The Fourteenth Century

291 Pages·1959·35.817 MB·English

by  May McKisak

THE OXFORD HISTORY OF ENGLAND THE
Edited by SIR GEORGE CLARK
I. *ROMAN BRITAIN AND THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS FOURTEENTH
By the late R. o. COLLINGWOOD and J· N. L. MYRES, Student of Christ Church,
Oxford; Bodley's Librarian. Second edition, 1937.
II. *ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND. c. 55c>-1087.
By SIR :FRANK STENTON, P.D.A. Second edition, 1947.
CENTURY
III. *FROM DOMESDAY BOOK TO MAGNA CARTA. 1087-1216
By AUSTIN L, POOLE, P.B.A. Second edition, 1955.
IV. *THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 1216-1307
By SIR MAURICE POWICK.E, F.B.A.
V. *THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 1307-1399
By J.IAY MCKISACK, Professor of History at Westfield College in the University of
London.
VI. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 139g-1485
By E. P. JACOB, P.B.A.
VII. *THE EARLIER TUDORS. 1485-1558 BY
By J. o. MACKIE, c.B.E., M.c., Emeritus Professor of Scottish History and Literature
in the University of Glasgow.
MAY McKISACK
VIII. *THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 1558-1603
By J.B. BLACK, Emeritus Professor of History in the University of Aberdeen. Second
edition, 1959. Professor of History at Westfield College
IX. *THE EARLY STUARTS. 1603-1660 in the University of London
By the late GODFREY DAVI.ES. Second edition, 1959. and Honorary Fellow of
X. *THE LATER STUARTS. 166c>-1714 Somerville College, Oxford
By SIR OEORGE CLARK, P.D.A. Second edition, 1956.
XI. *THE WHIG SUPREMACY. 1714-1760
By the late BASI.L WILLIAMS.
XII. THE REIGN OF GEORGE III
By J· STEVEN WATSON, Student of Christ Church, Oxford.
XIII. *THE AGE OF REFORM. 1815-1870
By SIR LLEWELLYN WOODWARD, F.B.A.
XIV. *ENGLAND. 187c>-1914
By the late SIR ROBERT ENSOR.
• Tluse voluma hat>t been published.
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1959
4
Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4 PREFACE
GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
BOMBAY CALCUTIA MADRAS KARACHI KUALA LUMPUR
SOMETHING of my indebtedness to the many scholars whose
CAPE TOWN IBADAN NAIROBI ACC!!A
labours have enriched our understanding of the fourteenth
century is acknowledged below, in the footnotes and
Bibliography. Among such scholars (though none of them is
responsible for anything I have written amiss) I wish to thank
especially Professor V. H. Galbraith, for his sustained interest
in and enlivening criticism of my work; Dr. Rose Graham, for
© Oxford University Press z959 her kindness in reading and offering valuable comments on
Chapter X; Professor Eleanora Cams-Wilson, for her unfailing
readiness to offer guidance on problems of economic history;
and three younger scholars-Dr. E. B. Fryde, Dr.J. R. L. High
field, and Dr. G. A. Holmes-for their great generosity in
allowing me to make use of some of their unpublished work.
I also owe much to the learning and patience of the General
Editor, Sir George Clark, and to the skill and courtesy of the
staff of the Clarendon Press. The Constance Ann Lee Fellow
ship, awarded me by Somerville College for the academic year
1954-5, relieved me of most of my teaching responsibilities and
has thereby enabled me to fulfil my contract at a much earlier
date than would otherwise have been possible. I welcome this
c
opportunity to express my profound gratitude to my college
for its support and for countless benefits bestowed on me
through many years, not least for the benefit of an incomparable
tutor, the late Maude Clarke, whose book this should have been.
M.McK.
Westfield College, London
II March 1959
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD
BY VIVIAN RIDLER
PRINTE TO '!'-HE UN VERSITY
L'
o~:
ll ... Y
(,, I
II ,,
CONTENTS
LIST OF MAPS AND GENEALOGICAL TABLES xv
INTRODUCTION xvii
I. EDWARD II AND THE ORDAINERS (1307-13)
Edward of Carnarvon
A new policy
Coronation of Edward II
Banishment of Gaveston
Recall of Gaveston
Appointment of the Ordainers
Edward II in the north
LThe Ordinances
~ ~Significance of the Ordinances
Royalist counter-moves
Civil War
Capture and execution of Gaveston
Peace negotiations
II. FROM BANNOCKBURN TO BOROUGHBRIDGE
(1314-22)
Successes of Robert Bruce
32
The muster of 1314
34
The battle of Bannockburn
36
Significance of the English defeat
39
The Bruce invasion of Ireland
41
Thomas of Lancaster in power
5
Political stalemate
49
Fainine and unrest
Emergence of the Middle Party
~
The treaty of Leake
The parliament of 1318
The battle of Myton
56
··The York parliament of 1320
Ambitions of the Despensers ~
Defeat of the Despensers
61
Lancaster's northern assemblies
62
Banishment of the Despensers
64
The Despensers recalled
65
Borough bridge
66
Execution of Lancaster
67
Character and policy of Lancaster
68
viii CONTENTS CONTENTS ix
III. REACTION AND REVOLUTION (1322-30) Sluys 12g
The Statute of York 71 The truce of Esple~hin 130
The Despensers in power 3 The war in Brittany 131
Truce with Scotland 75 Invasion of Normandy 133
Administrative reforms 76 Crecy 134
Avarice of the Despensers 78 The siege and fall of Calais 137
Queen Isabella 7g -T The Black Prince in Gascony 138
The queen in France 81 Poi tiers 13g
Prince Edward does homage to Charles IV 82 The campaign of 135g 140
Isabella and Mortimer invade England 83 ., The treaty of Calais 141
Murder of Stapledon 84 English reverses 142
Judgement on the Despensers 8 Najera 144
The parliament of 1327 88 Renewal of war with France 145
Preliminaries of the deposition 8g • Effects of the papal schism 146
Deputations to Edward II at Kenilworth go The truce of 13g6 147
Deposition of Edward II gr "Aims and strategy of Edward III
State of public opinion g3 Effects of the war
Murder of Edward II g4
Character of Edward II g5 VI. EDWARD III AND ARCHBISHOP STRATFORD
Mortimer in power g6 I (1330-43)
The treaty of Northampton g8 " Personal rule of Edward III @
Execution of Edmund of Kent 100 • Financial problems w
•Fall of Mortimer IOI Affair of the 'Dordrecht bonds' 157
. ,Significance of the period 102 The Walton Ordinances 158
Stratford the principal councillor 160
,IV.) THE ORIGINS OF THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR The grant of the ninth 162
•The Gascon dilemma 105 I The statutes of 1340 163
The war of Saint-Sardos 10g ~ Failure to deliver supplies 165
The dynastic issue r r r i Hostility to Stratford 167
Diplomatic negotiations r 13 Edward III purges the administration 168
Confiscation of Gascony by Philip VI r 15 The libellus famosus 170
The Disinherited in Scotland r 16 Battle of words 171
Halidon Hill r r 7 The parliament of 1341 Q1
Philip VI and the Scots r r 8 I\ Reconciliation of Edw~rd and Stratford 177
The Low Countries 1 rg Significance of the crisis of 1340-1 (~
The embassy to Valenciennes 12 I
\ Edward III created imperial vicar-general 122 VIL PARLIAMENT, LAW, AND JUSTICE
Crusading schemes 123 • Nature of parliament
182
Benedict XII I 24 The Modus Tenendi Parliamentum @-3)
Martial tastes of Edward III I 25 Lords spiritual and temporal 184
Curi ales 187
V. THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR TO 13g6 Knights and burgesses 188
. The campaign in the Thierache 127 ~ Parliamentary procedure 1go
•Edward III assumes the title of France 128 Parliamentary functions: deliberation rgr
0
CONTENTS CONTENTS ix
x
192 X. TH~ CHURCH, THE POPE, AND THE KING
Taxation
· Justice 193 Anti-papal protests 272
\ Legislation 194 Papal provisions 273
Development of statute law 196 Pluralism and non-residence 279
198
' The courts of justice Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire 280
1 200
The justices of the peace Papal taxation •
203 ~3..
1 Disorder and crime 205 Royal taxation of the clergy 2861
Corruptibility of officials Anti-clericalism
1 207 28~
\The Forest Dissolution of the Order of the Templars 291
VIII. EDINGTON AND WYKEHAM (1344-71) The alien priories 293
Lay and clerical ministers of state 210 Fourteenth-century bishops 295
213 Rectors and vicars 302
Edington as chancellor
The privy seal 214 Chantry priests 304
Supremacy of the exchequer 215 Monks 305
216 Friars
The king's chamber
217 A religious age ~
The king's wardrobe
218
The great and privy wardrobes XI. RURAL SOCIETY
219
Parliament and the war 222 Colonization of England 312
The wool tax Population estimates
223 313
Credit operation~ of Edward III Communications
225 314
Rise of Wykeham A pattern of change
227 315
Wykeham as chancellor High farming
228 316
Ireland under Edward III Administrative arrangements
231 317
Lionel of Clarence in Ireland 232 Agricultural improvements 320
The Statutes of Kilkenny Sheep farming
322
r w Profits from rents
IX. AR AND CHIV ALR y 323
Paid troops 234 Stratification of the villeinage 324
Military contracts 235 1 Thefamuli 325
Commissions of array 237 Decline of high farming ~2§/
Arms and armour 238 - The Black Death 331
The longbow 240 Growth of leaseholds 333
Naval developments 242 Rising wages 334
The court of Admiralty 245 The Statute of Labourers 335
246 Social disturbances 336
The profits of war
249 The Rising of l 38 l 338
The allurements of war
- Decay of villeinage
251
The Order of the Garter
r- 2 Demesne leasings
Edward III and the baronage 5 ~)
..2 57 - Condition of the peasantry
The Statute of Treasons
_ A mobile society
258
Baronial estates
261 Prosperity of the nineties
Jointures and uses
262
Retainers XII. TRADE, INDUSTRY, AND TOWNS
264
Heralds Exports
265 349
• Edward III and his family The wool trade
350
269
• Character and achievement of Edward III
xii CONTENTS CONTENTS xiii
./
The staple Anne of Bohemia 427
The cloth trade ( Gaunt's ambitions in Castile 428
Conflicts with the Banse I The Norwich Crusade 431
The wine trade The affair of the Carmelite friar 434
\
The woollen industry John of Northampton 435
Flemish weavers in England \ Unpopularity of the court 437
The domestic cloth market The Scottish expedition of 1385 439
Mining Lancaster leaves for Spain 440
The building industry The parliament of 1386 442
Fraternities, misteries, and gilds Richard !I's 'gyration' 447
The London gilds The questions to the judges 448
Expansion of London The lords appellant 451
Fluctuations in urban development Radcot Bridge 453
Civic oligarchies .f The Merciless Parliament 454
I
XIII. THE GOOD PARLIAMENT ;).ND THE PEASANTS'
XV. THE RULE AND FALL OF RICHARD II (1388-99)
REVOLT (1371-81)
I The rule of the appellants
, Decline of Edward III ,~8
Richard II declares himself of age
~ Poli ti cal unrest 385 Return of Lancaster
Trouble in Ireland 386
Conciliar government
The Good Parliament ~
Portents of trouble
Judgement on Wykeham 394
Insurrection in the north
...._'The last parliament of Edward III 395
Richard II in Ireland
_,Peath of Edward III 397
The royalist group
-t Gaunt and the Londoners 398 Haxey's bill
• Coronation of Richard II 399
Arrest of Warwick, Arundel, and Gloucester
400
• Policy of Gaunt
The parliament of 1397
The Hawley-Shakell case 403
The Shrewsbury session
Criticism of the government 405
The lists at Coventry
'-' The poll-tax of 1380
Tyranny of Richard II
The Rising in Essex and Kent
Death of John of Gaunt
The march on London
The second expedition to Ireland
• · Richard II at Mile End 41 l
Invasion of Henry of Lancaster
412
• The assault on the Tower
The fall of Richard II
Richard II at Smithfield 413
Character and policy of Richard II
St. Albans 414
The Rising in Suffolk 415
XVI. LEARNING, LOLLARDY, AND LITERATURE
416
Cambridge
The Rising in Norfolk 417 Schools 499
418 Universities 501
Suppression of the Revolt
Causes and significance of the Revolt 419 Oxford 502
Cambridge 505
XIV. RICHARD II, HIS FRIENDS AND HIS ENEMIES Colleges and halls 506
(1381-8) Mathematicians, astronomers, and philosophers
~
( Childhood of Richard II 424 John Wyclif
\
CONTENTS
xiv r53
The lollards
522
The lollard Bible
524 LIST OF MAPS
Vernacular literature
526
Piers Plowman
\ GChowauecre r 552279 Fm. 21.. SSuogugthe sWteda lseist easn fdo rt hthee M baatrtclhe of Bannockburn 6370
"
113
BIBLIOGRAPHY 533 " 3· Gascony and Poitou
116
4· Southern Scotland and northern England
"
567 121
INDEX 5· The Low Countries in the fourteenth century
"
230
6. Four teent h-century Ireland
"
GENEALOGICAL TABLES
106
The Houses of Capet and Valois
(at end)
The House of Plantagenet
INTRODUCTION
KING EDWARD 11 entered into a rich inheritance. England
at the opening of the fourteenth century was a prosper
ous land, a land of expanding population, flourishing
agriculture, fair cities, fine churches, rising universities and
schools. The great King Edward I who had ruled this country
for over thirty years had played his role magnificently, offend
ing none of the conventions of his age. Immensely vigorous,
both physically and mentally, he enjoyed the hawking, hunting,
and mock fighting which were the approved relaxations of
monarchy; and was himself a soldier of distinction. He accepted
the medieval ideal of a united Christendom and made his in
fluence felt in Europe, while energetically maintaining what he
conceived to be the rights and prerogatives of the English Crown.
By the end of his reign he had conquered the principality of
Wales and added the earldom of Cornwall to the royal demesnes.
The great earldom of Gloucester was in the hands of his grand
son, Gilbert de Clare, the earl of Hereford and Essex was his
son-in-law, the earl of Surrey was his granddaughter's husband.
The king's nephew, John of Brittany, was hereditary earl of
Richmond; another nephew, Thomas of Lancaster, son of his
brother Edmund, was earl of Lancaster and Leicester and had
inherited a claim to the Ferrers earldom of Derby and, through
his wife Alice, daughter and heiress of the king's friend, Henry
de Lacy, to the reversion of the earldoms of Lincoln and Salis
bury. Although Edward had run into serious difficulties in 1297,
when he had been forced to make formal confirmation of the
Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest, he had felt strong
enough by 1305 to repudiate these concessions and to seek and
obtain papal absolution from his oath. His most determined
ecclesiastical opponents, Robert Winchelsey, archbishop of
Canterbury, and Antony Bek, bishop of Durham, soon found
themselves in exile; the king seemed to have insured himself
against any renewal of the crisis of 1297, let alone of another
Runnymede or Lewes. Meanwhile, a series of great statutes had
amended and clarified the law of the land; the council in par
liament was omnicompetent and the speed and equity of its
judgements were attracting an increasing number of suitors; by
INTRODUCTION xix
xviii INTRODUCTION
Lanercost, near Carlisle, and died as he was moving towards the
summoning representatives of shires, cities, and boroughs, of
Border to renew the attack on Bruce. English determination to
cathedral and parochial clergy to his parliaments, Edward had
maintain the vassal status of Scotland was thus still at grips with
enlarged the scope of the feudal assembly and laid the founda
the Scottish will to resistance; a Scottish war with all its implica
tions of a system of parliamentary taxation. Much of his success
tions, military, financial, and political, was the unenviable
must be ascribed to the efficiency of his ministers and of the ad
legacy of Edward II. Militarily-though the lesson had not
ministrative system which they controlled. Despite their inevit
been digested-experience had shown that the Scots could be
able unpopularity, both Robert Burnell, chancellor from 1274
defeated in battle and their country temporarily overrun, but
to 1292, and Walter Langton, treasurer from 1295 until the end
that to hold them in permanent subjection was a task beyond
of the reign, served the monarchy well. In chancery and ex
England's resources. The Scottish campaigns of Edward I had
chequer and in the household departments of wardrobe and
strained these resources severely; and, though his credit opera
cham?er, Edward I had been able to rely on the loyalty and
tions look trifling if measured against those of Edward III at the
expenence of a small army of well-trained clerks and officials
opening of the Hundred Years War, debts amounting to over
who drafte~ his letters and directed the details of his policy. But,
£60,000 remained unpaid at his death and exchequer accounts
at least until the last years of his reign, he had been wise enough
were in cbaos. The customs were mortgaged to the Italian
not to allow such men to usurp, or (what was more important)
banking-house of Frescobaldi and money was owing to mag
to appear to usurp the advisory functions proper to the heredi
nates, troops, courtiers, tradesmen, and clerks. Politically, the
tary aristocracy. For Edward I possessed in generous measure
Scottish rapprochement with France during the Anglo-French
the po~itical good sense in which both his predecessor, Henry III,
and his successor, Edward II, were conspicuously deficient. conflict of I 294-7 had been among the most sinister develop
ments of the war of independence. At the end of the reign,
High-handed, overbearing, and often unscrupulous, he might
England and France were at peace. But the vital question out
provoke men's resentment, even their hatred, but seldom their
standing between them, the question of the precise status of the
contempt. If there were some who suspected him of too great
king of England in his capacity of duke of Aquitaine, remained
d~pen~ence on t~e of?cers of state and household, none charged
unresolved to threaten the peace of western Europe.
him with subordmatJ.ng the public interest to his private affec
tions. The pattern of skilful ruling .which he bequeathed to his
heir might have been turned to good account by a wiser man
than Edward of Carnarvon.
The cloud on the horizon was Scotland. For in 1307 England
and Scotland were at war and the new king's most damaging
liability was the inflexible hostility of the Scots whose struggle
for independence had already persisted through a decade. By
1306 Robert Bruce of Annandale was conspiring secretly with
certain of the Scottish magnates to have himself accepted as
king. When his principal Scottish rival, John Comyn the Red,
was murdered at Dumfries in February, Bruce, who was sus
pected of complicity in the crime, was forced to take to the hills·
but he declared himself the champion of national independence'
renewed his claim to the Crown, and a few weeks later secured
his own coronation at Scone. Though subsequently driven into
exile, he reappeared in Scotland early in the following year.
Edward I spent the last winter of his life at the priory of
I
EDWARD II AND THE ORDAINERS
(1307-13)
WHEN, in July 1307, the great Edward I lay dying at the
Cumberland village of Burgh-upon-the-Sands, it may
well have seemed to some ofh is principal subjects that he
had lived too long. Around the formidable old king, whose last
campaign' was undertaken in his sixty-eighth year, there had
been growing up a circle of much younger barons, many of them
linked to the royal house by ties of blood or marriage. Even
Henry de Lacy of Lincoln, veteran among the earls, was
Edward's junior by twelve years; and, of the rest, only John of
Brittany, earl of Richmond, and the earls of Oxford and Ulster
were over forty. Aymer de Valence, shortly to assume the title
of Pembroke, may have been thirty-seven;1 but Humphrey
Bahun of Hereford and Essex, Thomas of Lancaster, Leicester,
and Derby, Guy Beauchamp of Warwick, Edmund Fitzalan of
Arundel, andJohn de Warenne of Surrey were all young men in
their twenties or early thirties; while the new king's nephew,
Gilbert de Clare of Gloucester, was a boy of sixteen. There were
grounds for rejoicing in the accession of a prince in his twenty
fourth year, 'fair of body and great of strength', whose education
had been such as befitted his rank.2 If his household was unruly
and his habits extravagant there was little in such youthful
excesses to call for comment.3 For many years he had been
suitably betrothed to a French princess, Isabella, daughter of
Philip IV; he was duke of Aquitaine and lord of Ponthieu
Montreuil; he had played his part unremarkably in four Scottish
campaigns, had acted as regent for his father during his absences
1 He was born probably c. 1270 and assumed the title on the death of his mother
in April I 308. Complete Peerage, x. 382-4.
2 According to Robert of Reading (Flores, iii. 137), Edward II was acclaimed
cum ingenti lattitia. The author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi (ed. N. Denholm-Young,
1957, p. 40) also refers to the popular favour he enjoyed at the beginning of the
reign.
3 Edward's household as prince of Wales is the first of its kind of which we have
detailed knowledge. See T. F. Tout, Chapters in Medieval Admi11istrative History, ii.
165-87. His early life is the subject of a monograph by Hilda Johnstone, Edward of
Carnarvon (I 946).
8720 .5 B