redressed without delay: and if it be not redressed by us, or
if we should chance to be out of the realm, if it should not
be redressed by our justiciary within forty days, reckoning
from the time it has been notified to us, or to our justiciary
(if we should be out of the realm), the four barons aforesaid
shall lay the cause before the rest of the five-and-twenty
barons; and the said five-and-twenty barons, together with the
community of the whole kingdom, shall distrain and distress us
in all the ways in which they shall be able, by seizing our
castles, lands, possessions, and in any other manner they can,
till the grievance is redressed, according to their pleasure;
saving harmless our own person, and the persons of our Queen
and children; and when it is redressed, they shall behave to
us as before. And any person whatsoever in the kingdom may
swear that he will obey the orders of the five-and-twenty
barons aforesaid in the execution of the premises, and will
distress us, jointly with them, to the utmost of his power;
and we give public and free liberty to anyone that shall
please to swear to this, and never will hinder any person from
taking the same oath.
62. As for all those of our subjects who will not, of their
own accord, swear to join the five-and-twenty barons in
distraining and distressing us, we will issue orders to make
them take the same oath as aforesaid. And if anyone of the
five-and-twenty barons dies, or goes out of the kingdom, or is
hindered any other way from carrying the things aforesaid into
execution, the rest of the said five-and-twenty barons may
choose another in his room, at their discretion, who shall be
sworn in like manner as the rest. In all things that are
committed to the execution of these five-and-twenty barons,
if, when they are all assembled together, they should happen
to disagree about any matter, and some of them, when summoned,
will not or cannot come, whatever is agreed upon, or enjoined,
by the major part of those that are present shall be reputed
as firm and valid as if all the five-and-twenty had given
their consent; and the aforesaid five-and-twenty shall swear
that all the premises they shall faithfully observe, and cause
with all their power to be observed. And we will procure
nothing from anyone, by ourselves nor by another, whereby any
of these concessions and liberties may be revoked or lessened;
and if any such thing shall have been obtained, let it be null
and void; neither will we ever make use of it either by
ourselves or any other. And all the ill-will, indignations,
and rancours that have arisen between us and our subjects, of
the clergy and laity, from the first breaking out of the
dissensions between us, we do fully remit and forgive:
moreover, all trespasses occasioned by the said dissensions,
from Easter in the sixteenth year of our reign till the
restoration of peace and tranquillity, we hereby entirely
remit to all, both clergy and laity, and as far as in us lies
do fully forgive. We have, moreover, caused to be made for
them the letters patent testimonial of Stephen, Lord
Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry, Lord Archbishop of Dublin,
and the bishops aforesaid, as also of Master Pandulph, for the
security and concessions aforesaid.
{807}
63. Wherefore we will and firmly enjoin, that the Church of
England be free, and that all men in our kingdom have and hold
all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions, truly
and peaceably, freely and quietly, fully and wholly to
themselves and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all things
and places, for ever, as is aforesaid. It is also sworn, as
well on our part as on the part of the barons, that all the
things aforesaid shall be observed in good faith, and without
evil subtilty. Given under our hand, in the presence of the
witnesses above named, and many others, in the meadow called
Runingmede, between Windsor and Staines, the 15th day of June,
in the 17th year of our reign."
W. Stubbs,
Select Charters,
part 5.
Old South Leaflets,
General Series,
number 5.
Also IN:
E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages,
book 1, number 7.
C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2, chapter 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.
Character and reign of Henry III.
The Barons' War.
Simon de Montfort and the evolution of the English Parliament.
King John died October 17,1216. "His legitimate successor was
a child of nine years of age. For the first time since the
Conquest the personal government was in the hands of a minor.
In that stormy time the great Earl of Pembroke undertook the
government, as Protector. ... At the Council of Bristol, with
general approbation and even with that of the papal legate,
Magna Charta was confirmed, though with the omission of
certain articles. ... After some degree of tranquillity had
been restored, a second confirmation of the Great Charter took
place in the autumn of 1217, with the omission of the clauses
referring to the estates, but with the grant of a new charta
de foresta, introducing a vigorous administration of the
forest laws. In 9 Henry III. Magna Charta was again confirmed,
and this is the form in which it afterwards took its place
among the statutes of the realm. Two years later, Henry III.
personally assumes the reins of government at the Parliament
of Oxford (1227), and begins his rule without confirming the
two charters. At first the tutorial government still
continues, which had meanwhile, even after the death of the
great Earl of Pembroke (1219), remained in a fairly orderly
condition. The first epoch of sixteen years of this reign must
therefore be regarded purely as a government by the nobility
under the name of Henry III. The regency had succeeded in
removing the dominant influence of the Roman Curia by the
recall of the papal legate, Pandulf, to Rome (1221), and in
getting rid of the dangerous foreign mercenary soldiery
(1224). ... With the disgraceful dismissal of the chief
justiciary, Hubert de Burgh, there begins a second epoch of a
personal rule of Henry III. (1232-1252), which for twenty
continuous years, presents the picture of a confused and
undecided struggle between the king and his foreign favourites
and personal adherents on the one side, and the great barons,
and with them soon the prelates, on the other. ... In 21 Henry
III. the King finds himself, in consequence of pressing money
embarrassments, again compelled to make a solemn confirmation
of the charter, in which once more the clauses relating to the
estates are omitted. Shortly afterwards, as had happened just
one hundred years previously in France, the name
'parliamentum' occurs for the first time (Chron. Dunst., 1244;
Matth. Paris, 1246), and curiously enough, Henry III. himself,
in a writ addressed to the Sheriff of Northampton, designates
with this term the assembly which originated the Magna Charta.
... The name 'parliament,' now occurs more frequently, but
does not supplant the more definite terms concilium,
colloquium, etc. In the meanwhile the relations with the
Continent became complicated, in consequence of the family
connections of the mother and wife of the King, and the greed
of the papal envoys. ... From the year 1244 onwards, neither a
chief justice nor a chancellor, nor even a treasurer, is
appointed, but the administration of the country is conducted
at the Court by the clerks of the offices."
R. Gneist,
History of the English Constitution,
volume 1, pages 313-321.
"Nothing is so hard to realise as chaos; and nothing nearer to
chaos can be conceived than the government of Henry III. Henry
was, like all the Plantagenets, clever; like very few of them,
he was devout; and if the power of conceiving a great policy
would constitute a great King, he would certainly have been
one. ... He aimed at making the Crown virtually independent of
the barons. ... His connexion with Louis IX., whose
brother-in-law he became, was certainly a misfortune to him.
In France the royal power had during the last fifty years been
steadily on the advance; in England it had as steadily
receded; and Henry was ever hearing from the other side of the
Channel maxims of government and ideas of royal authority
which were utterly inapplicable to the actual state of his own
kingdom. This, like a premature Stuart, Henry was incapable of
perceiving; a King he was, and a King he would be, in his own
sense of the word. It is evident that with such a task before
him, he needed for the most shadowy chance of success, an iron
strength of will, singular self-control, great forethought and
care in collecting and husbanding his resources, a rare talent
for administration, the sagacity to choose and the
self-reliance to trust his counsellors. And not one of these
various qualities did Henry possess. ... Henry had imbibed
from the events and the tutors of his early childhood two
maxims of state, and two alone: to trust Rome, and to distrust
the barons of England. ... He filled the places of trust and
power about himself with aliens, to whom the maintenance of
Papal influence was like an instinct of self-preservation.
Thus were definitely formed the two great parties out of whose
antagonism the War of the Barons arose, under whose influence
the relations between the crown and people of England were
remodelled, and out of whose enduring conflict rose,
indirectly, the political principles which contributed so
largely to bring about the Reformation of the English Church.
The few years which followed the fall of Hubert de Burgh were
the heyday of Papal triumph. And no triumph could have been
worse used. ... Thus was the whole country lying a prey to the
ecclesiastical aliens maintained by the Pope, and to the lay
aliens maintained by the King, ... when Simon de Montfort
became ... inseparably intermixed with the course of our
history. ... In the year 1258 opened the first act of the
great drama which has made the name of Simon de Montfort
immortal. ... The Barons of England, at Leicester's
suggestion, had leagued for the defence of their rights. They
appeared armed at the Great Council. ...
{808}
They required as the condition of their assistance that the
general reformation of the realm should be entrusted to a
Commission of twenty-four members, half to be chosen by the
crown, and half by themselves. For the election of this body,
primarily, and for a more explicit statement of grievances,
the Great Council was to meet again at Oxford on the 11th of
June, 1258. When the Barons came, they appeared at the head of
their retainers. The invasion of the Welsh was the plea; but
the real danger was nearer home. They seized on the Cinque
Ports; the unrenewed truce with France was the excuse; they
remembered too vividly King John and his foreign mercenaries.
They then presented their petition. This was directed to the
redress of various abuses. ... To each and every clause the
King gave his inevitable assent. One more remarkable
encroachment was made upon the royal prerogative; the election
in Parliament of a chief justiciar. ... The chief justiciar
was the first officer of the Crown. He was not a mere chief
justice, after the fashion of the present day, but the
representative of the Crown in its high character of the
fountain of justice. ... But the point upon which the barons
laid the greatest stress, from the beginning to the end of
their struggle, was the question of the employment of aliens.
That the strongest castles and the fairest lands of England
should be in the hands of foreigners, was an insult to the
national spirit which no free people could fail to resent. ...
England for the English, the great war cry of the barons, went
home to the heart of the humblest. ... The great question of
the constitution of Parliament was not heard at Oxford; it
emerged into importance when the struggle grew fiercer, and
the barons found it necessary to gather allies round them. ...
One other measure completed the programme of the barons;
namely, the appointment, already referred to, of a committee
of twenty-four. ... It amounted to placing the crown under the
control of a temporary Council of Regency [see OXFORD,
PROVISIONS OF]. ... Part of the barons' work was simple
enough. The justiciar was named, and the committee of
twenty-four. To expel the foreigners was less easy. Simon de
Montfort, himself an alien by birth, resigned the two castles
which he held, and called upon the rest to follow. They simply
refused. ... But the barons were in arms, and prepared to use
them. The aliens, with their few English supporters, fled to
Winchester, where the castle was in the hands of the foreign
bishop Aymer. They were besieged, brought to terms, and
exiled. The barons were now masters of the situation. ...
Among the prerogatives of the crown which passed to the Oxford
Commission not the least valuable, for the hold which it gave
on the general government of the country, was the right to
nominate the sheriffs. In 1261 the King, who had procured a
Papal bull to abrogate the Provisions of Oxford, and an army
of mercenaries to give the bull effect, proceeded to expel the
sheriffs who had been placed in office by the barons. The
reply of the barons was most memorable; it was a direct appeal
to the order below their own. They summoned three knights
elected from each county in England to meet them at St. Albans
to discuss the state of the realm. It was clear that the day
of the House of Commons could not be far distant, when at such
a crisis an appeal to the knights of the shire could be made,
and evidently made with success. For a moment, in this great
move, the whole strength of the barons was united; but
differences soon returned, and against divided counsels the
crown steadily prevailed. In June, 1262, we find peace
restored. The more moderate of the barons had acquiesced in
the terms offered by Henry; Montfort, who refused them, was
abroad in voluntary exile. ... Suddenly, in July, the Earl of
Gloucester died, and the sole leadership of the barons passed
into the hands of Montfort. With this critical event opens the
last act in the career of the great Earl. In October he returns
privately to England. The whole winter is passed in the
patient reorganising of the party, and the preparation for a
decisive struggle. Montfort, fervent, eloquent, and devoted,
swayed with despotic influence the hearts of the younger
nobles (and few in those days lived to be grey), and taught
them to feel that the Provisions of Oxford were to them what
the Great Charter had been to their fathers. They were drawn
together with an unanimity unknown before. ... They demanded
the restoration of the Great Provisions. The King refused, and
in May, 1263, the barons appealed to arms. ... Henry, with a
reluctant hand, subscribed once more to the Provisions of
Oxford, with a saving clause, however, that they should be
revised in the coming Parliament. On the 9th of September,
accordingly, Parliament was assembled. ... The King and the
barons agreed to submit their differences to the arbitration
of Louis of France. ... Louis IX. had done more than any one
king of France to enlarge the royal prerogative; and Louis was
the brother-in-law of Henry. His award, given at Amiens on the
23d of January, 1264. was, as we should have expected,
absolutely in favour of the King. The whole Provisions of
Oxford were, in his view, an invasion of the royal power. ...
The barons were astounded. ... They at once said that the
question of the employment of aliens was never meant to be
included. ... The appeal was made once again to the sword.
Success for a moment inclined to the royal side, but it was
only for a moment; and on the memorable field of Lewes the
genius of Leicester prevailed. ... With the two kings of
England and of the Romans prisoners in his hands, Montfort
dictated the terms of the so-called Mise of Lewes. ... Subject
to the approval of Parliament, all differences were to be
submitted once more to French arbitration. ... On the 23d of
June the Parliament met. It was no longer a Great Council,
after the fashion of previous assemblies; it included four
knights, elected by each English county. This Parliament gave
such sanction as it was able to the exceptional authority of
Montfort, and ordered that until the proposed arbitration
could be carried out, the King's council should consist of
nine persons, to be named by the Bishop of Chichester, and the
Earls of Gloucester and Leicester. The effect was to give
Simon for the time despotic power. ... It was at length agreed
that all questions whatever, the employment of aliens alone
excepted, should be referred to the Bishop of London, the
justiciar Hugh le Despenser, Charles of Anjou, and the Abbot
of Bec. If on any point they could not agree, the Archbishop
of Rouen was to act as referee. ... It was ... not simply the
expedient of a revolutionary chief in difficulties, but the
expression of a settled and matured policy, when, in December
1264, [Montfort] issued in the King's name the ever-memorable
writs which summoned the first complete Parliament which ever
met in England.
{809}
The earls, barons, and bishops received their summons as of
course; and with them the deans of cathedral churches, an
unprecedented number of abbots and priors, two knights from
every shire, and two citizens or burgesses from every city or
borough in England. Of their proceedings we know but little;
but they appear to have appointed Simon de Montfort to the
office of Justiciar of England, and to have thus made him in
rank, what he had before been in power, the first subject in
the realm. ... Montfort ... had now gone so far, he had
exercised such extraordinary powers, he had done so many
things which could never really be pardoned, that perhaps his
only chance of safety lay in the possession of some such
office as this. It is certain, moreover, that something which
passed in this Parliament, or almost exactly at the time of
its meeting, did cause deep offence to a considerable section
of the barons. ... Difficulties were visibly gathering thicker
around him, and he was evidently conscious that disaffection
was spreading fast. ... Negotiations went forward, not very
smoothly, for the release of Prince Edward. They were
terminated in May by his escape. It was the signal for a
royalist rising. Edward took the command of the Welsh border;
before the middle of June he had made the border his own. On
the 29th Gloucester opened its gates to him. He had many
secret friends. He pushed fearlessly eastward, and surprised
the garrison of Kenilworth, commanded by Simon, the Earl's
second son. The Earl himself lay at Evesham, awaiting the
troops which his son was to bring up from Kenilworth. ... On
the fatal field of Evesham, fighting side by side to the last,
fell the Earl himself, his eldest son Henry, Despenser the
late Justiciar, Lord Basset of Drayton, one of his firmest
friends, and a host of minor name. With them, to all
appearance, fell the cause for which they had fought."
Simon de Montfort
(Quarterly Review, January, 1866).
See PARLIAMENT, THE ENGLISH:
EARLY STAGES OF ITS EVOLUTION.
"Important as this assembly [the Parliament of 1264] is in the
history of the constitution, it was not primarily and
essentially a constitutional assembly. It was not a general
convention of the tenants in chief or of the three estates,
but a parliamentary assembly of the supporters of the existing
government."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 14, section 177 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
W. Stubbs,
The Early Plantagenets.
G. W. Prothero,
Life of Simon de Montfort,
chapter 11-12.
H. Blaauw,
The Barons' War.
C. H. Pearson,
England, Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1271.
Crusade of Prince Edward:
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1270-1271.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1272.
Accession of King Edward I.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1275-1295.
Development of Parliamentary representation under Edward 1.
"Happily, Earl Simon [de Montfort] found a successor, and more
than a successor, in the king's [Henry III.'s] son. ... Edward
I. stood on the vantage ground of the throne. ... He could do
that easily and without effort which Simon could only do
laboriously, and with the certainty of rousing opposition.
Especially was this the case with the encouragement given by
the two men to the growing aspirations after parliamentary
representation. Earl Simon's assemblies were instruments of
warfare. Edward's assemblies were invitations to peace. ...
Barons and prelates, knights and townsmen, came together only
to support a king who took the initiative so wisely, and who,
knowing what was best for all, sought the good of his kingdom
without thought of his own ease. Yet even so, Edward was too
prudent at once to gather together such a body as that which
Earl Simon had planned. He summoned, indeed, all the
constituent parts of Simon's parliament, but he seldom
summoned them to meet in one place or at one time. Sometimes
the barons and prelates met apart from the townsmen or the
knights, sometimes one or the other class met entirely alone.
... In this way, during the first twenty years of Edward's
reign, the nation rapidly grew in that consciousness of
national unity which would one day transfer the function of
regulation from the crown to the representatives of the
people."
S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger,
Introduction to the Study of English History,
chapter 4, section 17.
"In 1264 Simon de Montfort had called up from both shires and
boroughs representatives to aid him in the new work of
government. That part of Earl Simon's work had not been
lasting. The task was left for Edward I. to be advanced by
gradual safe steps, but to be thoroughly completed, as a part
of a definite and orderly arrangement, according to which the
English parliament was to be the perfect representation of the
Three Estates of the Realm, assembled for purposes of
taxation, legislation and united political action. ...
Edward's first parliament, in 1275, enabled him to pass a
great statute of legal reform, called the Statute of
Westminster the First, and to exact the new custom on wool;
another assembly, the same year, granted him a fifteenth. ...
There is no evidence that the commons of either town or county
were represented. ... In 1282, when the expenses of the Welsh
war were becoming heavy, Edward again tried the plan of
obtaining money from the towns and counties by separate
negotiation; but as that did not provide him with funds
sufficient for his purpose, he called together, early in 1283,
two great assemblies, one at York and another at Northampton,
in which four knights from each shire and four members from
each city and borough were ordered to attend; the cathedral
and conventual clergy also of the two provinces were
represented at the same places by their elected proctors. At
these assemblies there was no attendance of the barons; they
were with the king in Wales; but the commons made a grant of
one-thirtieth on the understanding that the lords should do
the same. Another assembly was held at Shrewsbury the same
year, 1283, to witness the trial of David of Wales; to this
the bishops and clergy were not called, but twenty towns and
all the counties were ordered to send representatives. Another
step was taken in 1290: knights of the shire were again
summoned; but still much remained to be done before a perfect
parliament was constituted. Counsel was wanted for
legislation, consent was wanted for taxation. The lords were
summoned in May, and did their work in June and July, granting
a feudal aid and passing the statute 'Quia Emptores,' but the
knights only came to vote or to promise a tax, after a law had
been passed; and the towns were again taxed by special
commissions. In 1294, ... under the alarm of war with France,
an alarm which led Edward into several breaches of
constitutional law, he went still further, assembling the
clergy by their representatives in August, and the shires by
their representative knights in October.
{810}
The next year, 1295, witnessed the first summons of a perfect
and model parliament; the clergy represented by their bishops,
deans, archdeacons, and elected proctors; the barons summoned
severally in person by the king's special writ, and the
commons summoned by writs addressed to the sheriffs, directing
them to send up two elected knights from each shire, two
elected citizens from each city, and two elected burghers from
each borough. The writ by which the prelates were called to
this parliament contained a famous sentence taken from the
Roman law, 'That which touches all should be approved by all,'
a maxim which might serve as a motto for Edward's
constitutional scheme, however slowly it grew upon him, now
permanently and consistently completed."
W. Stubbs,
The Early Plantagenets,
chapter 10.
"Comparing the history of the following ages with that of the
past, we can scarcely doubt that Edward had a definite idea of
government before his eyes, or that that idea was successful
because it approved itself to the genius and grew out of the
habits of the people. Edward saw, in fact, what the nation was
capable of, and adapted his constitutional reforms to that
capacity. But although we may not refuse him the credit of
design, it may still be questioned whether the design was
altogether voluntary, whether it was not forced upon him by
circumstances and developed by a series of careful
experiments. ... The design, as interpreted by the result, was
the creation of a national parliament, composed of the three
estates. ... This design was perfected in 1295. It was not the
result of compulsion, but the consummation of a growing policy.
... But the close union of 1295 was followed by the compulsion
of 1297: out of the organic completeness of the constitution
sprang the power of resistance, and out of the resistance the
victory of the principles, which Edward might guide, but which
he failed to coerce."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 15, section 244
and chapter 14, section 180-182.
W. Stubbs,
Select Charters,
part 7.
"The 13th century was above all things the age of the lawyer
and the legislator. The revived study of Roman law had been
one of the greatest results of the intellectual renaissance of
the twelfth century. The enormous growth of the universities
in the early part of the thirteenth century was in no small
measure due to the zeal, ardour and success of their legal
faculties. From Bologna there flowed all over Europe a great
impulse towards the systematic and scientific study of the
Civil Law of Rome. ... The northern lawyers were inspired by
their emulation of the civilians and canonists to look at the
rude chaos of feudal custom with more critical eyes. They
sought to give it more system and method, to elicit its
leading principles, and to coordinate its clashing rules into
a harmonious body of doctrine worthy to be put side by side
with the more pretentious edifices of the Civil and Canon Law.
In this spirit Henry de Bracton wrote the first systematic
exposition of English law in the reign of Henry III. The
judges and lawyers of the reign of Edward sought to put the
principles of Bracton into practice. Edward himself strove
with no small success to carry on the same great work by new
legislation. ... His well-known title of the 'English
Justinian' is not so absurd as it appears at first sight. He
did not merely resemble Justinian in being a great legislator.
Like the famous codifier of the Roman law, Edward stood at the
end of a long period of legal development, and sought to arrange
and systematise what had gone before him. Some of his great
laws are almost in form attempts at the systematic
codification of various branches of feudal custom. ... Edward
was greedy for power, and a constant object of his legislation
was the exaltation of the royal prerogative. But he nearly
always took a broad and comprehensive view of his authority,
and thoroughly grasped the truth that the best interests of
king and kingdom were identical. He wished to rule the state,
but was willing to take his subjects into partnership with
him, if they in return recognised his royal rights. ... The
same principles which influenced Edward as a lawgiver stand
out clearly in his relations to every class of his subjects.
... It was the greatest work of Edward's life to make a
permanent and ordinary part of the machinery of English
government, what in his father's time had been but the
temporary expedient of a needy taxgatherer or the last
despairing effort of a revolutionary partisan. Edward I.
is--so much as one man can be--the creator of the historical
English constitution. It is true that the materials were ready
to his hand. But before he came to the throne the parts of the
constitution, though already roughly worked out, were
ill-defined and ill-understood. Before his death the national
council was no longer regarded as complete unless it contained
a systematic representation of the three estates. All over
Europe the thirteenth century saw the establishment of a
system of estates. The various classes of the community, which
had a separate social status and a common political interest,
became organised communities, and sent their representatives
to swell the council of the nation. By Edward's time there had
already grown up in England some rough anticipation of the
three estates of later history. ... It was with no intention
of diminishing his power, but rather with the object of
enlarging it, that Edward called the nation into some sort of
partnership with him. The special clue to this aspect of his
policy is his constant financial embarrassment. He found that
he could get larger and more cheerful subsidies if he laid his
financial condition before the representatives of his people.
... The really important thing was that Edward, like Montfort,
brought shire and borough representatives together in a single
estate, and so taught the country gentry, the lesser
landowners, who, in a time when direct participation in
politics was impossible for a lower class, were the real
constituencies of the shire members, to look upon their
interests as more in common with the traders of lower social
status than with the greater landlords with whom in most
continental countries the lesser gentry were forced to
associate their lot. The result strengthened the union of
classes, prevented the growth of the abnormally numerous
privileged nobility of most foreign countries, and broadened
and deepened the main current of the national life."
T. F. Tout,
Edward the First,
chapter 7-8.
{811}
"There was nothing in England which answered to the 'third
estate' in France--a class, that is to say, both isolated and
close, composed exclusively of townspeople, enjoying no
commerce with the rural population (except such as consisted
in the reception of fugitives), and at once detesting and
dreading the nobility by whom it was surrounded. In England
the contrary was the case. The townsfolk and the other classes
in each county were thrown together upon numberless occasions;
a long period of common activity created a cordial
understanding between the burghers on the one hand and their
neighbours the knights and landowners on the other, and
finally prepared the way for the fusion of the two classes."
E. Boutmy,
The English Constitution,
chapter 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1279.
The Statute of Mortmain.
"For many years past, the great danger to the balance of power
appeared to come from the regular clergy, who, favoured by the
success of the mendicant orders, were adding house to house
and field to field. Never dying out like families, and rarely
losing by forfeitures, the monasteries might well nigh
calculate the time, when all the soil of England should be
their own. ... Accordingly, one of the first acts of the
barons under Henry III. had been to enact, that no fees should
be aliened to religious persons or corporations. Edward
re-enacted and strengthened this by various provisions in the
famous Statute of Mortmain. The fee illegally aliened was now
to be forfeited to the chief lord under the King; and if, by
collusion or neglect, the lord omitted to claim his right, the
crown might enter upon it. Never was statute more unpopular
with the class at whom it was aimed, more ceaselessly eluded,
or more effectual. ... Once the clergy seem to have meditated
open resistance, for, in 1281, we find the king warning the
bishops, who were then in convocation at Lambeth, as they
loved their baronies, to discuss nothing that appertained to
the crown, or the king's person, or his council. The warning
appears to have proved effectual, and the clergy found less
dangerous employment in elaborating subtle evasions of the
obnoxious law. At first fictitious recoveries were practised;
an abbey bringing a suit against a would-be donor, who
permitted judgment against him to go by default. When this was
prohibited, special charters of exemption were procured. Once
an attempt was made to smuggle a dispensing bill through
parliament. One politic abbot in the 15th century encouraged
his friends to make bequests of land, suffered them to
escheat, and then begged them back of the crown, playing on
the religious feelings of Henry VI. Yet it is strong proof of
the salutary terror which the Statute of Mortmain inspired
that even then the abbot was not quieted, and procured an Act
of Parliament to purge him from any consequences of his
illegal practices. In fact, the fear, lest astute crown
lawyers should involve a rich foundation in wholesale
forfeitures, seems sometimes to have hampered its members in
the exercise of their undoubted rights as citizens."
C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2, chapter 9.
ALSO IN:
E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents.
K. E. Digby,
Law of Real Property (4th edition).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1282-1284.
Subjugation of Wales.
See WALES: A. D. 1282-1284.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1290-1305.
Conquest of Scotland by Edward I.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1290-1305.
ENGLAND: 14th Century.
Immigration of Flemish artisans.
The founding of English manufactures.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1335-1337.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1306-1393.
Resistance to the Pope.
"For one hundred and fifty years succeeding the Conquest, the
right of nominating the archbishops, bishops, and mitred
abbots had been claimed and exercised by the king. This right
had been specially confirmed by the Constitutions of
Clarendon, which also provided that the revenues of vacant
sees should belong to the Crown. But John admitted all the
Papal claims, surrendering even his kingdom to the Pope, and
receiving it back as a fief of the Holy See. By the Great
Charter the Church recovered its liberties; the right of free
election being specially conceded to the cathedral chapters
and the religious houses. Every election was, however, subject
to the approval of the Pope, who also claimed a right of veto
on institutions to the smaller church benefices. ... Under
Henry III. the power thus vested in the Pope and foreign
superiors of the monastic orders was greatly abused, and soon
degenerated into a mere channel for draining money into the
Roman exchequer. Edward I. firmly withstood the exactions of
the Pope, and reasserted the independence of both Church and
Crown. ... In the reign of the great Edward began a series of
statutes passed to check the aggressions of the Pope and
restore the independence of the national church. The first of
the series was passed in 1306-7. ... This statute was
confirmed under Edward III. in the 4th, and again in the 5th
year of his reign; and in the 25th of his reign [A. D. 1351],
roused 'by the grievous complaints of all the commons of his
realm,' the King and Parliament passed the famous Statute of
Provisors, aimed directly at the Pope, and emphatically
forbidding his nominations to English benefices. ... Three
years afterwards it was found necessary to pass a statute
forbidding citations to the court of Rome--[the prelude to the
Statute of Præmunire, described below]. ... In 1389, there was an
expectation that the Pope was about to attempt to enforce his
claims, by excommunicating those who rejected them. ... The
Parliament at once passed a highly penal statute. ... Matters
were shortly afterwards brought to a crisis by Boniface IX.,
who after declaring the statutes enacted by the English
Parliament null and void, granted to an Italian cardinal a
prebendal stall at Wells, to which the king had already
presented. Cross suits were at once instituted by the two
claimants in the Papal and English courts. A decision was
given by the latter, in favour of the king's nominee, and the
bishops, having agreed to support the Crown, were forthwith
excommunicated by the Pope. The Commons were now roused to the
highest pitch of indignation,"--and the final great Statute of
Præmunire was passed, A. D. 1393. "The firm and resolute
attitude assumed by the country caused Boniface to yield; 'and
for the moment,' observes Mr. Froude, 'and indeed for ever
under this especial form, the wave of papal encroachment was
rolled back.'"
T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
chapter 11.
"The great Statute of Provisors, passed in 1351, was a very
solemn expression of the National determination not to give
way to the pope's usurpation of patronage. ... All persons
procuring or accepting papal promotions were to be arrested.
... In 1352 the purchasers of Provisions were declared
outlaws; in 1365 another act repeated the prohibitions and
penalties; and in 1390 the parliament of Richard II. rehearsed
and confirmed the statute. By this act, forfeiture and
banishment were decreed against future transgressors."
{812}
The Statute of Præmunire as enacted finally in 1393, provided
that "all persons procuring in the court of Rome or elsewhere
such translations, processes, sentences of excommunication,
bulls, instruments or other things which touch the king, his
crown, regality or realm, should suffer the penalties of
præmunire"--which included imprisonment and forfeiture of
goods. "The name præmunire which marks this form of
legislation is taken from the opening word of the writ by
which the sheriff is charged to summon the delinquent."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 19, section 715-716.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1307.
Accession of King Edward II.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1310-1311.
The Ordainers.
"At the parliament which met in March 1310 [reign of Edward
II.] a new scheme of reform was promulgated, which was framed
on the model of that of 1258 and the Provisions of Oxford. It
was determined that the task of regulating the affairs of the
realm and of the king's household should be committed to an
elected body of twenty-one members, or Ordainers, the chief of
whom was Archbishop Winchelsey. ... The Ordainers were
empowered to remain in office until Michaelmas 1311, and to
make ordinances for the good of the realm, agreeable to the
tenour of the king's coronation oath. The whole administration
of the kingdom thus passed into their hands. ... The Ordainers
immediately on their appointment issued six articles directing
the observance of the charters, the careful collection of the
customs, and the arrest of the foreign merchants; but the
great body of the ordinances was reserved for the parliament
which met in August 1311. The famous document or statute known
as the Ordinances of 1311 contained forty-one clauses, all
aimed at existing abuses."
W. Stubbs,
The Early Plantagenets,
chapter 12.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1314-1328.
Bannockburn and the recovery of Scottish independence.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1314; 1314-1328.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1327.
Accession of King Edward III.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1328.
The Peace of Northampton with Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1328.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1328-1360.
The pretensions and wars of Edward III. in France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1328-1339; and 1337-1360.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1332-1370.
The wars of Edward III. with Scotland.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1332-1333, and 1333-1370.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1333-1380.
The effects of the war in France.
"A period of great wars is generally favourable to the growth
of a nobility. Men who equipped large bodies of troops for the
Scotch or French wars, or who had served with distinction in
them, naturally had a claim for reward at the hands of their
sovereign. ... The 13th century had broken up estates all over
England and multiplied families of the upper class; the 14th
century was consolidating properties again, and establishing a
broad division between a few powerful nobles and the mass of
the community. But if the gentry, as an order, lost a little
in relative importance by the formation of a class of great
nobles, more distinct than had existed before, the middle
classes of England, its merchants and yeomen, gained very much
in importance by the war. Under the firm rule of the 'King of
the Sea,' as his subjects lovingly called Edward III., our
commerce expanded. Englishmen rose to an equality with the
merchants of the Hanse Towns, the Genoese, or the Lombards,
and England for a time overflowed with treasure. The first
period of war, ending with the capture of Calais, secured our
coasts; the second, terminated by the peace of Brétigny,
brought the plunder of half [of] France into the English
markets; and even when Edward's reign had closed on defeat and
bankruptcy, and our own shores were ravaged by hostile fleets,
it was still possible for private adventurers to retaliate
invasion upon the enemy. ... The romance of foreign conquest,
of fortunes lightly gained and lightly lost, influenced
English enterprise for many years to come. ... The change to
the lower orders during the reign arose rather from the
frequent pestilences, which reduced the number of working men
and made labour valuable, than from any immediate
participation in the war. In fact, English serfs, as a rule,
did not serve in Edward's armies. They could not be
men-at-arms or archers for want of training and equipment; and
for the work of light-armed troops and foragers, the Irish and
Welsh seem to have been preferred. The opportunity of the
serfs came with the Black Death, while districts were
depopulated, and everywhere there was a want of hands to till
the fields and get in the crops. The immediate effect was
unfortunate. ... The indifference of late years, when men were
careless if their villans stayed on the property or emigrated,
was succeeded by a sharp inquisition after fugitive serfs, and
constant legislation to bring them back to their masters. ...
The leading idea of the legislator was that the labourer,
whose work had doubled or trebled in value, was to receive the
same wages as in years past; and it was enacted that he might
be paid in kind, and, at last, that in all cases of contumacy
he should be imprisoned without the option of a fine. ... The
French war contributed in many ways to heighten the feeling of
English nationality. Our trade, our language and our Church
received a new and powerful influence. In the early years of
Edward III.'s reign, Italian merchants were the great
financiers of England, farming the taxes and advancing loans
to the Crown. Gradually the instinct of race, the influence of
the Pope, and geographical position, contributed, with the
mistakes of Edward's policy, to make France the head, as it
were, of a confederation of Latin nations. Genoese ships
served in the French fleet, Genoese bowmen fought at Crécy,
and English privateers retorted on Genoese commerce throughout
the course of the reign. In 1376 the Commons petitioned that
all Lombards might be expelled [from] the kingdom, bringing
amongst other charges against them that they were French
spies. The Florentines do not seem to have been equally
odious, but the failure of the great firm of the Bardi in
1345, chiefly through its English engagements, obliged Edward
to seek assistance elsewhere; and he transferred the privilege
of lending to the crown to the merchants of the rising Hanse
Towns."
C. H. Pearson,
English History in the Fourteenth Century,
chapter 9.
"We may trace the destructive nature of the war with France in
the notices of adjoining parishes thrown into one for want of
sufficient inhabitants, 'of people impoverished by frequent
taxation of our lord the king,' until they had fled, of
churches allowed to fall into ruin because there were none to
worship within their walls, and of religious houses
extinguished because the monks and nuns had died, and none bad
been found to supply their places. ...
{813}
To the poverty of the country and the consequent inability of
the nation to maintain the costly wars of Edward III., are
attributed the enactments of sumptuary laws, which were passed
because men who spent much on their table and dress were
unable 'to help their liege lord' in the battle field."
W. Denton,
England in the 15th Century,
introduction, part 2.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1318-1349.
The Black Death and its effects.
"The plague of 1349 ... produced in every country some marked
social changes. ... In England the effects of the plague are
historically prominent chiefly among the lower classes of
society. The population was diminished to an extent to which
it is impossible now even to approximate, but which bewildered
and appalled the writers of the time; whole districts were
thrown out of cultivation, whole parishes depopulated, the
number of labourers was so much diminished that on the one
hand the survivors demanded an extravagant rate of wages, and
even combined to enforce it, whilst on the other hand the
landowners had to resort to every antiquated claim of service
to get their estates cultivated at all; the whole system of
farming was changed in consequence, the great landlords and
the monastic corporations ceased to manage their estates by
farming stewards, and after a short interval, during which the
lands with the stock on them were let to the cultivator on
short leases, the modern system of letting was introduced, and
the permanent distinction between the farmer and the labourer
established."
W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 16, section 259.
"On the first of August 1348 the disease appeared in the
seaport towns of Dorsetshire, and travelled slowly westwards
and northwards, through Devonshire and Somersetshire to
Bristol. In order, if possible, to arrest its progress, all
intercourse with the citizens of Bristol was prohibited by the
authorities of the county of Gloucester. These precautions
were however taken in vain; the Plague continued to Oxford,
and, travelling slowly in the same measured way, reached
London by the first of November. It appeared in Norwich on the
first of January, and thence spread northwards. ... The
mortality was enormous. Perhaps from one-third to one-half the
population fell victims to the disease. Adam of Monmouth says
that only a tenth of the population survived. Similar
amplifications are found in all the chroniclers. We are told
that 60,000 persons perished in Norwich between January and
July 1349. No doubt Norwich was at that time the second city
in the kingdom, but the number is impossible. ... It is stated
that in England the weight of the calamity fell on the poor,
and that the higher classes were less severely affected. But
Edward's daughter Joan fell a victim to it and three
archbishops of Canterbury perished in the same year. ... All
contemporary writers inform us that the immediate consequence
of the Plague was a dearth of labour, and excessive
enhancement of wages, and thereupon a serious loss to the
landowners. To meet this scarcity the king issued a
proclamation directed to the sheriffs of the several counties,
which forbad the payment of higher than the customary wages,
under the penalties of amercement. But the king's mandate was
every where disobeyed. ... Many of the labourers were thrown
into prison; many to avoid punishment fled to the forests, but
were occasionally captured and fined; and all were constrained
to disavow under oath that they would take higher than
customary wages for the future."
J. E. T. Rogers,
History of Agriculture and Prices in England,
volume 1, chapter 15.
ALSO IN:
F. A. Gasquet,
The Great Pestilence.
W. Longman,
Edward III.,
volume 1; chapter 10.
A. Jessop,
The Coming of the Friars, &c.,
chapter 4-5.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1350-1400.
Chaucer and his relations to English language and literature.
"At the time when the conflict between church and state was
most violent, and when Wyclif was beginning to draw upon
himself the eyes of patriots, there was considerable talk at
the English court about a young man named Geoffrey Chaucer,
who belonged to the king's household, and who both by his
personality and his connections enjoyed the favor of the royal
family. ... On many occasions, even thus early, he had
appeared as a miracle of learning to those about him--he read
Latin as easily as French; he spoke a more select English than
others; and it was known that he had composed, or, as the
expression then was, 'made,' many beautiful English verses.
The young poet belonged to a well-to-do middle-class family
who had many far-reaching connections, and even some influence
with the court. ... Even as a boy he may have heard his
father, John Chaucer, the vintner of Thames Street, London,
telling of the marvelous voyage he had made to Antwerp and
Cologne in the brilliant suite of Edward III. in 1338. When a
youth of sixteen or seventeen, Geoffrey served as a page or
squire to Elizabeth, duchess of Ulster, first wife of Lionel,
duke of Clarence, and daughter-in-law of the king. He bore
arms when about nineteen years of age, and went to France in
1359, in the army commanded by Edward III. ... This epoch
formed a sort of 'Indian summer' to the age of chivalry, and
its spirit found expression in great deeds of war as well as
in the festivals and manners of the court. The ideal which men
strove to realize did not quite correspond to the spirit of
the former age. On the whole, people had become more worldly
and practical, and were generally anxious to protect the real
interests of life from the unwarranted interference of
romantic aspirations. The spirit of chivalry no longer formed
a fundamental element, but only an ornament of life--an
ornament, indeed, which was made much of, and which was looked
upon with a sentiment partaking of enthusiasm. ... In the
midst of this outside world of motley pomp and throbbing life
Geoffrey could observe the doings of high and low in various
situations. He was early initiated into court intrigues, and
even into many political secrets, and found opportunities of
studying the human type in numerous individuals and according
to the varieties developed by rank in life, education, age,
and sex. ... Nothing has been preserved from his early
writings. ... The fact is very remarkable that from the first,
or at least from a very early period, Chaucer wrote in the
English language--however natural this may seem to succeeding
ages in 'The Father of English Poetry.' The court of Edward
III. favored the language as well as the literature of France;
a considerable number of French poets and 'menestrels' were in
the service and pay of the English king.
{814}
Queen Philippa, in particular, showing herself in this a true
daughter of her native Hainault, formed the centre of a
society cultivating the French language and poetry. She had in
her personal service Jean Froissart, one of the most eminent
representatives of that language and poetry; like herself he
belonged to one of the most northern districts of the
French-speaking territory; he had made himself a great name,
as a prolific and clever writer of erotic and allegoric
trifles, before he sketched out in his famous chronicle the
motley-colored, vivid picture of that eventful age. We also
see in this period young Englishmen of rank and education
trying their flight on the French Parnassus. ... To these
Anglo-French poets there belonged also a Kentishman of noble
family, named John Gower. Though some ten years the senior of
Chaucer, he had probably met him about this time. They were
certainly afterwards very intimately acquainted. Gower ... had
received a very careful education, and loved to devote the
time he could spare from the management of his estates to
study and poetry. His learning was in many respects greater
than Chaucer's. He had studied the Latin poets so diligently
that he could easily express himself in their language, and he
was equally good at writing French verses, which were able to
pass muster, at least in England. ... But, Chaucer did not let
himself be led astray by examples such as these. It is
possible that he would have found writing in French no easy
task, even if he had attempted it. At any rate his bourgeois
origin, and the seriousness of his vocation as poet, threw a
determining weight into the scale and secured his fidelity to
the English language with a commendable consistency."
B. Ten Brink,
History of English Literature,
book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2, part 1).
"English was not taught in the schools, but French only, until
after the accession of Richard II., or possibly the latter
years of Edward III., and Latin was always studied through the
French. Up to this period, then, as there were no standards of
literary authority, and probably no written collections of
established forms, or other grammatical essays, the language
had no fixedness or uniformity, and hardly deserved to be
called a written speech. ... From this Babylonish confusion of
speech, the influence and example of Chaucer did more to
rescue his native tongue than any other single cause; and if
we compare his dialect with that of any writer of an earlier