Edward I

by Michael Prestwich

  The account for the Carlisle establishment during the 1301 campaign survives,[430] but that for Berwick does not. The expedition of 1303 was largely dependent on Berwick as a supply base, so the importance of Carlisle was greatly diminished. The sheriffs were on the whole efficient in providing supplies: it was only over malt and beans that their deliveries fell seriously short. With the campaign continuing over the winter into 1304, further supplies were needed. Orders were sent out in September and November.[431]

  In some instances it seems probable that the initial orders were modified subsequently: in the case of Essex and Hertfordshire, for example, the demand for malt was abandoned, and an extra 200 quarters of wheat requested instead. Purveyances and purchases of victuals in addition to those noted on the table provided the army in Scotland with a further 3,680 quarters of wheat, 3,834 of oats, 1,038 of malt, 937 of barley and 354 of beans and peas. Much of this came from Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and Holderness and was collected by conventional methods. It is interesting to see how in the two latter cases Edward was profiting from the lands he had acquired so dubiously from Aveline de Forz and her mother. However, new expedients used in 1304 to collect supplies suggest that the usual methods had proved insufficient. The customs collectors at Hartlepool were employed to buy up provisions, as were the collectors of tallage at Ravenser and Hull. Richard Dalton was required to collect substantial quantities that Walter Langton had negotiated as loans in kind to the crown. The supplies from Barton-on-Humber and Lynn noted in the table were obtained as loans in a similar way. Some supplies were bought from individuals. John Droxford’s chaplain sold twenty quarters of wheat and sixty quarters of beans. But the inadequacy of normal purveyance was not due to any incompetence on the part of the local officials: as the table shows, they did remarkably well, in most cases collecting almost exactly the quantity ordered. The total victuals available to the army in 1304, according to the wardrobe book, were 7,057 quarters of wheat, 7,204 of oats, 2,311 of malt, 1,242 of barley and 953 of beans and peas.[432]

  The first duty of the victualling officers was to keep the royal household properly supplied with food when in the field. An estimate of its needs survives, probably dating from 1304. Ten quarters of wheat were required each day, along with the same quantity of malt, amounting for the period from April to September to 1,830 quarters of each commodity. 1,500 cattle, 3,000 sheep, 1,200 pigs and 400 bacon carcases were wanted. For the horses 3,000 quarters of oats were needed.[433] These figures give a rough idea of how much was required for the household, and it can be seen that in the Scotch wars, if not in the Welsh, the crown was regularly exceeding this amount in grain supplies, though it was probably hard to obtain such large numbers of livestock. Much of the food that was collected was required by the castle garrisons, and careful estimates were made of their needs. In the autumn of 1298 the Steward of the household, Walter Beauchamp, the Keeper of the Wardrobe, John Droxford, together with Robert FitzWalter, Hugh le Despenser and the constables of the castles, ordained both the size of the garrisons in Scotland and the quantities of victuals to be issued to them.[434] Some of the estimates survive. One set was worked out on the basis of twenty men needing one quarter of wheat a week and two of malt, for making ale. In another case, equal quantities of wheat and malt were specified, as in the household estimate, since wine was available. Substantial amounts of meat and fish were to be supplied. The horses were to have a peck of oats each night. Other documents show that supplies more or less matched these estimates, and that the men were provided with a generous if unhealthy diet containing over 5,000 calories a day.[435]

  Some of the food collected by the sheriffs and sent to the victualling bases was used to pay the men their wages. Prests in kind were often made.[436] Gifts of food were made to soldiers of all classes. Very appreciable quantities were sold off to the army, both by the victuallers in Carlisle and Berwick and by the household officials, notably the pantler. The magnates may have had compunctions about accepting pay from the crown, but they had no reservations about taking full advantage of the government’s victualling activities. In 1303 the earl of Gloucester, Ralph de Monthermer, bought £101 14s. 6d. worth of victuals, and in the following year £114 12s. 2d. worth.[437] Experience had shown that it was unsafe to rely too much on the activities of private victuallers, and to ensure that the troops were well supplied with food the crown itself had to perform the same task as the merchants. The victuallers apparently sold supplies off at the highest price they could obtain for them, which was of course profitable to the crown. In 1300 wheat was purveyed at an average price of 4s. 5d. a quarter, but it was sold off in Scotland at prices between 5s. and 10s., the average being 7s. In that year receipts from sales of food supplies came to £7,290 13s. 4¾d.[438]

  The victualling activities of the crown were extremely unpopular, involving as they did the compulsory purchase of staple food supplies. In the constitutional crisis of 1297 prises were a major issue. As already shown, the years immediately preceding the crisis saw exceptionally heavy demands imposed on the country. This was at a time when prices were at a very high level. They had been rising since the late 1280s, and reached a peak in 1295 when, according to the most reliable calculations, they reached a level of 9s. 2¾d. a quarter for wheat. They fell in the next year to 4s. 10d., but rose in the following to 6s. 4d.[439] The government was well aware of the burdens its demands were imposing, and of the abuses that were possible. In November 1296 an ordinance laid down the way in which the prise of grain should be conducted. There was concern lest the poorer classes, who could least afford to have their food taken without immediate payment, should suffer unduly, so the sheriff and the royal clerk assisting him were ordered to consult with the assessors of the twelfth levied that year, whose records of assessment would give a good idea of how much each man could afford to have taken from him. An indenture was to be drawn up between the assessors and the sheriff, showing the quantities to be purveyed. Additional safeguards were provided by further instructions stating that a record should be kept of all tallies issued as receipts for victuals, one copy to be kept in the hundred or wapentake, and the other to be presented by the sheriff to the Exchequer, where arrangements for payment were to be made. The government even went to the lengths of specifying the prices to be paid. These were astonishingly high: wheat at 12s., barley, beans and peas at 9s. a quarter.[440] These should perhaps be interpreted in the same way as the king claimed his demand for 100,000 quarters of grain should be: that generous payment was to be made, but that the instructions were not to be taken literally.

  Despite the safeguards that were laid down, there were inevitably complaints against these prises, which were taken on an unprecedented scale. The opposition in 1297 could have put up a case against them on constitutional grounds, but in the Monstraunces, presented to Edward on 30 June, the argument was rather that the burden on the country was insupportable. It was pointed out that military service could not be performed, as the country was so impoverished by Edward’s demands for supplies and his failure to pay for what was taken. Many were said to have been forced below subsistence level.[441] The De Tallagio suggested a solution to the problems presented by prises in terms which echoed Edward’s own legislation in the Statute of Westminster I, stating that no goods should be taken without the consent of their owners. In the settlement of the crisis in the Confirmatio Cartarum the king conceded that in future the ‘prises taken throughout our realm by our ministers in our name’ would only be taken by ‘the common assent of all the realm’. But the concession was rendered virtually valueless by the addition of a clause saving the king’s ancient rights.[442]

  It was clear that much had gone wrong with the conduct and administration of the prises, and in his attempt during 1298 to conciliate the opposition of the previous year Edward set up commissions in April to enquire into ‘all grievances inflicted on the people in the king’s name’, in particular the seizure of goods for royal use. Pairs of justices were sent out to hold
inquisitions by jury, and punish those found guilty of improper conduct. Sheriffs and other ministers were to answer for the misdeeds of their subordinates, if the latter should prove to have insufficient means to make amends.

  The complaints revealed by the judicial enquiries were very much what would be expected. Bailiffs often took more grain from villagers than they handed on to the sheriffs. Tallies might not be given, and officials on occasion took goods for which they had no warrant. In Lincolnshire one man had been notably corrupt: the name of Thomas Easton, bailiff of Ness, appeared more often than any other in cases concerning prises. The intention that people should be left with enough supplies for their own livelihood was not always observed. In one case John Everard compelled Adam Besaunt to buy three quarters of malt, which he then took from him by way of prise. He also took a quarter of salt meat, turned Adam out of his house, and sealed up the doors.[443] In a Norfolk case the parson of Knavering complained that the local bailiff had unjustly taken seven quarters of wheat and two of barley, so that he had no food for his beasts and could not sow for six weeks. He also accused the bailiff of keeping back one quarter for his own use, and of taking £1 3s. unjustly. The official admitted taking the grain and the money, for which he had due warrant, but the jurors found that the parson had suffered no damage. Technically they were correct, but it seems clear that he had undergone some hardship.[444] There were also complaints about the way in which horses and carts were requisitioned by sheriffs in order to transport the supplies collected. One unfortunate man refused to let the sheriff of Yorkshire take his horse, since he had no other on his farm, and he needed it to get in his harvest. His recalcitrance involved him in a fine of one mark when the case was brought up in the Exchequer Court.[445]

  Obviously, in spite of the many complaints, Edward I could not afford to abandon the system of prises. Not only did it provide him with supplies essential for war, but also with a means of anticipating his income. The crown sold the food to the armies long before it paid for the prises, which were thus forced loans in kind. The slowness of payment is illustrated by a general petition put forward in parliament in 1305, asking for payment of arrears of all sorts, including prises that had been taken before 1297.[446] After the constitutional crisis the system was changed in various ways, largely to pacify public opinion. The Exchequer was deprived of its rôle of administering prises. No longer did the king issue such vague orders as when he asked for 100,000 quarters of grain for Gascony. Now, specific instructions were sent under the privy seal to the Chancery, setting out precisely how much was required from each county. Of course, supplies were still collected by the sheriffs, with the assistance of royal clerks, but clearly the Exchequer had come under heavy criticism for its part in the prises, seizures and taxes in the years leading up to 1297, and it made good sense to make a minor administrative readjustment to satisfy public feeling.

  The Chancery took much more trouble in the years after 1297 to explain the reasons for the royal need of victuals than had been taken before. Naturally the writs were extremely abusive of the Scots, and it was pointed out that as the great lords and men-at-arms were contributing directly to the war effort with their service, the lesser people had a moral obligation to assist by contributing food supplies. The use of the word prise became far less common: the writs tended to talk instead of purveyance.[447] But the opposition was not to be bought off by such obvious propaganda methods, and in the Articuli super Cartas of 1300 the system of prise was attacked. The crown was henceforth to exercise the right to keep only the household supplied with food, and the terms of the relevant passage make it clear that purveyance on the scale seen in recent years was excluded.[448] As a result writs for purveyance were not sent to the sheriffs in 1301, and instead the communities of the various counties were asked to aid the king by granting him a loan of victuals. Payment was promised out of the fifteenth provisionally granted at Lincoln earlier in the year, and commissioners were sent to conduct the negotiations with the counties.[449] It was only when agreement had been reached that orders were issued to the sheriffs instructing them to collect the supplies and send them north. The accounts specifically describe this purveyance as a loan, and the voluntary nature of the proceedings is indicated by the way in which the counties of Nottingham and Derby selected their own representatives to collect the supplies together, rather than accept the services of the sheriff.[450] The government took greater pains than it had in the past to see that payment was actually made. In January 1303 firm letters were sent to the tax collectors,[451] and their accounts show that some money was paid over, though not necessarily all that was owed. In 1305 the men of Northumberland complained in parliament that they had received nothing from the tax collectors, who were at once ordered to make payment.[452]

  Although these negotiations in 1301 were genuine, it is striking that in all cases it was agreed to provide the quantities suggested by the government. In later years this technique of direct negotiation was not repeated on such a scale: it was probably realized on both sides that it was a waste of time, though on occasion isolated loans of victuals were obtained. In 1304, for example, Walter Langton in person negotiated a loan of 100 quarters of wheat and 200 quarters of malt from Barton-on-Humber.[453] The government continued to try to ensure that payment was made, and in 1302 the aid due to be collected for the marriage of the king’s eldest daughter was assigned to pay for the victuals needed for the campaign in Scotland in the following year.[454] But lack of cash meant that such good intentions could not be fulfilled.

  Purveyance continued to be extremely unpopular in the closing years of Edward’s reign. In 1303 grievances about the failure to make payment were running so high in Lincolnshire that it was agreed that no prises should be taken unless they were immediately paid for.[455] The men of Yorkshire complained that officials were failing to make out proper receipts and tallies for the victuals they took, so that if five quarters of wheat were taken, the receipt would only state that four had been received, leaving a profit of one quarter to the purveyor.[456] In 1303 the men of Beverley alleged that, although John de Sheffield had obtained allowance at the Exchequer for goods worth £40 taken from them, he had never paid them the money. A common method of evasion was to move supplies into sanctuary, although the purveyors did not always show full respect to the church. In 1304 Nicholas Lovel was appointed by the sheriff of Yorkshire to collect corn in the village of Bulmer. A local jury decided how much each man should contribute, and it was decided that the parson should provide a quarter of wheat and one of oats. This was duly taken, and the following Sunday Lovel was publicly excommunicated by the parson. The crown, with Lovel, brought an action against him, and the defence put up was that Lovel was not actually named, but that all that was done was to issue a general condemnation of all who took goods from sanctuary. The result of the case, and of the counter-action brought by the parson, is regrettably, as so often happens, not recorded. To be a purveyor was certainly hazardous, and liable to worse threats than excommunication. In 1303 William of Wetwang was collecting victuals in Sledmere in Yorkshire when he was pursued with drawn sword by one Saer de Collum, and was only able to escape by hiding in the house of the prior of Kirkham.[457]

  The burden of purveyance did not fall on all parts of the country with equal severity. In the Welsh wars it was naturally the counties nearest the campaigning area that were called on most.

  The reasons for these differences are not always immediately clear. It has been pointed out that there was no correlation between these demands for victuals and the amount of land in royal hands in the various counties.[458] One obvious criterion used was ease of transport to the place required, and in addition it made sense to draw supplies from the main grain-producing areas of England, such as East Anglia. But it was also politic to try to spread the burden: in asking for victuals from various southern counties in December 1301 the king pointed out that similar aid had been provided by the northern counties earlier in the year.[459] Conside
rations of cost and convenience, however, made it impossible to equalize demands for victuals over the whole country. Land transport was slow and expensive, while long sea journeys affected the condition of the cargoes. 1,125 quarters of wheat, together with appreciable quantities of other victuals, which arrived in Berwick in the early months of 1304 in seven ships all the way from the Isle of Wight and Southampton, were all rotten. One other ship was driven ashore long before it reached its destination.[460] In other years consignments from the Isle of Wight did reach Berwick safely,[461] but it clearly made more sense to take the bulk of supplies from Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and East Anglia.

  Within the counties, the administration aimed at spreading the burden of purveyance as equitably as possible. It was normal for hundreds and wapentakes to be informed of exactly how much they were to supply, while local jurors might then decide how much should be taken from each man.[462] Demesne supplies were taken as well as those of the villagers,[463] and attempts made to ensure that the burden did not fall too heavily on those least able to bear it. With taxes on moveables only collected twice in the last ten years of the reign, the system of consultation with the assessors authorized in 1296 was impracticable, but in 1303 orders were issued that no corn was to be taken from anyone who did not possess at least £10 worth of goods.[464] In any case, it was obviously administratively simpler to take supplies from the relatively wealthy than from the poor.