English Politics in the Thirteenth Century

184 Pages·1990·15.614 MB·English

by  Michael Prestwich (auth.)

ENGLISH POLITIeS IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
British History in Perspective
General Editor: J eremy Black
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D. G. Boyce The /ruh Question and British Politics, /868-/986
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Ronald Hutton The BritishRepublic, 1649-/660
Diarmaid MacCulloch The Later Reformation in England, 1547-1603
Keith Perry British Politics and ehe American Revolution
A. J. Pollard The Wars ofe he Roses
Michael Prestwich English Politics in ehe Thirteenth Century
Robert Stewart Party and Politics, /830-/852
FORTHCOMING TITLES
John Davis British Politics, 1885-/93/
Ann Hughes Causes ofthe English Civil War
Paul Seaward The RestOTation
ENGLISH POLITICS
INTHE
THIRTEENTH CENTURY
MICHAEL PRESTWICH
Professor ofH istory
University ofDurham
Macmillan Education
ISBN 978-0-333-41434-7 ISBN 978-1-349-20933-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20933-0
© Michael Prestwich 1990
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1990
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1990
ISBN 978-0-312-04527-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Prestwich, Michael.
English politics in the thirteenth century / Michael Prestwich.
p. cm.-(British history in perspective)
Indudes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-312-04527-2
1. Great Britain-Politics and government-1154-1399. 2. Great
Britain-History-13th century. I. Tide. 11. Series.
DA225.P74 1990
941.03--dc20 89-78230
CIP
CONTENTS
Preface
VI
Introduction 1
I Kingship 11
2 The Aristocracy 29
3 The County Community 47
4 The Church 64
5 Englishmen and Foreigners 79
6 Military Service 95
7 Taxation 109
8 Parliament and Community 129
Conclusion 146
References 150
Select Bibliography 164
Glossary 167
Index 170
PREFACE
THIS BOOK is intended to bring together recent ideas about
the thirteenth century. The period is one which after so me
years of relative dormancy is now attracting a great deal of
attention, as a new generation of historians question the
conclusions of their predecessors. My debt to the various
scholars working in this area is therefore a huge one, as I
ho pe the notes reveal. Special thanks are due to Dr Peter
Coss and Dr Simon Lloyd, for organising a very stimulating
series of conferences for historians of the thirteenth century.
I am grateful to the many students whom I have taught for
this period; I owe them more than they realise. I would like
to give warm thanks to Dr Robin Frame for reading an initial
print-out of this book, and providing extremely helpful
suggestions and corrections. My wife has provided invaluable
help at all stages of the preparation of this book; without her
support and assistance it could not have been written.
Durham, November 1989 MICHAEL PRESTWICH
VI
INTRODUCTION
THE thirteenth century was an age when politics became
distinctively English for the first time since 1066. From the
Norman Conquest until John's reign, England had been a
part of a wider political unit, of which Normandy was the
heartland. By the second half of the twelfth century the king
of England held most of western France, from Normandy to
the Pyrenees. He ruled what is commonly called the Angevin
Empire, though he was, of course, no emperor. The various
lands that comprised this empire were not unified in the
sense of sharing a common administrative or legal system,
but because they had a single ruler it was inevitable that they
would be politically interrelated. The complex events of the
rebellion of 1173 against Henry II, which took place on both
sides of the ChanneI, show that it would be quite wrong to
think of the politics of that reign in purely English terms. In
the thiiteenth century, however, England became more
insular. The loss of Normandy in 1204 was a crucial event,
breaking the vitally important cross-Channellinks that had
bound England to the continental possessions of its rulers. It
would be wrong to assume that England became isolated.
One important qualification to make is that the British
dimension became more important. Many major families
had important interests in Ireland and Wales, which they
expanded in the thirteenth century. Also, many who would
today be termed Frenchmen sought to establish themselves
1
English Politics in the Thirteenth Century
in England. There were, however, never to be such elose
links in terms of landholding and family ties between Eng
land and its remaining continental possessions in Gascony,
that part of south-western France which remained in English
hands, as there had been with Normandy. For the first time
since the Conquest of 1066, it makes sense to think about the
English political system as aseparate entity.
J
The grant by King ohn of Magna Carta in 1215 also
marks a transformation. For the first time an attempt was
made to resolve a political crisis by obtaining a wide-ranging
set of concessions from the crown, concessions which aimed
to impose legal limits on arbitrary royal actions, and which
extended a measure of protection to all free men. In the
short term the charter was a failure, hastening the onset of
the civil war it was intended to prevent, but it showed what
could be done. In the long term, Magna Carta in its revised
form was to provide the essential bedrock of political liber
ties.
The change in the political structure of England that took
place in this hundred years was immense. At the time of
Magna Carta the political community was described as pro
viding the common counsel of the realm. It was defined by
Magna Carta in feudal terms, and consisted of the king's
tenants-in-chief. The major barons were to be summoned
individually, the remainder by the sheriff at a locallevel. It
was envisaged that if it was necessary, twenty-five elected
barons, with 'the community of the whole land', might
compel the king to accept their judgements. A century later,
the political nation was termed community of the realm. No
longer was there any idea of an assembly of tenants-in-chief.
Consultation now normally took place in parliament. A
parliamentary peerage was developing, which was not de
fined in terms of any particular form of feudal tenure, and
there was an elaborate system of representation, of shire,
boroughs and lower elergy.
The reasons for such a transformation were diverse. Some
historians would lay stress on the decline and decay of the old
formal structures of tenurial feudalism. Others would
2
Introduction
emphasise the developing strength of the shire communities,
and of the gentry society which provided their backbone.
The impact of economic change was important: the decline
in the crown's income from land, and the effects of inflation
on the levels of expenditure, meant that the government was
increasingly dependent on raising money by new means, in
particular negotiated taxes. Methods had to be found for
obtaining consent on a far wider scale than had been done in
the past. At the same time there is a theoretical dimension.
The influx of new ideas, particularly those derived from
Roman law, may weIl have affected political practice, and the
way in which men thought about the state and their rela
tionship to it.
Politics in the thirteenth century, as at other periods, was
about the ambitions of individuals, their personal friendships
and, of course, their rivalries. It is possible to produce
interpretations which largely neglect any questions of politic
al ideals, and to see what took place in much more cynical
terms of men see king to better themselves. The competition
for the lands of a great earldom, such as that of Pembroke,
becomes in such an interpretation more important than
abstract political ideals of government by counsel and con
sent. Private ambition and public good cannot be as easily
disentangled as in more modern periods.
Political power lay ultimately with the crown, but it was not
an absolute power. The crown was limited in a broad sense
by a conception that the king should provide good lordship,
and govern with good counsel. There was little consensus in
the thirteenth century, however: the nature of royal author
ity was a matter of fierce debate. At a more practicallevel, an
expansion of royal bureaucracy testified to an increase in
royal power. More and more cases bef ore royal courts, more
and more business was conducted by royal sheriffs and other
officials. At the same time, rights and privileges were jealous
ly guarded against royal exploitation by those who possessed
them. Property rights were protected by elaborate legal
procedures, and inheritance customs were long settled and
established. To obtain support, the crown needed to provide
3