settlement arranged by
neighbours. The forms
were royal but the justice
communal, and perhaps all
the better for that. The
workings of law
enforcement brought
together all sections of
society: the peasants in the
tithing groups; the freemen
on the hundred juries; the
gentry holding office as
sheriffs and coroners; the
king’s ministers appearing
in the shires as justices in
eyre; and the king himself
in parliament overseeing
the whole complex system.
Parliament was indeed
the forum which held
Edward’s realm together.
Its core was formed by the
king’s council, which
included the justices of
both the benches and the
chief officials of the
exchequer. One reason
why parliaments met so
regularly was to bring
together the different parts
of this expanding
bureaucracy. Many of the
great lay and ecclesiastical
magnates were themselves
on the council. Those who
were not received an
individual summons to
parliament, the criteria
often being wealth and
status rather than baronial
rank, the division of
baronies and the rise of
new men having rendered
tenure by barony
increasingly meaningless.
The parliamentary peerage
of the fourteenth century
was beginning to develop.
Meanwhile the House of
Commons had actually
arrived.
Before 1272 Henry III,
both controlled by Simon
de Montfort and as a free
agent, had occasionally
summoned knights and
burgesses to parliament.
Edward came to do so on a
much more regular basis.
One reason for this was
that representatives could
provide political support
and spread the royal
message in the localities.
Edward’s ministers had
summoned knights and
burgesses to the
parliament of January
1273, where they swore
allegiance to the new king
and doubtless applauded
the abandonment of the
general eyre. In April
1275, the representatives
went home to spread the
glad news of the Statute of
Westminster. In 1283 they
came to Shrewsbury to
witness Edward’s triumph
over Wales, the London
burgesses taking back
Prince Dafydd’s head to be
displayed on the Tower.
There was also, however,
another reason for the
summoning of
representatives, one which
pre-eminently secured
their place in parliament:
no tax was obtainable
without their consent (see
above, pp. 355–6). Edward
therefore had no
alternative but to summon
representatives to the
parliaments of 1275, 1282
and 1290, parliaments
where taxes were
conceded. If the majority
of Edward’s early
parliaments were still of
the old-style magnate type,
regular taxation, if it
came, would be bound to
change all that. So it did
during the emergency
caused by the French,
Welsh and Scottish wars of
the 1290s, with
representatives attending
four of the eight
parliaments held between
1294 and 1297. One
dramatic episode showed
that from this there was no
escape. In July 1297
Edward asserted that a tax
had been granted ‘by earls,
barons, knights and
laymen of all our
kingdom’, yet the
magnates had not been
properly summoned and
the knights and burgesses
had not been summoned at
all. The earls of Hereford
and Norfolk marched into
the exchequer and said so.
Edward was forced to back
down and later in the year,
in the ‘Confirmation of the
Charters’, he accepted that
taxation could only be
levied ‘with the common
assent of all the realm’.
The attendance of
representatives was now
almost finally fixed.
Between 1300 and 1307
they came to seven of the
nine parliaments, even
though taxation was only
conceded at two of them.
The Edwardian
parliaments also saw the
increasing appearance of
the lower clergy (the deans
and priors of the cathedral
churches, the archdeacons
and the delegates of the
parish clergy), the reason
again being to get their
consent to taxation of their
spiritualities. Edward’s
parliaments, with seventy-
four knights (two from
each shire), around eighty
burgesses (two from each
town, although the
number of towns
summoned varied) and no
less than 148 members of
the lower clergy, were
fully representative of the
realm in a way
parliaments ceased to be
later when clerical
taxation was considered in
a separate assembly,
Convocation. Parliament
had come a long way since
Magna Carta, which had
envisaged baronial and
other tenants-in-chief
alone providing ‘common
consent’. In contrast, a
tract ‘How to Hold a
Parliament’, written in the
early fourteenth century,
asserted that in all things
‘which ought to be
granted, done or refused in
parliament’, the knights
from the shires carried
more weight than the
greatest earl. The
magnates, it opined, spoke
merely for themselves. It
was the knights and
burgesses who represented
‘the whole community of
England’. This
parliamentary state
necessitated, of course, a
new kind of parliamentary
monarch. There too
Edward proved
remarkably adept – not
surprisingly perhaps since
his experience stretched
back to 1259 when the
community of the bachelry
of England had made its
protest to him. In 1290
Edward restrained his
temper, prolonged
parliamentary sessions
over many weeks, placated
both knights and magnates
with concessions, and in
the end gained the largest
tax of his reign.
In the late twelfth and
thirteenth centuries a
sense of community and
national identity had been
shaped in part by
opposition to the crown.
Edward’s achievement in
the first twenty years of
his reign was to close this
gap between monarchy
and nation. His reforms, as
we have seen, ‘joined the
hearts of the people to the
king’. His approach to
patronage at last erased
the idea that the king was
rewarding foreign kinsmen
and ministers at the
expense of his native
subjects. That Edward’s
most trusted councillor,
Otto of Grandson, was a
Savoyard caused hardly a
ripple. Edward’s uncle,
William de Valence, so
divisive a figure in the
reign of Henry III, settled
down as an unremarkable
member of the regime.
Matthias Bezille, reviled as
a foreigner by the
Gloucestershire gentry in
1261, produced
descendants who
themselves became
members of the country
gentry. Whereas Henry III
was accused of bringing in
foreigners to blot out the
name of the English, in
1295 it was Edward who
warned that a French
invasion aimed to abolish
‘the English tongue’. The
eulogies poured forth on
Edward’s death in 1307
show that his reputation
had survived the heavy
burdens placed on the
kingdom after 1294.
Indeed no king since the
Conquest had received
such glowing tributes. One
ballad written significantly
in English and thus
intended for a wide
audience imagined Edward
on his deathbed:
‘Clerkes, knytes,
barouns’, he sayde,
‘Y charge ou by oure
sware [your oath]
That the to Engelonde
be trewe.’

At last the king himself

was the leader of the
English nation, not its
enemy.
Edward deserves this
fanfare, yet for some in the
lower orders of society as
also for the Jews it would
have struck a discordant
note. The king would
certainly have regarded
the peasants as part of the
nation which he led. They
were integral, as we have
seen, to the system of law
enforcement. They also
reaped some benefit from
reforms which restrained
the abuses of local
officials, and made
litigation easier. A great
many legal actions, as in
the past, were between
freemen of peasant
condition over small
amounts of land. Probably
it was in such cases that
royal justice was at its
most effective. Peasant
communities thought
enough of the impartiality
of the royal courts to bring
actions in them against
their lords, sometimes
clubbing together to pay
their serjeant barristers.
They may also have gained
indirectly from the
common law, for it
inspired record-keeping
and comparable forms of
action in manorial courts,
both of which gave
peasants greater security.
Yet while Edward might
declare that ‘we are all to
obtain one reward in
Christ, whether of servile
or of free conditions’, that
‘one reward’ was indeed in
the next life, not in this.
None of Edward’s
legislation altered the fact
that the unfree half of the
peasantry remained
completely debarred from
the king’s courts.
What can a serf do
unless serve, and his
son?
He shall be a pure serf
deprived of freedom.
The law’s judgement
and the king’s court
prove this ran the
triumphal poem of
Leicester abbey in
1276 after its villeins
of Stoughton had
failed to prove they
were free sokemen.
The peasantry also
suffered particularly
heavily in the latter
part of the reign from
the demands of the
crown. It was largely
their goods which
were taken to supply
royal armies under the
right of prise. It was
they who supplied the
king with foot soldiers.
The obligation on
everyone to bear arms
for the maintenance of
the peace and defence
of the realm was
ancient, but it was one
thing to send village
contingents to resist
foreign invasion as in
1264, and quite
another to dispatch
them (organized by
new officials called
‘commissioners of
array’) to Wales,
Scotland and Gascony
as in the 1290s.
Although Edward
normally offered pay
after the muster, it was
up to the villages to
find the troops and
their equipment.
Launditch hundred in
Norfolk in 1295 had to
spend £52 raising 187
men for Gascony.
Worse than either
prise or military
service was the burden
of taxation, for it was
both heavier
(Launditch’s bill in
1294 was £242) and
general throughout the
country. (Prise and
military service bore
most heavily on
counties nearest to
campaigns.)
Admittedly a
significant proportion
of the English
peasantry were too
poor to be taxed, but
that still left many
who were liable. What
made their sufferings
disproportionately
heavy was that they
lacked the resources to
bribe the tax
collectors. There could
be no equivalent of the
entertainment of the
assessors offered by
Merton College,
Oxford, which
dramatically reduced
its tax burden at
Cuxham in the 1290s.
So, as one lampoon
put it, the rich man
worth £40 is taxed at
12d., and so is the man
with ‘a heap of
children’ whom
‘poverty hath brought
to the ground’. In the
1260s Nicholas
Franciscus, a peasant
from Westerham in
Kent, declared that the
king’s bailiffs deserved
to be hanged because
they never did good
when they could do ill,
a very Robin Hood
type of utterance.
Many in Edward’s
reign probably
expressed similar
sentiments about royal
officials, if not perhaps
of the king himself.
 It was not, of course,
merely royal officials who
were oppressive.
Throughout Edward’s
reign peasant communities
continued to resist their
lords both by violence and
litigation (see above, pp.
413–14). Meanwhile there
was a large criminal
underclass, swollen
perhaps by over-
population, ‘the unknown
malefactors’ and ‘vagrants’
referred to so often in the
eyre rolls. In the 1260s
peasants had felt genuinely
embraced by the great
movement of ‘baronial’
reform. That is far less
clear of the protests of the
1290s, for all their
limitations on prise and
taxation. By the end of the
thirteenth century a
general peasants’ revolt
may not have been very
far away. The Ordinances
of 1311 expressed concern
that ‘the people of the land
will rise by reason of the
prises and other
oppressions made in these
times’. Edward’s power
was always based on the
exploitation by him and
his lords of the great bulk
of the population.
 If the peasants, for all
their burdens, were part of
Edward’s people, the Jews
emphatically were not. In
1290 he expelled them
from the country. There
was one primary reason
why Edward was prepared
to take this step. The
heavy taxation between
1240 and 1260 had
destroyed the wealth of
the Jews and thus their
value to the crown.
Concentrated in twenty-
one towns with ‘chests’ in
which were deposited the
records of their business
dealings, Jewish numbers
had declined from between
3,000 and 5,000 in the
1240s to less than 2,000
forty years later. In most
towns, as had always been
the case, the bulk of the
business was controlled by
a handful of Jews (in
Lincoln there were a
dominant six, three of
whom had London
connections), but the scale
of their transactions was
small compared with those
of the past. The total value
of the debts owed to the
Jews in 1290 was around
£20,000 compared with
nearly £80,000 in the
1240s. Whereas between
1241 and 1256 the crown
gained not far short of
£73,333 in Jewish
taxation, between 1272
and 1290 it only made
£9,300. Another £11,000
came from the seizure of
property following coin-
clipping allegations in
1278, but that only served
to weaken the community
further.
 Edward could afford to
be influenced by ‘religious’
considerations. A strand of
church thought
(mentioned by Edward
himself in his Statute of
Jewry in 1275) had always
been that the Jews should
be preserved and protected
because they were
reminders of Christ’s
passion, but during the
thirteenth century other
more hostile views were
gaining ground.
Legislation against usury
reached a climax in the
Council of Lyons in 1274.
In 1286 Pope Honorius IV
wrote to England fiercely
criticizing the contacts
permitted between
Christians and Jews, and
demanding more rigorous
separation between the
two. Edward himself had
already moved in that
direction by laying down
the precise dimensions of
the badge (the tabula)
which Jews were to wear
so that they could be
shunned on sight. Another
solution was through a
policy of muscular
conversion. Edward tried
to force the Jews to attend
the preaching of the friars,
and to cope with the
results he optimistically
enlarged the House for
Converted Jews founded
by his father.
If, however, the Jews
obstinately refused to
convert, there was a
growing belief that they
should not be preserved
but expelled – the dangers
of contact, with horrific
events like those at Lincoln
fresh in people’s minds
(see above, p. 349), were
just too great. During
Henry’s reign they were
indeed expelled from a
number of English towns
(including Montfort’s
Leicester) and in 1275
Edward allowed his
mother to remove them
from her dower lands. In
1253 (while still on
crusade) Louis IX had
ordered all Jews to leave
France save those who
were traders and workers.
Most significantly of all,
Edward himself
anticipated the expulsion
of Jews from England by
expelling them from
Gascony when he was in
the province in 1287.
Making little money from
the suppression, the king’s
motives were again
‘religious’: a thank-offering
for his recovery from
serious illness which also
prompted his related
(though abortive) decision
once more to go on
crusade.
There was one other
continental precedent
which revealed very real
material benefits from
Jewish expulsion. In
December 1289 Charles of
Salerno had expelled the
Jews from his counties of
Maine and Anjou quite
specifically in return for a
tax ‘as some recompense
for the profit we lose’.
Edward was well informed
about Charles, having
secured his release from
Aragonese captivity only
the year before. His
example tapped into an
existing English
background in which the
king had for some time
been imposing restrictions
on the Jews in return for
parliamentary taxation.
The great tax of 1275 was
related to the Statute of
Jewry which abolished
usury altogether, and
instructed the Jews to live
henceforth by lawful
merchandise and labour.
In this perspective, final
expulsion in return for a
tax must have seemed but
a logical concluding step.
Getting the tax, of
course, depended on
expulsion being something
which parliament wanted.
Paradoxically, religious
considerations aside, that
may have been less true in
1290 than earlier in the
century. The evaporation
of Jewish wealth had
reduced the numbers and
status of their creditors.
Great lay and ecclesiastical
magnates had taken their
overdrafts elsewhere: in
1281 it was to the Riccardi
that the earl of Norfolk
owed £1,133. Up to a
point, moreover, the Jews
after the 1275 Statute had
adapted to a new non-
usurious way of life. A
large proportion of the
bonds found in the chests
in 1290 recorded debts
owed not in money but in
commodities, notably
wool. That may simply
have been a way of
disguising usurious loans,
about whose continuation
Edward complained. But it
is also likely that Jews
were genuinely working as
commodity traders,
advancing money in return
for wool and corn which
they then sold on at a
profit. The intense hostility
to the Jews seen in Lincoln
in the 1250s was not
always typical. In Hereford
in 1286 large numbers of
Christians enjoyed the
plays, sports and
minstrelsy at a Jewish
wedding, to the scandal of
the bishop.
If, however, these
developments had reduced
hostility to the Jews, it
had certainly not been
eliminated. The Jews
could not escape their
history. In the 1275
Statute, Edward explained
how he had seen ‘the
disinheriting of the good
men of his land that has
happened by the usuries
which the Jews have made
in the past’. Although their
new clients were declining
in importance, their old
ones remained on the
books until the debts were
paid off. As late as 1264–5,
when the Montfortian
government made
concessions over Jewish
debts, the beneficiaries
included many of magnate
status. The legislation of
1269–70 prevented such
debts being sold to
Christians but only if they
had no royal licence,
which of course was often
granted. So the queen and
other courtiers bought
them up and forced the
victims to sell land in
payment. The 1275
legislation likewise still
allowed Jews to collect
their old debts and indeed
to seize land in the
process. Although most of
these magnate debts seem
to have been liquidated in
one way or another by
1290, they must have left
a terrible residue of
bitterness. For the knights
it was not simply a
question of residue, for
they continued to contract
debts. The Lincoln records
of 1290 show that twenty-
four of the 185 debtors
(owing 25 per cent of the
total outstanding) were
knights or members of
knightly families. A good
many knights were also
among the debtors of
Aaron le Blund in
Hereford. If some of these
debts represented genuine
commodity transactions,
that is hardly likely to
have been the case with all
of them. So the knights in
the 1290 parliament saw
the expulsion of the Jews
as having immediate
financial benefits for
themselves or their
fellows.
***
By an unpleasant
paradox the expulsion of
the Jews showed Edward
at his most ruthless and
also his most conciliatory.
Sacrificed on the
parliamentary altar in
return for taxation, they
were victims of the
consensus which underlay
the might of the
Edwardian state. In terms
of the reach of the
common law, that state
was surely unique in its
scope. In no previous
period had so many people
pursued and settled their
disputes through royal
procedures before royal
justices. No one forced
them to do so. The
common law grew almost
entirely in response to
demand.
Whether, in terms of his
English resources, Edward
was uniquely powerful is
more difficult to say, given
the difficulties of making
comparisons with earlier
kings. Certainly the
Edwardian state had more
records and bureaucracy
than ever before, but that
is not the same thing.
Already in 1230 the pipe
roll was over twice the size
of the roll for 1130,
mentioning three times as
many people and places,
yet the revenue recorded
was actually slightly less.
It is at least debatable
whether Edward’s taxes
raised any more money in
real terms than the pre-
Conquest gelds, although
the latter required the
barest fraction of the
25,000 pages of returns (if
put into modern print)
generated by a single
Edwardian levy with
everyone’s corn and cattle
listed and valued in
remorseless detail. The fact
was that a state which
depended on tapping the
wealth of large numbers of
individuals needed far
more bureaucracy and
record-keeping than one
where a large proportion
of the revenue came from
crown lands and a land
tax.
 The parliamentary tax-
based state, with its
bureaucracy and records,
was therefore very much
the consequence of
declining revenue from
land. It was also the
product of weakness in
other areas. Although
impossible to measure in
any precise way, Magna
Carta had constituted a
watershed between
different styles of
government, making it
much harder for the king
to treat individuals in an
arbitrary manner,
especially when it came to
taking their money. The
1215 Charter itself pointed
the way forward when it
accepted the levying of
general taxation if
sanctioned by ‘common
counsel’.
 The Edwardian state
was also linked to
changing structures of
local power where again
the balance was shifting in
some ways against the
king. True, during the
twelfth and thirteenth
centuries the king had
prevented the localities
falling under the control of
competing magnates
basing their power on
castles, feudal honours and
the tenure of liberties and
local office. The king
certainly allowed large
numbers of hundreds to
pass into private hands
(over half the 628
hundreds in 1279 were
privately held) but he had
maintained his hold over
the trial and punishment
of serious crime, had
reduced the earldoms to
titular status, and had
stopped the sheriffdoms
becoming hereditary. He
had also developed a
direct relationship with his
free subjects through the
cascading procedures of
the common law and had
taxed everyone in the land.
There were, however,
other changes in the
thirteenth century which
served to diminish the
king’s local ‘punch’. First,
after 1236 there was the
disappearance of the
‘curial sheriffs’, the sheriffs
close to the king with the
resources and court clout
to uphold his will against
the mightiest magnate (see
above, pp. 350–51). And
then came the end of the
general eyre. It was
suspended with the
outbreak of war with
France in 1294 and never
properly revived. The
eyres, weighed down with
crown pleas, civil pleas,
plaints and quo warranto
cases were taking longer
and longer to complete.
The Suffolk eyre of 1240
already lasted about four
weeks; that of 1286 took
more than twice as long. A
good deal of the eyre’s
work could be hived off to
justices of gaol delivery,
assize, and oyer and
terminer, while the
escheators could carry out
its inquiries into royal
rights. Justices of
‘trailbaston’, introduced in
the 1300s, could target
cases of serious disorder.
By 1330, however, the
king’s judges themselves
looked back nostalgically
to the great age of the eyre
in the thirteenth century,
when it had maintained
the peace and given justice
to all without fear or
favour. The single-purpose
judicial commissions, even
if headed by professional
judges, could not replicate
the eyre’s overarching
supervision of government
and people in the shires.
With the criminals,
litigants, attorneys, local
officials, assize juries, and
juries for crown pleas from
all the hundreds, over
5,000 people, it has been
calculated, came before
the judges when they
visited Suffolk in 1240.
These changes were
part of a general process in
which the gentry came to
staff local government
office, monopolizing the
old office of the sheriff,
holding the new ones
which royal government
called into being, and
helping to man the judicial
commissions which
replaced the eyre. In the
fourteenth century, with
the emergence of the
justices of the peace, they
obtained the primary
responsibility for the trial
and punishment of crime.
This did not necessarily
mean the gentry ruled the
shires at the king’s
command. If that was the
pattern in some areas, in
others magnates strove to
assert their own local rule
by taking into their
retinues and rewarding
with money fees the gentry
holders of local office,
finding such men much
easier to control than the
curial sheriffs and justices
in eyre of the past. They
thus combated the threat
implicit in the way the
king had established a
direct relationship with
the gentry. Up to a point,
therefore, the king had
defeated one form of
magnate power in the
localities only to succumb
to another, sometimes
called by historians
‘bastard feudalism’. Those
on the losing side of the
battles for local control
complained increasingly at
fourteenth century
parliaments about
magnates corrupting the
entire workings of
government. The king was
now not too powerful but
too weak. Things really
had come full circle since
1215.
 The basic fact was that
these new local structures
marched well with the
developing tax-based
parliamentary state. With
Magna Carta restricting
the financial burdens that
could be placed on great
magnates, the king had
less need of great curial
sheriffs to coerce them to
pay their debts.
Conversely, in order to get
parliamentary consent to
taxation, he had more
need to conciliate local
society, and one way of
doing that was by allowing
the gentry to staff the shire
offices. The conciliation of
local society itself had a
long history, for Henry I
had made concessions to
under-tenants in his
Coronation Charter of
1100. The political
community had always
been much larger than a
few hundred lay and
ecclesiastical barons. The
difference was that the
king was now dependent
on taxation which only
knights and burgesses
gathered in parliament
could grant. All this
created an entirely new
situation with which kings
had to deal. When they did
deal with it, they could
obtain taxation and wield
great power, like Edward I.
In Edward’s reign the rest
of Britain bore the
consequences.
There was another way
too in which Edward’s
career marked a
watershed, and again it
was one where the
consequences were first
felt in Wales and Scotland.
Politics were becoming
more brutal. The chivalry
introduced by the
Conquest, in which the
nobility were neither
killed in battle nor
executed for political
crimes, was coming to an
end. The first sign of that
had been at Evesham
where over thirty knights
were deliberately killed in
an unprecedented
slaughter. Indeed Edward
before the battle appointed
a death-squad with no
other task but to kill
Montfort. In part this was
because, with no precedent
for political executions
among the high nobility,
murder on the battlefield
was the only way to get
rid of him. Yet under
Edward executions also
began. True, the victims
were Welsh and Scots, but
they were still men of the
highest status: Dafydd, the
self-styled prince of Wales,
in 1283; the earl of Atholl
in 1306. The Osney
chronicler rightly
described Dafydd’s
execution with its horrific
ritual of drawing, hanging,
beheading, eviscerating
and quartering as
‘unprecedented in past
times’. In the next reign,
that of Edward II, the
English nobility too
became engulfed in the
blood-letting and a pattern
was set for the rest of the
Middle Ages. In battle the
cry became ‘Kill the
nobles, spare the
commons’, the very
reverse of what had
happened in battles
between 1106 and 1264.
These changes needed
no new theory. The
concept of treason, in the
sense of breach of faith to
one’s lord, was very old,
and it certainly could
cover all cases of political
revolt. Equally old was the
idea that the penalty could
be death. What happened
under the Normans and
Angevins was that kings
decided not to impose the
penalty. A major reason
for that had been the
structure of the Anglo-
Norman polity (see above,
pp. 126–7). With a nobility
straddling England and
Normandy, and with open
frontiers into the rest of
France, it was only too
likely that an execution in
England would set off a
revolt somewhere in the
overseas dominions.
Although these basic
conditions ended in 1204
with the loss of Normandy,
for a while the amnesty
continued. The long period
without executions or
killings in battle had
created a virtuous cycle
which the aristocracy was
loath to break. John had
wanted to execute the
Rochester garrison in 1215
but was stopped when his
own followers declared
that if he did so it would
be their turn next when
they were captured. With
its original props knocked
away, however, the
virtuous cycle came under
increasing strain with each
political crisis, and
partially broke at
Evesham. Once it had
broken the waters were
always likely to flow into
an altogether different
cycle – a vicious and far
more enduring one of
killings tit for tat.
Ultimately it was the
execution of Piers
Gaveston, Edward II’s earl
of Cornwall, by the nobles
themselves which set off
Edward’s own revenging
executions. The clement
centuries had given place
to the centuries of blood.
The loss of Normandy
had made English politics
more enclosed and intense.
It also meant that Edward
could give far more
attention than his
predecessors to the matter
of Britain.
16

Wales and
Scotland:
Conquest and
Coexistence
When Edward came to the
throne in 1272, he headed
the least ‘conquering’ of
British dynasties. Under
the Treaty of Perth in 1266
King Alexander of Scotland
had wrested Man and the
Western Isles from the
king of Norway. By the
Treaty of Montgomery in
1267 Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd of Gwynedd had
gained dominion over the
other native rulers and
been recognized as prince
of Wales (see above, p.
386). Meanwhile in
England the king’s power
remained at a discount
after a destructive civil
war. Edward changed all
this. His restoration of
royal authority in England
gave him the means to
transform the political
shape of Britain. Within
five years of his accession,
he had destroyed
Llywelyn’s principality. By
1284 he had eliminated
nearly all the native rulers.
Wales, unconquered by the
Anglo-Saxons and the
Normans, had finally
succumbed to Edward I.
The ultimate disaster
should not overshadow
Llywelyn’s years of
triumph. When, at the
height of his power in
1274, he came to inspect
his new castle at
Dolforwyn (built above the
Severn in a vital strategic
area just west of
Montgomery), the visit
sent shock waves through
the district. Did he,
wondered one
correspondent, intend to
go on into the forest of
Clun to plan a new castle
there? Had he summoned
the great men of England
to come and meet him?
‘All the bailiffs of Wales’
were forwarding supplies
and Dolforwyn was
stocked for a stay of three
weeks. Here indeed was a
mighty prince.
In considering the
structures which supported
Gwynedd’s power in the
thirteenth century, its
three great rulers are best
treated together: Llywelyn
ab Iorwerth or Llywelyn
the Great (died 1240),
Dafydd (died 1246) and
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. If
all three in terms of status
were below the kings of
Scotland and England,
they were above everyone
else in Britain, for they
alone bore the title prince
and wore a coronet to
prove it. Dafydd’s right to
such an insignia as prince
of North Wales had been
recognized by Henry III.
Perhaps Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd adopted a
grander version after he
became prince of Wales.
His coronet was made of
gold and symbolic enough
to be presented after his
demise to the shrine of
Edward the Confessor in
Westminster Abbey. At
Aberffraw on Anglesey,
ancient seat of the
dynasty, the hall of the
‘palace’, as it was later
described, had an
elaborate roof in which
were set great stone bosses
decorated with the heads
of coroneted princes. The
rulers made sure that no
one forgot their elevated
status.
The Welsh law books,
whether edited in
Gwynedd or elsewhere,
always began with a
section on the king and his
court. Although it is
difficult to know how far
the rights and duties of the
officials listed
corresponded with reality,
there is enough evidence
from other sources to show
Gwynedd’s court was
impressive, with some of
the same kinds of ministers
as found in England and in
Scotland. It was headed by
the steward (distain) who
was also the prince’s
leading councillor and
quite possibly the
commander of his military
forces (discussed later).
Another of his duties was
to act as ‘justice’ in the law
cases before the prince,
while an earlier official,
the ‘judge of the court’
mentioned in the law
texts, disappeared from
view. As the principality
expanded so did these
legal responsibilities and
on one occasion the
steward was styled the
‘justice of Wales’. By the
early thirteenth century
clerks at court almost
certainly formed a writing
office, its head being
occasionally given the title
chancellor or vice-
chancellor. Passages in the
law books suggest that this
position was taken by the
‘household priest’, for he
was to receive payment
when charters or letters
patent were sealed. The
princes’ charters were very
similar in style and
appearance to those of the
two British kings, the use
of the princely title and
the plural ‘we’ making
them quite distinct from
those of the other Welsh
rulers. The clerks must
also have written the
princes’ administrative
orders (now lost) and
diplomatic
correspondence. The latter
was extensive: over twenty
of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd’s
letters to Edward I survive.
At court it was the
chamberlain who was
responsible for receiving,
storing and spending the
king’s money. Although (as
in Scotland) there was
nothing like a fixed
exchequer, groups of
ministers, including one of
the prince’s clerks, were
sent to hear and record the
accounts of local officials,
if we may judge from this
happening to the castellan
of Dolforwyn. The
effectiveness of
government depended very
much on a small
ministerial elite drawn
throughout the thirteenth
century from around six
curial families. Ednyfed
Fychan, for example,
steward of Llywelyn ab
Iorwerth and Dafydd, was
followed in the same post
by several of his sons.
There is some anecdotal
evidence that the size of
the Gwynedd court was
expanding. The abbot of
Basingwerk complained
that whereas he had
entertained 300 men when
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth and
Dafydd came to hunt,
under Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd the number had
risen to 500. Another
complaint was that
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd gave
robes each year to 140
members of his household,
the implication being that
this was at everyone else’s
expense. In giving robes,
Llywelyn’s practice
paralleled that of the kings
of England. If the
beneficiaries really did
number 140 this did not
compare with the 570 who
were dressed by Edward I
in the 1280s, but it still
reveals a household of
considerable size.
All the princes in the
thirteenth century strove
to increase their authority
in Gwynedd. They insisted
(here supported by the law
books) that they should
consent to alienations of
land by free men, for
example to religious
houses, and that they (not
the immediate lords)
should have the chattels of
those who died intestate.
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd also
demanded reliefs and
control over wardships.
Another area of advance
was in that of dispute
settlement. The basic
practices here were deeply
communal. Disputes over
land were resolved by the
judgement, or more often
the arbitration, of ‘law-
worthy’ local men, not
necessarily in a court. An
important role in decisions
and settlements could be
played by a semi-
professional judge-jurist,
the ynad. Yet this
communal system was
becoming embraced by
regular sessions of
commote and cantref
courts presided over by the
prince himself or (in his
absence) his bailiff (the
rhaglaw). While there was
no equivalent to the
standard-form pleading of
the English and Scottish
common law, the prince
and his deputies were
hearing a growing number
of civil actions. Their
situation was perhaps most
akin to that of the justices
in eyre under Henry I, who
presided over the pleas but
left judgement and
procedure to be
determined, according to
varying local rules, by the
suitors to the county court.
 Even more striking was
the way the princes were
asserting jurisdiction in
cases of theft and
homicide, thus coming to
play a much greater role in
the maintenance of law
and order. Statements in
the law books and
evidence of actual practice
show that the rulers were
beginning to fine thieves
and killers and profit from
their chattels. They were
also executing thieves if
the punishment was not a
fine. All this cut into the
rights of lords like the
bishop of St Asaph and
into the custom where
homicide either led to feud
or was settled by
compensation payments
(gallanas was the name
given to both), without
any necessary involvement
of the ruler. The princes of
Gwynedd were moving
towards asserting a
monopoly over the trial
and punishment of serious
crime like that exercised
by the kings of England
and Scotland.
Justice was clearly
profitable, but the main
resources of the princes
derived from their own
lands and bondmen, and
from a set of renders
(including hospitality for
the court) given from free
land controlled by kin
groups and the church.
Some of these resources
came from the areas
intermittently ruled by the
princes (in Southern
Powys, between Wye and
Severn, and in Builth and
Brecon) but the great bulk
derived from Gwynedd
itself, where the cattle of
Snowdon and corn of
Anglesey and Llŷn were
especially important. With
the increase in commerce
and the money supply, the
cash proportion of the
revenue was increasing, in
part through the
commutation into cash of
renders once made in kind.
Such commutations were
worth on one estimate
around £400 annually in
the 1270s. There was also
a tax levied at 3 d. a head
on cattle. Whereas the
tribute due under the 1211
treaty was entirely to be
paid in animals, between
1267 and 1271, under the
terms of the Treaty of
Montgomery, Llywelyn
paid the English crown
certainly £9,166 and
perhaps £12,500. Although
little more than a guess
from later evidence,
Llywelyn’s revenue from
Gwynedd, at the height of
his power after 1267, may
have been around £4,000
a year, and there would
have been some additional
income from his other
territories. He was
probably just as wealthy as
the greatest of the marcher
barons, Gilbert de Clare,
earl of Gloucester.
Central to Gwynedd’s
power in the thirteenth
century was its military
might. At times this was
clearly formidable,
reflecting changes which
had transformed the forces
of Welsh rulers since the
advent of the Normans. At
the heart of Welsh armies
had always been the teulu,
the ruler’s warband of
sworn followers. Llywelyn
ap Gruffudd clearly had an
equivalent body but it was
now horsed, ‘elegantly
armoured’ (in Matthew
Paris’s words), and
supported less by plunder
than by grants of land and
perhaps also of money.
The teulu does not appear
eo nomine after 1215, and
conceivably the name
seemed inappropriate to a
body now in some ways
equivalent to the
household knights of the
English and Scottish kings.
For all the costs of its
elegant armour, Llywelyn
could raise a cavalry force
of respectable size. In
1263, with his own
household troops
supplemented by
contingents from much of
Wales, he was able to put
about 180 armoured
horses into the field, as
well as others
unarmoured, this
according to a convincing
estimate made in a letter
by a knight on the spot.
The princes of Gwynedd
could also muster large
numbers of foot soldiers,
exploiting the obligation
mentioned in the law
books on all freemen to
serve the ruler for six
weeks a year outside ‘the
country’, and probably
also using pay. Llywelyn
the Great, according to
record evidence, took
1,600 foot on John’s
northern expedition of
1209. According to the
1263 letter, Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd’s infantry
numbered more than
10,000. If that is an
exaggeration, it at least
suggests the force was
several thousand strong.
The power of the rulers
of Gwynedd also rested on
the stone castles which
they built in the thirteenth
century. Apart from that at
Dolforwyn, these were all
in Gwynedd itself. Their
positioning was clearly
strategic in intent because,
sometimes supported by
the establishment of new
cattle farms, they were on
sites unrelated to existing
courts and centres. Ewloe
by the Dee estuary could
monitor the main land
route into Gwynedd from
the north-east. Castell y
Bere was in Meirionydd,
the cantref which formed
Gwynedd’s south-western
frontier. Two castles, at
Dolbadarn and
Dolwydellan, were placed
within the heart of
Snowdonia. The latter,
with its square keep atop a
rocky outcrop high in the
hills, commanded the
north–south route from
Conwy through to
Criccieth, where there was
another castle. These
buildings were certainly
designed to bolster
Gwynedd’s formidable
natural defences against
invasion (see above, p.
318), but that was not
perhaps their main
purpose for they lacked
the size to withstand major
sieges. Rather, the point
was to display the
dynasty’s power and
enforce its rule within
Gwynedd itself.
The princes’
perambulations through
Gwynedd were of vital
importance in maintaining
their authority. They could
stay both in their new
castles and also in the
traditional court
complexes which were at
the centre of the
commotes, the main
administrative divisions in
Anglesey and Gwynedd
west of the Conwy. The
sites of no less than
twenty-one such courts
have been identified, many
rendered more impressive
by being close to mottes,
of which some had
probably been built by
Welsh rulers and others by
the Normans during their
brief hold of Gwynedd. At
Rhosyr in Anglesey the
court was impressive in
another way: excavations
have shown it had a
walled enclosure, as well
as a hall and chamber
probably dating from the
1240s. The ‘palace’ nearby
at Aberffraw we have
already described.
With his string of new
castles and web of old but
refurbished courts,
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was
therefore well placed to
govern Gwynedd and
assert his wider authority
as prince of Wales. Yet he
also faced grave problems.
The intensity with which
Gwynedd had to be
exploited in order to pay
the sums due under the
Treaty of Montgomery
created considerable
resentment. Although the
complaints drawn up after
the prince’s demise were
designed to impress King
Edward, they are too
detailed and substantial to
be dismissed. They show
that Llywelyn had
alienated both of
Gwynedd’s bishops, Anian
of Bangor and Anian of St
Asaph, in part by
developing his jurisdiction
over theft and homicide.
He had also offended a
considerable number of
the leading freemen, the
uchelwyr or ‘nobles’ on
whom his rule depended.
Equally serious were
tensions with some of the
leading ministerial
families, in part perhaps
because he now had so
little patronage to give. In
1276–7 Rhys ap Gruffudd
and his brother, the prior
of Bangor, grandsons of
Ednyfed Fychan, both
conspired against him.
And worst of all were the
fissures within the house
of Gwynedd itself, which
climaxed in 1274 with a
plot which was probably
designed to eliminate
Llywelyn and put his
brother Dafydd in his
place.
 Llywelyn’s problems
were equally acute in his
wider principality. Under
the Treaty of Montgomery
he had gained the
homages of the other
Welsh rulers, who now
held their territories from
him, not from the king.
But Llywelyn still had to
make a reality of the new
relationships. He did not
draw revenue or intervene
directly within the
domains of the other
rulers, but they certainly
owed him military service.
He expected to confirm
their land grants, and
confirm too, if not control,
the descent of the
territories. Among the
most striking indications of
Llywelyn’s authority are
his confirmations of family
settlements made by rulers
in both Ceredigion and
Northern Powys. Likewise,
all the Welsh ‘barons’ were
justiceable in Llywelyn’s
court and liable to
forfeiture for disobedience.
Not everyone was
happy with such a rule.
The tensions apparent
before 1267 (see above, p.
383) had not been
banished by the Treaty.
Indeed, Maredudd ap Rhys
under its terms had gained
exemption from Llywelyn’s
overlordship and remained
a vassal of King Henry.
The Welsh had a common
law, language and history,
but the difficulties of
moving from those to a
Gwynedd-dominated
principality were as great
now as they had been
under Llywelyn’s
grandfather. While
Llywelyn’s court poet,
Llygad Gŵr, celebrated the
unity from north to south
brought by Llywelyn’s
rule, ‘the true king of
Wales’, he also indicated
that it was unity through
domination. It was in
Llywelyn’s nature to
‘impose himself on other
lands’. The fact was that
Llywelyn’s rule often
seemed based on
intimidation and coercion.
The other rulers, now no
more than ‘barons’, even
in Welsh sources
(barwneit), were expected
to address him as ‘serene’,
‘noble’, ‘most famous and
honest’. Those no longer in
his ‘unity’ were
‘unfaithful’, ‘disobedient’,
‘rebellious’, and very much
in need of ‘mercy’.
Allegiance was ensured by
the exaction of hostages,
and threats of trial, fine,
forfeiture and
imprisonment. No wonder
Gruffudd ap
Gwenwynwyn, in one of
his agreements with
Llywelyn, sought to
protect himself from
trumped-up charges and
excessive punishment. It
was not merely great rivals
like Gruffudd who were
treated in this way. A
similar regime seems to
have enforced Llywelyn’s
rule among the uchelwyr
between Wye and Severn,
as well as further south in
Brecon. Welshmen too
might well have agreed
with the English poet who
described Llywelyn as ‘a
cruel leader, a plunderer of
men’.
 Yet initially Llywelyn
triumphed over his
difficulties. In October
1270 he beat off a
challenge on the southern
frontiers of his principality
and destroyed the new
castle Gilbert de Clare was
building at Caerphilly in
Glamorgan. When
Llywelyn’s brother Dafydd
and Gruffudd ap
Gwenwynwyn of Southern
Powys plotted against him
in 1274, Gruffudd was
sentenced to forfeiture and
had to beg mercy on his
knees. When later in the
year he fled to England
(along with Dafydd),
Llywelyn seized Southern
Powys and ruled it
directly, an awesome
demonstration of his
authority. It was not his
internal difficulties which
destroyed Llywelyn’s
principality. It was
external attack.
The trail which ended
in the war of 1277 began
with disputes over the
Treaty of Montgomery. It
had given Llywelyn the
homages ‘of all the Welsh
barons of Wales’ without
defining who they were. A
conflict quickly arose over
the allegiances of the
native ‘barons’ of north
Glamorgan, which
Llywelyn claimed for his
principality and Gilbert de
Clare for his lordship. The
Treaty had also allowed
Llywelyn to keep his
conquests in Brecon, but
that left Humphrey de
Bohun, earl of Hereford,
retaining part of the
district, and constantly
encroaching on the
prince’s portion, or so the
latter alleged. If then the
marcher barons and the
king would not observe
the Treaty, Llywelyn
decided he would not
observe it either: after
Christmas 1271 he made
no further payments
towards the £2,000 a year
he owed under its terms.
As a result the dispute
escalated. In 1274 Edward
gave shelter to Dafydd and
Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn
after their failed
conspiracy. Consequently
Llywelyn refused to do
homage to Edward, even
when (in August 1275) the
king came to Chester to
receive it. In the same year
Llywelyn defiantly married
by proxy none other than
Eleanor, daughter of the
late Simon de Montfort,
only for Edward to capture
her on her way to Wales
early in 1276. Eventually,
in November 1276, after
several more demands for
homage had been ignored,
Edward decided to make
war on Llywelyn as a
‘rebel and disturber of the
peace’.
In all this Llywelyn had
seen the situation very
clearly, or so he thought.
As he told the pope in
September 1275, he was
faced with a king whose
aim was to destroy the
Treaty of Montgomery
‘totally’ (in totum). Nor did
that seem surprising since
it had deprived Edward
himself of both the Four
Cantrefs and the homages
of the native rulers. If so,
what was the point of
conciliation? Better to
make a stand now with
power as yet unreduced.
Nor did it seem entirely
foolhardy to do so.
Llywelyn could remember
the disasters of the 1240s,
but since then he had
enjoyed unbroken success.
He had defeated royal
armies in 1257 and 1263;
in 1274 he had scattered
his domestic foes. Gilbert
de Clare for one believed
wholeheartedly in the
prince’s might, hence the
mammoth scale on which
he recommenced his castle
at Caerphilly after its
destruction in 1270.
Llywelyn could hope a
firm stand would persuade
Edward to back down. If it
did not, war was not
necessarily a fatal opinion.
 In the event, Llywelyn
capitulated almost without
a fight. There was nothing
very novel about Edward’s
strategy, but it was
implemented on a new
scale and with a new
thoroughness. Llywelyn’s
unpopularity and financial
difficulties may well have
reduced his forces way
below the levels of the
1250s and 1260s. Soon he
faced internal collapse.
Edward established three
separate commands. That
in the north, operating
from Chester with Dafydd
one of the captains,
provided cover, while
Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn
re-established himself in
Southern Powys. The
rulers of Northern Powys
then quickly submitted. In
the Middle March, Roger
de Mortimer captured
Dolforwyn in only a week
(in April 1277), while the
uchelwr Hywel ap Meurig
(whose son Llywelyn had
held hostage) led 2,700
Welsh foot soldiers from
Brecon and Radnor into
Edward’s service. In the
south, where the royal
base was at Carmarthen,
Rhys ap Maredudd, son of
the Maredudd ap Rhys
who had escaped homage
to Llywelyn in 1267,
entered Edward’s service
in April. His rival in Ystrad
Tywi, Rhys Wyndod,
submitted soon afterwards,
as did the rulers of
southern Ceredigion.
In these circumstances
Llywelyn could do nothing
to prevent Edward’s
southern force reaching
Aberystwyth and then
establishing control over
northern Ceredigion. In
Gwynedd itself he faced
the defection of both the
bishops and members of
the ministerial elite.
Edward’s army reached
Chester on 15 July. By the
end of August, when
numbers were at their
height, he had some
15,640 foot soldiers in
pay, of whom some 9,000
were Welsh. The army, its
way cleared by 1,800
woodmen, advanced
inexorably to Deganwy.
Even more devastating was
the fleet. A fleet to seize
Anglesey had been
envisaged in 1257 but had
never materialized. This
time, nearly twenty-six
ships and eight tenders
were assembled, manned
by 726 sailors. Anglesey
was occupied by 2,000
foot soldiers, and labourers
were ferried across to reap
the harvest. Gwynedd
faced starvation.
In this desperate
situation, Llywelyn came
to terms. In November
1277, he surrendered the
Four Cantrefs to the
English crown, so
Gwynedd was once again
cut back to the Conwy. In
return he recovered
Anglesey, but for an
annual payment of £333
until the sums owed under
the 1267 treaty had been
cleared. If he had no heirs
of his body, then the island
was to escheat to the king
on his death. Llywelyn was
allowed to keep his title
prince of Wales, but little
was left of his wider
dominion. All his
territorial possessions
outside Gwynedd, in the
area between Wye and
Severn and in Builth and
Brecon, were confiscated.
All the homages of the
native rulers, with a few
insignificant exceptions,
were returned to the king.
The principality of Wales
was at an end.
 If Llywelyn believed he
could sustain a war against
Edward he had been
grievously mistaken. Was
he also mistaken about the
threat he faced? Certainly
even in 1277 Edward had
no overwhelming desire to
destroy Llywelyn and
Gwynedd absolutely,
otherwise he would have
continued the war and
done so. As it was, he did
not implement an earlier
plan to partition Gwynedd
west of Conwy between
himself and Dafydd.
Instead he accommodated
Dafydd at his own expense
within the Four Cantrefs,
stabilizing what remained
of Llywelyn’s state. The
reduction of the payments
from the £2,000 a year
owed under the Treaty of
Montgomery to £333
under the new treaty had
the same effect. Nor is it
clear that Edward had set
out from the first to cut
Llywelyn’s principality
down to size. In 1270 he
actually made it more
complete by selling
Llywelyn the homage of
Maredudd ap Rhys for
£3,333; this sale was to
raise money for his
crusade, a telling
indication of his priorities.
Later he humbled himself
(as he complained) and
came to Chester in the
hope of receiving the
prince’s homage. If he also
harboured Dafydd and
Gruffudd ap
Gwenwynwyn, and held
Eleanor de Montfort
captive, that was
retaliation for Llywelyn’s
refusal both of homage
and the Treaty payments.
It is a striking fact that
Edward neither challenged
Llywelyn’s right to treat
Dafydd and Gwenwynwyn
as he had, nor allowed
them to appeal to him for
justice. It would be hard to
conclude that Edward had
intended to provoke a war
to destroy the Treaty.
If, however, Llywelyn
was wrong in the short
term, in a longer
perspective was he not
entirely right? Was there
not a fundamental
incompatibility between
Llywelyn’s claim that the
‘rights of our principality
are wholly separate from
the rights of your
kingdom, although we
hold our principality under
your royal power’ and
Edward’s view of Llywelyn
as ‘one of the greatest
amongst the magnates of
our kingdom’, ‘doing and
receiving right in the court
of the king of England’? If
Llywelyn had done
homage, would not
Edwardian law and
officialdom soon have
squeezed all life from the
principality, just as they
later made life intolerable
for the Edwardian loyalist
Rhys ap Maredudd, who
was provoked into revolt
in 1287 by the royal
bailiffs of Carmarthen? Yet
Llywelyn’s territorial gains
under the Treaty of
Montgomery meant his
situation was very
different from that of
Rhys, for he had pushed
the king’s bailiffs far away
from Gwynedd’s heart.
Their activities had
nothing to do with the
stand which led to the war
of 1277. The disputes with
the earls of Hereford and
Gloucester were
themselves over land and
allegiances in Brecon and
north Glamorgan on the
southern fringes of the
principality. The fact was
that under the Treaty, the
opportunity for Edwardian
officials to challenge
Llywelyn was actually
quite limited. There were
none above all in the Four
Cantrefs, where the risings
of 1255 and of 1282 were
set off by their tyrannies.
In the end, it is hard not
to conclude that almost
any course would have
been better than the one
Llywelyn took. It involved
immediate execution. The
other way might have
brought a slow death, but
the process had hardly
begun and was far from
certain. What was needed
in the 1270s was the kind
of flexibility shown by
Llywelyn the Great, or
earlier by the Lord Rhys:
an awareness of when to
concede and an ability to
do so without losing face.
That, however, was not so
easy for someone who was
now prince of Wales.
Perhaps in 1267 Llywelyn
should have followed the
precedent of the Treaty of
Worcester in 1218, making
territorial gains but
accepting a looser form of
rule over the native rulers,
thereby also escaping some
of the financial burdens
imposed by the Treaty of
Montgomery. Perhaps too
the pattern of a unified
Wales sketched in the
prologues to the law
books, with Hywel the
Good ruling in a spirit of
consensus, suggested a
better way forward than
that adopted. Llywelyn
would have treated such
suggestions with contempt.
The vision of Wales as a
homage-based, Gwynedd-
dominated principality had
been Llywelyn the Great’s.
Given the intense
particularism of the other
rulers there was no way it
could have been
constructed through
conferences and consensus.
And with the collapse of
English royal power in the
1260s, it was clearly now
or never for bringing it
about. Such a principality
could have offered benefits
to the native rulers. If it
subjected them to the
domination of Gwynedd,
at least it protected them
from potentially the far
worse domination of
English officialdom. The
real misfortune was that
Llywelyn’s abrasive rule,
however necessary given
his objectives, prevented
this vital point ever getting
across.
The events of 1277
were a disaster for
Llywelyn, yet he had been
there before in the 1240s,
and had subsequently
pushed the king back. His
grandfather had done the
same after 1211. This time
nothing like that
happened. The next war,
in 1282, was terminal.
Llywelyn himself,
however, did not set off
the revolt that produced it,
although he quickly joined
in. After 1277 this proud
man faced a series of petty
humiliations: the king’s
officials at Chester
impounded his horses and
honey; those at
Aberystwyth imprisoned
his huntsmen. And then
there was the legal action
which Llywelyn brought in
1279 against Gruffudd ap
Gwenwynwyn for the
recovery of the cantref of
Arwystli in Southern
Powys. The 1277 treaty
had allowed for such
actions and had stipulated
that they should be
conducted according to
‘the custom of the parts’
where the land was
situated. Llywelyn claimed
that Arwystli was in Wales
and that therefore Welsh
law should apply, while
Gruffudd, in possession
and doing all he could to
delay matters, said that the
case should proceed by the
common law of England.
This and other issues
meant that the case
dragged on from year to
year so that in February
1282 Llywelyn told
Edward that he was
‘altogether in despair’,
being more concerned
‘about the disgrace to
himself than about the
profit he could ever derive
from the land’. Yet
Llywelyn with a pained
dignity, as impressive in
its own way as anything in
the panoply of his power,
persevered. He kept up the
payments due under the
1277 treaty, and adopted a
suitable tone in his letters
to Edward: ‘your devoted
vassal’.
For all this there were
some returns, which
suggest – like the
settlement of 1277 – that
Edward had no wish to
undermine Llywelyn
further. In 1278 the prince
achieved his marriage to
Eleanor de Montfort. This
union to the king’s cousin
was by far the most
exalted marriage ever
made by a Welsh ruler, a
marriage fit for a prince. It
outshone Llywelyn the
Great’s marriage to John’s
daughter, for she had been
illegitimate. The marriage
now showed deference to
Edward rather than
defiance, for the
celebration took place
under his auspices on St
Edward’s Day in Worcester
cathedral. But Llywelyn
could hope to profit from
the new relationship with
the king, to whom Eleanor
was soon writing letters of
petition. The prince was
indeed slowly rebuilding
his power: he recovered
homages of native nobles
in Brecon, re-established
relations with the rulers of
Deheubarth, and, most
striking of all, reached an
agreement in October
1281 with his old enemy
Roger de Mortimer. It was
not Llywelyn who was to
begin the coming war, but
his brother Dafydd.
Dafydd was a
disappointed man. He had
fought for Edward in 1277
and had been promised –
or so he thought – a share
of Anglesey and
Snowdonia. He had ended
up simply with the part of
the Four Cantrefs Edward
had granted him back in
1263, together with the
lordship of Hope. And his
title to the latter was now
challenged by a marcher
baron, William de
Venables, in the county
court of Chester. Dafydd
had entered the court and
cried aloud that the land
was Welsh and that he
should answer according
to Welsh law. He was not
alone in his anger. The
Four Cantrefs, held down
by a new royal castle at
Rhuddlan, were now
administered by the
justiciar of Chester,
Reginald de Grey,
appointed in November
1281, who dismissed the
popular Welsh bailiff
Gronw ap Heilyn, and
threatened the inhabitants
with imprisonment and
decapitation if they
complained of their
burdens. Dafydd’s fear that
Reginald was planning his
arrest may well have been
the immediate cause of the
uprising.
 This began on Palm
Sunday, 22 March 1282,
when Dafydd suddenly
attacked Hawarden castle,
seized its commander the
oppressive Roger of
Clifford, and slaughtered
many of the garrison.
Dafydd had plotted the
uprising, not with his
brother but with the rulers
of Northern Powys and
Deheubarth. On the same
day as the attack, the
former (the brothers
Llywelyn and Gruffudd,
sons of Gruffudd Maelor)
had descended on
Oswestry. Both had been
on Edward’s side in 1277,
and both (like many
others) had been alienated
by the exactions of the
constables of Oswestry and
Whitchurch. In the south
the grievances were of
much the same order. Its
rulers (apart from Rhys ap
Maredudd) had saved less
than they hoped by their
early submissions in 1277.
Rhys Wyndod had not
recovered his castle of
Dinefwr, the traditional
heart of Deheubarth. He
had also (so he said) been
forced to plead in legal
cases not according to
Welsh law at Carmarthen
but according to common
law before the king’s
judges. The sons of
Maredudd ab Owain,
clinging to commotes in
southern Ceredigion and
denied those in the north
despite promises,
complained that the king’s
judges at Cardigan had
deprived them of their
own courts over their men.
So on 24 March, two days
after the attacks on
Hawarden and Oswestry,
these southern rulers, in
alliance with Rhys Ieuanc
whom Edward had driven
from northern Ceredigion
in 1277, fell on the new
royal castle at
Aberystwyth.
Llywelyn hesitated, but
only for a moment. If he
stayed out he might save
the rump of Gwynedd, but
at the cost of seeing his
brother becoming the true
prince of Wales. For the
war of 1282 was very
different from that of
1277. The latter had in
part been a Welsh revolt
against Llywelyn. The
former, with only Rhys ap
Maredudd and Gruffudd
ap Gwenwynwyn
supporting the king, was a
war of liberation against
the English. Or certainly
that was how it was
presented to Archbishop
Pecham during his attempt
to broker a settlement,
presented in schedules too
numerous and too
eloquent to be dismissed
as simply the cloak for a
few disappointed rulers:
indeed the complaints
included those from the
‘men’ of both the Four
Cantrefs and commotes in
Northern Powys.
At the heart of English
oppression seemed the
threat to Welsh law.
Llywelyn himself, Dafydd,
Rhys Wyndod and his
brothers, and the sons of
Maredudd ab Owain all
complained about its
denial. In part this was
mistaken, or disingenuous.
In the 1277 Treaty,
Edward had actually
agreed that disputes in
Wales should be decided
by Welsh law. True, he
later added qualifications:
he had a duty, he said,
under his Coronation Oath,
to root out evil customs
and uphold the practices
of his predecessors.
Gruffudd ap
Gwenwynwyn, in the
course of the Arwystli
case, converted this into
the hopeful claim (as far as
he was concerned) that
Edward intended to
abolish Welsh law
altogether, but this the
judges firmly denied. In
fact Edward, placed in an
impossible position
between Llywelyn and
Gruffudd, hesitated to
make any decision in the
case, and hoped the whole
thing would go away. It is
equally clear that the
Welsh themselves were
changing Welsh law and
indeed setting it aside,
often preferring that land
disputes should be decided
through the verdicts of
sworn juries rather than
the judgement of the ynad
or iudex, the traditional
judge-jurist learned in
native law. One reason
why Gronw ap Heilyn
(before his dismissal by
Reginald de Grey) had
been so popular in the
Four Cantrefs was that he
allowed just that.
‘Truth is worth more
than law,’ ran the Welsh
proverb. So, one might
add, was victory.
Fundamentally both Welsh
ruler and marcher baron
appealed to whichever law
they thought would bring
it. But here was the rub;
the Welsh seemed now
always losers, not victors,
and losers not merely in
lawsuits but in suffering
what seemed the general
oppression and
wrongdoing of Edwardian
officialdom. Just as the
war of the 1250s was
provoked by the exactions
of Geoffrey de Langley in
the Four Cantrefs, so this
one was described at the
time as the war of
Reginald de Grey. Before
1277 Llywelyn had pushed
such men back. Now the
game was played deep in
the Welsh half. Royal
officials were at Rhuddlan
and in the Four Cantrefs,
at Builth and Aberystwyth.
Those at Cardigan and
Carmarthen seemed far
more intrusive than
before. And with reason:
whereas until 1277 the
Welsh rulers did their
homage to Llywelyn and
were justiciable in his
courts, now they did
homage to Edward and
were subject to royal
courts and officials. The
Welsh found too late that
in swapping Llywelyn’s
principality for the
Edwardian state, they had
jumped from the frying-
pan into the fire. They
could appeal to Edward
and make the long journey
to London, but the best
they found there was
flannel and delay. As
Llywelyn put it to Pecham:
For we and all the Welsh were
oppressed, and trampled down
and despoiled and reduced to
servitude by royal judges and
bailiffs against the form of
peace and all justice, more than
if we had been Saracens or
Jews… and often we
complained to the king and had
no remedy. But always justices
and bailiffs more ferocious and
cruel were sent; and when they
had been sated by their unjust
exactions, others again were
sent to excoriate the people, so
much so that the people
preferred to die rather than to
live.

In this situation, the stand

on Welsh law expressed a
truth much greater than
any argument over legal
procedures, because the
law seemed to define the
Welsh as a people. ‘Let the
laws of Wales be
immutable like the laws of
other peoples,’ Pecham
was told. To attack the law
was to attack the people’s
very existence, and against
that one must fight to the
end. As Dafydd put it,
‘although it is hard to live
one’s life in war and
ambushes, it is harder still
for a Christian people to
be destroyed and reduced
to nothing, who seek
nothing other than to
preserve its rights.’
The Welsh were well
aware of the odds in 1282.
They themselves, in the
discussions with Pecham,
contrasted their sterile and
uncultivated country with
the fertile and abundant
lands of England. They
were, however, far more
united than in 1277 and
would a people perish who
traced its descent back to
the Trojans? The people
indeed survived but not
the ruling dynasties. These
now faced a threat of
altogether novel
dimensions: a king both
utterly determined to
destroy them and
absolutely capable of
mobilizing the resources to
do so. The war of 1282
was conceived from the
start as a war of conquest.
Edward pursued the
same three-pronged
strategy which had worked
so well in 1277, yet
initially with less success.
In June some of his forces
in the south were
ambushed in the Tywi
valley and the eldest son
of William de Valence,
lord of Pembroke, was
slain. In August and
September Valence himself
penetrated as far as
Aberystwyth but was
unable to hold it. The
crucial events, however,
were in the north. Here
Reginald de Grey occupied
Dafydd’s castle at Hope
and placed 2,600 archers
there, blocking off any
further Welsh activity in
the Harwarden area.
Edward himself advanced
from Chester to Rhuddlan
(where he was based from
8 July to 27 August),
stationing 1,000 archers in
the great new castle.
Llywelyn, as we have seen,
could perhaps field a few
hundred cavalry and
several thousand foot
soldiers: a considerable
army. But in 1282 Edward
had in pay some 800
cavalry and 8,600 infantry,
as well as other unpaid
horse brought by his
barons. Aided by a fleet,
Edward had ample troops
for what (as in 1277) was
the key operation, namely
the occupation of
Anglesey. Moreover, this
time the island was not be
a bargaining counter in
negotiations but quite
literally a bridge to
conquest. By the end of
September, 200
carpenters, working flat
out, had constructed a
bridge of boats across to
the mainland, opening up
Snowdonia. Archbishop
Pecham’s attempted
mediation in November
only served to clarify the
issue: Edward’s best offer
was to set Llywelyn up in
an English earldom and
pay for Dafydd’s departure
on crusade.
No need for that, the
Welsh would have
thought, when on 6
November they drove Luke
de Tany, the commander
in Anglesey, and sixteen
knights off the bridge of
boats into the sea. On the
back of this success,
Llywelyn headed for his
old stamping-grounds in
the south. There on 11
December, in the valley of
the Irfon near Builth, with
‘the flower of his people
killed’, he was cornered
while fleeing through
woods and run through the
body by a man at arms,
Stephen of Frankton. His
head was cut off and sent
to Edward, who ordered it
to be put up on the Tower
of London, crowned with
mocking ivy. It was a
pathetic and tragic end to
so glorious a career.
The death of Llywelyn
did not end the war, for
Dafydd at once assumed
the title of prince of Wales
which he had coveted for
so long. But he was now
faced by Edward’s
unprecedented decision to
continue the war through
the winter. In January
1283 William de Valence
at last reoccupied
Aberystwyth, ending
resistance in Ceredigion. In
the same month Edward,
having mobilized over 400
cavalry and 5,000 foot, set
off from Rhuddlan and
soon occupied the princely
castle of Dolwyddelan in
the heart of Snowdonia.
Dafydd fled to Castle y
Bere in Meirionydd, where
the stone statues of
spearmen stood ironic
guard over his diminished
state. He could not stay,
because William de
Valence advanced from the
south and laid siege to the
castle with over 3,000
foot. So Dafydd fled back
to Snowdonia and for a
few last days in May held
court at Dolbadarn, his
final castle. With Edward
swamping Snowdonia with
7,000 foot and dispatching
search parties, he was soon
on the run again. On 21
June he was captured and
handed over by men of his
own tongue.
Having won the war,
Edward was in no mood to
lose the peace. Of the
major rulers all were
swept away apart from the
loyalists Gruffudd ap
Gwenwynwyn of Southern
Powys and Rhys ap
Maredudd of Ystrad Tywi,
the latter that is until his
rebellion in 1287. To the
extinction of ‘the last
survivor of the race of
traitors’, as he called
Dafydd, Edward gave
maximum publicity. At
Shrewsbury in October
1283 he was ceremonially
drawn, hanged,
disembowelled and
quartered, his head being
sent to join Llywelyn’s at
the Tower. Eleanor de
Montfort, meanwhile, had
died (in June 1282) in
giving birth to a daughter,
who lived out her long life
as a nun at Sempringham.
The House of Gwynedd in
its main line was at an
end. With some
exceptions, the rulers of
Northern Powys were
likewise disappropriated,
as were those of
Deheubarth: Rhys
Wyndod, the sons of
Maredudd ab Owain, and
Rhys Ieuanc (who had
been with Dafydd almost
to the last) spent the rest
of their days in prison,
writing pathetic letters
asking for more clothes
and the regular payment of
the few pence a day on
which they lived.
With the native
dynasties dispossessed,
Edward could do with
Wales as he wished. He
gave out some rewards. In
the north John de
Warenne, earl of Surrey
received Bromfield and Iâl
in Northern Powys (shades
of his ancestor’s rewards
after 1066); most of the
Four Cantrefs were divided
between Reginald de Grey
and the earl of Lincoln. In
the south, John Giffard
gained most of Rhys
Wyndod’s lands in Cantref
Bychan. But Edward kept
the lion’s share of Wales
for himself. In 1284 the
Statute of Wales, a
document of breathtaking
mastery and precision, set
out the laws and
governmental structures
for his new territories.
Wales was now a ‘land
annexed and united to the
crown of England’. Its
administration was to be
on English lines. In
Gwynedd west of the
Conwy, Anglesey,
Caernarfon and
Meirionydd each became
counties under English-
type sheriffs and coroners,
with the commotes treated
much like hundreds. These
officials were answerable
not to the king and the
London exchequer, but to
a provincial governor, ‘the
justiciar of Snowdon’, and
to an exchequer based at
Caernarfon. The same
pattern was followed east
of the Conwy, where the
areas remaining to the
king (which included the
cantref of Tegeingl and the
lands attached to
Rhuddlan) were brought
under the sheriff of Flint,
who was answerable to the
justiciar and exchequer at
Chester. In the south
(where the pattern had
been developing since the
1240s) the ‘shires’ of
Cardigan and Carmarthen
were likewise to have
sheriffs and coroners, the
areas under their
jurisdiction being greatly
increased with the
confiscation of Rhys ap
Maredudd’s lands in 1287.
Here the local officials
were answerable to the
justiciar of west Wales and
the exchequer at
Carmarthen.
This colonial type of
administration, similar in
its autonomy to that in
force in Gascony and
Ireland, had a clear
purpose: to establish
governors with sufficient
local power to hold down
the conquered people. To
that end, Edward retained
them in office for long
periods of time. Reginald
de Grey, who had
provoked the rebellion of
1282, was justiciar of
Chester and Snowdon from
1281 to 1299. Robert
Tibetot, who provoked the
rebellion of Rhys ap
Maredudd in 1287, was
justiciar of west Wales
from 1281 to 1298.
 Behind his officials
stood Edward’s castles.
These above all stamped
down the conquest of
Gwynedd: the war of 1277
brought Flint and
Rhuddlan; that of 1282–3,
Conwy, Caernarfon and
Harlech; while after the
rebellion of 1295 came
Beaumaris on Anglesey.
The great architect
responsible for these works
was Master James of St
George whom Edward
brought from Savoy. There
was nothing particularly
novel in either the
individual features or the
overall plans he adopted:
Conwy bears a striking
resemblance to Louis IX’s
castle at Angers. Yet it still
took tremendous
intellectual energy to plan
six castles from scratch, all
with features in common
yet all quite different
according to site, and all
terribly formidable.
Edward’s contribution was
as important. He doubtless
made the fundamental
decision to place all the
castles down by the sea,
having witnessed the
starving-out of his hilltop
fortresses of Deganwy and
Diserth. He also supplied
the drive and resources to
get the castles built. To
clear the site at Conwy he
uprooted the Cistercian
abbey (where Llywelyn the
Great was buried) and
moved it eight miles up
the valley. To link
Rhuddlan with the sea he
built a canal two to three
miles long. The castles
were built at breathless
speed, most being
completed in their
fundamentals within five
years, so that during the
summer a thousand or
more labourers and several
hundred masons drawn
from all parts of England
might be working on each
one. The total cost
between 1277 and 1304
was just under £80,000,
roughly double what
Henry III spent on
Westminster Abbey. This
was the most co-ordinated
and impressive campaign
of castle-building in
medieval history.
In terms of their ground
plan, none of the castles
rivalled the area which,
say, the Tower of London
came to embrace in the
thirteenth century. Rather
they were like pocket
battleships, packing
immense power for their
size. That power came
principally from the
number and strength of
the great towers which
flanked the walls (the
eight at Conwy had
stonework over ten feet
thick), from the deadly
precision of the details
(like the arrow slits at
Caernarfon from which
fire could be directed in
three different directions),
and from the way all the
castles were planned in
conjunction with new
towns which formed
supportive English
enclaves. There was also
the arrogant panache with
which the castles were
finished, with watch
turrets spiralling up above
the four massive towers of
the inner court at Conwy,
and walls decorated by
bands of different coloured
stone at Caernarfon, a
feature imitated from the
Theodosian walls at
Constantinople and thus a
reference to the town’s
supposedly Roman past. In
the late 1280s from
Llywelyn’s timber hall and
chamber at Rhosyr on
Anglesey one could gaze
across the Menai Straits to
Caernarfon rising in the
distance. Rhosyr had been
impressive in its way but
the two structures
reflected regimes in
different leagues of power.
That there were only
two risings against English
rule after 1283 was a
measure of the castles’
strength and the reserve
power of English
government behind them.
The revolt of Rhys ap
Maredudd in 1287, denied
Dinefwr despite his loyalty
in the 1282–3 war and
forced to plead according
to English law in the
county court of
Carmarthen, was put down
by the regency
government (Edward was
in Gascony). Rhys himself
was finally captured and
executed in 1292. The
rising of 1294–5 was more
formidable. Edward had
eliminated the main line of
the Gwynedd dynasty, but
there remained a sprig of
the Meirionydd branch,
Madog ap Llywelyn, living
on a small estate in
Anglesey. In 1294 he
proclaimed himself prince
of Wales and led a revolt
which drew on widespread
resentments against the
privileges of the new
towns, the exactions of the
sheriffs and the attempted
levy (for the first time) of
a general tax in Wales.
Edward, with no less than
£54,500 being sent from
Westminster in the first
year of the war, recruited
the largest infantry forces
ever seen in Wales, at their
height some 31,000 men
being in pay. Having based
himself at Conwy through
the winter, he put down
the revolt by leading an
army on a great march
around the perimeters of
native Wales, and then
finished off by building the
most symmetrical of all his
castles, Beaumaris on
Anglesey.
 The Edwardian
conquest was grim but
there was another side to
it, which helps to explain
its success: there were
attempts at rapprochement
between the peoples. A
lead here was taken by
Archbishop Pecham, who
toured Wales in the
summer of 1284. His aim
was partly to reassert
Canterbury’s authority and
his attitude was
patronizing. The Welsh, he
said, should send their
children to England for
education. But he was
genuinely shocked by the
destruction of churches
caused by the war and
secured over £1,730 from
Edward to repair the
damage, the money going
to over a hundred
beneficiaries. Pecham
urged the church to preach
reconciliation between the
English and the Welsh. The
people should put their
trust in Christ ‘who in his
blood made all races of
men one’. There was also a
measure of
accommodation in the
settlement Edward himself
imposed. Under the Statute
of Wales, the laws of
England were certainly
now to be used in criminal
matters, abolishing (not
always effectively)
compensation payments
for homicide, and making
serious crime an offence
against the state. This,
however, was something
the rulers of Gwynedd had
themselves been trying to
achieve. It was the Welsh
themselves, so the Statute
said, who petitioned for
the truth in land cases to
be inquired into by ‘good
and law-worthy men of the
neighbourhood’, and that
may indeed have been the
case, given the evidence
already cited for the
preference for juries.
Balancing these changes,
the Statute retained Welsh
laws for disputes over
movables, as it did the
custom practised ‘from
time out of mind’ by which
inheritances were partible
among all heirs male.
Edward could fairly claim
to have taken a careful and
constructive look at Welsh
laws, combining abolition
with modification and
retention. His attitude to
the Welsh was not simply
one of stern inflexibility.
After the revolt of 1294 he
mounted inquiries into the
grievances which had
produced it.
Rhys ap Maredudd’s
fate was not altogether
typical of the Welsh rulers
who tried to reach an
accommodation with the
crown. His own problems
were compounded by
quarrels with some of his
leading native subjects
who actually helped
suppress his revolt. Of the
lesser rulers, to the north
of Rhys, in Ceredigion,
Llywelyn ab Owain ap
Maredudd retained the
commote of Is Coed and
half that of Gwinionydd.
In Northern Powys, the
descendants of Owain
Brogyntyn held the
commotes of Edeirnion
and Dinmale, ruling them
with minimal interference
from the crown. Likewise
the descendants of
Gruffudd Maelor, despite
involvement in 1282,
retained Cynllaith and
were the forebears of
Owain Glyn Dŵr. And
then, in Southern Powys,
there was Gruffudd ap
Gwenwynwyn. In the
1280s, married to a
Lestrange and with his son
married to a Corbet of
Caus, with the sheriff of
Shropshire his ‘special
friend’ and with a direct
line to the king’s chief
minister Robert Burnell, he
might well reflect on the
swing of fortune’s wheel
since the day he had
grovelled at Llywelyn’s
feet after the unmasking of
the 1274 conspiracy.
Although Gruffudd ap
Gwenwynwyn’s male
descendants died out in
the early fourteenth
century, Southern Powys
survived as ‘one of the
most Royallest, greatest,
lardgest and best
seignories and Lordship
Marcher of Wales’, as it
was put in the sixteenth
century. Of course, it
survived precisely as a
marcher barony, not a
Welsh princedom.
Gruffudd had to fight his
corner against both royal
administrators and
marcher barons, winning
some cases, losing others
(including one against
Roger de Mortimer). It was
precisely such struggles
which his fellow rulers
found intolerable. But
Gruffudd’s perspective was
understandable. After all, a
Welsh princedom was not
on offer to the ‘Welsh
barons of Wales’ (as they
were called in the Treaty
of Montgomery) in a
Gwynedd-dominated
principality either.
The real beneficiaries of
the English conquest were
the uchelwyr, the leading
men below the level of the
old ruling families,
precisely those who had
become disaffected with
Rhys ap Maredudd’s rule
in Ystrad Tywi and with
Llywelyn’s in Gwynedd
and further south. They
now thrived in English
administrative service,
with which indeed many
had long been connected.
Although nearly all the
early sheriffs and
castellans were English,
the bailiffs of the
commotes remained
Welsh. Later the Welsh
reached more exalted
positions. Goronwy Goch,
Rhys ap Maredudd’s
constable at Drywslwyn,
fought against him in 1287
and later became steward
of Cantref Mawr. Gruffudd
Llwyd, a descendant of
Ednyfed Fychan, Llywelyn
the Great’s steward,
entered royal service in
1283 and spent fifty years
there, becoming sheriff of
Caernarfon, Anglesey and
Meirionydd and gaining a
knighthood. The view of
William Marshal II, earl of
Pembroke (died 1231),
that the Welsh were best
controlled and subdued by
men ‘of their own race’
had been forgotten with
disastrous results in the
1250s and 1270s. Yet in
the end it was that wisdom
which ultimately prevailed
after the Edwardian
conquest. It was, of course,
a wisdom precisely
designed to facilitate the
rule of conquerors.
The Edwardian
conquest had required no
new theory. Both John and
Henry III had stressed that
Gwynedd was liable to
forfeiture if its rulers broke
faith (just as it would also
escheat if they failed of
heirs). That was became its
rulers had done homage to
the king and held their
land from him. After 1277
the other Welsh rulers
were in the same position,
hence Edward’s statement
in the 1284 Statute that
Wales had become subject
to him ‘by feudal right’.
The near universal
rebellion meant a near
universal forfeiture. It was
as simple as that.
Or was it? For there was
now something radically
new, namely a king with
the determination to put
such theory into practice.
In doing so, Edward knew
very well what he was
bringing about and
positively willed it. There
was nothing accidental
about the conquest of
Wales. In this Edward was
quite different from his
father who had allowed
Gwynedd to survive in the
1240s although he had
every ‘right’ to take it for
himself. The contrast was
not simply because of the
different personalities of
the two kings. It was also
because of the different
levels of provocation. In
1282 the Welsh declared
war on Edward suddenly
and brutally, through the
seizure of Hawarden and
the slaughter of its
garrison. And the arch-
insurgent was none other
than Dafydd whom, as
Edward raged, he had
sheltered, enriched and
trusted as one of his own.
So it seemed better, as
Edward announced in
November 1282, to endure
labour and expense now so
that ‘the malice [of the
Welsh] can be totally
destroyed’ than to suffer
the fate of his ancestors
and be continually
crucified by their
disturbances. The intention
to conquer, its novelty and
its reasons could not have
been more clearly set out.
It was one thing to have
the intention. Edward also
had the ability to put it
into effect. The knowledge
that he could do so was an
important reason for the
decision in the first place.
One critical factor here,
and a new one, was his
lack of continental
distractions. The loss of
Normandy in 1204 had
destroyed the Angevin
empire for good, but it was
a long time before the
dynasty recognized the
fact. After the Treaty of
Paris, the conquest of
Wales. Certainly the first
in 1259, under which
Henry III at last accepted
the loss of his continental
possessions, made possible
the second, for it initiated
a quarter century of peace
with the Capetians. In
1279 Edward had gone to
Amiens and resolved
disputes arising from the
implementation of the
Treaty, thus finally
acquiring the Agenais. He
also succeeded to the
county of Ponthieu (the
eventual inheritance of his
wife) without difficulty,
although the Capetians
had blocked its acquisition
by Henry III (through a
marriage) in the 1230s.
Edward was determined to
retain and increase his
authority in Gascony. He
was there in 1272–4 and
again in 1286–9. He
played a major part in
international diplomacy,
going to endless trouble
and expense to secure the
release of Charles of
Salerno. But the crucial
and novel fact remained.
Down to 1294 he was at
peace with the Capetians.
In 1174 a Welsh seer had
prophesied correctly that
Henry II’s descent on
Wales would be prevented
by the king of France’s
siege of Rouen. There was
no possibility of anything
like that happening in
1282. Likewise there was
no prospect of Llywelyn
imitating his grandfather’s
alliance with the Capetians
in 1212 or that of Owain
Gwynedd in 1165. To
conquer Wales, Gerald of
Wales had affirmed, would
need ‘diligent and constant
attention for a year at
least’. It was that which
Edward was able to give.
Edward was ‘able’ in
another way. The conquest
of Wales was facilitated by
a military revolution.
There was the masterful
execution of radical
strategies, some of them
old like the occupation of
Anglesey and the march
round Wales (anticipated
by Nicholas Molis in the
1240s), some new like the
bridge of boats and the
decision to fight on
through the winter. Then
there was the
extraordinary campaign of
castle-building, new in its
scale, speed and
concentration. And there
was the size of the armies
and how they were
recruited. The changes
were less marked on the
cavalry side. If Edward
had, say, 1,000 cavalry
involved in the 1282–3
campaign, that was not
much larger than the 800
John took with him to
Ireland in 1210, nor were
there significant
differences in how they
were recruited. Edward,
like earlier kings, relied on
his household forces (they
provided a third of the
cavalry in 1282–3), on
‘feudal’ contingents
supplied by his barons,
and on further bodies of
paid knights. There was
nothing new in a high
proportion of the army
being supported with royal
cash, John in effect had
done that through the
‘loans’ doled out to the
knights in 1210. The
Norman and Angevin kings
had always employed large
numbers of Flemish and
Brabantine mercenaries.
Where Edward did make a
new departure was in the
size of his infantry,
culminating in a colossal
31,000 across the armies
in 1294. These foot
soldiers were supported by
royal pay and many had
been recruited in a new
fashion, namely by the
‘commissions of array’ (in
1282 staffed by household
knights) who were sent
into selected counties to
raise troops from the
towns and villages, forcing
the local communities to
produce contingents and
then to support them until
they reached the muster.
Admittedly numbers do
not always make for
efficiency and the high
levels were not sustained
for very long. But these
may well have been the
largest armies ever seen in
Wales.
Behind Edward’s
military power lay one
outstanding factor: money,
money to build the castles
and pay the troops. And
his reform of the realm
had given him this in
abundance. Between 1276
and 1279 the Riccardi
tripled their payments into
the wardrobe and met
nearly all the costs of the
first Welsh war. For the
second war between 1282
and 1284 Edward spent
£120,000, including the
initial costs of the castle-
building. If that was the
price of conquering Wales,
it was beyond Henry III. Of
the £120,000 (much of it
channelled again through
the Riccardi), £23,000
derived from the new
customs duties agreed by
parliament in 1275, and
£37,500 came from a tax
conceded by knights and
burgesses in January 1283
during the actual course of
the campaign. No wonder
they were summoned later
to Shrewsbury to witness
Dafydd’s execution. The
new Edwardian state and
the conquest of Wales
were thus intimately
connected. That was as
true in the area of political
stability as it was of
financial resources. John,
after all, had a treasure of
around £130,000 at the
time of the Welsh revolt in
1212. The reason he did
not deploy it against Wales
was only partly because it
was destined for the
continent. It was also
because his hand was
stayed by the baronial plot
against his life, a plot in
which Llywelyn was
complicit. There was no
chance of anything like
that happening in 1277 or
1282.
***
As king, Edward’s
conduct in Ireland was
very different from what it
became in Wales. He
wished to exploit the
province but he did not
drive forward a major
expansion in the area
under his direct control, an
expansion from which the
losers would have been the
colonial lords and the
native rulers. He certainly
never dreamt of
completing Ireland’s
conquest by eliminating
the latter. Like his father,
Edward never went to
Ireland. Both his decision
not to intervene and the
general stability of English
politics allowed the
struggles between the
native rulers and the
colonial lords to follow
their own patterns, as did
the struggles within each
camp, that between the de
Burghs and the fitz Geralds
continuing until a
settlement in 1298.
Edward had, of course,
been lord of Ireland since
1254, since when his
position had deteriorated
badly. The crisis in
England during the 1260s
had forced him to concede
Ulster to Walter de Burgh.
There had also been a
sharp decline in the
revenues from the
lordships. In 1271 the
year’s receipts at the
Dublin exchequer were
some £2,000, half those of
twenty years earlier. The
major achievement of
Edward’s governors in the
first decade of the reign
was to restore the situation
so that in the 1280s the
receipts recovered to
between £5,000 and
£6,000 a year. Eventually
Ireland contributed some
£30,000 towards the cost
of Edward’s castles in
Wales, roughly 35 per cent
of the total bill. The
conquest of Wales and
English rule in Ireland
were thus intimately
related.
***
In the 1270s and 1280s
Edward’s relations with
Scotland were close and
harmonious. Instead of
exploiting the Manxmen’s
revolt in 1275, he helped
King Alexander crush it.
True, in 1278 when
Alexander did homage for
the lands he held in
England, Edward reserved
his claims to overlordship
over the Scottish kingdom.
Henry III had entered a
similar reservation in 1251
and then forgotten all
about it. Edward was
tougher. He made an
official record of his
démarche, and omitted to
mention Alexander’s
spirited response: ‘Nobody
but God himself has the
right to the homage for my
realm of Scotland.’
Edward’s conduct was part
and parcel of his
determination to preserve
royal rights much more
effectively than his father,
but that did not mean he
was planning to pursue
them in an aggressive
fashion. Up to a point both
kings were going through
the motions, neither really
expecting the question of
homage to come up and
damage their cordial
family relations.
 Queen Margaret,
Alexander’s wife and
Edward’s sister, had died
in 1275, leaving two sons
and a daughter. By
January 1284 all were
dead. ‘After the many
kindnesses we have
received from you,’
Alexander wrote to
Edward, ‘you have now at
this time of intolerable
despair at the death of our
dear son, your beloved
nephew, offered much
solace by saying that
although death has borne
away your kindred in
these parts, we are united
together perpetually, God
willing, by the tie of
indissoluble affection.’
There was nothing the
least bit false about these
sentiments, and Alexander
went on to imply that the
union between the
dynasties might still be
maintained, this
presumably through the
marriage of his infant
granddaughter and heir
apparent (the daughter of
the King of Norway) to
Edward’s son, the future
Edward II. It would clearly
be better, however, if
Alexander could produce
another son. To that end,
in October 1285 Alexander
married again, this time to
Yolanda, the daughter of
the count of Dreux. On a
stormy night in March
1286, anxious to join his
new queen, he left
Edinburgh late in the
evening, crossed the Forth
by ferry, and then in the
wind and rain became
separated from his escort.
Next day he was found
dead on the seashore,
having broken his neck in
a fall from his horse.
The reign had been a
great one for the
monarchy both in terms of
the conquest of the west
and the political stability
which made that possible.
Behind both successes
stood the resources of
Alexander’s kingship,
resources which he
enhanced in one important
area. Following Edward’s
example in 1275,
Alexander introduced
exactly the same customs
duty on wool exports as
that in force in England,
thereby raising perhaps
£2,000 a year. There
seems little doubt that
Alexander’s revenues were
increasing more generally.
His reign saw a stupendous
expansion of the money
supply, helped in part by
his re-coinage in 1250,
with a new ‘long-cross
penny’ modelled on that
introduced into England
three years before (see
above, p. 47). Apart from
the substantial amounts of
money coming direct from
the burghs, the bulk of
royal revenue (some of it
still in kind) was collected
by the sheriffs and derived
from crown lands.
Revenue from wardships
was also important,
although intermittent.
Alexander kept the
earldom of Fife (worth
£500 a year) in hand from
1270 to 1284 to provide
for his son and heir. In
1293 the revenue from the
sheriffdoms was valued at
£8,100 a year, and since
this excluded the customs
and other resources,
Alexander’s annual income
was well over £10,000. In
terms of resources, in the
British league table he was
roughly three times more
wealthy than the princes
of Gwynedd, even when
their revenues were at
their height, and three
times less wealthy than
kings of England, even
before their income was
expanded by general
taxation.
The king’s finances were
essentially run from within
the king’s household by
the chamber, the
equivalent of Edward I’s
wardrobe. It was the
chamberlain who received
all the revenues collected
by the sheriffs, apart from
those the sheriffs
themselves spent on royal
orders. The chamberlain,
the chancellor and other
household officials audited
the accounts of the sheriffs
at various places as they
travelled the country.
There was no separate
exchequer on the English
model, although the board
of audit was sometimes
given the name. The
board’s accounts, which
survive from the 1260s
and 1280s in truncated
seventeenth-century
copies, prove that it was
extremely proactive,
ordering investigations,
judging whether sheriffs
should answer for
particular debts, and
commanding payments to
be enforced by distraint.
More than anything else,
these fragments show that
Scotland had a fully
formed document-driven,
record-based monarchy.
The chamberlain’s own
account, for an imprecise
period but including the
year 1264, provides a
glimpse of the royal
household, and its
expenditure on horses,
silks, spices, wine, gifts,
messengers, wages of
servants, fees of knights,
expenses of the queen, and
the king’s gambling debts.
The cost of what was
probably the household’s
food and drink was
£2,220, of which £590 was
still owed ‘the country’,
which suggests a right of
prise (compulsory
purchase) much as in
England. If the £2,220 was
for one year and not for
longer it was much the
same as Henry III’s
expenditure in the late
1220s, although Edward
I’s in the 1280s was to be
five or six times as great.
The chamberlain’s total
receipts were £5,300,
roughly a third of the
receipts of Edward’s
wardrobe for one year at
the start of his reign,
though later, of course,
these too became much
larger. A description of
Scottish government
written around 1292
describes in detail the role
of the household officials –
the steward, constable,
marshal, almoner, and the
clerks of liverance,
provender, wardrobe and
kitchen. Its discussion of
the office of the chancellor
suggests the same
pressures of business as in
England, hence its mention
of routine writs ‘of course’,
its acknowledgement that
the chancellor might not
always follow the king,
and its observation that
the king might issue orders
to him through writs
sealed with the privy seal.
 Alexander’s death
brought to an end more
than three centuries of
royal success. The original
core of the Scottish
kingdom had been
between the firths of Forth
and Moray and the central
Highlands. It was there
that the great bulk of the
king’s lands lay, organized
into thanages that were
later subsumed into
sheriffdoms. In some
usages as late as the
twelfth century it was this
or indeed an even smaller
area (thanks to the fissure
with Moray) which was
thought of as constituting
Scotland (see above, p.
117). The essential
achievement of the
Scottish kings was to
expand beyond this
narrow base. In the tenth
century they established
their hold over Lothian.
Thereafter persistent
attempts down to 1217 to
advance south of the
Solway and the Tweed
came to nothing. But
instead the kingdom
expanded north and west:
north to recover hold over
Moray and ultimately
establish sheriffdoms at
Cromarty and Dingwall;
west with sheriffdoms at
Lanark, Dumfries,
Wigtown, Ayr, Dumbarton
and (in 1293) in Argyll
and the Western Isles (see
Map 4). The financial
accounts of the 1260s and
1280s show that there
were twelve sheriffdoms
south of the Forth, seven
between the Forth and
Kincardine and eight
between Aberdeen and
Cromarty and Dingwall,
although the last had no
revenues to speak of. This
Scotland of the
sheriffdoms was the area
within which the kings
had asserted, in the twelfth
century, control over royal
pleas (including cases of
serious crime) and in the
thirteenth had made
available common law
legal procedures similar to
those in England. In
Alexander’s reign the three
justiciars, of Lothian,
Scotland north of Forth,
and Galloway (the last
reappears in the sources
from 1258), were probably
travelling their
jurisdictions twice a year
to hear both types of plea.
The expansion of the
kingdom was also
reflected, if belatedly, in
the spread of mints. The
short-cross penny which
ran between 1195 and
1250 was only struck at
Berwick, Roxburgh,
Edinburgh and Perth. The
long-cross penny was
minted (in its initial phase)
in the north at Inverness
and in the west at
Dumfries, Ayr, Lanark,
Glasgow and Renfrew. The
burghs themselves,
proliferating throughout
the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, were dependent
on the king for their
privileges and supplied
him with important cash
revenues. They were
potent instruments in the
expansion and
consolidation of royal
power.
Beyond the Scotland of
the sheriffdoms, the kings
had tied the northern
earldom of Caithness more
firmly to the kingdom, in
part through controlling its
bishopric. Indeed with a
proper diocesan structure
coming into place, the
control of episcopal
appointments allowed the
king to place his men in
key positions throughout
Scotland. The most
essential method, however,
of binding doubtful areas
on the periphery to the
realm’s inner core was
through the establishment
of provincial lordships for
the king’s closest
associates, most of them of
Anglo-Norman descent. In
the west the Bruces were
placed in Annandale, the
Morevilles in Cunningham,
and the Stewarts in Kyle
and Strathgryf and then in
Bute, Cowal, Arran and
Knapdale. The same
pattern was repeated in
the north with the Murrys
in Sutherland and the
Comyns in Badenoch and
Lochaber. By 1286, five of
the thirteen native
earldoms had also passed
to families of Anglo-
Norman descent. The
establishment of such
families, fundamental to
the ‘Europeanization’ of
Scotland, had created
tensions which spawned a
series of political revolts,
associated particularly
with the MacWilliams and
the MacHeths. The revolts
were brutally suppressed,
as were those in Galloway
and Man, but the new
edifice’s stability depended
as much on
accommodation as on
conquest. Native nobles
continued to hold eight of
the thirteen earldoms and
also to rule in Argyll. They
adopted much of the
culture of the incoming
nobility, while the latter,
on its part, came to respect
native history and
traditions. Harmony
between kings and nobles,
whatever their
background, was also
helped by the basic
structures of the kingdom,
where there were
significant contrasts as
well as parallels with those
south of the border. In
England, while great
nobles were often leading
councillors of the king,
they did not in the
thirteenth century
generally hold formal
office either at the centre
or in the localities. In
Scotland they did both.
Alexander Comyn was one
of the Alexander III’s
justiciars and the earl of
Mar his chamberlain.
Nobles were equally
appointed to sheriffdoms.
Those who were
unemployed were at least
left alone. There remained
a fundamental contrast
between the Scotland of
the sheriffs and the
justiciars, on the one hand,
and the Scotland of the
‘outer ring’ earldoms and
provincial lordships on the
other. How far crown pleas
and the common law ran
in these earldoms and
lordships is unclear.
Certainly their lords
enjoyed very considerable
independence. Their
position was comparable
to that of the Welsh
marcher barons within the
English realm, except that
the territories they ruled
were far more extensive.
As James Campbell has
observed, it is at least
symbolic of the power of
the Scottish nobility that
the Gough Map of Britain
in 1360 notes in Scotland
not the administrative
counties, as it sometimes
does in England, but the
territories of the earls.
Nobles were also less
pressured than in England,
even within the core of the
kingdom. Private
jurisdiction probably
remained more important;
certainly the common law
bulked less large (see
above, pp. 334–5). Royal
revenue also came with far
less strain, largely because
so much of it derived from
land. The surviving
records of account lack the
long lists of individual
debts which are such a
feature of the English pipe
rolls. The customs
introduced by Alexander
were relatively painless.
Painful general taxation
was one area in which he
did not imitate his brother-
in-law. For that reason
while Alexander frequently
convoked great assemblies
of the realm he had no
need to summon local
representatives to them in
any formal way, as he did
not need consent to
taxation. Yet Alexander’s
kingship was still widely
based. The 1,500 to 2,000
Scots, most middling
freeholders, whose
allegiance Edward took in
1296 may well have been
the kind of men who were
making increasing use of
the new common law legal
procedures. As in England,
royal justice was in
demand.
All this put Scottish
kings in a very different
political position from
either the rulers of
Gwynedd or the kings of
England. There was no
equivalent, after
Alexander’s death, to the
long list of complaints
made against Llywelyn.
There was no need for a
Scottish Magna Carta,
Provisions of Oxford, or
Edwardian-style reform of
the realm. While the
Scottish state was in some
ways like the English state
in miniature, in others it
more closely resembled
twelfth-century Capetian
France, where revenue was
‘easy’ and political protest
muted. As a result, in
Scotland (as in France) a
sense of national identity
could centre upon the
crown, indeed be created
by it. If Wales was united
in its language and people
yet divided by its rulers,
Scotland was divided in its
language and people but
united by its king. Indeed
initially a common
kingship was all that did
unite it. The achievement
of a universal Scottishness,
against all the odds, is the
supreme example of the
power of ‘regnal unity’. It
was because the king was
‘king of Scots’ that all the
diverse peoples in his
realm came ultimately to
regard themselves as just
that. And as the kings
pushed their authority
outwards, the narrower
usages of ‘Scotland’ were
lost and ‘Scotland’ came
universally to mean the
whole land north of the
Solway and the Tweed,
essentially the area of
modern Scotland. A lament
for Alexander, written
soon after his death,
captured both his
popularity and centrality
to Scotland:
When Alexander our
king was dead
That Scotland led in
love and law
Away was sons
[abundance] of ale
and bread
 Of wine and wax, of
gaming and glee
Our gold was
changed into lead.
After Alexander’s death,
when the guardians put on
their seal the motto ‘St
Andrew be the leader of
the compatriot Scots’, they
expressed a common
identity and also the need
for help now that they had
lost the leadership which
had created it, the
leadership of the king.
***
Where does one stop the
clock in history? In 1272
the king of England
seemed the least
conquering of the British
rulers. Twelve years later
Edward had conquered
Wales. In the 1290s he was
virtually to conquer
Scotland. The way there
had been prepared by the
death of Alexander III’s
granddaughter, ‘the Maid
of Norway’, in September
1290, which ended plans
for her marriage to
Edward’s heir. Edward had
then insisted that his
overlordship of Scotland
be recognized – this before
judging between the
numerous candidates for
the Scottish throne, all
descendants of the sisters
of Earl David of
Huntingdon (died 1219),
King William the Lion’s
younger brother. Edward
thus enforced ‘rights’
which no Scottish king had
acknowledged since
Richard I had abandoned
them in 1189. Edward’s
next forward move came
after John Balliol had
become king and done
homage. Edward enforced
his overlordship by
demanding military
service for his French war
in 1294 and by hearing
legal cases from Scotland
on appeal. When this
provoked resistance,
Edward in 1296 invaded,
forced Balliol’s abdication
and reduced Scotland to a
‘land’ annexed to the
English crown, an
awesome decision which
simply extinguished a
kingship which had existed
for over four hundred
years. Yet it was a decision
exactly paralleled in the
way he had enforced the
forfeitures of the Welsh
rulers in 1283–4. To defeat
rebellion and hold down
his conquest, Edward did
not build castles, as in
Wales, but his armies were
of immense size. The
25,700 foot soldiers and at
least 3,000 cavalry
mustered for the Falkirk
campaign in 1297 was
certainly the largest single
force raised in Britain
since 1066 and one
unsurpassed on a regular
basis before the armies of
the seventeenth century.
Edward’s gigantic revenues
between 1294 and 1297
enabled him to fight wars
in France as well as in
Britain, something not
required of him in 1277
and 1284. Yet he
contained the resulting
political protests in
England. The conquest of
Scotland, like that of
Wales, was intimately
linked to the stability of
the Edwardian state. In
1305 Edward issued an
Ordinance for the
government of Scotland
which paralleled in many
ways the 1284 Statute of
Wales. With his parliament
in England hearing
petitions from Wales,
Scotland, and Ireland, with
his exchequer inspecting
accounts from subordinate
exchequers at Caernarfon,
Berwick and Dublin, the
British Isles seemed, in the
words of Robin Frame, to
be ‘in the grip of an
irresistible organizing
force’. In fact, of course, it
did not work out like that.
In 1306 Robert Bruce was
crowned king at Scone and
he went on to free
Scotland from English rule.
That Wales succumbed
and Scotland survived was
not surprising, for the
Scottish kings, as we have
seen, had created a
powerful and harmonious
state whereas the Welsh
rulers had not. Scotland
was also far better
protected geographically,
with a single narrow
frontier to England, no
equivalent of the marcher
baronies, and a much more
extensive seaboard.
Scotland, however, was
also lucky in coming onto
the agenda late in
Edward’s reign, when at
times he was also fighting
in Wales and France. Had
the chronology been
different, or had Edward
not been followed by
Edward II (1307–27), the
most hopeless king to sit
on the English throne,
Scotland might well have
gone under. Indeed, given
the disparity in resources,
there must have been
many occasions after 1066
when kings of England
could have conquered
Wales and Scotland had
they concentrated on
doing so.
This is not to say such a
conquest was necessarily
inevitable. There was
nothing uniform about
English power. It collapsed
under Stephen, and was
weak, both in terms of
direction and resources,
for much of the time
between 1212 and 1272.
Nor did English kings have
much concept of ‘Britain’
as an entity which should
be united under their rule
with the Welsh dynasties
and the king of Scotland
swept away. True, that
vision was given powerful
expression after Edward’s
victories, notably by Peter
Langtoft (an Augustinian
canon of Bridlington):
Now are the
islanders all joined
together
And Albany
[Scotland] united to
the royalties
of which King
Edward is
proclaimed lord.
Cornwall and Wales
are in his power,
And Ireland the great
at his will.
There is neither king
nor prince of all the
countries
Except King Edward
who has thus united
 them.
Such unificatory rhetoric
might seem to have had a
long pedigree. Gerald of
Wales after all had lauded
Henry II for ‘including by
his powerful hand in one
monarchy the whole island
of Britain’. But in reality
what Henry II actually
sought, much like his
grandfather Henry I, was
overlordship over the
other rulers, not
unification through their
elimination. In the first
instance Edward sought
exactly the same. His view
of Britain was very much
one of separate rulers
owing allegiance to the
king of England. In 1301,
in a letter to the pope, he
showed how the king of
England’s overlordship
over the king of Scotland
had arisen from the
original division of Albion
between the sons of Brutus
and how that overlordship
had subsequently been
maintained. For Edward,
the eventual reduction of
Scotland to a ‘land’
annexed by the English
crown was not the
realization of some
Langtoftian blueprint. It
was simply the result, as
Edward explained, of the
king of Scotland having
breached his oath of
loyalty to his overlord. The
forfeitures of the Welsh
rulers, as we have seen,
had worked in exactly the
same way. In this
perspective, the unification
of Britain had been
produced by the disloyalty
of the subject rulers.
 Kings had long been
aware of the prospects of
forfeiture (Welsh rulers
had suffered it under
Henry I) but they had
hardly striven to create
situations which might
bring it about. Indeed the
pressures they placed on
Wales and Scotland were
often relaxed rather than
intensified. One reason for
that, of course, lay in the
activities of the Welsh and
Scottish rulers themselves.
But another, even more
important, was simply that
English kings had higher
priorities elsewhere. Again
and again, overseas
necessities took Henry I
and Henry II away when
they might otherwise have
campaigned in Wales.
Even after 1204 the
recovery of the continental
empire and retention of its
remnants had the highest
priority, at least until the
1240s. Nor was that
surprising given the
relative value and prestige
of Normandy, Anjou and
Gascony, compared with
Wales, Ireland and even
Scotland.
In Wales the main
advances of the Normans
after 1066 had been the
work of marcher barons
rather than the king, but
once these lost momentum
the king showed little
inclination to step in and
finish the job. Both the
marcher barons and the
Welsh rulers could be
allies or enemies
depending on
circumstances. Henry I
condoned the growing
power of Gruffudd ap
Cynan in part as a
counterweight to the earl
of Chester, thereby helping
to lay the foundations of a
resurgent Gwynedd.
Likewise Henry II made
the Lord Rhys his
lieutenant in the south, so
gaining freedom to deal
with Ireland. Later, Henry
III in practice accepted the
dominance of Llywelyn the
Great for the whole period
from 1216 to 1240. The
next decade saw him pass
up golden opportunities to
conquer Gwynedd. In
1267, he and his son even
surrendered longstanding
royal claims to the
homages of the Welsh
rulers. Three years later,
placing money for his
crusade above recovery of
power in Wales, Edward
helped Llywelyn to
consolidate his principality
by selling him the homage
of Maredudd ap Rhys. The
crown’s attitude to its own
gains was scarcely
desperately retentive. The
Four Cantrefs in the north,
and Pembroke, Cardigan
and Carmarthen in the
south, were allowed to
pass back and forth
between marcher baron,
Welsh ruler and the king
as it suited the needs of
wider policy.
Over Scotland the
nature of the overlordship
asserted by the English
kings fluctuated. William I
had made King Malcolm
his ‘man’. Both Rufus and
Henry I placed protégés on
the Scottish throne and
expected their obedience.
Thereafter, however, the
overlordship of Scotland
(largely thanks to the
enfeeblement of royal
authority under Stephen)
lapsed until Henry II
renewed it in 1174, at the
same time taking
possession of several
castles within the
kingdom. Henry certainly
sought to make a reality of
his position, but that he
saw the Scottish castles as
a security measure
designed to prevent
invasions of England,
rather than as a base for
further advance, was
amply shown by the way
he resigned Edinburgh, the
most important, once he
was confident of King
William’s good behaviour.
Henry’s successor, Richard
I, placed money for his
crusade far above
maintaining the
overlordship over Scotland
and achieved the one by
sacrificing the other.
Although later kings kept
the idea of overlordship
alive, in practice they
accepted Scotland’s
independence. As a result,
after 1217 relations
became increasingly
cordial. Henry III
conspicuously refused to
push claims to
overlordship during
Alexander III’s minority.
Edward I, more
determined, formally
registered his claims in
1278 but did nothing to
prosecute them. In the
Treaty of Birgham of 1290,
under which his son was to
marry the Maid of
Norway, he accepted that
Scotland was to remain
‘separate and free in itself
without subjection’. It was
only in the extraordinary
circumstances produced by
the failure of the direct
Scottish line with the Maid
of Norway’s death that he
revived his claims.
Meanwhile kings of
England put little effort
into increasing their power
in Ireland. After John’s
expedition of 1210 they
never went there,
regarding the lordship
simply as a source of
revenue and a place where
they could find patronage
for their supporters.
All this, therefore, left
plenty of room for the
expansive strategies of the
Scottish kings and the
Welsh rulers. The picture
of Britain in 1272 is not a
momentary illusion. It was
often the reality. Indeed in
the thirteenth century the
English kings had far less
clear-cut plans for mastery
than either the king of
Scots or the princes of
Gwynedd, the former with
a blueprint for taking over
Man and the Western Isles,
the latter with one for
dominion over the other
native rulers.
Edward’s elimination of
the Welsh rulers and
termination of the Scottish
kingdom was not,
therefore, the culmination
of a long and consistent
drive by the English crown
to intensify its
overlordship over Britain,
let alone unify it under a
single ruler. This
statement, however, while
true, needs to be
counterbalanced by
another: if circumstances
did arise in which English
overlordship was
exercised, then it was
likely to be progressively
more demanding and
intrusive the later one
moves in our period. The
reason for this was the
development of the
English state. Written
records, a common law
and a professional
judiciary made royal
government increasingly
detailed, uniform and all-
embracing. Inevitably that
had an impact on those in
Wales and Scotland who
came into contact with it.
While Welsh and Scottish
rulers from the
Conqueror’s time onwards
may at times have done
homage to the kings of
England, thus
acknowledging that they
held their territories as
fiefs which were liable to
forfeiture, the written
definition of such
relationships by Henry II
in his 1174 treaty with
Scotland, and by John in
the charters he granted to
the Welsh rulers, gave
those relationships a new
sharpness. While the
overlordship exercised by
Henry I over the Welsh
rulers was real enough, it
was not a matter of law
cases and legal records. In
the next century the Welsh
assize rolls, recording
Welsh cases heard by
English judges between
1277 and 1284, run to 350
modern printed pages.
Merely an abbreviated
English calendar of the
special chancery rolls
Edward opened in 1277 to
record his Welsh letters
runs to a 100 pages down
to 1282. It was such law
and bureaucracy which
seemed to threaten
Scotland after 1292.
William the Lion had
found Henry II’s
overlordship vexatious,
especially the attendance
at his courts, the loss of
castles, and the
interference in Galloway,
but he put up with it. A
hundred years later
Edwardian overlordship,
especially in the hearing of
judicial appeals,
threatened to be far more
interventionist, and thus
far more intolerable.
 Of course, what made
this worse were the equal
pretensions of the rulers of
Wales and Scotland.
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was
himself trying to pin the
Welsh rulers down to a
precise set of rules, and
was imbued with his status
as prince of Wales. The
kings of Scotland had
created an English state in
miniature, and were keen
to round it off by getting
papal sanction for a
coronation. Faced by
heavier demands with a
lower level of toleration, it
was highly likely that the
result would be resistance,
as indeed it was. Meeting
resistance, a king like
Edward, masterful and
martial, was always likely
to conclude that
confiscation and conquest
were the only solutions.
The loss of Normandy, in
confining the king largely
to England, meant he
could concentrate as never
before on executing such a
programme; and the new
tax-based state Edward
was creating gave him the
resources to bring it about.
In thirteenth-century
conditions, therefore,
overlordship meant
domination, domination
led to resistance, and
resistance was ended by
conquest. But was it really
as straightforward as that?
The circumstances in
which the full weight of
English law and
officialdom came to bear
on both Wales and
Scotland were surely
avoidable, if in different
ways. In Wales, if
Llywelyn had maintained
the 1267 settlement he
and the other rulers would
certainly have had far less
English interference to
cope with than they had
after 1277. In Scotland,
the events of the 1290s
came like a bolt from a
clear blue sky. In the long
years of Anglo-Scottish
peace, when Carlisle castle
fell into disrepair,
unfortified houses
proliferated across the
border, and a common
currency united the
realms, a union of the
kingdoms by marriage
seemed far more likely
than one by conquest.
Indeed had dynastic death
stalked south of the border
rather than north, a son of
Alexander III (his mother
the daughter of Henry III)
could well have ended up
as king of England; a
single monarch for the two
countries not after
Elizabeth’s death in 1603
but after Edward I’s.
The transformation in
their national identities
and economies (discussed
in earlier chapters) meant
that the English, the Welsh
and the Scots never had
more in common than
when politics at the end of
the thirteenth century cast
them apart. If the coming
together had been largely
(though not entirely) on
English and by extension
western European terms,
there was no reason why
political hegemony should
have come in its wake.
Indeed, one result of the
changes was that the
English no longer regarded
the Welsh and the Scots as
inferior, barbaric races.
Nor did the remodelling of
national identities and the
developing powers of the
state destroy aristocratic
nexuses which crossed
political boundaries.
Indeed, these were more
pronounced than ever.
Henry I had prevented
cross-border landholding
in the north on the
grounds that one could not
serve two masters. In the
thirteenth century, with
the masters living in
peace, it was extensive.
For the numerous
AngloScottish landholders
the Edwardian wars were
unexpected and unnatural
disasters. In Wales,
Matilda Longespee was the
daughter of one marcher
baron, and the wife of
another. She was also a
cousin of Llywelyn, for
both were grandchildren
of Llywelyn the Great. As
soon as she heard of
Llywelyn’s death she
begged Archbishop
Pecham to absolve him
from his sins. Such
sympathies, founded on
family and humanity, and
transcending race, class
and gender, gave hope for
the future.
Genealogical
Tables
1 The Rulers of England: The
English Line
(Kings of England shown in
capitals)
2 The Rulers of England: The
Norman Line
3 The Rulers of England: The
Angevin Line
4 The Rulers of Scotland (Kings
of Scotland shown in capitals)
5 The Dynasty of Gwynedd
6 The Dynasty of Deheubarth
7 The Dynasty of Powys
Bibliography

Unless otherwise stated the

place of publication is
London.

PRINCIPAL
PRIMARY
SOURCES

A high proportion of the

primary sources relevant
to this book fall into two
main groups. The first
comprises the documents
produced by the English
and Scottish kings and the
Welsh rulers together with
other material about law
and government. The
second is formed by the
writings of contemporaries
about the period and
individuals within it:
histories, chronicles,
biographies and saints’
lives. In a third category
are the records produced
by ecclesiastics and
ecclesiastical institutions,
and in a fourth those
produced by laymen. The
very great bulk of this
material is of English
provenance, although
English material can often
shed light on events in
Wales and Scotland.
An illuminating
discussion of the
proliferation of records in
this period is found in M.
T. Clanchy, From Memory
to Written Record. England
1066–1307, 2nd edn.
(Oxford, 1993). Those of
the English kings were
essentially generated by
government inquiries and
by the output of the
chancery, the exchequer
and the law courts.
Contemporary writing
about English history is
fully described in Antonia
Gransden’s indispensable
Historical Writing in
England c. 550 to c. 1307
(1974). The Latin texts of
most of the works she
discusses were published
in the second half of the
nineteenth century as part
of the Rolls Series. Since
the 1940s modern editions
with scholarly
introductions and
translations have appeared
first in Nelson’s Medieval
Texts series, and then in its
successor, the invaluable
and ongoing series of
Oxford Medieval Texts. A
wide variety of primary
sources are translated in
English Historical
Documents II 1042–1189,
ed. D. C. Douglas and G.
W. Greenaway, 2nd edn.
(1981), and English
Historical Documents III
1189–1327, ed. H.
Rothwell (1975).
Henceforth these are cited
as EHD.
Discussion of both
historical writing in
England and the output of
English royal government
falls naturally into three
main periods, namely
1066–1154, 1154–1199,
and the thirteenth century.
1066–1154
Before 1199 the royal
chancery kept no record of
the charters, writs and
other documents which it
issued. Those surviving in
numerous archives either
as originals or as copies
have been brought
together in Regesta Regum
Anglo-Normannorum: The
Acta of William I 1066–
1087, ed. D. Bates (Oxford,
1998), and Regesta Regum
Anglo-Normannorum 1066–
1154, 4 vols., ed. H. W. C.
Davis, C. Johnson, H. A.
Cronne and R. H. C. Davis
(Oxford, 1913–1969). The
material in these volumes
is absolutely central to the
study of this period. The
Coronation Charter of
Henry I is translated as
EHD II, no. 19.
The first surviving pipe
roll of the exchequer,
which recorded the annual
audit of the money owed
the crown, is that for the
financial year 1129/30:
The Pipe Roll of 31 Henry I
(HMSO, 1929), a facsimile
reproduction of the Record
Commission’s 1833
edition. Dialogus de
Scaccario, ed. and tr. C.
Johnson, F. E. L. Carter
and D. Greenway (Oxford,
1983) contains a
translation of the
‘constitution of the king’s
household’ drawn up soon
after 1135. For the
Dialogus itself, see the
1154–1189 section below.
The king’s courts kept
no official records in this
period, or none which
survive, but accounts of
early law cases, drawn
mostly from chronicle
sources, are brought
together in English Lawsuits
from William I to Richard I,
2 vols., ed. and tr. R. C.
Van Caenegem (Selden
Society, 106–7 (1990–91)).
Leges Henrici Primi, ed. and
tr. L. J. Downer (Oxford,
1972), is an important
work on legal procedure
written in the reign of
Henry I.
 The full text of
Domesday Book has now
been published by
Penguin: Domesday Book:
A Complete Translation, ed.
A. Williams and G. H.
Martin (2002).
Key Norman accounts of
the Conquest by William of
Jumièges, a monk of the
monastery there born
about 1000, and by
William of Poitiers, the
Conqueror’s chaplain, are
now available in modern
editions: The Gesta
Normannorum Ducum of
William of Jumièges, Orderic
Vitalis and Robert of
Torigni, 2 vols., ed. and tr.
E. M. C. Van Houts
(Oxford, 1992–5), and The
Gesta Guillelmi of William
of Potiers, ed. and tr. R. H.
C. Davis and M. Chibnall
(Oxford, 1998). The
tapestry is reproduced in
The Bayeux Tapestry, ed. D.
M. Wilson (1985). The
main English account of
the Conquest is found in
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
which survives in two
versions: a northern one
which ends in 1079 and
one written at
Peterborough abbey which
continues as an important
source down to 1154.
There are translations in
EHD II and The Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle, ed. D.
Whitelock (1961). Another
version running to 1130
was used by the Worcester
monk, John of Worcester,
whose chronicle ends in
1140: The Chronicle of John
of Worcester, iii (for 1067–
1140), ed. and tr. P.
McGurk (Oxford, 1998).
 Bestriding the whole
period from before the
Conquest to the 1140s is
the work of Orderic
Vitalis. Orderic was born
in Shropshire in 1175 of
an English mother and a
Norman father. At the age
of ten he was moved to the
monastery of St-Evroult in
Normandy. There between
1114 and 1141 he wrote
his Ecclesiastical History, a
voluminous, discursive and
highly anecdotal work
which gives a brilliant
picture of the Norman
elite. This is now available
as The Ecclesiastical History
of Orderic Vitalis, 6 vols.,
ed. and tr. M. Chibnall
(Oxford, 1969–90); and
see Marjorie Chibnall, The
World of Orderic Vitalis
(Oxford, 1984). Also vital
for this period are the
works of William of
Malmesbury, a monk of
Malmesbury abbey of
mixed English and Norman
birth, who began writing
in the 1120s and was one
of the most intelligent and
perceptive of all medieval
historians. Modern
editions of his works are
Gesta Regum Anglorum: The
History of the English Kings,
2 vols., ed. and tr. R.A.B.
Mynors, R.M. Thomson
and M. Winterbottom
(Oxford, 1998–9), and
(covering the first part of
Stephen’s reign) The
Historia Novella, ed. and tr.
E. King and K. R. Potter
(Oxford, 1998). See also
Rodney Thomson, William
of Malmesbury
(Woodbridge, 1987).
Another historian of mixed
birth and considerable
ability was Henry,
archdeacon of Huntingdon,
whose history of the
English to 1129, begun in
or soon after 1123, was
ultimately continued down
to 1154. This is now
available as Henry,
Archdeacon of Huntingdon,
Historia Anglorum The
History of the English
People, ed. and tr. D.
Greenway (Oxford, 1996).
His constant attendance on
Anselm makes the works
of the Canterbury monk
Eadmer extraordinarily
vivid and informative: The
Life of St Anselm by
Eadmer, ed. and tr. R. W.
Southern (1962), and
Eadmer’s History of Recent
Events in England, tr. G.
Bosanquet (1964).
Influenced by Eadmer,
Hugh the Chanter of York
wrote an equally informed
account of the career of
Archbishop Thurstan: Hugh
the Chanter: The History of
the Church of York 1066–
1127, ed. and tr. C.
Johnson, M. Brett, C. N. L.
Brooke and M.
Winterbottom (Oxford,
1990). History of the
Church of Abingdon, 2 (for
the years after 1066), ed.
and tr. J. Hudson (Oxford
2002), now makes this
major monastic history
readily available.
The chief chronicle of
Stephen’s reign – Gesta
Stephani, ed. and tr. K. R.
Potter and R. H. C. Davis
(Oxford, 1976) – was
possibly written by Robert
of Lewes, bishop of Bath
from 1136 to 1166. A
translation of William of
Newburgh’s later account
of the period is found in
William of Newburgh: The
History of English Affairs,
Book I, ed. P. G. Walsh and
M. J. Kennedy
(Warminster, 1988).
Scottish Annals from English
Chroniclers 500–1286, ed.
A. O. Anderson (Stamford,
1991) is valuable for its
translations of the Hexham
chroniclers and of Ailred
of Rievaulx’s account of
the battle of the Standard.
Ailred’s Life of St Edward
the Confessor has been
translated by Fr Jerome
Bertram (Guildford, 1997).
The spirit of the early
Cistercians is captured in
The Life of Ailred of
Rievaulx by Walter Daniel,
ed. and tr. F. M. Powicke
(1950). Another
remarkable life (written
between 1155 and 1166) is
The Life of Christina of
Markyate: A Twelfth
Century Recluse, ed. and tr.
C. H. Talbot (Oxford,
1987). It is a pity there is
no translation of The Life
of Wulfric of Haselbury by
John Abbot of Ford, ed.
Dom M. Bell (Somerset
Record Society, 47
(1933)).
 Geoffrey of Monmouth,
The History of the Kings of
Britain, translated by Lewis
Thorpe, is readily available
in a Penguins Classics
edition of 1966. There is a
translation of Gaimar in
the second volume of
Lestorie des Engles solum la
Translacion Maistre Geffrei
Gaimar, 2 vols., ed. T. D.
Hardy and C. T. Martin
(Rolls Series, 1888–9).
1154–1199
The surviving charters and
writs issued by the
chancery of Henry II will
shortly be published under
the editorship of J. C. Holt
and N. C. Vincent, volumes
which will transform study
of the reign. Nicholas
Vincent is also preparing
an edition of the acta of
Richard I. Meanwhile
some guide is provided by
The Itinerary of Richard I,
ed. L. Landon (Pipe Roll
Society, new series xiii
(1935)).
The pipe rolls of the
exchequer survive in
continuous annual
sequence from 1155 and
have all been printed for
this period by the Pipe
Roll Society. The great
account of the workings of
the exchequer by the
treasurer Richard fitz
Nigel, written between
1177 and 1179, is
published as Dialogus de
Scaccario, ed. and tr. C.
Johnson, F. E. L. Carter
and D. Greenway (Oxford,
1983).
No official records of
the royal courts from
before the mid 1190s
survive, so one is still
dependent on Van
Caenegem’s English
Lawsuits from William I to
Richard I. The Treatise on
the Laws and Customs of
England commonly called
Glanvill, ed. G. D. G. Hall
(1965), produced late in
the reign by the legal
circle around Henry II’s
justiciar, Ranulf Glanvill,
gives a remarkable
analysis of the workings of
the early common law.
EHD II prints the assizes
of Henry II, and some
returns both to the inquest
of sheriffs and to the great
inquiry of 1166 into knight
service.
This period is
illuminated by the work of
some remarkable
historians. As a royal clerk
employed at court and on
special missions, Roger of
Howden was able to
provide a unique insider’s
narrative of the period
from 1170 to 1201 and
one well informed about
Scottish affairs: for his
writings see David
Corner’s article in Bulletin
of the Institute of Historical
Research, 56 (1983).
Howden’s cautious and
even tone contrasts with
the outspoken and
egotistical writings of
another royal clerk, Gerald
of Wales, archdeacon of
Brecon, a man dogged, so
he thought, by his mixed
Welsh and Anglo-Norman
descent. Totally different
again is the humane and
judicious William of
Newburgh, an Augustinian
canon who wrote his
chronicle in the late
1190s. Another important
historian and a great
admirer of Henry II was
the dean of St Paul’s,
Ralph of Diss. Diss is only
available in the original
Rolls Series edition, but
nineteenth-century
translations of Howden
and Newburgh by H. T.
Riley and J. Stevenson (in
his Church Historians of
England) have been
recently reprinted by
Llanerch Press (1996).
Gerald of Wales comes
alive in The Autobiography
of Giraldus Cambrensis, ed.
and tr. H. E. Butler (1937),
and see Robert Bartlett’s
study, Gerald of Wales
1146–1223 (Oxford,
1982). Gerald’s works on
Wales and Ireland are
mentioned later. Jordan of
Fantosme’s Chronicle, ed.
and tr. R. C. Johnston
(Oxford, 1981), is essential
and exciting for the 1173–
4 civil war. The Chronicle
of Richard of Devizes, ed.
and tr. J. T. Appleby
(1963), written by a
Winchester monk, is
valuable for Richard’s
reign, as are the work of
Ralph of Coggeshall and
the life of William
Marshal, both discussed in
the next section.
The Becket dispute
inspired numerous lives of
the archbishop and these
are now available in The
Lives of Thomas Becket, ed.
and tr. M. Staunton
(Manchester, 2001). The
course of the dispute can
be followed in EHD II, Part
III (C), where the
Constitutions of Clarendon
are printed. The Chronicle
of Battle Abbey, ed. and tr.
E. Searle (Oxford, 1980)
and The Chronicle of Jocelin
of Brakelond concerning the
Acts of Samson abbot of the
Monastery of St Edmund,
ed. and tr. H. E. Butler
(1949) reveal the efforts of
monastic institutions to
defend their rights and
properties. Jocelin’s work,
with its splendid picture of
Samson, has become a
classic. Both these
chronicles provide
glimpses of the Angevin
kings at work. So does the
life of Hugh of Avalon,
bishop of Lincoln (1186–
1200), by his chaplain
Adam of Eynsham – The
Life of St Hugh of Lincoln, 2
vols., ed. and tr. D. L.
Douie and H. Farmer
(1962); this magnificent
biography gives a totally
convincing picture of a
good and great man. For
the twelfth-century
historians in general, see
Nancy Partner, Serious
Entertainments: The Writing
of History in Twelfth-
Century England (Chicago,
1977).
The Thirteenth Century
From the turn of the
twelfth century the source
material available to the
historian is revolutionized
by an explosion in the
record-keeping of the
English government. In
1199 the chancery began
to record its output on a
series of annual rolls so the
historian is no longer
dependent on the
haphazard survival of
originals or copies.
Preserved in the Public
Record Office, the
resulting charter, patent,
close, liberate and fine rolls
for the thirteenth century
have nearly all been
printed either in extenso or
in English calendar,
beginning in the 1820s
and 1830s under the
auspices of the Record
Commission and
continuing from the 1890s
under those of HMSO. An
omission in the PRO
calendars has been
rectified by the publication
of The Royal Charter
Witness Lists of Edward I,
ed. R. Huscroft and The
Royal Charter Witness Lists
of Henry III, 2 vols., ed. M.
Morris (List and Index
Society, 279, 291–2 (2000,
2002)). These provide key
evidence for who was at
court. A related
publication is Robin
Studd’s An Itinerary of Lord
Edward (List and Index
Society, 284 (2000)).
Although they had
probably been kept from a
little earlier, records of the
pleas heard by the king’s
courts survive from the
mid 1190s. Down to 1245
the rolls kept by the
central court at
Westminster (the ‘common
bench’) and the court
travelling with the king
(later called ‘king’s bench’)
have been printed in Curia
Regis Rolls, 18 vols. (1922–
99). Records (‘eyre rolls’)
kept by the king’s judges
travelling in the localities,
and surviving from the
1190s, have been printed
by both the Selden Society
and local records societies:
see David Crook, Records
of the General Eyre (1982).
Local record societies have
also published many feet
of fines. Bracton de Legibus
et Consuetudinibus Angliae,
4 vols., ed. G. E. Woodbine
and S. E. Thorne
(Cambridge, Mass., 1968–
77) is the great work on
English legal procedure
written by the circle
around the justice William
Ralegh in the 1220s and
1230s. Paul Brand is
editing the earliest English
law reports, which survive
from the 1260s, for the
Selden Society. Extracts
from the rolls of the
justices of the forest are
found in Select Pleas of the
Forest, ed. G. J. Turner
(Selden Society, 13
(1899)).
The pipe rolls of the
exchequer are printed by
the Pipe Roll Society down
to 1222. The Society has
also printed some
exchequer memoranda
rolls and receipt and issue
rolls. The surviving plea
rolls of the exchequer of
the Jews have been
published by the Jewish
Historical Society. The
great bulk of the financial
material of the thirteenth
century, like the legal
material after 1245, has
still to be printed.
Records of the royal
household begin to appear
in John’s reign. They
survive patchily in the
reign of his son, and
thereafter in abundance.
Some are brought together
in Records of the Wardrobe
and Household 1285–89, 2
vols., ed. B. F. and C. R.
Byerly (HMSO, 1977,
1986).
The returns to
government inquiries of
different kinds are printed
in the Calendar Inquisitions
Miscellaneous, 1 (1916), in
the Calendars of Inquisition
Post Mortem and in Rotuli
Hundredorum, 2 vols.
(1812, 1818). The second
volume of the latter
contains the great
Hundred Roll inquiry of
1279, for which see also
The Warwickshire Hundred
Rolls of 1279–80: Stoneleigh
and Kineton Hundreds, ed.
T. John (Oxford, 1992).
Inquiries and other
material in The Book of
Fees, 3 vols. (1920–31)
provide important
evidence for who held
what land.
The key constitutional
documents of the period –
Magna Carta in its various
versions, the Charter of the
Forest, the Paper
Constitution of 1244, the
Provisions of Oxford and
Westminster of 1258–9,
and the concessions of
1297 and 1300 are all
printed in EHD III, as are
the principal statutes of
Edward I. G. O. Sayles, The
Functions of the Medieval
Parliament of England
(1988) provides
translations of many of the
early parliamentary texts.
 While record sources
become far more plentiful
after 1199, the quality of
contemporary writing
declines. There are also
very few modern editions
of the works of thirteenth-
century historians. Roger
of Howden, William of
Newburgh and Ralph of
Diss all laid down their
pens around 1200. The
best chronicles for John’s
reign and the minority of
Henry III are those by
Ralph of Coggeshall (abbot
of the Cistercian abbey in
Essex), and the so-called
‘Barnwell’ chronicler, so
called because the only
surviving text of his work
comes from Barnwell
abbey in Cambridge. Both
are printed in the Rolls
Series, the latter in volume
2 of Memoriale Walteri de
Coventria, 2 vols., ed. W.
Stubbs (Rolls Series, 1872–
3). The life of William
Marshal, Henry III’s
regent, which was
commissioned by his
family in the 1220s, sheds
graphic light on politics
and chivalry in the
Angevin period, and in
terms of its quality is the
secular equivalent of the
life of St Hugh. History of
William Marshal, ed. A. J.
Holden and D. Crouch, tr.
S. Gregory (Anglo-Norman
Text Society, 2002), which
covers the period to 1194,
is the first of three
volumes to appear.
Meanwhile EHD III, no. 3,
prints the last part of the
life from 1216 to 1219.
St Albans abbey in the
thirteenth century was the
home of two celebrated
chroniclers, Roger of
Wendover and Matthew
Paris. Wendover’s
chronicle is original from
1202 down to its
termination in 1235. Its
composition was probably
begun in the 1220s, which
explains why the later
portions are the most
valuable. The translation
by J. A. Giles – Roger of
Wendover’s Flowers of
History, 2 vols. (1849–50)
– has been reprinted by
Llanerch Press (1993,
1996). Paris’s Chronica
Majora, written within a
few years of events, runs
from 1235 to his death in
1259. It thus embraces the
whole of Henry III’s
personal rule and is a
major source for Welsh
and Scottish as well as
English history. Paris
shared Wendover’s
hostility to the king’s
foreign favourites and
ministers and was not an
intelligent and perceptive
historian like William of
Malmesbury. However, he
knew everyone, was
interested in everything
and wrote prolifically,
often with a tolerable
degree of accuracy. He was
also a great artist. The
only translation of the
Chronica Majora is J. A.
Giles, Matthew Paris’s
English History, 3 vols.
(1852–4). For Paris see
Richard Vaughan, Matthew
Paris (Cambridge, 1958)
and Suzanne Lewis, The
Art of Matthew Paris in the
Chronica Majora (Berkeley
and Los Angeles, 1987).
 Thomas of Eccleston’s
account of the early friars
is available as The Coming
of the Franciscans: Thomas
of Eccleston, tr.
L.P.Sherley-Price (1964).
Although interesting,
neither the life of Edmund
of Abingdon, archbishop of
Canterbury, by Matthew
Paris, nor that of Richard
of Wych, bishop of
Chichester, by Ralph
Bocking have the intimacy
and insight of the life of St
Hugh: The Life of St
Edmund by Matthew Paris,
ed. and tr. C. H. Lawrence
(Stroud, 1996) and St
Richard of Chichester: The
Sources of his Life, ed. D.
Jones (Sussex Record
Society, 79 (1993)).
EHD III has translations
of the annals of Dunstable
and the London chronicle
of Arnold fitz Thedmar for
the 1260s and of Peter
Langtoft for the 1290s. The
Chronicle of Bury St
Edmunds, ed. and tr. A.
Gransden (1964) is centred
on the reign of Edward I.
The most intelligent
historian in Edward’s time
was Thomas Wykes, a
former servant of Richard
of Cornwall who wrote in
retirement at Osney abbey.
A new edition of his work
may be forthcoming in
Oxford Medieval Texts.
In the thirteenth
century political songs and
tracts become an
increasingly important
source and many are found
in Political Songs of England
from the Reign of John to
Edward II, ed. and tr. T.
Wright with a new
introduction by P. R. Coss
(Cambridge, 1996). The
standard text of the Song
of Lewes (also in EHD III)
is The Song of Lewes, ed.
and tr. C. L. Kingsford
(Oxford, 1890). Documents
of the Baronial Movement
1258–1267, ed. and tr. R.
F. Treharne and I. J.
Sanders, apart from
containing the main
constitutional documents,
also prints important
schedules of grievance
prepared by both sides of
the 1260s divide.
For Scotland there is no
equivalent of the state
records of English royal
government. The Scottish
chancery neither issued as
many documents as its
English counterpart nor
kept a central record of
them. The project to
collect its output has so far
produced The Charters of
King David I 1124–53…,
(Woodbridge, 1999) and
Regesta Regum Scottorum:
1153–1214, 2 vols.
(Edinburgh, 1960, 1971),
all edited by G. W. S.
Barrow. For the earlier
material see Early Scottish
Charters prior to AD 1153,
ed. A. C. Lawrie (Glasgow,
1905). Royal accounts,
estimates of revenue and a
description of the royal
household, all from the
second half of the
thirteenth century, are
printed in The Exchequer
Rolls of Scotland, ed. J.
Stuart and G. Burnett
(Edinburgh, 1878), and
‘The Scottish king’s
household and other
fragments’, ed. M. Bateson,
in Miscellany of the Scottish
Historical Society, ii
(Edinburgh, 1904). The
tangled question of the
evidence for early Scottish
law is unravelled in Hector
L. MacQueen, Common
Law and Feudal Society in
Medieval Scotland
(Edinburgh, 1993).
For much of the period
covered by this book
Argyll, Galloway, the
Western Isles and the Isle
of Man were, in varying
degrees, outside the
Scottish state and subject
to independent rulers.
Little survives of those
rulers’ documentary
output but Keith Stringer
has brought together
evidence for some sixty-
five documents, mostly
charters, issued by the
rulers of Galloway
between c. 1140 and 1230:
‘Acts of Lordship: The
records of the lords of
Galloway to 1234’, in
Freedom and Authority:
Scotland c. 1050–c.1650.
Essays presented to Grant G.
Simpson, ed. T.
Brotherstone and D.
Ditchburn (East Linton,
2000).
 Documents in English
state records relevant to
Scotland are calendared
(not always trustworthily)
in Calendar of Documents
relating to Scotland 1108–
1272, 2 vols., ed. J. Bain
(1881, 1994). Anglo-
Scottish Relations 1174–
1328, ed. E. L. G. Stones
(Oxford, 1965) is an
invaluable collection.
 The scanty chronicle
and other narrative
sources for Scottish history
are found in Early Sources
for Scottish History 500–
1286, 2 vols., ed. and tr. A.
O. Anderson (Edinburgh,
1922; Stamford, 1990), the
life of Queen Margaret
probably by Turgot, the
Norse sagas, the Chronicle
of Man, and the Melrose
Chronicle being
particularly valuable.
There is a study of the last
by A. A. M. Duncan in
Kings, Clerics and Chronicles
in Scotland 500–1297:
Essays in Honour of
Marjorie O. Anderson, ed.
S. Taylor (Dublin, 2000).
Scottish Annals from English
Chroniclers 500–1286, ed.
and tr. by A. O. Anderson
(London, 1908; Stamford,
1991) is a much used
collection. The fourteenth-
century chronicle of John
of Fordun contains earlier
material not found
elsewhere. For a
translation see John of
Fordun’s Chronicle of the
Scottish Nation, 2 vols., ed.
W. F. Skene (Llanerch,
1993). The fifteenth-
century chronicle of
Walter Bower has similar
value: Scotichronicon by
Walter Bower, general
editor D.E.R. Watt,
especially volumes 3–6
(Edinburgh and Aberdeen,
1995, 1994, 1990).
Study of Welsh history
will be greatly furthered
by the publication of The
Acts of the Welsh Rulers,
1120–1283, ed. H. Pryce
with the assistance of C.
Insley (Cardiff,
forthcoming). For the
Welsh law books see The
Law of Hywel Dda: Law
Texts from Medieval Wales,
ed. and tr. D. Jenkins
(Llandysul, 1986).
There are exemplary
modern editions of the two
versions of the principal
Welsh chronicle of this
period known as The Brut
after Britain’s eponymous
and legendary founder
Brutus: Brut Y Tywysogyon
or The Chronicle of the
Princes Peniarth MS.20
Version, ed. and tr. T.
Jones (Cardiff, 1952), and
Brut Y Tywysogyon or The
Chronicle of the Princes, Red
Book of Hengest Version, ed.
and tr. T. Jones (Cardiff,
1955). Both versions are
written in Welsh and are
derived from a Latin
chronicle compiled at the
Cistercian monastery of
Strata Florida towards the
end of the thirteenth
century. That chronicle
was itself based on earlier
chronicles kept at St
Davids down to c. 1100, at
Llanbadan Fawr near
Aberystwyth down to 1175
(being particularly
detailed for the time of
Henry I) and thereafter at
Strata Florida. The full
form of the Latin original
is lost but a version of it
survives in Annales
Cambriae, ed. J. Williams
ab Ithel (Rolls Series,
1860) and Chronica de
Wallia, ed. T. Jones
(Cardiff, 1946). Gruffudd
ap Cynan’s remarkable life,
written in Gwynedd
sometime between his
death in 1137 and the
1160s, is published as A
Mediaeval Prince of Wales:
The Life of Gruffudd ap
Cynan, ed. and tr. D. S.
Evans (Llanerch Press,
1990). For a discussion of
the work see Nerys Ann
Jones’s chapter in Gruffudd
ap Cynan: A Collaborative
Biography, ed. K. L. Maund
(Woodbrige, 1996).
Fundamental for Wales in
this period are the works
of Gerald of Wales,
especially his ‘Journey
through Wales’ (to preach
the crusade in 1188) and
his ‘Description of Wales’,
both translated by Lewis
Thorpe for Penguin
Classics (1978). Also in
Penguin Classics is The
Mabinogion, ed. and tr. J.
Gantz, the collection of
Welsh chivalric epics
written down in the
thirteenth century.
For Wales in the
thirteenth century
important sources are the
Calendar of Ancient
Correspondence concerning
Wales, ed. J. G. Edwards
(Cardiff, 1935), a
collection of letters written
by English officials,
magnates and Welsh
rulers, mostly to the
English government, which
have survived in the PRO;
Littere Wallie, ed. J. G.
Edwards (Cardiff, 1940), a
miscellaneous collection of
letters issued by the Welsh
rulers and their subjects
which was put together by
the English government at
the end of the thirteenth
century; The Welsh Assize
Roll, 1277–1284, ed. J.
Conway Davies (Cardiff,
1940); Calendar of Various
Chancery Rolls 1277–1326
(1912), which has
Edward’s letters
concerning Wales after
1277 and his inquiry into
Welsh law; Registrum
Epistolarum Johannis
Peckham, 3 vols., ed. C. T.
Martin (Rolls Series, 1882–
4), ii, 435–92, which
contains the Welsh
complaints to the
archbishop; Llinos B.
Smith, ‘The gravamina of
the community of
Gwynedd against Llywelyn
ap Gruffyd’, Bulletin of the
Board of Celtic Studies, 31
(1984); and The Merioneth
Lay Subsidy Roll 1292–3,
ed. K. Williams-Jones
(Cardiff, 1976). EHD III,
no. 55, prints a translation
of the 1284 Statute of
Wales.
 The contemporary
works on the English
arrival in Ireland are
Expugnatio Hibernica. The
Conquest of Ireland by
Giraldus Cambrensis, ed.
and tr. A. B. Scott and F.
X. Martin (Dublin, 1978)
and The Song of Dermot
and the Earl, ed. and tr. G.
H. Orpen (Oxford, 1892).
Documents in English state
records related to Ireland
are brought together in
Calendar of Documents
relating to Ireland 1171–
1251, ed. H. S. Sweetman
(1875).
The records produced
by ecclesiastics and
ecclesiastical institutions
fall into several categories.
Synodal legislation is
printed (but not
translated) in Councils and
Synods with other
Documents relating to the
English Church: I part II
1066–1204, ed. D.
Whitelock, M. Brett and C.
N. L. Brooke (Oxford,
1981) and Councils and
Synods and other Documents
relating to the English
Church 1205–1313, 2 vols.,
ed. F. M. Powicke and C.
R. Cheney (Oxford, 1964).
The charters and other
documents produced by
English bishops are being
steadily published in the
British Academy’s English
episcopal acta series. For
Wales see Episcopal Acts
and Cognate Documents
relating to Welsh Dioceses
1066–1272, 2 vols., ed. J.
C. Davies (Historical
Society of the Church in
Wales, 1946–8). From the
thirteenth century bishops’
registers begin to appear,
and many of these have
been published by the
Canterbury and York
Society, often in
conjunction with local
record societies. The
earliest is that of Hugh of
Wells, bishop of Lincoln
1209–35: Rotuli Hugonis de
Welles, 3 vols., ed. W. P.
Phillimore and F. N. Davis
(1907–9). See Guide to
Bishops’ Registers of England
and Wales, ed. D. M. Smith
(1981). The letter
collections of Gilbert
Foliot, Robert Grosseteste
and Adam Marsh are only
available in Latin editions,
but for that of Lanfranc see
The Letters of Lanfranc
Archbishop of Canterbury,
ed. H. Clover and M.
Gibson (Oxford, 1979).
The collections made of
letters to and from Becket
as archbishop have now
been edited and translated
by Anne Duggan: The
Correspondence of Thomas
Becket Archbishop of
Canterbury, 2 vols.
(Oxford, 2000). Calendar
of entries in the Papal
Registers relating to Great
Britain and Ireland 1198–
1304, ed. W. H. Bliss
(1893) is central to the
papacy’s role in British
affairs, and see Selected
Letters of Pope Innocent III
concerning England 1198–
1216, ed. and tr. C. R.
Cheney and W. H. Semple
(1953). EHD III prints the
decrees of the Fourth
Lateran Council and Rule
of St Francis (nos. 136–7).
Numerous charters
granting property to
religious institutions
survive both in the
original and in copies
made in cartularies, for
which see G. R. C. Davis,
Medieval Cartularies of
Great Britain: A Short
Catalogue (1958). Many of
these charters and
cartularies have been
published by local record
societies. In the thirteenth
century there is also a
growing corpus of
material, particularly in
the form of surveys and
account rolls, showing
how ecclesiastical
institutions ran their
estates. A continuous
series from the 1200s of
annual pipe rolls for the
estates of the bishop of
Winchester have been
particularly used by
historians. See The Pipe
Roll of the Bishopric of
Winchester 1210–11, ed. N.
R. Holt (Manchester,
1964).
Large numbers of
charters issued by laymen
are known in this period,
many of them as copies in
ecclesiastical cartularies.
Those of some individual
magnate families have
been brought together and
published, for example
Charters of the Honour of
Mowbray 1107–1191, ed.
D. Greenway (Oxford,
1972). The collection Early
Yorkshire Charters, 12
vols., ed. W. Farrer and C.
T. Clay (Edinburgh and
Yorkshire Archaeological
Society, 1915–65) has
been of the first
importance for the study
of society in the north. In
the thirteenth century
some noble and gentry
families began to record
charters, estate surveys
and rentals in their own
cartularies (these too are
listed in Medieval
Cartularies of Great
Britain), an early gentry
example being that of the
Hotot family printed in A
Northamptonshire
Miscellany, ed. E. King
(Northamptonshire Record
Society, 32 (1983)). Some
of the material in
Household Accounts from
Medieval England, 2 vols.,
ed. C. M. Woolgar (Oxford,
1992) belongs to the
thirteenth century.
A wide variety of
manorial surveys, account
rolls and court records are
usefully translated and
discussed by Mark Bailey
in The English Manor 1200–
1500 (Manchester, 2002).
Numerous charters
survive relating to the
financial business of the
Jews, one important
collection being Starrs and
Jewish Charters preserved in
the British Museum, 3 vols.,
ed. I. Abrahams, H. Stokes,
and H. Loewe (1930–32).
 A good idea of the art,
architecture and artefacts
(including coins) of the
period can be gained from
the splendid catalogues of
two exhibitions: English
Romanesque Art 1066–
1200 (Arts Council of
Great Britain, 1984) and
Age of Chivalry: Art in
Plantagenet England 1200–
1400, ed. J. Alexander and
P. Binski (Royal Academy
of Arts, 1987).

FURTHER
READING

As explained in the
Preface, I have set out a
full version of the
secondary sources on
which this book is based
under my name on the
King’s College London
History Department web
site:
www.kcl.ac.uk/history. A
good idea of the profusion
and quality of recent
research can be gained by
looking through the
volumes of three
periodical publications:
Anglo-Norman Studies, the
proceedings of the annual
conference established at
Battle in 1978; the Haskins
Society Journal, first
published in 1989; and
Thirteenth Century England,
the proceedings of the
conference held every two
years from 1985, first at
Newcastle upon Tyne and
then at Durham. In what
follows I make suggestions
for further reading,
concentrating on recent
work and for the most part
on books rather than
articles.

General Works

Three seminal works

opened up British history
in 1980s and 1990s,
demonstrating the value of
comparing and contrasting
the experiences of
England, Wales, Scotland
and Ireland, as opposed to
simply writing about them
in isolation. These were
The British Isles.
Comparisons, Contrasts and
Connections 1100–1500,
ed. R. R. Davies
(Edinburgh, 1988); Robin
Frame, The Political
Development of the British
Isles 1100–1400 (1990);
and R. R. Davies,
Domination and Conquest.
The Experience of Ireland,
Scotland and Wales 1100–
1300 (Cambridge, 1990),
which was followed by
Davies’s The First English
Empire (Oxford, 2000).
This comparative approach
very much informs the
chapters by seven leading
scholars in The New Oxford
History of the British Isles:
The Twelfth and Thirteenth
Centuries, ed. B. F. Harvey
(Oxford, 2001).
Perhaps the most
stimulating account of
English history in this
period is M. T. Clanchy,
England and its Rulers
1066–1272 (1983), 2nd
edn., with an epilogue on
Edward I (1998). Robert
Bartlett, England under the
Norman and Angevin Kings
1075–1225 (Oxford, 2000)
covers a shorter period but
is a work of extraordinary
range. The best account of
the development of
English law is found in
John Hudson, The
Formation of the English
Common Law: Law and
Society in England from the
Norman Conquest to Magna
Carta (1996). W. L.
Warren, The Governance of
Norman and Angevin
England 1086–1272 (1987)
is clear and full of ideas.
Studies of warfare include
Matthew Strickland’s
highly original War and
Chivalry. The Conduct and
Perception of War in
England and Normandy
1066–1217 (Cambridge,
1996); Stephen Morillo,
Warfare under the Norman
and Angevin Kings 1066–
1135 (Woodbridge, 1994);
and Michael Prestwich’s
comprehensive Armies and
Warfare in the Middle Ages:
The English Experience
(New Haven, 1996).
A. A. M. Duncan,
Scotland: the Making of the
Kingdom (Edinburgh,
1975) remains an essential
work of reference. G. W. S.
Barrow, Kingship and Unity:
Scotland 1000–1306
(1981) is an excellent
short survey. More recent
and covering a longer
period is A. D. M. Barrell,
Medieval Scotland
(Cambridge, 2000).
Central to its field is
Hector L. MacQueen,
Common Law and Feudal
Society in Medieval Scotland
(Edinburgh, 1993).
Important regional studies
include R. Andrew
McDonald, The Kingdom of
the Isles: Scotland’s Western
Seaboard c. 1100–1336
(East Linton, 1997) and
Richard Oram, The
Lordship of Galloway
(Edinburgh, 2000). See
also John Roberts’s general
survey, Lost Kingdoms:
Celtic Scotland and the
Middle Ages (Edinburgh,
1997). Individual studies
by Barrow are brought
together in his The
Kingdom of the Scots:
Government, Church and
Society from the Eleventh to
the Fourteenth Century
(1973). A great deal of
recent work on Scotland
has appeared in volumes
of essays, notably Essays
on the Nobility of Medieval
Scotland, ed. K. J. Stringer
(Edinburgh, 1985);
Medieval Scotland, Crown,
Lordship and Community:
Essays Presented to G. W. S.
Barrow, ed. A.Grant and K.
J. Stringer (Edinburgh,
1993); Alba: Celtic Scotland
in the Middle Ages, ed. E. J.
Cowan and R. A.
McDonald (East Linton,
2000). Atlas of Scottish
History to 1707, ed. P. G.
P. McNeill and H. L.
MacQueen (Edinburgh,
1996) has many relevant
maps.
John Edward Lloyd, A
History of Wales from the
Earliest Times to the
Edwardian Conquest, 2
vols. (1911) provides a
magnificent narrative. R.
R. Davies, Conquest,
Coexistence and Change:
Wales 1063–1415 (1987)
has a wider range and is a
literary as well as an
historical tour de force.
(The subsequent
paperback edition was
retitled The Age of
Conquest.) A. D. Carr’s
concise Medieval Wales
(1995) has a helpful first
chapter on historiography.
Valuable new work on
Wales, as on Scotland, has
appeared in collections of
essays by various scholars,
for example Landscape and
Settlement in Medieval
Wales, ed. N. Edwards
(Oxford, 1997) and The
Welsh King and his Court,
ed. T. M. Charles-Edwards,
M. E. Owen and P. Russell
(Cardiff, 2000). An
Historical Atlas of Wales
from Early to Modern
Times, 2nd edn. (1959) has
detailed maps.
 Standard works on
Ireland are A. J. Otway-
Ruthven, A History of
Medieval Ireland, 2nd edn.
(1980) and A New History
of Ireland, vol. 2: Medieval
Ireland 1169–1534, ed. A.
Cosgrove (Oxford, 1987).
Sean Duffy’s Ireland in the
Middle Ages (1997) is a
short and perceptive
survey. There are many
relevant essays in Britain
and Ireland 900–1300:
Insular Responses to
Medieval European Change,
ed. B. Smith (Cambridge,
1999) and in Robin
Frame’s Ireland and Britain
1170–1450: Collected
Essays (1998).
General works on the
economy are mentioned
under chapter 2 below and
on the church under
chapter 14.

1. The Peoples of
Britain

The work of R. R. Davies

and John Gillingham has
pioneered discussion of
national identity in this
period. Davies’s lectures as
President of the Royal
Historical Society on ‘The
Peoples of Britain and
Ireland 1100–1400’
appeared in Transactions of
the Royal Historical Society,
sixth series, 4–7 (1994–7).
Gillingham’s essays on
English identity, including
ones on ‘The beginnings of
English imperialism’, and
on Geoffrey of Monmouth,
Henry of Huntingdon,
Gaimar and Roger of
Howden, have been
brought together in his The
English in the Twelfth
Century. Imperialism,
National Identity and
Political Values
(Woodbridge, 2000). For
wider consideration of
national identity see
Adrian Hastings, The
Construction of Nationhood:
Ethnicity, Religion and
Nationalism (Cambridge,
1997) and Susan Reynolds,
Kingdoms and Communities
in Western Europe 900–
1300 (Oxford, 1984).
English identity before
the Norman Conquest is
the subject of a paper by
Sarah Foot, ‘The making of
Angelcynn’, Transactions of
the Royal Historical Society
(1996). For the changing
identity of the Scots, the
work of Dauvit Broun is
fundamental. It includes
‘Defining Scotland and the
Scots before the Wars of
Independence’, in Image
and Identity: The Making
and Remaking of Scotland
through the Ages, ed.
D.Broun, R.J.Finlay and
M.Lynch (Edinburgh,
1998). See also Broun’s
The Irish Identity of the
Kingdom of the Scots
(Woodbridge, 1999). Bruce
Webster, Medieval
Scotland: The Making of an
Identity (1997) looks at
identity in various forms.

2. The Economies
of Britain

Christopher Dyer’s Making

a Living in the Middle Ages:
The People of Britain 850–
1520 (New Haven and
London, 2002) is a major
new study and one of the
few books to treat the
British economy as a
whole. The most
comprehensive survey of
the English economy is J.
L. Bolton, The Medieval
English Economy 1150–
1500, 2nd edn. (1985). J.
Z. Titow, English Rural
Society 1200–1350 (1969)
provides a lively
introduction to the
question of the standard of
living of the peasantry and
the size of the population
on which the latest word is
contained in B. M. S.
Campbell’s English
Seigniorial Agriculture
1250–1450 (Cambridge,
2000). A careful estimate
of the Domesday
population is made by
John Moore in Anglo-
Norman Studies, 19 (1996).
Christopher Dyer,
Standards of Living in the
Later Middle Ages. Social
Change in England 1200–
1520 (1989) has been
rightly acclaimed.
For towns and
commerce see Susan
Reynolds, An Introduction
to the History of English
Medieval Towns (Oxford,
1977), and Edward Miller
and John Hatcher,
Medieval England. Towns,
Commerce and Crafts 1086–
1348 (1995), the
companion volume to their
earlier Rural Society and
Economic Change 1086–
1348 (1978). R. H.
Britnell’s The
Commercialisation of English
Society 1000–1500
(Cambridge, 1993) and A
Commercialising Economy.
England 1086–1300, ed. R.
H. Britnell and B. M. S.
Campbell (Manchester,
1995) are both very
important. The latter
includes a chapter by
Robert Stacey on Jewish
money-lending and one by
Nicholas Mayhew which
attempts to estimate
England’s money supply
and gross domestic
product. A significant new
article on the inflation of
the 1200s by Paul Latimer
appears in Past and Present
for 2001.
Two important works
on the peasantry are
Rosamond Faith, The
English Peasantry and the
Growth of Lordship (1997)
and Paul Hyams, King,
Lords and Peasants in
Medieval England: The
Common Law of Villeinage
in the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Centuries
(Oxford, 1980), the latter
essential for the origins of
legal unfreedom. For
slavery see David Pelteret,
Slavery in Early Mediaeval
England (Woodbridge,
1995). The many studies
of individual manors and
estates include Edward
Miller, The Abbey and
Bishopric of Ely
(Cambridge, 1951); P. D.
A. Harvey, A Medieval
Oxfordshire Village:
Cuxham 1240 to 1400
(Oxford, 1965); and
Edmund King, Peterborough
Abbey 1086–1310
(Cambridge, 1973). There
is a chapter by Derek
Keene on London in The
Cambridge Urban History of
Britain I: 600–1340, ed. D.
M. Palliser (Cambridge,
2000), an important work
with chapters by various
scholars.
For Scotland and Wales,
there are chapters in
Duncan, Scotland. The
Making of the Kingdom and
Davies, Conquest and
Coexistence: Wales 1063–
1415. Coinage in Medieval
Scotland 1100–1600, ed. D.
M. Metcalf (British
Archaeological Reports, 45
(1977)) is central to its
subject. There are relevant
studies in The Scottish
Medieval Town, ed. M.
Lynch, M. Spearman and
G. Stell (Edinburgh, 1988).
Wales is covered in The
Agrarian History of England
and Wales II: 1042–1350,
ed. H. E. Hallam
(Cambridge, 1988).
Landscape and Settlement in
Medieval Wales, ed.
Edwards, contains the
fruits of much new
research, including
chapters by Stephen
Rippon on the Gwent
levels and Jonathan
Kissock on villages in
Pembrokeshire.
 Robert Bartlett’s The
Making of Europe: Conquest,
Colonization and Cultural
Change 950–1350 (1993)
paints the wider European
developments of which
Britain became part.

3. The Norman
Conquest of
England
The effects of the Norman
Conquest on England have
always been controversial,
some historians stressing
the continuities with
Anglo-Saxon England,
others the radical nature of
the break. Debates new
and old are discussed in
Marjorie Chibnall’s The
Debate on the Norman
Conquest (Manchester,
1999). Of general books,
D. J. A. Matthew, The
Norman Conquest (1966)
and R. Allen Brown, The
Normans and the Norman
Conquest (1969) remain
valuable, the latter a
forthright restatement of
the view that the Conquest
introduced feudalism to
England. David Bates,
William the Conqueror
(1989), a short biography,
is a good introduction to
the period in general. A
full study of the Conqueror
by Bates is forthcoming.
For Normandy, see
David Bates, Normandy
before 1066 (1982). The
‘maximum view’ of the
power of the late Anglo-
Saxon state is expounded
by James Campbell in
papers brought together in
his Essays in Anglo-Saxon
History (1986) and The
Anglo-Saxon State (2000).
Patrick Wormald’s papers,
central to the same view
on the legal side, are
published in his Legal
Culture in the Early
Medieval West; Law as Text,
Image and Experience
(1999); see especially part
IV.
For new ideas about
Hastings, including the
suggestion that the armies
were much larger then
previously imagined, see
Ken Lawson’s The Battle of
Hastings (Stroud, 2002).
Anglo-Norman Castles, ed.
R. Liddiard (Woodbridge,
2002) brings together a
series of studies, including
one by Richard Eales,
‘Royal power and castles
in Norman England’. For
the nobility before and
after the Conquest see
Peter Clarke, The English
Nobility under Edward the
Confessor (Oxford, 1994);
Robin Fleming, King and
Lords in Conquest England
(Cambridge, 1991); and
Ann Williams, The English
and the Norman Conquest
(Woodbridge, 1995) which
gives the fullest account of
the fortunes of the English
nobility and gentry after
1066. For the north see W.
E. Kapelle, The Norman
Conquest and the North: The
Region and its
Transformation (1979) and
Paul Dalton, Conquest,
Anarchy and Lordship:
Yorkshire 1066–1154
(Cambridge, 1994). Two
important articles are C. P.
Lewis, ‘The Domesday
Jurors’, Haskins Society
Journal, 5 (1993) and J. J.
N. Palmer, ‘The wealth of
the secular aristocracy in
1086’, Anglo-Norman
Studies, 22 (1999). I have
brought together reading
on feudal structures under
chapter 13.
For the family the
starting-point is chapter 9
of J. C. Holt’s Colonial
England 1066–1215
(1997). The work of
Pauline Stafford is vital
both for queenship and the
position of women: see her
Queen Emma and Queen
Edith (Oxford, 1997) and
‘Women and the Norman
Conquest’, Transactions of
the Royal Historical Society,
sixth series, 4 (1994). For
queenship more generally,
see the essays in Medieval
Queenship, ed. J. C.
Parsons (Stroud, 1994).
Margaret Gibson’s
Lanfranc of Bec (Oxford,
1978) is a beautifully
written study. Emma
Cownie, Religious Patronage
in Anglo-Norman England
1066–1135 (Woodbridge,
1998) elucidates changing
patterns of patronage.
Domesday Studies, ed. J.
C. Holt (Woodbridge,
1987) brings together the
work of various scholars.
Challenging new ideas are
advanced in David Roffe,
Domesday: The Inquest and
the Book (Oxford, 2000).

4. Wales, Scotland
and the Normans

For North Wales and

Gruffudd ap Cynan see
Gruffudd ap Cynan. A
Collaborative Biography, ed.
K. L. Maund (Woodbridge,
1996). Helpful for military
institutions is A. D. Carr’s
chapter on ‘Teulu and
Penteulu’ in The Welsh King
and his Court, ed. Charles-
Edwards, Owen and
Russell. For Norman
settlement and the
formation of the marcher
baronies, see C. P. Lewis
on Herefordshire in Anglo-
Norman Studies, 7 (1984)
and Frederick Suppe,
Military Institutions on the
Welsh Marches: Shropshire
1066–1300 (Woodbridge,
1994). David Crouch, ‘The
slow death of kingship in
Glamorgan 1067–1158’,
Morgannwg, 29 (1985)
reveals significant
accommodation between
the Welsh and the
Normans.
Fundamental work on
the structure of the early
Scottish state has been
done by Alexander Grant,
for example in his chapter
in The Medieval State.
Essays Presented to James
Campbell, ed. J. R.
Maddicott and D. M.
Palliser (2000). Alex
Woolf, ‘The “Moray
Question” and the kingship
of Alba in the Tenth and
Eleventh Centuries’,
Scottish Historical Review,
79 (2000) is important.
For a more positive view
than the one I have taken
of the royal hold over
Moray, and indeed over
Ross, the region to the
north-west, see Grant’s
chapter on Ross in Alba:
Celtic Scotland, ed. Cowan
and McDonald. The
definitive work on Carlisle
is Henry Summerson’s
Medieval Carlisle: The City
and the Borders from the
Late Eleventh to the Mid-
Sixteenth Century, 2 vols.,
Cumberland and
Westmorland
Archaeological Society,
extra series, 25 (1993).
Judith Green’s chapter in
England and her Neighbours,
1066–1453: Essays in
Honour of Pierre Chaplais,
ed. M. Jones and M. Vale
(1989) covers Anglo-
Scottish relations for the
whole period between
1066 and 1174.

5. Britain and the

Anglo-Norman
Realm

The key work on the

political structure of the
Anglo-Norman realm is J.
C. Holt’s ‘Politics and
property in early medieval
England’, which appears as
chapter 8 of his Colonial
England 1066–1215
(1997). David Bates,
‘Normandy and England
after 1066’, English
Historical Review, 104
(1989) criticizes the view
found in John le Patourel,
The Norman Empire
(Oxford, 1976) that the
kingdom and duchy
formed a single political
unit. The introduction of
‘chivalry’ is discussed by
Strickland in his War and
Chivalry and by Gillingham
in The English in the Twelfth
Century. Judith Green’s The
Aristocracy of Norman
England (Cambridge, 1997)
and her earlier The
Government of England
under Henry I (Cambridge,
1986) are both central to
this period, as is Martin
Brett’s The English Church
under Henry I (Oxford,
1975). J. O. Prestwich,
‘War and finance in the
Anglo-Norman state’, in
Anglo-Norman Warfare, ed.
Strickland, first published
in 1954, has proved a
seminal paper. Frank
Barlow, William Rufus
(1983) is a highly readable
biography. C. W.
Hollister’s biography,
Henry I (2001), published
posthumously, summed up
many years of work on the
reign by a great American
scholar. For Queen
Matilda, see Lois
Huneycutt, ‘The idea of a
perfect princess: the Life of
St Margaret in the reign of
Matilda (1100–1118)’,
Anglo-Norman Studies, 12
(1989). Two celebrated
studies are R. W.
Southern’s St Anselm and
his Biographer (1963) and
Saint Anselm: A Portrait in
a Landscape (Cambridge,
1990). See also Sally
Vaughn, Anselm of Bec and
Robert of Meulan: The
Innocence of the Dove and
the Wisdom of the Serpent
(Berkeley and Los Angeles,
1987) and Donald Nicholl,
Thurstan Archbishop of
York 1114–1140 (York,
1964). Henry I’s relations
with King David are
discussed by Judith Green
in Scottish Historical
Review, 75 (1996).
6. Britain
Remodelled

There has been much

debate among historians
about the causes of the
troubles in Stephen’s reign,
and in particular how far
they were due to the
legacy of Henry I and how
far to the king’s own
character and mistakes.
Another area of debate
concerns the extent to
which the situation in
England can be described
as anarchic. The many
excellent books on the
period include R. H. C.
Davis, King Stephen, 3rd
edn. (1990); H. A. Cronne,
The Reign of Stephen:
Anarchy in England 1135–
1154 (1970); Keith
J.Stringer, The Reign of
Stephen. Kingship, Warfare
and Government in Twelfth-
Century England (1993);
David Crouch, The Reign of
King Stephen, 1135–54
(2000); and Donald
Matthew’s King Stephen
(2002). See also Crouch’s
The Beaumont Twins
(Cambridge, 1986). The
Anarchy of King Stephen’s
Reign, ed. E. King (Oxford,
1994) contains essays by
leading scholars including
one by Mark Blackburn on
the coinage. Marjorie
Chibnall, The Empress
Matilda: Queen Consort,
Queen Mother and Lady of
the English (Oxford, 1991)
is the standard biography.
Important studies of
King David are G. W. S.
Barrow’s lecture, David I of
Scotland (1124–1153): The
Balance of Old and New
(Reading, 1984); Stringer’s
chapter in Government,
Religion and Society in
Northern England 1000–
1700, ed. J. C. Appleby
and P. Dalton (Stroud,
1997); and Richard D.
Oram’s article (on David
and Moray) in Northern
Scotland, 19 (1999). G. W.
S. Barrow, The Anglo-
Norman Era in Scottish
History (Oxford, 1980)
deals with the new
aristocracy. There is a
chapter on the Scots in the
north in Paul Dalton’s
Conquest, Anarchy and
Lordship: Yorkshire 1066–
1154. For Wales in this
period see David Crouch’s
paper in The Anarchy of
King Stephen’s Reign, ed.
King.
7. Henry II, Britain
and Ireland

W. L. Warren, Henry II
(1973) is a magisterial and
finely written biography. A
chapter by Jane
Martindale in Richard
Coeur de Lion in History
and Myth, ed. J. L. Nelson
(1992) gets closest to the
thinking and policies of
Eleanor of Aquitaine. The
best introduction to the
Angevin empire is John
Gillingham, The Angevin
Empire, 2nd edn. (2001).
The chief study of Henry’s
recovery of royal authority
in England is Emilie Amt’s
The Accession of Henry II in
England: Royal Government
Restored 1149–1159
(1993), and see Graeme J.
White, Restoration and
Reform 1153–1165:
Recovery from Civil War in
England (Cambridge,
2001).
The most enlightening
overall account of the legal
changes in Henry’s reign is
found in Hudson’s The
Formation of the English
Common Law. There are
important studies in Paul
Brand’s Making of the
Common Law (1992),
especially chapters 4 and
9, the latter a helpful
critique of the ideas in S.
F. C. Milsom, The Legal
Framework of English
Feudalism (Cambridge,
1976). A paper by Tom
Keefe in Albion, 13 (1981)
reveals the limited
financial pressure Henry II
placed on his earls.
 The fullest biography of
Becket is Frank Barlow’s
Thomas Becket (1986). A
more sympathetic account
is found in David Knowles,
Thomas Becket (1970). For
the other bishops see
Knowles, The Episcopal
Colleagues of Thomas Becket
(1951). Papers by Charles
Duggan are brought
together in his Canon Law
in Medieval England: The
Becket Dispute and Decretal
Collections (1982). For
Becket’s rival, see Adrian
Morey and C. N. L. Brooke,
Gilbert Foliot and his Letters
(Cambridge, 1965). Beryl
Smalley’s brilliant book,
The Becket Conflict and the
Schools (Oxford,1973) is
indispensable for the wider
European background.
Marie Therese
Flanagan’s Irish Society,
Anglo-Norman Settlers,
Angevin Kingship (Oxford,
1989) provides the fullest
modern account of the
arrival of the English.
Brendan Smith,
Colonisation and Conquest
in Medieval Ireland: The
English in Louth, 1170–
1330 is also important.
The Cumbrian connections
of John de Courcy are
revealed in a paper by
Sean Duffy in Colony and
Frontier in Medieval Ireland:
Essays Presented to J. F.
Lydon, ed. T. B. Barry, R.
Frame and K. Simms
(1993).
The detailed
introductions by G. W.S.
Barrow to Regesta Regum
Scottorum, volumes 1 and
2 (1960, 1971), cover all
aspects of the reigns of
Kings Malcolm and
William the Lion. For
Somerled and the west see
Andrew McDonald, The
Kingdom of the Isles:
Scotland’s Western
Seaboard. Studies of
Galloway include Keith
Stringer’s ‘Reform
Monasticism and Celtic
Scotland: Galloway c.
1140–c. 1240’, in Alba:
Celtic Scotland, ed. Cowan
and McDonald, and
Richard D. Oram, ‘A family
business? Colonisation and
settlement in twelfth and
thirteenth-century
Galloway’, Scottish
Historical Review, 72
(1993). See also Oram’s
The Lordship of Galloway
(Edinburgh, 2000), a
comprehensive work
which I wish I had come
across earlier. For
Caithness, Sutherland and
Ross there are Barbara
Crawford’s chapter in
Essays on the Nobility of
Medieval Scotland, ed.
Stringer, and Alexander
Grant’s chapter (on Ross)
in Alba: Celtic Scotland.
Huw Pryce, ‘Owain
Gwynedd and Louis VII:
the Franco-Welsh
diplomacy of the first
Prince of Wales’, Welsh
History Review, 19 (1998)
is essential for Owain
Gwynedd. For the Lord
Rhys’s policies towards the
end of Henry’s reign see
Gillingham’s ‘Henry II,
Richard I and the Lord
Rhys’, in his The English in
the Twelfth Century.
8. Richard the
Lionheart and
William the Lion

In the last two decades

John Gillingham has
refashioned understanding
of Richard’s career, in part
through seeing him as an
able ruler with
responsibilities for
continental dominions as
well as for England. His
Richard I (1999) is a highly
readable biography.
Another recent work is
Ralph Turner and Richard
Heiser, The Reign of
Richard Lionheart (2000).
For the Jews see H. G.
Richardson, The English
Jewry under Angevin Kings
(1960) and R. B. Dobson,
The Jews of Medieval York
and the Massacre of March
1190 (York, 1974). C. R.
Cheney, Hubert Walter
(1967) is a concise and
scholarly biography.
For William the Lion the
reading mentioned under
chapter 7 remains
relevant. MacQueen’s
Common Law and Feudal
Society in Medieval Scotland
is important for the
beginnings of legal change.

9. The Reign of
King John

The works of J. C. Holt are

fundamental to an
understanding of this
period, namely The
Northerners: A Study in the
Reign of King John (Oxford,
1961), Magna Carta, 2nd
edn. (Cambridge, 1992),
and (a volume of collected
essays) Magna Carta and
Medieval Government
(1985). Biographies of the
king include W. L. Warren,
King John (1961),
deservedly in print for
over forty years, and Ralph
Turner, King John (1994).
There are papers by many
scholars in King John: New
Interpretations, ed. S. D.
Church (Woodbridge,
1999), including V. D.
Moss’s on the revenues of
Normandy and that of
Daniel Power on the
Norman aristocracy
(essential for the loss of
the duchy). The weakening
connections with the
duchy are explored by
David Crouch in his
chapter in England and
Normandy in the Middle
Ages, ed. D. Bates and A.
Curry (Woodbridge, 1994).
Nick Barratt’s article in
English Historical Review,
111 (1996) revealed for
the first time the size of
John’s revenues from
England. Angevin
kingship’s arbitrary face is
laid bare in J. E. A.
Jolliffe’s Angevin Kingship,
2nd edn. (1963). For one
foundation of the king’s
power see S. D. Church’s
revealing, The Household
Knights of King John
(Cambridge, 1999). For
piety and ritual see
Nicholas Vincent, ‘The
pilgrimages of the Angevin
kings 1154–1272’, in
Pilgrimage: The English
Experience, ed. C. Morris
and P. Roberts
(Cambridge, 2001). Two
fine studies of major
players in the reign are
David Crouch’s William
Marshal: Court, Career and
Chivalry in the Angevin
Empire 1147–1219 (1990)
and Nicholas Vincent’s
Peter des Roches: An Alien
in English Politics 1205–
1238 (Cambridge, 1996).
Several royal ministers,
including Geoffrey fitz
Peter, are usefully studied
in Ralph Turner’s Men
Raised from the Dust:
Administrative Service and
Upward Mobility in Angevin
England (Philadelphia,
1988). King John: New
Interpretations has papers
by Sean Duffy, A. A. M.
Duncan and Ifor Rowlands
on Ireland, Scotland and
Wales respectively. See
also Brock Holden, ‘King
John, the Braoses and the
Celtic fringe’, Albion, 33
(2001). There is discussion
of Stephen Langton’s
thought in J. W. Baldwin,
Masters, Princes and
Merchants: The Social Views
of Peter the Chanter and his
Circle, 2 vols. (Princeton,
1970).

10. The Minority of

Henry III; Llywelyn
the Great;
and Alexander II

D. A. Carpenter, The
Minority of Henry III (1990)
covers the period in detail
down to the mid 1220s.
Vincent’s Peter des Roches
gives the fullest account of
the tumultuous events
between 1232 and 1234.
D. J. A. Matthew, The
English and the Community
of Europe in the Thirteenth
Century (Reading, 1997)
sounds a cautionary note
about the extent of
hostility to foreigners.
There are papers relevant
to this chapter and the two
following in England and
Europe in the Reign of
Henry III, ed. Björn K.
Weiler with Ifor Rowlands
(Aldershot, 2002),
including one by Robin
Studd on Gascony. Studies
in Robin Frame’s Ireland
and Britain 1170–1450:
Collected Essays (1998)
explore the links between
England and Ireland.
There is a striking
account of Llywelyn the
Great in Davies’s Conquest,
Coexistence and Change.
For Welsh queenship in
general and Joan in
particular, see Robin C.
Stacey, ‘King, Queen and
Edling in the laws of court’,
in The Welsh King and his
Court, ed. Charles-
Edwards, Owen and
Russell. Titles are
discussed in Charles Insley,
‘From Rex Wallie to
Princeps Wallie: charters
and state formation in
thirteenth-century Wales’,
in The Medieval State ed.
Maddicott and Palliser.
Alexander II’s role in
the 1215–17 civil war is
the subject of a chapter by
Keith Stringer in Scotland
in the Reign of Alexander II,
ed. R. D. Oram
(forthcoming). Also by
Stringer is ‘Periphery and
core in thirteenth-century
Scotland: Alan son of
Roland, lord of Galloway
and constable of Scotland’,
in Medieval Scotland:
Crown, Lordship and
Community, ed. Grant and
Stringer. Oram’s The
Lordship of Galloway gives
a full coverage of Alan’s
career and events after his
death. MacQueen’s
Common Law and Feudal
Society in Medieval Scotland
is of cardinal importance
for legal developments.
For the Comyns, the
definitive work is Alan
Young’s Robert the Bruce’s
Rivals: The Comyns, 1212–
1314 (East Linton, 1997).

11. Britain During

the Personal Rule
of Henry III

J. R. Maddicott, Simon de
Montfort (1994) has the
best modern account of
Henry’s personal rule and
see the essays on various
subjects in my own Reign
of Henry III (1996),
including one on
parliament which gives
references to other work
on the subject. Robert C.
Stacey, Politics Policy and
Finance under Henry III
1216–1245 (Oxford, 1987)
breaks new ground, as
does his crucial article on
the Jews in Historical
Research, 61 (1988).
Margaret Howell, Eleanor
of Provence: Queenship in
Thirteenth-Century England
(1998) shows for the first
time the importance of
Henry’s queen and is a
work of key importance
for medieval queenship in
general. For Westminster
Abbey see Paul Binski,
Westminster Abbey and the
Plantagenets: Kingship and
the Representation of Power
(1995). In a series of
articles, Huw Ridgeway
has reinterpreted the role
of Henry III’s foreign
relations in English politics
and shown the importance
of the struggle to control
the Lord Edward in the
crisis of 1258. See for
example ‘The Lord Edward
and the Provisions of
Oxford (1258)’, Thirteenth
Century England, 1 (1985)
and ‘Foreign favourites
and Henry III’s problems
of patronage’, English
Historical Review, 103
(1989). A defence of the
Sicilian project is mounted
by Björn Weiler in
Historical Research, 74
(2001). The difficulties of
obtaining writs are
explored in Andrew
Hershey’s ‘Justice and
bureaucracy: the English
royal writ and “1258” ’,
English Historical Review,
113 (1998). The early
evidence for Robin Hood is
set out by David Crook in
a paper in Thirteenth
Century England, 2 (1987).
For Wales, J. Beverley
Smith’s Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd, Prince of Wales
(Cardiff, 1998) now begins
its magisterial course. For
the minority of Alexander
III see the paper by D. E.
R. Watt in Transactions of
the Royal Historical Society,
fifth series, 21 (1971).
12. The
Tribulations of
King Henry; the
Triumphs of
King Alexander III
and Llywelyn,
Prince of Wales

For England, Maddicott’s

Simon de Montfort now
holds centre stage while
Howell’s Eleanor of
Provence continues to
illuminate the crucial role
of the queen. For the
resettlement of England
after the barons’ wars the
article by C. H. Knowles in
Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society, fifth
series, 32 (1982) is of
prime importance. There is
a paper on ‘Ireland and the
Barons’ Wars’ in Robin
Frame’s England and
Ireland: Collected Essays.
The rise of Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd is traced in detail
in Beverley Smith’s
biography. For Alexander
III the key book is Scotland
in the Reign of Alexander III
1249–1286, ed. N. H. Reid
(Edinburgh, 1990). It
includes a chapter by
Edward Cowan,
‘Norwegian sunset –
Scottish dawn: Hakon IV
and Alexander III’. The
changing attitudes of the
MacSorleys to the Scottish
state are brought out in
McDonald’s The Kingdom
of the Isles: Scotland’s
Western Seaboard.

13. Structures of
Society

Gwyn A. Williams,
Medieval London: From
Commune to Capital (1963)
provides a lively and
learned account of London
politics in the thirteenth
century. The best
introduction to the ethos
and changing nature of
knighthood is Peter Coss,
The Knight in Medieval
England (Stroud, 1993).
Kathryn Faulkner, ‘The
transformation of
knighthood in early
thirteenth-century
England’, English Historical
Review, 111 (1996) reveals
the number of knights in
the 1200s. Work on the
gentry includes Coss’s
Lordship and Locality: A
Study of English Society
c.1180–c.1280
(Cambridge, 1991) and
Hugh M. Thomas, Vassals,
Heiresses, Crusaders and
Thugs: The Gentry of
Angevin Yorkshire 1154–
1216 (Philadelphia, 1993).
For the county court see
Robert Palmer’s The
County Courts of Medieval
England 1150–1350
(Princeton, 1982). For the
family see J. C. Holt’s
Colonial England, chapters
9–13.
Judith Green’s The
Aristocracy of Norman
England is now a standard
work. Also central to the
early period is John
Hudson, Land, Law and
Lordship in Anglo-Norman
England (Oxford, 1994).
The classic study of the
feudal structures of
magnate power established
after the Conquest is Sir
Frank Stenton’s The First
Century of English
Feudalism 1066–1166, 2nd
edn. (Oxford, 1961).
Recent work, however, has
questioned how far the
feudal honour was the
cohesive and autonomous
institution of Stenton’s
picture. See for example
Paul Dalton, Conquest,
Anarchy and Lordship:
Yorkshire 1066–1154,
chapter 7, and David
Crouch, ‘From Stenton to
McFarlane: models of
society of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries’,
Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society, 6th
series, 5 (1995). Crouch’s
article smoothes out the
transition of feudalism to
bastard feudalism, a
transition debated by Coss,
Crouch and myself in Past
and Present for 1989, 1991
and 2000. See also Scott L.
Waugh’s important article
‘Tenure to contract:
lordship and clientage in
thirteenth-century
England’, English Historical
Review, 101 (1986).
Studies of individual
honours and nobles
include Richard Mortimer
on the honour of Clare in
Anglo-Norman Studies, 3
and 8 (1980 and 1985);
John Hunt, Lordship and
Landscape: A Documentary
and Archaeological study of
the Honour of Dudley 1066–
1322 (Oxford, 1997);
Crouch, The Beaumont
Twins and his William
Marshal; and K. J. Stringer,
Earl David of Huntingdon
1152–1219 (Edinburgh,
1985).
There is a chapter on
peasants in politics in my
Reign of Henry III. For the
manorial court and its
records see Medieval
Society and the Manor
Court, ed. Z. Razi and R.
M. Smith (Oxford, 1996).
R. H. Hilton’s very
readable A Medieval
Society: The West Midlands
at the End of the Thirteenth
Century (1966) puts the
peasants and the village
community in their wider
context.
Peter Coss, The Lady in
Medieval England 1000–
1500 (Stroud, 1998)
provides an introduction
to the position of
noblewomen. Jennifer
Ward’s Women of the
English Nobility and Gentry
1066–1500 (Manchester,
1995) brings together
source material in
translation. Matthew
Paris’s attitude to women
is discussed by Rebecca
Reader in Thirteenth
Century England, 7 (1997).
For peasant women see
Judith Bennett’s Women in
the Medieval English
Countryside: Gender and
Household in Brigstock
before the Plague (Oxford,
1987). Margaret de Lacy is
studied by Louise
Wilkinson in Historical
Research, 73 (2000). Scott
L. Waugh’s The Lordship of
England: Royal Wardships
and Marriages in English
Society and Politics 1217–
1327 (Princeton, 1988)
reveals the changed
situation for widows after
1215, and elucidates
marriage strategies and
how wardships were
exploited by the king.
Important for the
Scottish nobility are Essays
on the Nobility of Medieval
Scotland, ed. Stringer;
MacQueen, Common Law
and Feudal Society in
Medieval Scotland; Young,
Robert Bruce’s Rivals: The
Comyns; McDonald, The
Kingdom of the Isles; and
Oram, The Lordship of
Galloway, where chapter 7
discusses ‘acculturation’.
For John de Vesci, see
Stringer’s ‘Nobility and
identity in medieval
Britain and Ireland: the de
Vescy family c. 1120–
1314’, in Britain and
Ireland 900–1300, ed.
Smith. Stringer’s work is
vital for the cross-border
nobility in the north, for
example his ‘Identities in
thirteenth-century
England: frontier society in
the far north’, in Social and
Political Identities in
Western History, ed. C.
Bjørn, A. Grant and K. J.
Stringer (Copenhagen,
1994).
T. Pierce Jones,
Medieval Welsh Society
(Cardiff, 1972) contains
important essays including
one on the growth of
commutation in Gwynedd.
The introduction to The
Merioneth Lay Subsidy Roll
1292–3, ed. K. Williams-
Jones, has a section on the
structure of society.
Changing attitudes to
marriage and inheritance
is a major theme in Huw
Pryce’s Native Law and the
Church in Medieval Wales
(Oxford, 1993).
For the common culture
which in varying degrees
came to embrace the
whole of Britain, see David
Crouch, The Image of the
Aristocracy in Britain 1100–
1300 (1992). Written with
his customary verve, this is
the only book to treat the
British nobility as a whole.
The links with France are
elucidated in Malcolm
Vale, The Angevin Legacy
and the Hundred Years War
1250–1340 (Oxford,
1990).

14. Church,
Religion, Literacy
and Learning
For relations with the
papacy, see the essays in
The English Church and the
Papacy in the Middle Ages,
ed. C. H. Lawrence (1965),
and Jane Sayers’s two
books, Papal Judges
Delegate in the Province of
Canterbury 1198–1254
(Oxford, 1971) and Papal
Government and England
during the Pontificate of
Honorius III 1216–1227
(Cambridge, 1983). For
the Mass see Miri Rubin,
Corpus Christi. The
Eucharist in Late Medieval
Culture (Cambridge, 1991).
The history of the
English church throughout
this period can be followed
in Frank Barlow’s The
English Church 1000–1066,
2nd edn. (1979) and his
The English Church 1066–
1154 (1979); C. R. Cheney,
From Becket to Langton:
English Church Government
1170–1213 (Manchester,
1956); and J. R. H.
Moorman, Church Life in
England in the Thirteenth
Century (Cambridge,
1945). For episcopal
efforts to enforce the
decrees of the Fourth
Lateran Council see M.
Gibbs and J. Lang, Bishops
and Reform 1215–1272
(Oxford, 1934). Margaret
Howell’s Regalian Right in
Medieval England (1962)
gives a definitive account
of the king’s exploitation
of ecclesiastical vacancies.
Studies of individual
bishops include Emma
Mason, St Wulfstan of
Worcester c. 1008–1095
(Oxford, 1990); Mary G.
Cheney, Roger Bishop of
Worcester 1164–79
(Oxford, 1980); C. H.
Lawrence, St Edmund of
Abingdon (Oxford, 1960);
D. L. Douie, Archbishop
Pecham (Oxford, 1952);
and R. W. Southern, Robert
Grosseteste: The Growth of
an English Mind in Medieval
Europe, 2nd edn. (Oxford,
1992).
 For the Welsh church
see Huw Pryce, Native Law
and the Church in Medieval
Wales which brings clarity
to a complex subject, and
also his ‘Church and
society in Wales, 1150–
1250: an Irish perspective’,
in The British Isles 1100–
1500, ed. Davies. There
are studies of the Scottish
church in Geoffrey
Barrow’s The Kingdom of
the Scots. For the church in
the time of Alexander III
see the chapter by Marinell
Ash in Scotland in the Reign
of Alexander III, ed. Reid.
David Knowles, The
Monastic Order in England
940–1216, 2nd edn.
(Cambridge, 1963) and
The Religious Orders in
England, I (Cambridge,
1948) remain leisurely and
humane classics. They
cover Wales as well as
England. Janet Burton,
Monastic and Religious
Orders in Britain 1100–
1300 is immensely helpful
and is one of the few
books to deal with the
whole of Britain. It has
excellent maps. Barbara
Harvey’s Living and Dying
in England 1100–1540: The
Monastic Experience
(Oxford, 1993) is a vintage
work based largely on the
records of Westminster
Abbey. For Westminster
see also Emma Mason,
Westminster Abbey and its
People c. 1050–c.1216
(Woodbridge, 1996). For
the friars see C. H.
Lawrence, The Friars: The
Impact of the Early
Mendicant Movement on
Western Society (1994),
and D. L. d’Avray, The
Preaching of the Friars:
Sermons diffused from Paris
before 1300 (Oxford,
1985).
For women religious the
starting-point is Sally P.
Thompson, Women
Religious: The Founding of
English Nunneries after the
Norman Conquest (Oxford,
1991). The few words I
offer here on Gilbert of
Sempringham do no justice
to Brian Golding’s great
work, Gilbert of
Sempringham and the
Gilbertine Order (Oxford,
1995).
The piety of the Anglo-
Norman nobility is
discussed by Christopher
Harper-Bill in Anglo-
Norman Studies, 2 (1979).
Nicholas Vincent, The Holy
Blood. King Henry III and
the Westminster Blood Relic
(Cambridge, 2001) is a
fascinating study relevant
to relics in general. For
pilgrimage see Diana
Webb, Pilgrimage in
Medieval England (2000),
and for an aspect of alms-
giving Sally Dixon Smith,
‘The image and reality of
alms-giving in the great
halls of Henry III’, Journal
of the British Archaeological
Association (1999). For
England and the crusade
the chief works are Simon
Lloyd, English Society and
the Crusade 1216–1307
(Oxford, 1987) and
Christopher Tyerman,
England and the Crusades
1095–1588 (Chicago,
1988).
 For the proliferation of
records and the
development of pragmatic
literacy the central work is
M. T. Clanchy’s From
Memory to Written Record:
England 1066–1307, 2nd
edn. (Oxford, 1993). See
also David Bates’s lecture,
Reordering the Past and
Negotiating the Present in
Stenton’s First Century
(Reading, 1999). For
Oxford University see The
History of the University of
Oxford I: The Early Schools,
ed. J. I. Catto (Oxford,
1984).

15. King Edward I

Authoritative and
judicious, Michael
Prestwich’s biography,
Edward I (1988) covers all
aspects of the reign. J. C.
Parsons, Eleanor of Castile:
Queen and Society in
Thirteenth-Century England
(1994) is a scholarly study
which is important for
queenship generally in the
medieval period. J. R.
Maddicott, ‘Edward I and
the lessons of baronial
reform: local government
1258–1280’, Thirteenth
Century England, 1 (1985)
is indispensable for
Edward’s reform of the
realm. R. W. Kaeuper,
Bankers to the Crown: The
Riccardi of Lucca and
Edward I (Princeton, 1973)
unravels the firm’s
complex operations. For
legal developments, see
Paul Brand’s original and
definitive The Origins of the
English Legal Profession
(Oxford, 1992) and
chapter 7 of his The
Making of the Common
Law. Henry Summerson’s
‘The structure of law
enforcement in thirteenth-
century England’, American
Journal of Legal History, 23
(1979) clarifies the whole
subject, and see also his
paper on the statute of
Winchester in Journal of
Legal History, 13 (1992).
For the development of
parliament see the
chapters by J. R.
Maddicott and J. H.
Denton in The English
Parliament in the Middle
Ages, ed. R. G. Davies and
J. H. Denton (Manchester,
1981). Paul Binski, the
Painted Chamber at
Westminster (1986) shows
Edward’s role in its
decoration. Robert Stacey,
‘Parliamentary negotiation
and the expulsion of the
Jews from England’,
Thirteenth Century England,
6 (1995) is crucial for the
immediate circumstances
of the expulsion, while
Robin Mundill, England’s
Jewish Solution: Experiment
and Expulsion 1262–1290
(Cambridge, 1998) has the
most detailed coverage of
the last phase and argues
that the Jews were finding
a role as commodity
traders. J. R. Maddicott,
The English Peasantry and
the Demands of the Crown,
Past and Present
supplement (1975) shows
how the pressures of
Edwardian government fell
particularly on the
peasantry.
16. Conquest and
Coexistence

Beverley Smith’s Llywelyn

ap Gruffudd Prince of Wales
is now the standard work.
Sir Goronwy Edwards’s
introduction to Littere
Wallie offers a wellknown
critique of Llywelyn’s
polices. David Stephenson,
The Governance of Gwynedd
(Cardiff, 1984) is a
comprehensive coverage of
its subject. For the
growing claims of the
prince in the area of
justice see Pryce, Native
Law and the Church in
Medieval Wales. Landscape
and Settlement in Medieval
Wales, ed. N. Edwards
(Oxford, 1997) has studies
by David Longley and Neil
Johnstone on the royal
courts of Gwynedd. R. R.
Davies’s account of this
period in his Conquest and
Co-existence is compelling.
For Alexander III, the
volume of essays edited by
Norman Reid remains
essential. The maps
designed by Keith Stringer
and Hector MacQueen in
Atlas of Scottish History, ed.
McNeill and MacQueen,
illustrate the expansion of
the Scottish kingdom. For
Scottish national identity
see Alexander Grant,
‘Aspects of National
Consciousness in medieval
Scotland’, in Nations,
Nationalism and Patriotism
in the European Past, ed. C.
Bjørn, A. Grant and K. J.
Stringer (Copenhagen,
1994) and his ‘To the
medieval foundations’,
Scottish Historical Review,
72 (1994). G. W. S.
Barrow, Robert Bruce and
the Community of the Realm
of Scotland, 3rd edn.
(Edinburgh, 1988) remains
the chief work on the
Scottish wars of
independence. For
discussion related to the
concluding section of the
chapter see R. R. Davies,
Domination and Conquest:
The Experience of Ireland,
Scotland and Wales 1100–
1300 (Cambridge, 1990)
and Keith Stringer,
‘Scottish foundations:
thirteenth-century
perspectives’, chapter 6 of
Uniting the Kingdom: The
Making of British History,
ed. A. Grant and K. J.
Stringer (1995).
Index

The majority of the items in the

subject part of the index are
grouped under England,
Scotland and Wales in the
following rough thematic
sequence: economy, church,
society, kingship and
princedom, government, armies
and military service.

Aberconwy, Cistercian abbey

at, 21, 321; moved by
Edward I, 512
Aberdaron (Llŷn), clas church
of, 321
Aberdeen, 48, 182, 256
Aberdyfi (Meirionydd), 320
Aberffraw, Aberffro
 (Anglesey), 38–9, 321–3;
palace at, 496, 499
Abergavenny, 111, 229, 283,
325
Aberystwyth, 111, 141, 165,
283–4, 364, 383, 503, 508–
10
Abingdon (Berks.), abbey of,
101, 151; its chronicle, 84
Abingdon, Edmund of,
archbishop of Canterbury
(1234–40), 315, 451, 547
Aboyne (Aberdeenshire), 336
Acre, city of, 247–8
Acton Burnell (Shrops.), 479
Adela of Louvain, queen of
England (d. 1151), 144, 151
Adrian IV, pope (1154–9), 218
Advowsons, 432, 436
Afan, family of in Glamorgan,
429
Affreca, daughter of king of
Man, 220
Afterlife and purgatory, see
 Religion
Aigueblanche, Peter d’, bishop
of Hereford (1240–68), 342,
375
Ailred, abbot of Rievaulx
(1147–67), 15, 177; as
abbot, 445; on the English
and the Normans, 4; on the
Scots, 15, 16
Aithelred, king of England
(971–1016), 67, 94
Aithmuir (Perthshire), 39
Alan, son of Roland, ruler of
Galloway (d. 1234), 281,
329–30, 335, 424, 464;
Thomas his illegitimate son,
331
Albigensians, the, 448
Albigni, earls of Arundel:
William (d. 1176), 94;
William (d. 1221), 269
Albigni, Nigel d’, 158
Albion, ancient name for
Britain, 13, 20, 526
Alençon, Robert count of and
count of Sées, 264–5
Alexander, bishop of Lincoln
(1123–48), 170
Alexander I, king of Scotland
(1107–23), 140, 142, 144,
179; ecclesiastical policy
and view of royal authority,
144–5
Alexander II, king of Scotland
(1214–49), 256, 263, 277,
297–9, 311; his reign, 327–
 37; and northern counties of
England, 298–300, 302–3,
386; and far north, 328–9;
in Argyll and Galloway,
330–1; and Henry III, 328,
331–2, 336; government
and the common law, 333–
5; his army of 1244, 17, 336
Alexander III, king of Scotland
(1249–86), 12, 524, 529;
minority, 366–8; first
marriage, 332, 367;
personal rule, 386–90;
 obtains Man and the Isles,
387–90, 495; relations with
Edward I, 518–19, 527;
revenues and household, 49,
519–21; coinage and
expansion of the money
supply, 47, 519; popularity,
524
Alexander III, pope (1159–81),
230; and Becket dispute,
207
Alexander IV, pope (1254–61),
374
Alfonso VIII, king of Castile
(1158–1214), 194, 266
Alfonso X, king of Castile
(1252–84), 345
Alfred, king of Wessex (871–
99), 3, 10
Alice, sister of Philip Augustus,
252–3, 265
Allerdale (Cumb.), daughter of
the lord of, 231
Alnwick (Northumberland),
146, 166, 225, 285, 425–6
Alston (Cumb.), silver mines
at, 146, 183
Amercement, meaning of term,
62
Amesbury (Wilts.), priory,
prioress of, 418, 422, 451
Amienois, the, 265
Amiens, the Mise of (1264),
377
Andrew, St, 13
Angers, 266, 286; castle at,
512
Angevin Empire, 191, 193–5
Angharad, wife of Owain ap
Marredudd, 428
Anglesey, Môn, 112, 132–3,
213, 318, 321, 364, 383,
425, 498–9, 503, 509, 513,
516; becomes county, 511,
515
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 51,
75–7, 90, 120; description
of, 542
Angoulême, county of, 243,
 261; counts of, 194
Angus, ruler of Moray (d.
1130), 179
Angus, earldom of, 119, 336;
earl of, see Umfraville
Anhuniog (Ceredigion),
commote of, 428
Anjou, county of, 46, 69, 75,
191, 194, 201, 263, 267; its
final loss, 264; resignation
of claims to (1259), 346;
expulsion of Jews from,
 489; counts of: Geoffrey
Martel (d. 1060), 70–1; Fulk
IV Rechin (d. 1109), 103;
Fulk V (d. 1143), 142, 146,
162, 171, 246; Geoffrey (d.
1151), 147, 161, 163, 169,
173–4, 188, 191
Annandale, 181; lordship of,
258, 522
Anselm archbishop of
Canterbury (1093–1109),
outlook, 129–30; relations
with Rufus, 131–2; with
 Henry I, 135–6, 138;
achievement, 139; relations
with women, 415
Anstey, Richard of, 198–9
Appleby (Westmorland), 8
Appletree (Derby), wapentake
of, 83, 405
Aquitaine, duchy of, 188, 191,
243, 267; see also Eleanor of
Aquitaine
Arbroath, Declaration of
(1320), 12–13
Arbuthnott (Mearns), 39
Arden (Warks.), forest of, 56
Ardendraught (Buchan), 424
Ardudwy (Gwynedd), cantref
of, 107, 318
Argentan (Normandy), 163,
169
Argentan, Richard de, 6
Argyll, 12, 13, 117, 119, 181,
212, 231, 329, 332;
separation from Scotland,
11; rulers of, see Somerled;
 MacSorleys; sheriffdom of,
389, 521
Arlot, papal envoy, 360
Arran, isle of, 388, 522
Arthour and Merlin, poem, 10
Arthur, King, 20, 187–8, 218
Arthur of Brittany (d. 1203),
243, 247, 263, 398;
murdered, 265
Articles of the Barons (1215),
289
Artois, county of, 248
Arundel, 170; earls of, see
Albigni; countess of, see
Isabella, countess of Arundel
Arwystli, cantref of, 283;
dispute over, 505, 507
Assisi, Clare of, 452
Athée, Gerard d’ 283
Athlone, 279, 281
Athol, earldom of, 119, 182;
earls of: Madad (d. 1142–
52), 183; Patrick (d. 1242),
335; John (d. 1306), 492–3
Audley, James of (d. 1271), 24
Auldearn (Moray), 179
Aumale (Normandy), 202
Aumale, counts of: Stephen (d.
by 1130), 131; William, also
earl of York (d. 1179), 168,
174, 177, 195; see also Forz
Auvillar (Garonne), 199
Auxerre, school of, 204
Avalon, Hugh of, bishop of
Lincoln (1186–1200), 243,
259, 438–9; his relic
 collection, 454; classic life
of, 545
Avice, Alice, of Brigstock, 420
Avranches (Normandy), 208,
219, 224; Hugh of, see
Chester
Aymer, bishop elect of
Winchester (1250–60), 342,
360, 369, 373
Ayr, 48, 179, 388; sheriffdom
of, 257, 329, 521; mint at,
521
Azo, steward of Edward the
Confessor, 76

Badenoch, lordship of, 329,

522; castle of, 424
Balliol: Guy de (d. 1265), 12,
19; John de (d. 1268), 367,
464; his wife Dervorguilla,
464; their son John, king of
Scotland (1292–6), 230,
524–5
Bamburgh (Northumberland),
131, 166, 183, 195
Banff, 12
Bangor, 284; foundation of
bishopric, 148; and
Canterbury, 186, 436;
bishops of: Hervé, 148;
David (1120–39), 148;
Richard (1237–c. 1258), 18;
Anian (1267–1305), 500;
prior of, 500
Banstead (Surrey), parish
church of, 453
Baquepuis, family of, 404;
 Ralph, 79, 81–2
Bardsey island, Augustinian
house on, 321
Barham Down (Kent), 379
Barnwell abbey (Cambridge),
the chronicle copied there:
on the Scottish kings as
French, 12, 19, 24, 232,
258; on John, 277, 284;
description of, 546–7
Baron, meaning of term, 81
Barratt, Nick, 271
Barry, Robert and Philip of,
217
Bartlett, Robert, 59, 70
Basingwerk (Tegeingl), abbot
of, 497
Basset: Ralph, 157–8; Richard,
157; Gilbert, 313–16; Ralph
(of Drayton), 379; Thomas
(of Headington), 396;
Philip, 382
Bates, David, 460
Battle (Sussex), abbey of, 100;
 abbot of, 462
Bayeux, 167
Bayeux tapestry, 61, 68, 70,
72, 102, 129; commissioned
by Odo, bishop of Bayeux,
71
Bayonne, 266, 307
Beachampton (Bucks.), 56
Beatrice, daughter of Henry
III, 450
Beauchamp, family of
Worcester: William, 168;
 honour of, 407
Beauchamp, Miles, of Bedford,
168
Beaulieu (Hants.), abbey of,
276, 447
Beaumaris (Anglesey),
Edwardian castle at, 511,
513
Beaumont, family, 69, 398;
Robert I, count of Meulan
and earl of Leicester (d.
1118), 132, 137, 138, 155;
Robert II, earl of Leicester
(d. 1168), 166, 174–5;
treaty with earl of Chester,
174, 177; as justiciar, 199,
202; Robert III, earl of
Leicester (d. 1190), 224;
Robert IV, earl of Leicester
(d. 1204), last Beaumont
earl, 265, 269; descent of
earldom (through his sister),
340; Waleran of Meulan,
earl of Worcester (d. 1166),
twin of Robert II, 168–70,
 173–4, 178, 455; Hugh
Poer, earl of Bedford,
younger brother of Robert II
and Waleran, 168; Henry,
earl of Warwick (d. 1119),
brother of Robert I, 134; his
son Roger, earl of Warwick
(d. 1153), 161; Henry, earl
of Warwick (d. 1229), 241,
409
Bec (Normandy), monastery
of, 98, 129, 170
Becket, Thomas, archbishop of
 Canterbury (1162–70) 225;
as chancellor, 199; as
archbishop, 203–10;
martyrdom, 207–8
Bede, the Venerable, 1, 3, 20
Bedford, castle of, 168, 306–7;
earl of, see Beaumont
Bedfordshire, 32
Bellême, Robert of, earl of
Shrewsbury (d. after 1130),
son of Roger of
Montgomery, 132–4, 137,
 142, 173
Bennett, Judith, 412, 416, 420
Beorhtric, thegn, 95
Bere (Meirionydd), castle of
(Castell y Bere), 318, 499,
510
Bereford, William of, justice,
481
Berengaria of Navarre, queen
of England (d. after 1230),
246
Beresford, M. W. 43
Berkeley, family of, 257;
Walter, 212, 231–2
Berkhampstead (Herts), 75;
Abraham of, 401
Berkshire, 65, 177; homicides
in, 483
Berksted, Stephen, bishop of
Chichester, (1262–87), 377
Bernard, bishop of St Davids
(1115–48), 2, 148, 186
Bernard, St, 172, 176, 246,
250, 444
Bernham, David de, bishop of
St Andrews (1240–53), 332,
442, 464; William de, 464
Berry (France), 243
Berwick on Tweed, 43, 48,
180, 298, 525; castle of,
226, 230, 255; mint of, 521
Berwickshire, peasants in, 55
Between Wye and Severn,
Rhwng Gwy a Hafren, 108,
320, 324, 362, 385, 498,
501, 503
Beverley (Yorks.), 45
Bezill, Matthias, 314, 374,
376, 486
Bibbesworth, Walter of, 9
Bienfaite (Normandy), 11, 141
Bigod earls of Norfolk: Hugh
(d. 1177), 168, 224–5;
Roger (d. 1221), 287; Roger
(d. 1270), 343–4, 360, 369,
373; Roger (d. 1306), 470,
478, 485, 490
Bigod, Hugh, justiciar (d.
 1266), 343, 360, 370, 376,
414
Bilsington (Kent), priory of,
446
Birgham, treaty of (1290), 528
Bishop’s Cleeve (Worcs.), 33,
56
Bisset, family of, 335; Walter,
336
Black Death, 32
Blanche of Castile, queen of
France, 304, 310, 366
Blois, count of, 225, see also
Stephen; Theobald Blois,
Henry of, bishop of
Winchester (1129–71), 159,
163, 170, 172, 176, 192
Blyth (Notts), 45
Bocking, Ralph, 421, 547
Bohun earls of Hereford (from
1200): Henry (d. 1220),
269, 274, 287, 292;
Humphrey (d. 1275), 343–4,
466; Humphrey, his eldest
 son (d. 1265), 385;
Humphrey (d. 1298), 466,
478, 485, 501, 504
Bolingbroke, honour of, 421–2
Bologna, school, university of,
204, 462
Bordeaux, 46, 266, 307, 344,
345
Bosham, Herbert of, 204–5
Boston (Lincs.), 42–3
Boulogne, county of, 159,
163–4, 172; honour of in
 England, 174; counts of,
262, 265, 284, 286
Bourgthéroulde, battle of
(1124), 146, 182
Bourn, Almaer of, 79–80
Bouvines, battle of (1214), 286
Bower, Walter, 335, 386
Bracton (Bracton on the Laws
and Customs of England),
339, 359; on women, 415,
418; description of, 546
Brailes, William of, 459
Brakelond, Jocelin of, his life
of Abbot Samson, 446, 545
Bramber (Sussex), 279
Brampton (Hunts.), peasants
of, 413
Braose, family: 297, 320, 398,
417; Philip, 219; William (d.
1211), 229, 254, 277, 279–
80, 283, 417; wife of, see St
Valery, Matilda; William,
their eldest son (d. 1210),
280; Reginald (d. 1228),
 320, 324; William (d. 1230),
325; Eva, 325; John, of
Gower (d. 1232), 324; end
of senior line, 325, 365
Bréauté, Falkes de, 284, 305,
306, 315
Brecon, Brycheiniog, 254, 283,
325, 385–6, 478, 498, 501,
502–3; Normans in 110,
111, 147, 165; lords of, see
Neufmarché; Gloucester,
Miles of; Bohun
Brémule, battle of (1119), 143
Breteuil (Normandy), 168, 202
Bretons at Hastings, 72–3
Brewer, William (d. 1226),
197, 200, 307, 407
Brewing, women involved in,
418
Bridgnorth (Staffs.), 195
Brightwalton (Berks.),
peasants of, 414
Brigstock (Northants.), 412,
418–20
Bristol, 43, 46, 147, 167, 169,
171, 173, 175, 218, 249,
359
Britain, 1; foundation by
Brutus, 9, 20; attitude of
kings of England to its
political structure, 106,
134–5, 226–7, 525–9; views
of their authority, 106 (the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), 134
(the Brut), 148 (Walter
Map), 227 (Gerald of
Wales), 525–6 (Peter
 Langtoft); for Britain’s
principal people see under
Normandy; England;
Scotland; Wales
Brithem, Scottish legal official,
119, 424
Brittany, 70–1, 75, 191, 214,
223–4, 243, 264, 265, 310–
11, 316; rulers of, see
Constance; Geoffrey; Dreux
Brix (Normandy), 181
Bromfield (northern Powys),
 511; Gruffudd of (d. 1269),
22, 24
Bromholm (Norfolk), priory of,
453
Brown, R. Allen, 197
Bruce, family of Annandale:
522; English lands of, 425;
Robert (d. 1142), 181, 184;
Robert, king of Scotland
(1306–29), 13, 425, 525;
Bruges (Flanders), 48
Brut, history of England, 9–10
Brut, history of Wales, 106,
108, 111, 114, 134, 141,
143, 165, 224, 226, 456;
description of 549
Brutus, Britain’s eponymous
founder, 9, 20–1, 108, 526
Bryn Derwin, battle of (1255),
383
Buchan: earldom of, 119, 182,
328; Fergus, earl of, 422–3;
his daughter, Marjorie, see
Comyn
Buckinghamshire, 32; knights
in, 401
Buckland, Hugh of, 158
Builth, Buellt, 110, 254, 283,
325–6, 363, 365, 385–6,
498, 503, 508, 510
Buketon, Geoffrey de, 46
Bungay (Norfolk), 224
Burgh, family of: 518; William
(d. 1204), 220, 279; Hubert,
chief justiciar, earl of Kent
(d. 1243), 266, 300, 302,
 307, 309, 311–16, 324–5,
338, 352, 398, 431; his
piety, 452–4, 459; Richard
(d. 1243), lord of Connacht,
279, 311–12, 316–17;
Walter, son of Richard, earl
of Ulster (d. 1271), 390
Burgh next Aylesham
(Norfolk), 304; parish
church of, 453
Burghal Hidage, the, 74
Burnell, Robert, chancellor,
 bishop of Bath and Wells
(1275–92), 466, 475, 477,
479, 514
Bury St Edmunds, 224–5, 249;
abbot of, 75, see also
Samson
Bussey, William de, 350, 354
Bute, isle of, 329, 522; given
to Rhodri MacSorley, 389

Cade, William, 41, 201, 249

Cadell ap Gruffudd (d. 1175),
 186, 429
Cadwaladr ap Gruffud ap
Cynan (d. 1172), 165, 187,
213
Cadwgan ap Bleddyn (d.
1111), 111–12, 132–3, 138,
141
Caen (Normandy), 71, 167,
265; abbot of, 258; building
stone, 46, 430; burgess of,
265, 310 monasteries in, 71,
98, 151
Caerleon, 110, 164, 187–8,
224–5; with the Marshals
and their descendants, 324,
426
Caernarfon, Norman castle at,
112; Edwardian castle, 511–
12, 515; exchequer at, 511,
525
Caernarfonshire, creation of,
511, 515
Caerphilly, Caerffili
(Glamorgan), castle of, 501–
 2
Caithness, 11–13, 117, 119,
232–3, 256, 328, 332, 387–
8; bishopric of, 232, 328,
332; earldom of, 522; earls
of, see Maddadson;
Gilbertson
Calixtus II, pope (1119–24),
139, 145
Cambridge, friars of, 450;
university of, 463–4
Cambridgeshire, 32, 379
Camoys, Ralph de, 379
Campbell, B. M. S., 32, 49, 58
Campbell, James, 523
Canon law, see Learning
Canterbury: archbishopric of,
66, 145, 259; claims to
authority over York, 99;
over Britain, 106; Scotland,
145, 230; Wales, 139, 186,
436; Ireland, 218; its rights,
205, 207; its estates, 36; see
under individual
 archbishops, especially
Lanfranc; Anselm; Theobald;
Becket; Dover; Ford; Walter;
Langton; Abingdon; Savoy;
Pecham
Canterbury, 207, 225;
cathedral priory of, 101;
Gervase of, 270; mint at, 40
Cantilupe, Walter de, bishop of
Worcester (1237–66), 380;
Thomas de, bishop of
Hereford (1275–83), 437,
478
Cantref Bychan (Ystrad Tywi),
107, 214–5, 227, 511
Cantref Mawr (Ystrad Tywi),
107, 227, 515
Capetian monarchy: revenues,
267;
comparisons and contrasts
with English and Scottish
monarchy, 267–8, 523
Caradog, king of Glamorgan
(d. 1081), 110, 115–16,
164, 187
Cardiff, 47, 165, 175, 284;
castle of, 111
Cardigan, Aberteifi
(Ceredigion), 141, 165, 364,
527; with the Lord Rhys,
215, 227–8; gained by John,
then lost to Llywelyn, 282,
289, 299, 320, 322; to
Hubert de Burgh, 324, 311;
back to Llywelyn, 325–6,
316; to Marshals, 289, 316,
324, 362; with crown, 363,
365, 507–8; becomes a
 shire, 511
Carew (Pembroke), 38; castle
at, 114
Carlisle, castle and town of,
43, 146, 161, 224–5, 231,
529; foundation of, 121,
129, 140; resumed by Henry
I, 146; with King David,
166, 183–6; recovered by
Henry II, 195, 212;
recovered by King
Alexander (1216–17), 263,
298–9; resigned by him,
 327–8; bishopric of, 146,
435
Carmarthen, 47, 143, 229,
254, 283, 289, 527; royal
base established by Henry I,
140, 147; recovered by
Welsh, 165, 186; recovered
by Henry II, 213; gained by
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, 299,
320, 322; to Hubert de
Burgh, 311, 324; to
Marshals, 289, 316, 324;
with crown, 363, 365, 383,
 504, 507–8, 513; becomes a
shire, 511
Carrick, earls of: Duncan son
of Gilbert (d. 1250), 231;
Adam (d. 1270), 456
Carucate, defintion of, 63
Cashel, council at (1172), 218
Castle Bytham (Lincs.), 305
Castle Matilda, see Painscastle
Castle Rising (Norfolk), 94
Cathal Crovderg, see O’Connor
Cathwaite (soke of
 Peterborough), 34
Caus, lordship of, 111, 365,
514
Cedewain, commote of, 386,
428
Cenel Eoghain, Aedh O’Neil,
king of (d. 1230), 280; Brian
O’Neil, king of (d. 1260),
390
Ceredigion, 16, 138, 187, 213–
5, 228, 254, 283–4, 364–5,
383, 503, 507, 510; extent
 of, 107: Norman arrival in,
111–12; their defeat, 112,
131, 133; Clares in, 141,
143, 147, 186, 213–14, 215
(end of their connection);
recovered by Welsh, 165,
186, 214–15; Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd’s authority in, 500;
extinction, survival of rulers
after Edwardian conquest,
510, 514
Ceri, Kerry, commote of, 320,
324, 385; men of, 427
Chalgrove (Oxon.), 399
Châluz (Limousin), 262
Champagne, Henry of, 248
Charing Cross, 45
Charles of Anjou, king of
Sicily, 347
Charter of the Forest (1217),
302; definitive version
(1225), 307, 348, 357;
struggle to enforce, 308–9
Chartley (Staffs.), castle of,
466
Chartres, Ivo, bishop of, 136
Château Gaillard (Normandy),
262–3
Châteauroux (Berry), 243
Cheddington (Bucks.), 401
Chenduit, Stephen de, 401
Chepstow, 47, 147, 224, 229,
301; Norman castle at, 110,
115
Cheshire, 110–11, 186, 380
Chester, 77, 213, 218, 502,
509; earldom of, 155, 197,
213; with crown, 362, 365,
505; earls of: Hugh of
Avranches (d. 1101), 110–
13, 115, 130, 132, 137;
Richard (d. 1120), 143, 146;
Ranulf I le Meschin (d.
1129), 146; Ranulf II ‘de
Gernon’ (d. 1153), 161, 171,
173–4, 185–7; his treaty
with earl of Leicester, 174,
177; Hugh (d. 1181), 224,
229; Ranulf (d. 1232), also
earl of Lincoln, 274, 289,
 300–2, 306, 311, 323–4,
458; Hawisia his sister, 421;
wives of 12th-century earls,
417, 421; see also Lucy;
John le Scot
Chesterfield (Derby), battle of
(1266), 381
Chichester, foundation of
bishopric, 99; bishops of, see
Neville; Berksted
Chichester, Gervase of, 210
Chinon, 244, 266, 304
Chipping Ongar (Essex), 200
Chivalric culture and conduct:
introduction to England,
126–8; in Scotland; 21–2,
24–5, 50, 424–6; amongst
Welsh, 23–4, 428–9;
between English and French
courts, 346, 429; modified
version of English in
Ireland, 221; in indvidual
careers: William Rufus, 128–
9, 133–4; Stephen, 164, 188
(saving William Marshal);
 King David, 184; the Young
King, 243; Richard, 243,
245, 247–8; William
Marshal, 24–5, 300–2;
Robert fitz Walter, 285;
Edward I, 467, 473, but see
478, 493–4; ending of
‘clement’ centuries, 493–4
Chobham, Thomas of, 415
Church: ideas of reform, 97–8,
433–5; see also under
England; Scotland; Wales
Cigogné, Engelard de, 274,
305, 313–14
Cilgerran (Emlyn), 215, 320
Clanchy, Michael, 287, 460
Clare, family of, 21, 147, 228,
285; estates and tenants in
1086, 81–4, 408; Richard
fitz Gilbert (d. 1090), of
Clare, Tonbridge, Bienfaite,
Orbec, 80; Gilbert fitz
Richard (d. 1117), 406;
given Ceredigion, 141, 143;
Roger fitz Richard (d.
1130), of Orbec and
Bienfaite, 11, 141, 143;
Richard fitz Gilbert (d.
1136) of Ceredigion 164;
Gilbert fitz Gilbert (d.
1148/9), earl of Pembroke,
lord of Chepstow and
Gwent, 165, 168, 186, 229;
son of, see fitz Gilbert,
Richard; Roger, earl of
Hertford, lord of Clare and
Tonbridge (d. 1173), 214;
 Richard, earl of Hertford (d.
1217), married to eventual
heiress of earldom of
Gloucester, 269, 280
Clare earls of Gloucester and
Hertford, lords of
Glamorgan: Gilbert (d.
1230), 325; Richard (d.
1260), 25, 315, 343, 360,
365–7, 369, 371–4, 385,
461; Gilbert (d. 1295), 374,
377, 381, 385, 466, 469–70,
478, 501–2, 504; attitude to
 foreigners, 11, 376; Matilda,
countess of Gloucester (d.
1289), wife of Richard, 421
Clare, priory of (Suffolk), see
Stoke by Clare
Clarendon (Wilts.) 133, 198;
council at (1164), 205–6;
constitutions of (1164), 202,
206–10; assize of (1166),
234
Claverdon, Richard of, 241
Clifford (Wye valley), 110;
 family of, 215; Walter (d.
1190), 214; Roger (d. 1282),
374, 506
Clinton, Geoffrey de, 157–8,
161
Clopton (Northants.), 9, 309
Clun, lordship and castle of,
111, 114–5; forest of, 495
Clwyd, river, 111, 147, 186,
213, 318, 363
Clyde, river, 11, 118, 181–3,
388
Clydesdale, 212
Cnut, king of England (1016–
35), 61–2, 75–6, 79, 91, 97;
his putative Coronation
Charter, 89
Cogan, Miles de, 219, 221
Coggeshall priory (Essex),
Ralph abbot of, 244, 288;
his explanation of inflation
of 1200s, 35; on Richard,
247, 260, 295; on John,
264, 265, 292; on the
 Interdict, 276
Colchester (Essex), 45
Coldingham (Berwickshire),
prior, priory of, 39, 334
Coleshill, 213
Coleville, William de, 305
Cologne, 48
Commissions of array, 487,
517
Community of the bachelry of
England, 371, 378
Comyn family, the Comyns,
 329, 335, 367–8, 387, 522;
English lands of, 425;
William, earl of Buchan (d.
1233), 328; and Marjorie,
his wife, 423–4; Walter, earl
of Menteith (d. 1258), 335,
367, 385; Alexander, earl of
Buchan (d. 1289), 335, 387–
8, 425, 522; John, lord of
Badenoch (d. c. 1277), 335–
6, 387, 390
Conan IV, duke of Brittany,
195
Conches, Isabella de, 416
Confession and penance, see
Religion
Confirmation of the Charters
(1297), 477, 485
Conisbrough (Yorks.), 28
Connacht, 216, 278–9, 312,
316–17, 361, 390; kings of,
see O’Connor
Constance, duchess of Brittany,
194–5, 243, 263, 265
Constantinople, 512
Conwy, Edwardian castle at,
511–13; see also Aberconwy
Conwy, river, 107, 111, 115,
318, 364
Corbet, family of, 111, 365,
514
Corbett, W. J., 82
Corfe (Dorset), 45, 305
Cork, 219, 279, 281
Cornwall, 76, 456; tin mining
in, 45; earls of: Richard (d.
1272), king of the Romans,
 9, 307, 343, 346–7, 360,
373, 377, 401, 446, 455;
Edmund (d. 1300), 468
Coronation Charter of Henry I
(1100), 85, 87–9, 126, 148,
159, 291, 294–5, 398, 493;
issue and contents, 135; and
Magna Carta, 287, 289; and
women, 89, 420, 422
Corton (Wilts.), 398
Corwen (Edeirnion), 214
Cospatric, son of Horm, 8
Coss, Peter, 408
Courcy, John de, lord of
Ulster, 219–21, 278–9
Cowal (Argyll), 522
Cranborne (Dorset), 461
Craven (Yorks.), 166
Crema, John of, papal legate,
146
Crispin, Gilbert, abbot of
Westminster, 139
Crispin, William, 143
Cromarty (Ross), 233, 256;
 sheriffdom of, 521
Crook, David, 353
Crosseby, Avice de, of Lincoln,
422
Crouch, David, 409
Crowland abbey, chronicle of,
34
Crusades, crusading, 60, 243–
4, 455–9; first crusade, 131,
455, 458; second, 455; third
crusade, 246–8, 455–6; fifth
crusade, 455, 458
Cumberland, emergence of,
146, 165; farm of, 183; king
of Scotland’s claims to, 255;
attempt to gain (1215–17),
298–9, 327–8; claims
resigned, 331; see also
Cumbria: south of Solway
Cumbria, extent of, 11, 117;
north of Solway, 144, 179;
south of Solway, 220, 225;
king of Scotland strives to
control, 118, 120; to
William Rufus, 121, 129; to
 King David, 165–7, 178,
185; to Henry II, 195; see
also Cumberland;
Westmorland
Cumbrians, 11, 117
Cumin, William, 184
Cunningham, lordship of, 181,
388, 522
Curiales, meaning of term, 156
Cuthbert, St, 123
Cuxham (Oxon.), 52, 56, 58,
401, 487
Cyfeiliog, commote of, 283
Cynan ab Owain (d. 1173),
187
Cynferth redaction, Welsh law
book, 228
Cynllaith, commote of, 514
Cyprus, 245, 247, 248

Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd (d.

1203), 214, 224; his rule,
227–9; marriage to Emma of
Anjou, 226, 229, 319
Dafydd ap Gruffudd ap
Llywelyn (d. 1283), 383,
385, 484, 503, 506–7, 509–
10, 515; plot against
brother, 500–2, 504; on
need to resist English, 509;
as prince of Wales, 510; his
execution, 493–4, 510, 517
Dafydd ap Llywelyn (d. 1246)
385; question of his
succession, 326–7; his rule,
362–4; as prince of Wales,
364; court and structures of
 government in Gwynedd,
495–9
Damme, battle of (1213), 286
Damory, Robert, 402
Daniel, Walter, 445, 543
Darley (Derby), abbey of, 406
Darlington, John of, 449
Daubeny, Philip, 457
David (d. 1219), brother of
King William the Lion, earl
of Huntingdon, 225, 230,
524
David, king of Scotland (1124–
53), 11, 174, 227, 256; and
Henry I, 142, 144, 147, 155,
159–61; marriage, 142, 151,
172; principal section on,
178–86; background and
outlook, 178–9; recovers,
Moray, 179, 183;
annexation of northern
England, 163, 165–7, 170,
176, 178, 183–4; establishes
Anglo-Norman nobility,
181–2; and ‘old’ Scotland,
 16, 182–3; church policy,
145, 147, 180–1, 436, 459;
itinerary, 183; mints first
Scottish coins, 29, 47, 183;
grants privileges to burghs,
48
David, St, 116, 228
d’Avray, David, 450
Dean, forest of, iron mining in,
45
Dee, river, 107, 213–15, 318
Dee, river (Scotland), 181
Deer (Buchan), abbey of, 424
Deganwy, 21, 107, 111, 364,
383, 385, 503, 512
Deheubarth, 21, 114, 186,
213, 216, 226, 282, 283,
318, 383; changing extent
and divisions within, 106–8;
division on death of the
Lord Rhys, 254, 319;
extinction, survival of rulers
after Edwardian conquest,
510, 514; see also Rhys ap
Tewdwr; Rhys ap Gruffudd
 (the Lord Rhys)
Denmark, king of: Sven
Esrithson (1047–76), 76;
Cnut (1080–86), 103
Derbyshire, 80, 405
Desiderata, the widow, 415
Desmond (Ireland), 390; kings
of (the MacCarthys), 218,
278
Despencer, Hugh (d. 1265),
373–4, 380, 382, 414
Devizes (Wilts.), 172–3, 178,
 188, 315
Devizes, Richard of, 245; on
King Richard, 248
Devon, earl of, 306; see also
Redvers; Forz, Isabella de
Dialogue of the Exchequer, 5, 7,
153–4, 158, 192, 200–1,
238, 259, 295, 409
Dinan (Brittany), 70
Dinefwr (Cantref Mawr), 214,
227, 229, 323, 507, 513
Dingwall (Ross), sheriffdom of,
 328–9, 521
Dinmale, commote of (Powys),
514
Dionisia (of the Hotot family),
416
Diserth (Tegeingl), castle of,
363, 383, 385, 512
Diss, Ralph of, dean of St
Paul’s (d. 1202), 8, 210;
attitude to Irish, 15; on
Henry II, 193, 226, 239,
242, 244; on Jews, 250
Divine intervention, see
Religion
Dogmael, St, 116
Dogsthorpe (soke of
Peterborough), 34
Dolbadarn (Snowdonia), castle
of, 499, 510
Dolforwyn (Cedewain), castle
of, 495, 499, 502
Dolgynwal, Hospitallers at,
321
Dolwydellan (Snowdonia),
 castle at, 499, 510
Domesday Book, 27, 34, 37,
43, 51–2, 75, 77, 80–4, 110;
its commissioning and
purpose, 103–5
Dominic, St, 448; see also
Friars Donald Bàn, king of
Scotland (1093–7), 123,
130–2
Doncaster (Yorks.), 275, 292
Dorchester on Thames (Oxon.),
bishopric of, 99
Dove, river, 405
Dover, Richard of, archbishop
of Canterbury (1174–84),
209–10, 438
Dover, castle of, 187, 297,
299, 300, 302, 304, 418;
men of, 456
Dower, meaning of term 88;
see also women under
England; Scotland; Wales
Dreux, Peter de, duke of
Brittany, 310–11, 313, 316
Drogheda, 278, 281
Drywslwyn (Cantref Mawr),
515
Dublin, 110, 212, 216–18;
king of, 210–11; base of
English government, 220,
281, 518, 525; castle of, 341
Dumbarton, sheriffdom at, 521
Dumfries, 212, 231, 232;
sheriffdom at, 521; mint at,
521
Dunbar, battle of (1296), 19
Dunbar, earls of: Patrick (d.
1232), 258; Patrick (d.
1248), 25, 456; Patrick (d.
1308), 387
Duncan I, king of Scotland
(1034–40), 116
Duncan II, king of Scotland
(1094), 123, 130–1, 183
Dundrennan (Galloway),
abbey of, 331
Dune, Roger de la, 356
Dunfermline (Fife), 48, 183;
priory/abbey of, 122–3,
151, 180
Dunkeld, bishopric of, 145
Dunstable priory, chronicle of,
331, 479; sympathetic
attitude to Welsh, 18, 22
Dunwich (Suffolk), friars of,
450
Durham, 29, 43, 121, 145,
166, 184; bishopric of, 65–
6, 435; cathedral, 123;
bishops of, see St Calais;
Puiset; Farnham
Durham, Simeon of, 77, 121
Durward, Alan (d. 1275), 336,
366–8, 387–8
Dyer, Christopher, 33
Dyfed, 107, 138, 165, 282,
 320; nucleated villages in
29, 38; Flemings in, 38;
Norman arrival, 111
Dyfi, Dovey, river, 107, 111,
318

Eadmer, 136, 145

Ealdgyth, daughter of Wigod
of Wallingford, 81
Ealdred, archbishop of York
(1044–69), 73, 92–3
Earley, John of, 301
East Anglia, 28, 61, 411; fens,
34, 55
Edeirnion (Powys), 319, 514
Edgar, king of England (959–
75), 66
Edgar Atheling, 67–8, 73, 76–
7, 120, 129, 132; assessment
of, 78
Edgar, king of Scotland (1097–
1107), 132, 140
Edinburgh, 48, 118, 180, 183;
castle of, 226–7, 230, 367,
 527; mint of, 521
Edith, queen of England (d.
1075), 96, 342
Edith-Matilda, queen of Henry
I, see Matilda
Edling, the, 108
Edmund Ironside (d. 1016),
67, 120
Edmund, king of East Anglia,
painting of his martyrdom,
6
Edmund, second son of Henry
 III (d. 1296), 346, 466, 470
Ednyfed Fychan, 496, 500,
515
Edward I, king of England
(1272–1307), 10, 40, 116;
as heir to the throne (the
Lord Edward), 23, 25, 342,
345, 359, 383, 385–6, 390,
465; in period reform and
rebellion, 373–7, 380–2; his
crusade, 25, 410, 456–8,
527; his rule in England,
466–90; training and
character, 467; quo warranto
campaign, 469–70; customs,
taxation and bankers, 470–
2; revenues, 49, 51, 472;
ideology and display, 472–
4; government and
household, 473–7; itinerary,
476–7; and church, 477; and
knights and local society,
478–9; and nobility, 469–
70, 478; reform of realm,
478–86; legal developments,
479–82; parliament, 479,
484–5; crises of 1294–7,
477, 485; unites monarchy
and realm, 485–6; and
peasants, 486–8; expulsion
of Jews, 488–90; balance of
power in his state, 491–3;
and political violence, 493–
4; conquest of Wales, 495–
518 passim; his intentions,
503–4, 507–8, 515–18, 527;
and Ireland, 518; relations
with Alexander III, 518–19;
asserts overlordship over,
 annexes Scotland, 524;
military revolution, 516–17;
concept of Britain, 525–6;
contrasts with Henry I,
John, Henry III, 51, 472,
477, 479, 515, 517–18; see
also Eleanor of Castile
Edward II, king of England
(1307–27), 519, 525
Edward, son of Malcolm and
Margaret of Scotland, 121,
123
Edward the Confessor, king of
England (1042–66), 44, 61–
2, 68, 99; weakness, 67; as a
saint, 339, 353, 382–4, 473,
496
Edwin, earl of Mercia, 61, 66–
7, 72–3, 76, 78, 102
Egremont (Cumb.), 184
Eleanor, daughter of Henry II
and Eleanor, 194
Eleanor, sister of Henry III, see
Montfort
Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of
England (d. 1204), 188;
character and position, 192–
3; and 1173–4 rebellion,
223, 225–6; government of
England, 199; in Richard’s
reign, 245–6, 253, 259; in
John’s, 263–4, 266
Eleanor of Castile, queen of
England (d. 1290), 345,
359, 426, 450, 490;
character, position, policies,
467–8; Eleanor crosses, 468
Eleanor of Provence, queen of
England (d. 1291), 343,
422, 449, 451; character,
position, policies, 341–2; in
period of reform and
rebellion, 359–60, 374–5;
reputation, 467
Elfael, cantref, lordship of,
186, 254, 283, 320, 324,
325–6
Elgin (Moray), 12, 179
Ellon (Buchan), 424
Elmham, bishopric of, 99
Elsfield, Gilbert of, 379
Ely, 173; bishop of, 27; his
wealth, 28, 49, 51; isle of,
78; chronicle of abbey (the
Book of Ely), 5, 84
Emlyn, cantref of, 215, 282–3
Emma, illegitimate daughter of
Geoffrey of Anjou, 226
Emma, queen of England (d.
1052), 68, 94, 96, 97
England, economy of: share of
Britain’s land mass, area
over 600 ft and wealth, 26;
size of population in 1086
and subsequent rise, 31–3;
manorial and soke type
estates, 27–8; regional
variations, 29, 37; diet, 33,
446; colonization of new
land, 33–4; demesne
farming, 34–6, 38–9; yields,
36–7; towns, 30–1, 42–5;
markets and fairs,
proliferation of, 42–3; trade
and manufacture, 31, 45–6;
wool and wool exports, 31,
37, 40, 46, 394; wine
imports, 46, 394; coins and
coinage: type of coin, 40;
royal monopoly over
minting before 1066, 30, 40,
63; after Conquest, 93;
breakdown under Stephen,
175; coinage under Henry
II, 196; Henry III, 361;
inflation, 35–6, 271, 469;
rise in money supply, 40;
 GDP, estimates of 49, 51, 58
England, church in: pre-
Conquest, 65–6, 99; under
William I and Lanfranc, 81,
97–102; Rufus, 129–32;
Henry I (Investiture
dispute), 135–6, 138–40;
Stephen, 167, 176; Henry II
(Becket dispute), 203–10;
John (Interdict), 275–6,
285–7, 290; Henry III, 347,
349; Edward I, 471–2, 477.
Individual themes: royal
exploitation of vacancies,
133–4, 139, 155, 203, 206,
209, 349, 469; growing
authority of papacy, 97,
101–2, 139–40, 146, 176,
206, 208–9, 275–6, 286,
301, 431–4; jurisdictional
division between church
and state, 101, 170, 205,
208–9 (criminous clerks),
432; bishops and dioceses,
65–6, 99–100, 435–6;
episcopal efforts at reform,
 438–441; ordaining
vicarages, 438; legislation,
210, 438; visitations, 439–
40; parish structure, 100;
condition of local clergy,
436–8, 440–1
England, religious orders in:
monasteries, before 1066,
66; after Conquest, 100–1;
foundations under Henry I,
140; in Stephen’s reign,
176–7; Benedictines and
Cluniacs, 443; the
Cistercians, 140, 176, 444–
5; Savignacs, 443;
Augustinians and
Premonstratensians, 151,
445–6; monastic decline,
446; nunneries, 450–2;
Gilbertines, 451–2;
Dominican and Franciscans
friars, 447–50, 468; their
ideas and the reforms of
1258–9, 371; Knights
Templars and Hospitallers,
459
England, family structures in:
on continent, 69; either side
of Conquest, 87–8; in Anglo-
Norman realm, 125–6;
primogeniture and provision
for younger sons and
daughters, 397–8; co-
operation and conflict, 127,
159–60, 168, 300, 381–2,
398–9; family at the peasant
level, 411–12
England, position of women
in: during Norman conquest,
 80–1; noble women before
and after 1066, controls
over marriage, 88–91;
pressure on widows to
remarry, 260, 272; heiresses
and widows in Magna Carta,
290; women in public life
and as wives, spinsters and
widows, 415–22; provisions
for after Evesham, 381–2;
religious life, 450–2
England, the English people,
their identity: unity before
1066, 3, 62; shattered by
Norman conquest, 3;
remoulding in 12th and
13th centuries, 4–11, 80–1,
135, 150–1; begin to regard
Welsh, Scots and Irish as
barbarians, 14–16; more
positive attitudes to Welsh
and Scots in 13th century,
16–24; importance of
hostility to the king and
continental foreigners (in
13th century) in shaping
 identity, 10–11, 252, 305,
314–15, 353–4, 375–6
England, English language:
after Conquest, 4; recovery
of English, symbol of
national identity, 9–10;
learning of French and
Latin, 9, 461–2
England, town society:
chartered boroughs, 392–3;
communes and gild
merchants, 393; social
divisions within towns, 393–
 5; see also London
England, nobility in: incomes
and standard of living, 28,
49–51; destruction of
English nobility after 1066,
79–81; lands of new
Norman lords, 81–4; sense
in which nobility ‘Anglo-
Norman’, 8; structure of
Anglo-Norman politics, 125–
8; connections with
Normandy, 4, 7, 142, 269;
growth of English identity,
6–8; powers of lordship
before 1066 and feudal
pattern thereafter, 66–7,
84–90, 403–8; bastard
feudalism, 408–10;
collaborators and
competitors with king, 93–
4, 133–4, 137, 159–61,
174–5, 189, 303, 491–3;
financial pressures placed
on by crown, 202, 260–1,
272–3; limited by Magna
Carta, 290; after 1215, 308,
343, 478; suffering denial,
sale of justice, arbitrary
dispossession 241–2, 273–4;
Magna Carta on, 289–90;
after 1215, 308, 313–14,
343, 478; grievances of
lower orders against, 350–1;
for the nobility’s outlook
and political ideas, see
Chivalric culture and
conduct; Magna Carta;
Provisions of Oxford;
England: great councils and
 parliaments;
England:kingship in
England, knights and gentry
in, 395–403; definition of
gentry 399; gentry of Anglo-
Saxon England, 65–6, 399;
destruction and survival
after 1066, 79–81; new
county society of knights,
82–3; limited connections
with Normandy, 269; in
structures of feudalism and
bastard feudalism, 403–10;
and common law litigation,
240, 296, 402; running local
government, 240, 261, 288,
396, 400, 402–3, 479, 484,
492; in Magna Carta
rebellion, 288, 406; in
Magna Carta, 291, 308, 396,
403; struggle to enforce the
Charters, 308–9; reforms of
1258–9, 370–1; in
Montfortian period, 378–9;
and parliament, 356, 378,
410, 484–5, 493; decline in
 number of knights, 399–
400; economic crisis debate,
400–2; and Jews, 490
England, feudalism in:
definition of, 84;
introduction to England, 84–
90, 403–4; ‘feudal
incidents’, 84–5; king’s
exploitation of, 104, 134,
155, 159; limited by Magna
Carta, 290, 343, 469;
hereditary succession to
fiefs, 241, 408; strengths
 and weakness of feudal
structures, 403–8; bond of
homage, 84, 405, 407;
development of bastard
feudalism, 408–10; and
Henry II’s new legal
procedures, 240–1; for the
honourial court, see
England: law courts
England, freemen in,
importance of in politics and
local government, 80, 83,
135, 240–1, 371, 410–11
England, peasantry in: position
in Domesday Book, 27–8;
and Norman Conquest, 78;
sokemen, 28, 52;
development of legal
unfreedom, 52–4, 242;
standard of living debate,
starvation, 54–9; wages for
labour, 28, 56; diet, 33; in
tithings, 62, 413; part of
political community, 413–
14; in Magna Carta, 291,
296, 308, 413; in Provisions
 of Oxford, 370, 413; in
Montfortian period, 379–80;
under Edward I, 486–8;
peasant society, 410–14;
peasant resistance, 54, 413–
14; and the Cistercians, 444
England, Jews in: role in
English economy, 41–2,
201, 249; attitudes towards,
248–9, 349; massacres of
1189–90, 249–51;
exploitation by crown, 251–
2, 271–2, 313, 349–50;
 declining revenues from,
469, 488, exchequer of,
251–2; attacks on 1255 and
1264, 349, 379; final
expulsion, 349, 382, 488–90
England, slaves and slavery,
51–2
England, communities in: of
the village, 414; of the
hundred, 411; of the shire,
402–3; of the realm, 10–11,
261, 353–4; represented by
knights in parliament, 402–
 3; size of the political
community, 347, 350–3,
356–9, 371, 377–80, 410–
11, 413–14, 482–5; ideas
about, 293, 371–2; see also
England: great councils and
parliaments
England, ties of
neighbourhood, 2, 379, 399,
405
England, kingship in: duties
and rights, 62, 148, 156,
192, 196, 233, 239, 244,
467; rituals and display:
coronation and coronation
oath, 62, 75, 90, 192, 294;
crown wearings, 90, 294;
Laudes Regiae, 90, 339;
‘ritual of the rooms’, 357;
buildings, 133, 339, 429–30,
473; under the Angevins,
294–5; Henry III, 338–9,
453–4; Edward I, 472–3;
Angevin kings’ self-
justifications, 295–6; view
of kingship in Magna Carta,
 290; justifications for
resistance, restraint,
deposition, 293–4, 296, 359;
the king’s will and the law,
273–4, 288, 292–3, 296,
314–16, 343, 372, 473;
judgement by peers, 261,
293, 314; changing balances
of power between king and
realm, 491–4
England, queenship in: before
and after the Conquest, 94–
7; coronation and laudes for
queen, 95–6; no longer
receives royal lands in king’s
lifetime, 193, 341; role as
regent opens and closes, 97,
341, scope for a queen
regnant, 171–2; Eleanor
crosses, 468; see also Emma;
Edith; Matilda of Flanders;
Matilda (Edith-Matilda);
Adela of Louvain; Matilda of
Boulogne; Eleanor of
Aquitaine; Berengaria of
Navarre; Isabella of
 Angoulême; Eleanor of
Provence; Eleanor of Castile
England, government, general
sections on: in Anglo-Saxon
England, 61–7; after the
Conquest, 90–4, 104–5;
developments under Henry
I, 148–58; Stephen, 167–8,
174–5, 190; Henry II, 195–
202, 233–42; Richard I,
259–60; John, 271–5; Henry
III, 303–6, 347–52, 354–9;
Edward I, 468–85
England, royal court and
household: before 1066, 64;
under William I, 90–1;
under Henry I, 149–50;
Edward I, 475–7; king’s
chamber, 91, 149; chamber
and wardrobe, similar roles,
474; wardrobe, 471–2, 475–
6; privy seal, 475–6;
formation of small sworn
council, 348, 352, 476; costs
of household’s food and
drink, 348, 476; access to
 and processes at court, 351–
2; household’s military
forces, housecarls, thegns,
household knights, 64 90,
133, 149–50, 268, 299, 316,
403, 476, 517
England, chancellor and
chancery, 65, 91–2, 149,
199, 351–2, 475, 479
England, written records, use
in government: the Anglo-
Saxon writ, 64–5; use after
the Conquest, 92; under
 Henry I, 149, 153; under
Stephen, 174; forms under
Henry II, 199; dating clause
given to charters and writs,
252; chancery and other
rolls, 270–1, 460–1, 465,
473–5, 491, 528–9; volume
of writs ‘of course’, 475
England, justiciar, chief
justiciar, development of
office, 91, 133–4, 152, 199–
200; its suspension, 351–2;
its temporary revival in
 1258, 370, 478–9
England, royal servants,
curiales, 156–8, 200, 274,
476 see also England:
judicial personnel
England, exchequer: origins of,
154; workings of, 152–3;
pipe roll, 153; treasury a
branch of, 154; under
Stephen, 176; Henry II, 200;
move from Winchester to
Westminster, 44; under
Edward I, 473–5
England, great councils and
parliaments, counsel and
consent: the Anglo-Saxon
witan, 64; under Henry I,
159; Henry II, 202; theory
and practice under Richard,
261, 358; consent needed
for taxation in Magna Carta,
290; in minority of Henry
III, 309–10, 358; parliament
eo nomine, appearance under
Henry, 354–6; composition
of assemblies, summoning of
 representatives, 356–7, 393;
Montfortian parliaments,
378; hearing petitions under
Edward I, 479; summoning
of representatives becomes
fixed, 484–5; parliamentary
peerage, 484; see also
Statutes
England, law courts, legal
admininistration: hundred
and county courts, 63–4, 90,
94, 156, 308; hundred
courts in private hands, 67,
234, 469, 483; manorial
courts, 67, 157, 483;
honourial courts, 85, 94,
157, 240, 406; issue of
attendance at private courts,
‘suit of court’, 350–1, 371;
ecclesiastical courts, 101,
208, 432; local justices, 156;
justices in eyre, 156–7, 233–
5, 238, 303, 348, 350, 469–
70, 479–81, 483–4; end of
the eyre and its
consequences, 492; reform
 in 1259, 370; justices of
assize and gaol delivery,
348, 480, 492; court of
king’s bench, 233, 347–8,
365; court at exchequer,
233; common bench at
Westminster, 259, 273, 303,
348; expansion of its
business, 480–1
England, judicial personnel,
beginnings of legal
profession, 239, 481–2
England, juries and judicial
 procedures: juries of
presentment, 235; juries of
assize, 237–8; the ordeal,
235; juries in criminal trials,
236
England, law and order, the
king’s monopoly over the
trial and punishment of
serious crime, the king’s
peace, pleas of crown: 62,
90, 156–7, 234–6, 482–4,
488; coroners, 260–1, 370,
413, 484; tithings, the view
 of frankpledge, 62, 234,
308, 413, 483–4;
infangenthief, 67, 234, 467
England, the common law:
definition of, 242;
formation, 233–42; new
procedures: mort d’ancestor,
236; novel disseisin, 236;
grand assize, 236–7; assize
of darrein presentment, 432;
key features, 237–9;
proliferation of actions, 240,
480; trespass, 480; replevin,
 480; returnable, original
writs, writs ‘of course’, 237–
8, 475; writ of right, 240;
writ praecipe, 241; final
concords, feet of fines, 259;
procedure by querela, 370,
479–80; general popularity
and significance, 240–2,
259, 290, 348, 475
England, local government:
counties, hundreds, earls
and sheriffs before 1066,
63–4, 66–7; earls after
1066: 92, 110–111, 134,
155–6; proliferation under
Stephen, 167–8; decline in
numbers under Henry II,
197; 492; sheriffs after
1066, 92–3, 102; Henry I
and, 155–6; Henry II, 197;
in Magna Carta, 291, 308;
change in sheriff’s office
after 1236, 350–1, 479, 492;
reforms of 1258, 370;
magnate’s desire to control
local government, 160–1,
 167–9, 174–5, 303, 403–5,
408–9, 491–3; see also
England: knights and gentry
England, the royal forest,
forest law, 92, 155, 226;
extent, workings, revenue
from, 197–8, 226, 272, 350,
479; see also Charter of the
Forest
England, royal revenue: totals,
in 1130, 155; under
Stephen, 175; Henry II, 200;
Richard, 246, 253, 260;
John, 267 (comparison with
the Capetians), 271–2;
Henry III, 303, 310, 312,
348, 355; Edward I, 468–9,
472; effects of Magna Carta,
308, 343; from land before
1066, 63, 67; increase after
Conquest, 81, 104; under
Henry I, 154–5; Henry II,
196; Edward I, 470; county
farms, 154–5, 260, 272;
issue in Magna Carta, 291–
2, 308; thereafter, 312, 350,
370 (in 1258), 479; losses of
land, 154, 196, 260, 271,
343, 348, 469–70; revenue
from justice, 156–7, 236,
272–3, 350; scutage, 201,
268, 272, 292; geld
(danegeld) before 1066, 51,
63; after 1066, 93, 103–4,
155; abandoned, 202;
taxation on movables, 260,
272, 290, 292, 307, 313,
348, 355, 471–2; customs,
470–2; use of credit, 201,
 471–2; see also (under
England), church,
exploitation of vacancies;
feudalism, king’s
exploitation of; royal forest;
Jews
England, armies and military
service: in Anglo-Saxon
England, 65, 74, 86;
Norman cavalry, 70; feudal
military service, 84–6, 133,
268–9; mercenaries, 136,
169, 225, 260, 268, 277,
 298; Edward I’s armies in
Wales and Scotland, 502–3,
509–10, 513, 516–7, 525;
for household forces, see also
England: royal court and
household; for ravaging, see
Warfare
England, castles in: absence in
Anglo-Saxon England, built
by Normans, 64, 70, 74–5,
94; bases for sheriffs, 92;
centres of lordship, 94; in
Stephen’s reign, 178; under
 Henry II, 197
Epte, river, 194
Ermengarde de Beaumont,
queen of Scotland, 230, 277
Escheats, defintion of, 85
Espec, Walter (d. 1155), 15,
140, 146, 158, 166, 184,
444
Essex, 159, 174; forest, 176,
198; marshes, 34;
sheriffdom of (with Herts),
161, 175; earl of, see
 Mandeville
Étampes, Theobald of, 463
Eu, William count of, 131
Eugenius III, pope (1145–53),
176
Europe, continental, Britain’s
integration with, 24–5, 50,
59–60, 429–30
Eustace (d. 1153), son of King
Stephen, 174, 188–9
Eustace the Monk, 302
Evesham (Worcs.), abbey of,
 77, 382; battle of (1265),
12, 380, 385–6, 391, 426,
466, 493
Evreux, Evreçin (Normandy),
264; count of, 125
Ewelme (Oxon.), 399
Ewloe (Tegeingl), castle of,
499
Exeter, 45, 76, 151, 168, 195,
245; Bartholomew, bishop
of (1161–84), 203, 208,
438; on Becket dispute, 207
Eye, honour, castle of, 159,
174, 195

Falaise (Normandy), 265;

treaty of (1174), 226, 229,
528
Falkirk (Stirlingshire), 120
Famine, 57, 360; see also
England, peasantry
Fantosme, Jordan, 8, 192,
225–6
Farm, of county, meaning of
 term, 155
Farnham, Nicholas of, bishop
of Durham (1241–9), 437
Faulkner, Kathryn, 399
Fécamp (Normandy), abbey of,
lands in England, 100
Fedderate (Buchan), 424
Fergus, ruler of Galloway, (d.
1161), 117, 146, 181, 212,
231, 459
Ferrers, family of, earls from
1138, earls of Derby from
 1199: Henry (d. 1101), 79–
81, 83; Robert (d. 1139),
406; William (d. 1190),
224–5; William (d. 1247),
274, 288–9, 458; Robert (d.
1279), 377, 381, 407, 470;
end of earldom, 381, 470;
their honour of Tutbury,
404–5; their earldom, 224,
274, 405
Feudalism, defintion of, 84; see
also England: feudalism;
Scotland: feudalism
Fife, earldom of, 49, 119;
Duncan II, earl of: (d. 1203),
183
Finmere, Gilbert of, 402
Fish: from English ports, 45;
Scottish (Aberdeen), 48
fitz Alan family, of Clun and
Oswestry, 365; William (d.
1160) 169, 186; in Scotland
(the Stewarts), 329, 388,
390, 522; Walter (d. 1177),
181, 210, 212; Alexander,
 387; Walter, earl of
Menteith (d. 1296), 387–8;
tenants in Scotland, 181
fitz Audelin, William, 220
fitz Count, Brian, 171
fitz Duncan, William, 183–5,
232; for descendants of
second marriage to
Egremont and Skipton
heiress, see Hawisia; for
descendants of first
marriage, see MacWilliam
fitz Ellis, family, 400, William,
288, 292, 395–9, 401–2,
406; Robert, 396–7
fitz Geoffrey (fitz Peter), John
(d. 1258), 360–1, 370
fitz Gerald, family, 391, 518;
William, 215; Maurice (d.
1176), 217; Maurice (d.
1257), 315
fitz Gilbert, Richard,
‘Strongbow’ (d. 1176), of
Chepstow: denied
 Pembroke, 213; in Ireland,
217, 219–22; his daughter
married to William Marshal,
246, 278, 282 fitz Hamon,
Robert (d. 1107), 111, 130,
325
fitz Henry, Meiler (d. 1220),
217, 221, 278–9, 281, 317
fitz Herbert, William, 176
fitz Hubert, Robert, his cruel
boast, 178
fitz John, Eustace, lord of
 Alnwick (d. 1157), 146,
158, 166, 175, 184 fitz John
(fitz Geoffrey), John (d.
1275), 375, 382, 390, 478
fitz John, Payn, 158, 160, 165
fitz Nigel, Richard, treasurer of
the exchequer, bishop of
London (1189–98), 200
fitz Nigel, Robert, 379
fitz Osbern, William, earl of
Hereford (d. 1071), 75, 102,
106, 110, 113, 147
fitz Peter, Geoffrey (d. 1213),
chief justiciar, earl of Essex
(through marriage to
Mandeville heiress), 197,
200, 270, 273–4; for son by
this marriage, see
Mandeville, Geoffrey (d.
1216); for son by second
marriage, see fitz Geoffrey
fitz Robert, Ralph, 402
fitz Thedmar, Arnold, London
alderman and chronicler,
378, 394–5
fitz Stephen, Robert, 217, 219
fitz Stephen, William, 44
fitz Thomas, John, 390
fitz Thomas, Thomas, mayor of
London, 378
fitz Walter, Robert (d. 1235),
285–7, 302
Flambard, Ranulf, bishop of
Durham (1099–1128), 145–
6, 452; and Domesday Book,
103, 133; as chief minister
of Rufus, 133–5; 152, 157
Flanders, 45, 48, 377; wool
exports to, 31, 45, 466;
counts of, 141–2, 147, 225,
248, 262, 264–5, 284;
individual counts: Baldwin
(1036–67), 71; Robert the
Frisian (1071–93), 103
Fleming, Robin, 79
Flemings, in Dyfed, 38, 112,
140; in Clydesdale, 212;
merchants, 48
Flint, sheriffdom of, 511;
 Edwardian castle at, 511
Foliot, Gilbert, bishop of
Hereford and London
(1148–63–87), 176, 178,
438; and Becket dispute,
206
Foliot, Richard, of Rousham,
402
Fontevraud, abbey of, order of,
244, 262, 451
Fothad, bishop of St Andrews
(1059–93), 123, 144
Foulquois, Gui, papal legate,
377, 431
Fountains abbey (Yorks.), 176
Ford, Baldwin of, archbishop
of Canterbury (1184–90),
60, 209, 215, 227, 456
Fordun, John de, clerk of
Aberdeen, historian, (d. c.
1384), 12, 328, 331, 388
Forfar (Angus), 230, 336
Forres (Moray), 179
Forth, firth of, 1, 11, 117–18,
 182, 230, 521
Forz, Isabella de, countess of
Aumale and Devon (d.
1293), 418, 421, 470
Forz, William de, count of
Aumale (d. 1241), 305
Four Cantrefs, the,
Perfeddwlad (Gwynedd),
107, 187, 284, 320, 362,
365, 385, 503–4, 527;
English rule in, 383, 506–8,
511; complaints of men, 507
Fourth Lateran Council, see
Papacy
Frame, Robin, 525
Framlingham (Norfolk), 224
Francis, St, 448–50; see also
Friars Franciscus, Nicholas,
of Westerham (Kent), 487
Frankton, Stephen de, 510
Frederick I Barbarossa, king,
emperor of the Romans (d.
1190), 207
Frederick II, king, emperor of
 the Romans (d. 1250), 284,
286, 310, 344, 345
Friars, Dominican and
Franciscan: ideas behind the
movements, 447–9; see also
England: religious orders;
Scotland: religious
orders;Wales: religious
orders Froissart, 24
Fulford Gate (Yorks.), battle of
(1066), 72
Furness, abbey of, 446
Gaimar, 6; on Rufus, 129;
topography attached to his
History of the English, 6, 8,
20, 188
Galloway, 11, 12, 117, 119,
146, 210–11, 231–2, 281,
329–31, 529; unification of,
117; King Malcolm invades,
212; William the Lion in,
231–2; its changing culture,
13–14, 231, 330–1; takeover
after 1234, 330–1, 522;
bishopric of, 231, 435;
 sheriffdom of, 257; justiciar
in, 257–8, 521; rulers of, see
Fergus; Gilbert; Uhtred;
Roland; Alan
Galwegians, 11, 13, 117, 331–
2, 335; reputation for
violence, 16, 19, 166
Gant: Gilbert de (d. 1156),
196, Gilbert de (d. 1242),
268, 300, 302
Garmoran, Dugald lord of, and
Eric his son, 389
Gascony, duchy of, 194, 224,
266, 270, 303, 307, 309,
466; under Henry III, 342,
345, 346, 359; wine imports
from, 46; expulsion of Jews
from, 489
Gaugi, Robert de, 303
Gaveston, Piers, earl of
Cornwall (d. 1312), 127,
494
Gaythelos, legendary founder
of Scotland, 13
Geoffrey, archbishop of York
(1191–1212), 252
Geoffrey, bishop of Coutance,
77, 92
Geoffrey (d. 1158), brother of
Henry II, 193, 195
Geoffrey, son of Henry II, duke
of Brittany (d. 1186), 194–
5, 225, 243, 398
Geoffrey Rufus, chancellor of
Henry I, 149
Gerald of Wales, Giraldus
Cambrensis (1146–1223),
108, 186, 215, 227, 281,
418, 427, 436, 446, 463; on
how to conquer Wales, 111;
his nationality, 5–6, 14; on
the English, 7; on French
and Celtic modes of warfare,
16; on the Irish and Ireland,
15, 216, 218–19; on the
Welsh, 19–22, 28, 37–8;
preaching tour, 60, 456,
458–9; on Henry II and
Britain, 227, 526;
 overlordship over Scotland,
255; on John, 281–2
Gesta Stephani, chronicle, 15,
16, 19, 159, 187, 543;
attitude to Welsh, 15–16; on
Stephen, 164
Giffard, family in Scotland,
257
Giffard, John, 511
Gilbert (son of Fergus) of
Galloway (d. 1185), 212,
231
Gilbert (son of Gillebrigde),
earl of Angus, 424
Gilbertson, Magnus (d. 1273),
earl of Caithness and
Orkney, 387
Gillingham, John, 15
Gisors (Norman Vexin), 142,
192, 194, 243, 245, 252,
261, 262, 265, 267;
description of castle, 253
Gisors, John de, 394
Glamorgan, 107–8, 114, 165,
 229, 253, 282, 315, 316,
325, 383, 385, 478, 501;
Norman conquest of its
south, 111–12, 130; division
between Welsh and
Normans, 112; descent of
the lordship, 147, 247, 282,
299, 325
Glanvill, Ranulf, chief justiciar,
(d. 1190), 239, 259, 398
Glanvill (Treatise on the Laws
and Customs of England), 88,
234–40, 259, 295, 405; on
 women, 416–17
Glasgow, bishopric of, 146,
183, 213; mint at, 521;
bishops: John (1118–47);
William de Bondington
(1233–58), 332; John of
Cheam, (1259–68), 433
Glastonbury, Thurstan abbot
of, 100
Glenluce abbey (Galloway),
258, 331
Gloucester, 45, 121, 173, 195,
 249, 300, 315, 354; abbey
of St Peter’s and Serlo its
abbot, 101
Gloucester: descent of
earldom, 147, 247, 282,
325; earls of: Robert, (d.
1147), lord of Glamorgan,
147, 155, 59, 161–2, 165–6,
168–9, 187–8, 406, 445;
character, 167; challenges
Stephen, 169–70, 173, 176
his son William (d. 1183),
188; William’s daughter
 Isabella married to John and
then the earl of Essex, 247,
264, 299; his daughter
Amice married to Richard
de Clare, earl of Hertford (d.
1217), 325; see also under
Clare
Gloucester, Miles of, lord of
Brecon, earl of Hereford (d.
1143), 147, 156, 158, 165,
169, 171, 174, 188, 196; his
son Roger, earl of Hereford
(d. 1155), 160, 187; his
 brother Walter, 195
Gloucester, Robert of,
historian, 9
Gloucestershire, 177, 374
Glympton (Oxon.), 157
Glyn Dŵr, Owain, 514
Godfrey, son of Olaf, king of
Man (1153–87), 211–12
Godred Crovan, king of Man
(c. 1079–95) 117
Godstow (Oxon.), priory of,
451
Godwin, Earl (d. 1053), 67
Goltho (Lincs.), 50, 65
Gorges, family of, 476
Goronwy Goch, 515
Gospatric, earl of
Northumbria, 76, 77
Gospatric, son of Arnkell, 79
Goulet, Le, treaty of (1200),
263–4
Gournay, Hugh de, 265
Gower, Gwŷr, lordship of 229,
279, 283, 324, 383
Gowrie, earldom of, 119, 182
Grandmont, abbey of, 208
Grandson, Otto of, 486
Grant, Alexander, 118
Grantham (Lincs.), 311
Graper, Peter, 395
Gratian’s Decretum, 204; see
Learning: canon law
Grauntcourt, William de 9
Green, Judith, 160
Gregory VII, pope (1073–85),
97, 101–2, 136
Grey, John de, bishop of
Norwich (1200–14), 275–6,
281
Grey, Reginald de, 506, 508–9,
511
Grimsby (Lincs.), 45
Gronw ap Heilyn, 506, 508
Gros, Raymond le, 217
Gros, William le, 265
Grosmont (Monmouth), 311,
315, 453
Grosseteste, Robert, bishop of
 Lincoln (1235–53), 380,
438–40, 462–3; political
ideas, 372
Gruffud ap Cynan (d. 1137),
161; origins and early
career, 109–12; repulses
Rufus, 131; expands his rule
in Gwynedd, 132, 137–8,
143; and Henry I, 137–8,
144, 527; achievement,
147–8; his Life, 50, 109,
188, 215, 549
Gruffudd ap Gruffudd Maelor,
 506
Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn (d.
1286), 362–3, 384–5, 501–
2, 504–5, 507, 510; his
survival, 514
Gruffud ap Llywelyn, ‘king
over all the Welsh’ (d.
1063), 61, 108, 109, 215
Gruffudd ap Llywelyn (d.
1244), 326, 363
Gruffudd ap Madog (d. 1269),
363
Gruffudd ap Rhys (d. 1201),
254, 282
Gruffudd ap Rhys ap Tewdwr
(d. 1137), 116, 165
Gruffudd Llwyd, 515
Gruffudd Maelor (d. 1191),
514
Guala, papal legate, 301, 304,
328, 431, 458
Gurdon, Adam, 467
Gwcharki, Irishman, 109–10
Gwent, 108, 164; Normans in,
 38, 110–12; Clares gain
lower Gwent, 147;
reclamation from sea, 38;
see also Chepstow
Gwenwynwyn, ruler of
southern Powys (d. 1216),
254–5, 283–4, 320, 322
Gwladus, daughter of Llywelyn
ab Iorwerth, 24
Gwynedd, 29, 38, 47, 137–8,
142, 147–8, 165, 186, 213–
15, 224, 228, 282–4, 318–
27, 362–5, 382–6, 446, 497,
500; extent and regional
divisions, 106–7; natural
defences, 318; Norman
conquest of, 110–12, 130;
Normans expelled, 112,
131–2; prosperity in 12th
century, 50, 147–8; growing
cash resources, 47, 498;
poverty of peasantry, 55;
ambitions of rulers, 215,
321, 384, 528; princely
court and structures of
 government in 13th century,
495–500; ministerial elite,
496–7; contacts with
papacy, 326, 364, 431; see
also Four Cantrefs and
individual rulers, especially
Gruffud ap Cynan; Owain
Gwynedd; Llywelyn ab
Iorwerth; Dafydd ap
Llywelyn; Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd
Gwynllwg (Glamorgan), 164
Gyrth, brother of King Harold,
 73

Hackington (Kent), 450

Haddington (East Lothian),
181
Hailes abbey (Glos.), 446
Hakon, king of Norway (d.
1263), 327–30, 337, 387–8;
his Saga, 327, 330, 337
Halesowen (Shrops.), 411–12
Harald, king of Man (1237–
48), 337
Haraldson, John, earl of
Caithness (d. 1231), 328–9
Harlech (Meirionydd),
Edwardian castle at, 511
Harold, king of England
(1066), 71, 75, 81, 92, 106,
109, 110, 115, 215;
accession, 61; landed power
before 1066, 67; difficulties
of position, 67–8; and
Hastings campaign, 72–3
Harold Hardrada, king of
 Norway (d. 1066), 72
Harthacnut, king of England
(1040–42), 62
Harvey, Barbara, 446
Haselbury (Somerset), Brictric
the priest of, 4; and his wife
Godida, 441
Hastings, battle of, 65, 72–3
Hastings, Henry de, 375, 381
Hattin, battle of (1187), 144
Haverford (Dyfed), 47
Hawarden, castle of, 506–7,
 509, 515
Hawisia, heiress of Skipton,
Holderness and Aumale,
marriage to William de
Mandeville, 202
Hay, lordship of, 325
Haye, Nicola de la, 252, 297–
9, 302, 416
Helmsley (Yorks.), 146, 184,
444
Hengham, Ralph de, justice,
481
Henley (Oxon.), 42
Henley, Walter of, 36, 401
Henry IV, emperor of the
Romans (d. 1106), 102, 136
Henry V, emperor of the
Romans (d. 1125), 142, 146
Henry VI, emperor of the
Romans, king of Sicily (d.
1197), 248, 262
Henry I, king of England
(1100–35), 109, 125–8, 195,
198, 217, 223, 446; his
 marriage to Edith-Matilda,
4, 7, 21, 38; reign, 134–62;
character and policies, 134–
5; and Wales, 137–8, 144,
526–7; Scotland, 140, 142–
8, 527; and nobility, 137,
157, 159; in Normandy 138,
141, 143; and
Henry I, king of England –
cont. church, 136, 138–40;
and Carlisle and north of
England, 140; restraint in
Gwynedd and Maine, 137–8,
 142, 213; absences from
England, itinerary, 148,
150; and ritual, 294;
structure of government,
148–58; revenue and
wealth, 51, 155, 161;
discontent with his rule,
159–61; succession, 161–2;
decree on inheritance by
women, 89
Henry II, king of England
(1154–89), Henry fitz
Empress, 17, 247, 392, 455;
birth, 161; in Stephen’s
reign, 174, 185, 188–90;
political inheritance, 191;
character and outlook, 191–
2; ‘care’ for his kingdom,
192 239, 244; itinerary,
193, 195, 198; continental
policies, 193–5; restoration
of royal authority, 195–203;
formation of common law,
233–42; counsel, 202, 357;
ritual, 294–5; relations with
barons, 201–2, 224; exploits
 and protects Jews, 41, 201;
Becket dispute, 176, 203–
10, 451; and Scotland, 210–
11, 226–7, 229–33, 527,
529; Wales, 213–16, 227–9,
527; conquest of Ireland,
216–223, 317; 1173–4
rebellion, 223–7; attitude to
Britain, 226–7, 526; last
phase of reign, 243–4; see
also Eleanor of Aquitaine
Henry III, king of England
(1216–72), 17, 44, 47, 319,
455–6; character and
outlook, 338–40, 431; piety,
316, 447, 449, 473; first
phase of reign, 300–17; re-
assertion of royal authority
in minority, 302–6; Magna
Carta takes root, 307–9;
arbitrary rule, 1232–4, 312–
17; personal rule, 338–68;
itinerary, 340; foreign
favourites and the English
nobility, 342–4; treatment
of widows, 420–1; of the
church, 347, 349;
exploitation of Jews, 349–
50; alienation of local
society, 350–3; hostility to
foreigners and national
identity, 353–4;
development of parliament,
354–9; continental policies,
307, 310–11, 313, 316;
Sicilian affair, 345–7; the
crisis of 1258, 359–61; in
the period of reform and
rebellion, 369–82; and
 Ireland, 306, 311–12, 316–
17; in Wales, 321–2, 324–6,
332, 515; dealings with
Scotland, 327–8, 331–2,
336, 366–8, 527; see also
Eleanor of Provence;
Westminster, abbey of
Henry I, king of France (1031–
60), 70, 71
Henry, earl of Northumbria (d.
1152), eldest son of King
David, 166, 185
Henry, eldest son of Henry II,
the Young King (d. 1183),
207, 223–5, 243
Hereford, 21, 169, 177, 195,
228, 299; Jews at Christina
wedding in, 490; its Mappa
Mundi, 25; bishops of, see
Foliot; Aigueblanche;
Cantilupe; earls of, see
Gloucester, Miles of; Bohun
Herefordshire, 110; case in its
county court, 64, 88–9
Hereward the Wake, 4, 6, 78
Heriot, defintion of, 86
Hertford, castle of, 285; earls
of, see Clare
Hexham abbey, chronicle kept
at on the Scottish invasion
of 1138, 16; abbot Richard
of, 184
Heylin ap Roger, 427
Hide, definition of, 63
Holderness (Yorks.), 202
Holland (Lincs.), 24, 37
Hollister, C. W., 159
Holmcultram abbey (Cumb.),
331
Holt, J. C., 255, 271, 273, 398
Homage, description of, 84,
405; see also England:
feudalism
Honorius III, pope (1216–27),
301
Honorius IV, pope (1285–8),
488
Honours, feudal, definition of,
 85; see also England:
feudalism
Hood, Robin, origins of stories,
352–3; see Wetherby,
Robert of
Hope, lordship, castle of, 506,
509
Hotot, family, 309
Houghton-cum-Wyton
(Hunts.), 412
Housecarls, see England: court
and household
How to Hold a Parliament
(Modus Tenendi
Parliamentum), 485
Howden, Roger of (d. c. 1201),
224, 232, 279; attitude to
Scots, 16–17; and Henry II,
192, 224–5; and the Lord
Rhys, 216, 229; on Richard,
247; as a historian, 544
Hugh, Earl, see Chester;
Montgomery
Hugh the Chanter, 139
Humiliati, the, 448
Hundred Roll Survey (1278–
9), 27, 32, 55, 58
Huntingdon, earldom, honour
of, 142, 160, 166, 181, 196,
210–11, 230, 328; see also
David, brother of William
the Lion; town of, 417, 419
Huntingdon, Henry of (d. c.
1160), 1, 6, 22, 45;
changing attitude to the
Normans, 4, 7, 8, 20; on
 Stephen’s reign, 170, 178,
189; on Scots, 182; as a
historian, 543
Huntingdonshire, 32; forest of,
309
Hywel ab Iorwerth of
Careleon, 224–5
Hywel ab Owain (d. 1170),
187
Hywel ap Goronwy (d. 1106),
113
Hywel ap Meurig, 502
Hywel Sais (d. 1204), son of
the Lord Rhys, 254
Hywel the Good, King (d.
950?), supposedly codifies
Welsh law, 108

Iâl, Yale, commote of, 214,

511
Ibstone (Bucks.), 401
Ilchester, Richard, bishop of
Winchester (1173–88), 209–
10
Infangenthief, meaning of, 67;
see also England, law and
order
Innocent III, pope (1198–
1216), 275–6, 285–7, 297
Inquiry of 1166 into knight
service, 84, 201
Interdict on England (1208–
14), 271–2, 275–6, 285–6
Inverness, 179; sheriffdom,
257, 328; mint of, 521
Investiture dispute, 135–6,
 138–9
Iorwerth ab Owain of
Gwynllwg, 164–5
Iorwerth ap Bleddyn (d. 1111),
109, 138, 141, 187
Ipswich (Suffolk): Franciscans
at, 450; men of, 456
Ireland: English conquest of,
216–23, 227, 267; John
and, 220, 247, 277–82,
297–8; in reign of Henry III,
306–7, 316–17 359, 390–1;
 and Edward I, 518;
connections with Britain,
48, 110, 117, 218; native
kingship, 216; castles and
cavalry in, 220–1; value to
English kings, 361, 518,
528; attached to English
crown, 362; Ordinance for
its Government (1177), 220;
structure of government,
220, 222–3, 280–2
Ireland, its people: English
attitudes to, 15, 23–4, 218;
 accommodation with
invaders, 222, 279
Irfon, river, 325, 510
Irthing, river, 121
Isabella, countess of Arundel
(d. 1282), 416, 421, 451
Isabella, heiress to earldom of
Gloucester, see Gloucester
Isabella, sister of Henry III,
empress (d. 1241), 344
Isabella of Angoulême, queen
of England (d. 1246), 264,
 342, 344; as queen, 270;
places power before
children, 304, 366
Is Coed (Ceredigion), commote
of, 514
Isle of Wight, 470

Jaffa, city of, 248

Jedburgh (Roxburghshire),
182; castle of, 226
Jerusalem, 25, 60, 161–2,
455–7, 459; fall of 1187,
 244
Jews, see England: Jews in
Joan, daughter of Henry II,
246–7, 262
Joan, lady of Wales, wife of
Llywleyn ab Iorwerth (d.
1237), 283, 320, 323, 325–
7, 450; her role, 319
Joan, daughter of King John,
queen of Scotland (d. 1238),
328; failure to produce
heirs, 332
John, king of England (1199–
1216), 8, 47, 458, 477;
under Richard, 245–8, 252–
3; his reign, 263–99;
appearance and early
reputation, 263–4;
suspicious nature, 265–6;
murders, 265; womanizing,
285, 299; loss of Normandy,
263–70; oppressive rule in
England, 270–6; his
revenues, 267, 271–2; the
Interdict and papacy, 275–6,
 286, 431; dealings with
Scotland, 277; with Ireland
and the Irish, 15, 218, 220,
223, 277–82, 317; with
Wales, 283–4, 515; his
charters to the Welsh rulers,
283, 528; recoinage of
1205, 35; see also Isabella of
Angoulême
John, son of Uhtred, 424
John le Scot, earl of Chester
(d. 1237), 323, 362
John of Wales, 371, 415 (on
women)
Joinville, Geoffrey de (d.
1314), 25, 361, 391
Joyner, William, 449

Kelso abbey (Roxburghshire),

181
Kenilworth (Warks.), 375, 377,
381, 418; dictum of (1266),
381
Kent, 27–8, 92, 172, 174, 176,
 286, 411
Kerrara, island of, 327
Kidwelly, Cydweli, 229, 254,
320, 325
Kildare (Ireland), 426
Kilwardby, Robert, archbishop
of Canterbury (1273–8), 477
Kineton hundred (Warks.), 32
King’s Cantrefs (Ireland), 279,
361.
King’s Lynn (Norfolk), 42–3,
48, 249; friars at, 450
Kingston Bagpuize (Berks.),
79, 81, 83
Kingston (on Thames),
Lambeth, treaty of (1217),
302
Kingston upon Hull, 43
Kinross, 368
Kintyre, 212, 329–30
Kirkby, John, bishop of Ely
(1286–90), 477
Kirkcudbright (Galloway), 330
Kirkgunzeon (Galloway), 331
Knapdale (Argyll), 388, 522;
Murchaid of, 389
Knaresborough (Yorks.), 274–
5, 292
Knights Templars and Knights
Hospitallers, 459
Knivetons, Derbyshire family,
55, 412
Knowles, Clive, 381
Kosminsky, E. A. 55, 58
Kyle (Ayrshire), lordship of,
181, 522
Kyme, Simon of, 288
Lacock abbey (Wilts.), 309,
451; foundress of, see
Longespee: Ela, countess of
Salisbury
Lacy, Alice de, countess of
Lincoln (d. 1311), 421–2;
Margaret de, countess of
Lincoln and Pembroke (d.
1266), 418, 421–2, 439, 458
Lacy, family of Pontefract,
earls of Lincoln from 1232:
 Gilbert I (d. c. 1093), 80,
83; Gilbert II (d. c. 1142–3),
160, 167; John (d. 1240),
42, 458; Edmund (d. 1258),
421–2; Henry (d. 1311),
478, 511
Lacy, family of Weobley,
Ludlow and then of Meath
and Ulster, 196, 315, 390;
Gilbert (d. by 1166), 174;
Hugh (d. 1186), in Meath,
219–22; Walter (d. 1241),
son of Hugh, 278, 280–1,
 289, 297, 361, 391; Hugh
(d. 1242), earl of Ulster,
brother of Walter, 279–80,
306, 317, 328, 330–1, 361;
William, 306
La Marche, counts of, 194
Lanark, 179; sheriffdom, 212,
521; mint at, 521
Lancashire, north of Ribble,
178, 185
Lancaster, 183, 195
Lancelene, Edith widow of
 William de, 451–2
‘Lands of the Normans’, 311
Lanfranc, archbishop of
Canterbury (1070–89), 5,
129–30; regent, 91–2, as
archbishop 98–102, 439;
relations with William I, 98;
claims to authority over
Britain, 106
Langley, Geoffrey de, 508
Langtoft (Lincs.), 418; Peter of,
525–6
Langton, Stephen, archbishop
of Canterbury (1207–28),
275–6, 286–7, 297, 305,
307, 312, 315; and Magna
Carta, 287; political ideas,
293
Langton, Walter, bishop of
Coventry and Lichfield
(1296–1321), 476
Laon (France), school of, 462
Largs (Ayrshire), battle of
(1263), 388
La Rochelle (Poitou), 266, 286
Lateran Councils, see under
Papacy
Launay, William de, 177
Launceston (Cornwall),
Augustinian house of, 445
Launditch (Norfolk), hundred
of, 487
Law, Roman, see under
Learning
‘Laws of Edward the
Confessor’, 293, 295
Laws of Henry I, Leges Henrici
Primi, 156, 406, 408
Learning: Schools /
Universities, 204–5, 462–4;
theology, 204; canon law,
97, 204; Roman law, 239,
295, 339, 356, 462, 473
Lechlade (Glos.), 44, 371, 385
Leicester, 175; abbey of, 487;
Jews of, 489; countesses of,
see Loretta; Montfort,
Eleanor de; earls of, see
 Beaumont; Montfort
Leicestershire, 4, 269
Leinster, 216, 219, 278, 281,
301, 306, 315–17; to Henry
II in wardship, 220; to the
Marshals, 246; division after
1245, 361
Legend of Fulk fitz Warin,
attitude to Welsh, 22
Leges Henrici Primi, see Laws of
Henry I
Le Mans, 194, 244
Leo IX, pope (1048–54), 97
Leofwine, brother of King
Harold, 73
Les Andelys (Normandy), 262
Lestrange, family of, 514
Lewes: chronicle by Norman
monk of, 8; priory of, 100,
443; battle of (1264), 377–8
Leybourne, family of, 476;
Roger, 374; William, 468
Liége (France), school of, 462
Life expectancy, 57, 411
Life of William Marshal, 266,
301; evaluation of, 547
Limerick, 219, 221, 278–9,
281
Lincoln, 30, 45, 161, 171, 173,
177, 468; battle of (1141),
167, 171, 187; battle of
(1217), 287, 302, 328;
castle of, 297, 299; Jews of,
349 (executions in 1255),
488, 490; school of, 463;
women at work in, 418;
bishopric of, its foundation,
 99; cathedral, 439, 441;
bishops of, see Alexander;
Avalon; Grosseteste; Sutton;
Wells; earldom of, 197, 300;
earls of, see Roumare; Gant;
Chester; Lacy of Pontefract;
countesses of, see Lacy
Lincoln, Aaron of, 41, 251
Lincoln, Colswein of, 79
Lincolnshire, 28, 79, 161, 288,
456; crime in, 483; knights
of, 308, 399
Lisbon, 456
Lisieux, John, bishop of, 150
Lisle, Brian de, 273, 275, 313
Literacy, pragmatic,
development of, 460–2
see also Learning
Little Dunmow (Essex), 285
Little Ogbourne (Wilts.),
peasants of, 413
‘Little St Hugh’ of Lincoln, 349
‘Little St William’ of Norwich,
249
Llanbadarn Fawr (Ceredigion),
clas church of, 442
Llandaff: bishopric of, 148
(extent), 366; obedience to
Canterbury, 139, 186, 436;
Urban, bishop of (1107–35),
139, 148, 432
Llanfaes (Anglesey), 39, 47;
Franciscans at, 321, 450
Llanllŷr (Ceredigion), nunnery
of, 451
Lloyd, Sir John, 299
Lloyd, Simon, 457
Llygad Gŵr, poet, 500–1
Llŷn, Lleyn (Gwynedd), cantref
of, 107, 318, 364
Llys and maerdref, meaning of
terms, 29; see also Wales:
economy of
Llysdulas, Dulas (Anglesey), 38
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth,
Llywelyn the Great (d.
1240), 47, 50, 306, 315,
362, 427, 446, 449, 495,
504, 527, 530; and John,
283–5, 287, 320; marriage,
283, 319, 506; French
alliance (1212), 284, 516;
principal section on, 318–
27; character, 318; triumphs
(1212–18), 284–5, 298–9,
303, 320; his vision of a
principality of Wales, 321,
326, 384, 505; titles, 323,
364; court and
governmental structures in
Gwynedd, 50, 495–9;
 marriages of his daughters,
24, 320, 323–4, 428;
question of succession, 326–
7
see also Joan, lady of Wales
Llywelyn ab Owain ap
Maredudd, 514
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, prince
of Wales (d. 1282), 364,
374, 466, 530; rise to
princedom, 382–86; concept
of the principality, 384,
500, 505, 529; as prince of
Wales (1267–82), 495–510;
abrasive rule, 384, 427,
500–1, 515; cash resources,
49, 498; court and
governmental structures in
Gwynedd, 50, 495–9; his
marriage, 502, 506;
evaluation of his policies,
502–5; respectful English
attitudes towards, 18–19,
22; eschews killing and
mutilation, 21–2
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd Maelor,
506
Llywelyn ap Maredudd (of
Meirionydd), 383
Lochaber, lordship of, 424,
522
Loches (Touraine), 261, 266,
283
Lochindorb (Moray), castle of,
424
Loire, river, 266
Lombard, Peter, 204
London, 30, 150, 198, 261,
456; Jews of, 249, 251; its
mint, 40; its size and pre-
eminence, 43–4; its food
supply, 45; in Stephen’s
reign, 163, 172, 174;
Richard’s, 261; John’s, 288,
299; in Montfortian period,
377–8; and Edward I, 468;
constitution (mayor,
aldermen) and social
divisions, 393–5; Baynards
Castle, 285; Holy Trinity,
 Aldgate, 151; Temple
church, 459; Tower of, 44,
172–3, 193, 354, 361, 363,
468, 484, 510, 512;
sheriffdom of (with
Middlesex), 161, 172, 175;
Franciscan and Dominican
houses, 449–50, 453; bishop
of, see Foliot
Longchamp, William, chief
justiciar, bishop of Ely
(1189–97), 246, 249–50,
252
Longespee: William, earl of
Salisbury (d. 1226), 286,
289, 299, 307; Ela, countess
of Salisbury (d. 1261), 299,
451; Matilda, 530;
Longespee heiress, 422
Longueville (Normandy), 300
Loretta, countess of Leicester
(d. 1266), widow of last
Beaumont earl, 450
Lorn: firth of, 327, 337; Ewen
of, 337; Alexander his son,
 389–90
Losinga, Herbert, bishop of
Norwich (c. 1095–1119),
444
Lothian, 11–14, 39, 117, 144,
181, 182, 184, 298; extent
of, 11; taken by king of
Scots, 118, 521; justiciar of,
257, 521
Louis VI, king of France, ‘the
Fat’ (1108–37), 142, 146–7,
169
Louis VII, king of France, ‘the
Pious’ (1137–80), 188, 191–
2, 223–5, 243
Louis VIII, king of France
(1223–6), 185, 307; in
England (1216–17), 23, 294,
297, 299–302, 310, 327
Louis IX, king of France, St
Louis (1226–70), 310, 340,
344–6, 364, 373, 377, 453,
489, 512
Louth (Ireland), 220–1
Louth, William of, bishop of
Ely (1290–8), 473
Louviers, peace of (1196), 261
Louvrecaire, mercenary
captain, 265, 268
Lowdham, Eustace of, 353
Lucy, countess of Chester (d.
after 1130), 420
Lucy, Richard de (d. 1179): as
justiciar, 199, 224; on
Norman ancestry, 7
Ludlow, 25
Lulach, king of Scotland
(1058), 179
Lundie (Angus), 336
Lusignan, family, 194, 266,
344, 359, 361; Guy, king of
Jerusalem and Cyprus, 248;
Hugh, count of La Marche
(d. 1219), 264; Hugh, count
of La Marche (d. 1248), 304,
307, 344; Geoffrey, 342,
361, 369, 390; Guy, 342,
369; see also Aymer; Valence
Lyons, council at (1245), 433

Mabinogion, The, 429

MacAlpin, Kenneth, king of
Scots (843–58), 117
Macbeth, ruler in Moray, king
of Scotland (1040–57), 116,
118, 179
MacCarthys, see Desmond
McFarlane, K. B., 409
MacHeth, family, 232, 256,
258, 522; Malcolm, earl of
 Ross, (d. 1168), 179, 211,
232, 256; Donald his son,
211; Aed, son of Donald (d.
1186), 232; Kenneth (d.
1215), 298, 328
Macmedethyn, Cospatric, 424
MacMurrough, Dermot, king of
Leinster (d. 1171), 216–17,
222; Aife his daughter, 217
MacSorleys (descendants of
Somerled), 212, 329, 388;
see also Lorn, Ewen of;
 Garmoran, Dugald of; Bute;
changing culture of family,
389–90
MacTaggart, earls of Ross:
Farquhar, (d. 1251), 329;
William his son, 335, 387
MacWilliam, family
(descendants of William fitz
Duncan), 232, 256, 258,
335, 522; Donald (d. 1187),
232; Guthred (d. 1212),
277; Donald (d. 1215), 298,
328; Gilleasbuig (d. 1230),
 328, 330; end of their
challenge, 328–9
Maddadson, Harald, earl of
Caithness and Orkney (d.
1206), 183, 256
Madog ap Llywelyn, 513
Madog ap Maredudd (d.
1160), 186–7, 213–14
Madog ap Rhirid (blinded
1113), 141
Maelgwn (d. 1231), son of the
Lord Rhys, 254, 282–4, 287,
 323–4
Maelgwn Fychan ap Maelgwyn
(d. 1257), 325–6, 364
Maelienydd, cantref, lordship
of, 186, 228, 320, 324, 362
Magna Carta (1215), 87, 297,
305, 395, 458; origins, 202,
245, 260, 271; events
leading up to, 286–8; issue,
289; contents, 289–91;
grievances and ideas
behind, 291–6; caps. 39 and
40 (lawless dispossession,
denial, sale of justice), 289,
292, 308, 314; cap. 61
(security clause, ‘community
of the land’), 10, 291–2,
297, 308; 1216 version,
301; 1217 version, 302;
1225 definitive version,
307–8; consequences,
subsequent history, 308–9,
314–16, 339–40, 343, 348–
9, 351, 357, 420–1, 478,
491; confirmations of 1297
 and 1300, 477; see also
Charter of the Forest;
England: women; England:
nobility; England: knights
and gentry; England:
peasantry
Magnus, king of Norway, 388
Magnus Barelegs, king of
Norway, 132, 388
Magnus Olafson, king of Man
(1254–65), 337, 387–8;
Godfrey, his illegitimate
 son, 389
Maid of Norway, Margaret,
granddaughter of Alexander
III, 524, 528
Maine, county of, 71, 75, 103,
129, 131–3, 137, 142, 191,
263, 265, 267; final loss,
264; expulsion of Jews
from, 489
Malcolm III, king of Scotland
(1058–93), 4, 116, 164,
232, 426, 527; in Moray,
 120; southern invasions,
120–1, 129, 145, 183; and
succession, 123–4; marriage
to Margaret, 120, 121–4;
death, 121, 130
Malcolm IV, king of Scotland
(1153–65), 185–6, 230;
surrenders English
possessions, 195, 210; reign,
210–13; and Henry II, 210–
11; revolt against, 212; in
Galloway, 212; use of ‘the
kingdom of Scotland’, 13
Maldon, battle of, 65
Malebisse, Richard, 250
Malmesbury (Wilts.), 188
Malmesbury, William of (d. c.
1143), 6, 50, 71, 78, 99,
100–1, 141, 150; his mixed
birth, 5; attitude to Norman
Conquest, 3, 79–80, 99; to
other peoples of Britain, 15;
to French, 23; on England
and Normandy, 91; on
Anglo-Norman nobility,
 126; on Henry I, 134–5; on
Stephen and his reign, 164,
167–8, 178; as a historian,
543
Malsnechtai, ruler of Moray (d.
1085), 120
Maltravers, William, 160, 167
Man, Isle of, 13, 211–12, 327–
9, 337; kingship of, 117;
overlordship of king of
Norway, 132; taken by king
of Scots, 387–90, 425, 528;
 its chronicle, 389; kings of,
see Godred Crovan; Olaf;
Reginald; Harald; Magnus
Mandeville, Geoffrey I, earl of
Essex (d. 1144), 161, 172–3,
175; Geoffrey II (d. 1166),
202; William (d. 1189), 202;
see also fitz Peter, Geoffrey
Mandeville, Geoffrey de (d.
1216), earl of Essex (son of
Geoffrey fitz Peter), 287,
299
Manfred, king of Sicily, 347
Mansel, John, 352, 367, 446
Map, Walter, 148, 239, 415
(on women)
Mar, earl, earldom of, 119,
182, 336; William, earl of
(d. 1281), 335, 388, 522;
common army of, 336
Maredudd ab Owain (d. 1265),
364, 384; sons of, 507, 510
Maredudd ap Bleddyn (d.
1132), 144
Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg (d.
1271), 364, 384, 500, 503,
527
Margam abbey (Glamorgan),
426, 445; its chronicle, 314
Margaret, daughter of Henry
III, queen of Scotland (d.
1275), 367, 386, 429, 519
Margaret, queen of Scotland
(d. 1093), 4, 29, 50, 120,
130, 132, 144, 151, 164,
232; piety, 122; church
 policy, 122–3; and
succession, 123; and court
ceremonial, 124
Margaret of Provence, queen
of France, 341, 346; her
joke, 429–30
Marham (Norfolk), abbey of,
451
Marie de Coucy, queen of
Scotland, 332; and role as
regent, 366, 368
Mark, Philip, 275, 292, 305
Mark, the, value of, 40
Markyate (Beds), priory of,
452
Markyate, Christina of, 4, 417,
419, 451–2
Marmion, Philip (of
Tamworth), 379
Marriage portion, maritagium,
meaning of term, 88
Marsh, Adam, 372, 449
Marshal, family, 320; John,
301; William (d. 1219), lord
of Leinster, Longueville,
Chepstow and earl of
Pembroke, 24–5, 50, 246,
263, 277–8, 280, 289, 297,
299, 309, 409–10, 459;
Stephen saves life, 188;
marriage, 246, 269, 301;
gets Pembroke, 282; as
regent, 300–4, 431; his
values, 300–1, 303–4;
William II (d. 1231), 7, 305–
 6, 312, 324–5, 515; Richard
(d. 1234), 312–17; Gilbert
(d. 1241), 316–17, 362;
Walter (d. 1245), 363, 421;
end of earldom, 342, 363,
365
Martham (Norfolk), 31, 58
Marton (Yorks.), priory of, 452
Mass, see Religion
Matilda, daughter of Fulk V,
count of Anjou, 142
Matilda, daughter of Henry I,
 ‘the Empress’ (d. 1167),
142–3, 163, 166, 174, 175,
196, 200; oaths to accept,
146, 161, 164; marriage to
Geoffrey of Anjou, 147;
styled ‘the Empress’, 161;
challenges for throne, 170–
3; character, 172–3; leaves
England, 188
Matilda (d. 1130–1), daughter
of Waltheof, queen of
Scotland, 142, 151, 160,
165
Matilda, Edith-Matilda, queen
of England (d. 1118), 4, 84,
135–6; role as queen, 150–2
Matilda of Boulogne, queen of
England (d. 1152), 164,
166, 172–3
Matilda of Flanders, queen of
England (d. 1083), 71, 76,
94–7, 150
Mauclerc, Walter, bishop of
Carlisle (1223–46), 314
Maulay, Peter de, 275, 292,
 305, 313–4
Mayhew, Nicholas, 40, 49
Mearns, earldom of, 118
Mears Ashby (Northants.),
peasants of, 414
Meath, 25, 219–22, 278–9,
281, 297, 306, 361, 391;
king of, 218
Mechain (Powys), 319
Meirionydd, Merioneth,
cantref of, 107, 229, 318,
363, 383; uchelwyr in, 429;
 peasants, 55, 427; local
clergy, 442; becomes
county, 511, 515
Melisende, queen of
Jerusalem, 161–2, 171–2
Melrose (Roxburghshire),
abbey of, 39, 124, 181; its
chronicle, 11–12, 212, 375;
abbot of, see Roxburgh,
Reginald of
Melville, family, 257
Menteith, earldom of, 119,
 182, 388; see Comyn, fitz
Alan
Mercadier, mercenary captain,
258, 268
Merlin, 21
Merton, Walter of, 401
Merton College, Oxford, 56,
487
Meulan (French Vexin), 168;
count of, 265; for individual
counts, see Beaumont
Milford Haven, 218
Mints, in England, 30, 40; in
Scotland, 48, 183, 521
Miracles, see Religion
Mirebeau, battle of (1202),
264–5
Mitford (Northumberland),
121
Mold, 186, 363
Molis, Nicholas, 364, 516
Monasticism, spiritual reasons
for endowing monasteries,
443–4; see also England:
 religious orders; Scotland:
religious orders; Wales:
religious orders
Monchensy, Denise de, teaches
her children French, 9, 418
Money, meaning of pounds,
shillings, pence and marks,
40
Monmouth, 110, 116
Monmouth, Geoffrey of, 1,
187; his History of the Kings
of Britain, 20, 218
Montbegon, Roger de, 274,
287
Montfort, Eleanor de (d.
1275), countess of Leicester,
sister of Henry III, widow of
William Marshal (d. 1231)
and wife of Simon de
Montfort, 306, 341, 372–3,
417–18; her diet, 33, 45
Montfort, Eleanor de (d.
1282), wife of Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd, 502, 504, 506,
510
Montfort, family in Scotland,
257
Montfort, Peter de (d. 1265),
360, 380
Montfort, Simon de, earl of
Leicester (d. 1265), 12,
340–1, 344–5, 360, 369,
426, 449, 455, 462, 466,
493; his idealism and self-
interest, 372–3; rules
England, 374–81, 385;
Henry his eldest son, 380, 462
Montgomery, 111, 320, 322,
495; new castle at, 311,
324; treaty of (1267), 386,
495, 498, 501–5
Montgomery, family, 69, 111;
Roger, earl of Shrewsbury
(d. 1094), 76, 110–11, 131;
Arnulf, earl of Pembroke,
111, 130, 137; Hugh, earl of
Shrewsbury (d. 1098), 131,
133; conspirator in 1095,
132; see Bellême, Robert of
Moray, 232, 256, 557, 277,
 298; detachment from
Scottish realm, 11, 117,
120, 521; re-integration by
King David, 179, 181–3,
521; bishopric of, 145; 257;
church of, 442; rulers of, see
Malsnechtai; Angus
Moray firth, 117, 182, 521
Morcar, earl of Northumbria,
61, 66–7, 72–3, 76, 78, 102
Moreville, family, 522; Hugh
(d. 1162), 181, 184, 210;
 Richard, 226, 258
Morgan ab Owain of
Gwynllwg, gains Caerleon,
164–5, 187–8
Morgan Gam of Afan, 325
Morgan of Caerleon (d. 1248),
324, 327
Mortain: county of
(Normandy), 142, 163, 247;
Robert, count of, 71, 76
Mortimer, family, 365; Hugh
(d. c. 1150), 186; Hugh (d.
 1180), 195; Ralph (d. 1246),
24, 324, 362; Roger (d.
1214), 228; Roger (d. 1282),
24, 371, 377, 385, 417, 478,
502, 506, 514; Matilda, wife
of Roger (d. 1301), 380, 417
Moulton, Thomas of, 288
Mounth, the (range of
mountains west of
Aberdeen), 39, 48
Mountsorrel (Leics.), 177, 288
Mowbray, Robert de, earl of
 Northumbria (deprived
1095), 121, 130, 131
Mowbray family: Roger (d.
1188), 226; William (d.
1224), 273–4, 287, 302
Mucegros, Robert, 361
Munster, 220, 278, 281
Murdac, Henry, archbishop of
York (1147–53), 176, 185
Murder fine, murdrum, 370,
413; introduction of, 102
Murry (Moray), family of,
 328–9, 522; Freskin, 181
Mynydd Carn, battle of
(1081), 109–11, 115 Nairn,
233; sheriffdom of, 257

Neath (Glamorgan), 325

Nefynn (Llŷn), 47
Nest, daughter of Rhys ap
Tewdwr, 21, 140, 143;
descendants of, 217
Neufmarché, Bernard of (d. c.
1125), 111, 130
Neville: Alan de, 198, 226;
Hugh de, 285, 299; Ralph
de, chancellor, bishop of
Chichester (1224–44), 351–
2, 358
Newark (Notts), castle of, 299,
303
Newburgh, William of (d.
1198), 169, 178, 210, 225–
6; atttitude to Scots, 15–16;
on Henry II, 195, 218, 239,
243–4; on Richard, 257; on
Eleanor of Aquitaine, 245;
 on Jews, 248, 250; on
Scottish royal power, 257;
as a historian, 544
Newbury (Berks.), 188
Newcastle upon Tyne, 43–4,
48, 129, 165, 336;
beginnings of, 120–1;
obtained by King David,
166, 183, 186; recovered by
Henry II, 195; its rulers,
393, 395
New Forest (Hants.), 92, 134
New Ross (Leinster), 280
Nith, river, 212
Nogent, Gilbert of, 457
Norfolk, 37, 157; earls of, see
Bigod, Ralph; men of, 2;
yields in, 36
Norham on Tweed, 121, 146,
298; treaty of (1209), 277,
280
Normandy, 31, 198; political
and governmental structure
before 1066, 68–71, 74;
struggle to control after
1066, 129, 131, 138, 141,
143, 169, 173, 193–4, 223–
5, 245, 253, 261–2, 557;
exigencies of that struggle,
91, 148, 260, 291;
exchequer in, 154, 200, 258;
revenues from, 200, 267;
loss of (1204), 264–70;
difficulties of reconquest,
310–11; resignation of
claims to, 346; significance
of its loss, 8, 270, 516
Normandy: nobility in before
1066, 68–70; ethos of
knighthood and warfare, 70;
in Britain, 61–124 passim;
structure of Anglo-Norman
politics, 125–8, 557; pride
in achievement and
attitudes to English, 7;
violence and
accommodation in Wales,
114–16; attitude to Welsh,
21; foundation of religious
houses in England and
 Wales, 100–1; see also
England: nobility
North of England, harrying of
(1070), 77–8
Northallerton (Yorks.), 166
Northampton, 42, 78, 198,
225; council at (1164), 206;
assize of (1176) 235; battle
of (1264), 377; town’s
constitution, 392–3; school
of, 464
Northamptonshire, 102, 288,
 379
Northerners, the, in John’s
reign, 274–5, 287–9
Northumberland,
Northumbria, 31, 120, 146,
277; annexation by King
David, 165–7, 183, 186;
recovered by Henry II, 195,
210–11; invaded by William
the Lion, 224–5; his claims
to, 255; King Alexander
invades, 298–9; claims
resigned, 327–8; earls of, see
 Siward; Tostig; Gospatric;
Waltheof; Mowbray, Robert
de
North Waltham (Hants.), 57
Norway, imports from, 46;
king of, 103; overlordship
over Shetland, Man and
Western Isles, 117, 132–3,
211, 232, 256, 330, 337,
387–9; for individual kings,
see Harold Hardrada;
Magnus Barelegs; Hakon;
Magnus
Norwich, 30–1, 43, 78, 195,
225, 249; friars at, 450;
foundation of bishopric, 99;
bishops of, see Losinga;
Grey, Nostell priory
(Yorks.), 144
Nottingham, 76, 177, 198,
285; sheriff of, 156, 275,
353; William of, 450, 452

Oakley (Bucks.), 288, 292, 396

O’Briens, 218, 278; Donnel,
king of Munster, 278
O’Connors, kings of Connacht,
278, 390; Rory, (d. 1198),
216, 218; Cathal Crovderg
(d. 1224), 279–80, 282,
312; Aedh, son of Cathal, (d.
1228), 279, 312; Felim, son
of Cathal (d. 1265), 316,
364; Aedh, son of Felim (d.
1274), 390
Odo, bishop of Bayeux, 71, 75,
91–2, 102, 170
Offa’s Dyke, 1, 111
Oilly: Robert d’ (d. c. 1093),
81; Henry d’ (d. 1232), 396,
408
Olaf, king of Man (c. 1114–
53), 211
Olaf, king of Man (1226–37),
329–30
O’Melaghlin, Donnel and his
brother Art, 222
O’Neil, see Cenel Eoghain
Orbec (Normandy), 11, 141
Orderic Vitalis (d. c. 1142),
 27, 50, 75–6, 84, 105, 112,
115, 126–7, 133, 141, 142,
150; on Henry I, 134, 137,
149, 157, 159; on absence
of English castles, 65, 74; on
harrying of the north, 77–8;
on women, 415–16; as a
historian, 542–3
Ordinance for the Government
of Scotland (1305), 525
Orford (Norfolk), 224
Orkney, 117, 132, 256, 387–8;
 bishopric of, 328; earl of,
12, 232; see Thorfinn;
Gilbertson
Orwell, Warin of, 434
Osney (Oxford), abbey of, 464;
its chronicle, 338, 354, 493
Oswestry, 186, 213, 507
Otto of Brunswick (d. 1218),
king, emperor of the
Romans, 255, 262, 264–5,
284, 286
Otto, papal legate, 434
Ottobuono, papal legate, 381,
431, 434, Ouse, river, 72
Owain ap Cadwgan ap
Bleddyn (d. 1116), 140–1,
143
Owain ap Gruffudd ap Cynan,
Owain Gwynedd (d. 1170),
165, 427; expands
Gwynedd’s frontiers, 186–7,
213–15; first known contact
by Welsh ruler with king of
France, 214–15, 284, 516;
as prince of the Welsh, 215,
 364
Owain ap Gruffudd ap
Llywelyn, 364, 383
Owain ap Maredudd (d. 1274),
428
Owain Brogyntyn, descendants
of, 514
Owain Cyfeiliog (d. 1197), 445
Oxford, 172–3, 220, 377;
council at (1139), 170;
parliament of 1258, 369–70;
priory of St Frideswide, 464;
 social divisions amongst
townsmen, 393; university,
371, 463–4; see also
Provisions of Oxford
Oxfordshire, 32, 177, 378;
knights in, 399, 401

Pacy (Normandy), 202

Painscastle, Castle Matilda
(Elfael), 254, 325–6
Painter, Sidney, 49
Palmer, J. J. N. 82
Pandulf, papal legate, 304,
431
Papacy, the pope, headship of
the church, 97, 204; general
role in Britain (legates,
appeals, judges delegate,
taxation, provisions), 431–4;
Third Lateran Council, 249,
434; Fourth Lateran
Council, 235, 434–5, 437,
448; and Sicilian affair,
345–6, 360; see also
England: church; Scotland:
 church; Wales: church;
individual popes
‘Paper Constitution’ (1244),
358–9
Paris, 44, 60, 459; school,
university of, 204, 462–3;
Sainte-Chapelle, 453; treaty
of (1259), 346, 373, 516
Paris, Matthew (d. 1259), 1, 6,
263, 339, 352, 449, 463,
498; positive attitude to
Welsh and Scots, 17–19, 21,
 335; hostility to foreigners
in
England, 23, 354; on women,
415–16; as a historian, 547
Parthenay, family of, 194
Paschal II, pope (1099–1118),
136
Passelewe, Robert, 314
Paston (soke of Peterborough),
34
Pavia, 31
Paynel, Fulk, 311
Peak (Derby), 377
Peatling Magna (Leics.),
peasants of, 380, 414
Pecham, John, archbishop of
Canterbury (1279–82), 433,
441, 467–8, 477; in Wales,
507, 509, 513, 530
Pembroke, lordship of, 21, 47,
114, 131–2, 140, 216–17,
299, 301, 360, 383, 527;
Normans in area, 111–12;
taken by Henry I, 138, 147;
 resigned by Stephen to
Clares, 165; resumed by
Henry II, 213; resigned by
John to William Marshal,
282; with William de
Valence, 342, 344, 361;
castle at, 111, 320; earls of,
see Clare; Marshal
Pennlyn (Powys), 319
Percy, family, 398
Périgueux, 211
Perth, 12, 29, 48, 180, 183,
 212, 230; treaty of (1266),
388–9, 495; mint of, 521
Peterborough, abbey of, 34;
chronicle of (Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle), 169; on
Stephen’s ‘anarchy’, 177;
description of, 542
Petition of the Barons (1258),
354
Pevensey (Sussex), 72, 195
Peverel, William, 455
Peverel inheritance, 224, 274,
 377
Philip I, king of France (1060–
1108), 103
Philip II, Augustus, king of
France (1180–1223), 243–4,
246–8, 252–3, 264, 266,
285–6, 307; revenues of,
267, 277
Pipard, Gilbert, 220–1
Pitchford, family of, 317
Plessis, John de (d. 1263), earl
of Warwick in right of his
 wife, 314
Poitiers, 266
Poitiers, Richard of, 193
Poitiers, William of, 31, 71–2
Poitou, county of 46, 194–5,
223, 266, 286, 303, 344;
loss of, 307, 346
Poll tax of 1377, 32
Pontefract (Yorks.), 160, 167
Ponthieu, county of, 31, 132,
265, 467, 516
Pontoise, John de, bishop of
 Winchester (1282–1304),
437
Poore, Richard le, bishop of
Salisbury and Durham
(1217–28–37), 305, 437–8
Portskewet (Gwent), 110, 115
Portsmouth, 46, 284
Power, Daniel, 264
Powicke, Sir Maurice, 312
Powys, 109, 133, 141, 143–4,
161, 213, 215, 283, 318;
area of, 106–7; permanent
division of, 213, 319;
northern Powys (Powys
Fadog), 229, 363; authority
of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in,
500; complaints of men,
507; survival of some of its
rulers after Edwardian
conquest, 514; southern
Powys (Powys
Wenwynwyn), 254, 320,
322, 324, 326, 363, 384,
498; as a marcher barony,
514; rulers of, see Cadwgan
 ap Bleddyn; Madog ap
Maredudd; Gwenwynwyn;
Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn
Provence, county of, 341,
344
Provisions of Oxford (reforms
of 1258–9), 369–75, 378
Provisions of Westminster
(1259), 370–1, 382
Pugeys, Imbert, 342
Puiset, Hugh de, chief
justiciar, bishop of Durham
 (1153–95), 184, 226, 246,
249, 252
Purbeck, Isle of, 45
Pyrton (Surrey), 56

Quency, family of, 285, 398,

425; Saer, earl of
Winchester (d. 1219), 287–
8; Roger, earl of Winchester
and lord in Galloway (d.
1264), 331
Quo Warranto inquiries, 469–
 70, 478

Radnor, lordship of, 254, 283,

325, 502
Ralegh, William, justice,
bishop of Norwich and
Winchester (1239–43–50),
339, 347–8, 439, 546
Ralph, earl of Norfolk, 102
Ralph, prior of Caen
(d’Escures), archbishop of
Canterbury (1114–22), 139
Ramsey (Hunts.), 173
Ranulf le Meschin, 140
Rape, crime of, 416–17
Ravenstone (Leics.), 178
Razi, Z, 411
Reading abbey, 140
Redvers, Baldwin de, earl of
Devon (d. 1155), 168
Regenbald, royal chancellor,
91–2
Regents in England after
Conquest, 75, 91
Reginald, king of Man (1188–
1226), 329–30
Relief, definition of, 85; in the
1100 Coronation Charter,
135; in Magna Carta, 290–1
Religion: afterlife and
purgatory, 434; confession
and mass, 434–5, 438, 454;
alms-giving to poor, 339,
446–7; the Psalms, 453;
pilgrimages and relics, 453–
4; miracles and divine
intervention, 225, 339, 347,
 453–4; sermons and
teaching, 438, 441, 448–50,
455; see also Crusades;
Virgin Mary
Renfrew, 181, 212, 329; mint
at, 521
Revel, Richard, 403
Rheims, cathedral of, 430;
Master Henry de, 430
Rhineland, 31, 46
Rievaulx abbey (Yorks.), 140,
181
Rhodri ab Owain Gwynedd (d.
1095), 228
Rhodri ap Gruffudd ap
Llywelyn, 383
Rhosyr (Anglesey), 39, 499,
512
Rhuddlan (Tegeingl), 110,
186, 213, 215, 227, 363,
508–10; Edwardian castle
at, 506, 511–12; part of
sheriffdom of Flint, 511
Rhuddlan, Robert of (d. 1093),
 111–12, 130; death, 112,
115, 130–1
Rhys ap Gruffud, grandson of
Ednyfed Fychan, 500
Rhys ap Gruffudd, the Lord
Rhys (d. 1197), 57–8, 187,
213–14, 217, 427, 445, 451;
and Ceredigion, 214–15;
pre-eminence and style of
rule, 215–16, 227–9, 504;
and Henry II, 215–16, 223–
7 (1173–4 rebellion), 228–9,
527; and Richard I, 253–4;
 quarrels with and between
sons, 254, 282; mutual
compliments with Clares,
21, 228–9
Rhys ap Maredudd (d. 1292),
502, 507, 510; his rebellion,
504, 511, 513, 515
Rhys ap Tewdwr (d. 1093), 21,
111, 116, 130, 140, 143; his
ancestry, 108; establishes
self in Deheubarth, 109,
110; submission to William
I, 110
Rhys Fychan (d. 1271), 384
Rhys Gryg (d. 1233), son of
the Lord
Rhys, 254, 324
Rhys Ieuanc ap Rhys ap
Maelgwn Fychan (d. 1302),
507, 510
Rhys Wyndod ap Rhys Fychan,
503, 507, 510
Ribble, river, 178
Riccardi of Lucca, bankers,
471–2, 474–5, 477, 490
Richard I, duke of Normandy
(942–96), 68
Richard I, king of England
(1189–99), 194, 223, 225,
243–4, 268, 439; reign,
245–53, 258–62; character
and outlook, 245, 247; and
ritual, 294–5, 338; on the
English, 7, 258; frees
Scotland, 255, 524, 527; his
crusade, 247–8; Jews, their
situation and massacre,
248–52; developments in
 government, 259–61; road
to Magna Carta, 260–1; loss
and recovery in Normandy,
253, 261–2
Richard II, king of England
(1377–99), 24
Richmond (Yorks.), 274
Rimpton (Somerset), 33, 37
Rivallis, Peter de, 313–15
Robert, duke of Normandy
(1027–35), 68
Robert Curthose, duke of
 Normandy (1087–1106), 96,
103, 120–1, 125–6, 131,
135–7, 455; character, 128
Roches, Peter de, bishop of
Winchester (1205–38), 276,
286–7, 302, 304–5, 307,
312–16, 338–9, 349; ideas
about royal power, 315
Roches, William de, 264
Rochester, castle of, 129, 169,
298–9, 377, 494
Rockingham, council of
 (1095), 131; castle of, 305
Roffe, David, 103
Roger, bishop of Worcester
(1164–79), 208, 438
Roger, earl of Hereford (son of
William fitz Osbern), 102,
110
Roland, or Lachlan (son of
Uhtred) of Galloway (d.
1200), 231, 258
Romans, Humbert of, 449
Rome, council at (1099), 135
Romney marsh (Kent), 34
Romsey (Hants.), abbey of,
123, 135
Ros: Robert de (d. 1226), 261,
274, 298; Robert de (d.
1270), 367
Roscommon, 390
Ross, 179, 557, 277, 328;
bishopric of, 232; base for
challenges to throne, 232,
298; earls of, see MacHeth;
MacTaggart
Rothesay (Bute), 329
Rouen (Normandy), 41, 225,
262, 266; archbishopric of,
99; priory, 263; Walter,
archbishop of, 252
Roumare, William de (d. c.
1159–61), 161, 171, 196
Roxburgh, 180; castle of, 226,
230, 255; mint of, 521;
Reginald of, abbot of
Melrose, 12
Rubin, Miri, 435
Runnymede, 289
Rushen, abbey of (Isle of
Man), 389
Russell, John, 387
Rycote, Great Haseley (Oxon.),
54; Fulks of, 397, 399, 401,
402
Rye (Sussex), 45
Ryedale, Walter of, 182

St Albans, abbey of, 1, 18;

abbot of, 198; chronicler of
 (successor to Matthew
Paris), 370, 376; town, 393
St Andrews: Augustinian
canons of cathedral, 180,
446; bishop, bishopric of,
13, 49, 123, 144, 183, 213,
436; claims to metropolitan
authority, 145, 147, 213,
230; candidates for
bishopric 1178 (Hugh and
John the Scot), 230–1;
bishops of, see Fothad;
Turgot; Bernham; Wishart
St Asaphs, bishop, bishopric
of, 436, 497; Anian, bishop
of (1268–93), 500
St-Calais, William de, bishop
of Durham (1090–96)
St Clears, 254, 320
St Davids, 107, 132, 436;
claims to metropolitan
authority, 186, 282; bishops
of, see Bernard; Wallensis St
Denis, John de, 465
St-Evroult (Normandy),
 monastery of, 69, 115
St George, Master James of,
511–12
St Ives (Hunts.), 42
St Martin, Alexander de, 180–
1
St-Saens (Normandy), 143
St-Valéry, Matilda de (Matilda
de Braose), 254, 417–18;
defiance and murder, 280
Saladin, 244, 247
Salerno, school of, 462;
 Charles of, 489, 516
Salisbury: oath of (1086), 105,
135, 201; foundation of
bishopric, 99; bishops of, see
Salisbury, Roger; Poore; earl
and countess of, see
Longespee
Salisbury, Edward of, 79
Salisbury, John of, 208, 371;
his Policraticus, 205, 293
Salisbury, Roger, bishop of
(1107–39), 138–9, 158; as
 Henry I’s chief minister,
152–4, 199–200; and
Stephen, 163, 170
Samson, abbot of Bury St
Edmunds (d. 1211), 34, 446
Sanchia of Provence, 343
Sandwich, battle of (1217),
302
Saumur, 266
Savoy, house of, Savoyards,
341, 344, 354, 359, 361;
Boniface, archbishop of
 Canterbury (1241–70), 342,
344, 437–8, 447; Peter (d.
1268), 54, 342, 359–60,
373; Thomas, count of
Flanders, lord of Piedmont,
341, 347; William, bishop
elect of Valence (d. 1239),
342, 348
Say, family of, 111, 398
Sayers, Jane, 432
Scone (Perthshire), 13, 118,
183, 525; Augustinian house
 at, 144, 446
Scota, legendary foundress of
Scotland, 13
Scotland, meanings of term:
between Forth, Spey and
central Highlands
(excluding Moray), 11, 117,
521; as whole area north of
Forth and Clyde, 118; as
area of modern Scotland
(the sense in which it is
generally used in this
index), 13–14, 523–4; see
also Argyll; Caithness;
Cumbria; Galloway; Lothian;
Man, Isle of; Western Isles
Scotland, its economy: share
of Britain’s land mass, area
over 600 feet and wealth,
26; size of population 37–8;
slavery and slave trade, 16,
19, 30, 52, 121–2; balance
between arable and pastoral
farming, 28–9, 39; first
coins minted by King David,
29, 47, 183; coins of King
 William, 257; Alexander III,
519; growth of money
supply and urban
infrastructure, 29, 47–8;
wool production and
exports, 39, 48
Scotland, church in, 26, 49,
441–2, 445–6; under
Malcolm III and Queen
Margaret, 122–3; David,
180–1; Malcolm IV, 212–13;
William the Lion, 230–1;
Alexander II, 332–3;
 bishoprics and bishops, 145,
231, 435–6, 442, 522;
resistance to the claims of
York, independence under,
relations with pope, 145,
147, 213, 230–1, 333, 435;
parish structure, 180
Scotland, religious orders:
communities of Culdees,
122, 443, 445; introduction
of regular orders, 122–3,
180–1, 445–6, 450
(nunneries); friars, 449;
 templars and hospitallers,
459
Scotland, its various peoples
and limited area occupied
by the Scots, 1–2, 11, 117;
Scots regarded as
barbarians, 16, 19;
remoulding of Scottish
identity in 12th and 13th
centuries, 11–14, 18–19;
language, balance between
English and Gaelic, 12;
sense of identity and
 community shaped by
crown, 523–4
Scotland, nobility of:
introduction of Anglo-
Normans, 181–2, 212, 256–
7; relations between native
Scottish nobility and
newcomers, and relations
between nobility and crown,
12–13, 182–3, 211–12, 231–
3, 257–8, 328–31, 334–5,
387–90, 423–4, 522–3, see
also Scotland: earldoms and
 provincial lordships; cross-
border landholders and
wider world, 24–5, 425–6
Scotland, family structures,
335, 423; position of
women, 423–4; gentry, 423–
4; peasantry 53–5; size of
political community, 523
Scotland, feudalism in, 182,
256–7, 423–4
Scotland, Scottish kingship:
succession to throne, 118,
123; inauguration
ceremony, 13, 118, 336;
attempts to secure
coronation, 331–2, 336–7,
529; king’s sense of
authority and independence,
145, 256, 518–19; king of
England’s assertion of
overlordship, 106, 120–1,
130, 132, 144, 166, 211,
226–7, 255 (abandoned),
328, 367, 518–19, 524,
527–8; structure and small
extent of early kingdom,
116–19; expansion of, 13–
14, 117, 179, 212, 231–3,
256, 330–1; 387–91
(annexation of Man and
Western Isles); for royal
control over the church, see
Scotland, church; for
relations with nobility, see
Scotland, nobility;
achievement of monarchy,
comparisons with England,
Gwynedd and Capetian
France, 13–14, 521–4; see
also individual kings;
MacHeth; MacWilliam
Scotland, queenship in, 96,
122–4, 179, 230, 277, 366,
368; creation of family
relationship with English
court, 328, 332, 366–8, 386,
519; see also Margaret;
Matilda, daughter of
Waltheof (note her early
death); Ermengarde de
Beaumont; Joan, daughter
 of King John; Marie de
Coucy; Margaret, daughter
of Henry III Scotland, royal
court and household,
steward, chamber, 124,
179–80, 520–1; ritual and
display, 124, 366–7 (royal
seal); household forces, 180,
332
Scotland, chancery and written
records, 179–80, 256, 424,
520–1; absence, equivalent
of exchequer, 179, 257, 520
Scotland, royal shires and
thanages, 117–18, 180, 182;
introduction of sheriffs, 180,
257–8, 389, 521; local
justices, 180; justiciars of
Lothian, Scotland north of
Forth and Galloway, 257,
328, 521
Scotland, law and order, pleas
of crown, 119, 180, 257–8,
333; process by ‘dittay’,
333;
Scotland, development of
 common law, 333–5, 522–3;
novel dissasine, 333;
mortancestry, 333; brieve of
right, 257; brieve of terce
(for dower), 423; brieves ‘of
course’, 333, 521; private
courts, 333–6
Scotland, earldoms and
provincial lordships: areas
under mormaers or earls,
118–19; ‘outer ring’
earldoms, 182, 257–8, 334,
423, 522; new lordships,
 181–2, 212, 328–9;
earldoms in native and
‘Anglo-Norman’ hands, 328,
423–5, 522
Scotland, armies and fleets,
17, 119, 182, 212, 225, 257,
330, 332, 387; castles in,
180–2, 230–2, 329, 424; for
ravaging, see Warfare
Scutage, definition of, 201
Seagrave: family of, 476;
Stephen of, 314–15, 352;
Nicholas of, 478
Seals: of king of England, 74,
294, 346; of Queen Matilda
(d. 1118), 152; of king of
Scotland, 366–7; of the
guardians, 12–13; of
Scottish nobility, 424; of
Welsh rulers, 429; of Robert
fitz Walter, 285; privy seal,
in England, 475–6; Scotland,
521
Sedgeford (Norfolk), 33
Seine, river, 262
Selby, abbey of (Yorks.), 178;
its chronicle, 443; Hugh of,
394
Selsey, bishopric of, 99
Sempringham (Lincs.), priory
of, 451, 510; Gilbert of,
451–2
Senlis: Simon II de (d. 1153),
earl of Huntingdon, 160,
174; Simon III de (d. 1184),
196
Severn, river, 107, 111, 318;
 see also Between Wye and
Severn
Seward, Richard, 315, 366
Shabbington (Oxon.), 399
Shannon, river, 221, 279
Sherborne (Dorset), 173;
bishopric of, 99
Shere (Surrey), 360
Shetland, 117, 132, 256, 388;
earl of, 232
Shirley, family of, 404
Shrewsbury, 76–7, 169; friary
 at, 450; parliament at
(1283), 484, 510, 516; earl
of, 76 see also Montgomery;
Bellême
Shropshire, 110–11, 138, 161,
221, 318
Sicily, 246–7, 466; Sicilian
affair, 345–7
Siward, earl of Northumbria
(d. 1055), 66, 118
Skelton (Yorks.), 184
Skenfrith (Monmouth), 311
Skipton in Craven (Yorks.),
184–5, 202
Skyrack wapentake (Yorks.),
84
Smith, Ughtred, of Botland,
415
Snowdonia, 318, 498
Sokemen, decline in numbers
after 1066, 52
Solway firth, 121, 181, 182
Somerled, ruler of Argyll (d.
1164), 179, 211–12
Somerset, levels of, 34
Somery, Roger de (of Dudley),
379
Song of Dermot and the Earl,
216–17, 221
Song of Lewes, 339, 359, 376,
380
Soulseat (Galloway), abbey of,
231
Southampton, 46, 133, 456
Southern, R. W. 267
Southwark, watchmen of, 483
Spey, river, 1, 11, 117, 179
Sprouston (Roxburghshire),
426
Stafford, 77
Staffordshire, 379, 405
Stamford (Lincs), 42, 45, 249,
287, 311
Stamford Bridge (Yorks.),
battle of (1066), 72
Standard, battle of (1138), 4,
166, 168
Standards of living, 52–9
Stangate, William de, 415
Statute of Wales (1284), 511,
513–15, 525
Statutes: of Henry III, 348;
Marlborough (1267), 382;
see also Provisions of
Oxford; Provisions of
Westminster; of Edward I,
482; Westminster I (1275),
478, 482; Jewry (1275),
482, 489; Winchester
(1285), 482–3
Stavenby, Alexander of, bishop
of Coventry and Lichfield
(1224–38), 437
Stephen, king of England
(1135–54), 195–6; power
before accession, 142, 159,
162–3; reign, 163–78, 188–
90; character, 164;
abandons Wales and north
of England, 165–7; creation
of earldoms, 167–8;
mistakes, 168–70; loss of
Normandy, 169, 173;
 coinage, 175, 190; and
church, 167, 176; revenues,
175; discussion of ‘anarchy’,
176–8; for his wife, see
Matilda of Boulogne
Stewart, see fitz Alan
Stigand, archbishop of
Canterbury (1052–70), 61,
73, 98–9
Stirling, 48, 183, 230; castle
of, 226–7
Stogursey (Somerset), 219
Stoke by Clare, priory of
(Suffolk), 406, 443
Stoneleigh hundred (Warks.),
32, 56
Stoughton (Leics.), peasants of,
487
Strata Florida (Ceredigion),
abbey of, 39, 59–60, 228,
445
Strata Marcella (Powys), abbey
of, 445
Stratford on Avon (Warks.), 42
Strathearn, earldom of, 119,
182; Ferteth, earl of (d.
1170), 212; Malise, earl of
(d. 1312), 387
Strathgryf, lordship of, 522
Stringer, Keith, 425
Strongbow, see fitz Gilbert,
Richard
Stuteville, family, 226, 273–4;
William de (d. 1203), 273;
Nicholas de (d. 1217), 273–
4, 292, 302
Sudbury (Suffolk), Dominicans
at, 450
Suffolk, 157; dialect of, 9; eyre
in (1240), 240, 419, 492
Surrey, 174; eyre in (1263),
411, 420–1, 483; minsters
and parishes in, 100; earls
of, see Warenne
Sussex, 174; rapes of, 84
Sutherland, 12; earl, earldom
of, 12, 329, 522
Sutton, Oliver, bishop of
 Lincoln (1280–99), 440
Swansea, 254
Swinton (Berwickshire), 39

Taillebourg (Saintonge), 261,

344
Talbot, family of, 160;
Geoffrey, 169
Tal-y-Bont (Meirionydd), 427
Tanaise, the, heir to Scottish
throne, 123
Tancred, king of Sicily, 247–8
Tany, Luke de, 509
Tara, royal site in Ireland, 13
Tarbert (Argyll), castle at, 330
Taunton (Somerset), 32;
Augustinian house of, 445
Tay, river, 48, 183, 256
Tees, river, 77, 166, 178
Teesdale, 120
Tegeingl, Englefield, cantref
of, 213–14, 363; subject to
sheriff of Flint, 511
Teifi, river, 107
Templeton (Pembroke), 38
Tenant-in-chief, meaning of
term, 81
Tewkesbury, 177–8; abbey of,
its chronicle, 18, 306, 362
Thaxted (Essex), 80
Theobald, archbishop of
Canterbury (1139–61), 170,
176, 189, 203, 218
Theology, see Learning
Thomas, Hugh M., 397
Thomond, 218, 278, 361, 390
Thorfinn, earl of Orkney, 120
Thouars, family, 194; Guy de,
265
Thurkill the White, 89
Thurso (Caithness), 256
Thurstan, archbishop of York
(1114–40), 139, 145, 147,
166
Tibetot, Robert, 511
Tiddington (Oxon.), 398
Tilly, Ralph de, 456
Tilney (Norfolk), 34
Tin, mining and export, 31, 45
Tinchebrai, battle of (1106),
138, 140
Tipperary, 281
Tirel, Walter, 134
Tithing, definition of, 62; see
also England: law and order
Tofi the Proud, 64
Tonbridge (Kent), 84
Torigny, Robert of, 189
Tostig, earl of Northumbria (d.
1066), 61, 67, 71–2, 120
Toulouse, county of, 344;
Henry II’s attack on, 194,
201, 210, 211; counts of,
194, 223, 262
Touraine, 191, 194, 223, 266
Tours, 266; papal council at,
1163, 203
Tracy, William de, 374, 376
Trahaearn ap Caradog (d.
1081), 109, 110
Trevet, Nicholas, 467
Trim, 25, 221–2, 306
Trojans, ancestors of Welsh,
17–18, 20, 108, 509
Trowbridge (Wilts.), 274, 292
Turgot, prior of Durham,
bishop of St Andrews
(1109–15), 122, 144; his life
of Queen Margaret, 122–4
Tutbury (Staffs.), 224; honour
of, 404–5; priory of, 406
Tweed, river, 2, 11, 121, 166,
181, 183
Tweng, Robert, 433
Tyerman, Christopher, 457
Tyne, river, 120–21, 166
Tynedale, Scottish lordship in,
210–11, 230, 298, 328, 331
Tynemouth, priory of, 18
Tywi, Towy, river, 108, 140,
148, 214, 229, 254, 325,
509
Tywyn (Meirionydd), 427

Uchelwyr, meaning of term,

429; see also Wales: society
Uhtred (son of Fergus) of
Galloway (d. 1174), 212,
231
Ulf, son of Tope, 79
Ulster, 219, 278–9, 281, 306,
328, 330, 361; king of, 218;
granted to de Burghs, 390–
1, 518; see also Courcy, John
de; Lacy, Hugh de
Umfraville, family, of Prudhoe
(Northumberland): Gilbert
(d. 1180), 184; Gilbert, earl
 of Angus (d. 1245), 425;
Gilbert, earl of Angus (d.
1307), 387, 425
Universities, see Learning
‘Unknown Charter’ (1215),
289–90
Upavon (Wilts.), 313–14, 316
Urban II, pope (1088–99),
131, 455
Urr, river 212, 231; castle of
‘mote of Urr’, 231–2
Urquhart, lordship of (western
 shore of Loch Ness), 336
Urquhart, priory of, (Moray),
181
Urse Abetot, sheriff of
Worcester, 92–3
Usk, 164, 315
Usk, Wysg, river, 110, 147

Valence, William de (d. 1296),

342, 359–61, 369, 373, 379,
385, 486; his son, 509
Vale Royal (Cheshire), abbey
 of, 473
Vaux, Robert de, 226
Venables, William de, 506
Vercelli (Italy), abbey of, 301
Verdon, Bertram de, 220–21
Vere, Aubrey de, 158
Verneuil (Normandy), 224
Vernon, Richard de, 407
Vesci: Eustace de (d. 1216),
274, 285–6, 287, 298; John
de (d. 1289), 389, 425–6,
478; his mother (a Marshal
 heiress), 426
Vexin, French, 103, 142, 147
Vexin, Norman, 125, 191, 194,
243, 252, 265, 267
Vienne, river, 244
Vipont, Robert de, 309
Virgin Mary, 453; cult of and
queenship, 95–6, 341
Vitré, Andrew de, 311

Waldensians, the, 448

Wales, the Welsh, meaning of
 terms, 1
Wales, economy of: share of
Britain’s land mass, land
over 600 feet, wealth, 26;
size of population, 37–8;
slavery and the slave trade,
16, 19, 29–30, 52, 109;
balance between pastoral
and arable farming, 28–9;
nucleated settlements, llys
and maerdref complexes, 29,
38–9; expansion of towns
and money supply, 46–7;
 Norman impact on
economy, 38; wool
production and exports, 39,
60; prosperity in twelfth
century, 50
Wales, church in, 26, 115,
522; subject to Canterbury,
139, 186, 436; bishops,
bishoprics, 148, 365–6, 435;
defence of rights and
properties, 497–8; local
priesthood, portionary
churches, marriage of
 priests, 442–3
Wales, religious orders in: clas
(community) churches, 115,
443, 445; Normans endow
monasteries, 115, 140;
Cistercians, 39, 59–60, 228,
321, 444–5; Augustinians
and Premonstratensians,
321, 445–6; friars, 321, 449
Wales, society in native Wales:
free (and noble) and unfree,
426–7; family structures,
426–7; partibility of
 inheritances confirmed by
Edwardian settlement, 514;
position of women, 428;
changing attitudes to
marriage, 427–8; uchelwyr,
429, 500, 501, 502, 514–5;
peasantry, 39, 53, 55, 426–7
Wales, the Welsh people: no
intermingling with other
peoples, 14; status derived
from Arthur and the
Trojans, 19–21, 187–8; call
selves Cymry, 20; local
communities, 107; language
as a unifying force, 108;
Welsh adopt aspects of
Anglo-Norman, English
culture, 21–2, 24, 109–110,
187, 428–9; see also Wales:
religious orders;
accommodation with
Normans and their
successors, 116, 137, 140–1,
148 187–8, 215–16, 226,
319, 321; movements of
national liberation, 112,
 214, 363–4, 382–3, 507–9
Wales, the March of:
establishment of marcher
lordships, 110–11; powers
of marchers, 114, 365–6;
divison into Englishries and
Welshries, 112, 426, 428
Wales, native kingdoms, and
the principality of Wales:
geography and main
political divisions, 106–9,
113; nature of kingship,
108–9, 215, 228, 363; role
of warfare, plunder and
violence, 108–9;
diminishing political
violence, 21–2, 187, 429;
adoption of title ‘prince of
the Welsh’, 214; princely
insignia and buildings, 362,
495–6; concept of homage-
based principality, 321, 364,
384, 505; achievement in
treaty of Montgomery
(1267), 385–6; problems
with, 321–3, 384, 500–1;
unity through
confederation, 215, 228,
322, 326, 384, 505; impact
of the Normans, 112–16;
overlordship of king of
England, 106, 110, 137–8,
141, 143, 148, 213–16, 228,
283 (John’s charters);
demand for homage of
native rulers, 321–2, 326–7,
362, 374; the Edwardian
conquest, 502–10; and
settlement, 510–18; wider
 background to, 524–30; see
also Deheubarth; Gwynedd;
Powys
Wales, queenship in, 319; see
also Joan, lady of Wales
Wales, structures of
government in native
kingdoms and the
principality: court and
chancery, 496–7, 499;
written records, 428–9, 496;
household forces (teulu),
113, 498–9; cantrefs and
 commotes, 107, 497, 499;
decline in role of ynad,
preference for juries, 497,
508; confirmed by
Edwardian settlement, 513–
14; law and order, 109;
increasing role of prince,
diminishing of kin, 326–7
497–8; changes with
Edwardian settlement, 513;
revenues of princes in 13th
century, 498
Wales, native law: nature of
 lawbooks, 228; on division
of princely and other
inheritances, 108, 363; on
royal authority, 228;
queenship, 319; marriage,
427–8, 442; changing
attitudes to Welsh law, 507–
8, 513–14; as symbol of
national identity, 506–8;
abolition, retention in
Edwardan settlement, 513–
14
Wales, native armies and
 military service, 113, 320–1,
385, 498–9; for ravaging,
see Warfare
Wales, castles in: of Normans,
114–15; of Edward I, 511–
12; built by native Welsh,
113–14, 186, 215, 228, 499
Wallensis, Thomas, bishop of
St Davids (1248–55), 17,
442, 464
Wallingford (Berks.), 171, 173,
189, 418; Wigod of, 81
Walter, Hubert, chief justiciar,
archbishop of Canterbury
(1193–1205), 255, 259–60,
263, 268, 270, 275, 282,
439
Walter, Theobald, 220
Waltheof, son of Seward, 76–7,
127, 453; becomes earl of
Northumbria, rebellion,
102; for his daughter
married to King David, see
Matilda, daughter of
Waltheof
Wapentake, meaning of, 84
Ware, Richard of, abbot of
Westminster, 430
Wareham (Dorset), 175
Warenne, lords of Lewes,
Conisbrough and from 1088
earls of Surrey: William I (d.
1088), 28; William II (d.
1138), 134, 137, 143;
Willliam III (d. 1148), 168,
406, 455; William IV (d.
1240), 269, 289, 311; John
 (d. 1305), 369, 478, 511 his
rusty sword, 23, 374, 469
Warfare, importance of
ravaging, 71–2, 77–8, 109,
120–1, 177, 183–4, 224,
261, 298, 375, 387, 389,
513; for armies and castles,
see England, armies and
military service; England,
castles; Scotland, armies and
fleets; Wales, native armies
and military service; Wales,
castles
Wark on Tweed, 146, 166,
184, 211, 226
Warkworth, 183
Warwick, 76; earls of, see
Beaumont; Plessis
Warwick, Thorkell of, 79
Warwickshire, 4, 32, 269, 379;
knights in, 401
Wash, the, John’s treasure lost
in, 299
Waterford, 216–18, 281, 361
Waterperry (Oxon.), 396–7
Waugh, Scott L., 410
Waverley abbey (Surrey), 140;
annals of, 23, 292
Wells, Hugh of, bishop of
Lincoln (1209–35), 440–1
Welshpool, 318
Wendling (Norfolk),
Premonstratensian house at,
450; William of, 450
Wendover, Roger of (d. 1235),
17, 23, 314; his historical
work, 547
Weobley (Herefordshire), 160,
169
Western Isles, 13; struggles to
control, 117, 211, 327–9;
overlordship of Norway,
132, 211, 337, 387–9; taken
by king of Scots, 387–90,
528; sheriffdom of, 389, 521
Westminster, 198; seat of
government, 44, 150;
Rufus’s hall, 44, 133; king’s
chamber, 473; council of
(1102), 138; parliament of
 (1259), 360, 369; see also
Provisions of Westminster
Westminster, abbey of, 26, 44,
50, 61, 73, 163, 300, 301,
378, 397; diet of monks,
446; Henry III’s new
building, 330, 339, 349,
382, 430, 468, 496, 512;
Holy Blood in, 453; abbots
of, see Crispin; Ware
Westmorland, 184; emergence
of, 146, 165; king of
Scotland’s claims to, 255;
 attempt to gain (1215–17),
298–9, 327–8; claims
resigned, 331; see also
Cumbria: south of Solway
Wetherby, Robert of (alias
Robin Hood?), 353
Wexford, 216–17, 219, 361
Wherwell abbey (Hants.), 451
Whichford, Nicholas of, 401
Whitchurch (Shrops.), 507
White, A. B., 403
Whitecastle (Monmouth), 311
Whithorn, bishopric of, 332
Wigmore, 186, 324, 365
Wigtown (Galloway),
sheriffdom at, 330, 521
Wilkinson, Louise, 421
William I, duke of Normandy,
king of England (1066–87),
4, 41, 61–105 passim, 121,
125; gets control in duchy,
70–1; claim to throne, 68,
75; Hastings campaign, 72–
3; puts down risings and
harries north, 75–8; policy
in granting land to
followers, 83–4; and
structure of government,
90–4; his absences from
England, 91; and the
church, 97–102; problems
later in reign, 102–3; and
Domesday Book, 103–5;
attitude to Britain, 106; in
Wales, 110; establishes
Marcher lordships, 110–11;
in Scotland, 120, 527; for
 his queen, see Matilda of
Flanders
William II Rufus, king of
England (1087–1100), 44,
96, 121, 125–7, 158, 218,
458; character and policies,
128–9; his reign, 129–34;
attitude to church, 130–1;
and nobility, 133–4;
establishes Carlisle, 121,
129, 140, 146; overlordship
over Scotland, 130, 132,
527; in Wales, 131–2
William Clito (d. 1128), 141–
3, 146–7
William (d. 1120), son of
Henry I, 142–4
William, son of King Stephen
(d. 1159), 189, 195, 200
William the Lion, king of
Scotland (1165–1214), 424,
527; reign, 224–7 (1173–4
war), 229–33, 529 (1174–
89); 245, 255–8 (1189–
1200s); and King John, 277;
 marriage, 230; in Galloway,
231–2; in the north 232–3,
256, 277; loses and recovers
independence, 226, 255;
developments of
government under, 256–8;
form of address in his
charters, 13
William (d. 1164), younger
brother of Henry II, 218
Willingham (Cambs.), 27, 31,
56
Wilton, 173, 177
Wiltshire, 177; eyres in (1194,
1249), 240
Winchelsea (Sussex), 45
Winchester, 30, 43, 77, 134,
150, 154–5, 163, 173, 177,
198, 218; fair of, 42; treaty
of (1153), 189–90, 195–6
Winchester, bishopric of, 49,
349; estates of, 33, 36; poor
relief on, 57; bishops of, see
Blois, Henry of; Ilchester;
 Roches; Ralegh; Pontoise
Windsor, 76, 150, 198, 280,
342; forest of, 56; treaty of
(1175), 219
Windsor, Gerald of, 21, 138,
140, 143
Wirksworth (Derby),
wapentake of, 405
Wishart, William, bishop of St
Andrews (1273–9), 464
Woodstock (Oxon.), 150, 198,
230; council of (1163), 205,
 211; treaty of (1247), 364
Worcester, John of, 65, 72, 98,
164, 168, 169, 177
Worcester, 177, 253;
chronicler of, 103–4; bishop
of, 86, see also Wulfstan;
Roger; Cantilupe; cathedral,
263; earl of, see Beaumont
Worcester, treaty of (1218),
321–2, 327, 362, 505
Worcestershire, 173, 177
Writs, see England, written
 records; Scotland, chancery
and written records
Writtle (Essex), 425
Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester
(1062–95), 73, 99, 439
Wych, Richard, bishop of
Chichester (1245–53), 451,
547
Wye, Gwy, river, 107, 110,
147, 148, 385; see Between
Wye and Severn
Wykes, Thomas, chronicler,
 22, 359, 375, 393

Yarmouth (Norfolk), 43, 45;

Franciscans at, 450
Ynad, Welsh judge-jurist, 497,
508
Yolanda, queen of Scotland,
wife of Alexander III, 519
Yomtob of Joigny, rabbi, 250
York, 29–30, 43, 72, 76, 78,
175, 185, 188, 331; town
rulers, 393–5; minster of,
 77; massacre of Jews 1190,
249–50; Benedict and Josce,
Jews of, 250; earldom of, see
Aumale
York, archbishopric of, 66,
185, 209, 259; conflict with
Canterbury, 99, 139;
authority claimed over
Scotland, 123, 145, 147,
212, 230; and Galloway,
231, 435; archbishops of, see
Ealdred; Thurstan; Murdac;
Geoffrey
Yorkshire, 28, 80, 177, 226,
298; ravaging of 1070, 77–
8; pressures on under John,
274–5; allegiance given to
King Alexander, 298
Young, Alan, 423
Ypres, William of, 172
Ystrad Tywi, 107, 140, 165,
214, 254, 503; rulers of, 383

Zouche, Alan la, justiciar of

Chester, 383