by Ed West
15. Tombs, The English.
16. Poole, From Domesday.
Chapter 3
1. The Sheriff of Middlesex spoke ‘of fugitives and of those defooted.’
2. And it was mostly men; in one case from 1201, five men and one woman were suspected of a crime; it was ruled that ‘let the males purge themselves by water under the assize, and Matilda by ordeal of iron.’
3. John Gillingham, Conquest, Catastrophe and Recovery.
4. Canon 18 of the Fourth Lateran Council proclaimed: ‘No cleric may pronounce a sentence of death, or execute such a sentence, or be present at its execution. Neither shall anyone in juduical tests or ordeals by hot or cold water or hot iron bestow any blessing.’
5. Gillingham, Conquest, Catastrophe and Recovery.
6. Poole, From Domesday.
7. Tombs, The English.
8. Also sometimes translated as ‘to have peace from the king’s malevolence.’
9. Gillingham, Conquest, Catastrophe and Recovery.
10. Tombs, English.
11. Forest, strictly speaking, meant any land that was enclosed for use by the crown, not all of which was what we’d call forest. For example the whole of Essex was classified as a forest.
12. Christopher Hibbert, The English: A Social History.
13. “100, Greatest Britons,” Wikepedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Greatest_Britons.
Chapter 4
1. Martyn Whittock, A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages.
2. Poole, From Domesday.
3. People also believed a woman couldn’t conceive unless she enjoyed the occasion, which is daft, although researchers at University College Cork in 2016 concluded that women who had an orgasm were 15 percent more likely to conceive.
4. Danny Danziger and John Gillingham, 1215: The Year of Magna Carta.
5. Poole, From Domesday.
6. Danziger and Gillingham, 1215.
7. Whittock. According to one estimate of the time, clerics made up 5.6 percent of the population in 1200, including 7,600 monks, 3,900 canons, and 5,300 friars.
8. Whittock. A study of people in York area between 1452 and 1530.
9. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/middx-sessions/vol1/pp155-189.
10. “Punishments at the Old Bailey,” https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Punishment.jsp#benefit-of-clergy.
11. Poole, From Domesday.
12. Ackroyd, Foundation.
13. “Consistitions of Clarendon,” http://conclarendon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-most-renowned-case-concerning.html.
14. Harvey, Plantagenets.
15. The meeting was in October 1164, and Becket supposedly carried it to show he had divine protection.
16. Gimson, Gimson’s Kings and Queens.
17. Ackroyd, Foundation.
Chapter 5
1. Thomas Asbridge, The Greatest Knight.
2. Asbridge, Knight.
3. Harvey, Plantagenets.
4. Believers point out that whatever the unlikelihood of the tale, a local flower, the Glastonbury Thorn has been proven to originate in the Middle East; although it’s probably more likely it was brought back by a crusader.
5. Marc Morris, A Great and Terrible King.
6. Asbridge, Knight.
7. Asbridge, Knight.
8. Christopher Hibbert, The English: A Social History.
9. Poole, From Domesday.
10. Poole, From Domesday.
11. Asbridge, Knight.
12. Poole, From Domesday.
13. William Marshal, L’Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal.
Chapter 6
1. John Gillingham, Conquest, Catastrophe and Recovery.
2. I say that there is a fair bit of evidence that even in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, England was moving away from a peasant society, outlined in Alan MacFarlane’s The Origins of English Individualism.
3. Seward, Brood.
4. Marc Morris, King John.
5. At least it is considered unlikely.
6. Bridges, Crusades.
7. Dan Jones, Realm Divided.
8. Bridges, Crusades.
Chapter 7
1. William of Newburgh
2. Derek Wilson, The Plantagenets.
3. Poole, From Domesday.
4. Geoffrey Hindley, A Brief History of Magna Carta.
5. Or possibly only two years’ worth. Opinion is divided.
6. Poole, From Domesday.
Chapter 8
1. Hervey Bagod, as quoted in Vincent.
2. Hindley, History.
3. The latest, 2013 figure.
4. Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature.
5. He was rather the prototype of the rich kid who makes some spurious claim to be Irish or Native American.
6. It should be noted that the actual cause is disputed.
7. Castor, She-Wolves.
8. Bridges, Crusades.
Chapter 9
1. Castor, She-Wolves.
2. Written in 1220, in a book called Historie des Ducs de Mornamdie et des Rois d’Angleterre.
3. The Romance of Fulk FitzWaryn told the story of how they were playing chess, ‘when John picked up the chessboard and hit Fulk with it. Fulk hit back, kicking John in the chest so hard that his head crashed against the wall, and he passed out.’
4. John, at five foot six inches, was roughly average for the time, although far shorter than his dashing elder brother.
5. Jones, Plantagenets.
6. Again, and confusingly, this might be ironic.
7. This is according to the biography of William Marshal, which was admittedly likely commissioned by William Marshal’s son William, who turned against John and so may have wanted to justify this by playing up his bad points.
8. This may be attaching a modern interpretation that did not exist at the time. Certainly his wife was very young, pre-teenage, and he was well into his thirties when they began sexual relations.
9. Jones, Realm Divided.
10. Poole, From Domesday.
11. Jones, The Plantagenets.
12. Nicholas Vincent, Magna Carta: A Very Short Introduction.
13. Accompanied by the notorious mercenary Mercadier, she managed to bring back her granddaughter Blancha, although Mercadier was killed by another mercenary on the way back.
14. Stephen Church, King John.
15. Church, John.
16. Church, John.
17. Poole, From Domesday.
18. Tombs, English.
19. It wasn’t only babies who hit the bottle in medieval Europe, http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/it-wasnt-only-babies-who-hit-the-bottle-in-medieval-europe/177273.article.
20. Hibbert, Social.
21. Poole, From Domesday.
22. Poole, From Domesday.
Chapter 10
1. According to Roger of Wendover
2. Church, John.
3. Poole, From Domesday.
4. Harvey, Plantagenets.
5. James Hannam, God’s Philosophers.
6. “Student Violence at the University of Oxford,” Medievalists.net, http://www.medievalists.net/2013/05/09/student-violence-at-the-university-of-oxford/.
7. Innocent wrote to John in January the following year warning: ‘Look, the bow is at full stretch. Beloved son, avoid the arrow which turns not back.’
8. Jones.
9. This could be a fanciful story according to some historians. Either way, he certainly killed him.
10. Stephen Church, King John
11. Hindley, History.
12. David Carpenter, Magna Carta.
13. Church, John.
Chapter 11
1. Poole, From Domesday.
2. Church, John.
3. Carpenter, Magna Carta.
4. Vincent, Short.
5. Poole, From Domesday.
Chapter 12
1. Jones, Realm.
2. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-so
c/vol10/ix-xxxiv.
3. Carpenter, Magna Carta.
4. Seward, Brood.
5. Poole, From Domesday.
6. Gillingham, Conquest, Catastrophe and Recovery.
7. Morris, , King John.
8. This slacker image is rather undone by the evidence of his tireless (mis)rule.
Chapter 13
1. Gillingham, Conquest, Catastrophe and Recovery.
2. Daniel Hannan, How We Invented Freedom.
3. Gimson, Andrew, Gimson’s Kings and Queens.
4. From King John New Interpretations by Nicholas Vincent.
5. Carpenter, Magna Carta.
6. “Global climates, the 1257 mega-eruption of Samalas Volcano, Indonesia, and the 1258 English food crisis,” Royal Historical Society, http://royalhistsoc.org/calendar/global-climates-1257-mega-eruption-samalas-volcano-indonesia-1258-english-food-crisis/.
7. Gillingham, Conquest, Catastrophe and Recovery
Chapter 14
1. “The Magna Cara at 800,” The Economist, http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21636510-how-did-failed-treaty-between-medieval-combatants-come-be-seen-foundation?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/usesofhistory.
2. Carpenter, Magna Carta.
3. “The Meaning of Magna Carta since 1215, History Today,” http://www.historytoday.com/ralph-v-turner/meaning-magna-carta-1215
4. Vincent, Short.
5. Edward Channing, A History of the United States.
6. Dan Hannan, “As American as the year 1215,” Washington Examiner, November 17, 2014. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/as-american-as-the-year-1215/article/2556151#.VGobUk_nrZY.twitter.
Chapter 15
1. “Magna Carta edition found in Sandwich archive scrapbook,” BBC News. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-31242433.
2. Vincent, Short.
