A Brief History of Britain 1066-1485

by Vincent, Nicholas

  Chapter 5

  There are excellent modern biographies of Richard I, by John Gillingham, Richard I (New Haven 1999), and of King John by W.L. Warren, King John (London 1961), and Ralph V. Turner, King John (London 1994). For various aspects of John’s reign, see also King John: New Interpretations, ed. Stephen D. Church (Woodbridge 1999). Crucial for the history of baronial politics is J.C. Holt’s now classic The Northerners (Oxford 1961, 2nd edn 1992), a masterpiece of concision and insight. Holt’s more technical handling of Magna Carta, 2nd edn (Cambridge 1992) can be supplemented by the less daunting Ralph V. Turner, Magna Carta (London 2003). For the chronology of the Plantagenet collapse in Normandy, and for much else besides, see Holt, ‘The End of the Anglo-Norman Realm’, Proceedings of the British Academy (1975), 223–65, and the later pages of Daniel Power, The Norman Frontier in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries (Cambridge 2004). For Isabella, John’s Queen, see ‘Isabella of Angoulême: John’s Jezebel’, in King John: New Interpretations, ed. Church, pp. 165–219. My thoughts on the murder of Arthur are informed by discussion with Paul Binski. For the Jews of York, see R.B. Dobson, The Jews of Medieval York and the Massacre of March 1190, 2nd edn (York 1994), with a forthcoming volume of essays in preparation, ed. Sarah Rees Jones. For the division of England from Norman landholding, David Crouch, ‘Normans and Anglo-Normans: A Divided Aristocracy?’, in England and Normandy in the Middle Ages, ed. David Bates and Anne Curry (London 1994), pp. 51–67. For John’s aliens, Nicholas Vincent, Peter des Roches: An Alien in English Politics, 1205–1238 (Cambridge 1996). For the interminable debate over the relative wealth of England and France, see the latest contribution, by Nick Barratt, ‘The Impact of the Loss of Normandy on the English Exchequer: The Pipe Roll Evidence’, in Foundations of Medieval Scholarship: Records Edited in Honour of David Crook, ed. Paul Brand and Sean Cunningham (York 2008), pp. 133–40. For inflation, the classic exposition remains that by Paul D.A. Harvey, ‘The English Inflation of 1180–1220’, Past and Present, 61 (1973), 3–30, with alternative thoughts by Paul Latimer and Jim Bolton in King John: New Interpretations, ed. Stephen Church. For gallies, see John Gillingham, ‘Richard I, Galley-Warfare and Portsmouth: The Beginnings of a Royal Navy’, in Thirteenth Century England VI, ed. Michael Prestwich and others (Woodbridge 1997), pp. 1–15. For Langton, the details here are drawn from Nicholas Vincent, ‘Stephen Langton: Archbishop of Canterbury’, in Etienne Langton: Prédicateur, bibliste et théologien, ed. Nicole Bériou, Gilbert Dahan and others (Turnhout 2010). For the interdict, Christopher R. Cheney, Pope Innocent III and England (Stuttgart 1976). For the prosecution of crime, John Hudson, The Formation of English Common Law (London 1996); John Bellamy, Crime and Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages (London 1973); A.J. Musson, ‘Turning King’s Evidence: The Prosecution of Crime in Late Medieval England’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 19 (1999), 467–80. For prisons and imprisonment, Ralph B. Pugh, Imprisonment in Medieval England (Cambridge 1968); Jean Dunbabin, Prison and Imprisonment in Medieval Europe, c.1000–c.1300 (London 2002); Guy Geltner, The Medieval Prison: A Social History (Princeton 2008). For the King’s knights and enforcers, Stephen D. Church, The Household Knights of King John (Cambridge 1999). There is still no standard biography of Henry III. F.M. Powicke, King Henry III and the Lord Edward, 2 vols (Oxford 1947), is so prolix than it can hardly be recommended save as a literary curiosity. For the early years of the reign, see David Carpenter, The Minority of Henry III (London 1990), with a magnificent selection of Carpenter’s articles republished as Carpenter, The Reign of Henry III (London 1996). The account of the reign given here is based upon my survey, first published in German, as Nicholas Vincent, ‘Heinrich III (1216–72)’, in Die englischen Könige im Mittelalter von Wilhelm dem Eroberer bis Richard III, ed. Hanna Vollrath and Natalie Fryde (Munich 2004), pp. 102–29. The primary sources for Henry III’s reign are dominated by Matthew Paris, of whose Chronica Majora there is a complete translation by J.A. Giles, noted above amongst general reading, and illustrated excerpts by Richard Vaughan, The Illustrated Chronicles of Matthew Paris (Stroud 1984). For the survival and flourishing of Magna Carta, John R. Maddicott, ‘Magna Carta and the Local Community 1215–59’, Past and Present, 102 (1984), 25–65. For papal and Italian influence, Nicholas Vincent, The Letters and Charters of Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, Papal Legate in England 1216–1218 (Canterbury and York Society 1996). For Parliament, John R. Maddicott, The Origins of the English Parliament 924–1327 (Oxford 2010), and various of the individual essays, by Maddicott, Paul Brand, Simon Payling and Chris Given-Wilson in A Short History of Parliament, ed. Clyve Jones (Woodbridge 2009). For the politics of Henry III’s reign, besides Carpenter’s collected essays, see R.C. Stacey, Politics, Policy and Finance under Henry III, 1216–1245 (Oxford 1987). For the King’s work at Westminster, Paul Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets (New Haven 1995). For Henry III’s relics and sacrality, Nicholas Vincent, The Holy Blood: Henry III and the Westminster Blood Relic (Cambridge 2001). For Simon de Montfort, John R. Maddicott, Simon de Montfort (Cambridge 1994). For Lewes and Evesham, David Carpenter, The Battles of Lewes and Evesham 1264–65 (Keele 1987), and Olivier Laborderie, J.R. Maddicott and David Carpenter, ‘The Last Hours of Simon de Montfort: A New Account’, English Historical Review, 115 (2000), 378–412. For various of the international aspects of the reign, see Bjorn K. Weiler, Henry III of England and the Staufen Empire, 1216–1272 (Woodbridge 2006), and the essays collected as England and Europe in the Reign of Henry III (1216–1272), ed. B.K.U. Weiler and I.W. Rowlands (Aldershot 2002). For Richard of Cornwall, the only reliable modern biography remains that by Noel Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall (Oxford 1947). For Matthew Paris’ maps, with colour reproductions in the study by Daniel Connolly noted above, chapter 5, see also Paul D.A. Harvey, ‘Matthew Paris’s Maps of Britain’, Thirteenth Century England IV (Woodbridge 1992), pp. 109–21.

  Chapter 6

  The history of the reigns of all three Edwards is dominated by the work of Michael Prestwich. For a masterly overview, see Prestwich, The Three Edwards (London 1980). For a richly insightful biography, Prestwich, Edward I (London 1988). For Edward II, Roy Martin Haines, King Edward II (London 2003), but with more exciting studies of the King’s evil counsellors and tyranny, Natalie Fryde, The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II, 1321–1326 (Cambridge 1979), and Nigel Saul, ‘The Despensers and the Downfall of Edward II’, English Historical Review, 99 (1984), 1–33, and a good selection of essays ed. Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson, The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives (Woodbridge 2006). For Edward III, the best of the modern biographies are those by W. Mark Ormrod, The Reign of Edward III: Crown and Political Society, 1327–1377 (London 1990), and (admirably for a general public) Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation (London 2006). Just as the essays published as Anglo-Norman Studies dominate the secondary literature on the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, so two sets of annual or bi-annual essay collections now dominate the period after 1200: Thirteenth Century England, ed. Peter Coss, Simon Lloyd and others (Woodbridge 1986–), and Fourteenth Century England, ed. Nigel Saul and others (Woodbridge 2000–). For the English royal style, W. Mark Ormrod, ‘A Problem of Precedence: Edward III, the Double Monarchy, and the Royal Style’, in The Age of Edward III, ed. J.S. Bothwell (Woodbridge 2001), pp. 133–53. For Becket’s oil, T.A. Sandquist, ‘The Holy Oil of St Thomas of Canterbury’, Essays in Medieval History Presented to Bertie Wilkinson, ed. T.A. Sandquist and M.R. Powicke (Toronto 1968), pp. 330–44. For the Order of the Garter, Lisa Jefferson, ‘MS Arundel 48 and the Earliest Statutes of the Order of the Garter’, English Historical Review, 109 (1994), 356–85, whose implications are not fully explored by Hugh E.L. Collins, The Order of the Garter, 1348–1461 (Oxford 2000). For multilingualism, most of the examples cited here are borrowed from Susan Crane, ‘Social Aspects of Bilingualism in the Thirteenth Century’, Thirteenth Century England VI, ed. Michael Prestwich and others (Woodbridge
1997), pp. 103–15. For England’s imperial destiny, R.R. Davies, The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles 1093–1343 (Oxford 2000). For Higden’s maps, Kathy Lavezzo, Angels on the Edge of the World: Geography, Literature and English Community, 1000–1534 (Ithaca 2006). For the details here of Edward I’s early years, Nicholas Vincent, ‘The Politics of Church and State as Reflected in the Winchester Pipe Rolls, 1208–80’, The Winchester Pipe Roll and Medieval English Society, ed. Richard Britnell (Woodbridge 2003), pp. 157–81; John R. Maddicott, ‘Edward I and the Lessons of Baronial Reform: Local Government, 1258–80’, in Thirteenth Century England I, ed. Peter Coss and Simon Lloyd (Woodbridge 1986), pp. 1–30. For public finance, Gerald L. Harriss, King, Parliament and Public Finance in Medieval England to 1369 (Oxford 1975). For the Hundred Rolls, Sarah Raban, A Second Domesday? The Hundred Rolls of 1279–80 (Oxford 2004). For the expulsion of the Jews, Robert R. Mundill, England’s Jewish Solution, 1262–1290: Experiment and Expulsion (Cambridge 1998). For the Riccardi, Richard W. Kaeuper, Bankers to the Crown: The Riccardi of Lucca and Edward I (Princeton 1973). For the Welsh wars, John E. Morris, The Welsh Wars of Edward I (Oxford 1901) can still be read with pleasure, with a magisterial overview of the history of Wales by Rees Davies, The Age of Conquest: Wales, 1063–1415 (Oxford 2000). For Edward I’s war machine, Michael Prestwich, War, Politics and Finance under Edward I (London 1972). For war in general, there are magnificent surveys by Matthew Strickland, War and Chivalry: The Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy, 1066–1217 (Cambridge 1996), and Michael Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience (New Haven 1996). For Edward’s castles, the best guide remains The History of the King’s Works, vols 1–2 (The Middle Ages), ed. H.M. Colvin and others (London 1963), with the relevant sections abstracted as A.J. Taylor, The Welsh Castles of Edward I (London 1986). For overviews of the history of Scotland, see both Geoffrey W.S. Barrow, The Kingdom of the Scots (London 1973) and A.A.M. Duncan, Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom (Edinburgh 1975). For Robert Bruce, the classic study remains that by Geoffrey Barrow, Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland, 3rd edn (Edinburgh 1988). For the crisis of 1297, Michael Prestwich, Documents Illustrating the Crisis of 1297–8 (Camden Society, London 1980). For the English clergy, Jeffrey H. Denton, Robert Winchelsey and the Crown, 1294–1313 (Cambridge 1980). For the mounting sense of crisis in the fourteenth century, Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (New York 1978) remains highly readable, and see also William Chester Jordan, The Great Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century (Princeton 1996), here using some of the ecological data from Robert S. Gottfried, The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe (London 1983). For the English experience of famine, see John R. Maddicott, The English Peasantry and the Demands of the Crown, 1294–1341, Past and Present Supplement 1 (1975). For yields, I depend upon figures supplied to me by Bruce Campbell, and compare the website at . For the death penalty, Henry Summerson, ‘Attitudes to Capital Punishment in England, 1200–1350’, Thirteenth Century England VIII, ed. Michael Prestwich and others (Woodbridge 2001), pp. 123–33; Summerson, ‘Suicide and the Fear of the Gallows’, Journal of Legal History, 21 (2007), 49–56; J.G. Edwards, ‘The Treason of Thomas Turberville, 1295’, Studies in Medieval History Presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, ed. R.W. Hunt and others (Oxford 1948), pp. 296–309. For the mounting violence precipitated by Edward I, Matthew Strickland, ‘Treason, Feud and the Growth of State Violence: Edward I and the “War of the Earl of Carrick”, 1306–7’, in War, Government and Aristocracy in the British Isles c.1150–1500, ed. Chris Given-Wilson and others (Woodbridge 2008), pp. 84–113. For the baronial politics of Edward II’s reign, John R. Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 1307–1322 (Oxford 1970); J.R.S. Phillips, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, 1307–1324 (Oxford 1972). Pending the appearance of a full-scale biography of Gaveston, see Pierre Chaplais, Piers Gaveston: Edward II’s Adoptive Brother (Oxford 1994). For Edward’s supposed homosexuality, see the essays by W. Mark Ormrod and Ian Mortimer in The Reign of Edward II, ed. Dodd and Musson (Woodbridge 2006), pp. 22–60. For one of the principal primary sources, see the Vita Edwardi Secundi: The Life of Edward the Second, ed. Wendy R. Childs (Oxford 2005). For the medical history here, I depend upon discussion and assistance supplied by Carole Rawcliffe, and see Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society in Late Medieval England (Stroud 1995). For Mortimer and Isabella, Ian Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, Ruler of England, 1327–1330 (London 2003). For Edward II after 1327, Roy Martin Haines, ‘The “Afterlife” of Edward of Caernarvon’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 114 (1996), 65–86. For horse lists, Andrew Ayton, Knights and Warhorses: Military Service and the English Aristocracy under Edward III (Woodbridge 1994). For the Countess of Salisbury, Antonia Gransden, ‘The Alleged Rape by Edward III of the Countess of Salisbury’, English Historical Review, 87 (1972), 333–44. There is a modern biography of Wykeham by Virginia Davis, William Wykeham: A Life (London 2007). For the Church, the best overview remains that by W.A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge 1955). For English sanctity, and revealing comparisons with Italy, see Robert Brentano, Two Churches: England and Italy in the Thirteenth Century, 2nd edn (Berkeley 1988). For the most notorious of the bishops, John Aberth, Criminal Churchmen in the Age of Edward III: The Case of Bishop Thomas de Lisle (Philadelphia 1996). For monastic diet, see the wonderfully detailed portrait built up by Barbara F. Harvey, Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford 1993). For the origins of the schools of Oxford, see the official History of the University of Oxford, vol.1: The Early Schools, ed. Jeremy Catto (Oxford 1984), especially the essay by Richard Southern, and also the more provocative suggestions of R.H.C. Davis, ‘The Ford, the River and the City’, in Davis, From Alfred the Great to Stephen (London 1991), pp. 281–91. For Cambridge, I depend upon my own essay on the thirteenth-century bishops of Ely, in Ely: Bishops and Diocese, 1109–2009, ed. Peter Meadows (Woodbridge 2010). For discussion of founders’ kin, I am indebted to Scott Mandelbrote and Christopher Brooke. No student of fourteenth-century bureaucracy can avoid the massive endeavours of T.F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, 6 vols (Manchester 1920–33), which incidentally offer a far from negligible broader history of the period. For archery, Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy, The Great Warbow: From Hastings to the Mary Rose (Stroud 2005). Amongst the many histories of the Hundred Years War, for a short summary, Christopher Allmand, The Hundred Years War (Cambridge 1988); for something a great deal longer and still ongoing, Jonathan Sumption’s massive history has thus far reached 1399 in three volumes: Trial By Battle; Trial by Fire, and Divided Houses (London and Philadelphia 1990–2009). For Crécy, The Battle of Crécy, 1346, ed. Andrew Ayton and Philip Preston (Woodbridge 2005). For St George’s, St George’s Chapel Windsor in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Nigel Saul (Woodbridge 2005). For chivalry, the outstanding study by Maurice Keen, Chivalry (London 1984), and more recently, Keen, Origins of the English Gentleman: Heraldry, Chivalry and Gentility in Medieval England, c.1300-c.1500 (Stroud 2002), with its counterpoint in Peter R. Coss, The Lady in Medieval England, 1100–1500 (Stroud 1998). For Calais in the English Parliament, H.F. Chettle, ‘The Burgesses for Calais, 1536–58’, English Historical Review, 50 (1935), 492–501. For contemporary accounts of the Black Prince’s campaigns, see The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince, ed. Richard Barber (London 1979), and the selections from Froissart’s Chronicles, trans. and ed. Geoffrey Brereton (Penguin Classics, first published 1968). Amongst a host of books on the Black Death, see most recently, and in starkest contrast, Ole J. Benedictow, The Black Death, 1346–1353: The Complete History (Woodbridge 2004) (arguing the traditional ‘Bubonic’ option) and Samuel K. Cohn, The Black Death Transformed: Disease and Culture in Early Renaissance Europe
(London 2001) (arguing from a revisionist standpoint). Hard going, but underpinning the remarks here on the legal consequences, is Robert C. Palmer, English Law in the Age of the Black Death, 1348–1381 (Chapel Hill 1993), with a response from Anthony Musson, ‘New Labour Laws, New Remedies? Legal Reaction to the Black Death “Crisis”’, in Fourteenth Century England I, ed. Nigel Saul (Woodbridge 2000), pp. 73–88, and with other consequences considered by Paul Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (London 1996); Jacques Rossiaud (trans. Lydia G. Cochrane), Medieval Prostitution (Oxford 1988), and always, in the background, the classic study by Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (first English translation 1924). For Edward III, building and display after 1350, James Sherborne, ‘Aspects of Court Culture in the Later Fourteenth Century’, in Sherborne, War, Politics and Culture in Fourteenth-Century England, ed. Anthony Tuck (London 1994), pp. 171–94. For the return of plague, Robert Gottfried, The Black Death (London 1983), already cited. For diet and living standards, Christopher Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages, 2nd edn (Cambridge 1998), and Dyer’s collected essays, Everyday Life in Medieval England (London 1994). For 1376, George Holmes, The Good Parliament (Oxford 1975), with a particularly insightful recent study by Gwilym Dodd, ‘A Parliament Full of Rats? Piers Plowman and the Good Parliament of 1376’, Historical Research, 79 (2006), 21–49.