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Bastard Feudalism Revised Author(s): David Crouch and D. A. Carpenter Reviewed work(s): Source: Past & Present, No. 131 (May, 1991), pp. 165-189 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/650873 . Accessed: 23/01/2012 19:39
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DEBATE BASTARDFEUDALISMREVISED
It is not just local historians who have to take into account W. G. Hoskins's dictumthat everything is olderthan it looks. PeterCosshassaidmuchthesameforthebenefit of latemedievalists. SinceK. B. McFarlane (who brought the ideato life), they haveallworked on theassumption thatthe formof society known as "bastard feudalism" aroseout of the circumstances of the late thirteenth century.1 For mostof themthatis a working assumption of no moment,for the originof bastard feudalism is hardly the concern of a latemedievalist working in his own period,and happywith a modelof societythatfits his needs.Thereis more to say againstMcFarlane on this level, however,for he did set himselfto dealwith the question of its origins.Cossworkshard, andin myviewsuccessfully, to persuade thereader thatthe social orderdescribed by the term"bastard feudalism" couldbe dated backto the earlythirteenth century. Like otherhistorians of the thirteenth century,Cosssees retained justices,long-term indenturedretainers, wagedsoldiers andmaintenance already in place in the earlyyearsof HenryIII:so whatindeedis left thatis new aboutaristocratic societyin Edward I's reign? Coss'sarguments arefinelydrawn andruminative. His article, indeed,hasto be readwith care,so as to teaseout andsavourits
* I would like to thankboth Nigel Saul and David Carpenter for readingearly draftsof this Comment andfor theirmanyusefulobservations uponit. The material for the reply is drawnfromthe MedievalAristocracy Projectbasedat the Institute of Historical Research, University of London,from 1986to 1989,andfundedby the generosity of the Leverhulme Trust. 1J. M. W. Bean, formerlyof McFarlane's persuasion, has recentlyrestatedhis viewsaboutthe originsof bastard feudalism (too recentlyfor Cossto havebeen able to take his views into account)in J. M. W. Bean,From Lord to Patron: Lordshipin Late Medieval England(Manchester, 1989),pp. 121-53.Likeme, he is dubious of the valueof the term "bastard feudalism", sees the laterpractice of retaining and livery as originating in the householdmaintenance of earlierdays, and quite cheerfully wouldtraceit backas faras earlyAnglo-Saxon times.He doesnot, however,consider (as I do here)the earliermanifestations of political affinities depending on otherthan landedties; an integral partof the ideaof bastard feudalsociety.

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meanings. Thereis muchin it to discussand to question,and that indeedis Coss'sintention.He hopes and expects to set a thirteenth-century catamong the latemedieval pigeons.ButI as a creature of the twelfthcentury wouldfirstlike to tread on its tail. A lot revolvesaround definitions in Coss'sargument. He is careful to define"bastard feudalism" for us. By his definition bastard feudalism "occurs whena highlyfeudalized society is subjected to a growthin publiclyexercised authority . . . by meansof privateand privatized agents".2 He evidentlyregards bothit and "feudalism" as usefulconstructs still, E. A. R. Brownhas pointedout in a famous but knows,as article,that the variety of definitions on offerforthe construct "feudalism" make it of dubious value:the curseof Babelis on the word.3 I fear that his willingnessto use feudalism and its bastardin argument regardless has only spawned yet moreconfusion. Whenwe usethe word"feudalism" we canmeanit to be taken manyways. The meaningof "bastard feudalism" carriesless historical and philosophical baggage,but is still disputed,and sometimes now the phraseis avoided.But "feudalism" remains themain obstacleto intelligentargument. A recentstudy has listed ten perceptions of "feudalism" currentamonghistorians (some of whicharenot relevant to the medievalist's studyof his period).4 For this reason aloneI wouldavoidthe word,but Coss has stuckwith the ideaof feudalism nonethe less. He has done so because he adoptsMcFarlane's line that"feudal" societywas "essentially different while superficially similar"to that which succeeded it. Feudalism remains for Coss"a usefultool both to signify a particular type of socialformation andas a vehiclefor comparative history",and for him twelfth-century societywas "a highlyfeudalized societyunderalmostany definition".5 He gives no directstatement of his own understanding of twelfthcentury society, althoughhe regretsMcFarlane's relianceon
2 p. R. Coss,"Bastard Feudalism Revised",PastandPresent, no. 125(Nov. 1989), p. 63. 3E. A. R. Brown, "The Tyrannyof a Construct: Feudalism of Medieval Europe",Amer.Hist. Rev.,lxxix (1974),pp. 1063-88. and Historians 4J. O. Ward,"Feudalism: Interpretative Category or Framework of Life in the Medieval West?",in EdmundLeach et al. (eds.), Feudalism: Comparative Studies (Sydney, 1985),pp. 40-9, liststen common perceptions (he callsthemfoci)of "feudalism" amonghistorians. He nonethe less thinksthatthe termis usable, providing the terms of reference are madeclear. 5Coss, "Bastard Feudalism Revised",pp. 30, 39, 40.

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model.6 How"narrow" J. H. Round'sandSirFrankStenton's ever,we havestronghintsas to whatis in Coss'smind.Twelfthsocietywas for him (as indeedit was for century(aristocratic) attached by of followers communities one of honours; Stenton!) to a greatlord. However,it was tenurial obligations hereditary from whether stemming alsoa societyin whichpublicauthority, underlay, or the king or the concernsof the local community, groupings.It is in existed side-by-sidewith, such aristocratic betweenprivate,honorial whathe sees as the tenserelationship thatinaugurated (particularly and exteriorauthority jurisdiction of that Cosssees the beginnings by the Angevinlegal reforms) to The waningof honoursled the magnates bastard feudalism. thatis, the contracted devisea new vehicleof localdomination: feudal affinity. of the bastard retinuethatwas the core Howvalidis thismodelof the lifeanddeathof twelfth-century of Stenton's in support elsewhere I havewritten honorial society? society,andI thinkstill that view of Anglo-Norman "honorial" of the honouris strong.Stenton the evidencefor the importance sources,both wrote from the sources,and the twelfth-century the way leave little doubt concerning and chronicles, charters through the andexpressed powerwasoftenexercised aristocratic twelfth-century court. But by contrasting honourand honorial we arein my view "affinity", withfourteenth-century "honour" differthattworadically wordsto dupeus intobelieving allowing (andCosstoo), I do lie behindthem.UnlikeStenton ent societies not see the honouras ever havingbeen the sole meansof the powerin the twelfthcentury,but merelyas exerciseof magnate a partof its armoury. of as expressions Honoursdid ossify and becomeredundant They wereinstitutions power:in this Cossis correct. aristocratic landin exchange grantsof (usually) aboutby perpetual brought conceded for which one man (for himselfand his successors) Sooneror to another(andhis successors). rightsof jurisdiction as circumstances later any institutionmust become irrelevant to the honour.The honourand its change,and this happened century as a fiscalsurvival, on into the fourteenth courtlingered community. butneveras morethana fossilshellof a once-living between of the honour decay Coss'sdatingof the accelerating power But sincemagnate 1180and 1230is also, I feel, correct.7
Ibid.,pp. 31, 39. 7Ibid.,pp.44.
6

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showedno sign of decliningalong with the honourwe must conclude that the honourcouldnot have been more than incidentalto it. Whywas that?Hereis the nub of my doubtsabout Coss'spiece. He suggeststhat a new vehicleof magnate power was devisedto replacethe faltering honour.I wollldsuggestno morethanthatthe tyreswerechanged on the old model. I thinkthatCossis rightto lookforthe existence of something alongthe lines of the latermedieval affinity(at a muchearlier date than has previously been allowed)to explainthe fact that magnates continued to exertlocaldominion after1180.But here Cossand I part company. He opposes"honour"to "affinity", "feudal"to "bastard feudal".Coss'sis a cautiousarticle,but herewherehe throwscaution asidehe is mostunconvincing. He wantsa crisisat the pointof fracture betweenhis two modelsof society,but to me therewasno suchfracture. Instead, therewas continuity. It hasbeensaid(withthe intention of beingpatronizing) that twelfth-century societydisplayed the antecedentsof a bastardfeudal order. What nonsense.It is not being merely reductionist to see the politicalground-rules of later medieval societyin placein England in the twelfthcentury: whatchanges therewere between1100and 1300were mattersof degreeand cosmetic. It is symptomatic of the continuity I see in formsof magnate powerbetweenthe twelfthand thirteenth centuries that Coss's reasoning is frequently drawnbackbeyond1200to the eleventh andtwelfthcenturies. First thereis the questionof paid, contracted soldiers. Following Marjorie Chibnall andJ. O. Prestwich, we can take it as established that the paid, contracted knight (even if the contractwas no more than a tally stick) was a prominent featureof the royalarmiesof England from at least thetime of HenryI. It mayindeedbe olderthanthat.8 This line of argument makesideas about Englandbeing a "highly feudalized" countryafterthe NormanConquest rather shaky. "Narrow" military feudalism wasnot the sole support of aristocratic powerin England. It wasin factalready a landwhere armies were levied by a varietyof means. According to the chronicle of Abingdon abbey,the retinuemaintained for a time after the Conquest by its abbotwaspaid(by donativam, as it was 8 M. Chibnall, "Mercenaries and the familiaregisunder Henry I", History,lx (1977), pp. 15-23;J. O.
Prestwich, "The Military Household of the Norman Kings", Eng. Hist. Rev.,xcvi (1981),pp. 1-35.

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said).9 Thereafter the means of support of the retinue wasshifted to reservedrents fromnominated lands:yet still not to simple enfeoffments withland.Whatapplied to abbots canbe provedto applyjustas muchto less well-documented earlsandcounts.As earlyas 1102the earlof Shrewsbury raisedpaidknightsto augmenthis landed levies.The countof Meulan on several occasions raisedcompanies of knightsby contract; the earl of Warenne garrisoned Rouen with his stipendarfi in 1144 and Cardiff was bustling with the earlof Gloucester's stipendarii in 1158,whena Welshcommando force sneakedinto his castleand him.l?Goingso faras to enfeoffknightswith land kidnapped wasno more thanone amonga number of alternative waysof contracting or sub-contracting for a militaryretinue. As Sally Harvey has proved, Domesday Bookmentions nearly fivehundred suchmen, mostlyin modest circumstances.1l It was thereforea popular option in England for a while, as it was laterto be in the Holy Lands andin Ireland. Butsucha surplus of landsforredistribution wasonly temporary in all three cases. The Cartaebaronum of 1166demonstrate how the boom was alreadyover by 1135: enfeoffments in landafterHenryI's deathwere far fewerthan before, andsmallin quantity (judging by the amounts of service demanded).12 Enfeoffments in landafterthetimeof HenryI were a tokenof favour froma magnate to a dependant or ally,precious in theirrarity.l3 Evenat the heightof the boomin enfeoffments,
9 "Eisdem donativis prius retentis": Chronicon monasterii deAbingdon, ed. J. Stevenson, 2 vols. (Rolls ser., London, 1859), ii, pp. 3-4. Other examples from Peterborough, Westminster, Worcesterand Ely are collected in H. M. Chew, The English Ecclesiastical Tenants-in-Chief andKnightService (Oxford, 1932), pp. 114-15. 10For the earl of Shrewsbury, see The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis,ed. M. M. Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969-80)) vi, pp. 26-8; for Meulan, see D. Crouch, The Beaumont Twins: TheRoots andBranches of Power in England (Cambridge, 1986), p. 132; for Warenne, see Robert de Torigny, Chronica, in of theReigns of Stephen, etc., ed. R. Howlett, 4 vols. (Rolls ser., London, Chronicles 1884-9), iv, pp. 148-9; for Gloucester, see Gerald of Wales, Itinerarium Kambriae, in GiraldiCambrensis opera, ed. J. F. Dimock, 8 vols. (Rolls ser., London, 1861-91), vi, p. 63. 11S. Harvey, "The Knight and the Knight's Fee in England", Past and Present, no. 49 (Nov. 1970), p. 15. 12J. C. Holt went so far as to call the Cartaeno more than "an archaeological deposit left by the tenurial history of the previous century", in J. C. Holt, "The Introduction of Knight-Service in England", in R. Allen Brown (ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies, vi (Woodbridge, 1983), p. 105. 13 The return of the bishopric of Worcester is a remarkable(but perhaps untypical) example of this. It listed enfeoffments by episcopate: 37.5 knights were enfeoffed before Bishop Samson (that is, before 1096), four knights during Samson's episcopate (1096-1112), and four knights during Bishop Theulf's tenure of the see (1113-23). None were recorded for Bishop Simon (1125-50) or his three successors before 1166:

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England, let aloneFrance, wasnevera wholly"feudalized" country in military terms.Soldiers wereraised by a mixture of means, andenfeoffment wasa temporary, passing expedient, convenient only whiletherewas a surplus of landfor redistribution. Movingfrom the militaryto the civil dimension of honorial "feudalism", I cannotbelieve that England(even withoutan allodial tradition) wasa "highly feudalized" country in thetwelfth century,exceptin comparison witha "lightlyfeudalized" country, like France. Butin somewaysEngland wasevenless feudalizedthanFrance (asCosshimself pointsout).Toomuchemphasis is placedon the honourcourt:especially if the intentionis to contrast private withpublicauthority. Oneclause of Magna Carta apart(whichJ. C. Holt depreciatesl4), thereis little evidenceto suggestthat contemporaries saw any ideological confrontation betweenthe two jurisdictions. Nor, for that matter,was the influence wielded by the lordswhopresided overhonorial society quite so monolithic in the localitiesas Stentonimplies.There werepowerful magnates who basedtheirinfluence on a pool of menwhoweretheirtenants foroneormultiple knights' tenancies. Beingpowerful men,theirtenants wereeager to attend on them.l5 ButI do not believewhatapplied to the greatearlof Leicesterjusticiar of England,uncle of the king of Scotland,and close cousinof the king of France wouldequallywell applyto a lesserlord,or an earlas pooras the earlof Oxford(an earlwho in fact toadiedto the earlof Essex,a greaterman, in the midtwelfth century). Whatis more,as I havepointedout elsewhere, therewere as earlyas Domesday Booka significant numberof menwho held their landsof severallords,not one.l6Honorial integrity wasneverabsolute in England, as Holtlongagopointed out in his Northerners, and as a varietyof studieshave since
confirmed.l7
(n. O cont.)

see The Red Book of the Exchequer,ed. H. Hall, 3 vols. (Rolls ser., London, 1896), i, p. 300. 14 J. C. Holt, Magna Carta (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 225-6. 15Crouch, Beaumont Twins, pp. 101-38, 155-62. 16 Ibid -) pp. 127-31. 17 J. C. Holt, The Northerners: A Study in the Reign of King 3rohn (Oxford, 1961), pp.36-7. See, for an earlier period, R. Mortimer, "Land and Service: The Tenants ofthe Honour of Clare", in R. Allen Brown (ed.), Anglo-NormanStudies, viii (Woodbridge, 1986), pp. 177-97. Richard Mortimer's analysis of the "powerful" Clare honourfinds knight service in the twelfth century to be no more than a token of lordship,and the honour an artificialconstruct weakened by external forces of neighbourhood communities and diffuse political allegiance.

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Publicauthority in England was neversubmerged by the privateauthority of usurping countsandcastellans in the wayit was in largepartsof France during theeleventh andtwelfthcenturies. A writ of Henry I datingto 1108 assumesa level of uniform publicauthority quiteunknown in the France of LouisVI. When the men of two different lords disagreed, Henryordained that the countycourtwas the forumwherethey oughtto be reconciled.18 In the LegesHenriciPrimi, a tractof the sametimeor but a few yearslater,all the king'sgreatersubjects are expectedto attendthe countyor hundredcourts.19 On occasionthe same king'swrits,and thoseof his successor, address the bishopsand earlsof the counties whichtheyconcern. Whenwe do havesome indications of the attendance at the countycourtsof HenryI's reign, as in the countycourtof Shropshire in the 1120s,there seemsto havebeena significant level of attendance by the magnatesof a county.2? The problem in 1108,according to the Leges, was not the fadingawayof countycourts,but the burden of the risingnumbers of sessions.21 Publicauthority wasassertive even in the heydayof the honour,as the appearance of the eyre in England, andevenwestWales, in HenryI's reigndemonstrates.22 Lookingat twelfth-century society in this light makes the
18 Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum, ed. H. W. C. Davis et al., 4 vols. (Oxford, 1913-69), ii, no. 892, text taken from Select Charters, ed. W. Stubbs, 9th edn. (Oxford,1913),p. 122:"if thereis a pleabetweentenantsof an honourof any of my barons, then it shouldbe pleadedin theirlord'scourt;if betweentenantsof different lords, then in the county court" ("et si est inter vavasoresalicuiusbaronismei honoris,tractetur placitum in curiadominieorum,et si est intervavasores duorum dominorum tractetur in comitatu"). See commentary in J. A. Green,TheGovernment of England under Henry I (Cambridge, 1986),pp. 110-11.In Francesuchcauseswould havehad to be decidedbeforethe king or prince himself. 19Leges Henrici Primi,ed. L. J. Downer(Oxford,1972),c. 7, 2. The countycourt is to be attended by bishops,earls,sheriffs(vicedomini), vicarEi, centenarii, aldermen, prefecti, prepositi, barons,vavasours and others.Someof the namesof the attendant personages evokeAnglo-Saxon terminology, but the appearance of vicedomini, barons and vavasours in the list must be a contemporary insertionintendedto make the statement relevant to HenryI's England. In otherwords,the authoris not indulging in legalantiquarianism by citingan Anglo-Saxon exemplar. 20 The Cartulary of Shrewsbury Abbey, ed. U. Rees,2 vols. (Cardiff, 1980),ii, p. 318, has the county court in the mid-1120sfull of the barones of the shire, although precisely whatthe writermeantby barones is perhaps debatable. None the less a case fromlate in Stephen's reignheardin a jointcomitatus of the countiesof Norfolkand Suffolkhad two bishops,two abbotsand severalbarones provincie present,and the meaning of "magnates" here is inescapable: H. Cam,"AnEastAnglianShireMoot, 1148-53",Eng.Hist. Rev.,xxxix (1924), p. 569. 21 Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum, ed. Davis et al., ii, no. 892. 22 Green,Government of England under HenryI, pp. 108-11.

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questionof bastardfeudalismmore complicated. It certalnly makesCoss'sdefinition of a bastard feudalsocietyless sound. There is no doubt that Henry II's reign saw increased royal assertiveness in the shires,andthe forging of new linksbetween the kingandlesserlandowners in the countycourt.But it is not provedthat it was simplythis assertiveness which causedthe break-upof honorialcommunities, as S. F. C. Milsomonce suggested.The honourcertainly lost its politicalimportance at the end of the twelfthcenturyas compared with the earlypart of the century.23 Butthe drying up of sources of landfordistribution wouldhave meantthat the honourwas losingimportance anyway: withoutlandthe honourcouldnot be renewedor augmentedas an aristocratic community. The reliance on less immediately attractive douceurs couldhaveallowed the kingto compete at the county level on more equal terms with the magnates, deploying(as Scott L. Waughpointsout) a whole armoury of wardships and officesthat magnates could not match.24 Coss's suggestedmodel of bastardfeudalism would founderon this modelof Angevin kingship. He seesa fading aristocracy grappling with the new problem of royalpowerby devising new methods: suborning royalagentsand interposing themselves as mediators between the king and localities.I am suggestingsomething different: the magnates fromthe timeof the Conquest exercising powerby a varietyof methods, but witha temporary edgein the patronage of landwhichquitesoonevaporated, causing themto resortmorefrequently to other,established, alternatives. There is no need in that case to see the changesof 1180x1230 as symptomatic of a crisisin the aristocracy, definedby the catastrophic decayof honours. Farfromit: the greatmagnates were simplyadjusting theirposition,shiftingthe weightfromone leg to another. Elsewhere I havealready described oneclassic "bastard feudal" affinity existingat an earlydate:thatof William Marshal, earlof Pembroke. It can be provedto have been a force in the early ll90s. It was recruitedfrom knightsand lesser magnates of Gloucestershire, North Wiltshire and the upperThamesvalley. Few of its members originally had any tenurial connection with
23 I will be exploring this phenomenon in a book, Power and the EnglishAristocracy in the High Middle Ages (Yale, forthcoming). 24 S. L. Waugh, The Lordship of England:Royal Wardships and Marriagesin English Society and Politics, 1217-1327 (Princeton, 1988), pp. 273-6.

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the Marshal, although somesmalllandgrantswerebestowed on a numberof them (mostly in Irelandwhere there was more undistributed land).The principal inducements to jointhe Marshal'saffinity wereawards of office(shrievalties, under-shrievalties and stewardships) andhis influence with the king to secure favourandadvancement for his followers; grantsof landplayed littlepartin it.25 Suchan affinity is uncomfortably earlyfor Coss'schronology, andmakesone wonder if sucha formof affinity-raising couldnot havebeenlongknownandpractised. Andthereis evidence that it was. One further andeven earlierexample will sufficefor the argumenthere. In the late 1140s Earl Roger of Hereford (1143-55)succeeded Earlllobertof Gloucester (died1147)as the chief of the magnates supporting the Angevinside in the civil warof Stephen's reign.EarlRogerattracted a numberof lesser magnates of the southernMarchand West Midlands into his entourage: the lordsof Clifford, EwyasandMonmouth, William de Beauchamp, sheriffof Worcester (and his brotherWalter), Robertde Candos, Richard de Cormeilles (andhis brother Alexander), Oliverde Merlimont andWilliam de Briouze.26 A further usefulauxiliary wasthe kingof Glamorgan, Morgan ab Owainprobably the mainsourceof Welshmercenaries for the Angevin party,andpreviously a closeassociate of Robertof Gloucester.27 The resultwas a politicalconnection whichdominated the area betweenthe Usk and Severnvalleys,and had nothingmuchto do with the strugglebetweenroyalistand Angevin.It was the
25 D. Crouch,William Marshal: Court, Career andChivalry in theAngevin Empire, c. 1147-1219 (London,1990),pp. 157-68. 26 This reconstruction is basedon the fifty-fourcharters of the earl (thirty-three withwitnesslists)knownto me, as printed or calendared in "Charters of the Earldom of Hereford,1095-1201",ed. D. Walker, in Camden Misc., xxii (Camden Soc., 4th ser., i, London,1964),pp. 13-37,conflated withothercharters to be foundin Berkeley CastleMuniments, Cartulary of BristolAbbey,fo. 30r-V) (threeacts);AntonyHouse, Cornwall,MSS. of Sir John CarewPole, Bt., "Pole's Charters",no. 3707; The Cartulary of Worcester Cathedral Priory,ed. R. R. Darlington (Pipe Roll Soc., new ser., xxxviii, London,1968),p. 29; Calendar of Documents Preserved in France, Illustrativeof theHistory of GreatBritainandIreland, ed. J. H. Round(London,1899), pp. 410-11. The Monmouth, Ewyas,Candosand Cormeilles honourswere together the fourchieflaybaronies of Herefordshire afterthe deprivation of the Lacyfamily EarlRoger'smainenemiesin the shire:see RedBookof the Exchequer, ed. Hall, i, pp. 278-87. 2'D. Crouch,"The Slow Death of Kingshipin Glamorgan, 1067-1158")Morgannwg, xxix (1985),pp. 33-5.

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earl'sresponse to his own problems and a meansto furtherhis localambitions. EarlRogerwasnot linkedto any of the men of his affinity by land grants.His fatherhad a grantof the countyof Hereford from EmpressMathilda,and this had includedthe technical overlordship of Candosand Cormeilles (but not the others). Candosand Cormeilles were not beholdento the earl for any knowngrantsof landor privilege, however.EarlRogermarried his sisterto Briouzeto securetheirbond,and he madeRobert of Ewyashis constable. Oliverde Merlimont joinedthe earlfrom the serviceof the Shropshire baronHughde Mortemer, whose stewardhe had previously been, hoppingfrom lord to lord to increase his advantages underthe mosteffective protector (is this conventional feudalandhonorial behaviour?).28 The onlyknown landgrantin the earl'scirclewas his endowment of Baderon of Monmouth withpartof the lordship of Lydney,Glos.,whichthe earlhadfilchedfromthe earlof Warwick (a grantlaterannulled by the settlement of 1153). The link betweenEarlRogerand William de Briouze wasactually expressed in a written indenture, whichsurvives. Indeedanother indenture survives betweenEarl Rogerand Earl Williamof Gloucester definingtheir relations, anda furtherone betweenEarlRogerand the earlof Leicester is knownfromthatsameindenture.29 How exceptional was this sortof arrangement in the mid-twelfth century? It is knownthat certain greater earlsin Stephen's England hadlesser,clientearls: thus Derby dancedattendance on Chester,Northampton on
Leicester.30

Central Normandy too provides an instance of whatcouldbe calledan earlyaffinity. Around1138CountWaleran of Meulan gathered underhis leadership mostof the lessermagnates of the region.At leastone indenture survivesby whichhe recorded a relationship betweenhimself andan inferior. Waleran seemsalso to havehada similar political connection in the areaof the Seine
28 Regesta regumAnglo-Normannorum, ed. Davis et al., iii, no. 393; WigmoreAbbey Chronicle,in William Dugdale,MonasticonAnglicanum,ed. J. Caley,H. Ellis and B.

Bandinel, 6 vols. (London,1817-30D, vi.l, pp. 344-5. 29 Z. N. and C. N. L. Brooke,"Hereford Cathedral Dignitaries", Cambridge Hist. T1., viii (1944-6),p. 185;R. H. C. Davis,"Treatybetween William Earlof Gloucester andRogerEarlof Hereford", in Patricia M. Barnes andC. F. Slade(eds.),A Medieval Miscellanyfor Doris Mary Stenton (Pipe Roll Soc., new ser., xxxvi, London,1960), pp. 139-46. 30 For the Chester-Derby and Leicester-Northampton links, see R. H. C. Davis, King Stephen, 3rd edn. (London,1990),p. 109.

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valleybelowMarly-le-Roi. It is a suggestion worthpursuing that what Englishhistorians call "affinities" were the normalstructures of powerin northern Francein the eleventhand twelfth centuries wheremagnates bulliedor seduced allodial landowners intotheirban.3l If thisis so, as Nigel Saulhaspointedout to me, then Coss'sideathatbastard feudalism was a response to strong monarchy might well be the oppositeof the truth: it was a convenient way to exploitweakkingship. Whowere the strong kingsduringhis periodof evolutionin any case?The absentee Richard, readyto sell anyprivilege, the querulous anddistracted Johnandthe boy-king HenryIII:all to a greater or lesserdegree in conflict with,or in the powerof, theiraristocracies forsignificantperiods of theirreigns.HenryII wasa strongking,andmore in controlof his aristocracy thanany othertwelfth-century king of England, but honours still flourished in his reign.It shouldbe a priorityfor historians to discoverpreciselythe relationship betweenHenry and his aristocracy, and how that aristocracy exercisedpower, especiallyconsidering what we know of the dramaticdoings and ingenuity of Stephen'sand Mathilda's magnates. The circumstances of Stephen's reign,involving the relaxation of centralpower in Englandand Normandy,may well have encouraged affinities with their apparatus of indentures, more visibleto us becausegreatmagnates were able to spreadtheir wings and embracelargerareasand bigger men under their shadow.But we shouldnot doubtthatthe imperatives of power and securitywere likely to lead magnates to reachbeyondthe formal linksof landtenureat anytime.How feudal,in anycase, were "feudal" linksbasedon knightservice? The chiefpurpose of a land grantin returnfor knightservice(itself an act only commonin England) was to retaina followerand providefor him. But therewere variant caseswhena magnate (particularly an ecclesiastical magnate) soughtto make alliances with other magnates by territorial concessions, andtookhomage andknight
31 Crouch, Beaumont Twins, pp. 35-7, 53, 58-63. See G. Duby, La societe aux xie et xiie siecles dans la region maconnaise(Paris, 1982 edn.), pp. 261-2, for a summary of such a model. R. Fossier, La terre et les hommesen Picardiejusqu'a la fin du xiiie siecle, 2 vols. (Louvain, 1968), ii, pp. 483-4, describing the expansion of the power of the Candavene dynasty around St Pol in the eleventh century, has the counts winning over existing landowners to their banner, not enfeoffing new supporters.

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service as a formof recognizance or acknowledgement.32 Orthere wasthecasewhenaninfluential curialis tooklandgrants in return foranalliance witha magnate at court,or in return forhis favour to a suppliant.In this way in the 1120s Geoffreyde Clinton amassedconsiderable lands from men as greatas the earls of Warwick andGloucester, andthe lordsof Tutbury andStafford. What might be a typicalinstanceof enfeoffment for political purposeswas a grant of a Northamptonshire estate Geoffrey received froma Bedfordshire castellan who wasexperiencing the king'smalivolentia forkilling oneof hisdogs:presumably Geoffrey was to engineer his returnto grace.Suchgrantsweresupposed to be in perpetuity, but nonethe less after1133,whenGeoffrey died, the earl of Gloucester successfully recovered his five fees fromGeoffrey's son,andtheearlof Warwick attempted to deprive the boy of the seventeen fees extortedfromhim backin 1124.33 Lookedat this way, "feudal" linksinvolving landandknight servicewere only one form of "bastard feudal"contract: one otherwayof expressing dependence between a greater andlesser man. This granted, whatexactlywas bastardized aboutbastard feudalism? Wasit not a normal formof relationship between men greatand small:using grantsand favoursof whateversort to secureallegiance andsupport? Oneconstruct (bastard feudalism) cannot be saidto haveevolvedfromanother (feudal) one, as Coss assumes. Thevariety of relationships whichthesephrases describe livedhappily alongside one another in whathe callsthe "feudal" twelfthcentury. J. M. W. Beanhasin factcometo muchthe sameconclusion, but by a different route.He considers the ideaof the evolution of the affinityout of the maintained household of the twelfth
32 Domesday Book is full of such examples,so full that there is no need to cite individual instances.A good and later exampleof the processis the surrender of Mountsorrel andCharnwood by the earlof Chester to the earlof Leicester, described inE. King, "Mountsorrel and its Regionin the Reignof Stephen",HuntingtonLib. Quart.,xSiv (1980),pp. 1-10. 33 The Clinton fees are analysed by Green,Government of England underHenry I, pp.241-2. For the attempted deprivation of Geoffrey II of the Warwick fees, see D. Crouch, '4Geoffrey de Clinton andRogerEarlof Warwick", Bull. Inst. Hist. Research, lv (1982), pp. 119-23. For the involvement with Robert,castellan of Meppershall, seeBritishLib., London,MS. 4714, fo. lr, the twelfth-century foundation chronicle of Biddlesden,printed in Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. Caley, Ellis and Bandinel, v, pp. 366-7. Anothersuch aggregation of landsby a royaljusticefroma variety of magnates, wasthatattracted by Stephen of Seagrave around1200,the deeds recording which are to be found in I. H. Jeayes,A Catalogueof the Munimentsof Berkeley Castle (Bristol,1892), passim.

BASTARD FEUDALISM REVISED

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centuryor earlier.34 However,the ideaof the originsof bastard feudalism thathe offersis unsubtle. To derivethe latersocialand military systemof the fourteenth centuryfromthe maintenance offeredto twelfth-century retainers in baronial households is to miss the pointandplaythe "antecedents game".The structure of political lordship whichtheterm"bastard feudalism" embraces wasalsopresent then.Offering maintenance andlivery,or annuities, to retained knights wasbutone levelof patronage opento the magnate. Therewas, as I have already said, the inducement of office in magnate administrations, andmorebesides. The 1130pipe rollreveals thatlordswerealready offering theirmediation at court to secure royalfavours fortheirmen(in thiscaseexemptions from geld).Therewasalso,as Rogerof Hereford demonstrates for us, a quite informal and generally unstatedmenaceby which the twelfth-century magnate coulddoniinate hiscountry. Butthemenacewasnonethe lessthere,andwason occasion stated.A bishop of Llandaff in 1156, in pursuitof witnesses to assistGloucester abbey'sclaimto a church in his diocese,couldwritethat"there are thesemen and others,men of the earlof Gloucester andof other sort,whoavoidthe truth fearing to incur theearl's ill-will, but who couldbe forcedto speakup if it wasnecessary for the abbot andif it suitedthe archbishop".35 The wordscouldas well have comefroma bishopof two centuries later. NorthRiding College, Scarborough DavidCrouch
Bean,From Lordto Patron,pp. 121-53. Historia et cartularium monasterii sanctiPetri Gloucestriae, ed. W. Hart, 3 vols. (Rollsser., London,1863-7),ii, p. 57. Emphasis added.
34 35

II "The latentthreatto magnate powerlies primarily withinthe more direct relationship between free subjectand the crown whichis generally seen as developing out of the Angevinlegal reforms".In suggestingthat the transition from feudalism to bastard feudalism wascaused by a magnate reaction to thisthreat, a reaction whichwas already well advanced by the 1250s,Peter Cosshas advanced a bold hypothesis, whichleaveshim open to attackfrom manysides.1Historians specializing in the twelfth
1p. R. Coss,"Bastard Feudalism Revised",PastandPresent, no. 125(Nov. 1989), pp. 27-64;quotation at p. 41. For another recentdiscussion whichfocusesparticularly
(cont. on p. 178)

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centurymay well arguethat there was little that was strictly "feudal"aboutEnglandbeforethe Angevins,and indeed that features of bastard feudalism werealready in place.Historians of the later MiddleAges, on the other hand,may insist that the thirteenth centurydisplays merelythe antecedents of the fullygrownbastard feudal animal. ThisComment aimsbothto support Coss'sthesisandto suggestsomemodifications.
* * *

It is important to distinguish betweendifferent elementsin the suggested transition fromfeudalism to bastard feudalism. At its heart wasthe wayin which"thetenurial bondbetween lord and vassal [was]superseded as theprimary social tie".2Whereas great lords hadoncereliedforservicelargely on theirknightly tenants, they cameinstead to employandretain menwithwhomtheyhad notenurial connection, andto reward themwithmoneyfees and other perquisites insteadof simply with grantsof land. In a broader sense, however,bastardfeudalism also embracesthe world in whichthesenew personal ties operated. At timesthey simply provided lordswith knightsandadministrators; but they could also help magnates exercisetheir rule in the countiesof England, a ruleenforced through the retaining of royalofficials, the intimidation of juries, andthegeneral corruption of thesystem of justiceandadministration.3 It is with the evolutionof this bastard feudalweb of control that Cossis primarily concerned. In thinking thatit was closely linked with the development of royal government in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, he is surelyright.It was, after all, that systemj its law, its juries,its sheriffs,its judges which bastard feudalism soughtto manipulate. Elements of that manipulation can already be discerned around the middleyears of the thirteenth century: the propaganda of the years1258-65
(n. 1 cont.)

on the origins of the annuity and the indenture of retinue, see J. M. W. Bean, From Lord to Patron: Lordshipin Late Medieval England (Manchester, 1989), esp. ch. 4. 2 England in the Fifteenth Century:CollectedEssays of K. B. McFarlane, introd. G. L. Harriss (London, 1981), pp. 23-4; quoted by Coss, "Bastard Feudalism Revised", p. 27. For the web of bastard feudal control, see, for example, C. Carpenter, "The Beauchamp Affinity: A Study of Bastard Feudalism at Work", Eng. Hist. Rev., xcv (1980), pp. 524-30.
3

REVISED FEUDALISM BASTARD

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who lacked sheriffs by greatmagnates, spokeof judgesretained opto protectthe weakfrommagnate the poweror inclination pression,and minores who were unableto obtainjusticeagainst in the fourteenth of government the great.4That the structure to this type of distormoresusceptible centurywas significantly in the reignof HenryIII is far tion thanthat whichdeveloped a fromclear.True, it couldbe arguedthat the kingmaintained in the laterperiod,since in the localities presence less powerful to both the curialsheriffand the generaleyre had disappeared, of the peace. andjustices by gentryactingas sheriffs be replaced Thus the shires were far more open to magnateand gentry disappeared control.But, in fact, the curialsheriffhad virtually by the 1250swhile, as earlyas the 1220s,seventyyearsbefore hadbeen eyre'sjurisdiction of the general its finaldemise,aspects and gaol of assize justices as acting hived off to local knights presence royal a century, the fourteenth in Conversely, delivery.5 of the court theperambulations through in theshires wasretained judgesto many of professional coram rege and the appointment commission.6 typesof judicial to holdswayin the localities had,of course,aspired Magnates butto talkof a webof bastard century, longbeforethe thirteenth The patternof feudalcontrolmuchbeforethen is misleading. magnaterule in the twelfth centurydifferedfrom that which First, it is likely that honoursand developedin the thirteenth. magnates Secondly, courtsweremorevitalinstitutions.7 honorial
4 Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion, 1258-1267, ed. R. F. Treharneand I. J. Sanders(Oxford, 1973), pp. 272-3; T. Rymer, Foedera, ed. J. Caley and F. Holbrooke,3 vols. (RecordComm., London, 1816-30), i.l, and Society:The Personal "King, Magnates pp. 408-9; see also D. A. Carpenter, Rule of King Henry III", Speculum, lx (1985), pp. 47-9, 62-70; J. R. Maddicott, "Law and Lordship:Royal Justicesas Retainersin Thirteenth-and Fourteenthno. 4 (1978),pp. 4-13. Past and Present, supplement England", Century see below, pp. 182-3, andn. 17. In DavidCrook'sview, a 5 For fullerdiscussion, centurythe general "casecan . . . be madethat by the last decadeof the thirteenth Its crown in England". of legaladministration to the functioning eyre was inessential moreconcerned were "functions plea businessand reviewof judicialadministration of thanwith the repression for penalties as formalgrounds with errorsandomissions D. Crook,"The administration": of just and efficient crimeand the encouragement LaterEyres",Eng. Hist. Rev., xcvii (1982),pp. 247-8. 1968), pp. 280-3; in Medieval England (Cambridge, 6 R. B. Pugh, Imprisonment III and the Recoveryof Royal Authorityin England", W. M. Ormrod,"Edward of King'sBenchin Gloucestershire, History, lxxii (1987),pp. 11-13.For the activities see N. Saul, Knights and Esquires: The GloucestershireGentry in the Fourteenth -2. Century(Oxford,1981),pp. 171 Revised",pp. 43-4. Feudalism "Bastard 7 Coss,

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often tried to dominate the processes of royalgovernment not merelyby retaining andcorrupting thosewhoheldoffice,butby holdingoffice themselves.8 The sheriffdom held in hereditary right,the earldom bringing control overits shlre,andthe concession of the totus comitatus (the king'slandsand rightswithina county)were the objectsof magnate ambition.On Henry II's accession, as W. L. Warren has remarked, "it was more than likelythat the realmof England would,as Germany did aftera civil war, disintegrate into principalities".9 The same danger reappeared as late as the minority of HenryIII.10 This is not to deny that featuresof bastardfeudalcontrolcan be discerned before1154. Indeedjuries,sheriffs and judgeshad presumably been corrupted by magnates since Anglo-Saxon times. But the scale on whichthis took placewas transformed by the Angevin legalreforms sincetheyhugelyincreased the amount of litigation goingthroughthe king'scourts,in the processmultiplying the useof thejury,adding to theworkload of thesheriff, andcreating a new arrayof judgesandlocalofficials.
* * *

Coss arguesthat bastardfeudalism was a magnatereactionto thesedevelopments, and in particular to the relationship which the kingwasforging withhis freesubjects, especially the gentry. Herehe is bothrightandwrong.He is rightin believing thatthe Angevin legalreforms (followed by othersin the thirteenth century)werepotentially damaging to the magnates. He is wrongin suggesting thatthe employment of gentryas sheriffs, judgesand so forthto runthe new systemof localgovernment fallsinto the samecategory. The truthwas exactlythe opposite.It was preciselythis employment whichgavemagnates the opportunity to pervert the wholesystem. The legal procedures introduced by HenryII meantthat all
8 Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum, ed. H. W. C. Davis et al., 4 vols. (Oxford, 1913-69),iii, nos. 68, 273-6; W. A. Morris, TheMedieval EnglishSheriffto 1300 (Manchester 1927), pp. 50-2, 76-7; J. H. Round,"The EarlySheriffs of Norfolk", Eng. Hist. Rev., xxxv (1920), pp. 481-96; R. H. C. Davis, King Stephen (London, 1967),pp. 32-3, 129-45; P. Latimer, "Grantsof 'Totus CoIIiitatus' in TwelfthCentury England: TheirOrigins andMeaning", Bull. Inst.Hist.Research, lix (1986), pp.137-45. 9 W. L. Warren, HenryII (London,1973),p. 362. 10D. A. Carpenter, TheMinority of HenryIII (London,1990),pp. 108-27.

BASTARD BEUDALISM REVISED

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freemencould,in theory,bringswiftactions, decided by impartial juriesandjudgedby the king'sjudges,against magnates for njustdisseisin and for denialof succession to land.In the next century,the development of the actionof trespassmeantthat smallmencouldsue magnates fora wholeseriesof minorinjuries simplyby allegingbreachof the king'speace.They couldsue them,moreover, thanks to the evolution of procedures by (informal plaint)and bill, withoutthe botherand expenseof securing writs.ll In thesecircumstances the wonderis thatmagnatesaccepted the newmeasures as easilyas theydid.The reason was thatthey wereableto anaesthetize theireffectsby inserting bastardfeudal fingersinto the system, corrupting the juries, retaining the judgesand orchestrating the sheriffswho had to assemblethe juriesand executethe verdicts.This was all the easierbecausethe king was increasingly employing members of the gentryas his localofficials: the process Cosstakesas signalling potentialdoom to the magnates was ratherthe meansof their salvation. Takethe officeof the sheriff.Herewhatmagnates hadto fear wasnot the localgentleman but the The latterenjoyed bothintimacy withthe kingandabundant financial resources, for he usuallyretained the revenuethathe raisedabovethe county farm.The localgentleman, by contrast, enjoyed neither.He was frequently appointed simplyby the exchequer,for he had no personal linkswith the king,andit wasto the exchequer thathe paid the surplusabovethe farm.The king'sproblemwith the curial sheriff wasthathe wascostlyto employandmightbe hard to control,but he couldcertainly standup to the greatest menin hiscounty as Geoffrey de Clinton didto Rogerearlof Warwick in the reignof HenryI, and PhilipMarkto the earl of Derby andRogerde Montbegon duringthe minority of HenryIII.13 In
querela curialis.12

11S. F. C. Milson, TheLegalFramework of English Feudalism (Cambridge, 1976); A. Harding,"The Originsof Trespass,Tort and Misdemeanor", in TheRollof the Shropshire Eyreof 1256,ed. A. Harding (SeldenSoc., xcvi, London,1980),pp. xxxiilviii. For usefulgeneral surveys,see A. Harding,TheLawCourts of Medieval England (London, 1973);W. L. Wtarren, The Governance of Norman and Angevin England, 1086-1272 (London,1987). 12 For what follows, see D. A. Carpenter, "The Decline of the CurialSheriffin England,1194-1258",Eng.Hist. Rev.,xci (1976), pp. 1-32. 13 D. Crouch, "Geoffrey de ClintonandRogerEarlof Warwick", Bull. Inst.Hist. Research, lv (1982), pp. 113-24;J. C. Holt, "Philip Mark and the Shrievalty of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in the EarlyThirteenth Century",Trans.Thoroton soc.) lXvi (1952), pp. 8-24, esp. pp. 21-2.

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the courseof the minority four earlsand threeothermagnates suffered fromthe shrieval exactions of Falkesde Breaute. How muchbetterwasthe situation whenthe kingdismissed Falkesas sheriff of Bedfordshire-Buckinghamshire andturnedinstead to a localgentleman to Walter of Pattishall, a "manand knight" of the baronWilliam de Beauchamp of Bedford. It was not long beforeWalter provedextremely reluctant to executeroyalorders against his master's interests.14 Although kingshadfrequently employed a mixedbagof men in thesheriffdoms, including magnates, knights andminor professionaladministrators, for long periodsin the twelfthand early thirteenthcenturiesthere had alwaysbeen a spreadof curial sheriffs.Thus the yearsafter 1236when the latterdisappeared fromthe shiresmarked a decisivechangein the pattern of local government. In 1258 the king acceptedthe demandthat the sheriffshouldbe a substantial local knight,and, althoughthe reforms of thatyearweresoonoverthrown, localgentlemen were the most typical holdersof the office thereafter.15 The consequences svereperfectlyclearfromthe start,and indeedwere cogently analysed by HenryIII in a letterof August1261which justified his briefreappointment of curialsheriffs; sheriffs, as he put it, "of greaterpowerthanbefore".The latter,he averred, weremoreexpensivefor the king to run, but wouldbe able to provide the menof the counties "withjustice anddefence against the servitude andoppression whichcertain magnates placeupon youwhereas lessermen[thatis theknightly sheriffs in officefrom 1258]were unableto do so . . . because[they]were placedin officeby thosewho did you the foresaid injuries''.16 Herethenis the earliest description of the web of bastard feudalcontrol.It is certainly a consequence of the king employing knightsin local office,butthatemployment gavethe magnates an opportunity to be seized,not a danger to be mastered. A development parallelto the gentrification of the shrieval officewas the increasing employment of knightsas justicesof
14 Carpenter, Minorityof HenryIII, pp. 333-4, 353; Royal and OtherHistorical Letters Illustrative of the Reignof HenryIII, ed. W. W. Shirley,2 vols. (Rollsser., London,1862-8),ii, no. ccvi. 1sFor Edward I's use of curialsheriffs earlyin his reign,andtheirreplacement by local men in 1278, see J. R. Maddicott,"EdwardI and the Lessonsof Baronial Reform",in P. R. CossandS. D. Lloyd(eds.), Thirteenth-Century England, i (Woodbridge,1986),pp. 19-20, 27. 16 Rymer,Foedera, ed. Caleyand Holbrooke, i.1, pp. 408-9.

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assize,gaoldelivery andoyerandterminer. Hereagainthe magnateswere presented with an opportunity ratherthana threat. Indeedit was preciselyto preventcorruption that the king, in both the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries, struggled to maintainthe presence of professional judges on suchcommissions, not always with success.17 None of this is to claimthat therewas an identity of interest betweenmagnates and gentry:therewas not, as the tensionsof the period 1258-9makeplain.The king, however,foundsuch strains extraordinarily difficult to exploitsinceit was impossible todefineexactlywherethe interests of the two groupsdiverged: thetruthwas that the pointvariedthroughout the countrydepending on the activities of different lordsandtheiraffinities. If thekingdid attemptto dividegentryfrom magnates, it was not byemploying the formerto runlocalgovernment. He knewfull wellthatthey couldprovefallibleagents susceptible to magnate influence. When,in 1220,he agreedthatthe carucage tax becollected in eachcountyby two knightselectedin the could county court, he immediately replaced an expression of thankswith a warning: if theknights failedin theirtasktheywouldbe subjected toa strict inquiry"by trustymen sent from our court".The king was right to be concerned, for the knightsprovedquite unable to collectthe tax fromnumerous greatmen.18 The king none the less had good reasonsfor turningto the gentry to run localgovernment. They werecheap,available and
17 From 1218 to 1241 numerous commissions were issuedto four judgesto hear individual pettyassizes.Thesefourwerenormally localknights,although they might sometimes includea professional judgewith interests in the area.From 1241to 1273 such commissions were morenormally issuedto singleprofessional judgeswho then co-opted local knightsas colleagues. In respectof gaol deliverythe "fourknight" system wasin placefromthe 1220sdownto 1292when accusations of corrupt practice led to its abandonment. In 1330a statutedesigned, in R. B. Pugh'swords,to "prevent corrupt alliances betweenjustices andlocalmagnates" stipulated thatjustices of assize and gaol deliveryshouldnot be localmen: Pugh, Imprisonment in Medieval England, pp. 257, 265, 278-83;C. A. F. Meekings,Calendar of theGeneral andSpecial Assize and General GaolDeliveryCommissions on the Dorses of thePatentRolls,Richard II, 1377-99 (Nedeln, 1977),pp. i-iv. For commissions of oyer and terminer, see R. W. Kaeuper, "LawandOrderin Fourteenth-Century England: The Evidence of Special Commissions of Oyer and Terminer",Speculum, liv (1979), pp. 752-3, 759. One problem with such commissions was that plaintiffswere able to name their own judges, andthis mayalsohavebeenthe casewith the commissions of assizeandgaol delivery in the thirteenth century,hencethe complaint in Documents of theBaronial Movement, ed. Treharne and Sanders, pp. 272-3. 18 Rotoli litterarum clausarum, 2 vols. (Record.Comm.,London,1833-4),i, p. 437; Carpenter, Minority of HenryIII, p. 225.

fittedto the circumstances of post-Magna Carta kingship. After 1215the king had less need for greatcurialsheriffs to disseise magnates of theirlandanddistrain themto paytheirdebtssince MagnaCartahad both madearbitrary disseisinmore difficult, andreduced magnate indebtedness to the crown.He hadcorrespondingly moreneedto give wayto demands forlocalmento be sheriffs and judges,for he therebyconciliated the countiesand made it easier to obtaintaxationfrom parliament. The local societywhichmadesuchdemands, however,cannotbe divorced fromlordship. The callforself-government in the shireswasone inwhichbothgentry andmagnates couldjoin;it wasnotnecessarily the cry of autonomous gentrycommunities. A key feature in thedemand, afterall, was thatofficials shouldbe electedin the county courts: in Magna Carta (1215)the four who were tosit with the king'sjudgesin eachcountyto knights hearpettyassizes were to be electedin this way;so in 1259werethe four knights in each countyfrom whom the exchequerwas to choose the sheriff. But,as Cosshimself hasacknowledged, the mostimportantsuitorsto the early thirteenth-century county court were frequently knights whowerestewards of greatmagnates.19 In the Yorkshire countycourtin 1220it wasthe stewards who resisted the king'sattemptto levy the carucage in the county,claiming that theirlordshadnot beenconsulted aboutit.20 The magnates therefore hadlittle to fearfromthe king'semployment of gentryin localaffairs. Having failedto ruletheshires through gainingsheriffdoms, earldoms and grantsof the totus comitatus, it gavethemthe chance to achievecomparable results in a different way. In practice thoseresults,in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, neveramounted to uniform magnate rule in the shires.Structures of powerwerekaleidoscopic in their variety. In someareasthe gentrywereableto createtheirown orderor chaos; in otherstherewere competing magnate factions; in yet others a lordmightexercise fora timea moreor lessstable rule.21
19p. R. Coss, "Knighthood and the Early Thirteenth-Century County Court", in P. R. Coss and S. D. Lloyd (eds.), Thirteenth-Century England,ii (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 45-7. However, in this article Coss introduces important qualifications to the arguments advanced in R. C. Palmer, The County Courts of Medieval England, 1150-1350 (Princeton, 1982), pp. 56-138. 20 Royal and Other HistoricalLetters, ed. Shirley, i. no. cxxx. For the demands and grievances of local society in Henry III's reign, see J. R. Maddicott, "Magna Carta and the Local Community", Past and Present, no. 102 (Feb. 1984), pp. 25-65. 21For discussion as to whether conflict or cohesion was the habitual condition of "bastard feudal" society, see England in the Fifteenth Century, introd. Harriss,

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185 The losersin all this-the oppressed minores, and those vanquished in the factional struggles eventually raised therewastoo littleroyal the crythat government, not too much.But the cry was never loud enoughto provokeeffectiveroyalaction. powerful andsuccessful, The gentry andmagnate alike,weresatisfied withthe bastard feudalstatusquo.
* * *

BASTARD FEUDALISM REVISED

This Comment hasso fardiscussed the pattern of bastard control whichmagnates feudal spread in local affairs. of But the transition at the centre fromfeudalism to bastard thing feudalism was somenarrower, namelythe way that lords lookedfor servants outside the ringof theirknightly andrewarded with land,but with moneyfees tenants, themnot and other gifts. It is difficult accept Coss'simplication to that to the Angevinlegal and thistoo wasjusta magnate reaction administrative reforms.True those reforms sappedthe authority of the honorial courtand underniined the lord'sdisciplinary They also encouraged lords to look beyondtheir jurisdiction. tenantsand retainwhichever held local office.But longer-term gentry dim the worldof the cohesive factorswere also workingto andexclusivehonour. the reign of Henry I the Leges Already in Primirecognizedthe difficulties whicharosewhenmenHenrici were tenantsof severallords or held landsremotefromthe administrative centreof the honour.22 Facedwith suchproblems, moreover, lordswerefarfrom devoting all theirenergies to shoring up the wallsof the in an important honour; respect theythemselves wishedto breach The reasonfor this was simple:a them.23 lordwantedgoodservice, was unlikelyto find it by relying and tenants. The soonerhe brokeout of exclusivelyon his inherited the honorial strait-jacket the
(n. O cont.)

pp. xv-xxiii;N. Saul, "Conflict J. Taylor and W. Childs(eds.), and Consensusin English Local Society", in Politicsand Crisisin (Gloucester, 1990),pp. 38-58;Carpenter, Fourteenth-Century England 22 "Beauchamp Leges Henrici Affinity", pp. 530-1. Primi,ed. L. J. Downer the honour of Clare in thetwelfthcentury (Oxford,1972),pp. 172-3.For tenantsof holding from "Land and Service: several lords,seeR. The Tenantsof the Honour of Clare",in R. Allen Mortimer, Anglo-Norman Studies, viii (Woodbridge, Brown(ed.), 1986), 23 pp. This is not to denythat from 194-6. the point of view of wardships andthe honorial court the lordhadeveryrevenue-that derivedfrom his tenants, andmadestrenuous effortsto do so in the reasonfor keepingcontrolof thirteenth century.

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better.Havingfoundnew servants and allies,he mightreward themwith land.Indeedsuchrewards werethe mainreason why mencameto holdlandfromseveral lords.Butequally in the late twelfthcentury,as landbecamescarcer, hereditary tenuremore established (thanksin part to the Angevinlegal reforms)and slirectmanagement of estates,in an eraof inflation, moreprofitable,therewere cleardisadvantages to enfeoffments whichpermanentlydepleteda lord's patrimony.Thus while the latter certainly continued, lordsoftenpreferred to paymoneyfees and wages,or give landin the formof wardships andmarriages.24 The incentive to breakout of the honour wouldhavebeenless compelling hadEnglish society existedin a kindof "steady state". In fact, of course,it was highlycompetitive, and the strongest competitor of all was frequently the king. A key passagefor understanding the development of bastard feudalism comesin the Dialogusde Scaccarioof 1176:"Scholar: 'I seem to gatherfrom whatyou havesaid,thatany knightor othersensiblemanmay be appointed by the king as sheriffor bailiff,even thoughhe holds nothingof him immediately'. Master:'It is the king's prerogative as chiefof theexecutive thatanymanin thekingdom, if the king need him, may be freelytakenand assigned to the king'sservice,whose man soever he be, and whomsoever he servesin war or in peace'.Scholar: 'I see the poet's wordsare true:"Haveyou forgotten thatthe kings'armsare long?"X.25 Thefirstandgreatest bastard feudallord,then,wasthe king.He bothemployedwhom he wishedin his serviceand as the chancery rollsforJohn's reignrevealforthe firsttimein detail rewarded themwith fees andwagesas well as with land. The king, moreover,was not the only competitor facedby established lords.Throughout thetwelfth andthirteenth centuries menclimbed into the ranksof the nobilityusually through royal service, oftenpiecingtogether landed estatesfroma multitude of acquisitions. Suchmenwerelargely emancipated fromfeudal ties and naturally fishedfor servants in the rapidly expanding poolof fighting knights andprofessional administrators whowereon the
24 For the disadvantages of grants of land,the moneyfeesandothertypesof reward often employedin theirsteadin the thirteenth century,and the contracts whichlaid down the terms,see S. L. Waugh,"Tenureto Contract: Lordship and Clientage in Thirteenth-Century England", Eng.Hist. Rev., ci (1986), pp. 811-39. 25 Dialogus de Scaccario, ed. C. Johnson (London,1950),p. 84.

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Takethe case of Falkesde Breaute. look-outfor good lords.26 body a remarkable of HenryIIIhe recruited Duringthe minority of knightsand clerksto run his estates,castlesandsheriffdoms. workedeitherfor the king or for othergreat Most had already serto royalor magnate lords;afterFalkes'sfall they returned even when they Falkes'scompetitors, vice.27Not surprisingly, Marshal, William fashion. in similar behaved heldgreathonours, and Striguil of Leinster, the lordships for example,hadacquired with twelveof the connection yet he had no tenurial Crendon, was eighteenknightsclosestto him. The key to his recruitment ratherthan of tenure, many of the the tie of neighbourhood knightscomingfromthe areaof his family'soriginalestatesin Sussexandthe Thamesvalley.Evenlordscompeting Wiltshire, behaved in highpoliticsthanFalkesandthe Marshal lessactively made important, way. Thus tenants,although in a comparable up but a thirdof both the "inner"and "outer"circlesof the staidEarlDavidof Huntingthe rather contemporary, Marshal's and EarlDavid,moreover, don (1152-1219).Both the Marshal grantsof land. their followerswith significant rarelyrewarded money Indeedthere are two examplesof EarlDavid assigning fiefsto his knightsinstead.28 menfromoutsidetheir andEarlDavidrecruited The Marshal but there service: theywantedthe best possible because honours the bondsbetweenthem too whichweakened wereotherfactors through hislordships hadacquired TheMarshal andtheirtenants. late in life; EarlDavid'sfamilyhad not comparatively marriage The of Huntingdon. of the honour possession continuous enjoyed
26 For the landedestate pieced togetherby WilliamBrewer,see S. Painter, The see, for administrator, 1949),pp. 73-8. For the professional (Baltimore, of3tohn Reign 1951),pp. 265-9. of Ely (Cambridge, andBishopric example,E. Miller, TheAbbey of HenryIII, p. 117. Minority 27 Carpenter, Empire, in theAngevin andChivalry Career Court, Marshal: 28 D. Crouch,William EarlDavidof Huntingdon: (London,1990),pp. 157-68;K. J. Stringer, c. 1147-1219 1985), pp. 164-73. I am gratefulto History(Edinburgh, A Studyin Anglo-Scottish me to see a draftof the sectionof his bookon the Marshal's forallowing DavidCrouch of neighbourandin the importance andnon-tenants of tenants In its mixture affinity. to thatbuiltup fromthe 1240s is comparable affinity the Marshal's hoodconnections, The FirstLeader "Simonde Montfort: see D. A. Carpenter, by Simonde Montfort: lxxvi (1991), pp. 10-13. The of a PoliticalMovementin EnglishHistory",History, whoshared Rogerde Quincyearlof Winchester, contemporary, of Montfort's affinity the honourof Leicesterwith Simon,was of a similartype: see G. Simpson,"The of Scotland",in and Constable Familiaof Roger de Quincy, Earl of Winchester 1985), (Edinburgh, Scotland K. J. Stringer(ed.), Essayson theNobilityof Medieval pp. 102-29,esp. pp. 120-1.

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traditional bondsof loyaltyand servicemight remainstronger wherehonourspassedin unbroken succession from fathersto sons, or where,as tendedto be the case in the north,honours weregeographically compact andmultiple tenancies werelimited. The affinities of someof the greatnorthern barons maywellhave been moretenurially basedthanthose of the Marshal and Earl David. Certainly in 1215 the Northerners were followedinto rebellion by manyof theirtenants. Yet, even in the north,lords were lookingfor serviceoutsidethe circle of their honours.29 Sooneror later, facedby competition from the king and rival magnates, no ambitious lord could affordto be left behind.If tenantscouldgive good service,they might be employed.But few lordscouldhope to meet all theirneedsfromthat source. Evenwherethe tenurial linkpersisted, it cameto provide merely the opening for the relationship, not the bondwhichsustained it. It was essential, therefore, for magnates, just as muchas the king, to employwhomeverthey liked in their service.If the king'sexample waspartof the "resurrection of publicauthority withinfeudalsocietyandwithinthe feudalstate"whichCoss,in general terms,sees as provoking bastard feudalism,30 it hadcertainlybegunlongbeforethe Angevin legalreforms, as HenryI's promotion of "newmen"demonstrates.31
* * *

Coss argues thatit wasthe actions of lordswhichcreated bastard feudalism. He warnsagainst the view that,in its origins,"magnatesand gentryfreelyparticipated for mutualbenefit".32 This perspective seemsmisconceived. Knights as muchas lordscould gain fromtheloosening of stricttenurial ties.No ambitious knight wished to be stuckwith a lord who was unableto providehim withpatronage and advancement. For this reasonthe honour broke up just as muchfrombelowas fromabove.One can see
29 J. C. Holt, TheNortherners: A Studyin theReignof Kingffohn(Oxford,1961), pp. 43-5. 30 Coss, "Bastard Feudalism Revised",p. 54. 31 R. W. Southern, "KingHenryI", in his Medieval Humanism andOtherStudies (Oxford, 1970),pp. 206-33. Implicit in whatI say hereis thattherewasa distinction between the king employingwhomeverhe wantedin a curialcapacity,whichhad serious implications for the magnates, and his merelyemploying non-curial knights to run localgovernment, whichdid not. 32 Coss, "Bastard Feudalism Revised",p. 54.

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century, in the early thirteenth in Oxfordshire this happening baron,Henryde Oilly(c.1155-1232) greatest wherethe county's manwho couldneitherprotect was a mild, pious, incompetent his men in their quarrelsnor providethem with worthwhile of the curialis, the service entered As a resulthis knights rewards. Walter localpotentate, andanother Basset of Headington, Thomas of York.33 de Grey,archbishop There was nothing surprisingin lordshipthus lasting, in words, "only so long as it was found to be good McFarlane's Manyknightshad or until it was oustedby better".34 lordship fromholdingland derived long enjoyeda certainindependence Primirecognized. Henrici Leges as the frommorethanone lord, the century the thirteenth In landholders. Manyweresubstantial Fundamensound.35 of the classwasarguably position economic andgentryhada mutual magnates andsuccessful tally,ambitious a mutualinterest,that feudalism; bastard interestin developing local in service,andin extending a freemarket is, bothin forging controlof localgovernment. hadno single therefore, feudalism, of bastard The development must for goodserviceandgoodlordship cause.The competition unit have workedto breakup the honouras a self-sufficient of whichthe of factors, A multiplicity almostfromits inception. wereone, meantthatlordswere increasAngevinlegalreforms to reward onwards, fromthe latetwelfthcentury inglyreluctant, in land. Meanwhilelords servantswith direct enfeoffments harmlessby renderedthe Angevinrevolutionin government feudalweb over the system,the increasing spinninga bastard makingit all the of gentryin localadministration employment wereto the mutual easierfor themto do so. Thesedevelopments It wasthe minores of the strong,bothlordsandgentlemen. benefit who suffered. London King'sCollege D. A. Carpenter

andtheirSubordinof Oxfordshire "Sheriffs 33 For de Oilly, see D. A. Carpenter, (Univ. of OxfordD. Phil. thesis, 1974),ch. 2. ates, 1194-1236" p. xviii. introd.Harriss, Century, in theFifteenth 34 England "WasThere a Crisisof the KnightlyClassin the Thirteenth 35 D. A. Carpenter, Evidence",Eng.Hist. Rev., xcv (1980), pp. 721-52;but The Oxfordshire Century? see P. R. Coss, "Sir Geoffreyde Langleyand the Crisisof the KnightlyClassin no. 68 (Aug. 1975),pp. 3-37. Past andPresent, England", Thirteenth-Century