R.R. Davies - Lords and Lordship in The British Isles in The Late Middle Ages

LORDS AND LORDSHIP IN THE BRITISH ISLES
IN T H E L AT E M IDDLE AG ES
This page intentionally left blank
Lords and Lordship in the

British Isles in the Late
Middle Ages
R. R. DAVIES
Edited by
BRENDAN SMITH
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 2 6

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Davies, R. R.
Lords and lordship in the British Isles in the late Middle Ages / R.R. Davies; edited by Brendan Smith.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9780199542918 (acid-free paper) 1. Great BritainPolitics and governmentTo 1485.
2. NobilityGreat BritainHistoryTo 1500. 3. FeudalismGreat BritainHistoryTo 1500. 4. Power
(Social sciences)Great BritainHistoryTo 1500. 5. Great BritainHistoryMedieval period, 10661485. 6.
Great BritainHistoryTo 1485. I. Smith, Brendan, 1963 II. Title.
DA175.D337 2009
305.52209410902dc22
2008055133
Typeset by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in the UK
on acid-free paper by
MPG Biddles Ltd, Kings Lynn, Norfolk
ISBN 9780199542918
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Contents
Abbreviations
Editors Introduction
Apologia
vii
xi
1
1. The Higher Aristocracy: Identity and Memory
21
2. Display and Magnicence
58
3. The Lord at Home
82
4. The Lord at War
116
5. Land, Family, and Marriage
140
6. The Sinews of Aristocratic Power
158
7. The Agencies and Agents of Lordship
179
8. Dependence, Service, and Reward
197
Bibliography
Additional Bibliography
Index
219
233
241
Abbreviations
Adam Usk, Chronicle
Age of Chivalry
Adam Usk, Chronicle, 13771421, ed.

C. Given-Wilson (Oxford, 1997)
Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England,
12001400, ed. J. Alexander and P. Binski
(London, 1987)
BIHR
BL
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research

The British Library, London
Cal. Anc. Corr.
Calendar of Ancient Correspondence Concerning

Wales, ed. J. G. Edwards (Cardiff, 1935)
Calendar of Ancient Petitions Relating to Wales,
ed. W. Rees (Cardiff, 1975)
Calendar of Close Rolls (London, 1892)
Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, 1219
1485, 7 vols. (London and Woodbridge,
19162003)
Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, 23 vols.
(London, 19042004)
Calendar of Patent Rolls (London, 1891)
Cal. Anc. Pets.

CCR
CIM
CIPM
CPR
Davies, Lordship and Society
DNB
Dugdale, Monasticon
R. R. Davies, Lordship and Society in the March

of Wales, 12821400 (Oxford, 1978)
Dictionary of National Biography, 66 vols., ed.
L. Stephens and S. Lee (London, 18851901;
reprinted with corrections, 22 vols., London,
19089)
W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum: A History of the Abbies and other Monasteries, Hospitals, Friaries, and Cathedral and Collegiate
Churches, with their Dependencies, in England
viii
Duncan, Scotland
Abbreviations
and Wales, 6 vols. in 8 (2nd edn., London,
181730)
A. A. M. Duncan, Scotland: The Making of the
Kingdom (Edinburgh, 1975)
Econ. HR
EHR
Economic History Review

English Historical Review
Frame, Ireland and Britain
R. Frame, Ireland and Britain 11701450

(London, 1998)
GEC
The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland,

Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom,
ed. G. E. Cockayne et al., 12 vols. in 13
(London, 191059)
Holmes, Estates
G. Holmes, The Estates of the Higher Nobility

in Fourteenth-Century England (Cambridge,
1957)
Household Accounts from Medieval England, ed.
C. M. Woolgar, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1993)
Household Accounts
Knighton, Chron.
Knightons Chronicle, 13371396, ed. G. H.

Martin (Oxford, 1995)
McFarlane, Nobility
K. B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England: The Ford Lectures for 1953 and
Related Studies (Oxford, 1973)
Registrum Episcopatus Moraviensis, ed. C. Innes
(Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1833)
Registrum Honoris de Morton, ed. T. Thomson,
A. Macdonald and C. Innes, 2 vols. (Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1853)
Moray Reg.
Mort. Reg.
Nichols, Wills
A Collection of all the Wills, Now Known to

Be Extant, of the Kings and Queens of England, Princes and Princesses of Wales, and every
Branch of the Blood Royal, from the Reign of
William the Conqueror, to that of Henry the
Seventh Exclusive: With Explanatory Notes and
a Glossary, ed. J. Nichols (London, 1780)
Abbreviations
ix
NLW
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
ODNB
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From

the Earliest Times to the Year 2000, ed. H. C.
G. Matthew and B. Harrison, 60 vols. (Oxford,
2004)
Private Indentures
Private Indentures for Life Service in Peace

and War 12781476, ed. M. Jones and
S. Walker, Camden Miscellany, 32 (London,
1994)
The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England,
12751504, ed. C. Given-Wilson [General
Editor] et al.,16 vols. (Woodbridge, 2005)
PROME
Reg. BP
Reg. Chichele
Reg. JG I
Reg. JG II
Rot. Parl.
Register of Edward the Black Prince, 4 vols.

(London,19303)
Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury 141443, ed. E. F. Jacob, 4 vols.
(Oxford, 193847)
John of Gaunts Register, 137276, ed.
S. Armitage-Smith, 2 vols., Camden 3rd series,
xxxxi (London, 1911)
John of Gaunts Register, 137983, ed. E. C.
Lodge and R. Somerville, 2 vols., Camden 3rd
series, lvilvii (London, 1937)
Rotuli Parliamentorum, ed. J. Strachey et al.
7 vols. (London, [1783], 1832)
SHR
Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys
Scottish Historical Review

J. Smyth, The Berkeley Manuscripts: The Lives
of the Berkeleys, Lords of the Honour, Castle and
Manor of Berkeley . . ., ed. J. MacLean, 3 vols.
(Gloucester, 18835)
Test. Vet.
Testamenta Vetusta: Being Illustrations from

Wills, of Manners, Customs, &c. as Well as
of the Descents and Possessions of many Distinguished Families: From the Reign of Henry the
Second to the Accession of Queen Elizabeth, ed.
N. H. Nicolas, 2 vols. (London, 1826)
Abbreviations
TNA
The National Archives: Public Record Ofce,

London
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
TRHS
VCH
H. A. Doubleday, W. Page, L. F. Salzmann,

and R. B. Pugh (eds.), Victoria History of the
Counties of England (1900)
Professor Davies worked on Lords and Lordship in the British Isles in the Late
Middle Ages (henceforward Lords and Lordship) until shortly before his death
on 16 May 2005. His last intervention was to make handwritten additions to
a typescript of the rst several chapters, including the insertion of references to
work published as recently as 2005, and to write another chapter which had
yet to be typed when he died. He had been compiling material for the project
throughout the course of his career, but composition of Lords and Lordship seems
to have begun in or around the year 2000. It was planned as a book of two
parts, the rst entitled Lords, the second Lordship. Work on the rst part, at
least as a rst draft, appears to have been at an advanced stage by May 2005,
and much of the second part had also been written, though at least one more
chapter was in genesis bearing the working title The Context of Aristocratic
Lordship.
The editorial intervention required to make a substantial but unnished piece
of work suitable for publication involved the abandonment of the two-part
structure on account of the brevity of the second part in comparison with the
rst. It is hoped, however, that the essence of the division envisaged by the
authorthat the book should move from what lordship was to what it did is
still discernible. Both parts had introductory chapters, and these have been
amalgamated to form the Apologiathe title of the original introduction to
Part 1. The chapter The Higher Aristocracy: Identity and Memory now also
embraces a short chapter called The Individual Lord, while the chapter The Lord
at Home now incorporates another short chapter entitled Household, Supplies,
and Credit. Apart from the consolidation of material across different chapters,
the removal of occasional repetition, and the standardization of footnotes, the
text is unaltered. Where new editions of works cited have appeared since Professor
Davies ceased to write I have included them in the footnotes in closed brackets
after the original citation: two examples are PROME and W. Childs edition of
the Vita Edwardi Secundi. I have appended an Additional Bibliography to each
chapter, and the works thus cited appear in consolidated form at the end of the
volume. With a handful of exceptions these additions date from 2000 and after,
with the majority having been published within the last ve years. The intention
has not been to provide a complete bibliography on lordship in the late medieval
British Isles, but rather to draw attention to some of the recent work from across
the region which relates to the theme of the book.
Inevitable tension exists between the decision to keep interference with the
original text to a minimum and the reasonable assumption that the author would
have altered at least some of what is now published had he lived. Such alterations
xii
might have been particularly marked in nal versions of the Apologia and the
chapter Dependence, Service, and Reward. Professor Daviess argument in the
former that the concept of lordship has been neglected in the historiography of
late medieval England is difcult to reconcile with the quantity and quality of
work published on the subjectmuch of which he cites in the course of the
bookespecially for the fteenth century. It can be noted that he uses the phrase
late Middle Ages to signify the chosen period of his analysis (12721422), and
that the historiography of the reign of Henry VI, upon which he draws only
occasionally, is particularly sensitive to issues of lordship. It can also be offered
that his book is about the British Isles, not England, and that for Scotland
and Ireland a long fourteenth century as opposed to a late Middle Ages
perspective is historiographically meaningless. It remains the case, however, that
historians of late thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England will demur from
the suggestion that they have paid insufcient attention to aristocratic lordship
in their analysis of English society and politics. Had Professor Davies decided
to leave the Apologia substantially as it now standsand he had re-read it
without making alterations to the text shortly before his deaththen one must
assume that he believed that something important remained to be said about the
subject; one may hazard a guess that this was that while lordship as an expression
of political power in particular circumstances had been thoroughly discussed
since McFarlane, analysis of the institution of lordship as a concept and in more
general practice lagged behind, not least because the failure to view it in a British
Isles as opposed to an English setting had obscured and distorted its true essence.
The nal chapter, Dependence, Service, and Reward, is problematic for
some of the same reasons. It had not been typed by May 2005, and although
fully footnoted by Professor Davies, was obviously in a less nalized state than
the rest of the material. Historians of fteenth-century England in particular
will be puzzled at its suggestion that suspicion of maintenance is misplaced,
since they abandoned such suspicion long ago, while thanks in particular to the
work of Christine Carpenter and Edward Powell, legal records have supplanted
indentures as the preferred source for the study of aristocratic behaviour within
the locality, across wider political society, and with the crown and its ofcers.
The decision to include the chapter was made on the basis of what it contained
and also because of the pointers it gave to what was still to come. While historians
of late medieval England will nd little in it that is original, it breaks new ground
by opening up the issues indicated by its title to embrace the British Isles in toto
and thus is absolutely true to the aim of the project as a whole. It also contains
some indications as to the themes to be addressed in the chapter or chapters
yet to be written: the role of aristocratic retainers in their own communities;
the changing nature of lordship in a world in which it operated as only one of
many bonds between superior and inferior; the demands placed upon lordship
by its requirement to be goodin short, the crucial issue of the limitations of
lordship in the rapidly changing British Isles of the late Middle Ages. It seems
xiii
highly likely that the proposed chapter The Context of Aristocratic Lordship
would have had this issue at its heart.
A full account of Professor Daviess career and an assessment of his importance
as a historian can be found in Professor Huw Pryces memoir Robert Rees
Davies 19382005, to be published in a forthcoming volume of Proceedings of
the British Academy. This is not the place to offer a critical assessment of Lords and
Lordship, but it seems appropriate to note some moments in the development
of the ideas expounded therein. The interest in lordship in the fourteenth and
fteenth centuries, of course, stretches back to Professor Daviess doctoral studies
under the supervision of K. B. McFarlane, which commenced in 1959. (Professor
Daviess review of McFarlanes Nobility, in Welsh History Review, 7 (19745)
is instructive.) His rst monograph, Lordship and Society in the March of Wales,
12821400 (Oxford, 1978), both expanded upon the subject-matter of his thesis
and identied some of the key themes which are revisited and expanded upon in
the present book. Professor Daviess willingness to broaden the geographical area
in which he examined the phenomenon of lordship beyond the Welsh March
and England to include Ireland was rst signalled in print in his essay Lordship
or Colony?, in The English in Medieval Ireland, ed. J. F. Lydon (Dublin,
1984)notably, the rst work cited by Professor Davies in this bookand
again in Frontier Arrangements in Fragmented Societies: Ireland and Wales, in
Medieval Frontier Societies, ed. R. Bartlett and A. MacKay (Oxford, 1989). The
argument for seeing the British Isles as a whole as a suitable arena for investigation
of lordship and other themes was put forward in his In Praise of British History,
in The British Isles 11001500: Comparisons, Contrasts and Connections, ed. R. R.
Davies (Edinburgh, 1988). While the British Isles remained the focus of most of
his publications in the years thereafter, his chronological centre of gravity tended
to shift to a period which ended in the early fourteenth century, and the theme of
lordship receded somewhat as issues such as identity, the rise of English power,
and the idea of the medieval state came more to the fore. Lords and Lordship,
therefore, represents to some extent a return to concerns that had informed a
lifetime of scholarship but which had yet to be tackled at full, monograph, length.
Professor Daviess early death precluded completion of that project, but enough
survives to be published in a book that should meet his goals of encouraging debate
and inspiring new questions about a crucial and fascinating historical subject.
I would like to thank Professor Robert Evans and Dr John Watts of Oxford
University for inviting me to edit Lords and Lordship, Dr Watts and Professor
Christine Carpenter for invaluable criticism of both the original text and my
approach to editing it, and Mrs Stephanie Jenkins who typed the original text
and at a later stage the nal chapter. I would also like to thank Lady Davies, who
kindly made available additional important material relating to the book.
Brendan Smith
Bristol
Apologia
This is a book about aristocratic power or lordship in the British Isles in the
later Middle Ages. Lordship as a concept is currently not a common term in
English parlance, even in the writings of British medieval historians. This is
surprising in at least two respects. First, lordship, dominium, was a key word in
the political, social, and indeed academic vocabulary of medieval Europe. It was
a ubiquitous and fundamental term, be it (for example) the lordship of God or
of the lord king (dominus rex), the lordship of the abbot over his monks, or the
legal power that a husband (seigneur) had over his wife. It was an elastic, protean
word. It could refer to the area over which a lord exercised his dominionbe it
a manor, a duchy, or even a kingdom; but it could also be used to characterize
conceptually the nature of that authority. Contemporaries could likewise refer
to the law of lordship (ius dominii) as shorthand for the relationship between
lord and dependant. Theologians and philosophers argued learnedly about the
justication and credentials of secular lordship (de civili dominio). In short, it
was an innitely adaptable concept (and word) in the medieval construction of
the ordering of human relationships and in the justication of the exercise of
power at all levels of society. But it is not a term which has been much favoured
in recent British medieval historiography.
It is different elsewhere. This brings us to the second element of surprise
about the low prole of the word lordship in British medieval historiography.
On the continent, notably in France and Germany, seigneurie and Herrschaft
are central terms in historical explanations of the evolution of European society.
Thus Marc Bloch in his pioneering chapter in The Cambridge Economic History of
Europe vol. 1 (1941) asserted that for more than a thousand years the seigneurie
was one of the dominant institutions of western civilization. More recently
another distinguished French medieval historian, Robert Fossier, is, if anything,
even more assertive: the seigneurie, he declares, was the primary organism of
jure dominii quoted in R. R. Davies, Lordship or Colony? in The English in Medieval Ireland,
ed. J. F. Lydon (Dublin, 1984), 14260, at p. 143.
M. Bloch, The Rise of Dependent Cultivation and Seigniorial Institutions, in The Cambridge
Economic History of Europe, vol. I, ed. M. M. Postan, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, 1966), 23590, at
p. 236. Two English historians who have placed lordship at the centre of their discussions recently
are R. H. Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society, 10001500 (Cambridge, 1993) and,
seminally, R. Faith, The English Peasantry and the Growth of Lordship (Leicester, 1997).
Lords and Lordship
everyday life between the tenth and the eighteenth centuries. Were we to ask
for a denition of seigneurie yet another French historian (and a pupil of Bloch),
Robert Boutruche, provides a categorical and serviceable answer: Seigneurie is a
power of command, constraint and exploitation. It is also the right to exercise
such power. Now it may well be objected that the term lordship is a feeble
and inadequate translation of the French seigneurie and the German Herrschaft.
It also needs to be acknowledged that American historiansnotably Frederic
Cheyette and Thomas Bissonhave waged a campaign to move the concept of
lordship nearer to the centre of Anglophone historical discussions of the Middle
Ages. But the relatively low prole of the term, and the concept, in British
historiography calls for a short explanation, if only because it may serve to reveal
some of the unspoken assumptions and priorities which underpin historical
discourse in Britain. Three reasons at the very least suggest themselves.
First, it may well be that in the prole of the distribution of power, there
was a real difference between Britain, or rather England, and its continental
neighbours in the high and later Middles Ages. England, and to a much lesser
degree Scotland, was a king-centred polity; the inuence and power of the king
penetrated into the crevices of social and political life, directly or indirectly,
throughout the country. There were, of course, other nodal points of power;
but they were ultimately construed, especially by royal lawyers and apologists,
as dependent and contingent upon regal authority and permission. In such a
world the languageat least the legal languageis not that of seigneurie or
of haute justice but of quo warranto, liberties, franchises, even palatinates, in
other words of a king-centred hierarchy of authority. Any analysis of power
(and of its mediators and agents) in such a world starts, and not infrequently
ends, with royal lordship. Such an approach works less successfully in Scotland
(in spite of a tendency in some Scottish historiography to imitate the English
paradigm). It is even less appropriate, indeed misleading, as a set of assumptions
for understanding the nature of power in medieval Wales and Ireland, including
those areas under English control.
A second, associated reason for the scant attention paid to lordship in British
medieval historiography may well rest in the nature of the sources. Historians
are much more in thrall to their sources than they often realize. Indeed, their
dependence grows as the volume of surviving written sources increases, as it does
in particular from the late twelfth century. No country has been blessed with
such an exceptionally rich and unbroken series of archives as England. Many
of those archives are ecclesiastical; others are seigniorial or urban. But far and
away the richest collections of records are those of the king and his servants;
R. Fossier, Seigneurs et Seigneuries au Moyen Age, in Seigneurs et Seigneuries au Moyen Age
(Actes de 117e congrès des societes savant) (Paris, 1995), 920, at p. 9.
R. Boutruche, Seigneurie et Feodalite 2 vols. (Paris, 19591970), II, 83.
F. L. Cheyette (ed.), Lordship and Community in Medieval Europe: Selected Readings (Huntingdon, New York,1968); T. M. Bisson, Medieval Lordship, Speculum, 70 (1995), 74359.
Apologia
they are unparalleled in their volume and detail and many of them have been
conveniently calendared or edited for historians. They are normally the most
natural and rewarding point of entry for historical research, be it at national,
regional, or local level. It is a situation without parallel in most continental
countries; it bespeaks the power and penetration of kingship. But it is as well to
remember that even in England such documents present a view of power and
society as seen through royal spectacles. No one would deny the importance of
that view; but in any balanced and rounded appreciation of the exercise of power
in medieval society, it falls very far short of the whole truth. It is a partial view; its
partiality can occasionally appear all the more disturbing since there is in general
a huge imbalance in the quantity and even quality of royal and non-royal sources
for the study of the exercise of power in medieval Britain. It is the royal sources
which are best placed to set the agenda and shape the assumptions.
But there is at least one other reason why an analysis of lordship has not on
the whole gured prominently in British academic historiography, especially in
comparison with the way that the nature of seigneurie often dominates the serried
ranks of great French provincial studies from at least the time of Georges Dubys
epoch-making study of the Maconnais (1953), or with the degree to which longterm analysis of the nature and manifestations of Herrschaft has been a leading
preoccupation of medieval historians in Germany. The writings of historians are
shaped not only, or indeed not mainly, by the sources on which they draw but by
the organizing principles, metaphors, and explanatory frameworks which inform
and structure their accounts. Such principles, metaphors, and frameworks are
part of their inherited intellectual and indeed professional agenda. They may add
to or even challenge part of such an agenda; but the agenda shapes the questions
asked and the answers given to a far greater extent than is normally recognized. It
is difcult to suppress the suspicion that English historiography has given priority
to issues other than lordship, such as state- and nation-formation, constitutional
and institutional development, political structures and friction, crownmagnate
relationships, and so forth. The importance of these issues is not, of course, open
to question; but it is at least arguable that a more nuanced understanding of the
distribution of power in medieval society in the British Isles needs to pay more
attention to the role of non-royal power alongside the undoubted strength and
penetration of kingship. That is part of the aim of this book.
Power, of course, is exercised by a whole host of agents at every level of
society. Next to the king, it was the greater lay aristocracy which was the
G. Duby, La Societe aux xie et xiie siècles dans la Region Maconnaise (Paris, 1953); O. Brunner,
Land and Lordship: Structures of Governance in Medieval Austria (Philadelphia, 1984) in English
translation with introduction by Howard Kaminsky and James Van Horn Melton. For comment
see inter alia James Van Horn Melton, From Folk History to Structural History: Otto Brunner
(18981982) and the Radical Conservative Roots of German Social History, in Paths of Continuity:
Central European Historiography from the 1930s to the 1950s, ed. H. Lehmann and J. Van Horn
Melton (Cambridge, 1994), 26397.
Lords and Lordship
major wielder of power, lordship, in medieval society, as indeed in the ancien

regime world generally. Indeed one historian has shrewdly observed that medieval
Englandthat prototype of strong national monarchy in the textbookscan
best be characterized as an aristocracy which was kingship-focussed. If that is
indeed the caseas I believe it to bethen characterizing the nature of the
lordship of this aristocracy may help to give us a more rounded understanding
of the distribution and exercise of powerthe power of command, constraint
and exploitation, in Boutruches phrasein medieval society.
The aristocracy has often received a poor press from historians. This may be
in part because, at least in Britain, its power was still so dominant socially and
politically until the early twentieth century that it called for no explanation or
analysis. Familiarity turned to contempt as the aristocracy came to be identied
as privileged bulwarks standing in the way of political and social progress. They
came to be branded historiographically and politically as feudal reactionaries;
their opposition and privileges inhibited the development of strong kingship
and centralized, unitary state power, so often characterized by historians as
the benecent goals of true political and social progress. It was little wonder
that K. B. McFarlane in his epoch-making Ford Lectures in 1953 uttered his
famous jibe that English historians had been Kings Friends and, by implication,
enemies or at least detractors of the aristocracy. He set out to redress the balance
(building in part on the work of other scholars such as F. M. Stenton and
Noel Denholm-Young for the pre-1300 period) and did so triumphantly. It is
given to few scholars to transform the landscape of our understanding of a past
society; Bruce McFarlane did so with regard to the later Middle Ages in England,
specically the role of the lay aristocracy in its society and polity.
Since McFarlanes seminal work, the late medieval aristocracy of the British
Isles can no longer claim to suffer from historiographical neglect. On the contrary
it has been the subject of a great deal of high-quality work from a variety of
anglesbe they detailed studies of individual magnates such as Aymer de
Valence, earl of Pembroke (d. 1324), Thomas, earl of Lancaster (d. 1322), or
Henry of Grosmont, duke of Lancaster (d. 1361), or collective studies of great
aristocratic families, such as the Staffords and the Percies. Detailed studies of
various aspects of aristocratic life and power have proliferated, exploring such
issues as the organization of aristocratic estates and households, the character and
D. A. L. Morgan, The Kings Afnity in the Polity of Yorkist England, TRHS, 5th ser., vol. 23
(1973), 125 at p. 1.
McFarlane, Nobility, 2.
The following studies, cited in chronological order of appearance, may serve as examples:
J. M. W. Bean, The Estates of the Percy Family 14161537 (Oxford, 1958); K. A. Fowler,
The Kings Lieutenant: Henry of Grosmont, First Duke of Lancaster 13101361 (London, 1969);
J. R. Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster 130722: A Study in the Reign of Edward II (Oxford, 1970);
J. R. S. Phillips, Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, 13071324: Baronial Politics in the Reign of
Edward II (Oxford, 1972); C. Rawcliffe, The Staffords: Earls of Stafford and Dukes of Buckingham
13941521 (Cambridge, 1978).
Apologia
composition of aristocratic afnities and their role in the phenomenon known

unhelpfully as bastard feudalism, the elaboration of legal devices to control
the descent of aristocratic estates, and the role of aristocratic women, especially
widows and heiresses. The power of the greater magnates in English local society
has been brought under the searchlight of numerous county studies, which reveal
its extent and limitations by locating it within a wide social context of the county
community and by bringing into clearer focus the standing and connections of
the greater county gentry. All in all, our understanding and knowledge of the
later medieval aristocracy is much more thorough, complex, and nuanced than
it once was. This is particularly true of later medieval England and is reected in
several notable recent attempts to provide a sophisticated overview of aristocratic
power based on these detailed studies. Elsewhere in the British Isles, where
the materials for such detailed studies are less ample, signicant strides have also
been made in studying the nature of aristocratic power in the March of Wales,
Scotland, and English Ireland.
This book builds on this remarkable historiographical achievement, as it does
on an older antiquarian tradition of assembling details of the personal and family
histories of the aristocracyfrom the time of William Dugdales pioneering The
Baronage of England (16756) to the invaluable The Complete Peerage of England,
Scotland, Ireland etc. (191059) and, most recently, The Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography (2004). But its focus is, in some respects, different. It does
not attend at length to many of the issues which have, very properly, commanded
the attention of historians, especially English historians, of lateissues such as
the nature of bastard feudal relationships, the role of the aristocracy in county
society, the denition of a hereditary parliamentary peerage, or crownmagnate
relationships. It will no doubt touch on many of these issues; but its primary aim
is to try to characterize and analyse the nature of aristocratic power generally.
In short, it is an essay on the sociology of aristocratic lordship. Its approach
is thematic and analytical. There is, of course, a price to be paid for such an
approach (as for all historical approaches), especially in terms of overlooking the
particular circumstances and contexts of individual aristocratic families and of
Notable examples, from a long list, are: N. Saul, Knights and Esquires: The Gloucestershire
Gentry in the Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 1981); S. J. Payling, Political Society in Lancastrian
England: The Greater Gentry of Nottinghamshire (Oxford, 1991); C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity:
A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society c.14011499 (Cambridge, 1992).
There is an excellent recent overview, with exemplary bibliography, in C. Carpenter, England:
The Nobility and the Gentry, in A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages, ed. S. H. Rigby
(Oxford, 2003), 26192.
Among recent studies are: The Marcher Lordships of South Wales, 14151536: Select Documents,
ed. T. B. Pugh (Cardiff, 1963); Davies, Lordship and Society; K. J. Stringer, Earl David of Huntingdon
11521219: A Study in Anglo-Scottish History (Edinburgh, 1985); Essays on the Nobility of Medieval
Scotland, ed. K. J. Stringer (Edinburgh, 1985); J. Wormald, Lords and Men in Scotland: Bonds of
Manrent, 14421603 (Edinburgh, 1985); M. H. Brown, The Black Douglases: War and Lordship
in Late Medieval Scotland, 13001455 (East Linton, 1998); R. Frame, English Lordship in Ireland
131861 (Oxford, 1981).
Lords and Lordship
underestimating the possible changes in the character of aristocratic lordship over

time. But thisso it seems to meis a price worth paying in trying to take the
subject forward at this particular historiographical juncture.
The word lordship, dominium, was still ubiquitous in the social and conceptual vocabulary of later medieval Europe. Its very imprecision was in this respect its
strength. It may well be that its relative unpopularity in current British medieval
historiography is explained in part by its elasticity and vagueness, indeed its ambiguity, as a term. But at least it helps us to construe medieval society in some degree
on its own terms and through its own lenses. Reconstructing the assumptions
and language of that thought-world may help the historian to avoid some of the
traps that beset him when he uses the terminology, analogies, and metaphors of
the modern worldincluding the burgeoning of uniform state institutions and
notions of sovereignty, accountability, and delegation of powerto characterize
a medieval world which was, arguably, much more plural and disordered in its
assumptions about power. As Karl Leyser once shrewdly observed of medieval
Germany; there was a teeming welter of developing princely and aristocratic
lordships, lay and clerical, a bewildering variety of substructures; . . . they did
not possess any common underlying grid or shared development and relative
uniformities. That may not correspond to the situation in England (though
the cultivated uniformity of English power structures is itself a historical mirage);
but it may be a more appropriate point of departure for the characterization of
lordship in the British Isles as a whole. Not the least of the advantages of the
recent attempt to promote a comparative study of the medieval British Isles is
that it serves to draw attention to the distinctiveness of medieval England, rather
than regarding it as necessarily a norm or prototype.
Lordship, so we quoted Robert Boutruche above, is a power of command,
constraint and exploitation. It is also the right to exercise such power. But
the ways in which power manifests itself and exercises its command are not in
the least uniform. They are as variable as are the whole host of chronological,
geographical, economic, and social matrices in which they operate. They range
from the kind of intensive lordship that a lord exercised over his household or a
manorial seigneur over his serfs to what has been called the extensive, tributary
lordship which bound lords and communities in large swathes of upland Britain.
Thus the kind of precise, intrusive and richly documented lordship which the
bishop of Winchester exercised on his great manor of Taunton (Somerset) is
very different in kind and intensity from the lordship of the Campbell lords of
K. Leyser, Frederick Barbarossa and the Hohenstaufen Polity, Viator, 19 (1988), 15376,
quote at p. 157.
Superb examples of reading behind the ofcial government records to the realities of power
on the ground are provided in Robin Frame, Ireland and Britain 11701450 (London, 1998) esp.
the chapter Power and society in the Lordship of Ireland, 12721377, originally published in Past
and Present, 76 (1977), 333.
Above, p. 2.
Apologia
the western Highlands of Scotland or of the lords of the March over much of
upland Wales. Yet our analysis of lordship needs to encompass the whole range
of ways in which lordship, notably aristocratic lordship, manifested itself. We
must not necessarily privilege the lowland, manorial lordship of southern and
midland England simply because of its rich documentary detritus.
A sensitivity to the chronological and geographical varieties of lordship within
the British Isles should also help us to focus on some of the long-term features
of lordship as a way of structuring power in medieval society. We must not
be constrained unduly or myopically by the connes of the late medieval
documentary evidence. The roots of lordship lay deep in medieval society. In late
medieval England many of those roots had been overlain (though not necessarily
totally hidden) by the development of royal, governmental, and communal
institutions; but their importance for a rounded understanding of the reach and
texture of medieval lordship remains. Lordship, including non-royal lordship,
was ultimately founded on the personal control of men, on a psychology of
dependence and beholdenness which applied throughout medieval society. That
is why the rst act of lordship was to demand a visual oath of fealty (possibly
accompanied by an act of homage) from those who entered into dependence.
Personal dependence was primary. That is why the strength of lordship in much
of highland Britain was measured in the number of men it could commandsay
2,000rather than in rent income or landed estate; that is why again the
rst act of a lord was to go on a progress through his country and to exact
homage with hands raised and joined unanimously from his dependants. That
is why they were, and were called, his subjects, not simply his tenants. That
is why when the bond of manrent emerged as part of the contractual world of
fteenth-century Scotland it was the bond between man and lord which was at
its kernel. It is a reminder to us that there were features about the character
and assumptions of lordship which lie beyond the shallows of the documentary
evidence, and beyond the world-view of royal sources.
The chronological bookends of the study are the years 1272 and 1422. The
choice of period needs a word of explanation. Apart from the pleasing symmetry
of a period of a century and a half, there areit has to be admittedvery
personal, even selsh, reasons for the choice. First, it is the period with which I am
most familiar since my earliest studies over forty years ago (under the direction
of K. B. McFarlane) of the lordship of the Bohun and Lancaster families in the
March of Wales. The study of aristocratic lordship has by no means been my main
Thus when Walter Bower in his Scotichronicon (ed. D. E. R. Watt, et al. 9 vols. (Aberdeen,
198797), VIII, 2601) compiled a list of Highland chiefs for 1429 he appended an estimate of
their followers in this manner: Kenneth Mor, dux duorum millium.
See Davies, Lordship and Society, 1323 and sources cited.
Thus the duke of Buckingham referred to nos tenauntz et subgetz de nostre seigneurie de
Brekenoc en Gales, NLW, Peniarth MS. 280D, p. 15.
See Wormalds outstanding and wide-ranging study, Lords and Men in Scotland.
Lords and Lordship
scholarly preoccupation during my academic lifetime; but it has been an abiding

interest, sufciently so for me to consider trying to distil my understanding,
imperfect as it is, of its nature. Second, there is the issue of manageability. Part of
the appeal of king-centred English (or Scottish) history is that one can construct
a single storyline around one king at a time. Twelfth-century historians had
recognized how much of a boon this was: so it was that Henry of Huntingdon
heaved a huge sigh of historiographical relief when the day arrived when England
was under a single king. Historical construction was thereby greatly simplied.
The historian of the medieval aristocracy enjoys no such luxury. Rather is he
confronted by the dilemmas of multiplicity of dealing (to take Englands case
only) with some twenty earls and about sixty peerage families at any given time.
The most favoured solution to this dilemma has been to opt for the detailed
monographic study of a single magnate or an aristocratic family. The alternative
is a broad-brush characterization of the aristocracy as a group, thereby permitting
broad generalizations, sometimes garnished with individual examples. My own
approach in the current work lies between these polarities. Its starting point is
the careers, interests, and documents of individual magnates and their families,
but its declared purpose is to distil this information to try to characterize the
nature of aristocratic lordship generally. Such an exercise in characterization can
only be attempted by a rather ruthless process of selection and organization; that
alone makes the subject manageable.
There is a third, less selsh reason for choosing the period 12721422 as
the focus of study. It is truly the rst age of detailed documentation for the
study of the medieval aristocracy, especially in England. It is neither the heroic
nor the really formative age in the shaping of aristocratic power. That accolade
must surely goas continental historians have so rightly insistedto the period
10001250. Pioneering studies of lordship in England in this period have been
undertaken by a roll call of historians such as Sir Frank Stenton, S. F. C. Milsom,
Sydney Painter, David Crouch, Diana Greenway, Barbara English, Judith Green,
and others. In Scotland scholars such as Grant Simpson and Keith Stringer have
likewise shown what rich insights into aristocratic power and afnities in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries can be secured through the detailed analysis
of the careers and charters of individual magnates. We appear to be presented
with a paradox: in England, at least, the seigniorial worldif such it wasof
F. M. Stentons First Century of English Feudalism or S. F. C. Milsoms legal
world seems to give way in the thirteenth century to a world much more
dominated by monarchical structures, national identities, unitary governmental
Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. and trans. D. Greenway (Oxford, 1996), 264
(cum jam ad monarchiam Anglie pervenimus).
See especially the essays by Fossier and Contamine in Seigneurs et Seigneuries au Moyen Age
(Actes de 117e congrès des societes savant) (Paris, 1995).
F. M. Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1961); S. F.
C. Milsom, The Legal Framework of English Feudalism (Cambridge, 1976).
Apologia
institutions, a growing distinction between the sphere of the public and the
private, and what has been called the rise of the modern state. Why, therefore,
deploy as a tool of analysis a termlordshipwhich was apparently becoming
increasingly outmoded?
A large part of the answer lies in the undoubted fact that the quality and
quantity of documentation for the study of lordship in action grows by leaps
and bounds after c.1250. Up to that point it is through chartersdocuments
mainly concerned with the title to, and transfer of, landthat these studies have
overwhelmingly, though not exclusively, viewed their subject. In this respect
there is a quantum leap, especially in England, in the range and character of
documentary sources for the study of aristocratic power from the mid to late
thirteenth century onwards. Manorial accounts and surveys, household accounts,
receivers accounts and valors, court rolls, registers of correspondence, indentures
of personal service, and muster lists now survive in considerable numbers. Their
survival is indeed very patchy, especially as compared with royal archives, and
very uneven as between the major aristocratic families. But they allow us to
study lordship in detail and in action in a fashion that is not at all possible for
earlier periods. This rich cache of sources continues after 1422; but some of
them become increasingly stilted, even uninformative and new genres of evidence
begin to accumulate.
Now that the chronological limitations of the book have been explained, it
is equally important to note the selective group of lords who are chosen for
analysis. One deliberate omission is the great ecclesiastical lords. There is, of
course, no doubt that they were often drawn from the same social stock as their
lay colleagues and exercised a range of powers of lordship which were very similar.
Thus William Courtenay and Thomas Arundel, two successive archbishops of
Canterbury 138196, 13967, and 13991414, were younger sons of notable
comital families and fully familiar with the habits and priorities of the lay
aristocracy. Nor would Abbot Clowne of St Marys, Leicester, or Abbot Thomas
de la Mare of St Albansboth of whom have been memorably characterized in
the chronicles of their abbeyshave felt in any way ill at ease in the company
and conversation of earls and barons. There were around 1300 some fteen
bishops and thirty abbots and priors who had the same order of wealth and much
the same powers of lordship as the major secular lords of England. None of this
can be gainsaid; yetissues of manageability apartthe differences between the
ecclesiastical and lay aristocracy were profound, especially in terms of the themes
of this bookbe it in family policy and priorities, the institutional context in
which they operated, their role in local and national politics, their social and
military contacts, and so forth.
Even when the ecclesiastical lords have been excluded, there is the vexing
question of how we dene the lay aristocracy. Aristocracy and nobility areat
least in Britainill-dened and elastic terms; qualifying them as greater or
higher still falls short of providing clarity of denition. Nobility in particular
10
Lords and Lordship
can be extended as a term to include arguably all members of gentle society, at

least those who adopted the style of knight and family coats of arms. Arguably
even more important is the undoubted fact that the powers of lordship exercised
by lords, great and small, were broadly similar in character. Particularly is this
true of the dozen or so elite gentry families so characteristic of many English
shires and composing an intermediate group between the greater barons on the
one hand and the manorial or parish gentry on the other. In certain respects it
is the continuum in the exercise and character of lordshipfrom that of the
greatest earl to the two- or three-manor county knightwhich is one of the
most distinctive features of medieval and early modern society. They were all
lords, domini, seigneurs.
Indeed it can be argued that in aggregate terms it was the lesser lords rather
than the great earls and barons who dominated the landscape of local society. The
English evidence is particularly striking in this respect. J. M. W. Bean has pointed
out that, of the seventeen counties for which comparison can be made based on
the 1412 tax returns, in only four did the proportion of the landed values held by
the peerage or higher aristocracy exceed 25 per cent; in none did it reach 30 per
cent. Or to put it more positively, the great majority of gentle landowners held
land with an annual return of 2039. Side by side with these bold statistical
claims, we can place the series of country and family studiesof which those of
Nigel Saul have been outstanding exampleswhich have greatly enhanced our
understanding of the role of the greater gentry in the social and power structures
of provincial England and, by extension, to some degree of the lairds of lowland
Scotland, the second-rank families of English Ireland such as the Le Poers or the
Roches, or even of the leaders of native society in highland Britain such as the
uchelwyr of Wales. These men were no pawns; their power and standing were
part of the matrix within which lordship, both aristocratic and royal, had to learn
to operate. Not the least of the achievements of recent scholarship has been to
show that even great magnates such as John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, found
their power in the localities severely constrained by the existing distribution and
ambitions of local lordship and families.
All this is readily conceded; lordship spans the whole of the ruling class or
classes of medieval society. It may have been displayed in all its nery and
sophistication in the world of earls and barons; but in its fustian form it served
equally well to describe the power of the countless lesser lords of the British
Isles. Yet that is but one half of the argument. It is equally undoubtedly true
that lordship was stratied in a clearly recognized hierarchical form. This was
J. M. W. Bean, Landlords, in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, III, 13481500,
ed. E. Miller (Cambridge, 1991), 52686, at p. 530.
N. Saul, Scenes from Provincial Life: Knightly Families in Sussex, 12801400 (Oxford, 1986);
N. Saul, Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England: The Cobham Family and their Monuments,
13001500 (Oxford, 1990).
S. K. Walker, The Lancastrian Afnity, 136199 (Oxford, 1990).
Apologia
11
acknowledged in contemporary terminologybe it in titles (for example, duke,

earl), forms of address, and clearly differentiated rates of pay for military service.
However much the various ranks of domini were united by a common code
of chivalry, knighthood, and gentility, they were under no illusions about the
profound divisions in their ranks in terms of wealth, status, and political weight.
Magna Carta c.14 in 1215 had acknowledged as much by its differentiation
between those lords who were given the privilege of an individual summons to
meet the king in common council from those who had to make do with a
general summons through the sheriff of their county. Already by the 1230s and
the 1240s the notion of a peerage, an elite group of lords, was in circulation,
and some of the earliest Rolls of Arms likewise identied the most prestigious
families, about one hundred in number.
This process of the denition of an elite of higher aristocratswhat K. B.
McFarlane termed the stratication of the nobilitygathered institutional
pace in our period. Its most obvious expression was the growing denition
of a hereditary parliamentary peerage. Whereas in the late thirteenth century
the numbers of magnates who were summoned individually to parliament was
still uid and somewhat unpredictable, this increasingly ceased to be so as the
fourteenth century progressed. Already by Edward IIs reign the number of earls
and barons receiving individual writs of summons to the English parliament
was beginning to settle down at about sixty. No property qualication was laid
down for the groupthough a thousand marks of landed income was coming
to be regarded as the territorial competence for an earlbut we would not be
far wrong to suggest, with Barbara Harvey, that landed income of c.400 per
annum was the threshold. This, therefore, was the crème de la crème of the
nobility; and they were aware, increasingly so, that they stood apart.
Stand apart, head and shoulders above the rest of gentle society, they most
certainly did. That is why Rodney Hiltons analogy of them as skyscrapers
standing out from the plain of the other lords, local and regional, remains
apposite. The gures that can be culled from the 1436 income tax returns make
evident the huge economic gulf between the peerage and the gentry. Nor was
it merely or even mainly a matter of income and statistics. The greater lords
enjoyed a range of privileges to which few ordinary lords could aspiresuch as
D. Crouch, The Image of Aristocracy in Britain, 10001300 (London, 1992), esp. 225, 105.
B. Harvey, The Aristocratic Consumer in England in the Long Thirteenth Century, in
Thirteenth Century England VI, ed. M. Prestwich, R. Britnell, and R. Frame (Woodbridge, 1997),
1737.
R. H. Hilton, A Medieval Society: The West Midlands at the End of the Thirteenth Century
(London, 1967). Hiltons metaphor is an exact echo of that used by John Stafford, archbishop
of Canterbury 144351, who likened the nobility to mountains towering above the hills and
plains of the lower classesas quoted in G. L. Harriss, Shaping the Nation: England 13601461
(Oxford, 2005), 93. T. B. Pugh, The Magnates, Knights and Gentry, in Fifteenth-Century England,
13991509, ed. S. B. Chrimes, C. D. Ross and R. A. Grifths (Manchester, 1972), 86128.
12
Lords and Lordship
the right to license markets and fairs in their own boroughs, the right to free
warren on their demesnes, licences to empark their lands, and often extensive
jurisdictional franchises. But it was perhaps above all their lifestyle and social
circles which proclaimed their superiority and the distance between them and
other wielders of lordship. They operated on a national, sometimes indeed an
international, stage; they were the companions of kings and captains of their
armies; the size and splendour of their households put them in a league apart, as
did the size of their afnities and the tentacles of their inuence and power; their
marriage alliances to their social peers further promoted their apartness, while
the wide distribution of their estates and residencesnot infrequently extending
into England, Wales, and Irelandreafrmed their national, as well as their
local or even regional, standing.
Those who were not members of this magic circle fully recognized the
superiority of the group and the due deference that was owed to it. Thus when
Sir Hugh Hastings commissioned a brass in the late 1340s for his greater glory
in the church of Elsing in Norfolk it was the king and great lords whom he
had served who were commemoratedEdward III, the earls of Warwick and
Pembroke, the Lords Stafford and Despenser among them. This was not mere
attery; rather was it a recognition that this was how the world of power was, and
should be, constructed with lesser lords turning in the orbit of the greater ones
and basking in their patronage. Much the same point is made even more vividly
manifest in the famous, and highly revealing, set of windows at Etchingham in
Sussex. The king and members of the royal family are given pride of place in
the east window of the nave; they are anked by the earls of England, probably
all twelve of them; Sir William Etchingham relegated his knightly neighbours
to the nave. Contemporaries, in short, would not have been surprised by the
prominence we give to the great lords; it reects their view of the world.
In this analysis of lordship there is a further reason for concentrating on the
greater lordsindeed on a handful of them. It is quite simply that, on the whole,
it is only for this group of lords that we have a range of documentary evidence on
which to build a nuanced understanding of the exercise of lordship in the long
fourteenth century. This is surely no accident. Rather it is that the sheer extent and
complexity of their estates and households required them from a fairly early date
to use written records to supervise and control their affairs. The historian is the
beneciary of this triumph of the written word in the seigniorial world, notably
in the appearance of annual accounts. In fact such records as survive are only the
Discussed in Age of Chivalry, no. 678. See also M. Keen, Origins of the English Gentleman:
Heraldry, Chivalry and Gentility in Medieval England, c.1300c.1500 (Stroud, 2002), 524.
Fully discussed in Saul, Scenes from Provincial Life, ch. 5.
There are excellent introductions to seigniorial household and manorial accounts respectively
in Household Accounts and P. D. A. Harvey, Manorial Records (revised edn., London, 1999).
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13
tips of a much larger iceberg of lost documents. That is why the analysis in the
chapters which follow relies heavily on a few relatively well-documented English
aristocratic familiesnotably the Beauchamps, Bohuns, Fitzalans, Lancasters,
Mortimers, and Staffords, supplemented occasionally from the archives of other
families. The search of such records could no doubt have been greatly extended
and deepened; but the sample isit is hopedsufciently broad to allow us
to characterize the main lineaments of aristocratic lordship in the fourteenth
century.
Of the six major English families mentioned above, all held extensive lands in
the March of Wales as well as in England; the Mortimers also had very extensive
interests in Ireland. This directs us to another feature of this book which calls for
explanation and defence, namely its ambition to draw on evidence for the study
of aristocratic lordship from different parts of the British Isles. First, a disclaimer.
The book has no pretensions whatsoever to make an original contribution to the
study of aristocratic power in Scotland or English Ireland nor, frankly, are the
surviving recordsespecially household and estate accountsfor these regions
to be compared with those for England or even the March of Wales. Nor have I
attempted to characterize the nature of noble power in the native Celtic societies
of Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. Some excellent studies have been undertaken
of late in this area; but these will only be drawn upon here to characterize
how English-style aristocratic lordship sought to adjust to the social landscape
of Celtic societies. In other respects the patterns and dynamics of power,
compounded by the very different and very inadequate range of sources, do
not lend themselves to meaningful comparison with English-style aristocratic
lordship or its terminology.
Nevertheless there are good reasons (other than the pursuit of current historiographical fashion) for extending the scope of this study beyond the connes of
England. We should observe, rst, that the great lords of England, the March
of Wales, and English Ireland were, in many respects, members of a single
club, bound by ties of marriage, sociability, territorial ambition, and service.
A handful of illustrative examples may drive home the point. Territorially, the
landed interests of William de Valence (d. 1296), half-brother of King Henry III,
are indicative: he held Goodrich Castle (Herefordshire), estates in twelve English
counties (especially in southern England), a share of the lordship of Pembroke
I have also had the advantage of consulting K. B. McFarlanes transcripts of seigniorial
documents in Magdalen College, Oxford. Where I cite from these transcripts the reference is
preceded by an asterisk .
A notable study is K. Simms, From Kings to Warlords: The Changing Structure of Gaelic Ireland
in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 1987).
R. Frame, Aristocracies and the Political Conguration of the British Isles in his, Ireland and
Britain, 11701450, ch. IX.
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Lords and Lordship
in west Wales, and the lordship of Wexford in south-east Ireland. The marriage
alliances of Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster (d. 1326), whom we will meet
below, likewise illustrate the ecumenical links of these great magnates. Of ve of
his daughters, he married one to an English earl, another to a Scottish earl, and
a further three to major Anglo-Irish earls. Earl Richards military career likewise
underlines the fact that the stage on which these leading families conducted
their public careers was a British or even a European one: he was summoned to
take troops to Wales, Scotland, and Gascony just as his contemporary, John tz
Thomas, served in Flanders and Scotland. Ultimately the focal point of the
world of these menwhere their fortunes were made and unmadewas the
court of the king of England. It was he who could even instruct them whom to
marry and it was from the ranks of leading English magnates that they chose
their sureties when faced with political disaster. Whatever the differences in the
landscape of power, there was a continuum in their aristocratic world which our
historical analysis should serve to respect.
Scotland was different: the pattern of its great provincial earldoms and lordships
was, in many respects, quite distinct from that of England and the evolution
of notions of peerage did not march in step with the English story. More
important, Scottish aristocracy had its own focal pointsocially, militarily,
and institutionallyin the court and power of the king of Scots. It was a
much smaller and much less tightly textured circle of power than that of the
English, Marcher, and Anglo-Irish world; but it was at least a separate orbit.
Yet the Scottish experience should not lie altogether outwith the scope of this
analysis. Recent studies (especially by Keith Stringer) have emphasized that
a not inconsiderable number of Scottish lords held estates in England or in
Ulster, at least until the breach inaugurated by the Wars of Independence in
1296. The continuum and contrasts in the exercise of lordship across national
boundariesas was vividly shown in Stringers analysis of the lordship of Earl
David of Huntingdon in the English east Midlands and Garioch (Scotland)in
themselves provide a valuable insight into the varying character of aristocratic
power.
This is, indeed, ultimately the defence for casting our net widely in the British
Isles in pursuit of our characterization of aristocratic lordship. There is, of course,
no doubt that the quality and quantity of historical evidence for the study of
aristocratic power 12721422 is innitely superior for England than for any
other part of the British Isles. But it is evidence of a particular kindmainly
ODNB, sub Burgh, Richard de; Fitzgerald, John tz Thomas.
Alexander Grant has published a series of fundamental studies of the later medieval Scottish
aristocracy, including Earls and Earldoms in Late Medieval Scotland, c.13101460, in Essays
Presented to Michael Roberts, ed. J. Bossy and P. Jupp (Belfast, 1976), 2440; The Development of
the Scottish Peerage, SHR, 57 (1978), 127.
See in general the excellent maps in Atlas of Scottish History to 1707, ed. P. G. B. McNeill and
H. L. MacQueen (Edinburgh, 1996). For Stringers studies see above, n. 12.
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of lowland, manor-centred lordship, an aristocratic power already substantially

fossilized in its forms and, crucially, operating within a framework of strong and
intrusive royal control and within complex societies in terms of the distribution
of social, jurisdictional, and political power. It is an image of aristocratic lordship
which is reected likewise in other parts, especially anglicized parts, of the lowland
British Islesbe it in the lowlands of Glamorgan, Gwent, and Pembroke in
Wales, in the rich valleys of south-east Ireland or of Meath, and in tracts of
lowland southern and eastern Scotland. But it is an image which needs to be
supplemented by considering the character of lordship in upland regions of
the British Isles, including much of the north of England, and in areas where
non-English societies preserved the forms and organization of native lordship,
and where powers of direct royal intervention and control were limited. Not only
does this alternative image help to give geographical nuance to our portrait of
aristocratic lordship in the British Isles, it also extends greatly our understanding
of the range and character of lordship itself. It helps us to recognize what a
protean and exible institution aristocratic lordship was.
It is the nature of the power exercised by this elite group which is primarily
the subject of this current study. Lordship, particularly that of great lords, was
ultimately more than exploitation or power, even if it was most certainly that
also. Its legitimacy derived from its claim that it afforded maintenance and
protection, good lordship as it would be known in later medieval centuries.
It was a reminder that there was a mutuality at the heart of lordship and a set
of social obligations which both parties were expected to observe. We may cite
an example of such mutuality, and of its limits, from the north-east March of
Wales. Thomas of Lancaster (d. 1322), the most powerful aristocratic lord of
his day, sent a letter to the men of the lordship of Bromeld and Yale around
1318 promising to be a good lord to them; but, with his usual gruffness, there
was a sting in the tail of his offer: he has sworn that he will have them one way
or another. The community sized up the threat realistically. They calculated,
rightly, that their current lord, John de Warenne, earl of Surrey (d. 1347), was no
match for Lancaster in power; but they also added, revealingly, that they would
be ready with their bodies to maintain his honour, if they but have a leader who
might defend them. They were fully apprised of the dynamics and duties of
lordship and dependence alike. Glanvill in his treatise on the laws of England
was eloquent on that score c.1180: What the man owes to the lord because of
his homage is also owed by the lord to his man because of lordship, except for
deference alone. Much of this mutuality may have been ironed out in England,
especially lowland England, by the institutionalization and territorialization of
Cal. Anc. Pets., no. 8829.
Glanvill, Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Regni Anglie, ed. G. D. G. Hall (London,
1993), 107 (9.4) [Prof. Daviess translation].
16
Lords and Lordship
the obligations of dependence and by the common wash of royal institutions and
claims; but elsewhere in the British Isles the patriarchal, personal, and protection
features were still evident and operative. We need to try to capture some of these
features as we seek to trace the varying contours and practice of lordship across
the face of the late medieval British Isles. We are so used to assessing power and
its effectiveness in governmental, bureaucratic, economic, and narrowly political
terms that we are in danger of overlookingor underestimatingthe range of
attributes and claims which lay at the heart of medieval lordship. These attributes
and claims are not itemized in the charters, accounts, and registers of lordship
even in the later Middle Ages; but they form the foundations on which the whole
edice of lordshipincluding ultimately royal lordshipwas founded. Three
of them in particular may be briey identied.
Lordship was part of the natural order of the universe. The lordship of men
on earth corresponded to that of the Lord God. Its legitimacy was not normally
open to doubt. English kings, and historians, may have made a great deal of the
phrase by the grace of God in their formal titles; but since all the powers that
be are ultimately ordained by God, that same grace was the source likewise of
aristocratic lordship, indeed of all lordship (as theologians such as John Wycliff
never tired of declaring). This was not merely a matter of schoolmens talk.
Rather was it the way in which the proper ordering of the world and society was
interpreted. The values of this world were manifestedin a fashion which it is
very difcult for the modern mind to graspin the exalted position accorded to
those who, literally and metaphorically, lorded over it. What great lords expected
ultimately was nothing less than worship, precisely what the believer owed to the
Lord God. The hugely inated formulae of addressboth of letters issued by
them and petitions addressed to themopen a window onto this world. Ryght
high and mighty prynce and my right good lord is how the earl of Oxford
addressed the powerful duke of Norfolk; more modestly Edward Despenser,
lord of Glamorgan, was illustrious and magnicent lord. The habit had also
caught on in Scotland, as the letters to the members of the Douglas family
amply illustrate: most excellent and most dread lord, James earl of Douglas
is one example of the fashion. We can dismiss such hyperbolic formulae as
part of the inevitable ination of language; but we would be wrong to do so.
Not only do the formulae reect the self-image of the aristocrats themselves
(or their chancery clerks); they also remind us that the world of lordship was
founded on a deantly hierarchical world order. Lordship was not only a matter
of power, land, and income; it was also based on a particular view of the social
and political order.
The Paston Letters, 14221509, ed. J. Gairdner, 3 vols. (London, 1910), I, 143; Private
Indentures, no. 57.
For this and other examples see Mort. Reg., II, nos. 109, 129, 180, 220.
Apologia
17
The other side of the coin to worship was deference. The vocabulary of
subordination echoes throughout the documents: honour, reverence, right,
obedience, humility. So does the vocabulary of obedience, even at the higher
echelons of social dependence. I will do in all and singular, said an Irish
chieftain as he submitted in 1394, that which a good and faithful liegeman
ought to do and is bound to do to his natural liege lord. Again we can
dismiss such phraseology as conventional attery. But not only does it pervade
medieval sourcesfrom feudal charters to manorial formulae and indentures of
retinueit also opens a window on the, often unspoken, set of assumptions
which shaped all relationships of dependence. The return on worship was good
lordship, bone seigneurie, la meilleure seigneurie et bienveillaunce. And, as the
duke of Norfolk said in a famous letter, the goodness or power of the lordship he
exercised in his schir operated at all tymes . . . thowh our persone be not dayly
her. This was the framework within which all lordship ultimately brought its
authority to bear on society. We must not lose sight of this framework as we
attend to the particularities and details of aristocratic lordship in action.
Finally the term lordship reminds us of the open-ended and multifaceted
nature of the exercise of power in the Middle Ages. Historians have divided
their current analysis of power into compartmentssocial, political, economic,
and so forth; they have drawn a sharp division between so-called public and
private power; they have arranged their scheme of power within clear-cut
institutional and governmental frameworks. In so far as the concept of lordship
has survived this assault, it has been largely reduced to a rent-collecting lordship,
stripped of its social, judicial, or political overtones. Such was not medieval
lordship. The great F. W. Maitland knew as much: Personal, tenurial, justiciary
threads are woven into a web that bewilders us. Some of those threads became
disentangled in the centrallater Middle Ages as kingdoms and states began to
appropriate them to themselves. But for the most part lordshipincluding nonroyal lordship (so consistently underrated by English medieval historians)still
operated across large swathes of the lives of those who livedas individuals
and communitiesunder its authority. Medieval terminology, so asserted
Otto Brunner, . . . made no distinction between public and private lordship,
but knew only diverse kinds of lordship, rulership, justice and authority.
For an outstanding exposition of the language of dependence, service, and lordship in the
fteenth century, see R. Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service (Cambridge, 1989), ch. 1.
E. Curtis, Richard II in Ireland, 13945 (Oxford, 1927), 151.
Such phraseology abounds in the letters and petitions assembled in Anglo-Norman Letters and
Petitions, ed. M. D. Legge (Oxford, 1941).
Gairdner (ed.), Paston Letters, I, 230.
F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England,
foreword by J. C. Holt (Cambridge, 1987), 339.
Brunner, Land and Lordship, 202.
18
Lords and Lordship
Such a claimbased as it was on German and Austrian evidencemay seem

exaggerated; but when we recall that at least the Marcher lords of Wales talked
of themselves as royal lords enjoying royal lordship or when a shrewd Tudor
commentator referred to them as the soveraigne governors of their tenantes and
people, we are at least reminded that our danger is to underrate the ambit and
manifold activities of medieval lordship. It is the intention of the chapters which
follow to try to capture some of the whole variety of ways in which aristocratic
lordship impinged on society in the British Isles in the later Middle Ages.
A D D I T I O N A L B I B L I O G R A PH Y
For secular lordship in the medieval West, S. Reynolds, Secular Power and
Authority in the Middle Ages, in Power and Authority in the Middle Ages: Essays
in Memory of Rees Davies, ed. H. Pryce and J. Watts (Oxford, 2007), 1122.
A study of its golden age is D. Crouch, The Birth of Nobility: Constructing
Aristocracy in England and France, 9001300 (Harlow, 2005).
For lordship in late medieval France (and Burgundy), P. Contamine, La Noblesse
au Royaume de France de Philippe le Bel a` Louis XII. Essai de Synthèse (Paris,
1997). C. Allmand (ed.), War, Government and Power in Late Medieval France
(Liverpool, 2000) contains relevant essays by K. Daly, Centre, Power and
Periphery in Late Medieval France, G. Small, Centre and Periphery in Late
Medieval France: Tournai, 13841477, and G. Prosser, Decayed Feudalism
and Royal Clienteles: Royal Ofce and Magnate Service in the Fifteenth
Century. In D. Potter (ed.), France in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 2002)
see G. Small, The Crown and the Provinces in the Fifteenth Century and
G. Prosser, The Later Medieval French Noblesse.
For a British Isles perspective on lordship, P. Morgan, Ranks of Society, in
The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ed. R. Grifths (Oxford, 2003) and
B. Smith, Lordship in the British Isles c.1320c.1360: The Ebb Tide of the
English Empire?, in Power and Authority in the Middle Ages. Essays in Memory of
Rees Davies, ed. H. Pryce and J. Watts (Oxford, 2007). For England, S. Walker,
Political Culture in Later Medieval England (Manchester, 2006), especially the
essays in part 1, Lordship and Service; C. Dyer, The Ineffectiveness of Lordship
in England, 12001400, in Rodney Hiltons Middle Ages: An Exploration of
Historical Themes, ed. C. Dyer, P. Coss, and C. Wickham. Past and Present
Supplement 2 (Oxford, 2007). For the exercise of lordship on the lands of
the bishopric of Winchester, The Winchester Pipe Rolls and Medieval English
Quotations and sources in Davies, Lordship and Society, 217, 222.
Apologia
19
Society, ed. R. Britnell (Woodbridge, 2003). For the lordship of the Campbells,
S. Boardman, The Campbells, 12501513 (Edinburgh, 2006). Important essay
collections for Scotland and Ireland are The Exercise of Power in Medieval
Scotland, c.12001500, ed. S. Boardman and A. Ross (Dublin, 2003) and
Lordship in Medieval Ireland: Image and Reality, ed. L. Doran and J. Lyttleton
(Dublin, 2008).
1
The Higher Aristocracy: Identity and Memory
The higher aristocracy is not an easily dened group. Peerage lawyers and
genealogists have expended a great deal of effort and ingenuity in attempting to
formulate, and then to apply, such denitions; but the untidiness and uidity of
human categorizations and the shifting character of status vocabulary more often
than not undermine the tidiness of such denitions. Nor, frankly, is this a matter
of undue concern for the argument of this book, since its theme is to investigate
the character of lordship rather than to try to dene the membership of the club
of higher aristocrats in a schematic and formulaic manner. Nevertheless it is as
well at the outset to have some broad notion of the dimensions of the group.
So let us start with some bald gures, none of which is to be regarded as
more than indicative. It is simplest to start with England. There had always
been in effect, if not institutionally, an elite group within the medieval nobility
in England. They might be denedfor those anxious to have denitionsas
corresponding to the 180 or so tenants-in-chief or, more plausibly, to those
greater magnates who, according to the terms of Magna Carta in 1215, were
to receive an individual summons from the king when he wished to discuss
raising an aid as a tax. Their eminence would have been readily recognized
by contemporaries in terms of titles, wealth, status, political standing, size of
following, and increasingly in the acceptance of the notion of peers. But the
membership of this group was neither xed nor static; it uctuated, partly in
response to the fortunes and misfortunes of families and partly according to
whom the king decided to summon to his councils and parliaments. It was
during the fourteenth and early fteenth centuries that the membership of the
group came nally to be formally dened and its membership converted into
a hereditary, parliamentary peerage. This was a process which K. B. McFarlane
famously characterized as one of exclusion, denition and stratication. The
chronology of this process has now been amply outlined in various historical
studies; it need not be repeated here. It was part of a wider process of tightening
and rening the vocabulary and terminology of the status distinction of gentle
society which is a feature of the fourteenth and fteenth centuries. So it was
that a clear and differentiated tariff of wages was established for military service
to the king, or that sumptuary legislation laid down the clothes appropriate to
22
Lords and Lordship
each legally dened social group, or that the legislation regulating the giving
of liveries (from Richard IIs reign onwards) specically exempted dukes, earls,
barons and bannerets. These and similar developments indicated that a dened
and quasi-hereditary elite had now ensconced itself legally and institutionally
at the apex of English society. This may serve as our working denition of the
higher aristocracy.
How large a group was it? We would not be far wrong were we to indicate
that by the early fteenth century it included at most sixty families. These
familiesor the senior representative of themclaimed a rank and privileges
which set them apart from the rest of gentle society, notably the virtually
hereditary right to receive individual summonses to parliament. There was, of
course, much that was contingent and accidental in the composition of the
group at any given point in timeas families failed (naturally or articially)
and as new members were promoted by royal favour. But the size of the group
remained broadly unchanging. Furthermore the income tax returns for 1436
indicate that though this elite was not formally dened in terms of its income, it
did nevertheless stand out from the rest of landed society in terms of its wealth.
Within this higher aristocracygenerally termed baronsthere was a
further renement. The crème de la crème of the group aunted titlesnormally
earl, but later also duke (from 1337) and marquis (from 1385, but rare)which
further differentiated them and, in a society increasingly obsessed with the
etiquette of precedence and ceremony, set them further apart. Their numbers
varied: they stood at ten in 1280, at seventeen in 1400. So did their wealth vary
widely, but it had come to be accepted that a landed income of one thousand
marks (666 13s. 4d.) per annum was a minimum territorial qualication for an
earl. This comitalducal groupthe premier league of the higher aristocracy,
as it wereis of particular interest to us since it is its documentary evidence
(or such of it as survives) which underpins the analysis of lords and lordship in
this book.
When we turn to Scotland and English Ireland in search of a higher aristocracy,
we nd ourselves in even more difculties, not least because of the inadequacies
of the surviving evidence. It is not surprising that in certain directions the
evolution of the Scottish higher aristocracy seemed to echo developments in
England. After all, the links between the English and Scottish royal courts in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were often close; and many of the premier
Scottish comital families were of Anglo-Norman stock (Bruce, Stewart, and
Comyn among them) and often continued to retain territorial and other interests
in England. Even as late as 1398 the Scots could borrow a leaf from recent
English practice by adopting the title of duke for their greatest noblemen. But
H. L. Gray, Incomes from Land in England in 1436, EHR, 49 (1934), 60739; T. B. Pugh
and C. D. Ross, The English Baronage and the Income Tax of 1436, BIHR, 26 (1953), 128.
See the basic list in the Appendix to this chapter.
23
these similarities and imitations should not mislead us. There were substantial
and substantive differences between late medieval England and Scotland both in
the chronology and in the terminology of their higher aristocracies. Thus the
terms barons and free barony had very different connotations in Scotland from
those of English usage, and no Scottish peerage can be said to have appeared
until the fteenth century. Likewise in terms of wealth and the nature of their
lordship, the differences between the higher Scottish aristocracy and their English
counterparts were often more striking than the similarities. These differences are
more than surface variations; they reect profound differences in the character
and distribution of aristocratic (as indeed of royal) power as between Scotland
and England.
None of this can be gainsaid; yet a higher aristocracy is clearly identiable in
Scotland. It numbered about fty; in other words it was considerably larger in
relation to the overall size of the population than was the English parliamentary
peerage. These were the men who really counted, the heavyweights, in Scottish
political society. Forty-eight of them were named in the declaration of Arbroath in
1320; fty-six did personal homage to King Robert II at his coronation in 1371.
As in England, a group of earldoms stood at the head of this elite community.
In the 1280s (as in 1329 at the end of Robert Is reign) they numbered
thirteenve (Angus, Buchan, Carrick, Menteith, Sutherland) in the hands of
families of continental origins but now fully Scotticized (Umfraville, Comyn,
Bruce, Stewart, and the descendants of Freskin the Fleming); the remaining
eight (Atholl, Dunbar, Caithness, Fife, Lennox, Mar, Ross, and Strathearn) held
by native families often, as at Strathearn, with all the powers and traditions
of Celtic mormaorship. In addition to earldoms, Scotland had a category of
aristocratic power-bases unknown to English terminology or historiography, the
provincial lordships. There were around twenty of them at the beginning of
our period. They were often as extensive territorially and jurisdictionally as
some of the earldoms but lacked the title; they were broadly coextensive with
the historic provinces or regions of the kingdom. Between them the earldoms
and the provincial lordships covered close on two-thirds of the surface area of
modern Scotland. This suggests that the conguration of power, specically of
aristocratic lordship, was, or could be, very different from that familiar from
much of the English evidence. It is a point to which we will need to return.
What of English Ireland? Viewed from one anglethat of the English government in Westminster and DublinEnglish Ireland mimicked the institutions,
practices, and laws of England to a remarkable degree. Aristocratic lordship in
Ireland therefore had to a considerable extent to operate within this framework.
See in general Duncan, Scotland ; A. Grant, Independence and Nationhood: Scotland 13061469
(Edinburgh, 1984).
Grant, Independence and Nationhood, 122; G. W. S. Barrow, The Anglo-Norman Era in Scottish
History (Oxford, 1980), 1578.
McNeill and MacQueen (eds.), Atlas of Scottish History, 1846, 206.
24
Lords and Lordship
But such a statement is at best a half-truth. Aristocratic lordship in English Ireland

was bound to be different from that experienced in contemporary England for
at least three reasons. First, English Ireland was a land of extensive aristocratic
liberties where lordship could operate in all its amplitude. As Robin Frame
has pointed out, something over half the territorial extent of English Ireland
was . . . outside the area of shire ground. Secondly, much of Ireland was, in the
contemporary phrase, a land of war, not necessarily recurrently but sufciently
menacingly to give a distinctly military avour to any lordship which intended
to operate at all effectively there. Thirdly, and related to this, English-controlled
Irelanditself a shifting and unstable categorywas a collection of localized
and hybrid societies where the only effective lordship was one which worked
with the grain of local situations and practices. The world of the resident lords of
most of English Ireland was a very far cry indeed from that of the great magnates
of midland and southern England.
Can we hazard a guess as to the number of these English lords in Ireland whom
we might venture to designate as higher aristocrats? A gure of twenty/thirty
would probably err on the high side. A series of important royal commands to
the most important Anglo-Irish lords issued 132237 ranged in number from
thirteen in 1331 to twenty-eight in 1335; these seem to identify those who might
be regarded as the leaders of the English community in Ireland. These gures
are paralleled by those for men known to have been summoned to the Irish
parliament: twenty-seven in 1333, twenty-eight in 1378, but falling steadily to no
more than twelve at the end of the Middle Ages. The numbers, in other words,
were modest as compared with those for England and Scotland; and no dened
conception of peerage had yet been established. The numbers of Anglo-Irish
earldoms (as opposed to English earldoms such as Gloucester, Norfolk, or later
March which held large estates in Ireland) was also very modest: only one (the de
Burgh earldom of Ulster) in 1280 rising to four in 1380 (the Geraldine earldoms
of Desmond and Kildare, the Butler earldom of Ormond, and the earldom of
Ulster now in the hands of the Mortimer earls of March).
We can conclude from this sketchy and tentative review that there was
in England, Scotland, and English Ireland a group of greater magnates whom
weand indeed contemporarieswould have recognized as a higher aristocracy.
Its membership was by no means unambiguously dened; it was in England with
its concept of a quasi-hereditary parliamentary peerage, meeting apart from the
commons, that this process had gone farthest. Within this higher aristocracy,
the title of earl (to which duke and marquis were later, though sparingly, added)
created a further demarcation in terms of status and precedence. It cannot be
denied that there were wide variations in wealth and standing within this group
Frame, Ireland and Britain, passim.
Frame, English Lordship in Ireland, 1618.
H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, The Irish Parliament in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia,
1952), 1304.
25
(between, say, an immensely rich royal duke such as John of Gaunt, duke of
Lancaster (d. 1399) and Fulk Fitzwarin (d. 1374) whose landed fortunes were
relatively modest and who served in the military retinue of Gaunt); nor is it in
doubt that there was an overlap, in income and status, between some of the
lesser parliamentary barons and some of the knights of the shire. Nevertheless
there is every reason to characterize this higher aristocracy as the ruling elite
in England, Scotland, and English Ireland in our period, with the earldoms
(normally twenty-ve/thirty for all three areas) as a further top tier within this
elite. It is this group in particular which we will have within our historical sights.
The overall size and importance of the group did not alter radically within
our period, 12721422. But such apparent continuity and stability conceals the
rapid turnover in the composition of the group from one generation to the next.
Political miscalculation and forfeiture have often been identied as the major
reason for such a turnover. Occasional bloodlettings (such as those of the reigns of
Edward II and Richard II in England) could certainly leave their mark; but what
is remarkable is the way that so many noble families, laid low in one generation,
could recover their fortunes and standing in the next. Arundel, Despenser,
Mortimer are instances which immediately spring to mind in England. It is in
other directions in particular that we should look for the explanation for the
rapid turnover in the ranks of the higher aristocracy. The primary reasons, it
is now acknowledged, were the failure of families in the direct male line and
the transfer of their estates and often their titles either to collaterals or, through
marriage, to other families. McFarlanes famous statistic that on average across
the two centuries 13001500 a quarter of noble families became extinct in the
direct male line (according to his denition of extinction) every twenty-ve years
is broadly conrmed by similar statistics for Scotland. Thus in England the
following comital families failed in the direct legitimate male line of the body
(in chronological order) in the fourteenth century: Edmund of Cornwall 1300,
Bigod 1306, Lacy 1311, Clare 1314, Valence 1324, Warenne 1347, Bohun
1361, Lancaster 1361, Bohun (of Northampton) 1373, Ufford 1382, Hastings
1389. Only two familiesVere and Beauchamplasted the century, with two
others (Courtenay and Fitzalan) as runners-up.
Such a drastic and regular thinning out of the ranks of the nobilitya
phenomenon which seems to have been common to gentle (and no doubt
peasant) society generally and one of which contemporaries were all too painfully
and morbidly awarehad to be counterbalanced by regular recruitment of
new men to take their place. Recruitment was generally a matter of service
(military, political, diplomatic) and/or royal reward. So it was that Edward III,
McFarlane, Nobility, 146. For a critique and revised gures see the key contribution by S. J.
Payling Social Mobility, Demographic Change, and Landed Society in Late Medieval England,
Econ. HR, 45 (1992), 5173. For Scottish gures see the articles by Alexander Grant cited above,
p. 14.
26
Lords and Lordship
in a spectacular act of generosity, rewarded six of the men who had helped him
to overthrow Roger Mortimer and install his own regime by promoting them
all to be earls on the same day in March 1337. David II of Scotland likewise
signalled his indebtedness and that of his father to the devotion and prowess of
the Douglas family by conferring the new title of earl of Douglas on William
Douglas in 1358. Kings were not usually over-lavish in the bestowal of new
comital titles: the Scottish kings only created two entirely new earldoms (Douglas
and Crawford) during the whole of the fourteenth century; in England only
twenty-four new earldoms (including the six created by Edward III in 1337)
were created outside the immediate royal family between 1307 and 1397. The
phrase outside the immediate royal family is signicant, since it identies the
other important source of recruitment of new individuals, and thereby families,
into the ranks of the aristocracy. It was a pool of recruits where kings showed
little restraint. All ve of the surviving sons of Edward III were promoted to
comital and eventually ducal rank (or indeed to that of prince in the case of
Edward); and secured, often by royally provided and well-calculated marriages,
a territorial endowment commensurate with their status. Even more remarkable
was what happened in Scotland where the prole of the higher aristocracy was
transformed and stewartized during the second half of the fourteenth century.
By 1377 seven out of sixteen Scottish earldoms were in the hands of the king
or his sons, and through marriage many of the other earls were related to him.
It is not the least of the reasons why aristocratic power and royal power are so
inextricably intertwined in both countries.
The dominance of the higher aristocracy remained unchallenged throughout
our period; but its composition changed, occasionally dramatically, from generation to generation, indeed decade to decade. Beyond this process of perpetual
ux there are two other long-term changes within the ranks of this top nobility
which we should note at this juncture. The rst was a tendency for comital titles
and estates to be aggregated into the hands of fewer major families generally as a
consequence (intended or not) of the marriage of heiresses. Thus Thomas earl of
Lancaster (d. 1322) held the earldoms of Lancaster and Leicester by inheritance,
and those of Lincoln and Salisbury iure uxoris through his (estranged) wife, Alice,
daughter of the last Lacy earl of Lincoln (d. 1311). Likewise when Humphrey
de Bohun died in 1373 he held the earldom of Northampton (created in 1337)
from his father and the much older earldoms of Hereford and Essex as the heir
of his unmarried uncle. Scotland could produce many similar instances though
few perhaps to match the clutch of one dukedom (Albany) and three earldoms
(Atholl, Fife, and Menteith) which Robert Stewart (d. 1420) had cornered at
different stages in his life. These accumulations of title explain why the number
of earls is often considerably less than the number of earldoms; it also illustrates
the universal truth that to those who have much, more is often given.
R. Nicholson, Scotland: The Later Middle Ages (Edinburgh, 1974), 187, 232.
27
The second long-term change has, perhaps, been less noticed and is of particular
signicance for the theme of this book. In 1272 it was not at all unusual for
some major comital families to own and exploit rich lordships in England, the
March of Wales, and Ireland. Likewise a considerable number of major Scottish
families held estates and other appurtenances in England; the large east midlands
earldom of Huntingdon, centred on Fotheringay, held by members of the
Scottish royal family, was only the most outstanding example. The signicance
of these pan-British connections in the ranks of the higher aristocracy is obvious.
They were the basis of territorial, social, cultural, economic, and marital links
across the face of the British Isles, at least in the lowlands. They encouraged the
transfer of personnel, institutions, and laws from one part of the British Isles
to another, overwhelmingly from lowland England to the northern and western
outliers. These bonds made for an increasing community of interests and habits
within higher aristocratic society throughout the British Isles. Thus Gilbert de
Clare, earl of Gloucester (d. 1295) was one of the premier earls of England and
son-in-law of Edward; but the sphere of his travels and interests also took him to
Glamorgan in Wales and Kilkenny and Dublin in Ireland. Had these pan-British
links and connections been fostered and developed it is not inconceivable that a
single British higher aristocracy might eventually have emerged.
But it was not to be. The door on such a prospect was in effect slammed
shut in the late thirteenthearly fourteenth centuries, specically between 1296
and 1333. In the former year the onset of the Scottish Wars of Independence
inaugurated a prolonged period of bitter tension between England and Scotland
and with it the severance of any remaining bonds and connections between the
two higher aristocracies. In 1333 the last de Burgh earl of Ulster was murdered.
Of itself the repercussions of his death were far-reaching, but more profoundly
it manifested and conrmed the growing gulf between the resident lords (as
they have been called) of Ireland (notably the earls of Desmond, Kildare,
and Ormond) and their absentee England-based colleagues. The bonds which
had tied the aristocratic communities of England and English Ireland became
increasingly attenuated and frayed, even if they did not cease to exist altogether.
It is little wonder that Goddard Orpen chose to conclude his great Ireland under
the Normans (191120) in 1333. Orpen may have been unduly optimistic in
his view of the pax Normanica which English rule and settlement had brought
to Ireland; but he was surely correct to suggest that after 1333 English Ireland
was no longer normally part of the mental map, physical circuit, and political
ambitions of the higher aristocracy of England. The aristocracies of England and
English Ireland would henceforth largely go their own ways. There was to be no
single British Isles aristocracy.
The only part of the British Isles beyond England which remained rmly
part of the orbit of the English higher aristocracy was the March of Wales.
The March of Wales, indeed, occupies a paradoxical position in the study of
aristocratic lordship in the British Isles in our period. At any given point in the
28
Lords and Lordship
thirteenth or fourteenth centuries a good proportion of English earls held one or

more Marcher lordships in Wales (ve out of ten in 1280; nine out of seventeen
in 1380). There they exercised more ample and unfettered powers of lordship
than anywhere else in Britain (including Ireland). It is therefore a particularly
signicant region for the study of the character and potential of aristocratic
power. But there was no Marcher higher aristocracy as such. Rather was there an
English aristocracy which exercised lordship, very ample lordship, in the March
of Wales as an annex to its English power base.
So far we have tried to identify the group which is at the heart of this study,
the higher aristocracy (especially earls and dukes) of England, Scotland, and
English Ireland. From one angle it was, as we have seen, a group in constant
ux as families failed, or were extinguished, in the male line and new members
were recruited through the twin routes of service and royal favour. Such a rapid
turnover notwithstanding, one of the obsessive concerns of the group centred
on its identity and continuity through time. Heritage and inheritance were key
concepts in its vocabulary; so was concern about the honour of the family and
an emphasis on the depth and continuity of the family name. These were the
warrantors of the antiquity and status of the family: they must be upheld and
defended at all costs.
The issue was particularly vexatious for families which faced the prospect
of extinction in the direct, legitimate male line. No one spent more sleepless
nights over many years worrying about the problem than John de Warenne, earl
of Surrey (d. 1347). He was one of the few leading magnates of his day who
could genuinely show that he was descended from one of the companions of the
Conqueror. The antiquity and continuity of his family was beyond reproach. It
derived its name from Varenne near Dieppe; it had held its earldom (alternatively
termed Warenne or Surrey) since 1088; John himself was the eighth descendant
of the family to carry the title. Johns career as earl (130647) was remarkably
long; to have survived the turmoil of Edward IIs reign was no mean achievement.
But in every other respect Earl Johns career was a disappointment, indeed a
family disaster. He was estranged from his wife, Joan of Bar (granddaughter of
Edward I) at an early date; but lacked the political clout to secure a divorce
and the right to remarry. He had mistresses aplenty and fathered children by
them. But he lacked a legitimate heir of his body and there can be no doubt that
his nephew and putative heir, the powerful Richard Fitz Alan earl of Arundel
(d. 1376), had successfully lobbied the king to ensure that no deal was done to
his (Richards) disadvantage. But Earl John even in old age had not abandoned
all hope of salvaging what was to him the most important ambition of his life:
the continuation, as he put it, of the name, honour and arms of Warenne. So
in his sixtieth year he struck a desperate bargain with Edward III and one which
must have appealed almost as much to the king as to the earl. Should the old earl
beget an heir by his wife, Isabel Hollandshe was in fact his mistress but the
29
earl still fondly believed that he might secure a divorce, in spite of his repeated
failures on that quest in the pastthen this heir should marry a member of the
royal family (John of Gaunt or Edmund of Langley, young as they were, were
possibilities on the male side), taking with him/her the Warenne lands (or such as
remained) and, crucially, the name and arms of Warenne. Should the ultimate
catastrophe occurnamely that the earl should die without a legitimate heir of
his bodythen Edward III should have all the earls lands in Wales, Surrey,
and Sussex (by then the remaining bulk of the Warenne estates) to be granted
to one of the kings sons and his heirs provided the name, honour and arms of
Warenne were retained. Many considerations no doubt pressed in on the earl
as he made this desperate offermaking an honest woman of his long-time
mistress and securing a royal match for his offspring (a temptation which has
enticed the aristocracy down the centuries). But overriding these considerations
was an anxiety which his fellow magnates (most of whom seem to have had a
low view of the earl of Surrey) shared and appreciatedthat of perpetuating
the name and arms of the ancient family. This was a deep-seated instinct in all
families.
John Hastings, earl of Pembroke (d. 1375) shared that instinct to the full.
It was made all the more pressing in his case since he was still in 1372 (aged
twenty-ve) without an heir of his body and was about to set out on what indeed
proved to be a militarily hazardous expedition. He clearly discussed his plans
with Edward III, and, though the king was ageing, he struck a shrewd bargain
with the earl, as he had done with the earl of Surrey in 1346. As the price
of sanctioning the arrangements which Hastings made, Edward III secured the
reversion of the county of Pembroke and the lordships of Tenby, Cilgerran, and
Ystlwyfin other words a very substantial slice of south-west Walesin the
event of the failure of the male Hastings line. If Hastings died without issue, all
his other lands were to be offered to his cousin, Sir William Beauchamp (the son
of Hastingss maternal aunt), on condition that he shall bear the whole arms of
the said earl and that he should do his best to persuade the king to allow him
and his heirs to carry the title of earl of Pembroke. Should Beauchamp decline
these conditions then the lands were to revert to another of Hastingss friends
who was not even a kinsman, Sir William Clinton. In other words Hastings was
willing to undo the claims of the heir general (Reginald, Lord Grey of Ruthin)
and to favour a maternal cousin and a friend in pursuit of his overriding family
ambitionto protect the integrity of the familys coat of arms and, if at all
possible, its comital title.
Dying without surviving male heir of the body was the nightmare which
haunted gentle society generally. That is most graphically illustrated in the
The biography in E. R. Fairbank, The Last Earl of Warenne and Surrey, Yorkshire
Archaeological Journal, 19 (1907), 193266, is still serviceable.
R. I. Jack, Entail and Descent: The Hastings Inheritance, BIHR, 38 (1965), 119.
30
Lords and Lordship
window (no longer extant) which Sir Thomas Erpingham had constructed in the
church of the Austin Friars at Norwich in 1419 in remembrance of all the lords
(seigneurs), barons, bannerets and knights who had died without male issue in the
counties of Norfolk and Suffolk since the coronation of the noble Edward the
Third. His tally ran to eighty-seven families. Taking out an insurance policy
against the consequence of that failure was high on any noblemans agenda.
Ralph Basset of Drayton (d. 1390) was highly aware of that. He had had a
long and distinguished career: a ne and protable record in the wars in France
since 1356; two marriages into two of Englands comital families; and regular
individual summonses to parliament 135789. But heirs of his body he had
none. So in his will he transferred his lands successively to four men in tail
male with the proviso in each case that each of them should carry the surname
of Basset and his arms. The family and its arms were to survive regardless of
the failure of direct male heirs of the body. Nor was this a peculiarly English
phenomenon. When the powerful James Douglas, lord of Dalkeith, married his
second daughter to John Hamilton in 1388 he stipulated that if his daughter,
through the death of her brothers, became his heir then she and her husband
would be bound to accept and enjoy the surname of Douglas and the arms of
James Douglas.
Many families were willing to pay such a price. The example of one baronial
family will serve. Already in 1323, on the death of his own son and heir, Robert
Fitz Pain had anticipated that he might not beget another male heir of his body.
And so it turned out to be, even though he survived for another thirty years
or so. When he eventually died in 1354 the reversionary interest which he had
agreed in 1323 came into effect. His inheritance in Somerset and Dorset was
acquired by his nephew, Robert son of Richard Grey of Codnor and of Joan
Fitz Pain. Robert Grey promptly changed his name to Robert Fitz Pain, thereby
publicly acknowledging the source of his good fortune in his new surname. He
was certainly not unique in this respect. It was a good bargain: he had secured an
inheritance and his uncle could rest assured that the family name had survived
after all. Individual cases such as those of Warenne, Hastings, Basset, and Fitz
Pain do not necessarily constitute a general rule; but they do lay bare the anxieties
of magnate families and the devices they adopted to deal with them. The solution
adopted by Ralph Basset is particularly interesting, since the descent of his estates,
surname, and arms to four designated heirs in turn was restricted to them and
their heirs in tail male. Succession in tail malea legal device to which we will
return laterhad many aspects to it; but primary among them was an anxiety
to keep the family inheritance intact and with it the family name, honour, and
arms in the male line. It sought to perpetuate the familys status and continuity
through time.
Mort. Reg., II, nos. 184, 196.
GEC sub nomine; CIPM, XXI, no. 63.

GEC sub nomine; CIPM, X, nos. 175, 292.
31
This sense of identity through time was likewise manifested in visual and tactile
ways. Family mementoes and heirlooms were physical examples of the depth of
family memory. Two examples from the annals of the Mortimer family spring to
mind. Among the effects of Roger Mortimer at his execution in 1330 was one
brass horn which, with a certain falchion (a broad curved sword with a convex
edge) which is, it is said, the charter of the land of Wigmore. Roger had only
very recently been created earl of March; but his family could indeed claim that
it had held the land of Wigmore since the morrow of the Norman conquest.
The horn was quite likely the great golden horn which his great-grandson,
Edmund Mortimer earl of March (d. 1381), bequeathed to his son and heir in
his will, along with another family heirloom, our sword decorated with gold
which belonged to good king Edward. Similarly Lord Poynings left his heir
a ruby ring which is the charter of my inheritance of Poynings. Not all such
heirlooms were necessarily title deeds to property or status, but they often were
redolent of a familys strong sense of history and of its continuity through time.
So it was that the earl of Warwick (d. 1369) left to his son the coat of mail
belonging to the famous Guy of Warwick or that the earl of Arundel (d. 1376)
bequeathed to his son and heir his best coronet with a reminder that it should be
transferred thereafter from heir to heir, lords of Arundel.
Nothing afrmed gentle societys identity and lineage more publicly than the
heraldic emblems which it displayed as signs of its power, prestige, and apartness.
The period 12501400 has a good claim to be regarded as the decisive period
in the making of the English heraldic tradition and in establishing heraldic coats
of arms as the signier par excellence of noble identity and lineage. The young
nobleman was now expected to be able to read and distinguish between various
heraldic representations. It was, along with the technical jargon of hunting,
what John of Salisbury had very appropriately termed the scholarship of the
aristocracy. Nothing demarcates an elite more clearly than its mastery of a private
technical vocabulary. Soon Rolls of Arms, the gazetteers of the new fashionable
cult of heraldry, were in preparation: the earliest surviving English example dates
from the mid thirteenth century; at least eighteen are still extant from the reign
of Edward I. Heralds, the high priests of heraldic lore, came into their own,
especially at tournaments and other high feasts of the aristocratic and chivalric
year. By the fourteenth century all the leading aristocratic families had their own
highly rewarded heraldsMortimer, Beauchamp, and Mowbray among them.
For an example of a falchion as a title-deed see Age of Chivalry, no. 165.
Nichols, Wills, 112.
Test. Vet., 73.
W. Dugdale, The Baronage of England, 2 vols.(London, 16756), I, 233. For the will of
Richard Fitzalan (d.1376), I have made use of a full transcript, provided to me by Michael Burtscher,
from Lambeth Palace Library, Archbishop Sudburys Register, f.92vf.94v.
See, most recently, Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England, ed. Peter Coss
and Maurice Keen (Woodbridge, 2003) and Keen, Origins of the English Gentleman.
Mortimer herald: CPR 13815, 156; BL Egerton Charters 8734.
32
Lords and Lordship
John of Gaunt regularly gave gifts to his own and to visiting heralds, especially
when they attended the jousts arranged by him.
Armorial bearings became increasingly elaborate as the fourteenth century
progressed. In particular the practice of quartering provided an opportunity for
displaying alliances by marriage and dependence. Heraldic emblems were now
the visual means which declared immediately and proudly to the world the
status, identity, interrelatedness, and antiquity of noble families. They swamped
aristocratic England in a rash of heraldic blazonsnot only on shields and seals
but on almost every item of propertydomestic plate, ecclesiastical vestments,
liturgical vessels, caskets and chests, tiled pavements, furniture, glass windows,
and even the most prized illuminated books. No elite has more obsessively and
profusely paraded the hereditary badges of its identity. So it was, to quote a few
examples, that the countess of Pembroke commissioned two tapestries adorned
with her husbands arms (Valence); or that Edmund, earl of March (d. 1381)
bequeathed in his will a great bed of black satin embroidered with white lions
with escutcheons of the arms of Mortimer and Ulster (his paternal and maternal
forbears); or that the earl of Norfolk in 1415 commissioned the Mowbray arms
to be painted on the seven windows of the hall of his London house and the
hatchment of his arms to be added to those of other lords of England in the hall
of the bishop of Durham. In Scotland in a similar fashion the house of Douglas
celebrated its remarkable rise to pre-eminence in aristocratic society by making
great play of the role of its effective founder, Sir James Douglas, who had died on
crusade in Spain carrying King Robert Is heart. The Bludy Heart was now the
proud identifying badge of the family. It was aunted on their standard in battle,
stamped on their wooden bowls, and carved on their buildings and religious
foundations. Such arms and emblems declared the familys identity and upheld
its honour. To challenge the authenticity and the exclusivity of a familys coat
of arms was, therefore, to impugn its honour in the most fundamental fashion.
It could lead to prolonged litigation in the Court of Chivalry, of which the
famous and bitter ScropeGrosvenor dispute of the 1380s is the classic and
best-documented instance.
Alongside heraldic devices we should mention badges and collars, which
became an increasingly common means of expressing aristocratic (and royal)
associations of service and lordship from the mid fourteenth century. The
signicance of badges and collarssuch as the ragged staff of the Beauchamps,
the SS collar of the house of Lancaster (from Gaunts time), or the heraldic
knot of the Staffordsfrom our point of view is that they hugely extended
For example Reg. JG, II, nos. 327, 556 (p. 180), 803 (p. 259).
For Mary of St Pols will see H. Jenkinson, Mary de Sancto Paulo, Foundress of Pembroke
College, Cambridge, Archaeologia, 66 (1914), 40146; the will of Edmund Mortimer as cited
above n. 19; *Berkeley Muniments (account of Receiver General 141415).
Brown, Black Douglases, 1225; idem, Rejoice to hear of Douglas: The House of Douglas
and the Presentation of Magnate Power in Late Medieval Scotland, SHR, 76 (1997), 16184.
33
the opportunities for an aristocratic family to display the extent of its circle of
power and afnity. The distribution of livery (often in the familys colours) was
yet another way in which the aristocracy could manifest visually its capacity
to command dependence, particularly from members of gentle society. It was
part of the semiotics of aristocratic power and a vivid display of the depth of
dependence and support it could command. Even the earl of Devon, one of the
lesser English earls, listed at least 130 personsranging from seven knights to
four minstrels and six pageswho were in receipt of his livery in 13845.
So aristocratic lordship displayed itself and its solidarity in the person and
dress of its dependants. Paradoxically, the outcry against badges and liveries in
the later fourteenth century only served to emphasize that such a display of
power and dependence was perfectly acceptable among the higher aristocracy
(dened in the statute of 1390 as dukes, earls, barons, and bannerets) but
prohibited to those (knights and others) below this rank. This was a further
acknowledgementalongside the denition of a quasi-hereditary parliamentary
peerage in Englandthat the higher aristocracy stood clearly apart from, and
above, the rest of gentle society. A great lord must have his worship; distributing
his livery, badge, and collar was a necessary part of cultivating such worship.
For such a status-conscious elite, cultivating its past was a matter of necessity as
well as of sentiment and piety. The past, after all, was the validating charter of its
identity and power. It could well be a legendary past; but in a society besotted
with Arthurian tales, classical romances, and feudal epics that was no deterrent.
The Beauchamp family provides an instructive example. It milked the stories
about its legendary founderEarl Guy of Warwick, the man who was claimed to
have saved England from the Danesto maximum effect. His image slaying a
dragon was vividly represented on the famous Beauchamp mazer; a tower named
after him was constructed in Warwick castle in 1394; and a tapestry illustrating
the legend was hung in the castle itself. The Beauchamps were singularly
fortunate in the fteenth century in that they were able to supplement the
legends of the mythical Earl Guy by the prowess of a contemporary earl, the great
Earl Richard of Warwick (d. 1439). His cult was as vigorously promoted as that
of his predecessorbe it in his magnicent efgy (the most striking surviving
monument to an English earl) in the Beauchamp chapel in the collegiate church
at Warwick, or in the pictorial biography of his noble actes in the fty-three
pen-and-ink drawings of The Pageants of Richard Beauchamp, or in the illustrated
M. Cherry, The Courtney Earls of Devon: the Formation and Disintegration of a Late
Medieval Aristocratic Afnity, Southern History, 1 (1979), 7197.
E. Mason, Legends of the Beauchamps Ancestors: The Use of Baronial Propaganda in
Medieval England, Journal of Medieval History, 10 (1984), 2540.
Age of Chivalry, no. 155; Test. Vet., I, 524, 7980, 1535; R. K. Morris, The Architecture
of the Earls of Warwick in the Fourteenth Century, in England in the Fourteenth Century, ed.
W. M. Ormrod (Woodbridge, 1986), 16174.
34
Lords and Lordship
roll-chronicles (one in Latin, the other in English) which John Rous prepared
to recount the history and the achievements of the family from its legendary
beginnings onwards.
John Rous was a chantry priest. That helps to identify a group or institution
which had a vested interest in cultivating and perpetuating the historical memory
of noble familiesthe churches and monasteries which had been endowed
by them. Their own standing and endowment were grounded in past noble
benefactions and their prospects for the future were likewise tied to the generosity
of the same families or their descendants. So it was that they cultivated the history
of those families in their annals, histories, and cartularies. Tewkesbury abbey
was even more innovative. In the 1340s it commissioned representations of the
aristocratic patrons of the abbey to be placed in the two westernmost windows
of the choir clerestory. Starting with Robert Fitzhamon (d. 1107) they outlined
the descent of the lords of the honour of Tewkesbury down to Eleanor de Clare
(d. 1337) and her two husbands. It was a visual title-deed, as it were, and
no doubt pleasing to abbey and lord alike. Within churches and monasteries,
the continuity of noble families through time was further demonstrated in the
serried ranks of family tombs such as the magnicent series of Fitzalan tombs
at Arundel. Even more impressivethough they have not survivedwere the
Mortimer tombs at Wigmore abbey. Hugh Mortimer (d. 1185) had founded
the abbey in 1179 and clearly intended it to be a family mausoleum. He was not
to be disappointed in that respect. Every head of the Mortimer family thereafter
until 1398 was laid to rest in the abbey and so were several other members of
the family.
We know the details of the Mortimer burials because they are carefully recorded
in what is perhaps the most remarkable fourteenth-century aristocratic chronicle,
the account of the Mortimer family from the Norman conquest embedded in
the Wigmore abbey chronicle. The chronicle (University of Chicago MS. 224)
is a composite volume and has not yet received the detailed analysis it deserves.
Its provenance is immediately revealed in its opening Anglo-Norman account
of the early, tumultuous years of Wigmore abbey. But its focus was far from
being exclusively local. It also contains a potted historical topography of Britain
Gothic: Art for England, 14001547, ed. R. Marks and P. Williamson (London, 2003), nos.
85, 87, 96.
Age of Chivalry, no. 742.
My comments on the Wigmore chronicle are based on a microlm copy of the Chicago MS.
in the Bodleian Library. For a detailed, though not fully accurate, description of the ms., see M. E.
Grifn, A Wigmore Manuscript at the University of Chicago, National Library of Wales Journal,
7 (19512), 31625. The Anglo-Norman account of the foundation of the abbey is published in
J. Dickinson and P. T. Ricketts, The Anglo-Norman Chronicle of Wigmore Abbey, Transactions
of the Woolhope Field Club, 39 (1969), 41346. The Brut section of the chronicle has never been
published. The Mortimer chronicle is published in extenso in Dugdale, Monasticon, VI, i, 34855;
but this edition has some puzzling omissions and cannot begin to convey the visual character of the
chronicle and its genealogies.
35
based on the Brut chronicle, but also displaying an unusual knowledge of, and
interest in, the borderlands and dynasties of central Wales, the focus of so
much of the military prowess and territorial claims of the Mortimer family.
But what is of particular interest for the current argument are the twelve
folios devoted to the history of the Mortimers. This takes the form of heraldic
genealogy of the family displayed in the arms of the head of the family and
those of each of their wives. The genealogy is accompanied by a historical
narrative concentrating on the prowess of members of the family, their marital
alliances, their benefactions to the abbey and a remarkably fulsome and detailed
characterization of Earl Edmund (d. 1381) and his son Earl Roger (d. 1398).
In spite of some inaccuracies and confusions, the account is impressive both
in its attempt to construct a coherent history of the family and, above all, in
its glimpses of detailed local knowledgesuch as the precise account of the
landed endowment which Earl Roger (d. 1330) gave to his daughter Matilda
on her marriage to John Charlton or the description of Earl Edmund (d. 1381)
transporting timber from his lordship of Usk in south-east Wales to build a
fortied bridge across the river Bann at Coleraine in the Mortimer lordship
of Ulster.
The Mortimer chronicle was almost certainly written in the late fourteenth
century, though with periodic additions (including an account of the battle of
Shrewsbury, 1403) thereafter. A reference to Earl Roger (d. 1398) as dominus
meus suggests as much; so does the intimate knowledge of his career and that
of his father. Family continuity through time was its theme; but it had also a
more ambitious, even sinister agendato proclaim the genealogical pretensions
of the Mortimer family to be descended from the royal dynasties of England
and Wales and even to locate such pretensions in the fantasy world of the Brut
legend. It is easy to appreciate how such notions could have been nourished in
the familys monastery at Wigmore and among the Mortimer clerical adherents.
Adam Uskborn in a Mortimer lordship, educated at the expense of Earl
Edmund, a man steeped in Welsh genealogical lore and prophecy and a character
of oating political loyaltiesis a possible candidate. Be that as it may, what
the Mortimer chronicle showsespecially when placed side by side with the
magnicent Mortimer cartulary of the same periodis how assiduously noble
families, and their clerical and monastic supporters, cultivated their histories. It
was an afrmation of the antiquity and continuity of their status. The Mortimer
family was not alone in this respect; indeed one suspects that it was the norm,
even if the celebration of a familys past achievements took a variety of forms.
When the Douglas family wanted to celebrate the remarkable dominance it had
come to enjoy in fteenth-century Scotland, it steered clear of a prosaic Latin
chronicle. Instead the Buke of the Howlat (the book of the owl) was a long poetic
allegory; but its central message was a sustained paean of praise for the Douglas
For Adam Usk see Adam Usk, Chronicle.
See below p. 38.
36
Lords and Lordship
family in the form of a celebration of its prowess, its status, its heraldic arms, its
loyalty to the crown, and its title to its lands.
Genealogies, chronicles, and allegorical poems served to express and conrm
the depth of the aristocracys historical memory; archives and muniments were
the records of its title to land and wealth and of its exploitative management
of that wealth. Surviving aristocratic records are disappointing and misleading
in this respect. They only represent a minute tithe of what once existed. Many
of them survive only as the result of political accidentbe it the forfeiture of
a family (which, for example, brought huge caches of documents and lists of
archives from the houses of Lancaster and Mortimer into the exchequer in
1322) or its accession to the throne (as happened to the house of Lancaster in
1398). Aristocratic houses doubtless kept copies of their title deeds to lands and
franchises from the twelfth century; but it was from about the mid thirteenth
century that their record-keeping activities began to become more systematic.
It is from about that period that evidence begins to survive of annual household
and nancial accounts (both central and manorial), court rolls and, later,
auditorial reports and valors. By the fourteenth century major gures such as
the Black Prince and John of Gaunt were keeping registers of all their ofcial
correspondence, as the English chancery had done since 1200. There is no
reason to believe that they were unique in this respect.
Some of the records so produced might only be kept for a few years, for
purposes of audit and cross-referencing. Some were stored locally; others were
sent to a central treasury, either automatically or on request. Thus in 1372 a
command was issued that all the accounts of John of Gaunts receivers-general,
treasurers of war, and treasurers of the household and all other ofcers should be
deposited in the treasury at the Savoy (where they were to be destroyed during
the Great Revolt of 1381). But equally, much more local records could be
called in for scrutiny: thus in 1384 the court rolls of the Mortimer lordship
of Radnor were to be taken to the treasury (in effect the muniment room) at
Ludlow.
Much of this record-depositing was no doubt part of the routine process of the
audit and interrogation of ofcials, local and central. Thus when the muniments
of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore (among other Contrariants) were deposited in
the Tower of London in 1322 they included in an old pouch of canvas, the
rolls of the bailiffs and reeves of Roger for various manors, rolls of household
expense of said Roger, and divers letters sent to Roger and members of his
household . . . and also the account rolls of Caerleon, Tintern, Edeligion and
Longer Scottish Poems: 1. 13651650, ed. P. Bawcutt and F. Riddy (Edinburgh, 1987),
4384. Also Brown, Black Douglases, 1012, 623, 2778.
For lists of Lancaster archives, see Holmes, Estates, 669, 703; R. Somerville, History of the
Duchy of Lancaster. Vol 1: 12651603 (London, 1953), 11617; 194.
For a reference to an early (non-surviving) register of John of Gaunt, Reg. JG, I, no. 748.
Reg. JG, I, no. 1126.
NLW, Radnor account (unnumbered).
37
Usk and other manors in the parts of Wales. All these were dismissed by the
royal clerks as of no value (qui non sunt alicuius valoris). The problems of record
management and selective archive retention were already vexing issues.
Nevertheless there can be no doubt that for aristocratic families the safe
custody and arrangement of their muniments were a high priority. These were,
after all, literally and metaphorically the title-deeds for their wealth and thereby
for their status and standing. So it was, for example, that the Black Prince put
in an order for a great chest fastened with three locks and keys for the rolls of
the Prince, to be kept in the treasury which was in turn to be locked with three
locks. Likewise the earl of Warwick bought thirty-six chests at Worcester in
1402 in which to deposit the muniments and charters for the earl. Later in the
fteenth century the dukes of Buckingham were to construct a specially built
muniment room at Thornbury castle, where estate accounts and papers were to
be deposed in padlocked iron-bound chests.
The most valuable documents kept in these chests were the title-deeds to
property. These were not items of antiquarian interest; they were cardinal
documents in upholding title to property. So it was, for example, that the earl
of Warwick in 1397 ordered muniments relating to the manor of Berkeley
to be brought from Warwick to London, no doubt to help the case which
his legal advisers were mounting. Such archives were carefully arranged for
quick reference and often had considerable chronological depth to them. Thus
the Lancaster archives seized at Pontefract in 1322 contained not only recent
Lancaster material but also collections relating to the families of Montfort,
Ferrers, and Lacy (earls of Leicester, Derby, and Lincoln respectively) which
had now been subsumed in the Lancaster empire. Even more revealing of the
degree to which archival organization had developed in baronial estates are the
careful lists prepared of the Mortimer muniments in 1322. The muniments
were systematically arranged in chests, coffers, pouches of canvas, and bags of
white hide, each identied by a reference letterfor instance in quodam cofno
ligneo ad hanc litteram Q. They were arranged partly chronologicallystarting
with documents dating to the period of Ralph Mortimer (d. 1246)and partly
according to subject matterrecognizances, loans, and the like. This was clearly
a working archive; it was the documentary underpinning of the power and
pretensions of one of the fast-rising baronial (soon to be comital) families of later
medieval England.
The coping-stone on the Mortimer familys cultivation of its archival, and
thereby its institutional, identity across time was the compilation of a cartulary. It
was not, of course, alone in this. Every major church and monastery, every major
aristocratic family did the same. Among aristocratic families we can certainly
BL Egerton Charters 8723.
Reg. BP, I, 1501.
BL Egerton Charters 8770; Rawcliffe, The Staffords, 2.
BL Egerton Charters 8723, and for the Badlesmere archive BL Egerton 8724.
38
Lords and Lordship
number Beauchamp, Courtenay, Percy, Stafford, and Vere and of course the
magnicent two-volume Coucher Book (as it is called) of the house of Lancaster.
In Scotland the Registrum Honoris de Morton is the register of the Douglases of
Dalkeith and probably the oldest cartulary of a lay estate in Scotland.
The Mortimer cartulary, the Liber Niger de Wigmore (BL Harleian MS. 240)
is particularly interesting, since it reveals the ling system in the Mortimer
archives which lay behind the enrolments of the deeds in the cartulary. It was a
cross-referencing system of which no modern cataloguer would be ashamed. The
rationale of the calendar of the cartulary was as follows:
1. Each manor or lordship was itemized alphabetically. Forty-four such units are
itemized.
2. This was followed by the title of the muniment chest in which the deed or
deeds relating to it would be found, e.g. Aderleye (re. Arley co. Warwick)
souz cest title Badlesmere.
3. A brief description of the deed would be given. (This enables the lacunae in
the cartulary to be made good from a second copy of the calendar, BL Add.
MS. 6041.)
4. This is followed by the endorsed number of the deed to be found on the
original version in the muniment chest, e.g. xij.
5. The folio reference to the copy of the deed in the cartulary is then provided,
e.g. xlj fo.
6. A nal nding-aid is added to the calendar. This indicates on which folio
of the cartulary the copies of deeds relating to contiguous or associated
manors are to be found, e.g. Bridgwater, Odcombe, and Milverton (all in
Somerset)folio xvj.
The Mortimer cartulary (and its calendar) was assembled in the late fourteenth
century, quite probably under the direction of the consortium (whose executive
head was Sir Thomas Mortimer) which took over the running of the Mortimer
estates during the prolonged minority which followed the premature death of
Earl Edmund in 1381. From the point of view of our argument the signicance of
the cartularycompiled during a minority, one of the most vulnerable periods
in a familys historyis that it afrmed and expressed the territorial, historical,
and geographical foundations of the familys wealth and power. It was the written
declaration of those foundations and thereby of the familys institutional memory
in time. And so were all cartularies.
Cartularies, family chronicles and legends, genealogies, heraldic devices, funerary monuments were all part of the paraphernalia of a familys cult of its continuity
through time. They were essential elements in the exercise of self-validation and
self-promotion in a world in which the authority of the past was the charter for
present status. This was also a highly visual world in which the icons of power
39
were regularly on public display. There was nothing that was specically and
exclusively aristocratic (in the narrow sense of the word) about these monuments
of memories. After all, coats of arms, genealogies, and funerary monuments were
likewise part of the world of knights and esquires, while the use of seals as the
signier of identity and authenticity had now extended to the lower orders of
society. But in the landscape and hierarchy of power in the late medieval British
Isles, no one could be in any doubt that the greater magnates stood out in
wealth and status. Their buildings, their parks, their retinues of servants, their
armies, their sports, their dress, the reverence and the worship which they
commandedall of them proclaimed that, alongside kingsand indeed as their
companionsthe great magnates were the elite.
We have described this elite so far in group terms, even if we have had to
acknowledge that its composition changed from generation to generation. Such
a collective approach is well justied by the fact that its members did indeed
see themselves as a distinct and, to a considerable degree, exclusive group. It
is true that they shared many of their concerns and prioritiesabout issues
such as the descent of estates, provision for daughters and younger children, a
fascination with heraldry and chivalry, their intense sense of status and etiquette,
their self-image as a warrior caste, and their conviction that they were the natural
governors of society just as they were the natural counsellors of the kingwith
gentle society generally. But there was also a real sense in which they stood apart
from the rest of gentle society, in wealth, status, and in self-perception as in the
perception of others. They had, particularly in England, begun to call themselves
peers, to claim certain jurisdictional and other privileges, and to meet apart at
national assemblies. Their group identity and group consciousness was strong.
But ultimately the quality of a group is considerably determined by the
character and individuality of the members who compose it. The great aristocracy
has suffered in this respect, especially as compared with kings. We are conscious,
of course, that kingship can be described in institutional and general terms. We
also recognize that the behaviour and policies of kings are shaped and constrained
by the conventions, practices, and habits of the ofce they hold. But we are
also intensely aware that the personality, character, and policies of a king can
shape and even transform the fortunes and reputation of a reign. Thus, whatever
the mould of common problems, powers, and constraints within which they
operated, no one would confuse Edward I with his son Edward II or underrate the
degree to which their very different personalities set the tone of their respective
reigns. But we rarely extend these considerations of individuality to the greater
aristocracy, other than in composing individual biographies of them. It is, of
course, in part a problem (as so often with the higher aristocracy) of manageability
and sources. How can one present the characters of two-to-three dozen major
aristocrats, especially when contemporary insights into their personalities are so
generally wanting? With that limitation we must learn to live; but at least we
40
Lords and Lordship
need to be aware of the danger of packaging their personalities and behaviour

under a blanket of bland generalizations about the aristocracy.
In the rst place we must recognize that a great, or indeed not so great, earl
could play a crucially directive role in shaping the character of his lordship. He (or
sometimes she) was the lord; his was often the rst and last word in the making
and enforcing of decisions about his lordship. So it was also with kingship. In
the case of both kingship and lordship, the surviving historical sources may,
paradoxically, serve us ill in this respect. They are primarily the documents of
bureaucracy, control, and accountability. They convey the priorities and habits
of the world of ofcialdom and are a remarkably impressive record of how
well and systematically lords (like kings) were served by their ofcers. But they
rarely take us to the heart of decision-making and even less so to the intensely
personal world in which lords, like kings, operated. They are to that extent
depersonalized. Secondly, in so far as the careers of great aristocrats impinge
on contemporary narrative sources, it is their public activitiestheir military
exploits, their diplomatic forays, or their political ambitionswhich catch the
eye, and which can also be documented from the superb royal archives. Public
careers were crucially important for most (though not all) magnates; public
service was part of the cursus of a noblemans life and the route to fortune and
favour (and sometimes misfortune). None of this is to be gainsaid; but not at the
expense of overlooking the intense personal interest that most great lords took in
the affairs of their own lordships. To put it in the unlovely contemporary phrase,
much aristocratic lordship was hands-on lordship, as ultimately was kingship.
The lords personality and direction were at the heart of lordship. Paradoxically
nowhere is this better displayed than in the correspondence of the greatest of the
English lords of the period, Edward, earl of Chester, duke of Cornwall and prince
of Wales (from 1343) and of Aquitaine (from 1362). The surviving corpus of his
letters is in this respect much more revealing than that of his younger brother,
John of Gaunt. The Prince is best remembered as a great military warrior, the
ower of chivalry and largesse; but he was also consumed by meticulous oversight
of the most minute affairs of his lordships in England and Wales. Decisions were
regularly made by the command of the Prince himself, by record of the Prince,
by bill sealed with the Princes secret seal, or because the Prince had [the issue]
at heart. The recommendations of his ofcers in Cheshire were repeated to him
and he kept a copy of them to hand to refresh his memory and warned that no
judgment should be delivered without consulting him. His ofcials lived in fear
of his hawk eye and severe reprimand: he marvelled at their decision and they
were charged to send him transcripts of all the evidence regarding their decision.
The brief biographies in this chapter are culled from a wide range of historical sources.
They also draw on the invaluable biographies in GEC, DNB, and (since the chapter was originally
composed) ODNB.
Reg. BP, II, 37, 46, 47, 49, 50, 61, 65 etc.; III, 10, 20, 98, 113, etc.
41
The Prince may have been an unusually brusque and hard taskmaster; but there
is no reason to believe that his degree of direction, scrutiny, and intervention
was unusual among the higher aristocracy. Another busy warrior, Earl Richard
Beauchamp of Warwick (d. 1439), was kept in regular touch with the affairs
of his lordship when he was on campaign in France and could issue orders to
be carried out by the lords command, just as Sir Peter de la Mare was given
oral instructions by his lord, the earl of March. Court roll evidence makes
it clear that proclamation might be made in court by the lord, pardons issued
by him in propria persona, petitions thrust into his hand as he walked in
the cloisters between the chamber and the hall after breakfast; warrants were
drafted at his personal authorization; and decisions regularly deferred until he had
been consulted. Most intimidating of all would have been the lords personal
presence at the annual audit of the accounts of ofcials. Doubtless in many cases
the business was left to the lords auditors and members of his council. But
the lords physical presence was certainly not unknown. Isabella de Fortibus is
known to have been present several times at the audit of her ofcers 126390;
the earl of Salisbury in 1368 himself examined and approved the payments made
by his treasurer; and when a valor of the estates of Anne, countess of Stafford
(d. 1438) was compiled in 1436, it was supplemented by two copies of the roll
of arrears, one specically for the personal scrutiny of the lady herself (devers
ma dame pur sa conusance demesne).
These examples are no doubt no more than the tips of an iceberg of seigniorial
intervention. The lords willbe it his benevolence or his spleenwas a
cardinal factor in shaping policy. The reputation of lords was a matter of public
knowledge, for good or ill. The younger Despenser (d. 1326) was known as
the greediest of men, a reputation fully borne out by his actions and his
surviving correspondence; the Welshmen hated the rule of Hugh was the tart
comment of a well-informed contemporary chronicler on him. The reputation
of the Grey lords of Dyffryn Clwyd (north Wales)/Ruthin was not much
better. When the Grey lands were temporarily taken into royal custody in
13223, the men of Dyffryn Clwyd were so anxious to avoid the prospect
of a further spell of Grey lordship (seigneurie) that they offered the king 600
Carpenter, Locality and Polity, 371; NLW, Radnor account (oretenus facto Petro de la Mare).
As a selection of phrases from the court rolls of the Greys of Ruthin illustrates: proclamacio
facta in curia in presencia domini per dominum; relief respited until habeat colloquium cum domino;
condonatur per dominum in propria persona: TNA SC 2/220/1 m.171;/10 m.2;/12 m.32.
S. Walker, Lordship and Lawlessness in the Palatinate of Chester, 13701400, Journal of
British Studies, 28 (1989), 32548, at 329.
A. Goodman, John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe
(Harlow, 1992), 31213.
N. Denholm-Young, Seigniorial Administration in England (Oxford, 1937), 142; Household
Accounts, I, 47.
The phrase is that of the Lanercost chronicle quoted in Davies, Lordship and Society, 279. For
the exceptionally revealing correspondence see ibid., 280 n. 17.
42
Lords and Lordship
marks to be rid of it. The reputation of a lord for hard-nosed niggardliness

and extortion could live in popular memory for generations: so it was that the
memory of the pious Humphrey earl of Hereford (d. 1361) in Brecon was as a
cross, peevish Old Batchelor and a most miserable Covetous grinding man.
Powerful ladies could also leave behind them a fearsome reputation; none more
so that Joan Beauchamp, lady of Abergavenny (d. 1435). She survived her
husband, Sir William Beauchamp (d. 1411), a cadet member of the Warwick
earls, by twenty-four years and ruled her estates with a rod of iron. She was
after all a daughter of the Fitzalan family, the most successfully entrepreneurial
comital family of fourteenth-century England. Hard-headed and hard-hearted
businesswoman she might have been, but the reputation that she left was
an unpleasantly fearsome one. Adam Usk might have had his own personal
reasons for describing her, memorably, as a second Jezebel; but others shared
his view. The collector of taxes in Worcestershire claimed, no doubt with some
exaggeration, that because of the ill will in which she held him, he dared not
collect the taxes for fear of death!
Men like Adam Usk and the tax collector were under no illusions: lordship,
like kingship, was ultimately intensely personal. Thus when Roger Bigod, earl
of Norfolk, remitted all his rancour and indignation against one of his ofcials
we catch a glimpse of how the lords emotionslike the ira and malevolentia
of Angevin kingshipwere key elements in the exercise of power. We can hear
it likewise in the threatening bluster of the letters of the duke of Buckingham
(d. 1521) to his recalcitrant Welsh tenants. But as with kingship, so with
lordship wilful power could easily destroy itself. That is why Bruce McFarlane
rightly identied affability, however rough as a crucial quality of good and
effective lordship. It could operate in a variety of ways: indulging the selfimportance of local power-brokers, showing the largesse which was at the heart
of good lordship, working with the grain of local society and its anxieties, and
making timely grants and concessions to local communities. In that sense again,
the acts of lordship largely replicated the acts of kingship. Two examples from
the March of Wales may serve to illustrate sensitive lordship at work. In the
mid 1290s, when relationships between Edward I and several leading earls were
Cal. Anc. Pets., 1689.
Quoted in R. R. Davies, Brecon, Boroughs of Medieval Wales, ed. R. A. Grifths (Cardiff,
1978), 4670 at p. 54.
The value of her Welsh estates in 1421 is published in J. A. Bradney, A History of Monmouthshire
from the Coming of the Normans into Wales Down to the Present Time 12 vols. (190433), II, 4 and
that of her English estates in 1426 is in TNA SC 11/25.
Adam Usk, Chronicle, 130, 132; TNA E 28/37/15.
Calendar of Documents Relating to Ireland, ed. H. S. Sweetman, 5 vols. (London, 187586),
II, no. 1875.
The letters are in NLW, Peniarth MS 280 (The Red Booke of Caures Castle).
K. B. McFarlane, England in the Fifteenth Century: Collected Essays with an Introduction by
G. L. Harriss (London, 1981), 253.
43
very strained, the king deliberately set out to try to destabilize the power and
support of Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford (d. 1299) in his great lordship
of Brecon. But the king was outwitted by the earl who summoned the men
of Brecon before his ofcials, conrmed their laws and usages, made further
concessions on forest rights, and used local Welshmen to curry support. The
earl won this propaganda battle hands down: as the royal ofcial was forced to
acknowledge, they were all at one with their lord. This was good lordship at
work. And it was at work from one generation to the next, as the men of Brecon
stood solidly behind the Bohun earls in the various political crises of the next
decades. Just as Earl Humphrey displayed his skill in the arts of good lordship
in the 1290s, so did Roger Mortimer, earl of March (d. 1398) in the 1390s.
Roger Mortimer was but a young man, but he assiduously and successfully
cultivated his support and ties with the men of his extensive estates in Wales
and the Marchemploying them in his service, enlisting them in his armies,
and dispensing ecclesiastical and academic patronage to them. When he was
summoned by the deeply suspicious Richard II to appear before the Shrewsbury
parliament in January 1398, he was rapturously received by his followers and
accompanied by a retinue wearing hoods in his colours of red and green. The
circumstances were, it is true, unusual; but lordship worked through charisma,
display, and reward as well as through bluster and hard-nosed audit. In short, it
was at one level intensely personal and intensely individual.
Given that lordship was personal and that the character of the problems
and opportunities which faced it varied so widely, we might better grasp the
individuality of lord and lordship by brief thumbnail sketches of three of these
great lords. They are not among the best-known magnates of the period, though
their role is well acknowledged within the historiography of their respective
countries. What interests us about them is less the details of their biographies
(those are amply chronicled in The Complete Peerage and in the Oxford Dictionary
of National Biography) than the light they may cast on the varying nature and
very different challenges of lordship in different parts of the British Isles in the
fourteenth century.
Our rst choice is the remarkably long-lived Richard Burgh, earl of Ulster
(d. 1326). He was the descendant of an East Anglian family which had, through
its own prowess and royal support, found fortune and fame in Ireland in the
thirteenth century. He was the second of the family to enjoy the title earl of
Ulster, the only comital title in English Ireland in the late thirteenth century. In
many respects Earl Richard would have been at home in the circle of his fellow
earls in England. He had been nurtured as a lad at Edward Is court and was
Cal. Anc. Corr., 101 (re-dated in Davies, Lordship and Society, 269).
Davies, Lordship and Society, 61; Adam Usk, Chronicle, 38; Wigmore Chronicle in Dugdale,
Monasticon, VI, i, 354.
For Richard de Burgh I have also drawn heavily on G. H. Orpens series of articles on the
earldom of Ulster in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 4351 (191321).
44
Lords and Lordship
referred to affectionately as the kings groom and served in person by the kings
side in the 1280s and 1290s. He enjoyed the cult of chivalry, holding great feasts
and conferring the belt of knighthood. He played his part in English politics
at least occasionally, including standing as one of the guarantors of the treaty
of Leake in 1318. His marriage alliances for his six daughters established links
with some of the premier families of the dayincluding the earls of Gloucester
(Clare) and Carrick (Bruce). On the lowland manors of the Ulster coast and in
Munster he exercised an economic and manorial lordship very similar to that of
the generality of English magnates. Like them, he was a great castle builder and
like them he was expected to make, and normally did make, a major contribution
to the armies of Edward I in Wales, Gascony, and Scotland.
In short, Earl Richard could have hobnobbed comfortably with Earl Thomas
of Lancaster (d. 1322) or Earl Guy of Warwick (d. 1315). But there were
dimensions to his career and to his lordship which set him and his like clearly
apart from them. He belonged also to the world of Ireland in general and of
English Ireland in particular. By the second half of his career about half of Ireland
lay, formally at least, under his rule. His lordship in much of it was very different
from that familiar in most of England (with the possible exception of the far
north). He parleyed with Irish chieftains; deposed Irish kings; collected huge
tributes in cattle from Irish lineages; went regularly on punitive raids, pillaging
and taking hostages. This was a world of war and raids; he who exercised lordship
here did so as a warlord. Earl Richard was almost certainly an Irish speaker and a
patron of Irish bards. He was also the leading magnate in the world of English
Ireland. This was a world which was increasingly different in its political culture
and behaviour from that of aristocratic and royal England. It was a world of
querulous warlords and their retinues (lineages or surnames as they were called).
Navigating survival, let alone mastery, in this world demanded exceptional skills.
Earl Richard used marriage as one of those skills, marrying three of his daughters
to the earls (as they later became) of Louth, Kildare, and Desmond. But marriages
could not defuse all the tensions: Earl Richard found himself in prison twice,
once (12945) in the custody of an arch rival, John Fitz Thomas, and a second
time (1317) because his loyalty was called in question during the invasion of
Edward Bruce (131518), the brother of King Robert I of Scotland.
In short, the powers that Richard Burgh exercised and the very varied contexts
in which he had to operate were a far cry from the world of aristocratic lordship
in England, especially lowland England. There were, of course, continuities from
the one world to the others; but the differences and the complexities were even
greater. The successful exercise of lordship, especially the lordship of the premier
magnates, was proportionately much more critical to the political and social
health of much of Ireland (at least outside the limited, anglicized enclaves) than
it was in England, for Ireland was (in Robin Frames phrase) a patchwork of
lordships. When Earl Richard died in 1326 he was complimented by an Irish
annalist as the best of the Galls (i.e. English) in Ireland; but what truly alarmed
45
contemporaries was the vacuum of lordship that was created by his death. That
alarm turned into reality in 1333 when Earl Richards grandson and heir was
murdered and left no male heir. The effects were catastrophic; it was a crisis
of lordship and therefore of power and order. English Ireland in many respects
never recovered from the blow; that is a measure of how critical to social and
political order was the personality of the lord and the continuity of credible
lordship.
That is also the message of the career of the second great aristocrat, Edmund
Mortimer (d. 1381), earl of March (through the male line) and earl of Ulster (in
respect of his marriage), under consideration here. Whereas Richard Burgh had
lived to a ripe old age (by medieval standards), Earl Edmund was dead by the
age of 29. Yet in his short life Edmund demonstrated the interplay of private
wealth and public service (albeit that the current private/public dichotomy
has limited applicability in a medieval context) in aristocratic society. By the
mid 1370s Earl Edmund was possibly the third- or fourth-richest earl in terms
of territorial wealth in the British Islesoutstripped only by the Black Prince,
John of Gaunt, and possibly the earl of Arundel. Though his mother (who was
to outlive him) retained one-third of the Mortimer lands, he still lorded it over a
huge complex of estates in the March of Wales, the English border shires, several
counties in southern England, and the lordships of Trim and Meath in Ireland.
This inheritance was hugely augmented when he acquired in 13689 through his
wife, Philippa (one of the ultimate heiresses of Earl Richard Burgh and only child
of Lionel, duke of Clarence), vast estates in England and Irelandincluding
the great honour of Clare in East Anglia, manors throughout almost all the
counties of southern England, and the lordships of Ulster and Connacht in
Ireland. Earl Edmund doubtless took an interest in the governance and future
of these estates, as is suggested by the record of the oral instructions he gave to
his chief steward, Sir Peter de la Mare, and the detailed arrangements he made
with trustees regarding the estates in 1374. Much of the detailed running of
the estates was of course left to his council, his strong team of major ofcers
and his talented bevy of legal advisers. The remarkable dossier of documents
which survives from the minority of his son shows how minute and effective
such supervision could be. Even so, the lord no doubt had the last word and the
whole administrative and nancial machine was geared to provide him with the
wherewithal to display his lordship in the public sphere.
The alarmist letter of Thomas Chedworth is published in Documents on the Affairs of Ireland
before the Kings Council, ed. G. O. Sayles (Dublin, 1979), no. 155 and re-dated in Frame, English
Lordship, 356.
For lists of his estates see Holmes, Estates, 1018. The account of his receiver general for
1375 in BL Egerton Roll 8727 gives a conspectus of the English estates in his actual possession at
that date.
Cited above n. 47; Holmes, Estates, 51; Davies, Lordship and Society, 41, n. 25.
Their names can be assembled from BL Egerton Roll 8727.
46
Lords and Lordship
After all, a great and rich aristocrat was expected to play a leading role on the
national stage, unless he was debarred from doing so by illness or some personal
inadequacy. Earl Edmund played his role to the full in the few short years given
to him. He led a military expedition to Brittany in 1375, raising troops for the
purpose from his Welsh estates. His diplomatic skills were honed in embassies to
France and in negotiating with the Scots. His greatest military triumphs came in
Ireland where he served as royal lieutenant from October 1379 and where he met
his death. At last the vacuum of lordship which had so catastrophically followed
the death of Earl Richard de Burghs grandson in 1333 was now lled by an
active, resident lord. It is no surprise that the Wigmore chronicler (in effect the
family annalist) waxed ecstatic about his achievements; but other chronicles in
Ireland and England conrm that he brought almost all that land to peace and
governed it very nobly and wisely. Even if we take such compliments with a
pinch of salt, they remain as a reminder how crucial vigorous personal lordship
could be, not least in Ireland.
Nor did Earl Edmund ignoreyoung as he wasthe heavy responsibilities
which came his way as a premier English earl and the son-in-law of the late
duke of Clarence. He has been credited by historians as being, quite possibly, the
moving spirit behind the political showdown of the Good Parliament in 1376,
possibly operating in liaison with his steward, Sir Peter de la Mare, the Speaker of
the Commons. He was clearly highly regarded by his contemporaries (impressed
possibly both by his wealth and his vigour) as he was appointed a member of the
council created to advise the young Richard II in 1377.
The short career of Earl Edmund reects the very diverse range of activities
which composed the life of the higher aristocracy, especially in England. He was
head of a dynasty and a household; he ruled a vast landed inheritance stretching
from East Anglia through the Welsh March and to the far west of Ireland; he
hired a retinue of key administrators and judges to advise him; he was at the
centre of a powerful network of friends (the bishops of London and Hereford
and the earl of Northumberland were among his executors and retainers); he
raised armies and led campaigns; he served on diplomatic missions; and he did
not ght shy of the treacherous politics of the senility of Edward III and the
minority of Richard II. There were few lessons in the exercise of lordship and
leadership that Earl Edmund had escaped in his short life.
What sort of personal qualities did he have? The ofcial documents and
nancial accounts (including a list of his creditors) do not help us greatly in this
respect. We have to rely instead on his will and stray comments by contemporaries.
His will shows him to be a devoted family man, making very generous provision
The encomium in the Wigmore family chronicle (at f. 57v. of the ms.; see above n. 32) is
omitted in the printed edition in Dugdales Monasticon. For other tributes see Thomas Walsingham,
Historia Anglicana, ed. H. T. Riley, 2 vols. (London, 18634), II, 49; Chartularies of St Marys
Abbey, Dublin, ed. J. T. Gilbert, 2 vols. (London, 18846), II, 285.
47
for his younger son and two daughters. The Wigmore chronicle had good
reason to praise his devoutness, since he had been spectacularly generous to it in
land and ecclesiastical gifts and had personally laid the foundation stone of the
new church there. His piety is borne out by his willin his insistence on a lack of
ostentation at his funeral, his municence to over thirty monasteries and friaries,
and his pride in his collection of relics (including the bone of St Richard Wych
(of Chichester) and the nger of St Thomas Cantilupe). He was an educational
benefactor: Adam Usk, the chronicler, was one of his proteges. His achievements
in Ireland in the last years of his life won unstinting praise from all quarters. All
of this was fairly conventional; but the exceptionally warm tribute paid to him by
the normally restrained Monk of Westminster in his chronicle suggests that he
did indeed stand out for his personal qualities: He was a man of accomplished
manner and easy address, loyal to his kingdom and sustained in his conduct of
affairs by outstanding wisdom [summa prudencia]. In short a lord sans pareil.
The reputation of our third great aristocrat, Archibald third earl of Douglas
(d. 1400) was rather different as his various soubriquetsthe Terrible, the
Grim, the Blacksuggest. He belonged to a family which had risen with
astonishing speed to the very top ranks of the Scottish nobility and as such
presents the remarkable transformation of the higher Scottish aristocracy in the
fourteenth century. The founder of the familys fortune was Archibalds father,
Sir James Douglas (d. 1330), Robert Bruces companion and the hero of John
Barbours epic poem The Bruce, written c.1375. But, as in the histories of all
great families, each new lord had to put the stamp of his own talent on the
familys fortunes if its momentum of success was to be sustained. It was all the
more necessary for Archibald to do so because he was born with the taint of
illegitimacy. Two paths in particular suggested themselves as fast-track routes
to success (as in all aristocratic societies). The rst was service to the king and
the rich rewards it could reap. Archibald secured several such rewards but the
most crucial and easily the most substantial was the grant of Galloway 136972.
He now had an independent regional power base and took the title lord of
Galloway. He could not control or foresee the second route to successthe
death of the senior Douglas line without a direct male heir of the body. But
that is precisely what happened, totally unexpectedly, in 1388, when James, the
second earl of Douglas, was killed in battle. Archibald now claimed to be the
heir to the Douglas earldom and estates (on the basis of an entail made in
1342) and used his political clout to ensure that he succeeded. Exploiting all
opportunities to the full and doing so ruthlessly was a necessary ingredient of
successful lordship.
His will is published in Nichols, Wills, 10417.
The Westminster Chronicle 13811394, ed. L. C. Hector and B. F. Harvey (Oxford, 1982), 23.
Brown, Black Douglases, passim. See also A. Grant, Acts of Lordship: The Records of Archibald,
Fourth Earl of Douglas, in Freedom and Authority: Historical and Historiographical Essays Presented
to Grant G. Simpson, ed. T. Brotherstone and D. Ditchburn (East Linton, 2000), 23574.
48
Lords and Lordship
The relative poverty of late medieval Scottish documentation does not allow
us to characterize the nature of Archibald the Grims lordship in any detail. We
have none of the detailed nancial accounts so common in England, though we
can extrapolate in some measure from the sole surviving rental of another branch
of the Douglas family (that of Dalkeith) for 13767. What we do know is that
by 1400 the Douglas estates were the largest territorial agglomeration in Scotland
south of the Forth. On many of those estates Earl Archibald exercised a range of
powersthrough the grants of regalities by the Scottish kingssuch as virtually
no great aristocrat in England could contemplate. In Galloway in particular he
was not merely landlord and tribute-collector; he was to all intents and purposes
regional governor. It is little wonder that Richard II of England in 1393 opened
negotiations with him directly and spoke of his lands, lordships and subjects.
He enjoyed what contemporaries called the leadership of all the men of his
lands. English lords occasionally referred to their estates as their country, but
rarely, except possibly in the far north, did lordship have as untrammelled a remit
as it did in the great regional lordship of western and northern Scotland.
The ultimate basis and justication of such ample lordship was its capacity
to provide military leadership and protection. This was the source of Archibald
Douglass remarkable power, as it was his explanation of the epithets which were
attached to his name. Like Earl Richard of Ulster, he operated in a land of war. He
was warden of the west march of Scotland for over thirty years; border raids were
his speciality; and he moved around his region with a large military following and
coordinated the military activities of local lairds and their retinues. In short he
was a warlord. The great castle he built at Threave on an island on the Dee, with
its seventy-foot high tower, proclaimed to all and sundry, and most immediately
the men of Galloway, that might, military might, lay at the heart of lordship.
Lords saw themselvesand indeed justied their poweras a warrior caste,
the bellatores. Archibald the Grim met that criterion handsomely. In worldly
prudence, courage and boldness, said Walter Bower of him, he excelled the other
Scots of his day. Archibald operated in a Scottish context and the nature of
his lordship and leadership was grounded in that context. Lordship always takes
on the colour of the social and geographical landscape in which it operates. But
Archibald the Grimlike Richard Burgh and Edmund Mortimerbelonged
to a wider, aristocratic, chivalric world and was proud of it. He had fought
at Poitiers; he had gone on diplomatic missions to France and a pilgrimage to
St Denys; he knew the world of knightings and joustings as well as that of border
raids; Jean Froissart himself may well have met him when he stayed with his
cousin, the rst earl of Douglas, at Dalkeith in the 1360s. His son was granted
the title Duke of Touraine, Lieutenant-General of France.
Mort. Reg., I, pp. xlvii et seq.
There is a helpful map of his landed interests in Brown, Black Douglases, 967.
Quoted ibid., 87.
Quoted in Nicholson, Scotland, 220.)
49
Richard Burgh, Edmund Mortimer, Archibald Douglas were but three (chosen
more or less at random) of the great lords of the British Isles in the fourteenth
century. Despite the differences in their circumstances, they were members of a
common aristocratic world. They shared, metaphorically and probably literally,
its language; they moved in the same social circles and partook, broadly, of the
same sets of values, anxieties, and ambitions; they cultivated the memories of
their families in much the same way; they saw themselves as members of a warrior
elite and most of them tried to play their part as such. Above all, from our point
of view, they were all lords and exercised, and believed that they had the right
to exercise, lordship. It is the many and very varied ways in which lordship was
displayed and exercised which is the theme of the following chapters.
For the English nobility, J. S. Bothwell, Falling from Grace: Reversal of Fortune and
the English Nobility, 10751455 (Manchester, 2008). For Edward IIIs establishment of new earldoms in 1337, J. S. Bothwell, Edward III and the English Peerage:
Royal Patronage, Social Mobility and Political Control in Fourteenth-Century England (Woodbridge, 2004) and more generally M. Prestwich, Plantagenet England,
12251360 (Oxford, 2005), ch. 13. For the situation in Scotland, A. D. M. Barrell, Medieval Scotland (Cambridge, 2000), ch. 7; M. Penman, David II, 132971
(East Linton, 2004).
For the end of pan-British landholding, B. Hartland, Vancouleurs, Ludlow and
Trim: The Role of Ireland in the Career of Geoffrey de Geneville (c.12261314),
IHS, 32 (2001); B. Hartland, Reasons for Leaving: The Effects of Conict on
English Landholding in Late Thirteenth-Century Leinster, Journal of Medieval
History, 32 (2006); M. Morris, The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth
Century (Woodbridge, 2005), chs. 4 and 5; R. M. Blakely, The Brus Family in
England and Scotland, 11001295 (Woodbridge, 2005), ch. 5; A. J. Macdonald,
Kings of the Wild Frontier? The Earls of Dunbar or March, c.10701435, in
The Exercise of Power in Medieval Scotland, c.12001500, ed. S. Boardman and
A. Ross (Dublin, 2003).
For heraldry in Scotland, B. McAndrew, Scotlands Historic Heraldry (Woodbridge, 2006). For the role of noblewomen in propagating aristocratic identity,
L. L. Gee, Women, Art and Patronage from Henry III to Edward III, 12161377
(Woodbridge, 2002). For the Hastings family and its monuments, P. Lord, The
Visual Culture of Wales: Medieval Vision (Cardiff, 2003), ch. 2, and for the Despensers and Tewksbury abbey, M. Lawrence, Secular Patronage and Religious
Devotion: The Despensers and St Marys Abbey, Tewksbury, in Fourteenth
Century England V, ed. N. Saul (Woodbridge, 2008). For the Wigmore abbey
50
Lords and Lordship
chronicle, C. Given-Wilson, Chronicles of the Mortimer Family, c.12501450,

in Family and Dynasty in Late Medieval England, ed. R. Eales and S. Tyas (Donington, 2003), and for English family chronicles more generally, C. Given-Wilson,
Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England (London, 2004), ch. 4.
For continued aristocratic patronage of monasteries, K. Stober, Late Medieval
Monasteries and their Patrons: England and Wales, c.13001540 (Woodbridge,
2007), and for the nobility and the church in general, R. Marks, Image and
Devotion in Late Medieval England (Stroud, 2004). For the Buke of the Howlat,
N. Royan, Mark your Meroure be Me: Richard Hollands Buke of the Howlat, in A Companion to Medieval Scottish Poetry, ed. P. Bawcutt and J. Hadley
Williams (Woodbridge, 2006).
For the keeping of records by the aristocracy see Catalogue of Medieval Muniments
at Berkeley Castle, ed. B. Wells-Furby. Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological
Society vols. 17 and 18 (Bristol, 2004); N. Ramsay, Archive Books, in The
Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. Volume II, 11001400, ed. N. Morgan
and R. Thomson (Cambridge, 2008). For the phenomenon in Gaelic Scotland,
S. Boardman, The Campbells and Charter Lordship in Medieval Argyll, in
The Exercise of Power in Medieval Scotland, c.12001500, ed. S. Boardman
and A. Ross (Dublin, 2003). For Brittany, M. Jones, Memory, Invention and
the Breton State: The First Inventory of the Ducal Archives (1395) and the
Beginnings of Montfort Historiography, Journal of Medieval History, 33 (2007).
For Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster, R. Frame, Historians, Aristocrats and
Plantagenet Ireland, 12001360, in War, Government and Aristocracy in the
British Isles c.11501500: Essays in Honour of Michael Prestwich, ed. C. GivenWilson, A. Kettle, and L. Scales (Woodbridge, 2008). For Edmund Mortimer,
A. Dunn, Richard II and the Mortimer Inheritance, in Fourteenth Century
England II, ed. C. Given-Wilson (Woodbridge, 2002). For the earls of Arundel,
M. Burtscher, The Fitzalans: Earls of Arundel and Surrey, Lords of the Welsh
Marches (12671415) (Logaston, 2008). For contemporary criticism of lordship
in Ireland, B. Smith, Colonisation and Conquest in Medieval Ireland: The English
in Louth, 11701330 (Cambridge, 1999), ch. 6.
APPENDIX
The Comital and Ducal Families of England, Scotland,

and Ireland
These tables have the very limited purpose of indicating the survival, extinction in the
direct male line of the body, succession through females or by males not of the direct
line of the body, and the recruitment of members of the royal family among the ranks
of comital and ducal families in England, Scotland, and English Ireland 12801420.
Multiple comital and/or ducal titles held by individuals are also indicated wherever
possible. The following caveats in particular need to be borne in mind:
1. The choice of twenty-year intervals is arbitrary and can conceal important changes
between those intervals.
2. Minorities, widowhoods, and succession through females are often not fully or
adequately represented in the tables.
3. For reasons of space, shorthand entries (e.g. Bohun, Stewart, Fitz Gerald) may well
conceal several different members of the same family over several generations.
4. Several complex or contested successions (especially for Scottish earldoms) have had
to be simplied or overlooked. Others are uncertain. Full details and corrections are
available in The Complete Peerage and other standard works of reference.
The following abbreviations are used:
Numbers in brackets after a name indicate multiple titles held by individuals, e.g. sub
England, Bohun (12,15) = the earls of Hereford also held the title of earl of Essex
Date (where known) of the extinction of a family in the direct, male line of the body
(or by resignation of the current title-holder)
Succession through collateral male relative of title-holder, e.g. brother, nephew, uncle
Succession through female
First-generation member of royal family
Table 1. England
Comital/Ducal
Title
1280
1. Arundel
2. Aumale
1300
1320
1340
1360
1380
1400
Fitzalan
Fitzalan
Fitzalan
Fitzalan
Fitzalan (35)
Fitzalan
3. Bedford
4. Buckingham
5. Cambridge
6. Chester
(king)
(king)
Edward s.
of Edward II
Wm of Juliers
Wm of Juliers
Ed. Black
Prince (8)
Black
Prince (8)
Black
Prince (6)
Lionel
1368
Black
Prince (6)
7. Clarence
8. Cornwall
Edmund of
Cornwall
Edmund of
Cornwall
9. Derby
Henry of
Lancaster
(19,2022)
10. Devon
11. Dorset
Courtenay
12. Essex
13. Exeter
Bohun (15)
Bohun (15)
Bohun (15)
Henry of
Lancaster
1361
(19,2022)
Courtenay
Thomas of
Woodstock
(14,11)
Edmund of
Langley (39)
(king)
(king)
Edward of
York 1415
Henry of
Monmouth
(8)
Henry of
Monmouth
(6)
1420
Thomas of
Lancaster (7)
John, d. of
(29)
(king)
Thomas of
Lancaster (2)
(king)
Henry
Bolingbroke
Courtenay
Courtenay
Courtenay
Beaufort
1420
Bohun (15)
1361
Beaufort
14. Gloucester
Clare (16)
[Montherner]
15. Hereford
Bohun (12)
Bohun (12)
16. Hertford
17. Huntingdon
18. Kent
Clare (14)
[Monthermer]
Thomas of
Lancaster (20)
20. Leicester
Edmund
Crouchback
(20)
Edmund (19)
21. Lincoln
Lacy
Lacy 1311
19. Lancaster
Thomas (19)
Bohun (12)
1336
Thomas of
Lancaster
(20,21)
Thomas
(19,21)
1347
Bohun (12)
Clinton
1354
John of
Woodstock
1352
Henry of
Lancaster
(20,21)
Henry (19)
Thos. of
Lancaster
(19,20)
22. March
23. Norfolk
(custody)
Bigod
24. Northampton
25. Northumberland
26. Nottingham
27. Oxford
Vere
Bigod 1306
Thos. of
Brotherton
1334
Margaret
Vere
his
Bohun (12)
1361
Holland
Holland
Black
Vere
Holland
Holland
Holland
Prince
John
of Gaunt
(9,20,21)
John of
Gaunt (9,19
21)
Henry of
John of
Grosmont
Gaunt
(19,20) 1361 (9,19,20)
Mortimer
Mortimer
(minority)
Margaret
Margaret
Mowbray
Percy
Percy
Mowbray
1383
Vere
Mowbray (26) Mowbray (26)
Henry of
Grosmont
(20,21) 1361
Henry 1361
(19,21)
daughter
Bohun jr
Vere
Humphrey,
duke (28)
Audley
1399
Mortimer
1425
1405 (26)
Bohun jr
1360
Vere
Vere
Percy
Vere
Table 1. continued
Comital/Ducal
Title
1280
1300
1320
1340
1360
1380
28. Pembroke
?Valence
?Valence
Valence
1324
Hastings
Hastings
Hastings
1387
29. Richmond
John of
Brittany
John of
Brittany
John of
Brittany
1334
John of
Brittany
1334
John of Gaunt J. de Montfort

1399
30. Rutland
31. Salisbury
32. Somerset
33. Stafford
34. Suffolk
35. Surrey
36. Warwick
37. Westmoreland
38. Worcester
39. York
Montague
Warenne
Warenne
Warenne
Ufford
Warenne
1347
Beauchamp
Beauchamp
(Beauchamp)
Beauchamp
Montague
Montague
1397
Stafford
Ufford
Stafford
Ufford 1382
Fitzalan (1)
Beauchamp
Beauchamp
1400
1420
Humphrey d.
of Gloucester
(14)
John duke
of Bedford
(29)
Edward of
York 1415
Montague
Beaufort
Stafford
de la Pole
Holland
Fitzalan (1)
1415
Beauchamp
Neville
Percy jnr
1403
Edmund of
Langley (5)
Montague
1428
( )
Stafford
de la Pole
Beauchamp
Neville
Table 2. Scotland
Comital/Ducal 1280
Title
1300
1320
1340
1360
Umfraville
(Umfraville)

(Umfraville)
Stewart
(Umfraville)
Stewart
Strathbogie
(Strathbogie)

(Strathbogie)
Douglas
(Strathbogie)
1369
1380
1. Albany
2. Angus
Umfraville
3. Atholl
4. Buchan
Comyn
Comyn 1308
5. Caithness
John
Magnus
6. Carrick
Magnus
1284
Bruce
Bruce
7. Crawford
8. Douglas
9. Dunbar
Dunbar
Dunbar
10. Fife
Duncan
Duncan
Duncan
11. Lennox
12. Mar
13. March
14. Menteith
Malcolm
William
See Dunbar
Malcolm
Donald
Malcolm
Donald
Donald
Thomas
Alexander
Murdoch
( Mary?)
( Margaret)
(Beaumont)
(Umfraville)
1403
Margaret
Stewart
Stewart
Stewart
(19)
Stewart
Douglas
Dunbar
1368
?Isabella
Douglas 1388
Dunbar
1400
1420
Stewart
(4,10,14)
Douglas
Stewart
(10,14)
Douglas
Stewart
6, 18 1402
Stewart
Stewart (17)
1424
Stewart
Euphemia
Stewart
Stewart (3,18)
1402
Crawford
Crawford
Douglas
Douglas
Dunbar
Dunbar
Stewart
(1,14)
Margaret
( Douglas)
Stewart
(Isabel)
Stewart
Stewart
(1,14)
Stewart
Stewart
Duncan
Stewart
Duncan
Table 2. continued
Comital/Ducal 1280
Title
1300
15. Moray
16. Orkney
1320
1340
1360
1380
1400
1420
Randolph
Randolph
1346
Dunbar
Dunbar
Dunbar
Dunbar
Sinclair
Sinclair
Sinclair 1424
( Euphemia)
Leslie
Stewart 1424
1368
Held jointly
with Caithness
until c.1350
William
17. Ross
William
William
William
1372
18. Rothesay
19. Strathearn
Malise
Malise
Malise
( )
Stewart
Stewart (5)
20. Sutherland
21. Wigtown
William
William
William
William
William
Fleming
Douglas
1402
Stewart (3,6)
1402
( Euphemia
Stewart)
Graham
Table 3. English Ireland

Comital Title
1. Desmond (created
1329)
2. Kildare (created
1316)
3. Louth (created
1319)
4. Ormond (created
1328)
5. Ulster (created
1205)
1280
1300
1320
Fitz Gerald
1340
1360
1380
1400
1420
Fitz Gerald
Fitz Gerald
Fitz Gerald
Fitz Gerald
( )
Fitz Gerald
Fitz Gerald
Fitz Gerald
Fitz Gerald 1432
( )
Butler
Butler
Butler
Butler
( Elizabeth)
Lionel of
Clarence
Mortimer
(Mortimer)
Mortimer 1425
Bermingham
1329
de Burgh
de Burgh
de Burgh
2
Display and Magnicence
The medieval aristocracy lived a life of ostentatious display. From the moment
of their birth to the day of their intermentand indeed even beyond that
point, since commemorative rituals were part of the cult of perpetuating their
memoriesnobles participated in, and were at the centre of, a theatrical round
of display and celebration. Their residences and lifestyle set them apart; so
did their troupes of servants, retainers, and guests. Conspicuous display and
conspicuous expenditure were not optional extras; they were at the very heart of
contemporary notions of lordship. If a lord was to earn the worship of followers
and dependants he must do so recurrently by displaying his pre-eminence and by
parading his largesse, and by doing so publicly. That is why social commentators
in the later Middle Ages deplored the growing tendency of the nobility to
withdraw into their chambers rather than conduct their domestic lives in public.
More comfortable and intimate such private living might have been; but it
weakened the necessary visibility and public impressiveness of lordship. Robert
Grosseteste had put the point forcefully in his famous advice to nobles in the
mid thirteenth century: you yourself be seated at all times in the middle of the
high table, so that your presence as lord and lady be made manifest to all. It
was in that fashion, he added, and by having a well-drilled staff of servants, that
the lord would earn great fear and reverence. Fear, reverence, worship were
central concepts in the cult or lordship; they were inculcated and sustained by a
constant and visible emphasis on the superiority and apartness of lordship.
Greater lords needed to be set apart from the generality of lords (domini) in
a variety of ways. One was by the bestowal or appropriation of exclusive titles.
By the fteenth century the higher echelons of the aristocracy had developed a
suite of honoric titlesbaron, earl, marquis, viscount, dukewhich declared
terminologically the distance between them and the rest of knightly and gentle
society. It was part of the process of stratication (to borrow McFarlanes phrase)
and increasing social exclusivity which characterizes the later Middle Ages. Of
these labels of superiority, earl was much the oldest. It was in origin no more
than a term for a man of high birth; but in the limited fashion it was employed
and conferred in England after the Norman conquest it became, and remained,
Walter of Henley and other Treatises on Estate Management and Accounting, ed. D. M. Oschinsky
(Oxford, 1971), 403.
59
a very restricted and singular honour. At no time between 1100 and 1300
was the title borne by more than twenty-ve men at any given time. In fact
such gures were rarely achieved. The number of earls dwindled steadily across
the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries; by 1300 the title was reserved for
eleven men (albeit several of them holding more than one earldom). Earls were
the crème de la crème of the higher aristocracy, their honoric titles setting
them clearly apart from, and above, the rest of the aristocracy. The other
honoric titlebaronhad undergone a rather similar evolution. Originally
in the Norman period it was a term used to refer simply and generically to
the leading vassals and followers of great lords. During the thirteenth century,
however, it began to acquire connotations of social exclusivity and superiority
and shed its feudal connections. Ambitious lords adopted and aunted the term
baronfor example the baron of Staffordto indicate the social and status
distance between themselves and lesser lords. Combined as it wasor frequently
came to bewith an individual summons to parliament, the baronage became
in effect a titled nobility, a grade within the peerage. Richard II acknowledged
the transformation in 1387 when he raised his condant, John Beauchamp, and
the male heirs of his body to the status and title of lord of Beauchamp and baron
of Kidderminster by letters patent.
Earl and baron were at least old terms, albeit that they had now become
more exclusive in their usage. But the search for an exclusive social terminology
for the higher aristocracyillustrious personages as Edward III termed them
when he created a batch of six new earls in 1337was not satised by these
two well-established labels. In that very year 1337 the title of duke was conferred
for the rst time, on the kings eldest son, Edward. It was a title largely reserved
for members of the royal family; but already in 1351 it was bestowed on a
non-royal peer when Henry, earl of Lancaster, was promoted to be duke of the
same county. The title of duke remained a rare privilege: only forty-ve dukes
were created 13371500 and even the extravagant Richard II limited ducal
creations during his reign to nine (including promoting Margaret Marshal from
countess to duchess of Norfolk). Typically it was Richard II who also introduced
a novel rank in the English peerage when in 1385 he created his favourite,
Robert de Vere, marquis of Dublin. But it was not to be a rank or title which
found favour in England. Indeed in 1399 John Beaufort declined to resume
the title of marquis of Dorset because, in his own words, the title of marquess
was a strange title in this realm. The same fate was to befall the nal title of
honourviscountwhich was rst bestowed in 1440. What this proliferation
and renement of titles indicates is the growing habit of the higher aristocracy
to demarcate itself terminologically from the rest of noble society and, then, to
introduce a hierarchy of titles even within its own restricted ranks. Disputes about
Crouch, Image of the Aristocracy, 4183.
Ibid., 10710.
Rot. Parl. III, 488. [See now, PROME VIII, 1645.]
60
Lords and Lordship
precedenceon such issues as seating arrangementswere bound to follow.

What could not now be doubted was that England had a graduated peerage,
demarcated institutionally and terminologically from the rest of noble society.
This was part of the cult of apartness of the higher aristocracy.
Titles were for the king to bestow, and withhold; that was a reminder that
aristocratic society, especially in England and English Ireland, was kingshipfocussed and kingship-dominated. The general, though not universal, custom in
England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was that the title of earl could
not be assumed (even where the hereditary descent was clear) without a formal
process of investiture with sword and belt by the king. This was to remain clearly
the practice with regard to new creations in the later Middle Ages. Thus on
6 April 1385, Richard II created Michael de la Pole earl of Suffolk and girded him
with the sword. Creations could be conditional: thus when Thomas Beaufort
was promoted from earl of Dorset to be duke of Exeter in November 1416, it
was specically stated that the latter dignity was to be his for life only. Royal
largesse could bestow, but royal spleenor niggardlinesscould also withhold.
Hugh Courtenay knew that all too well. He had succeeded his father in 1292;
in the following year he became technically the heir of the countess of Devon
and Aumale. But Edward Is ambitions thwarted any expectations he may have
entertained, and he had to wait over forty years, until 1335, before he was
eventually accorded the title of earl of Devon.
The royal will could make, and unmake, the titled nobility; it did so regularly.
But even the royal will had to operate within a framework within which the
recognition of aristocratic power and the assumption of heritability of honours as
well as of land were well-established norms. So it was that the presumption that
honoric titlessuch as earl or baronwere hereditary in character increasingly
established itself, much in the same way (as we have seen) that individual
summonses to parliament became increasingly hereditary within families. The
practice with regard to succession to earldoms is particularly revealing in this
respect. For most of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the heir to an earldom
did not succeed to the dignity of earl until he had been ceremoniously girded
with the sword of the county. The ceremony was a reminder that earldoms
were royal creations and that indeed they had an ofcial responsibility, at least
historically, for the administration of the county with which their names were
associated. The last known occasion when the heir to an earldom was girded
with the sword of the county was in 1272, when Edward I invested his cousin,
Edmund of Almaine, with the earldom of Cornwall. Earldoms in England can
be said to be from that date formally hereditary. It is a reminder that the nexus
of power in later medieval monarchies (including England and Scotland) was
composed of a delicate and nuanced balance between royal will and aristocratic
ambition.
GEC IV, Appendix H.
61
Earldoms may have become hereditary; but the scope for royal creation and
intervention, and therewith for lavish ceremonies to display the royal municence
to all the world, was still ample. Kings could and did decide regularly on disputed
or ambiguous succession; they could show favour to the non-comital husband of
a comital or ducal heiress; they could create a batch of new titles (as Edward III
did in 1337 or Richard II in 1397); they could promote men from one rank to
another within the peerage. All these were occasions when king and magnates
could display their love of pomp and ceremony to the full. No one excelled
Edward III as the master of such ceremonies. When he created his second and
third sons dukes of Lancaster and Clarence respectively on 13 November 1362
he did so in the full publicity of parliament, girding them with a sword and
conferring fur-trimmed caps and coronets on them. The Scottish kings soon
picked up the title and the ceremony as means of entrenching the house of Stewart
visually and honorically at the apex of aristocratic society. King Robert III chose
the monastery of Scone as the venue in April 1398 for elevating his son and
brother to be dukes of Rothesay and Albany. He decorated them and bestowed
fur mantles on them solemnly along with other insignia appropriate only for
dukes. Medieval society exulted in the visual; nothing demonstrated better its
love of display and its cult of calibrated social and honoric hierarchies than the
ceremonies which set the titled nobility apart from the rest of society, including
gentle society.
This cult of exclusivity was also paraded in the formal titles and addresses
of the aristocracy. As titles aggregated in fewer hands, their style became a roll
call of the multiple sources of their power. So it was that Henry of Grosmont
(d. 1361) aunted the title duke of Lancaster, earl of Derby, Lincoln and
Leicester, steward of England, and lord of Bergerac and Beaufort. Even more
striking were the epithets of power and superiority which came to characterize
their correspondence. Thus noble, powerful, and valiant (strenuus) were the
adjectives which the countess of Pembroke in 1368 deployed to describe her
husband, John Hastings. Similar terms of attery and respect were used to
address Scottish earls: noble and powerful lord, most revered prince, noble
and powerful and dread lord. Addresses outbid each other in the grovelling
formulae they used: To the magnicent, noble and powerful lord, Alexander
Stewart, earl of Buchan, lord of Ross and Badenoch, lieutenant of the lord
our king and justiciar in the land north of the river Forth. There seems to
be an undoubted ination in the language of deference across our period and
the greater aristocracy were its prime beneciaries. So it was, for example, in
1422 that a Wiltshire man in making a grant felt obliged to have it conrmed
Registrum Episcopatus Moraviensis, ed. C. Innes (Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh 1833), no. 303.
For the will of Agnes Hastings, 1368, see Registrum Simonis de Langham Cantuariensis
Archiepiscopi, ed. A. C. Wood (CYS, Oxford, 1956), 3445. For Lancaster, Nichols, Wills, 83;
Mort. Reg., II, nos. 109, 129, 162, 180; Moray Reg., 1678.
62
Lords and Lordship
by the seals of my most dread lords (metuendissimorum dominorum meorum),

the earls of March, Devon and Salisbury. This ination of terms of deference
continued to soar, as the higher nobility were greeted as right high and mighty
prince. As the usage of the word prince suggests, one of the consequences
of the ination of the language of deference was the need to calibrate further
the gradations of power and honour within the elite itself. Princes of the
royal blood were in particular anxious to stress that they belonged to a superleague even within the higher aristocracy. So it was that John of Gaunt, as
duke of Lancaster and the surviving eldest son of Edward III, exacted the most
demeaning submission from Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, in November
1381. Percy was required to acknowledge Gaunt as the greatest lord and highest
person of the realm. We might dismiss such attering references as formulaic
and hyperbolic; but that would be to miss their point. They were part of the
terminology of exclusivity and superiority; they proclaimed to the world the
reputation and eminence of their bearers. Thus when Alexander Stewart earl of
Mar (by marriage) died in 1435 he was appropriately memorialized as a man
of great wealth and lavish expenditure, holder of a celebrated name, the object
of much talk in distant places. Nobility had to be seen, acknowledged, and
paraded.
Great wealth lavishly and proudly displayed was one of the hallmarks of
lordship. Consumption, expenditure, largesse were essential manifestations of a
hierarchy of status. Nothing less was expected. It is true that, at lifes end or in
moments of spiritual introspection, doubts might creep in as to the propriety
of such practices. Duke Henry of Lancaster (d. 1361) in his spiritual selfexamination, Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines, aired his conscience on the matter.
The pious bachelor Earl Humphrey of Hereford (d. 1361) went further. In
his will he instructed that all those jewels which we have delighted to look at
during our lifetime should be sold and the money so raised used for alms. Earl
Humphreys conscience was particularly tender for he instructed his executors to
spend a further ten thousand marks (6,666 13s. 4d .), by the advice of friars, in
chantries and works of charity. The nobility was extravagant in all that it did:
in alms-giving and bequests as much as in lifestyle. But extravagance of remorse
could not conceal or undo the fact that extravagance of display lay at the heart
of lordship.
It manifested itself in a whole variety of ways, which will only be touched
upon cursorily here and to some of which we will return later. Fine and expensive
Sir Christopher Hattons Book of Seals, ed. L. C. Lloyd and D. M. Stenton (Oxford, 1950),
no. 31.
Reg. JG, II, no. 1243.
Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, VIII, 293.
Nichols, Wills. Most of the wills cited in this chapter are to be found in published form in
either Nichols, Wills or, very abbreviated, in Test. Vet. Individual citations are not normally given
below unless the will in question is quoted from another source.
63
dress was a striking way of setting the aristocracy apart. The quality of the
various cloth, silks, and ne linens from which their clothes were cut was of the
nest and made even ner for the eye by being studded with brocade, jewels,
and gold and silver embroidery. Henry Bolingbroke as earl of Derby kept his
tailor employed for 244 days on end in October 1387June 1388 in the lords
wardrobe at London preparing the earls clothes. A single outt might cost a
substantial sum: 13 6s. was spent on one outt (including gold cloth and lined
with fur) for the young earl of March (d. 1398) in 1393 and a further 9 for gold
cloth decorated with golden lions for the earl and George Felbrigg, one of his
condants. Figures of this order are in no way exceptional. And as the example
of Felbrigg suggests, the lords extravagance in dress extended to encompass his
servants, retainers, and followers, dressed in his own livery. The strain that such
sartorial display placed on seigniorial nances is amply illustrated in household
accounts. The account of the clerk of the great wardrobe of Henry Bolingbroke
for 13956 may serve as an illustration: of total expenditure (exclusive of the
costs of Henrys children) of 791, drapery accounted for 73, mercery 219,
furs and pelts 146, and goldsmith work 70. At the end of the account is a
list of the rich London merchants who proted from Henrys extravagance. The
wealth and commerce of London underpinned the ability of aristocratic lordship
to display its power and largesse.
Aristocratic wealth was, of course, displayed in many other forms. Their
residences and parks were a manifestation of their apartness; so were their
lifestyles and leisure activities. To these we will return. For those admitted to
their halls and houses, their tapestries and hangings, their coffers and beds, their
rich ecclesiastical vestments and items of their chapels all proclaimed their wealth
and apartness. The care with which individual items were described in their wills
or listed in their inventories or catalogued by royal commissioners (as happened
to the personal effects of Thomas, duke of Gloucester (d. 1397) at his house
in London and residence at Pleshy in Essex) reveal the delight they took in
their household goods, especially those with strong family associations. Roger
Mortimer, rst earl of March (d. 1330) was the proud owner of a white bed
of buckram powdered with butteries (butteries seem to have been a favourite
motif in the decor of his home); Elizabeth de Burgh, lady of Clare (d. 1360)
and one of the co-heiresses of the earldom of Gloucester, drew up a detailed list
of her cutlery, plates, saucers, pots, and so forth in 1332, noting which were
See most recently F. Lachaud, Dress and Social Status in England before the Sumptuary
Laws, in Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England, ed. P. Coss and M. Keen
(Woodbridge, 2003), 10523.
TNA DL 28/1/2 f.17v (Henry Bolingbroke); BL Egerton Rolls 8740 (Mortimer); W. P.
Baildon, A Wardrobe Account of 1617 Richard II, 13934, Archaeologia, 62 (1911), 497514,
at p. 508 (Mortimer, but wrongly ascribed to Richard II); TNA DL 28/1/5 (Bolingbrokes great
wardrobe account).
CIM 13929, no. 372; Viscount Dillon and W. J. St. John Hope, Inventory of the
Goods . . . of Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, Archaeological Journal, 54 (1897), 275311.
64
Lords and Lordship
marked with her arms; while Edmund Mortimer, earl of March (d. 1381) took
the trouble to describe a salt cellar in the shape of a lion and another in the shape
of a dog in his will. (Salts were high-prestige objects and were placed at the
lords right hand on the table.) Examples such as these abound; they reect the
delight in the visual and in items of opulence.
A delight in sumptuous clothes, rich furnishings, and valuable household
goods was not, of course, conned to the higher aristocracy; but in a strictly
hierarchical society there was, and was expected to be, a correlation between
opulence, wealth, and status. It was for that very reason that contemporaries
believed that an earl, for example, should have sufcient income in lands and
wealtha competence as they termed itto sustain his status and lifestyle.
Hence they set the minimum yearly competence for an earl at a thousand
marks (666 13s. 4d .). But there were also insignia which set the greater
aristocracy apart. Coronets increasingly gure in the historical evidence in the
fourteenth century and not only for royal dukes: the earl of Arundel in his
will in 1376 left his best coronet (which suggests that he had several) to his
son, and the earl of March in 1381 left a particularly splendid coronet adorned
with jewellery and pearls to his daughter, and referred to another coronet with
roses. On what occasions such coronets might with propriety be worn is not
altogether clear; but their very existence is another indication of the ination of
splendour and apartness in the ranks of the greater nobility. So likewise were
the banners which had long since been one of the signs of aristocratic status:
the Mowbray earl of Norfolk (d. 1432) commissioned a painter to prepare
nine pennons and twenty standards of worsted of the arms of Mowbray in
1415 as well as a trapper for the earls horse displaying the arms of Marshal,
Segrave, Mowbray, and Braose (all of them families from whom John Mowbray
could claim descent). He also spent 10 on eight tunics for his herald of
arms. Heraldsalong with henchmen, pursuivants, and sword-bearerswere
among the personnel who helped to proclaim the distinctiveness and splendour
of the aristocratic menage to the world as it progressed across the county
and attended jousts and tournaments. Edmund Mortimer (d. 1381) rewarded
his herald of arms, naming him March, with the not inconsiderable fee of
ten marks annually. John of Gaunt was regularly attended by a troupe of
heralds, especially on major social occasions such as the feast of Epiphany or at
jousts.
Aristocratic power and apartness were not only displayed in sumptuousness of
dress and lifestyle but also in the power of command their holder could exercise
over his followers. This is a topic already alluded to above and to which we will
GEC, IX, 284, n. (f.); J. Ward, English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages (Harlow, 1992),
81; will of Edmund Mortimer in Nichols, Wills.
*Berkeley Castle MSS., account of Receiver-General of the Earl Marshal 141415.
CPR 13815, 156; BL Egerton Roll 8734; Reg. JG, II, nos. 327, 556 (p. 180), 803 (p. 259).
65
return below. A lords standing was measured not only in wealth and estates
but in the depth and extent of the numbers whom he attracted, directly or
indirectly, into his service and following, be it as servants, dependants, clients,
or retainers. Both parties wished this relationship to be celebrated publicly so
that all the world could take note of it, and there was no better way of doing so
than by the distribution of livery, collars and badges bearing the lords colours
or insignia. The evidence is abundant. Thus when Sir Adam Swillington entered
the service of Thomas earl of Lancaster (d. 1322) in 1317 with ten men, of
whom three were to be knights, it was stipulated that when Swillington came at
the earls beck to parliament or other assemblies, his knights should be dressed
in the earls robes. Wearing the lords livery was a sure indication of personal
commitment, as the supporters of the duke of Gloucester and the earls of Arundel
and Warwick in autumn 1397 found to their cost when Richard II staged his
coup against them. Livery badges and collarssuch as the famous Lancastrian
linked Swere increasingly popular ways of displaying the bond between lord
and follower; they were at once badges of honour and badges of service. And at
moments of high political drama a lord might distribute a distinctive uniform
even more generally to followers who were not tied to him by any formal or
permanent bond. When Earl Roger of March (d. 1398) returned from Ireland
to the highly charged political atmosphere in England in early 1398, a vast
crowd of supporters, wearing hoods in his colours of red and green, went out to
meet him.
Robes, liveries, badges and collars have, of course, long gured prominently
in the historiography of the later medieval aristocracy; but perhaps they have
too often been packaged as part of the analysis of bastard feudalism and
marshalled in arguments about the loyalty (or otherwise) of dependants and
retainers. These are clearly valid and rewarding approaches; but it could be
that academic historianswho lead lives of cloistered routine and studied
understatementunderestimate the calculated dazzle, the visual theatre, and the
semiotics of material wealth and display which were at the heart of aristocratic,
as of royal, power. Nobles strove to impress in a whole host of ways. It was
not without reason that the public venue of the lords living was known as the
domus magnicencie, the household of magnicence (as opposed to the domus
providencie, the household below stairs). Great magnates, like kings, held courts
splendidly, especially at the high religious festivals of Christmas, Easter, and
Whitsun, and doubtless invited large numbers of guests to attend. Richard earl of
Gloucester (d. 1262) held court in a particularly splendid manner near Gloucester
in 1248; while the earls of Warwick, according to tradition, celebrated the high
feasts successively at Warwick castle, their hunting lodge at Sutton Coldeld, and
Private Indentures, no. 24; Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 41.
CPR 13969, 1378; Walker, Lancastrian Afnity, 946.
Adam Usk, Chronicle, 389; Dugdale, Monasticon, VI, i, 354.
66
Lords and Lordship
Claverdon and Tamworth in Arden. The Anglo-Irish magnates followed suit

especially when they came to Dublin: in 1329 the city was overwhelmed with
high living as the earl of Desmond gave a great feast in St Patricks cathedral,
the earl of Ulster in the castle, and the justiciar at Kilmainham. These were
acts of gastronomic propagandadisplaying largesse and winning hearts and
minds through social attery. The numbers involved could be very large: it was
calculated that even a second-rank lord, Thomas Berkeley (d. 1361), fed at least
300 persons each day at his table. Nor was it merely a matter of numbers; it
also involved sensitive calculations as to who was invited to sit where and what
number of dishes they were, or were not, served. Thus when Philip Darcy agreed
to serve Henry, earl of Lancaster (d. 1345) in 1327, it was stipulated that he and
his men of arms would eat in the lords hall (mangerount en sale).
What is striking about these various aristocratic activities is the calculated care
and strict etiquette which governed them. Much of it was no doubt formal but
all of it, consciously or otherwise, was meant to redound to the lords honour
and reputation and to afrm, and conrm, the social hierarchy over which he
ruled. Events were conducted with calculated publicity. Thus when Sir Adam
Swillington (see above) swore to be a good and loyal retainer of Earl Thomas
of Lancaster in 1317, he took his oath on the Gospels in the presence of the
said earl and of bannerets and other bachelors. The context of the ceremony
on 28 February 1377 in the chapel of the Savoy palace was rather different,
but the emphasis on publicity was the same. There, surrounded by members
of his council and household, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster (d. 1399)
solemnly appointed Thomas Thelwall to be chancellor of the duchy and county
of Lancaster. Lordship was conducted in the public gaze; it was display and
publicity which manifested its power. Its largesse was likewise publicly and
regularly displayed, extending its network of obligation and gratitude over a wide
social and geographical spectrum. Thus a few entries from the register of the
Black Prince showed how he lived up to his self-proclaimed reputation that he
was so great a lord that he could make all those who served him rich. Jewels,
horses, oaks, venison, and other items were showered on beneciaries, great and
small; more than twenty recipients shared twenty-seven pipes of wine through
his municence; Lady Isabel de Trokesford was granted a small gold ring when
she dined with the Prince; and a lucky minstrel who was present at a tournament
at Bury came away with a horse. And to this regular distribution of individual
gifts should be added the annual round of New Year gifts.
Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard, 7 vols. (London, 187283), V, 47; CIPM,
VII, no. 417.
Gilbert (ed.), Chartularies of St. Marys, Dublin, II, 369.
Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, I, 309 (Berkeley); Private Indentures, no. 32. See also the
discussion in Wormald, Lords and Men in Scotland, 989.
Private Indentures, no. 24; Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, I, 57.
Reg. BP, IV, 5371.
67
The aristocracy lived, therefore, a life of calculated and ostentatious display.

Butas with all orders of societythere were occasions and rites of passage
when such public display was particularly carefully choreographed for maximum
effect. Birth and baptism were one such occasion. Baptism normally followed
within a few days of the birth (though it might be delayed by the late arrival
of a distinguished ecclesiastic or godparent). In the case of the four children of
Edmund, earl of March (d. 1381), for which we have unusually full records,
the gap ranged from four to nine days. A local bishop or prior performed
the christening, and the godparents were chosen from leading ecclesiastics and
lay men and women. Thus Earl Edmunds fourth son, another Edmund, was
born at Ludlow on 9 November 1376 and baptized there by the abbot of the
Mortimer monastery of Wigmore nine days later. The abbot of Evesham and
Lady Audley served as godparents, the bishop of Bangor arriving too late for the
ceremony. The news of the birth would be broadcast far and wide, not only to
close members of the family but to tenants and dependants. In 1372 the tenants
of Richards Castle took the trouble to record the birth of the son and heir of
John Talbot in the missal of the local church because they intended the said
heir in the future to be their lord. It is a reminder that a private event was
in the world of lordship an occasion of public signicance and was recognized
as such.
It was also an occasion for family solidarity and lavish gift-giving. Seigniorial
accounts regularly record the handsome gifts which were given to messengers
bringing news of a family birth. But such gifts were only the beginning of
a splurge of largesse. One example (albeit at the highest level of the scale of
municence) will serve as an example. When John of Gaunt heard the news that
the wife of his brother, Thomas of Woodstock, earl of Buckingham (d. 1397),
had given birth to a daughter Anne (the future countess of Stafford) in September
1382 he opened the sluice gates of his generosity to the full. His baptismal gifts
to his infant niece included a pair of silver bowls, gilded and engraved on their
borders with collars and swans and fountains with escutcheons with the arms of
our brother of Buckingham (47); one silver ewer (5), a great triper and a
hanap with a lid of silver (44). It was not only the young baby who beneted
from the ducal municence: money gifts totalling 18 6s. 8d. were distributed
to two of the ladies-in-waiting of the babys mother, nurse, midwife, valet and
page, the messenger who brought the glad tidings to the duke, and to the rocker
(rokestare) of the baby on behalf of the duke and his son the earl of Derby. All
in all, the round of presents had cost the duke about 115, equivalent to a very
comfortable annual income for a substantial knight. Great lords clearly did not
stint in gift-giving.
Wigmore chronicle in Dugdale, Monasticon VI, 1, 354; L. B. Smith, Proofs of Age in Medieval
Wales, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 38 (1991), 13444, at p. 142.
Reg. JG, II, no. 803.
68
Lords and Lordship
The next rite of passage in which the young aristocrat was involved was the
ritual of knighting. It was the solemn entry into the order of chivalry and as
such was an inevitable occasion for sumptuous display and magnicence, often
accompanied by jousts, feasts, and round tables. Families treasured the memories
of such occasions: the Mortimer chronicle, for example, recorded the knighting
ceremonies of Edmund (d. 1304), Roger (d. 1330) and Edmund (d. 1331) in
some detail. The knighting of Roger was particularly memorable, for it was part of
the remarkable Feast of the Swans held at Westminster at Whitsuntide (22 May)
1306. This was the hugely theatrical occasion when Edward I knighted his eldest
son Edward, alongside almost 300 other aspirant knights. This was a grand
political act, a calculated act of involving the chivalrous classnow a much more
selective and exclusive group than it had been a century earlierin Edward Is
commitment to take vengeance on the treacherous Scots. To be knighted by the
king in person was no doubt the aspiration of all great noblemen and their sons.
But the aristocracy also used the ceremony of dubbing new knights as a way of
publishing its social superiority. So it is that we hear, for example, of Richard
de Burgh, earl of Ulster (d. 1326), holding a great feast at Pentecost 1308 at
Trim where he knighted Walter and Hugh Lacy. Edmund Butler (d. 1321), the
ancestor of the earls of Ormond, was more ambitious, creating thirty knights at
a feast in Dublin in 1313. Chivalrous practices had also long since entrenched
themselves in Scottish aristocratic culture, so it comes as no surprise to learn
that Alexander Stewart, earl of Mar (d. 1435), knighted ve of his kinsmen and
supporters on the eve of a continental campaign.
Most aristocratic knightings were probably done individually and as such are
rarely recorded. But the conferment of knighthood was a further bond between
a lord and his dependants; it was a visual act of aristocratic bonding. So it
is that we hear that Edmund, earl of March (d. 1381), knighted his brother
Thomasthe man who was in effect to manage the Mortimer estates after
Edmunds deathand granted him a life annuity to maintain his status; the
same Earl Edmund likewise gave the order of knighthood to one of his close
followers, Sir Henry Conway. Indeed lords might jealously guard the privilege
of granting the arms of knighthood to their followers. When the Anglo-Irish lord
James Butler, earl of Ormond (d. 1382), retained the services of Oliver Howell
in 1356, Oliver agreed that he would receive the arms of knighthood from the
earl rather than from other lords, provided the earl behaved towards Oliver as
any lord ought to do so to the person who received military arms from him.
Conferring the arms of knighthood was not only an initiation ceremony into
the order of chivalry and all that was associated with it, it was also an occasion
C. Bullock-Davies, Menestrellorum Multitudo: Minstrels at a Royal Feast (Cardiff, 1978).
Gilbert (ed.), Chartularies of St. Marys Dublin, II, 338.
M. H. Brown, Regional Lordship in North-East Scotland: The Badenoch Stewarts II.
Alexander Stewart Earl of Mar, Northern Scotland, 16 (1996), 3154.
Holmes, Estates, 61; Private Indentures, no. 70.
Private Indentures, no. 43.
69
for a great lord such as the earl of Ormond or the earl of March to display
publicly the ceremonial powers he controlled and his role as master of chivalry.
For knightings were occasions for expressing aristocratic wealth and pageantry
to maximum effect. Thus Joan de Valence, countess of Pembroke (d. 1307)
assembled a crowd of 250 to celebrate the knighting of Sir John de Tany at
Moreton Valence on 18 August 1297.
Marriage was the next rite of passage in which aristocratic largesse and municence were at a premium. Indeed betrothal might long pre-date knighting, for the
children of the aristocracy (as of kings) were often betrothed as infantssubject,
of course, to the requirement that betrothal could only be converted into a
marriage when the partners were of an age to give their consent freely and
to consummate the marriage. So it was that Edward IIIs second son, Lionel,
was betrothed at the age of three to the rich heiress, Elizabeth de Burgh, ve
years his senior. The ceremony took place at the Tower of London and was
followed by a lavish tournament attended by many of the leading earls of the
realm. When marriage (as contrasted with betrothal) eventually took place the
celebrations were even more prolonged and opulent. We catch their character in
the description of the Monk of Westminster of the wedding ceremony at Arundel
castle in July 1384 when Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, married the
earl of Arundels daughter. It was clearly the wedding of the season; and the
exceptionally wealthy earl of Arundel saw to it that no expense was spared.
The festivities lasted for a week or more, and all who wished to enter or leave were free
to come and go. The wedding was attended by the king and queen with their entire
household; all received a smiling welcome from the earl, who gave each of them a present
according to his rank.
Celebrations took a variety of forms and could extend over several weeks. Here,
as in all festivities and pageants, no one could, or should, outdo the king. The
summer of 1290 was particularly spectacular in that respect. Edward I married
two of his daughters: the one, the eighteen-year-old Joan of Acre, to the elderly
earl of Gloucester (d. 1295), the other, Margaret, to John son of the duke of
Brabant. The marriages were part of a grand family and diplomatic strategy, as
Edward settled the descent of the kingdom at a particularly critical juncturein
the wake of the death of his wife and three of his four sons. Hard bargaining
about the terms of the marriages had been in train for months and indeed
years, bargaining in which the king clearly had the whip hand and exercised it
to his maximum advantage. But once the terms had been settled, no expense
was spared in giving the maximum publicity to the nuptials. We can guess the
scale of the festivities when we recall that the kings harper distributed 100 to
C. M. Woolgar, The Great Household in Late Medieval England (New Haven, 1999), 1034.
J. Vale, Edward III and Chivalry: Chivalric Society and its Context, 12701350 (Woodbridge,
1982), 64.
Hector and Harvey (eds.), The Westminster Chronicle, 88.
70
Lords and Lordship
426 minstrels as well English as others at the marriage of Margaret. Nor did
the celebrations end with the royally sponsored wedding. Two months after his
marriage to Joan in May 1290, the earl of Gloucester laid on a great banquet
at Clerkenwell in honour of his youthful bride. Festivities often included a
celebratory tournament such as the one held at Leicester in 1344 on the occasion
of the marriage of Ralph Stafford (the future rst earl of Stafford) to the daughter
of Henry of Grosmont, earl of Lancaster, or a round table such as the one which
was held in the presence of the king, earls, and barons at Waltham abbey on
the marriage of the young earl of Gloucester (d. 1314) to the daughter of the
earl of Ulster, Richard de Burgh (d. 1326). And as at baptism, so at marriage
an obligatory ritual of gift-givingprecisely calibrated in value according to
the status of donor and doneefollowed. Thus John of Gaunt gave a silver
ewer and other valuables worth 9 to Lady Ferrers as a gift on the day of her
marriage, but was understandably much more lavish in the presents he gave to
his son, Henry Bolingbroke, on his marriage to Mary, co-heiress of the Bohun
earldom of Herefordincluding rewards to the ten minstrels sent by the king
and four by Edmund of Langley to liven up the occasion. Weddings and
betrothals and the rituals and pageantry which characterized them were great
social and celebratory occasions at all levels of society; but aristocratic weddings
were a particular and public occasion for afrming the bonds and common
ethos of aristocratic society (whatever private animosities lay behind the veneer
of sustained jollity) and for displaying the wealth and opulence of the most
exclusive club in the land.
Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester (d. 1295) had married his adolescent
brideand in effect disowned his children by a previous marriageon 30 April
1290. By 7 December 1295having in the meantime fathered four childrenhe was dead. And so we come to the last of the rites of passage in which
the aristocracy, like other orders of society, could manifest its status: death.
Short of death itself, there might be occasions of leave-taking during lifetime
which were converted into occasions for proclaiming the lords standing and the
depth of the loyalty he commanded. Departure on crusade, on campaign, on
pilgrimage, or to a tournament (as in the famous representation of Sir Geoffrey
Luttrell leaving for the jousts shows vividly), or to parliament could all be
occasions in which a lords servants and followers might assemble, some of them
to accompany the lord (in what was called his travelling or forinsec household)
and some simply to bid him a tearful farewell. And when the lord returned from
his travels, he could expect an impressive reception party to meet him. Thus
when Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1439), returned to England in
1409 his chief ofcials, a bevy of squires and many valets, travelled to London
Manners and Household Expenses of England in the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ed.
H. Turner (Roxburgh Club, London, 1841), lxixlxx.
Reg. JG, I, no. 1659; II, no. 556.
71
to await his arrival. Short of death itself, the enforced political exile of the
lord could provide an occasion to demonstrate the support and affection which
good lordship could command. 13978 was, in the words of one of the ofcers
of the earl of Warwick, such an year of tribulation. One of its victims was
Thomas Mowbray, recently promoted duke of Norfolk (d. 1399). Now a victim
of Richard IIs spleen, he was driven into exile. He took the sensible step of
appointing eight of his condantsincluding his brother-in-law (Sir Thomas
Guy of Heton), two other knights, and two clerksto be his entire and continuous council during his absence. But it is what happened on a quayside in
Suffolk on 19 October 1398 which most vividly illustrates the drawing power of
lordship. The duke boarded ship with thirty attendants, bound for exile. On the
quayside a crowd of over a thousandincluding some of his closest associates
(Lord Wells, Sir William Elmham, Sir John Calveley, Sir Nicholas Langford)
and eighty squires and gentlemenbade him farewell. Stage-managed the
occasion might have been; but it was alsoas with the crowds which turned
up to welcome the young Roger Mortimer, earl of March, on his return from
Ireland in spring 1398a demonstration that personal lordship had the capacity
to attract erce and public support even in the most dangerous political times.
If departure for exile was so publicly choreographed, funerals were even
more carefully planned and staged. Magnates often left very precise and detailed
arrangements for their interment in their wills. There was often a substantial delay
between death and interment, when the body would be embalmed and all the
other arrangementsincluding clothing the household servants in blackwere
put in place. The Black Prince died on 8 June 1376, but his interment at
Canterbury did not take place until 29 September. John of Gaunt specically
stipulated that he should not be buried until forty days after his death. The
deceased often chose their place of burial in advance: the earl of Hereford
(d. 1361) wanted to be buried before the high altar in the choir of the church
of the Austin friars in London; John, the last Warenne earl of Surrey (d. 1347),
stipulated that he was to be buried at the church of St Pancras, Lewes, in an
arch near the high altar beside a window which he had caused to be built. The
choice of the place of burial was determined not only by family affection and
personal choice but also by a deep sense of loyalty and indebtedness. The case
of Sir William Beauchamp (d. 1411) is particularly striking in this respect. He
chose not to be buried with his own family but in the Dominican church at
Hereford next and beneath the tomb of John de Hastings, earl of Pembroke.
BL Egerton Roll 8772 (account of the receiver general of the earl of Warwick, 14089).
BL Egerton Roll 8769 (year of tribulation in the account of the receiver of the earl of
Warwick 13967); Rot. Parl. III, 384. [See now, PROME VII, 4246.]
Walker, Lancastrian Afnity, 100: J. B. Post, The Obsequies of John of Gaunt, Guildhall
Studies in London History, 5 (1981), 112.
Testamenta Eboracensia. Part I. (Surtees Society, London, 1836), 415, at p. 42; *Reg.
Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, f.158r.
72
Lords and Lordship
The explanation is not far to seek: when the last Hastings earl of Pembroke died
in a sporting accident in 1389, William Beauchamp succeeded to many of his
lands (including the large Marcher lordship of Abergavenny, hence his title of
Bergavenny) by the terms of an enfeoffment made by Hastingss father. Now
by choosing to be buried next to Hastings, William Beauchampa fourth son,
an Oxford graduate, and a former canon of Salisburywas acknowledging in
death whence his landed fortunes were derived.
Widows might likewise use the choice of burial place to indicate in death where
their true affections lay, whatever may have been their conventional obligations
in life. So it was, for example, that Philippa, countess of March (d. 1382),
opted out of the Mortimer family mausoleum at Wigmore abbey and asked
to be buried, instead, in the second arch of the altar of St Annes at Bisham
abbey, opposite her father the earl of Salisbury (d. 1344). Countess Philippa
could assert her independence since she had outlived her husband by over twenty
years. Had she predeceased him, then she might well nd that her husbands
wishesprompted no doubt by genuine affectionreached beyond her grave.
So it was that Richard, earl of Arundel (d. 1397), left instructions that the body
of his rst wife (Elizabeth, daughter of William Bohun, earl of Northampton)
should be conveyed from her present tomb to his own burial spot in Lewes
priory, to be united in death as they had once been in life.
Funerals were, by denition, expensive affairs. They were, after all, occasions
not only to express sorrow but also to display power and statusin the alms
distributed, the troupes of professional weepers, the expenditure on candles,
tapers, and cloth, and in the obligatory feasts. Humphrey, earl of Hereford
(d. 1322), set aside a thousand marks (666 13s. 4d .) for the general expenses
of his funeral and commanded that the tombs of his father, mother, and wife
be hung with cloth as rich as his own. John of Gauntadmittedly far and
away the richest magnate in Englandspent 600 on the burial costs of his
second wife, Duchess Constance. In the case of the funeral of Thomas, duke
of Clarence, who was killed at the battle of Bauge on 22 March 1421, we are
privileged to have a detailed account of the expenses. They amounted to 136,
including livery for eighty men carrying torches around his body; and doubtless
there are other expenses which are not included.
Funerals were an occasion to parade noble status and opulence to maximum
effect. The Black Prince certainly meant his funeral to be of the grandest.
We will that at the time that our body is brought through the town of Canterbury as far
as the priory, two war horses covered with our arms and two men bearing our arms and
Nichols, Wills, 98; Test. Vet., 129.
The will of Humphrey, earl of Hereford (d.1322) is published in full in H. T. Turner, The
Will of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, with Extracts from the Inventory of his
Effects, A.D. 13191322, Archaeological Journal, 2 (1846), 33949.
Walker, Lancastrian Afnity, 94.
Household Accounts, II, 67982.
73
helms shall ride before our body, that is to say one for war bearing our quartered arms,
and the other for peace bearing our badges of ostrich plumes, with four banners of the
same design, and that each of those who carries the said banners shall have on his head a
hat bearing our arms.
And so he continues in the same vein. As it happens, many of the Princes

accoutrementshis achievements as they were calledwhich were carried
into the cathedral are still extantincluding his helm, crest, shield, gauntlets,
and coat armour or gipon. These were the mementoes by which he wished to be
remembered in death.
Not all magnates paraded their status and prowess so ostentatiously as did
the Black Prince. Yet no one would have doubted that this was a proper way
of displaying his status in society. The earl of Surrey/Warenne (d. 1347) had
likewise commanded that four of his great horses dressed with his arms should
be led before his body on the day of his interment. Perhaps more surprising is it
to note that among the stoutest defenders of grand funerals for the aristocracy
were some of the longest-lived and hard-headed widows of medieval England.
The thrice-widowed Elizabeth de Burgh (d. 1360), who had outlived her third
and nal husband by almost forty years, did not stint on her funeral expenses,
which included 200 pounds of wax for lights round her body and 200 for
disbursements on the eve and day of burial. Equally impressive must have been
the funeral rites of Elizabeth, countess of Salisbury (d. 1415): the costs are
not itemized (beyond a long list of charitable bequests) but the spectacle of
twenty-four poor men in gowns and hoods of russet carrying torches as the
body was borne into Bisham priory on a herse covered with black cloth and
ve great candles (each weighing twenty pounds) must have been impressive.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps the greatest stickler for appropriate recognition to be
made of her elevated social status comes in the statement made by the formidable
Joan Beauchamp (d. 1435), daughter of the earl of Arundel and widow of the
lord of Abergavenny. She made it unambiguously clear that she was to be carried
to the place of my burying . . . with all the worship that ought to be done to a
woman of my estate (my italics). A thousand marks was set aside for the costs of
the interment; a further hundred marks for the poor attending the ceremony,
and three hundred marks for priests to say masses for Joans nearest and dearest.
It must have been a grand and crowded occasion.
But proud and status-conscious as Joan was, her will also demonstrated the
deep doubts that entered into the aristocratic mentality in the fourteenth century
about the pomp and expense of funeral ceremonies. In an age of the increasing
internalization of religious devotion and of personal religious practices and
self-analysis, an extravagant display of social standing in lavish funerals seemed
out of placeand not only among radical religious groups. Even the haughty
Nichols, Wills, 68; Age of Chivalry, nos. 62633.
Reg. Chichele, II, 1418, 5349.
74
Lords and Lordship
Joan Beauchamp prefaced her will with a preamble which spoke of her simple
and wretched body and of this wretched and unstable life on earth. Others
went far beyond the pious words of preambles. None more so than the retiring,
priest-dominated, bachelor earl of Hereford, Humphrey de Bohun (d. 1361).
His list of prohibitions is eloquent: no distribution of goods to poor people,
no invitation to great men, no herse over his body which was to be taken to
London secretly (tout privement), no meal to be prepared on the day of the
funeral except for a bishop, friars, and his household servants (mesnie). Secular
extravagance was banned; but this was counterbalanced by spiritual welfare for
the soul of the deceased: fty friars were to pray for his soul for a year. Earl
Humphrey was exceptional in his self-proclaimed abstinence; but the practice
of avoiding grand interments and of making protestations about the vanity of
worldly glory became fashionable among the later medieval aristocracy. There
was no greater warrior than Duke Henry of Lancaster (d. 1361) and no greater
lover of the delights of the sporting and military life (as his analogies in his Le
Livre de Seyntz Medecines vividly show); but he specically commanded that there
should be no extravagancesuch as men-at-arms or caparisoned horsesat his
funeral. Many other noblemenincluding Edmund Mortimer, earl of March
(d. 1381), whose executors were commanded not to make great and outrageous
costs at his interment; or Earl Richard Fitzalan of Arundel (d. 1397), who
prohibited men-at-arms, horses, or any extravagance at his funeral and capped
the funeral expenses at a thousand marks; or John of Gaunt (d. 1399) who
likewise stipulated that no solemnity or feast should be associated with his
burialfollowed suit. The tension between the appropriate display of status and
the spiritual introspection which begat self-abasement is a recurrent feature of
the mental world of the late medieval aristocracy.
Funeral costs were not, of course, conned to interment rituals; they would be
greatly augmented by the construction of a monument or efgy to the deceased.
Wills generally stipulated the church in which the deceased should be buried
and often the precise spot within the church; they might also indicate the kind
of memorial to be erected. Family traditions were often so strong that the
individual had very little choice in the matter. At least fourteen members of the
Mortimer familyand doubtless their spouses alsowere buried at Wigmore
abbey 11851398 (even if, as in the case of Roger Mortimer the rst earl of
March (d. 1330), they had initially been buried elsewhere). Likewise the de
Vere familyearls of Oxford and one of the most exceptionally long-surviving
comital families of medievalearly modern Englandfavoured Colne priory
See in general J. Catto, Religion and The English Nobility in the Later Fourteenth Century,
in History and Imagination: Essays in Honour of H. R. Trevor-Roper, ed. H. Lloyd-Jones, V. Pearl
and B. Worden (London, 1981), 4355.
See in general B. and M. Gittos, Motivation and Choice: The Selection of Medieval Secular
Efgies, in Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England, ed. P. Coss and M. Keen
(Woodbridge, 2003), 14369.
75
(Essex) where fourteen of its efgies were extant. Where a family tradition did
not exist, it could be created so that the familys continuity through time could
be made manifest in its efgies. So it was that Hugh Despenser (d. 1349) set
about to reshape the eastern arm of the abbey church at Tewkesbury with a grand
mausoleum for his family. Individual magnates not infrequently gave directions
as to the kind of monument which should be erected in their memory. John
Hastings, earl of Pembroke (d. 1375) instructed that his tomb be made as like
as possible to the tomb of Elizabeth de Burgh who lies in the Minories, London
and left 140 for the purpose. In a similar fashion, Sir Walter Mauny (the second
husband of Margaret, the Countess Marshal), commissioned an alabaster tomb
like the one for Sir John Beauchamp in St Pauls. Other nobles avoided the
path of emulation and instead gave precise instructions regarding their funerary
monuments. Sir John Montagu, the brother of the earl of Salisbury, directed that
his tomb should have an image of a knight bearing the arms of Montagu, with
a helmet beneath his head. More remarkable was the very precise description
which Isabel, countess of Warwick (d. 1439) prepared of my statue . . . all naked,
with my hair cast backwards, according to the design and model which Thomas
Porchalion has for that purpose.
Such monuments did not come cheap; they were an extra charge which
heirs and executors had to bear in mind. John of Gaunt may have been in a
super-league in terms of wealth; but the costs he incurred in erecting a worthy
tomb for his rst wife, Duchess Blanche, may indicate the scale of the outlay.
Six carts were commandeered to carry alabaster to London for a new tomb
at St Pauls: Henry Yevele, the great master mason who designed some of the
most lavish tombs and buildings for English kings and aristocrats in the late
fourteenth century, was paid 486 for the construction of the tomb itself.
Sometimes the tomb was topped with a brass memorial, indicating how the taste
for brassesso favoured by the English knightly and mercantile classes in the
periodhad also captured the imagination of the aristocracy. Nowhere is this
more obvious than in the splendid brass on the Purbeck marble tomb of Eleanor,
duchess of Gloucester (d. 1399), at Westminster abbey. Monumental sculpture
for the English aristocracy was to reach its apogee in the resplendent gilt-bronze
efgy which was constructed in memory of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick
(d. 1439), some years after his death.
The Beauchamp monument was housed in a specially designed new chapel
constructed for the purpose at St Marys church, Warwick. This is a reminder
to us that the municence and largesse of the aristocracy was posthumously and
Nichols, Wills, 925 (Hastings); Registrum Simonis de Sudbiria Diocesis Londoniensis,
136275, ed. R. C. Fowler, C. Jenkins, and S. Radcliff, 2 vols. (Oxford, 192738), I, 14;
Register of William Courtenay, archbishop of Canterbury, f.236 ( John Montagu); Test. Vet. 39
(countess of Warwick).
Reg. JG, I, nos. 1394, 1659.
Age of Chivalry, no. 697; Marks and Williamson (eds.), Gothic: Art for England, no. 87.
76
Lords and Lordship
recurrently manifested in acts which commemorated their lives and their wishes.
Anniversaries were scrupulously and lavishly celebrated. Thus John of Gaunt
held a great feast on the anniversary of Duchess Blanches death, attended by
magnates and the chapter of St Pauls. Twenty-four poor tenants perambulated
round her tomb holding a burning torch each, and alms were distributed to the
canons of St Pauls, the poor and the prisoners of Newgate, Ludgate, and the
Fleet. Nor were these arrangements in any way exceptional. The distribution of
alms in accordance with the testators will was a primary call on executors. The
bequests made by the redoubtable Joan Beauchamp, lady of Abergavenny, may
stand for scores of similar examples: one hundred marks for the poor attending
her funeral; two hundred marks to be divided among poor tenants; 100 for
clothing, bedding, horses, oxen, and other necessaries within six months of her
death to be given to bedridden and poor men dwelling in the lordships I have;
100 for marriage of poor maidens in the same lordships; 100 for feeble bridges
and foul ways; and 40 for the deliverance of poor prisoners. The grand total
of Lady Joans bequests of this kind amounted to 520. It was not a punitive
sum given that the landed valuation of her English estates amounted to more
than 2,000 annually to which should be added 500 or so for the Marcher
lordship of Abergavenny. But she no doubt regarded it as charitable giving
at death commensurate with her status (of which she was inordinately proud)
in life.
Lady Joans bequests were a non-recurrent charge on her assets. Ultimately a
much more substantial and long-term drain on noble nances were the various
religious bequests which the aristocracy made to ease their passage into the
next world. Prayers for the dead (and sometimes for members of his or her
family) headed the list. The pious earl of Hereford (d. 1361) was perhaps on
the extravagant side in instructing fty friars to pray for his soul for a year
after his death; but otherssuch as the countess of Salisbury (d. 1415)who
inter alia left a bequest for three thousand masses to be sung after her death
in all hastewere not far behind. At least these were time-limited bequests.
Ultimately much more draining of a familys assets over time were the religious
bequests which were, as it were, sine die. Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, could
afford to be particularly prodigal given his immense personal wealth. So it was
that he instructed that two monks of Lewes priory should celebrate two masses
perpetually. He also established a college of six priests and three choristers to
celebrate divine service annually in the chapel of Arundel castle. Religious houses
and churches on the lords estates were showered with donations: Edmund
Mortimer, earl of March (d. 1381), bequeathed money and gifts to almost forty
Reg. JG, I, no. 1585; TNA DL 28/3/5 f.10.
Reg. Chichele, II, 5349.
J. Rosenthal, The Purchase of Paradise: Gift Giving and the Aristocracy, 13071485 (London, 1972).
77
religious houses with which he and his family were associated, ranging from
1,000 for new building at Wigmore priory down to twenty marks each for
some minor houses. If to such bequests we add the costs of the foundation and
maintenance of chantries and colleges (of which perhaps the most remarkable
was the college and hospital of St Mary Newarke at Leicester, founded by Duke
Henry of Lancaster), the distribution of alms, the arrangements for anniversaries,
we begin to realize what a huge drain death and the hereafter were on aristocratic
nances. And also on aristocratic consciences: Richard, earl of Arundel (d. 1397),
was clearly haunted by the conviction that he had not fully observed the terms
of his fathers will and that his own son in turn might be likewise cavalier in
observing his own testament. The detailed care and attention that the aristocracy
gave to the composition and terms of their willsoften the nearest we get to
a personal insight into their charactersmake it clear that proper preparation
and down-payments for the hereafter were not only genuine acts of personal
piety but were also the obligatory discharge of the social expectations of their
exalted position in life. There is little in the essence of aristocratic testamentary
directions which distinguishes them from the wills of ordinary believers; but the
scale of largesse and calculated transfer of wealth which they incorporate indicate
that in commemoration and memorialization, as in all other respects, the greater
aristocracy stood apart.
Most of the acts and rituals of display and magnicence outlined above were
self-referential, in that their purpose was to display and conrm the exalted status
of the greater aristocracy. They were part of the self-afrmation of its social
pre-eminence. But ultimately in the social theory and assumptions of the period
the justication of lordship lay in the role it played in relation to the social fabric
and to the orders of society in general. Lordship was in the nal analysislike
kingshipmore than power, more than exploitation, albeit that these are the
facets of it which were often brutally to the fore and which can be documented
in terms amenable to modern economic and social analysis. Lordship was also
a ministerium, an ofce. That is why contemporaries talked frequently of good
lordship, which could clearly be distinguished from the mere exercise of power,
just as kingship could be distinguished from tyranny. To such issues we will
return. We touch upon them here because it was the duty of good lordship to
display itself not only to its peers but also to those who were within the orbit of
its dependence and social responsibility.
We have already seen that, though the primary calls on the lords conscience
as death approached was to ease his own passage in the hereafter, and thereafter
to discharge his debts and to reward his servants and followers, high priority was
also given to the distribution of alms to the poor and distressed. Moreover, as the
Prof. Daviess original text reads To such issues we will return in the second part of this
book.
78
Lords and Lordship
alms-giving of Joan Beauchamp, lady of Abergavenny, cited above makes clear,

such alms were specically targeted on men and women in need dwelling in the
lordships I have. This was the visible discharge of the obligations of lordship on
the lords own lands and to his own tenants and dependants. It is a reminder to
us that medieval lordship was ultimately personal and patriarchal. So it was that
William Montagu, earl of Salisbury (d. 1397), in a will made ten years before
his death, made bequests to poor tenants of twenty-one of his English manors
and all tenants, English and Welsh, of my lordship of Mold. Nor should we
be necessarily unduly cynical about such gifts: there was a mutuality about the
relationship of lord and tenant which, at its best, was recognized by both parties
in terms of the social order. Thus the charity that the earl of Salisbury showed
to his tenants was to be matched by the prayers they should proffer for his soul.
Tenants and dependants should share in the acts of commemoration. That is
why Alice, duchess of Suffolk (d. 1475) gave money to build a new bell-tower
at the church of Eye so that there should be a perpetual memorial among the
tenants of the lord (inter tenentes domini) for the soul of their most beloved lord,
William, late duke of Suffolk.
Since the bond of lordship was irreducibly, if largely formally for many
purposes, a personal bond, the public afrmation of that bond should be
the initial act of lordship. Such afrmation was the purpose of the twin acts
of homage and fealty, the one a physical obeisance to the lord, the other
a pledge on oath to accept him as lord and all that followed from such
acceptance. The formulae for both ceremonies were solemnly copied into
seigniorial archives, and the lords ofcers sought to ensure that tenants and
dependants did not overlook their obligation to perform them. By the fourteenth
century both homage and fealty had largely become formal adjuncts of tenure,
performed at the moment of entry into a tenement or holding. But lords
did not overlook the theatricality of the occasion as a way of expressing their
rights as lord. So it was that the Black Prince ordered all who were bound
to do homage and fealty to him to come to London to do so; the gentry
of Cornwall turned up at Restormel castle to discharge their homage and
fealty; others did so in the chamber within his palace at Exeter. Likewise,
at a much more modest social level, the abbot of Ramsey insisted that all
tenants in arrears with their homage and fealty should be distrained. No doubt
considerations of control and protsuch as nes for the non-performance
of suit of courtdictated such exercises; but we should not underestimate the
emphasis on the personal and physical acknowledgement of lordship which,
ultimately, lay at their root.
Register of Thomas Arundel, f.159159v.
*BL Egerton Roll 8779 (account of receiver of duchess of Suffolk, 14534).
Reg. BP, II, 23, 623, 678; cf. Reg. JG, II, no. 457; Court Rolls of the Abbey of Ramsey and of
the Honor of Clare, ed. W.O. Ault (New Haven, 1928), 82.
79
This becomes abundantly clear if we take note of the great collective acts
of acknowledgement of lordship, especially new lordship, which gure in the
records. They are yet another reminder to us how close the parallels were between
kingship and lordship in this, as in many other respects. Just as a new king
had to be acclaimed popularly at his inauguration or just as Edward I had
insisted that hundreds of Scots swear fealty to himand such fealties were
recorded in the thirty-ve membranes of parchment in the Ragman Rollsin
1296, so lords inaugurated their lordship by securing massive declarations of
fealty, either in person or by proxy. So it wasto cite only a couple of
instancesthat in 1284 twenty-nine leading men of the lordship of Bromeld
and Yale (north-east Wales) did homage to the son of the earl of Surrey (the
new lord of the lordship), followed by a communal act of homage by the rest
of the tenants with hands raised and joined unanimously; and so it was in
December 1404 outside the walls of Kildrummy castle that the free tenants of
the earldom of Mar accepted Alexander Stewart as their new earl. Whenever
a lordship changed handsthrough death, transfer, or political forfeitureit
was imperative that the authority of the new lord be publicly acknowledged.
Two thousand Welshmen were said to have attended such a ceremony in Brecon
in 1302, and likewise when Roger Mortimer of Wigmore seized the Fitzalan
lordship of Clun in 1321 he immediately took the fealty and homage of its men.
Such ceremonies had practical consequences: men who had sworn fealty were
justiciable by him and answerable to himas the words of the formula expressed
itin life and members and earthly honour. But above all they remind us that
there was a patriarchal and personal dimension to medieval lordshipespecially
in areas outside the claustrophobic reach of royal powerwhich we ignore at
our peril.
Since lordship was personal it was important that it be personally displayed,
especially at its inauguration. Medieval aristocrats spent most of their own
time attending to their own pleasures and responsibilities; but few of them
overlooked their obligation to show themselves to their tenants and dependants,
especially on their rst entry into the lordship. The young Roger Mortimer
(d. 1398) was given seisin of his lands in 1393 and proceeded at once to visit
his manors in East Anglia and then undertook a forty-day progress through
his estates in Wales and the March. He was in effect showing himself to his
subjects; they for their part were expected to acknowledge his lordship over
them (in the contemporary phrase) and to show their delight by granting him
handsome gifts or subsidies. Such progresses could be repeated at intervals:
Henry Bolingbroke and his retinue mounted on forty horses rode to Brecon in
Davies, Lordship and Society, 1323; Brown, Regional Lordship in North-East Scotland, 31.
CIM 12191307, no. 1870; Davies, Lordship and Society, 1323 (and the instances cited
there).
BL Egerton Rolls 8736, 87401 (accounts of Roger Mortimer, 1390s).
80
Lords and Lordship
1397 to remind its people who their lord was and that he had recently been
promoted to be duke of Hereford. It was a costly honour for the men of Brecon,
as they were required to give the duke a massive gift of two thousand marks
(1333 6s. 8d .).
The carefully stage-managed visit of Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Hereford
to his lordship of Brecon in 1397 epitomizes the twin faces of aristocratic
lordshippatriarchal and acquisitive, ostentatious and extortionate. Keeping
some degree of acceptable balance between these twin faces was one of the
most delicate demands of lordship. It was so at all times, but the balance was
particularly difcult in the harsh economic and social conditions of the later
Middle Ages, as population fell catastrophically and as many of the mechanisms
of seigniorial control and exploitation were challenged or bypassed. For the most
part the centrality of lordshipbe it that of the lord of the manor or that of
the great lay and ecclesiastical magnateas a cornerstone, for good or ill, of the
social order was not effectively called in question. And so long as lordship was
central, so would also be the display and magnicence which were the visual
demonstration of its status, power, and apartness. In a profoundly hierarchical
social order, it could hardly be otherwise.
For the role of the crown in aristocratic display, H. Collins, The Order of the
Garter, 13481461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England (Oxford,
2000). For increasingly orid modes of address, P. Coss, An Age of Deference,
in A Social History of England, 12001500, ed. R. Horrox and W. M. Ormrod
(Cambridge, 2006). For an example from fteenth-century Ireland, K. Simms,
The Archbishops of Armagh and the ONeills, 13471471, IHS, 19 (1974), 53.
For expensive attire, W. Childs, Cloth of Gold and Gold Thread: Luxury Imports
to England in the Fourteenth Century, in War, Government and Aristocracy in the
British Isles c.11501500: Essays in Honour of Michael Prestwich, ed. C. GivenWilson, A. Kettle, and L. Scales (Woodbridge, 2008). For aristocratic diet,
C. M. Woolgar, Fast and Feast: Conspicuous Consumption and the Diet of
the Nobility in the Fifteenth Century, in The Fifteenth Century II: Revolution
and Consumption in Late Medieval England, ed. M. Hicks (Woodbridge, 2001),
and the contributions to Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition, ed.
C. M. Woolgar, D, Serjeantson, and T. Waldron (Oxford, 2006). For the
splendour of the court, M. Vale, The Princely Court: Medieval Courts and Culture
TNA JUST I. 1/1152 (pro recognicione domini sui super eis habito); for gifts on lords visit:
*Staffordshire Record Ofce D 641/1/2/4 (rst visit of the earl of Stafford to Thornbury, 13901);
Reg. JG, I, no. 1052; Davies, Lordship and Society, 5960 (Bolingbrokes Brecon visit).
81
in North-West Europe, 12701380 (Oxford, 2001), and C. M. Woolgar, The

Senses in Late Medieval England (New Haven, 2006), chs. 10 and 11.
For aristocratic display in death, D. M. Hadley, Death in Medieval England: An
Archaeology (Stroud, 2001), chs. 3 and 5. For the tomb of Richard Beauchamp,
earl of Warwick, P. Coss, The Lady in Medieval England, 10001500 (Stroud,
1998), ch. 3. For Scotland, R. Fawcett, Scottish Medieval Churches: Architecture
and Furnishings (Stroud, 2002), ch. 4. For funerary monuments in English
Ireland, S. Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, 9001500 (Dublin, 1999), ch. 5
and R. Moss, Permanent Expressions of Piety: The Secular and the Sacred
in Later Medieval Stone Sculpture, in Art and Devotion in Late Medieval
Clabaigh, and S. Ryan (Dublin, 2006). For
Ireland, ed. R. Moss, C. O
representations of Gaelic lordship, F. Verstraten, Images of Gaelic Lordship in
Ireland, c.1200c.1400, in Lordship in Medieval Ireland: Image and Reality, ed.
L. Doran and J. Lyttleton (Dublin, 2008).
3
The Lord at Home
The northern European nobility was, for the most part, a country-dwelling elite.
The great lords of the British Isles were no exception. The countryside, after all,
was the major source of their regular wealth and powerin manors, demesnes,
tenants, rents, services, tributes, and the control of the men and the natural
resources (including forest, pastureland, waste, and waters) of their estates. They
were domini terrae. The countryside likewise was the venue for their pastimes
and leisure, notably for the hunting and the falconry to which they were almost
all addicted. It is true, of course, that active and able-bodied male lords would
spend a great deal of time away from their landed estateon military campaigns
and diplomatic missions, on a social round of tournaments and celebrations,
or attending court, council, or parliament. But it was to their residences in the
countryside that they regularly returned; and it was on these residences that they
lavished much of their wealth. This was their natural habitat.
They were spoilt for choice, or at least potentially so. The landed fortunes
of the greater aristocracy were often very widely dispersed geographically;
particularly was this true of the greater English aristocracy. This meant that the
residences of the aristocracybe they castles, manor-houses, hunting lodges,
country mansions, or (particularly in late medieval Scotland and Ireland) towerhouseswere also widely dispersed. Thus Henry of Grosmont, duke of Lancaster
(d. 1361), could select his residence from a list of at least twenty-three castles in
England and Wales. Not all castles and manor-houses were kept in an adequate
state of repair or comfort to offer acceptable accommodation to a great lord and
his menage. Even so, since it was one of the expectations of effective lordship
that the lord should show himself periodically in his country, a goodly number
of the lords residences had to be kept in at least a minimum state of good
repair in anticipation of a seigniorial visit. John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster
(d. 1399), had a greater stock of possible residences to choose from than any
other English lord. He was particularly fond, when in England, of extended stays
at his palace of Savoy near London or his castle of Hertford (which was greatly
upgraded for his personal comfort); a man of his eminence, after all, needed to be
within earshot of the royal court and its pulsating social and political life. But he
did not ignore his midland and northern residences: Higham Ferrers, Leicester,
Fowler, Kings Lieutenant, 172.
The Lord at Home
83
Kenilworth, Tutbury, Tickhill, Knaresborough, Pontefract, and Pickering were

all castles which he visited with some regularity.
In spite of being spoilt for choice, there were compelling reasons why great
lords concentrated their extended stays at a few favoured residences. Individual
preferences and circumstances no doubt played their part. The reason why Earl
Thomas of Lancaster (d. 1322) spent most of the period 131722 based at
Pontefract was doubtless explained by his growing political disenchantment and
his anxiety to establish a regional power base for himself in dangerous times.
His nephew, Duke Henry (d. 1361), lived in politically much calmer times and,
when he was not busy on military or diplomatic business on the continent,
chose Leicester castle at the heart of the midlands as his favourite residence.
It was there appropriately that he refounded a great collegiate church to pray
for the Lancastrian dynasty; but it may well be that the prime attraction of
the area for him lay in the proximity of excellent hunting in nearby Leicester
forest. His spiritual memoirs make it abundantly clear that rural sports were an
abiding passion for him. A familys favoured residence might indeed change
over time as it acquired new estates through marriage and inheritance. Wigmore
(Herefordshire) had been the base for the Mortimers since they arrived in England
soon after the Norman conquest; but by the early fourteenth century its days of
glory were already past and it was dismissed in a survey as a place more of honour
than of prot. The Mortimers waxed rich as they acquired rst the Geneville
inheritance and then the vast estates of Elizabeth de Burgh (d. 1360). Two of the
premier castles of these two acquisitionsLudlow and Usk respectivelynow
became favourite residences of the Mortimers, as is suggested by the recorded
birthplaces of their children; both were extensively refurbished in the fourteenth
century to make them comfortable seigniorial homes.
Seigniorial residences were much more complex buildings than the gaunt
ruins of most medieval castles would suggest today. Two of the very contrasting
residences occasionally used by Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk (d. 1306), may
serve to make the point. In spring 1273 Earl Roger and his wife spent nine
weeks in the manor-house at Forncett (Norfolk). They would have found
the accommodation there more than adequate, almost palatial. The central
hallwhere public entertainment would be stagedwas anked by up to
twelve chambers (including the earls chamber and the knights chamber). There
were a range of domestic quarters (kitchen, buttery, larder, bakehouse, dairy),
three stables and barns, an orchard and vineyard. Forncett was a working demesne
Reg. JG, II, xviixviii; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 3024.
Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 10.
Fowler, Kings Lieutenant, 18793, 215; also L. Fox and P. Russell, Leicester Forest
(Leicester, 1948).
Quoted in a survey of 1328 in B. P. Evans, The Family of Mortimer (University of Wales
Ph.D. thesis, 1934), 398.
The birth places are recorded in the Wigmore chronicle in Dugdale, Monasticon, VI, i.
84
Lords and Lordship
manor with a full-time labour force of eight or nine servants. It was a convenient
stopping place on the travels of the servants, knights, ofcials, and huntsmen of
the earl.
Forncett may have been adequate; but it paled in grandeur compared with
some of Earl Rogers other residences. The late thirteenth century was a great
age for highly ambitious seigniorial building; Earl Roger of Norfolk was one
of its great exponents. He made extensive alterations and extensions at his two
Suffolk castles at Framlingham and Bungay; constructed splendid manor-houses
at Walton (Suffolk) and Hamstead Marshall (Berkshire); and erected a hunting
lodge at Cas Troggy in Wentwood Forest (in the lordship of Strigoil/Chepstow).
He was also the principal benefactor of the rebuilding of the great new Gothic
church at Tintern abbey in the Wye valley. But his most sumptuous, and for us
most signicant, achievement was the redesigning and rebuilding of the lower
bailey of Chepstow castle. The work appears to have been undertaken under
the direction of a London master mason, Ralph Gogan. The refurbished castle
redounded to the greater glory and comfort of Earl Roger. A splendid suite of
private apartmentshousing a hall, cellar, earls chamber, kitchen, and service
roomswas constructed overlooking the river Wye; a new, lavishly appointed
and self-contained set of apartments was built in the new (or Martens) tower
in the south-east corner; and the great tower (whose origins date back to a few
years after the Norman conquest) was extended and embellished. The imperative
behind this extravagant building enterprise was not strictly military (since the
Welsh had ceased to be a threat in this extreme south-east corner of Wales); rather
was it display and magnicence. Chepstow was almost certainly Earl Rogers
favourite residence; here he could ex his seigniorial muscles to their full extent
since Chepstow lay, at least administratively and judicially, beyond the reach of
the machinery of English royal government but within the social and economic
orbit of English seigniorial life.
Earl Roger sank a large fortune into the rebuilding and redesigning of
Chepstow. He was not unusual in this respect. The primary call on the
seigniorial budget was money to feed and clothe the lord and his household; that
was a recurrent and major item of expenditure. But once those costs were met,
the upkeep and refurbishment of buildings (primarily in this context the lords
castles) were a major charge. Earl Thomas of Lancaster (d. 1322) spent almost
2,000 (some 17 per cent of his income) on his castles in 131314; John of
Gaunt likewise spared no expense in making his major castles more impressive
F. G. Davenport, The Economic Development of a Norfolk Manor, 10861565 (Cambridge,
1906), 2024.
The excellent revised version of the CADW Welsh Historic Monuments guide to Chepstow is
R. Turner, Chepstow Castle (Cardiff, 2002).
C. Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England, c.12001520
(Cambridge, 1989), 5570. John of Gaunts household expenses in the 1390s averaged 6,500
7,000 annually; Walker, Lancastrian Afnity, 19.
The Lord at Home
85
and comfortable. Kenilworth was a particular favourite of his. He assigned at least

400 marks annually in the 1380s to construct a new palace complex there whose
centrepiece was a magnicent unaisled great hall, 90 45 feet in dimensions,
and covered with a huge hammer-beam roof. The outer buildings of the castle
could accommodate up to 200 servants and retainers. Here Gaunt could hold
court in a style worthy of a man who was titular king of Castile as well as
duke of Lancaster. Other earls followed suit, albeit on a more modest scale. The
Beauchamp earls of Warwick spent regularly and lavishly especially on Warwick
castle; the Fitzalan earls of Arundel did the same at the castles of Shrawardine and
Arundel, the headquarters respectively of their Shropshire and Sussex estates; so
did Thomas, duke of Gloucester, on Pleshey (Essex) and Caldicot on the Severn
estuary which came to him as part of his wifes inheritance. Nor did the greatest
of the Scottish magnates lag far behind, though the idiom of building and the
function of the castle were in some respects different in a Scottish context. It was
the rst earl of Douglas (d. 1384) who was probably responsible for rebuilding
the splendid castle of Tantallon (East Lothian) with its curtain walls and towers
perched high above the sea. The third earl, Archibald the Grim (d. 1400) chose
a very different design when he opted for a free-standing, massive, rectangular
tower-house as his new headquarters at Threave in Galloway.
As new families entered the higher ranks of the aristocracy through marriage,
service, and patronage, one of their rst acts of self-advertisement was to build
an up-to-date castle or to refurbish an existing one to announce their arrival.
So it was that Ralph, created earl of Stafford in 1351, paraded his new-found
wealth and status by building castles at Stafford and Madeley (Gloucestershire).
Equally striking are the building enterprises of the two northern families, Percy
and Neville, who both climbed into the comital league in the later fourteenth
century (in 1377 and 1397 respectively). Warkworth castle had come into
the hands of the Percy family in 1332 but it was in the closing decades of
the fourteenth century that the rst Percy earl of Northumberland (d. 1408)
redesigned it into the remarkable edice whose splendid outline still survives
today. Its interlocking site of over twenty rooms, its semi-polygonal projecting
towers, and the splendid symmetry of the whole design proclaimed to the world
that the Percies had arrivedindeed the familys lion rampant on the walls of its
northern salient made that point visuallyand that they could build as grandly
and innovatively as any of their peers in midland and southern England. Henry
Percy had even planned a collegiate church within the precincts of his refurbished
castleechoing the royal example at Windsor or the practice of some of the
Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 25; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 3056; Walker, The Lancastrian
Afnity, 968.
A History of the County of Warwick. Volume VIII: The City of Coventry and Borough of Warwick,
ed. W. B. Stephens (VCH, Oxford, 1969), 4567 (Warwick); Davies, Lordship and Society, 56
n. 71 (Shrawardine); 75 n. 32 (Caldicot).
Age of Chivalry, 2478.
86
Lords and Lordship
grandest English families, such as the houses of Lancaster and Arundel. Nor
were the Nevilles, the neighbours and rivals of the Percies in the north, to be
outdone. John Neville (d. 1388) substantially rebuilt Raby castle (Co. Durham)
and was given a licence to crenellate another Neville castle at Sheriff Hutton
(Yorkshire). His son, Ralph Neville, the rst earl of Westmorland (d. 1425),
followed suitdoubling the entrance gateway at Raby and rebuilding Sheriff
Hutton so that, in John Lelands words, no house in the north [was] so like a
princely lodging. Many other families of baronial and comital rank followed
suit, for the castle was still in the later Middle Ages the status symbol par
excellence of aristocratic standing and prestige.
Not the least of the attractions of the castle was its multi-purpose character.
Its military role was far from being redundant, self-evidently so in the north
of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Even in lowland England the castle
could still play its role in an act of military deance: so it was that the earl of
Arundel fortied Reigate castle (Surrey) when he faced arrest at the hands of
Richard II in the tense autumn months of 1387. In more normal conditions the
castle continued to perform both a psychological and practical role as the visual
expression of seigniorial domination and power. Psychologically it expressed the
awesomeness of lordship. That is why, for example, John of Gaunt built a massive
new gatehouse at Kidwelly in south-west Wales in the late-fourteenth century.
Kidwelly was not one of Gaunts regular residences nor was there, at that stage,
any suggestion that it had any longer a military role to play; but the castle was a
visible reminder of who was lord of the district. It was, in the words of a near
contemporary Welsh poem about another Welsh castle, the tower of the bold
conqueror. Practically Kidwellyin common with many other castleswas
the fulcrum of the lords authority and governance of the district. It was the seat
of the lords major local ofcials, his steward and receiver; his auditors and other
ofcials visited it regularly on their investigative circuits; it was to its treasury
that the tenantry and local ofcials of an extensive area paid their dues; and it
was there that the lords justice was meted out in his courts.
But the prime reason for extending and upgrading a castle in the later Middle
Ages was to provide acceptable accommodation for the lord and his retinue
on their extended visits. The emphasis was increasingly on domestic comfort
and privacy. Hence the addition of withdrawing rooms and private apartments,
glazed windows and chimneyed hearths. Castles such as Kenilworthwhich
now boasted a room called le parlourincreasingly resembled the country
house of the future rather than the military fortress of the past. Nor should
we underestimate the role of seigniorial wives and dowagers in promoting
The territorial fortunes and activities of the Percy and Neville families are discussed, and
mapped, in C. Given-Wilson, The English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages: The Fourteenth-Century
Political Community (London, 1987).
A. Goodman, The Loyal Conspiracy: The Lords Appellant under Richard II (London, 1971), 23.
R. R. Davies, The Revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr
(Oxford, 1995), 1516, 26972.
The Lord at Home
87
such changes. Richard, earl of Arundel (d. 1397), renamed Shrawardine castle
(Shropshire) Castle Philippa in honour of his wife, Philippa Mortimer, and
doubtless transformed it to suit her tastes and needs. Earl Richards uxoriousness
was more than matched by that of his close colleague, Thomas, duke of Gloucester
(d. 1397). He spent lavishly on the castle at Caldicot on the Severn estuary,
including installing a chamber called the Dressinghouse and inserting stone
blocks with his own name and that of Eleanor, his wife (through whom he
had inherited the castle and estate) into the masonry of the new tower. Even
hardbitten dowagers had to keep up with the latest fashion: Joan Beauchamp,
lady of Abergavenny (d. 1435) had a minstrels gallery, a green chamber, and
a parlour installed in her residence at Rochford (Essex) and commissioned a
painter from London to paint the wooden buttresses of her great hall in the
colour of marble.
Lady Joans home at Rochford boasted at least two named gardensthe great
garden and the west garden. In this respect also she was following seigniorial
fashion: John of Gaunt certainly had a garden at Kenilworth (one of his
favourite country residences) and at his palace at Savoy; the earl of Warwick
had a garden and a vineyard at Warwick. Castlesor at least those that were
regularly favoured as residences and accordingly refurbished and upgradedwere
becoming relatively comfortable and well-appointed residences rather than the
gaunt and bare ruins that are normally all that survives of them today. Some of the
leading architects, master masons and master carpenters were hired to reconstruct
and repair themincluding Henry Yevele and William of Wintringham in the
service of John of Gaunt. Such experienced professionals set their stamp on
some of the best aristocratic building of the period: John Lewyn, for example,
appears to have had a key role in a remarkable campaign of aristocratic castle
building (John of Gaunt, the Nevilles, the Percies, and the Scropes were among
his clients) in northern England in the late fourteenth century. But the impetus,
and even occasionally the exact specications, came from the lord himself or
from his council. John of Gaunt gave clear instructions to John Lewyn for the
work he was to undertake on the great tower at Dunstanburgh and, even more
precisely, directed that the great chamber at Hertford (one of his favourite castles)
should be moved from one spot to another where we have decided it should be
sited. Such detailed personal attention to the planning and execution of castle
refurbishment should not surprise us.
The great lords lived in the countryside, but they had to come to town
regularly. Particularly was this true of the English higher aristocracy; the rhythms
and demands of their social, political, and economic life meant that they needed
Ibid., 13 (Caldicot); BL Egerton 8347 (account of clerk of works at Rochford, 14302).
Reg. JG, I, no. 1566 (Gaunt); BL Egerton 876970 (Beauchamp receiver generals accounts,
1397, 1403); see also Dyer, Standards of Living, 64.
Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, I, 100 n. 2; Reg. JG, II, nos. 723, 815, 922.
88
Lords and Lordship
a footholdbe it a permanent residence or a rented inn or hostel or lodgings

at a religious housein London. Westminster was now the focal point
of the countrys political and governmental life; it was there that councils and
parliaments met, and that the kingdoms judicial, secretarial, and nancial services
were concentrated. In a king-centred polity such as England, no magnate could
afford not to have a periodic presenceeither in person or through his ofcers
or attorneysat Westminster. But London was inescapable for other reasons
also. It being the richest and most populous city in England its leading merchants
were in a league of their own in providing the goods, especially the luxury
goodsthe silverware, jewels, furs, expensive clothswhich were the hallmarks
of aristocratic life. The great lay lords must have ranked among the most valuable
customers of London merchant oligarchs. Even the most country-dwelling
magnate needed a basebe it only a wardrobein London where purchased
goods could be deposited before onward transit to the lords household. That is
why the great wardrobethe reserve stockroom in effectof most aristocrats
was located in London, to be close to its suppliers.
The nexus of relationships which bound the greater aristocracy to the merchant
oligarchy of London was complex and mutual, extending to credit facilities as well
as to the provision of luxury items. The outstanding debts of Henry Bolingbroke,
by then duke of Hereford, in 13978 illustrate the point; they included 115
owed to John Clee, draper, 217 to John Wodecock, mercer, and 203 to Robert
Makeley, skinner. Bolingbroke owed his creditors on this account alone 825.
He was living beyond his means and his debts would have been signicant were
he not regularly allocated subsidies by his father, John of Gaunt.
So it comes as no surprise that almost all of the English magnates for whom we
have records had a London address. This was even true of a northern family such
as the Percies: they kept a tenement in the parish of St Agnes within Aldersgate
as an inn for themselves and their servants (and, incidentally, a similar inn at
York). Many other noble familiesincluding Valence, Mortimer, Mowbray,
Fitzalan, and Staffordfollowed suit. So did dowagers and heirs: Elizabeth de
Burgh, lady of Clare (d. 1360), spent 172 in 1352 on building a London
house for herself in the precinct of the abbey of the Minoresses outside Aldgate;
the young Henry Bolingbroke, John of Gaunts son and heir, had his London
lodgings at Bishopsgate. Other magnates preferred to rent accommodation
in the city from religious houses: Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester
(d. 1397), stayed at the house of the Minoresses outside Aldgate and it was
there that his wife died in 1400. Nor was such rented accommodation spartan
or temporary, as the list of Gloucesters effects in London which were seized
See in general C. Barron, Centres of Conspicuous Consumption: The Aristocratic Town
House in London, 12001500, London Journal, 20/1 (1995), 117.
TNA DL 28/1/6 f.40v.
CIPM, XII, no. 242, p. 221.
Ward, English Noblewomen, 84 (de Burgh); TNA DL 28/1/6 f.31v (Bolingbroke, account of
clerk of the wardrobe 13956).
The Lord at Home
89
on his arrest in July 1397including splendid tapestries, sumptuous beds and

testers, cushions and curtains, plates, saucers, and cutlery bearing the dukes
arms, an organ, a chess set, and two chariotsvividly demonstrates. Thomas
of Woodstock lived well in London; but his lodgings did not compare in
size and sumptuousness with the London base of his brother, John of Gaunt.
This was the palace of Savoy, which Gaunts father-in-law, Henry duke of
Lancaster (d. 1361), had built at vast expensethe sum of 35,000 was the
contemporary estimatefrom 1349 onwards, allegedly out of the prots of
his military campaigns in Aquitaine. Contemporary chroniclers were awestruck
by its opulence: no prince in Christendom had a ner wardrobe and scarcely
any could even match it. . . . There were such quantities of vessels and silver
plate . . . that ve carts could hardly sufce to carry them. It is no wonder that
such brazen opulence became the target of the rebels destructive fury in June
1381. So devastated was Gaunt by the destruction of the Savoy and the pillaging
of its contents that he did not rebuild it; hereafter he preferred to lease the bishop
of Elys house in Holborn or made use of Westminster abbeys manor of La
Neyte when he stayed in London.
Toing and froing between their country residences and their London lodgings
was but one aspectalbeit possibly the most importantof the itinerating
habits of the greater aristocracy. It may well be (as several historians have
claimed) that the aristocracy was less restlessly itinerant by the fourteenth and
fteenth centuries than it had been previously; it is certainly true that lay magnates
were far less itinerant in their habits than were many ecclesiastics for whom we
have records (such as Richard Swineld bishop of Hereford 12831317 and
Walter de Wenlok, abbot of Westminster 12831307). In general it appears
that magnates stayed for much longer periods at a few selected residences (as John
of Gaunt did at the Savoy, Hertford, and Kenilworth), paying only short visits to
their other outposts. None of this should surprise us. The standards of domestic
comfort and privacy expected by greater magnates were rising steadily and could
only be adequately met by a few of their residences. Furthermore the logistical
problems of moving a lord and his retinue of servants and followers from place
to place were formidable: the main furnishings of hall, chapel, chamber, and
service rooms had to be transported; stabling and fodder for a hundred or more
horses and palfreys had to be arranged; supplies of food and drink had either to
be carried in carts or bought in advance by agents at local markets and from local
merchants; boats had to be commandeered for river or estuary crossings (though
the greatest lords, such as John of Gaunt and Henry Bolingbroke, had their own
barges and teams of bargemen, dressed in their lords livery); and guides had to
be hired to select the easiest routes in difcult country.
CIM, VI, no. 377; BL Add. Roll 40859A (account of his treasurer of war, 1392).
Knighton, Chron., 214.
Harvey, Aristocratic Consumer, 25.
Woolgar, Great Household, chap. 9.
90
Lords and Lordship
The disincentives to travel were indeed very substantial and are very vividly
illustrated for us by the complexity and cumbersomeness of some of the
aristocratic journeys for which we have detailed accounts. Such was the journey
undertaken by Edward, duke of York (d. 1415), from Cardiff castle to Hanley
(Worcestershire) in October 1409: it entailed travel both by land (through
Newport, Monmouth, Ross-on-Wye, and Ledbury) and by water (via Bristol and
Gloucester); an escort of more than twenty men for the lord and his household;
the purchase of cattle to meet the needs of the party en route and to stock the
larder at Hanley; and the transport of 33 loads of material from the banks of the
Severn to Hanley castle itself. It was a complex operation; but it was part of
the cursus of the life of a great lord. The imperatives for itineration still remained
pressing. Sometimes it was public service which was the incentive: to attend
parliament or the court, to prepare for a military operation, or to travel on a
diplomatic errand (as did the earl of March in MayJune 1378 as he travelled
across England to conduct negotiations with the Scots at the border). The
social round of the aristocratic calendar was also an incentive to travel, be it to
a christening, a wedding, or a funeral, on a hunting party or to a tournament
or on a pilgrimage. But travel was a necessity as well as a luxury for a lord.
It was imperative that the lord visited his lordships from time to time, on a
formal progress through his estates. So it was that Roger Mortimer, earl of March
(d. 1398), went on a grand tour of his English and Welsh estates when he took
formal control of them in 1393; so likewise Henry Bolingbroke, recently created
duke of Hereford, went on a progress through his great lordships in the March
of Wales in 1397 and followed it with a great circular tour of his fathers estates
in summer 1398.
Such progresses were meant to impress and they assuredly did so. Noble
households on the move must have been a familiar sight, especially in midland
and southern England. When Elizabeth de Burgh travelled from Usk (in southeast Wales) to Clare (Suffolk) in 1350 her caravan was composed of 130 horses,
twenty-eight hackneys, twenty-two oxen, two esquires, sixty grooms, and nineteen
pages. The duchess of Clarence was a grander person and was on a more important
journey (to join her husband in France) in 1419, so it comes as no surprise that
her retinue totalled over 140 (including a dean and twenty-four chaplains).
Such retinues trundled their way across the countryside, averaging twelvetwenty
miles per day (though greater distances could be covered if necessary). The carts
and sumpter horses of the household ofces often proceeded rst, preparing
lodgings and stabling in advance; the coaches (such as that famously depicted
in a miniature in the Luttrell Psalter) and horses of the lord, lady, and major
Northamptonshire Record Ofce, Westmorland (Apethorpe) Collection, 4.xx.6.
The expense account of his journey is published in Household Accounts, I, 24661.
For Mortimers grand tour see BL Egerton 8736, 87401; for Bolingbrokes progress: TNA
DL 28/1/10 f.7vf.9; S. Walker, Lancastrian Afnity, 204 n.132.
Ward, English Noblewomen, 89; Household Accounts, II, 6516.
The Lord at Home
91
guests followed at a distance. Abbeys and towns might be forewarned of the

impending arrival of the travelling party and might well prepare a grand dinner
and entertainment of minstrels and jesters. If the destination of the journey was
one of the lords own lordships, his ofcers in the locality would be expected to
assemble crowds of tenants to greet himand then to award him a gift (donum)
as a recognition of his lordship. Seigniorial progresses had many functions but
not the least of their purposes was to parade lordship visually to all and sundry,
particularly to its own dependants.
Within their residences the greater magnates lived, by contemporary standards,
a life of ostentatious luxury and comfort which put them in the league of
kings, princes, and greater ecclesiastics and far removed from that of county
knights. Little of the visual splendour of their domestic surroundings and
personal style has survived until today. We can perhaps best recapture some of
its sumptuousness from idealized iconographic representations (most famously
in the calendar of the months in the Tres Riches Heures of John, duke of Berry
(d. 1416), and, much more prosaically, from inventories of the contents of their
residences). Two sets of such inventoriescompiled within weeks of each other
in the wake of a single act of political revengewill be drawn upon here to try to
recapture the domestic ambience of aristocratic living. One is the inventory of the
conscated goods of Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (d. 1397), at Shrawardine
castle, his favoured residence in Shropshire. (We need to recall that, though his
Shropshire and Marcher estates constituted an immensely important power block
for Fitzalan, his most important residence and, therefore, the most sumptuously
furnished home was Arundel castle.) The other inventory is that of the effects of
Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester (d. 1397), at Pleshey castle (Essex)
which was part of the Bohun lands which came into the dukes control through
his marriage to Eleanor Bohun. Pleshey was clearly a very important residence
for Duke Thomas, though he had also a very well-appointed house in London
and other residences throughout England and the southern March of Wales.
The Pleshey inventory opened with an itemized list of tapestries and hangings,
the most immediately striking emblems of aristocratic opulence. They accounted
for 20 per cent of the total value of the dukes effects at Pleshey, two of
them alone being estimated as worth 49 and 45 each. The motifs of the
tapestries reect some of the most popular themes of court literature, secular
and sacredincluding the history of Charlemagne, the capture of Jerusalem,
Gamelyn and Lancelot, the legend of St George, and the Nativity of Christ.
The tapestries and hangings at Shrawardine are not itemized and in any case
could not compare in number or luxuriousness with those at Pleshey. Where the
Dyer, Standards of Living, 767.
The inventories are to be found, respectively, in CIM., VI no. 237 and Dillon and St. John
Hope, Inventory of the Goods, 275311.
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Lords and Lordship
Shrawardine list excels is in itemizing the mundane furniture which was essential
in any aristocratic hallincluding two tables for high days, two for yeomen,
eight hall tables, and at least seventeen pairs of trestles. For much of the time the
halls at Pleshey and Shrawardine must have been cavernously empty, the wooden
furniture stacked, and the wall-hangings unhung and folded away, or even taken
with the lord and his lady as they made their way to their London house or
elsewhere. But, clearly, at fairly short notice both halls could be prepared to
display lordship in all its colourful magnicence and municence.
Duke Thomas may have been inordinately proud of his collection of tapestries;
but the most valuable item at Pleshey (182) was a great bed of gold, with a
coverlet, a canopy, a valance of ne blue satin decorated with garters of gold,
three curtains of tartaryn beaten to match, and two long and four square
pillows. There were a further fteen beds of gold or silk embroidered with motifs.
Nor are these gures in any way unusual. At Shrawardine likewise there were
at least sixteen beds, several of them of blue or red silk, as well as an ample
stock of cushions, curtains, bolsters, mattresses, and blankets. Beds were highly
prized items of aristocratic property; that is why they gure so prominently
in aristocratic wills. Earl Richard Fitzalan (d. 1397) bequeathed ve carefully
described beds in his will to his wife, two of his sons, and two daughters. They
were indeed so prized that they were transported from place to place with the
lord: hence Earl Richard referred to one of the beds he bequeathed as being
normally at Reigate and another usually at London. After all, the bed was often
the only truly comfortable item of furniture in a seigniorial household: it was used
not only for sleeping but as the major seating in the day in the lords chamber.
Alongside the hall and the chamber, the third major room in any aristocratic
residence was the chapel. The chapel at Shrawardine was fully equipped with an
altar of silk, a table with an alabaster crucix, an alabaster image of Our Lady, three
portable altars, seven lecterns, and other ecclesiastical equipment. But it was plain
and restrained compared with Thomas of Woodstocks lavishly furnished chapel
at Pleshey. The inventory listed seventy-ve items in the chapel there, including a
cope of blue worsted with divers beasts and birds . . . with garters inscribed Hony
soit qui mal y pense (valued at 60) and another cope of gold of Cyprus worked
all over with . . . stories of imagery of the Passion (valued at 67). Furthermore
there was a collection of over forty Bibles, massbooks, antiphonaries, legends,
psalters and two ponticals in the chapel, several described as well written or
well illuminated. Many of these books had doubtless come into Duke Thomass
possession through his marriage to Eleanor Bohun, for the Bohun family is
known as the owners and sponsors of the most important collection of English
illuminated manuscripts of the second half of the fourteenth century.
Beyond the major roomshall, chamber, chapelevery seigniorial residence
would have a suite of service rooms where stores were kept, food prepared, and
Test. Vet., II, 1301.
The Lord at Home
93
cutlery and napery kept. At Shrawardine there was a pantry, buttery, and cellar;
among their listed contents were large numbers of silver spoons and dishes, ewers,
vases, leather and earthen pots, tablecloths and a variety of linen towels. Reserve
stocks for large banquets were kept in a storehouse, where 448 dishes and platters
of wood are recorded in the inventory, as are torches and tapers. The kitchen
was likewise well provided with buckets, frying pans, gridirons, various spits
and knives, salt, a mustard quern, and four salted fallow deer. There was also a
bakehouse and an ample load of charcoal and thirty cart-loads of brushwood to
meet the heating requirements of the castle. Shrawardine was a modest residence
(especially when compared with Pleshey, Arundel, Kenilworth, or Hertford); but
it had the wherewithal for the earl of Arundel to live comfortably there on his
occasional visits and to hold grand feasts when he wished to entertain neighbours
and dependants and impress on them the power and opulence of his lordship.
Opulence was, of course, manifested in dress as well as in food and furnishings.
Towards the end of the Pleshey inventory there is a list of robes and gowns,
including a long gown of red velvet and a cloak of the same edged with minever
and valued at over 13. Forty-ve such robes in all are individually listed. In the
dukes London house there was another very valuable collectiontwenty-four
gowns in allwhich belonged to the Duchess Eleanor. These were the kind
of prized robes which also frequently appear in aristocratic wills. They helped
to distinguish the greater aristocracy sartorially from the rest of gentle society,
notably in their use of silk, linen, and superior woollens and in being lined with
fur and embroidered with jewellery. Display and fashion were of the essence
of such power-dressing. In 13934 the dashing young Roger Mortimer, earl
of March (d. 1398), ordered one gown to be made for himself for the feast of
St George and another for a tournament at Christmas. He also commissioned
nine green hunting gowns to be cut for nine of his close friends. But he reserved
his most extravagant expenditure for a dancing doublet and hanselin (jacket)
in white satin and embroidered with whelks, mussels, cockles, and a hundred
orange trees. The overall cost of this one item was 24, equivalent to a respectable
annual income for a member of the country gentry.
Inventories and inquisitions help us to get some impression of the furnishings
of aristocratic residences and the sumptuousness of their dress. The growing
proliferation of a variety of household accounts, which survive in increasing
numbers from about the midlate thirteenth century, likewise allows us to measure accurately the consumption of food in itemized detail and the proportions
of different cloths, materials, and utensils purchased for the aristocratic household. From the mid fteenth century there also survive household ordinances
Baildon, Wardrobe Account, 1617 Richard II, 510.
The accounts printed in Woolgars Household Accounts are exceptionally helpful in this respect,
as is his detailed discussion in Great Household.
94
Lords and Lordship
and regulations which stipulate, at least formally, the pattern of the day in an
aristocratic court, including the periods assigned to religious services, meals, and
the opening and closing of the gates of the household. All this adds texture to
our understanding of the rhythms of aristocratic life; but stops short of telling
us how great magnates passed their time. Paradoxically, we may well be better
informed on this score when they were on public dutyserving in the army
or acting as envoys for the king. At home they are much more anonymous.
It is rare indeed for us to be able to capture the avour and preferences of a
noblemans domestic life. One such rare glimpse comes to us, indirectly and
unintentionally, in the volume of spiritual self-examination which Duke Henry
of Lancaster (d. 1361) wrote under the title Le Livre de Seyntz Medecines.
What comes across in the work is the dukes delight in the sensuous luxuries
of aristocratic lifehis ne rings, his garters, his ability as a dancer, his love
of rich food, well-spiced and served with strong sauces, and his passion for
wine, for it is a good feeling to be merry. Duke Henry was one of the richest
men of his day, and one of the great captains and envoys of Edward IIIs
reign; but his sensitivities were also well attuned to the domestic delights of
life in his many castles and to the thrill of the chase in his favourite forest at
Leicester.
Individual magnates no doubt had their individual tastes; but they also shared a
common set of values and outlook. They were bonded into a common aristocratic
culture from an early age, often being reared at the house of a great earl or dowager
and being initiated early into the habits and pastimes of chivalric society. Duke
Henry himself took young knights into his household to be doctrined, learned
and brought up in his noble court in school of arms and for to see noblesse,
courtesy and worship. These latter virtues were at the very heart of aristocratic
culture since at least the twelfth centurywhether in the guise of the Latin term
mansuetudo or its Anglo-French equivalent gentilesse. They certainly involved
a broad-based education by the fourteenth century. Duke Henry specically
referred to the school of arms, and rightly so, since horsemanship and a training
in arms were essential features of the young aristocratic males education from an
early age. But these practical skills were complemented by a solid grounding in
grammar, reading, and increasingly writing. After all, in later life these young
aristocrats would be the heads of complex business organizations and would
expect, and be expected, to keep an overall eye on estate affairs, however much
they delegated day-to-day business to their councils and ofcials. Their tutors
were often priests or members of religious orders and would attend closely to their
Woolgar, Great Household, ch. 5.
Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines: The Unpublished Devotional Treatise of Henry of Lancaster, ed.
E. J. Arnould (Oxford, 1940).
N. Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry: The Education of English Kings and Aristocracy,
10661530 (London, 1984).
The classic discussion is McFarlane, Nobility, 22847.
The Lord at Home
95
religious and moral instruction. Beyond their formal education, they would also
be initiated directly or indirectly in the behavioural conventions of aristocratic
lifethe arts of courtesywhich would henceforth form the framework of
their daily behaviour. They were being shaped from an early age into part,
gentil knights.
One of the primary diversions of such knights was the hunt. It had been so
for centuries, both in England and on the continent. Greatly did his hounds
love him was the revealing compliment paid to one early noble devotee of the
chase. When they were not represented in full military splendouras was
the norm on aristocratic seals and efgiesit was in the guise of hunters that
the magnates might choose to be portrayedas was Earl Simon de Montfort
(d.1265) of Leicester, shown on his seal riding through a wood blowing a horn,
wearing hunting garb, and with a dog at his side. Likewise we catch a glimpse, in
a legal source, of Earl Simons contemporary, Earl Richard de Clare of Gloucester
(d. 1262), walking after dinner with some of his companions and their dogs
in the earls chase at Michelwood. The words which were applied to Thomas,
lord of Berkeley (Gloucestershire) (d. 1321) could have been the epitaph of so
many magnates: hawkes, hounds and other doggs which all his life had solaced
him. Among them would be Henry of Grosmont, duke of Lancaster (d. 1361),
whose spiritual meditations have just been cited. His metaphors and images are
often borrowed from the world of the hunt and from the joys of naturethe
digging and smoking out of foxes, the barking of hounds, the song of the
nightingale, and the smell of roses and violets. Duke Henry was the epitome of
the country-loving gentleman as well as a great soldier and diplomat. So was his
even more famous son-in-law, John of Gaunt. Indeed so personally interested
in the chase was Gaunt that he gave personal instructions when he stayed at
Pontefract as to where precisely a trench should be dug to best advantage in
the park. Hunting and talk of hunting must have lled many an hour in
the aristocrats life. After all, in chivalric literature knowledge of the art and
vocabulary of venery was a sign of high birth. Gaunts nephew, Edward, duke
of York (d. 1415), even went to the trouble of translating the treatise of Gaston
Phebus, count of Bearn, on the chase into English, under the title The Master
of Game.
Such devotees of the chase spent lavishly on their sport. They kept large
packs of greyhounds, spaniels, mastiffs, and hounds, and spared no expenseas
the wardrobe account of Roger, earl of March (d. 1398), makes clearin the
purchase of expensive collars for the lords hounds and hunting equipment
Quoted in M. Bloch, Feudal Society (English translation, London, 1961), 304.
Crouch, Image of the Aristocracy, 305 (Montfort); Select Pleas of the Forest, 12091334, ed.
G. J. Turner (Selden Society, 1901), 34, 989 (Clare); Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, I, 188.
Goodman, John of Gaunt, 35860.
The Master of Game: The Oldest English Book on Hunting, ed. W. A. and F. Baillie-Grohman
(London, 1909).
96
Lords and Lordship
for the lord himself. John of Gaunt had a master of game and rewarded him
handsomely. Parks were carefully laid out, their fences and palisades regularly
repaired, and a phalanx of ofcials paid to police them and to protect the
lords game jealously. The earl of Norfolks parks at Framlingham and Saxtead
eventually covered more than a thousand acres and at their peak were home
for 1,600 deer. Alongside hunting, falconry was a favourite aristocratic sport.
John of Gaunt was particularly addicted to it: he bought falcons and hawks
at great expense; treasured presents of falcons from foreign dignitaries such as
the duke of Milan and the grand master of the Teutonic Order; and paid
his falconers handsomely. Gaunts purchases and presents may have been
exceptional because of his wealth; but his tastes were those of most of his fellow
aristocrats. They shared their enthusiasm together in great hunting parties, such
as the one lasting ve days which John of Gaunt arranged in JulyAugust 1390
attended by the king, the queen, the archbishop of York, the dukes of York and
Gloucester, the earls of Arundel and Huntingdon, with other bishops and a
great many lords and ladies.
Hunting and falconry were physically demanding activities, conned to
daytime. Much less demanding of energy were a variety of games to which the
aristocracy were partial. The more cerebral of them played chess: Duke Thomas
of Gloucester (d. 1397) had a chessboard with its pieces among his effects in
his London lodgings. Much more common were a variety of dice and card
games which were a daily indulgence for many aristocrats, just as the lure of the
casino would be irresistible for their successors. Some magnates were inveterate
gamblers and playboys. Edmund, the last Mortimer earl of March (d. 1425),
has a reputation as one such, largely because an account of his gaming losses
has survived. In the month 13 September13 October 1413 alone, his losses
on a whole variety of gamescards, tolman, rafe, chance, devant among
themalmost totalled 70. Edmund Mortimers gaming addiction was, perhaps,
unusual; but dice games were a favourite diversion for most magnatesincluding
Edmunds father, Earl Roger, the Black Prince, and John of Gaunt. They helped
to relieve the tedium of court life and travel.
So also did the music, revels, banquets, and exchange of visits which were part
of the life of the aristocratic court. Music-making and dancing were particularly
favoured activities. Henry Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV) was a talented
musician and so probably was his wife, Mary Bohun. They gave their children
a musical education. Bolingbroke was also much given to be entertained by
minstrels, trumpeters, clarioners, and other instrumentalists, both his own and
Baildon, Wardrobe Account of 1617 Richard II, 5067; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 359.
Medieval Framlingham: Selected Documents, 12701524, ed. J. Ridgard (Suffolk Record
Society, Woodbridge, 1985).
Reg. JG, I, no. 1659; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 359.
CIM, VI, no. 317; Age of Chivalry, no. 146.
Household Accounts, II, 592603; BL Egerton Roll 8747.
The Lord at Home
97
his visiting ones. On his crusading expedition to Prussia in 13923 he was

regularly serenaded in his chamber by minstrels and choristers. Bolingbrokes
musical tastes may have been particularly rened and well-informed; but in other
respects he shared the habits of his fellow magnates, including those of his father
(John of Gaunt) who employed a large number of musicians wearing his livery,
and charged the king of minstrels of the honour of Tutbury to ensure that all
local minstrels were present to perform at the annual feast of the assumption of
the Virgin Mary.
Aristocratic courts must have resounded to the sound of music and the
joys of dancing and revels, especially on high feasts. Jesters provided further
entertainment, and plays, disguisings, and subtleties were laid on especially
around Christmas and the New Year. We hear, for example, of divers disguisings
being staged for the countess of Warwick, with six players coming from
Slimbridge and four from Wooton as well as two minstrels on secondment from
the entourage of Joan Beauchamp, lady of Abergavenny. Public eating was, of
course, a regular and time-consuming feature of the aristocratic timetable. As well
as the lord and his immediate family, a large number of guests were frequently
entertainedfriends, relatives, fellow aristocrats, and local ecclesiastics but also
ofcials, neighbours, pilgrims, burgesses, and even the occasional tenant. Thus
the surviving household account of Elizabeth, countess of Warwick (d. 1422),
for 14201 reveals a constant ow of visitors of all ranks of society to dine at her
table. Some thirty to thirty-ve lunched or dined regularly with her, the gure
rising to 100 in March 1421 when her husband joined her from his military
enterprises. Similar, indeed considerably larger, numbers were commonly fed in
most aristocratic households. At the great festivals of the Christian year or on
special occasionssuch as the meetings of parliament in Westminstereven
more lavish banquets would be prepared. Henry Bolingbroke, earl (and soon to
be duke) of Hereford, laid on a magnicent dinner for the king, the queen, and
his fellow magnates at the house of the Carmelites in London in 1397. Trestles,
tables, and dressers were assembled for the occasion. A professional painter
was commissioned to paint curlews, pigeons, and popinjays in gold, silver, and
other colours for the occasions, and a team of men were set to work to prepare
subtleties in paste and wood.
Grand banquets were only part of a whole network of contacts which kept
the aristocracy regularly in touch with each other. Hunting parties, jousts,
TNA DL 28/1/2 f.6v (for purchase of strings and tuning fork); 1/3 f.21, 16 f.7 (for visiting
musicians); K. B. McFarlane, Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights (Oxford, 1972), 22.
Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land Made by Henry Earl of Derby, ed. L. Toulmin Smith
(Camden Series, London, 1894), 1079; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 318.
Marquess of Bath, Longleat House MS. Misc. IX (household book of earl of Warwick,
14201), f.56v.f.57. Ward, English Noblewomen, 745.
C. D. Ross, The Household Accounts of Elizabeth Berkeley, Countess of Warwick, 14201,
Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 70 (1951), 81105.
TNA DL 28/1/9 f.17v.; f.19 (journal of keeper of household).
98
Lords and Lordship
tournaments, weddings, and christening gatherings were regular features of the

active aristocrats calendar. So, indirectly, was the exchange of news and gossip
through messengers. As a great magnate toured his estates he would expect to
be entertained en route and to reciprocate in kind. When Henry Bolingbroke
travelled to Devonshire in 1395 he was entertained by Edward Courtenay, earl
of Devon (d. 1419), and the visit was completed by the exchange of gifts by
members of both households. Gift exchange was indeed a highly ritualized feature
of aristocratic life, reaching its peak in the exchange of New Year gifts. The list
of such gifts given by Henry Bolingbroke in January 1395 may again serve as
an example. They were carefully graded in hierarchy according to the status of
the recipient. The thirteen gifts he distributedincluding gifts for the king, the
queen, the duchess of Gloucester (sister of Bolingbrokes wife), and the countess
of Hereford (his mother-in-law)cost him 53.
Ritualized gift-giving was an aspect of the public sociability which encompassed
the life of the aristocracy. The opportunities for sustained privacy and for
cultivating ones personal tastes were severely restricted for them. Books might
have provided private solace for some of them. There can no longer be any
doubt that the great majority of the aristocracy were literatenot only in
the sense that they could read but also in the sense that they could construe
Latin and French, the languages par excellence of the written word until
the late fourteenth century. Some were considerable book collectors: Guy
Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1315), was described as bene literatus by a
contemporary chronicler, and his grandson bequeathed thirty-nine manuscripts
to Bordesley abbey (Worcestershire); and at the other end of the century Thomas
of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester (d. 1397), had a library of at least eightythree books. Nor were aristocratic women wanting in literary tastes; Margaret,
countess of Devon, had a Tristam, a book called Arthur of Brittany, and another
called Merlin, while Eleanor (the wife of Thomas of Woodstock) possessed
a French chronicle, a history of the Order of the Swan, and a French Bible
among other books. Books, especially romances, were also borrowed from the
stock kept in the royal privy wardrobe; Roger Mortimer (d. 1330) borrowed
twenty-three such volumes. The majority of books cited in aristocratic wills
and inventories were devotional and liturgical in character; but there was also
a fair selection of romances, chivalric literature, histories, and even legal works.
Literary tastes were probably broadly similar in Scotland and English Ireland
(where we know that Anglo-Norman was still in use in courts of law). Around
TNA DL 28/3/4 f.33v. (account of receiver-general 13923); DL 28/1/4 f.19 (account of the
clerk of the wardrobe, 13945).
McFarlane, Nobility, 2345 (Guy of Warwick); Dillon and St. John Hope, Inventory of the
Goods, 275308 ( Thomas of Woodstock). See also V. J. Scattergood, Literary Court Culture at
the Court of Richard II, in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. V. J. Scattergood
and J. W. Sherborne (London, 1982), 2944, esp. 345.
Test. Vet., I, 1278, 1469; Vale, Edward III and Chivalry, 4950.
The Lord at Home
99
1390 James Douglas, lord of Dalkeith (Midlothian), made a bequest of all his
books both of the statutes of the realm of Scotland as of romance. This
juxtaposition of utilitarian (legal texts) and imaginative literature (romances) is
a timely reminder of the multiplicity of worlds from which great aristocrats
constructed the universe of their intellectual experience. Some of them even went
a step further and composed their own workssuch as the treatise on jousting
by Thomas, duke of Gloucester (d. 1397), or the translation of the manual on
hunting by his nephew, Edward duke of York (d. 1415). John Montagu, earl of
Salisbury (d. 1400), composed some poems, even though they no longer survive.
Such instances should remind us that we should not underestimate the literary
ambitions and sensitivities of the later medieval magnate.
Nor should we overlook his religious sensibilities. The aristocratic household
was a religious as well as a social centre. The focal point of the noblemans
devotion was his private chapel, lavishly equippedas was that of Thomas
of Woodstock at Plesheywith several altars, rich ecclesiastical vestments and
plate, and an ample supply of missals, antiphons, and psalters. The lord or lady
would have his or her own personal confessor, often a friar; but there would
also be a body of clerks or chaplains. Joan de Valence, countess of Pembroke
(d. 1307) had at least nine clerks and one friar in her household. Some of
the greatest magnates set their personal ecclesiastical sights even higher: none
more so than Duke Henry of Lancaster (d. 1361). In 1353 he converted the
hospital at Leicester which his father had founded in 1331 into a college of
secular canons to be served by a dean, twelve canons, thirteen vicars, and three
other clerks and a verger. It was also to accommodate 100 poor folk and ten
women attendants. It was as has been appropriately observed, a domestic,
ducal version of the Sainte Chapelle. Thomas of Woodstock likewise in 1394
set aside properties for a similar college at Pleshey. When the lord travelled,
his clerical entourage might well accompany him: when Margaret, duchess of
Clarence, travelled to Normandy to meet her husband in November 1419
she was accompanied by the dean, at least ten chaplains and clerks (out of a
complement of twenty-four), and four choristers from the dukes household. A
college of chanting priests and choristers, nanced from a landed endowment,
became by the late fourteenth century the preferred form of aristocratic religious
benefaction. Whether travelling or at home, the lord would normally be expected
to attend some of the religious servicesmatins, mass, and evensongwhich
punctuated the daily timetable of every well-run noble household.
Nor did this in any way exhaust the religious duties of the least pious nobleman.
Alms-giving was a regular call on his resources. John of Gaunt distributed 12s.6d .
in alms every Friday and 10s. on Saturday. Even the extravagant rake Edmund
Mort. Reg., I, no. 193.
Fowler, Kings Lieutenant, 18893; Walker, Lancastrian Afnity, 97.
100
Lords and Lordship
Mortimer, earl of March (d. 1425), gave alms regularlyhis normal donation
was 3s.4d . each timeas he travelled round the country in 1415. He also
distributed food worth 48s. to the poor on 28 March and 20s. to a recently
baptized infant on 6 April. But such sums were paltry compared with his
gaming losses, and they pale into insignicance when set beside the dinner
for 800 paupers which Eleanor, countess of Leicester (d. 1275) arranged on
14 April 1265. Alms were but one aspect of the religiously inspired charity which
was an obligatory claim on the noblemans coffers. He could also be expected
to contribute handsomely to building bridges and repairing churches. John of
Gaunt would have hardly noticed the 100 marks which he gave for the repair
of the church of St Mary at Leicester; more generous was the sum of 350 marks
which the remarkably long-lived and rich Margaret Brotherton, countess (and
later duchess) of Norfolk (d. 1399), donated towards the making of a new choir
stall in the church of Greyfriars. Others directed their charity to educational
purposes, none more so than some of the wealthy dowager ladies of the fourteenth
century. So it is that Pembroke and Clare colleges in Cambridge still testify to
the generosity of their founding ladiesMary of St Pol, countess of Pembroke
(d. 1377) and Elizabeth de Burgh, lady of Clare (d. 1360). Founding a college
(or, more correctly, a hall) required a huge investment, long-term planning,
and persistence. But there were less demanding and more short-term forms
of educational charity: such as establishing an endowment-chest at Oxford on
which poor students could draw (as did the countess of Warwick in 1293) or
sponsoring the talented son of a local tenant in his studies (as happened to an
ever-grateful Adam Usk at the hands of Roger Mortimer, earl of March and lord
of Usk (d. 1398)), or patronizing the studies of ones own clerks (as Elizabeth
de Burgh did, sending four of them to seek a legal education in London and
another two to study under a master in Oxford).
Nor could the aristocracy overlook their inherited family obligations, notably
as patrons of monasteries founded by their ancestors. These long-established
monasteries continued to press for support, all the more so, arguably, as they
noticed how the religious municence of the aristocracy was being increasingly
drained into hospitals, schools, chantries, collegiate churches, and the more
austere orders (notably the Carthusians). Their lobbying did not go unheeded.
Three examples may serve to show how aristocratic wealth was still being lavishly
channelled in certain instances to the older religious houses. It was the wealth of
the last Bigod earl of Norfolk (d. 1306) which alone almost certainly provided
the means for the Cistercians to build a magnicent new church for themselves as
Tintern abbey. St Albans was one of the oldest and best endowed of Benedictine
Reg. JG, I, no. 932; BL Egerton Roll 8747.
Woolgar, Great Household, 64; Reg. JG, II, no. 145; R. E. Archer, The Estates and Finances
of Margaret of Brotherton, c.13201399, BIHR, 60 (1987), 26480 at 276.
Ward, English Noblewomen, 1589.
Adam Usk, Chronicle, 158; CPR 13815, 115; Ward, English Noblewomen, 1578.
The Lord at Home
101
houses in England but it remained grateful for the support it received from the
countess of Norfolk and entered her name in its book of benefactors. Another
municent patron of monasteries was Edmund, earl of March (d. 1381): he
nanced the rebuilding of the church of Wigmore abbey and endowed it
handsomely with lands, liberties, churches, and stock but he also left gifts to
more than thirty other religious housesmany of them closely associated with
his own estatesin his will.
The religious sensibilities of Earl Edmund were conventional, even conservative; they would not have been out of place two centuries earlier. By the midlate
fourteenth century, religious sensibility was becoming more introspective and
individual, less corporate in its manifestations. This did not lead to any direct
challenge to existing forms of worship; rather was it a search for a more private
and personal outlet for individual piety. The aristocracy with its ready access to
books and confessors and its high level of literacy was particularly well placed to
swim with this religious tide. Henry of Grosmonts Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines,
which has already been cited several times, is perhaps the most remarkable
example of the genre of self-examining penitential works which sought to bridge
the chasm between the active and the contemplative lives. Likewise the fact that
Duke Thomas of Gloucester (d. 1397) owned an English Bible in the Lollard
translation suggests that here was a great nobleman whose exploration of religion
extended into the rather suspect world of vernacular translations of the Bible.
There is no need to suspect Duke Thomas of heresy (though his brother, John of
Gaunt, had earlier given partisan support to John Wycliff for political reasons).
It is in the late fourteenth century that books of hours became common among
the upper classes, allowing them to pursue their search for a more personal
religion in the privacy of their own chambers rather than, or perhaps as well as,
in the public liturgical chanting of the psalter in their presence. None availed
themselves of these opportunities more avidly than the two daughters and heirs
of Humphrey, the last Bohun earl of Hereford (d. 1373). One daughter, Eleanor,
married Thomas of Woodstock and noted in her will how she had much used
a book of psalms, primes and other devotions. Her sister, Mary, married Henry
Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV): she inherited her fathers psalter and added
to it some personal prayers with the intention of inspiring the heart with an
intense sweetness.
These episodes give us some insight into the spiritual lives and practices of
the higher aristocracy and their womenfolk. We must not, of course, generalize
from a few examples; piety, as with all other aspects of life, was a matter of
individual taste and priority. But the greater danger surely is that our historical
analyses do less than justice to the range of activities and sensitivities which could
See above, pp. 467, 84 (Wigmore); Archer, Estates and Finances, 276 (Norfolk); Monasticon,
VI, I, 353 (Mortimer).
Catto, Religion and the English Nobility, 49.
102
Lords and Lordship
characterize the life of the higher aristocracy in the later Middle Ages. We see
them pre-eminently at two levels: one at the level of their public careers as
military leaders, courtiers, and leading participants (often confrontationally so)
in political life; the otherthrough their household and estate accountsas
the heads of large business enterprises. Our historical sympathies need to take
note of other aspects of their livesin the hunt, at tournaments, at their gaming
tables, in their devotions, and in their acts of charity, to name but a few. It is
only by attempting to see their careers and concerns in the round, and on their
own terms, that we can begin to do justice to their role and their power, all
the more so given the centralist and royalist bias of so much modern academic
historiography.
Great aristocrats lived their lives in the public gaze. Wherever they went, they
were surrounded by a bevy of dependants, retainers, guests, and servants. A lords
standing was measured in good part by the magnicence and efciency of his
household. It was there that his authority and power was displayed on a daily and
immediate basis; it was the resources and effectiveness of his rule of his household
that enabled him, literally and metaphorically, to live like a lord. His success
as a lord could in many respects be judged at once by the way he exercised his
authority and expressed his personality in his household, the domestic centre
as it were of his whole world. The shrewd Burgundian commentator Georges
Chastellain had no doubt on that score: After the deeds and exploits of war,
which are claims to glory, so he remarked, the household is the rst thing which
strikes the eye, and that which it is, therefore, most necessary to conduct and
arrange well.
The noble household varied in its character and size according to the personality, needs, and career of the individual lord. At its core would be a resident and
largely permanent staff of menial servants, professional, salaried ofcers, and a
group of knights, squires, and yeomen. But this core would be augmented frequently by the arrival of guests, retainers, and visitors of all kinds. We can see this
most dramatically, and probably uncharacteristically, in the household account
of Earl Thomas of Lancaster (d. 1322) at Pontefract in 131819: the number of
horses stabled at the earls expense, and thereby charged on his household book
(liber hospicii) daily, ranged from 186 to 1,237. Earl Thomass household, as
we shall see, was of an extravagant size and the huge gures of horses stabled
reect extraordinary calls on the earls resources (for a meeting of a parliament
For many of the issues touched on in this section, reference may be made to the following
general studies. Given-Wilson, English Nobility, ch. 4; C. Given-Wilson, The Royal Household
and the Kings Afnity: Service, Politics and Finance in England, 13601413 (New Haven, 1986);
K. Mertes, The English Noble Household, 12501600: Good Governance and Politic Rule (Oxford,
1988); Woolgar, Great Household.
Quoted in Given-Wilson, Royal Household, 259.
TNA DL 28/1/14 (the household book of Earl Thomas of Lancaster, 1318).
The Lord at Home
103
at York and for a muster for a proposed Scottish campaign). To that extent, the
gures are not at all representative. But it is amply clear from other household
accounts that the size of the household varied from day to day and certainly from
week to weekas the lords servants left the court (extra curiam) on ofcial or
personal business, as high feasts were celebrated, as knights and gentlemen (who
would normally reside on their own estates) came with their attendants to spend
a period at the lords table (bouche de court), and as the lords business took
him away (on campaign, to parliament, on visits, to tournaments). On these
latter occasions the household might be formally divided into twoan inner or
intrinsic household which remained resident at the lords principal residence and
a riding or foreign household which accompanied him on his travels.
The household was overwhelmingly a male establishment. Dowagers, of course,
had their own households and only slightly smaller than those of the average
magnate. Thus the household of Joan de Valence, countess of Pembroke
(d. 1307), at Goodrich castle (Herefordshire) in 12967 numbered 135 and a
further twelve grooms. Aristocratic wives might also have their own households
during their husbands lives, though they were often modest in size and
subsidized by an allowance from the lords coffers. But even female establishments
were mainly staffed by men, supplemented by a few attendant gentlewomen,
female servants of the chamber, nursemaids, and laundresses. The household was
a strictly stratied and hierarchical institution, reected in seating arrangements
in hall, the number of dishes (ferculae) allotted per meal, the allowance and
quality of cloth given as livery, shoe allowance, and the daily wages for those
living in the household (infra curiam) and those away from the court (extra
curiam). In the household of Henry Bolingbroke in 13978 there was a tariff
of resident household wagesat 2d., 4d., 7 1/2d., and 12d . per day, with
the highest rate reserved for a handful of the earls condants, such as Hugh
Waterton, his devoted chamberlain.
It is obvious that there would be a difference in size and character between
the household of a retiring dowager and that of an active military lord; but
the difference would not be so great as might perhaps be expected, because all
lords, men and women, were expected to have a household commensurate with
their social status. We have just observed that Joan de Valence in 1296 had a
household of 135; that of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, stood at 150 or so
in 1390 (though that gure may err on the low side). Such gures are modest
compared with those for the royal household (that of Edward III stood at 400
For examples McFarlane, Nobility, 110; Rawcliffe, Staffords, 689.
Woolgar, Great Household, 53. For an excellent discussion of the households of aristocratic
women, see Ward, English Noblewomen, ch. 3.
TNA DL 28/1/910 (accounts of the household expenditure of Henry Bolingbroke, 13968).
Woolgar, Great Household, 53; Walker, Lancastrian Afnity, 1013 (since this gure is based
on checker rolls and stable accounts, it may underestimate the number of grooms, valets, and pages).
For a useful table of household size, see Woolgar, Great Household, 1213.
104
Lords and Lordship
at least, rising to almost 600 by the later years of Richard II) and with those
for some contemporary French ducal courts (280 for the duke of Berry, 350 for
the duke of Burgundy). On such a scale English noble households were certainly
large but not extravagant. What extravagance could mean is well illustrated in
the case of Earl Thomas of Lancaster (d. 1322). In the two years for which
we have accounts (131314 and 131819), his household expenses reached a
staggering 7,500 (not very far short of the crowns household budget), of which
3,0004,000 was spent on daily expenses of food and drink, 7001,100
on livery of robes, and 500600 on fees of servants and retainers. The total
size of the household in 131819 stood close to 700. These were extraordinary
gures for an extraordinary earl in extraordinary times, all the more so since Earl
Thomass resources, impressive as they were, did not compare with the totality of
income at the disposal of John of Gaunt. They are a reminder to us that the size
and character of a noble household was ultimately determined by the personality
and ambitions of the lord himself.
The household was the nodal point of lordship and as such it served at least two
distinct, though not unrelated, purposes. At one level its purpose was to provide a
venue where the lords authority and power were displayed, where he could consort with advisers, ofcers, followers, and guests, and where he would pass much
of his time when he was resident at home. This was the domus magnicencie, the
household above stairs in the parlance of a later age. It would be formally staffed by
a cadre of ofcers, normally drawn from his condants and generally more or less
permanently resident at his court. It was headed by a steward, normally a layman
of good birth; a treasurer, generally a cleric and often rewarded with one of the
lords livings; and, in some households, a chamberlain and/or wardrober. These
were generally the key ofcials in most noble households, and it is their daily and
aggregated audited accounts which are the best surviving guides to the business of
the household. Beneath them was a further group of departmental ofcerssuch
as the marshal (in charge of the crucial business of stabling the lords horses and
those of his guests), the butler, the clerk of the kitchen, the chief clerk of the
chapel, and others. Each had his own clearly dened sphere of responsibility.
There might also be a great wardrobe under its clerk: this was the lords storehouse
of arms, cloths, and equipment; it might oftenas in the case of Gaunts great
wardrobe and that of his son, Henry Bolingbrokebe based in London, away
from the lords normal residence but in easy reach of its major suppliers, the leading metropolitan merchants. In some households there could be other specialized
ofcerssuch as Thomas of Woodstocks secretary or Gaunts keeper of jewels.
The secondand more populouslevel of the household was the domus
providencie, the household below stairs. It was composed of a range of domestic
For example, Simon Bache, treasurer of the household of Henry Bolingbroke, spent 334 days
infra curiam in the year 1 October 139730 September 1398: TNA DL 28/1/10.
The Lord at Home
105
departments including kitchen, pantry, buttery, chamber, larder, wash house,

and stable. As the names of the departments suggest, its primary function was to
buy and prepare the food and the drink and to arrange the stabling for the lord
and his householdno mean task when we consider that the average number
to be fed at the lords table might range from 50 to 100 daily. These household
departments were staffed by a huge body of valets, pages, and grooms, often
rewarded at differential and hierarchical rates. Thus John Mowbray, earl (and
later duke) of Norfolk (d. 1432), had six valets of the chamber, twenty-ve valets
of the lord, and thirty others on his books as well as a further eleven pages on
his travels (pro viagio) in 14223. Recruiting, organizing, and controlling such
large numbers of servants could not have been easy, all the more so as a good
number of them were expected to travel with the lord. Their role was essentially
domestic and menial; but since they lived under the lords roof and served
him at his table, they were oftenwithin the bounds of conventionfamiliar
with him. Most noble wills give a high priority to paying outstanding wages to
long-standing servants and discharging them honourably on the lords death.
Others, touchingly, went further, naming favoured servants individually and
leaving them small bequests: Earl Humphrey of Hereford (d. 1361) rewarded
thirty-eight of his household servants; Thomas, duke of Exeter (d. 1426), left
bequests to sixty-one of his esquires and servants.
Satisfying the demands of large seigniorial households, especially given the
problems of transport and the market, posed formidable problems. Grain had to
be transported from local manors and markets; fuel and fodder in large quantities
had to be secured; wines would have to be shipped up ever-obstructed rivers;
sh would need to be purchased in abundance for the weekly abstinence from
meat on three days and for Lent; ample stores would have to be laid up days
or even weeks in advance, and forward parties would have to be despatched in
advance to prepare stables, rooms, and supplies for the lords itinerary. The list
of food and wineincomplete as it isconsumed by the household of the
rich and twice-endowed Margaret, countess of Norfolk (d. 1399), in 13856
gives an indication of the voracious consumption demands of such a household.
It included 60,121 loaves made from 235 quarters of wheat, 28,962 gallons
(lagenae) of ale and 4,377 of wine, 698 sheep, 151 pigs, 140 oxen and steers, 616
rabbits, 520 pigeons, 491 partridges, 49 cygnets, 196 capons, 31 pheasants, 122
bucks and does. The list is by no means complete; it would no doubt have been
exceeded by the demands of the household of an active male lord.
Household expenditure regularly stood at 4070 per cent of a major lords
overall disbursements. John of Gaunt was, of course, exceptionally rich with a
BL Add. Roll 17209.
Nichols, Wills, 4456; Reg. Chichele, II, 358.
Such lists would exclude items bought on a daily basis, as opposed to bulk purchases.
BL Add. Roll 17208, now published in Ridgard (ed.), Medieval Framlingham, 86128.
Similar gures can be calculated from the household account of Elizabeth countess of Warwick for
14201; Ross, Household Accounts of Elizabeth Berkeley, 81105.
106
Lords and Lordship
disposable landed income in the 1390s not far short of 11,000 annually; but the
proportion of that vast income he earmarked annually for recurrent household
expenses5,000 for the treasurer of his household, 1,333 6s. 8d . for his
great wardrobe, and a further 666 13s. 4d. for his duchesss chamberwas
not out of line with what can be calculated for other magnates. Of these
large sums, normally at least half was accounted for by the costs of food and
wine. So it was that Joan de Valence, countess of Pembroke, spent two-thirds
of her domestic outgoings in 12967 on food and drink, while a quarter of
Earl Thomas of Lancasters budget was spent on food alone. It is in fact often
very difcult to calculate accurately the total food and wine budget, because
household accounting procedures often excluded both victuals consumed from
the lords own produce or stock and also small, daily purchases. Two items do,
however, regularly stand outsh and wine. Fish, especially herrings and white
sh, were consumed in huge quantities and had often to be transported over
long distances, thereby adding to the costs. Countess Joan de Valence purchased
24,000 herrings in Southampton in February 1297 and had them transported by
cart to Gloucester and thence to her kitchen at Goodrich castle (Herefordshire),
while her supplies of dried cod were simultaneously shipped from Pembroke
to Chepstow via Bristol and thence taken by packhorse to Goodrich. Wine
had, of course, to travel even further. It was very much the status drink of the
lord and his immediate company and was often given as a present by magnates.
Countess Margaret of Norfolkwhose household account for 13856 has
just been citedshipped most of her wine through Ipswich and then had it
transported overland to Framlingham castle. She purchased mainly red Gascon
wine, supplemented by white Rhenish and St Emilion wine. Her wine bill for
that year alone stood at 137and that at a time when 4060 would be a
handsome annual income for a modest county knight.
The consumption demands of a great household would obviously play an
important role in the economy and marketing practices of the country, all
the more so when we recall the number of such households and the way the
tentacles of their activities reached throughout the country. How then were
those consumption demands met? In early centuries magnates may literally have
eaten their way around their estatespartly no doubt because itineration (as
we have seen) was a way of manifesting lordship personally, and partly because
the mechanisms of the market were insufciently developed to cater effectively
for the needs of a large seigniorial household. Such practices certainly continued
TNA DL 28/3/2 (account of receiver-general, 13923). He also allocated a thousand marks
to his sons household annually.
Woolgar, Great Household, 11113; Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 27.
Woolgar, Great Household, 119. The cash, corn, and stock account of the household of the
twelfth earl of Oxford for 14312, published in Household Accounts, II, no. 20, illustrates admirably
the scale and character of a magnates food purchases.
The Lord at Home
107
in a measure even among lay aristocrats in the later Middle Ages, though more
often than not in the form of transporting the produce of the lords estates to
one of his favoured residences. Earl Thomas of Lancaster (d. 1322), when he
was resident in London, still secured supplies from his manor of Aldbourne
(Wiltshire), wheat from Higham Ferrers (Northamptonshire), and venison from
Needwood (Staffordshire), all of them his own estates. In the case of the longlived Elizabeth de Burgh, lady of Clare (d. 1360), the wealth of the surviving
documentation has allowed Jennifer Ward to tabulate the cost of her household
supplies, indicating that at least a quarter of those supplies were derived from
her own manors. The demands of Lady Elizabeths household were certainly not
regularly on the same scale as those of Earl Thomas; but when we recall that in
1343 she distributed liveries of cloth and fur to almost 260 personsincluding
15 knights, 93 esquires, 21 clerks, and 108 household and estate servantswe
recognize that even a thrice-widowed and relatively retiring dowager lady had
to maintain and occasionally feed a menage commensurate with her status and
social expectations.
Even when the lords household no longer relied on the lords demesne
manors for its regular supplies, especially of cereals, it could still turn to them for
specialized items. Salmon and lampreys were favoured sh dishes on the noble
table, helping to relieve the tedium of seemingly endless servings of herrings and
stocksh. It was well worthwhile travelling a long way to secure high-quality
supplies of salmon and lampreys, and where could be a more reliable source
than the lords own estates? So it was that Elizabeth de Burgh was partial to
the salmon of her estates at Usk, John of Gaunt to the lampreys of his manor
of Rodley (Gloucestershire) on the Severn estuary, and Margaret, countess of
Norfolk (d. 1399), to the salmon and lampreys of Chepstow (south-east Wales)
and cod from distant Pembroke in south-west Wales, both of them parts of her
widely scattered inheritance and at a great distance from her normal residence at
Framlingham (Suffolk). And so the pattern was repeated with other supplies:
Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln (d. 1311), had cheese transported from his Welsh
border lordship of Clifford to his table at Aldbourne (Wiltshire), while John of
Gaunt regularly ordered dozens of rabbitsoften on a weekly basisfrom the
extensive seigniorial warrens at Aldbourne when it came into his possession. But
perhaps the most remarkable example of the way in which the widely scattered
estates of a great lord could constitute their own self-contained economic network
to meet the needs of the lords household was in the herds of animals which were
driven across country to the lords larder. The households of the earls of Lincoln
at Altofts (Yorkshire), of Elizabeth de Burgh at Bardeld (Essex), and the Black
Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, I, 96.

Ward, English Noblewomen, 678; Holmes, Estates, 589.
Davies, Lordship and Society, 11011 and the sources cited there.
TNA DL 29/1/2 m.2 (Lacy); Reg. JG, I, no. 1126, II, no. 739.
108
Lords and Lordship
Prince in his hostel at London were regularly dependent on cattle supplies from
Wales, Chester, and elsewhere in England. Perhaps one vignette can serve to
show how this preference for the produce of the lords own estates (be it demesne
produce or tenant renders) created economic bonds to be set side by side with the
commercial marketing network. In 1349 twenty drovers drove over 400 head of
cattlemainly part of the biennial render given to the earl of Hereford as lord
of Brecon from the Welshmen of the areafrom Brecon across country to the
Bohun household in Essex, to be followed in 1350 by similar herds being driven
to Kimbolton (Huntingdonshire)some 130 miles at least from Breconand
Oaksey (Wiltshire). Doubtless many similar journeys were undertaken within
England itselfsuch as the bullocks driven from the ranch in Barnard Castle
(Co. Durham) all the way to the Beauchamp household in Warwickshire and
in the London area, or the ock of 500 sheep driven from the Stafford manor
of Maxtock (Warwickshire) to another Stafford residence at Writtle (Essex).
Economic historians in their anxiety to trace the development of a money and
market economy have perhaps not paid sufcient attention to such evidence. It
is a reminder to us that the great aristocratic inheritance could be a functioning
economic network as well as a source of nancial, social, and political power.
Nevertheless it was inevitable that the supplies of noble households should
mainly, and increasingly so over time, be met from the market rather than from
demesne resources. The sheer volume of the households needs, the complexity
of its itineration patterns, and the rising demands in terms of comfort and quality
of domestic living reinforced such a development. We have seen that in the
case of Elizabeth de Burghwho was more stationary in her residential habits
than most of her lay peers75 per cent of the supplies for her household were
purchased on the market. Such was likewise the proportion with other lords.
Supplies were bought from a whole variety of sourceswholesale merchants,
specialist dealers (especially in London for exotic goods such as spices), in local
markets, by dispatching agents to scour the countryside, and by the virtual
commandeering of goods from any source that lay to hand, especially when
the lord was on a journey. The household account of Margaret, countess of
Norfolk, for 13856 (already cited above) reveals that though she drew heavily
on the produce of her own demesne lands and the rents of her tenants she also
purchased corn and meat from merchants and at local markets in places such as
Bungay (Suffolk) and Diss (Norfolk), while her agents had to travel to London
for items such as rice and almond. Countess Margaret was resident for the year at
Framlingham and so was well-placed to arrange her purchases in advance. Other
lords had to do so, literally and metaphorically, on the hoof. When Edward, duke
TNA DL 29/1/2 m.2 (Lacy); TNA SC 11/799 (de Burgh); Reg. BP., I, 18, 78, 87, 103 etc.
Cited from the accounts of the receiver of Brecon in Davies, Lordship and Society, 116.
McFarlane, Nobility, 194; BL Egerton Roll 2209 (account of treasure of great household of
duke of Buckingham 14545).
The Lord at Home
109
of York (d. 1415), moved his household from Cardiff to Hanley (Worcestershire)
in autumn 1409 and began to plan his Christmas sojourn, he sent his servants to
surrounding towns and marketsWorcester, Ledbury, and Tewkesbury among
themto purchase supplies; secured his wine from Bristol and Chepstow; and
hired a force of 184 men to fell and trim wood and to make it into faggots to keep
out the winter cold. Duke Edwards provision arrangements were rather ad hoc
in character; other lords had to be more systematic in their purchasing policies.
John of Gaunt, for example, appointed professional buyers to purchase the large
stocks of meat, poultry, and sh which his household required, especially when
he was in or near London.
Great lords dealt in large sums of money, and needed to understand and manage
their nances. The debts of Henry Bolingbroke have been mentioned above,
but Bolingbroke was no spendthrift. Rather was hein common with most
of his fellow magnatesoften short of ready cash and therefore borrowed it
against the security of his anticipated income. Some magnates, it is true, seem
to have been proigate. We have already cited the betting extravagances of
Edmund, the last Mortimer earl of March (d. 1425). Even more obviously
reckless was Thomas Mowbray, earl of Norfolk (d. 1405). He was, to be fair,
very unlucky in his inherited circumstances: his great-grandmother, Margaret
Brotherton, countess and later duchess of Norfolk in her own right, had clung
tenaciously to her lands (both by inheritance and jointure) until her death
at a great old age in 1399; in the meantime, Earl Thomass father, another
Thomas, fell foul of Richard IIs spleen and died in exile. Such misfortunes
should have persuaded young Earl Thomas to act with great circumspection in
all matters, nancial and political. He failed to do so. He borrowed recklessly
from any sourcefrom Roger Blickling of Norwich (332), from his own
men of Framlingham (10), from the abbot of Fountains (27), and from
Richard Nevill of London (459) among others. His creditors took advantage
of his penury: Richard Nevill charged a brokerage fee of 5 and interest at 15
per cent (39 3s. 2d .). The earls ofcials were driven to desperate measures:
some of them travelled to London to discuss the rescheduling of his debts
(pending the receipt of money owed him by the exchequer); other members of
his council journeyed to Norfolk and Suffolk to raise loans for the lord. It is
little wonder that another servant was sent to check out stories that William
Mason was able to make silver from lead! Earl Thomas might eventually have
recovered from his nancial troubles; but nothing could save him from the
consequences of his political folly. It may indeed be that his nancial difculties
made him politically adventurous. Be that as it may, he was caught in one of the
Northamptonshire Record Ofce, Westmorland (Apethorpe) Collection, 4.xx.4.
Reg. JG, II, no. 811; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 3201.
See above, pp. 96, 100.
BL Add. Roll 16556 (account of receiver of Earl Marshal 14023).
110
Lords and Lordship
many political plots which shook England in the early years of Henry IV and
suffered the ultimate penalty, being executed on 8 June 1405, when he was not
yet twenty.
But we must not generalize from the sad tale of Earl Thomass brief career. What
the late medieval nobility suffered from was not so much heavy indebtedness as
chronic cash-ow problems. It was a situation compounded by the absence of an
effective native banking system, by the difculties of getting cash levies promptly
from their scattered estates, and by the regular failure of the royal exchequer
to pay their war wages at all promptly. In particular as they travelled abroad
or prepared to serve the king on a military expedition, they were drivenas
indeed was the king himselfto make desperate pleas for immediate cash. Such
pleas gure regularly in the correspondence of John of Gaunt, the wealthiest
aristocratic lord of his day. When John Mowbray, earl of Norfolk (d. 1432)
agreed to serve Henry V in France in 1415thereby helping to delete the taint
of treason which his brothers plotting had drawn upon the family in 1405he
was forced to borrow 1,000 marks from the earl of Arundel and lesser sums from
others, such as the prior of Thetford and the rector of Framlingham. Magnates
borrowed from a whole range of creditor: Italian bankers, rich bishops and
abbeys, cathedral chapters, London merchants, borough corporations, individual
townsmen, and even their own tenants.
The evidence for such borrowing is abundant; but we must take care not to
jump to the conclusion (often hinted at by historians) that the later medieval
magnates were, therefore, living beyond their means and doing so to sustain
bloated households and personal magnicence at a time of declining incomes
for many of them. Such a conclusion is often based on a misreading of the
evidence and on a misunderstanding of the totality of sources at the disposal
of the aristocracy. Most of the loans that were contracted were temporary or
short-term, generally repaid within the year. More often than not they were
the result of immediate cash-ow problems rather than of chronic indebtedness.
A temporarily cash-strapped earl knew that later in the nancial year he could
expect treasure-carts laden with monies to arrive at his household from his distant
estates or that he would be given preferential tallies for the sums long owed to
him by the royal exchequer. In the longer term his advisers might also remind
him that he could expect a windfall when his dowager mother or grandmother
at last died or when he succeeded to his fathers inheritance.
For example Reg. JG, I, nos. 940, 1761, 1790.
McFarlane, Nobility, 221; Berkeley Castle muniments, account of the earls receiver-general,
141415.
For examples of seigniorial loans, TNA DL 29/1/2 m.15 (Lacy from Italian bankers);
Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 378; BL Egerton Roll 8727 (list of Edmund Mortimers
creditors, 1375); BL Egerton 8769 (Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick).
For example, BL Egerton Roll 8730for a treasure convoy carrying 1,400 from Wigmore
to London in 1387, escorted by eleven archers.
The Lord at Home
111
Some magnates did not have to wait that long: Richard Fitzalan, earl of
Arundel (d. 1376) was fabulously rich in his own lifetime. At his death his coffers
in Arundel, in Holt and Clun in the March of Wales, and at St Pauls, London
(under the care of John Philipot), held a staggering 60,000 in cash (at a time
when the standard lay tax for the whole kingdom was estimated at c.38,000).
With such vast sums of cash at his disposal he became the premier source of
lending in England, especially in the later years of his life. The king, the Black
Prince, and at least half a dozen dukes and earls borrowed large sums from him;
but so did leading London merchants such as John Philpot and John Peche and a
host of other gures. One of his creditors was none other than John of Gaunt.
But Gaunts credit operations remind us again how easy it is to jump to false
conclusions from the evidence of borrowing. The survival of the register of his
correspondence for the years 13726 allows us to see how extensively he cast the
net of his borrowing, no doubt in part to nance his expeditions to France. In
13724 alone he borrowed 11,000 marks from the earl of Arundel. But Gaunt
was, of course, in terms of landed income the richest lay magnate in England in
his day, and if to this regular income we add the windfalls of his war prots and
the settlement of his claim to be king of Castile, we cannot be in doubt that he
could have comfortably weathered any temporary nancial storm. Indeed when
we next catch up with his nances in detail in 13923 we nd him not as a
debtor but as a large-scale creditor. Among his clients were his brother Thomas
of Woodstock and his (Gaunts) son, Henry Bolingbroke (2,000 marks each)
and William Venour and other leading Londoners (almost 2,000).
Individual magnates could, of course, fall on hard times nanciallysometimes as a result of an extravagant lifestyle, especially when their estates were
encumbered with the dower- and jointure-claims of widows, indeed successive
widows; more often, perhaps, by the misfortunes of war and politicssuch as
a crippling ransom or conscation in the wake of a political misjudgement. But
there is no reason to believe that there was as yet a crisis of the aristocracy
in nancial terms by the late-fourteenthearly-fteenth centuries. The seismic
economic and social changes that came in the wake of the recurrent outbreaks
of plague from 13489 certainly had an impact on seigniorial policy and, to
some degree, income and authority; but the consensus of historical opinion
has broadly conrmed the short- and medium-term resilience of the governing
classes (including especially the great lay and ecclesiastical magnates) in the face of
this challenge and the remarkable degree to which their incomes from recurrent
sources stood up under pressure. Indeed recent scholarship has underlined the
remarkable managerial resilience, even aggressive toughness, of the nobility in the
C. Given-Wilson, Wealth and Credit, Public and Private: The Earls of Arundel, 13031397,
EHR, 106 (1991), 126.
Reg. JG, I, nos 12401, 1276, 1320, 1330, 1351, 14001, 1659 etc.
TNA DL 28/3/2 f.5.
112
Lords and Lordship
face of such challenges. We are also more aware that reliance solely on the landed
income of magnates gives us a partial and very incomplete view of noble wealth
and power. A narrowly budgetary approach to noble income and expenditure
threatens to obscure the social role and expectations of aristocratic lordship.
Parsimony was not necessarily a virtue in such a world; rather were largesse,
municence, and display the keynotes. Lords were expected to live like lords.
We have tried to capture in this chapter some of the leading aspects of what
we may call the domestic life of the greater aristocracy. These are aspects which
often lie beyond the reach, or at least the direct reach, of the conventional
historical documentationbe it the comments of chronicles, the cut-and-thrust
of political and military narratives, and even the detailed minutiae of estate and
household accounts. We have tried, as it were, to catch the aristocracy off-duty
politically, at leisure and in their homes. How, and how much, they spent their
time in these activities would inevitably vary from individual to individual and
indeed from place to place. But beyond such undeniable individualism, the
aristocracy shared a corporate identity, notably a set of conventions of behaviour,
lifestyle, and manners into which they were born and on which they were reared.
It is aspects of this collective ethos and priorities which we have sought to capture.
But it is on a personal note that we should end. Lordship, like kingship, was
ultimately personal, in tone and direction. This was so at least at two levels.
First, however much of the day-to-day routine of business and supervision was
delegated to the lords council and to his senior professional ofcers (especially
when he was away on military service), it was the lord himself who often took the
ultimate decisions. Few magnates can have been as busy as was John of Gaunt;
but his direct control of, and interest in, the affairs of his inheritance shine out
from the documents. My lord, so announces one of the warrants issued in his
name, ordered me in his own words in the presence of . . . his chancellor to make
out a warrant. The duke issued pardons and directions by word of mouth
and declared in his will that he always kept his signet with him, so that he could
issue commands wherever he was. He could declare his will orally to his servants
and require them to report back directly to him. His ofcials had good reason to
know that he was not a man to be crossed lightly: the receiver of Tutbury was
told in no uncertain terms that his excuses were feeble and that the duke was
much displeased with him; another who had offended him was warned not to
approach our court or our presence. Gaunt was not unusual in this respect; it
is simply that evidence about his directive role is more abundant.
A second sense in which lordship was irreducibly personal lay in the fact that
the personality, abilities, and interests of the individual lord shaped the character
Quoted in Goodman, John of Gaunt, 313.
Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, I, 120; Reg. JG., I, no. 65; II, nos. 303, 310; Walker,
Lancastrian Afnity, 1656.
The Lord at Home
113
of his lordship. The territorial, political, or military ambitions of a lord could

clearly impinge, directly or indirectly, on the lives and fortunes of his dependants
and tenants, opening doors of opportunity of service and favours but also posing
risks if the wheel of fortune turned adversely. Even at the intensely personal level
the temper and temperament of the lord could set the tone for his lordship and
reputation. It was not without good reason that Henry Stafford, the second duke
of Buckingham (d. 1483), was remembered as a sore and hard-dealing man, a
reputation inherited by (and fully documented for) his son. No one who had
known these men or had experienced their rule could doubt that their lordship
was personal. And the women were no less masterful and arbitrary: it was the
decision of Joan Beauchamp, the formidable lady of Abergavenny, to order the
execution of three thieves on Ascension day 1401 which prompted an uprising in
which her steward, Sir William Lucy, was killed and she and her husband were
besieged in Abergavenny castle.
Paradoxically the point is illustrated with even greater force by the hiatus of
power which followed the death of a lord. This was particularly true in Scotland,
English Ireland, or the March of Wales, lands of great regional lordship where the
death of a lord could create a vacuum of authority and unleash tensions hitherto
kept under control. It was such a vacuum that Thomas Chedworth feared in
13267 on the death of the earl of Ulster. It was imperative, he commented, that
his heir should put in an early appearance so that his lands could be exploited
and his kinsmen and tenants governed. In much the same vein in 1282, one of
Edward Is ofcers in mid Wales was concerned about the hiatus of power following the death of Roger Mortimer. He reported that he found the inhabitants very
ckle and haughty, . . . because they have no denite lord: . . . they will . . . not
long remain in peace if their liege lord does not come to them. Such a
comment helps to explain why complaints about absentee lords were such a
central contemporary explanation of the crisis of lordship and the frailty of power
in fourteenth-century Ireland. That was proportionately more true in Ireland,
Scotland, and the March of Wales than it was in England where there was a supplementary, even alternative, structure of power in the form of royal institutions.
But even in England, the personality and role of the lords were key features in the
equation of power and governance. Lordship was central; it was also personal.
Recent literature on castles in the late medieval British Isles abounds. A useful review is C. Platt, Revisionism in Castle Studies: A Caution, Medieval
Rawcliffe, Staffords, 16480; McFarlane, Nobility, 503, 2237.

Adam Usk, Chronicle, 1302.
Sayles (ed.), Documents on the Affairs of Ireland, no. 155.
Cal. Anc. Corr., 131.
114
Lords and Lordship
Archaeology, 51 (2007). See also, O. H. Creighton, Castles and Landscapes

(London, 2002), chs. 4 and 5; C. Coulson, Castles in Medieval Society: Fortresses in England, France, and Ireland in the Central Middle Ages (Oxford, 2003);
A. Wheatley, The Idea of the Castle in Medieval England (York, 2004); R. Liddiard,
Castles in Context: Power, Symbolism and Landscape, 1066 to 1500 (Maccleseld,
2005); A. Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 13001500.
3 vols. (Cambridge, 19962006); The Medieval Castle in Ireland and Wales,
ed. J. R. Kenyon and K. OConor (Dublin, 2003); A. Pettifer, Welsh Castles: A
Guide by Counties (Woodbridge, 2000). For individual castles mentioned in this
chapter and elsewhere in the book, M. Johnson, Behind the Castle Gates: From
Medieval to Renaissance (London, 2002) [Kenilworth]; M. Morris, The Bigod Earls
of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2005) [Forncett and Chepstow]; J. R. Kenyon, Masonry Castles and Castle-Building in The Gwent County
History. Volume 2. The Age of the Marcher Lords, c.10701536, ed. R. Grifths,
T. Hopkins, and R. Howell (Cardiff, 2008) [Chepstow and Raglan]; M. Morris,
Castle: A History of Buildings (Oxford, 2003) [Threave]; M. Potterton, Medieval
Trim: History and Archaeology (Dublin, 2005). For the north of England, A. King,
Fortresses and Fashion Statements: Gentry Castles in Fourteenth-Century
Northumberland, Journal of Medieval History, 33 (2007). For aristocratic landscapes, R. Liddiard (ed.), The Medieval Park: New Perspectives (Manchester,
2007). For examples from the west of Ireland, J. Malcolm, Castles and Landscape in U Fhiachrach Muaidhe, c.1235c.1400, in Lordship in Medieval
Ireland: Image and Reality, ed. L. Doran and J. Lyttleton (Dublin, 2008).
For the education of aristocratic children a recent case study is A. Marshall, The
Childhood and Household of Edward IIs Half-Brothers, Thomas of Brotherton
and Edmund of Woodstock, in The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives,
ed. G. Dodd and A. Musson (Woodbridge, 2006). This article also deals with the
peripatetic nature of the nobility, for which see also W. Childs, Moving Around,
(Cambridge, 2006). Their reading habits are discussed in The Cambridge History
of the Book in Britain. Volume II, 11001400, ed. N Morgan and R Thomson
(Cambridge, 2008).
For the economic fortunes of the aristocracy see C. Dyer, An Age of Transition?
Economy and Society in England in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 2005), ch. 3.
For the reliance of the Butler earls of Ormond on the produce of their demesne
manors, M. Hennessy, Manorial Agriculture and Settlement in Early FourteenthCentury County Tipperary, in Surveying Irelands Past: Multidisciplinary Essays
in Honour of Anngret Simms, ed. H. B. Clarke, J. Prunty, and M. Hennessy
(Dublin, 2004). For an English lord using the resources of demesne land in
Ireland for personal use and to pay debts, M. Murphy, The Prots of Lordship:
Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk and the Lordship of Carlow, 12701306, in
The Lord at Home
115
Lordship in Medieval Ireland: Image and Reality, ed. L. Doran and J. Lyttleton
(Dublin, 2008). For noble dealings with merchants in general see P. Spufford,
Power and Prot: The Merchant in Medieval Europe (London, 2002), ch. 2.
The dealings of fourteenth- and fteenth-century earls of Ormond with London
merchants can be followed in Calendar of Documents Relating to Medieval
Ireland in the Series of Ancient Deeds in the National Archives of the United
Kingdom, ed. P. Dryburgh and B. Smith, Analecta Hibernica, 39 (2006).
4
The Lord at War
In so far as the medieval aristocracy can be said to have had a profession, it was the
profession of arms. In medieval social theory, and very considerably in practice
also, all free men were potential combatants and could be summoned for military
service; but it was the nobility who were the warrior class par excellence. They
were the bellatores, the warrior protectors of society and its natural leaders in war.
This was the self-image which they proclaimed to the world on their insignia. On
their seals they presented themselves as warrior knights astride their warhorses;
their efgies and monuments in death likewise perpetuated, and elaborated, their
image as warriors in full military dress. Arms were among their most prized
possessions and heirlooms, and as such were often individually itemized in their
wills and their provenance indicated. The will of Edward, duke of York (d. 1415)
may serve as an illustration: it itemized inter alia the hauberk . . . which the late
earl of Huntingdon gave me; my new brigandines covered with red velvet . . . ,
my basinet and my best horse, my little coat of mail, a piece of plate which the
Prince gave me . . . and my iron helmet.
From an early age the young aristocrat was inculcated in the ethos, conventions,
and practices of military life. The advice of The Boke of Noblesse was clear on
that score: those that are descended of noble blood . . . (should be) drawn forth,
nourished and exercised in the disciplines, doctrines and usage of school of
arms, as in using jousts, run with speed, handle with axe. Even the leisure
activities of the aristocracy, notably tournaments and hunting, were little more
than peacetime subsets of this culture of military prowess. Fame and honour in
this aristocratic world sprang pre-eminently from deeds of arms. The conduct of
war, it is true, was governed at aristocratic level by a host of laws and conventions
(on issues such as ransoms and the treatment of prisoners of good birth) which
greatly mitigated the brutality of the experience for the nobility; but in the
melee of battle not even these conventions could save a man from capture and
imprisonment (as happened to the earl of Pembroke in 1372), or indeed from
death (as was the fate of Edward, duke of York, whose will has just been quoted,
at Agincourt in 1415). In the rougher and bloodier worlds of warfare in Scotland
William Worcester, The Boke of Noblesse, ed. J. Gough Nichols (Roxburgh Club, London,
1860), 76.
The Lord at War
117
and Ireland, the chances of death in battle or in an ambush were even greater.
Nor was this greater risk necessarily a feature to be deplored. On the contrary, a
valorous death in battle could further enhance the prestige of a noble family. God
be praised, such are the words ascribed to James, second earl of Douglas, killed
at Otterburn in 1388, not many of my ancestors have died in their beds. In this
military world, the camaraderie born from campaigning together was one of the
strongest bonds in aristocratic and knightly society. Such was often the theme of
their tombs and commemorative windows. Thus when Reginald, Lord Cobham
(d. 1361), had a tomb constructed in his memory in Lingeld church (Surrey),
he had it decorated with coats of arms around the sidesincluding those of
leading aristocrats (such as the earls of March, Oxford, and Northampton) in
whose company he had fought in Edward IIIs French wars, and especially at
Crecy. This was the companionship of the ofcers mess; on the roll of honour
of the mess the earls, the great aristocrats, occupied pride of place. They were the
natural and acknowledged military leaders of a militarized elite.
The world of memories of this aristocracy was structured by vivid recollections
of their campaigns and of their companions on such campaigns. The depositions
made by the witnesses in the famous ScropeGrosvenor dispute in 1386 as to
which of the two families had the better claim to a particular coat of armsazur
a bend or make this point vividly. One deponent recalled how he had seen the
arms worn by Scrope on a banner in the company of the earl of Northampton,
when he rode by torchlight from Lochmaben as far as Peebles; another swore
that he had seen Scrope bearing those arms when King Edward . . . was before
Paris . . . and since then in all the expeditions undertaken by my Lord of Lancaster
and our Lord the king. Chivalry, heraldry, and acts of military prowess were
central concerns for these men, both in life and in the imagination. They peopled
the past with knightly heroes and habits which validated their own behaviour
and self-image in the present. Nor indeed was the present short of heroes and
episodes to be added to an already established repertoire of classical and medieval
paragons. Within ten years of his death in 1376, the Black Prince was conrmed
as a member of the pantheon of the immortals in the verse life of him composed
by the herald of Sir John Chandos in 1386, quite possibly at John of Gaunts
instigation. The wars with France and even occasionally campaigns and battles in
Scotland and Spain provided an ample stock of deeds of arms which chroniclers,
heralds, and minstrels sought to immortalize. So it was, for example, that the
battle of Otterburn (1388) was commemorated in a variety of ballads as well as
in the pages of Froissart as the best fought and severest of all battles. Heroes
were not lacking in this world and, more often than not, they were aristocratic
Brown, Black Douglases, 128; Saul, Death, Art and Memory, 15260. See above, p. 12, for the
windows at Etchingham.
The Scrope and Grosvenor Controversy, 138590, ed. N. H. Nicolas, 2 vols. (London, 1832).
J. J. N. Palmer, Froissart et le herant Chandos, Le Moyen Age, 88 (1982), 27192.
War and Border Societies in the Middle Ages, ed. A. Tuck and A. Goodman (London, 1992).
118
Lords and Lordship
heroes. After all, the pin-up hero of the fteenth century was none other than
Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1439), a man whose notable actes of
chevalry and knyghtly demenaunce were vividly and pictorially recalled several
decades after his death.
There is, of course, much that is idealized and conventionalized in the image
of the aristocrat at war as it is presented in the literature, biographies, and
monuments of the age. But the gap between image and reality was not as wide as
it is sometimes supposed. Young aristocrats began their military careers at an early
age. Roger Mortimer, second earl of March (d. 1360), redeemed the fortunes of
his family and won the affection of Edward III by his exemplary military prowess.
Already at the age of 15 he had distinguished himselfalongside some of the
senior earls of the dayin a great tournament at Hereford in September 1344.
Within less than two years he had crossed to France, been knighted by the Black
Prince, and fought alongside Edward III at Crecy (26 August 1346). Much of the
rest of his short career was preoccupied with further military enterprisesboth
in France and in Scotland. He raised large forces of troops from his own estates
especially in Wales; and so impressed was Edward III with his qualities that he
appointed him constable of the great army which he led to France in 135960.
It was near Avallon that Earl Roger died in February 1360 at the age of 31. His
short but dazzling military career underlined once more the claim of the greater
aristocracy to be the natural military leaders of the country; it also demonstrated
that there was no quicker route to re-establish an aristocratic familys fortune or
to win the trust of the king.
Earl Rogers career of military service was by no means unusual, except possibly
in its brevity. Whilst it was unusual for county knights to serve on more than
three or four campaigns during their active careers, the service of dukes and
earls sometimes extended over decades. Henry of Grosmont, duke of Lancaster
(d. 1361) was outstanding in this respect. Between 1334 and 1360 he served
on fteen military expeditions; on six of them he occupied the top command
position. Nor does this exhaust his military record: he also took part in the siege
of Algeciras in 1343 and on crusade to Prussia in 13512. Even when he was not
on campaign he was an active participant in tournaments and jousts. Much as he
loved the delights of his country estates, especially hunting in the forest near his
favourite castle of Leicester, most of his career was in fact consumed by what one
might term public service, both military and diplomatic (he headed six major
diplomatic missions abroad and participated in twelve truce conferences).
Henry of Grosmont was, perhaps, exceptional in both the length and frequency
of his record of military service; but his career was certainly not unique. It could
Pageant of the Birth, Life and Death of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, K.G. 13891439,
ed. Viscount Dillon and W. H. St John Hope (London,1914).
Saul, Knights and Esquires, 3659. The military careers of Mortimer and the other lords
mentioned below are detailed in the relevant entries in ODNB.
The Lord at War
119
be readily paralleled by that of his close contemporary, Thomas Beauchamp,

earl of Warwick (d. 1369). His military career was even longer, stretching
chronologically from 1334 until his death, and geographically from Scotland,
through France, to Alexandria and Prussia. Because of the nature of the warfare,
these military careers were, it is true, frequently spasmodic and interrupted by
long periods of truce. Yet such was the military appetite of these men that such
truces were often only an occasion to divert their martial ambitions elsewhere
(such as the Iberian peninsula) or to indulge in a spot of crusading either in Prussia
or in the eastern Mediterranean. Indeed towards the end of our period, Henry Vs
war of conquest and settlement in northern France after 1417 transformed the
character of English war-service and specically that of its aristocratic leaders. The
short-term expedition and seasonal chevauchee were now replaced by prolonged
periods of service in the occupied lands in northern France. It has been pointed
out that between 1417 and 1422 a substantial proportion of the English higher
nobility was on extended service in France; this was reected in the fact that
only four dukes or earls and thirteen lords attended parliament. Such prolonged
absence, it has to be conceded, was not the norm in the period as a whole; but
even in its unusualness it is a reminder to us that war and participation in war
lled the horizons of these men, much more so proportionately than it did the
rest of contemporary society.
Their pre-eminence, socially and militarily, was reected in the differential
rates of pay which they commanded in the kings service. Whereas a mere footarcher was paid at the rate of 2d. or 3d., a mounted archer 6d ., a man-at-arms
1s., and a knight 2s. a day, a dukes wage in the mid fourteenth century was
xed at 13s. 4d . a day and that of an earl at 6s. 8d .8s. a day. Whilst the
king might call on help from some of the quasi-professional war captains of
the daysuch as Sir Walter Mauny or Sir Thomas Dagworth in Edward IIIs
heydayas his recruiting ofcers, his natural rst and major port of call in
terms both of recruitment and of active leadership was the higher aristocracy.
Indeed they would have been offended had he acted otherwise. They were,
and regarded themselves as, his natural war captains, just as they proclaimed
themselves to be his natural counsellors in respect of major political decisions.
Thus when Richard II decided to inaugurate his military career by an expedition
to Scotland in 1385, almost two-thirds of the total projected force (of 4,590
men at arms and 9,064 archers) was contributed by one duke (Gaunt) and ten
English earls.
Nor was the situation essentially different in Scotland and Ireland. Indeed in
Scotland the earls were regarded as the natural leaders of provincial armies (such
G. L. Harriss, The King and his Magnates, in Henry V: The Practice of Kingship, ed. G. L.
Harriss (Oxford, 1984), 3152, esp. 434.
S. Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster,
Earl of Derby, Lincoln and Leicester, Seneschal of England (London, 1904), 4379.
120
Lords and Lordship
as the army of Moray), be it in their own names or as part of the common

army or Scottish army when it was summoned. Lordship in Scotlandas
we shall seewas military lordship or it was no lordship at all. The dazzling
rise of the Black Douglas family to pre-eminence, and the ways it wielded that
pre-eminence, demonstrated that truism amply enough. The same was true of
English Ireland. It was men such as the earls of Ulster and Desmond who led
the large Irish contingents to Scotland in support of the English campaigns,
and it was on their shoulders and those of a handful of other resident lords
that the responsibility of upholding the English dispensation in Ireland relied.
Throughout the British Isles, therefore, aristocratic power and military leadership
went hand in hand.
Given that this was so, it is pertinent to ask how, and how far, the military
preoccupations and aspirations of the greater aristocracy affected their lordship,
and the lives of their dependants, in general. One thing is clear: since military
activity and military leadership were among the premier tests of aristocratic status
and standing, the capacity to raise an army was a high priority for every leading
magnate. He could full that obligation in several ways. He could rst turn to
his own household, specically to its military members. In Norman England
and in much of contemporary Scotland and Ireland, the military household of
the great lord was the fulcrum of the lords powerdefending his person and
family, imposing his will, escorting him on his travels, and forming the core of
any expeditionary force that he assembled, either in his own service or that of the
king. That is why the military retinue has been rightly regarded as one of the
basic social organisms of medieval Europe. In the Highlands of Scotland and
in the militarized and deeply unstable frontiers of medieval Ireland, such military
householdsliving at the lords table, stabling their horses in his stables, and
always militarily at the readywere still a feature of aristocratic life. In England,
on the other hand, where the making of war was a royal monopoly, such a world
was already a distant memory. But this did not mean that the capacity to raise an
effective military force did not remain a primary aristocratic obligation.
It could be, and was, discharged in a variety of ways. Except possibly on the
borderlands of Wales and Scotland, it was no longer for the most part a case of a
military household living at the lords table. Rather was it that a set of concentric
circles of obligation were, formally or informally, formed which allowed a great
lord to assemble a military force when it was needed. The innermost circle
was composed of those who were formally retained to serve the lord for life
in peace and war. These formal indentures of servicewhich begin to survive
in considerable numbers from the late thirteenth century onwardsspecify the
Brown, Black Douglases; Frame, Ireland and Britain, esp. chs. XII and XV.
R. Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 9501350
(London, 1994), 45.
The Lord at War
121
obligations and responsibilities of lord and retainer in considerable detail. They

were contractually and legally enforceable and often specify the supporting forces
which a retainer should bring to the service of his lord, the terms (including
board and lodging) on which they should serve, compensation for horses lost
on campaign, and associated issues. These indentured retainers have attracted
a great deal of attention in historical writing because historians feel most
comfortable about afliations and obligations of service when they are formally
documented.
But the lords retinue (broadly dened) extended far beyond the ranks of those
for whom a formal indenture of retinue survives. It should normally be extended
to include, at least potentially, those who drew an annuity or received his livery
or badge. Such men must have regarded themselves as beholden to him, and one
obvious way of discharging their duty was to respond to his military summons.
Beyond this second group lay a further, much less distinct, group of men who
had no formal link with the lord nor necessarily received any regular reward from
him but who nevertheless moved in the orbit of his power and were thereby
amenable to his summons.
This latter group included the tenants and inhabitants of his estates. In England
the king, theoretically, had access to the military services of all able-bodied men
in the realm and he could, and did, exercise that claim through commissions
of array, shire levies, and other recruitment procedures. But in the northern
borderlands and in areas such as the palatinates of Chester and Lancaster or in
the duchy of Cornwall, great lords took an almost proprietorial view of their
own estates as their personal recruiting grounds. It was on this basis, for example,
that the Black Prince in the 1340s and 1350s regularly mustered large numbers
of troops from the county of Cheshire. The Prince served on the basis of a
commission from the king, his father; but the recruitment lay in his own hands
and that of his ofcials. Thus he ordered the deputy-justice of Chester (the head
of the county palatines administration) to test and array 200 archers from all
the hundreds of the county in whosoevers lordship they be and, in addition, to
array 100 of the best archers that could be found. On this and other occasions
the Prince also raised large squadrons of foot archers from his lands in Wales.
Both the Principality shires of north and west Wales and the Marcher lordships
were indeed among the major recruiting sources for the great aristocratic armies
of the fourteenth century. It was the lords ofcers who summoned, arrayed, and
equipped the troops so recruited and any attempt on the part of the king to recruit
directly in these areas was ercely resisted. Normally such aristocratic armies
were ultimately in the pay of the king and served on his campaigns; but they
There is an excellent collection of such indentures, with a ne introduction, in Private
Indentures. See also Holmes, Estates, chap. 3; J. M. W. Bean, From Lord to Patron: Lordship in Late
Medieval England (Manchester, 1989).
Reg. BP, I, 52, 556; III, 199; P. Morgan, War and Society in Late Medieval Cheshire,
12771403 (Manchester, 1989), 1078.
122
Lords and Lordship
could also be deployed for more sinister purposes. During the turbulent politics
of Edward IIs reign, for example, such privately recruited forces furthered the
ambitions of men such as the earls of Lancaster and Hereford and, most notably
of all, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, the rst earl of March (d. 1330). Even a
great prince such as John of Gaunt valued the security which his own private
force could provide for him in dangerous days. When he realized that his life
was in danger from rampaging peasants in July 1381, he ordered a force of over
500 men to be assembled to escort him from Berwick to Knaresborough. The
armies of fourteenth-century England were more aristocratic in recruitment and
character than we sometimes concede. That they served in the name of the king,
ultimately at his pay and generally in furtherance of his ambitions and policies,
should not be allowed to conceal their signicance as sources and manifestations
of aristocratic power.
What was true of England was a fortiori even more true of Scotland and
Ireland. Both of them were, in different degrees, lands of war in as much
as periodic forays and campaigns to assert authority and quell enemies could
regularly be part of the cursus of a great aristocrats life. They were also societies
in which leadership on campaign was a regular, and regularly tested, feature
of a noblemans effectiveness. In Scotland the earls were the natural leaders of
regional armies, and their position as such was sometimes formally recognized
in charters. Thus when King Robert I (d. 1329) gave Thomas Randolph the
most ample powers in Moray in 1312 he required the men of the region to
perform their common army service to Thomas and his heirs, as should those
who used to follow the banner of Moray in times past. What King Robert
was doing was no more than recognizing the role of the aristocracy in raising
and leading the military forces of regional Scotland. Lordship was measured in
men, pre-eminently in military men. That explains the famous riposte of the
Highlander when asked to assess the value of his lordship: Five hundred men
was the brisk answer.
It was an answer which had greater applicability in northern and western
Scotland or in Ireland or in the March of Wales than it did in England. But
even in England the capacity to raise an army and to draw on a pool of military
supporters were crucial facets of the arts of lordship. When Edmund Mortimer,
earl of March (d. 1381), set out on a militarydiplomatic mission to the Scottish
frontier in 1378, one of his rst actions was to dispatch a messenger with a letter
of summons to the lords retinue (pro retinencia sua munienda). It is a reminder
that the retinue was not just a paper army; it could be called on to serve and
Davies, Lordship and Society, 814 (and sources cited); Goodman, John of Gaunt, 83.
Regestra Regum Scottorum V: The Acts of Robert I, King of Scots, 13061329, ed. A. A.
M. Duncan (Edinburgh, 1988), no. 389 (pp. 6335).
M. Bloch, French Rural History: An Essay on its Basic Characteristics (English Translation,
London, 1966), 72.
Household Accounts, I, 246.
The Lord at War
123
to do so at short notice. When Earl Edmunds son Roger (d. 1398) assembled
an army to accompany Richard II on his campaign in Ireland in 13945 his
force was gathered at speed and led by knights and bachelors (such as Sir Hugh
Cheyney, Sir John Pauncefoot, and Leonard Hakeluyt) who were in receipt
of retaining annuities from him. Likewise when the earl of Warwick faced a
critical situation in Wales in 1403 his immediate response was to summon his
retinue (ad muniendum diversos de retinencia domini) to assemble at Warwick.
But it is from the ample ofcial correspondence of John of Gaunt that we can
catch the best-documented glimpse of recruiting military lordship in action. He
certainly cast the net of his retinue widely. When he was assembling a large army
for his great chevauchee in France in 1373 he ordered 650 men at arms of our
retinue (de nostre retenue) to be enlisted. Or, to take another example, in August
1383 he sent individual letters, via the local receiver, to his bachelors and squires
in Lancashire and Cheshire to get themselves ready for military duty. He also
appended twenty-four unendorsed letters in a similar vein to be dispatched by
the receiver to those whom he (the receiver) thought were t and sufcient to
serve him.
All in all, the life of a great aristocrat, at least during his years of active
service, must have revolved considerably around the need to raise and lead an
army. Campaigns themselves were generally seasonal and short; but the logistical
problems of recruiting men, nding horses, assembling arms and uniforms,
and arranging supplies took months of preparation. So did the outstanding
claimsfor unpaid wages, compensation for horses lost, reimbursement of
goods commandeered, and the settlement of ransom demandsthat came in
the wake of every campaign. The whole exercise placed considerable strains on
the stamina and administrative expertise of the aristocrat and his ofcials. An
administrative cadre basically and normally geared to maximize income from
estates and tenants and to provide the wherewithal for the lords luxurious
lifestyle had to be transformed into a military commissariat. This was one
of the major challenges of aristocratic lordship, a challenge which has been
frequently overlooked, or underestimated, because of the nature of the surviving
documentation and its overwhelming royal and royal exchequer orientation.
How, in short, did men such as Henry of Grosmont (d. 1361), Edmund
Mortimer (d. 1381), or Richard Beauchamp (d. 1439) cope with the demands
of exercising military lordship?
The short answer is that they became military entrepreneurs, raising men and
supplies where they could. They would certainly callas we have seenon
the services of those who were beholden to them through a formal indenture
of service or the receipt of a regular annuity or an undocumented but very
CPR 13916, 451 et seq.; Holmes, Estates, 623, 80.
BL Egerton Roll 8770 (account of receiver-general).
Reg. JG, I, nos. 1216, 1218; II, no. 909.
124
Lords and Lordship
real sense of obligation and service. This was the lords retinue in the full
and quasi-permanent sense of the word. But it was very rare, particularly in
England, for even the greatest lord to have sufcient men in these categories
to enable him to raise a credible expeditionary force. Instead, or rather as well,
he had to rely on an intensive campaign of ad hoc recruitment for a specic
campaign. The contract which the councillors of Roger, earl of March (d. 1398),
concluded with Walter Fitz Walter on 15 May 1398 illustrates this kind of
recruitment arrangement well. It specied service in a particular theatre of
warIrelandand for a clearly delimited periodsix months. It stipulated in
detail the body of troopssix esquires and twenty mounted archerswhich
Walter was to provide and entered carefully into details of serviceson issues
such as shipping, gains of war, and entitlement to sustenance (bouche de court) by
the earland into other contingencies that might arise. There were many men
like Walter Fitz Walter in fourteenth-century Englandmilitary free-oaters
who in effect offered their services as major military subcontractors to the
greater aristocracy. Their commitment lasted no longer than the term of their
contracts; they might then move into the service of another lord. They generally
in turn recruited the men whom they had pledged to provide by entering
into sub-sub-contracts (in effect) with a pool of local military recruits, often
contributing no more than a man-at-arms or an archer apiece. This process of
grass-roots recruitment is normally hidden from documentary view because it
was not of direct relevance to exchequer accounting processes; but in at least
two casesthe subcontracts of Sir John Strother in preparation for the earl of
Marchs expedition to Brittany in 1374 and of Sir Hugh Hastings for Thomas of
Woodstocks expedition thither in 1380these subcontracts have fortuitously
survived. They reveal to us how deeply into the fabric of local society the military
recruitment policies of the aristocracy reached, albeit indirectly.
Assembling an expeditionary force posed daunting problems of negotiation
and organization at all levels. The lord himself might bargain very hard with
the king on the terms on which he would serve. Nowhere is this more vividly
revealed than in a letter which Edward I dispatched, probably in April 1301, to
Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster (d. 1326), in an attempt to persuade the earl
to contribute a substantial force to the kings army in Scotland. The mixture
of cajolery, attery, promise of remission of debt, commitment to the speedy
payment of wages, and an almost desperate appeal to the earls sense of duty
and honour reveals that there was far more to the process of recruitment than
might at rst appear in bland exchequer documents. Military expeditions were
truly joint-stock enterprises between the king and his great magnates and by
CPR 13969, 338; printed in full in Holmes, Estates, 1301.
A. Goodman, The Military Sub-Contracts of Sir Hugh Hastings, 1380, EHR, 95 (1980),
11420.; S. Walker, Prot and Loss in the Hundred Years War: The Subcontracts of Sir John
Strother, 1374, BIHR, 58 (1985), 1006; Morgan, War and Society in Medieval Cheshire, 15064.
Sweetman (ed.), Calendar of Documents Relating to Ireland, IV, no. 849; ibid., V, no. 1302.
The Lord at War
125
no means all the trump cards were in the kings hand. The arts of negotiation
and enticement had to be practised all the way down the line, even to the
level of recruiting foot archers. Advance payment of wages could be made to
archers to ensure that they set out in good time and arrive promptly at the
port of embarkation; more important personnel were to be enticed by offers
of two oaks from the local forest if they enlisted; but if not, not. Where
blandishment did not work, strong-arm tactics could be pursued. The local
tenantry might be assembled at the castle gate and those who were unwilling to
serve might nd their animals seized and their purses emptied by a compulsory
war subsidy.
These various recruitment strategies must have put a considerable strain on the
lords ofcers, central and local. Nor did their problems end there. Selecting the
captains for the local contingents and arranging a timetable and an itinerary for
them likewise posed daunting problems. So did the commandeering of horses,
so essential for the armys success. Baggage horses were also essential: so it was
that the Black Prince ordered thirty of the best and strongest baggage horses to
be commandeered to meet his needs overseas. Even more impressive were the
measures taken by John of Gaunt to ensure that he had sufcient horses for his
great chevauchee in France in 1373. It was to his own estates that he turned in the
rst instancebuying horses at Pontefract fair, making pointed requests to men
such as the abbot of Furness and Whalley to volunteer gifts of horses, and setting
quotas of horses to be assembled from his various estatestwenty from Tutbury,
thirty from Higham Ferrers, a further thirty from Norfolk and Suffolk, forty from
Lincolnshire, and so forth. Arms likewise had to be bought in large quantities:
when Thomas of Woodstock made preparations for his proposed expedition to
Ireland in 1392 (to which we will return below) he spent 226 in advance on
arms, including 700 bows and 1,900 arrowsfor a very modest force. The
provisioning of the army, both prior to its departure and subsequently, posed
huge commissariat problems. The men of Devon, for example, had no option
but to grant 2,000 quarter of oats to feed the horses of the Black Princes army;
while the wardrobe account of the duke of Clarence (d. 1421) reveals that 1,030
was spent in purchasing victuals and provisions in England for dispatch to the
lords household overseas. War engines had to be got ready; special craftsmen
such as carpenters, masons, and iron-workers had to be recruited; and uniforms
had sometimes to be bought so that the lords army could be distinctive and
cultivate its own esprit de corps. Last, but by no means least, if the expedition
was overseas, the securing of adequate shipping was a major headache. The
Reg. JG, I, nos. 1222, 12267, 1232 etc.
Davies, Lordship and Society, 823.
Reg. BP, II, 94.
Reg. JG, I, nos. 11945, 1200, 1208, 1210, 12234, 1228, 1230.
BL Add. Roll 40859A (account of Thomas of Woodstocks treasurer of war).
Reg. B.P, II, 94; Household Accounts, II, 670.
See, for example, Reg. JG, I, nos. 12438; for examples of uniforms for lords archers, see
Davies, Lordship and Society, 81, 84.
126
Lords and Lordship
responsibility of nding and assembling the ships might have lain, in England,
with the king and his ofcials; but the task of provisioning them and getting
them ready for the voyage fell to the lord and his ofcers, as the account of the
Earl Marshals expedition of 14223 demonstrates.
This list by no means exhausts the multiple problems which confronted
any great aristocrat anxious to discharge his duty of military leadership in the
Middle Ages. The tendency of historians has been to underrate their complexity,
concentrating largely on the size and composition of the aristocratic contract
armies (where the exchequer accounts are an invaluable source of information),
but underestimating the associated problems involved for lords in recruiting an
army and preparing it for service, especially overseas. It was a task which taxed
the administrative skills of the lord and his cadre of ofcials to the utmost. The
lords household was put on a war footing. In the event of an expedition he
would leave a skeletal administration, often under the control of his wife, at
home while taking most of his key household ofcials and condants with him
in what was termed the foreign household. The two households would be kept
in frequent contact with each other by the regular dispatch of messengers and
messages. The fact that war altered the priorities and habits of aristocratic lords
was also reected in the fact that a special treasurer of war, with his own account,
was sometimes establishedas, for example, by Duke Thomas of Gloucester
in 1392to deal with the complex nancial issues involved in major military
enterprise.
Such enterprises taxed the resources and skills of lordship to their very limits.
Ready cash to pay for supplies and to reward disaffected troops was always in desperately short supply. It took a messenger and two valets 147 daysadmittedly
an exceptionally slow journeyto take 1,500 marks to John of Gaunt in Gascony in 1372. The slowness of travel was more than matched by the slow
payment habits of the English exchequer. Indeed delay in receiving full payment
of war wages was a constant irritant in crownmagnate relations. It contributed
mightily, so at least the Percies claimed, to the catastrophic breakdown in relations between Henry IV and the Percy family in 1403. The cash-strapped John
Mowbray, duke of Norfolk (d. 1432), was kept waiting for eight years for the
war wages due to him. Others were fobbed off with uncashable tallies. In these
circumstances it is little wonder that greasing the palms of well-placed ofcials
was a necessary art for war commanders anxious to recover their wages and to
solve their cash-ow problems. John Mowbray certainly felt that it was essential
for him to pay a regard to the clerks of the royal exchequer and to lay on a meal
in a tavern for the deputy treasurer and other crown ofcers in order to win their
J. L. Kirby, An Account of Robert Southwell, Receiver-General of John Mowbrary, Earl
Marshal, 14223, BIHR, 27 (1954), 1928.
Reg. JG, I, no. 1038 (presumably the expense account is for the round journey).
J. M. W. Bean, Henry IV and the Percies, History, 44 (1959), 21227; Kirby Account of
Robert Southwell, 197.
The Lord at War
127
good will (pro eorum benevolencia sua). In the event, these various ploys did
him little good; but they are a reminder that for a militarily active great magnate,
the demands of military lordshipfrom the moment of the initial summons to
recruit for a campaign to the long-drawn-out efforts to recoup war wages and
to settle claims to ransoms and the compensation for horses lostmust have
cast very long shadows across his career. We see greater aristocrats primarily on
their estates, in the turmoil of high politics, parading in their magnicence in
parliament, in tournaments, and in the chase; we are also presented with their
idealized self-images in accounts of their deeds of arms and in their splendid
efgies, but we should not underestimate the degree to which preparation for,
and participation in, war and campaigns consumed much of their time and
energy, especially in the period from 1290 onwards. Furthermore warfare was,
more especially in England, an activity where private prowess and ambition and
public duty met. Successful war was one of the best ways of forging an effective
relationship between crown and magnates; nowhere did the interests of both
parties more closely coincide.
War was, literally and metaphorically, a noble enterprise. It was, at least in
theory, the ultimate raison detre of the aristocracy as a status group and it also
provided a theatre in which their feats of arms could redound across Europe and
down the generations. Distaste for war and its consequences was not a sentiment
which the aristocracy understood. On the contrary, they had developed a whole
host of conventions and practices which immunized thembut not ordinary
troops nor civiliansto a considerable degree from its worst effects. More than
that, they approached campaigning not only in a spirit of adventure but also very
considerably in a spirit of prot-making.
There were certainly fortunes to be made in war and, given the position of
the magnates as war leaders, the greatest prots came their way. Contemporaries
realized as much. The shrewd Sir John Fortescue observed that the lords make
prots, often very large, out of their contracts with the government, and enrich
themselves with prot and plunder. Modern scholarship, especially the seminal
writings of K. B. McFarlane, have conrmed and elaborated such a claim. Money
could certainly be made out of military contracts, as Fortescue claimed. The
prot that William Heron, Lord Say (d. 1404) had made from overcharging on
his war wages troubled his conscience sufciently for him to instruct his executors
to repay 120 marks! Ransoms and the prospect of ransom feature regularly in
indentures of service and must have made the mouth of many a would-be warrior
water in anticipation. So did the stories of the fortunes made by Henry of
BL Add. Roll 17209 (accounts of bailiffs of Earl Marshal, 14223).
Sir John Fortescue, The Governance of England: Otherwise Called the Difference between an
Absolute and a Limited Monarchy, ed. C. Plummer (Oxford, 1885).
McFarlane, Nobility, esp. chs. 79, republished in his collected essays, England in the Fifteenth
Century; Test. Vet., I, 163.
See, for example, Private Indentures, no. 62.
128
Lords and Lordship
Grosmont from the sacking of Bergerac in 1345, and similar tales of how the
residences of English aristocrats were rebuilt and modernized from the fortunes
of war in France. Neither in Scotland nor in Ireland were similar fortunes to
be made; but the proceeds of booty, pillage, and ransom must likewise have
enhanced the reputation and drawing power of men such as the earls of Douglas
and Desmond.
Nowadays the appeal of war and the prots that could be made from
warespecially in the century after 1330is not likely to go by default
as an argument, especially in respect of the aristocracy. Indeed the danger,
paradoxically, is that the historiographical pendulum may have swung too
far. War did involve risks, as well as prot, for the aristocracy. Fortescue
notwithstanding, not all of them made a killing from charging extortionate pay
for war service. As usual it was the least fortunate who lost out. The Earl Marshal
tried to redeem his familys reputation by spending, it has been estimated,
c.2,500 on the Agincourt campaign in 1415; but he appears to have recouped
only 1,450 in wages. Nor was this a unique case: Sir Hugh Despenser (d. 1349),
another member of a declasse family, was still owed 2,770 in wages from the
exchequer at his death. Ransoms could indeed be a major windfall; but equally
to be ransomed could destroy a familys resources. Walter Fitz Walter (d. 1406)
knew that to his cost: he had to mortgage his castle of Egremont and all his
lands in England to meet the cost of his ransom. Even a rich family like the
Percies could be embarrassed by the misfortunes of war: when the young Hotspur
(d. 1403) was in danger of being ruined by the enormous ransom exacted from
him after his capture at the battle of Otterburn (1388), it required a royal
subsidy and virtually a national subscription campaign to help him out of his
predicament. Even before the tide of the war began to turn in France, the price
that some of the magnates had to pay escalated. The duke of York, the earl of
Arundel and two de la Pole brothers were killed in 1415, Clarence in 1422; and
Huntingdon and Somerset were captured the same year.
It would not make sense to attempt to draw up a balance account of the prots
and losses of war on aristocratic fortunes and careers. The story would vary from
family to family, from generation to generation, and even within the lifespan
of an individual magnate. In general, the English aristocracy enjoyed what may
be termed a favourable balance of war in its prolonged, if spasmodic, warfare
with the French in the period 13371429. They fought their campaigns for
the most part on French territory, scored some notable victories, and enjoyed
the prots, plunders, ransoms, and landed gains of successful war. But even in
France, let alone in Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, and elsewhere, the sustained
impact of campaigning, raising troops, border raids, and the levying of heavy
Harriss, King and his Magnates, 412; GEC sub Despenser; ODNB sub Fitzwalter family.
Goodman, Loyal Conspiracy, 29 n. 90.
The Lord at War
129
taxation should be taken into account. In truth the aristocracy made no such
calculations. Leadership in warwhether it be in the kings campaigns or on
individual forayswas their duty and their metier; it was also of course an
opportunity to performor at least to claim to performthose deeds of arms
and prowess which were of the very essence of the nobility which they aunted.
They were simultaneously lords of war and peace.
We normally see how English magnates discharged their military obligations
through the formal contracts, indentures, and payment vouchers of the royal
exchequer. But very occasionally we have evidence from the magnates themselves
of how an army was raised and, thereby, what was involved in mounting an
expedition. Such was the army that Edmund Mortimer, earl of March (d. 1381),
assembled at Plymouth in the autumn of 1374 but which did not set out for
Brittany until late spring 1375. Earl Edmund had good reason to be suspicious
of the timetable and rmness of intention of the operation. In 1372 he had led
an earlier ill-fated expedition to Brittany which had been called off after fty-four
days. This time Mortimer insisted that a substantial portion of the wages of
his retinue be paid in advance; indeed the exchequer records make it clear that
over 9,106 had been so paid even before the army left Plymouth. It was
doubtless by such advance payment alone that the army could be kept intact in
the Plymouth area during the winter of 13745 and, in any case, actual wages
in hard cash were a far more reliable enticement than the promise of exchequer
tallies for the future. Behind the bland accounting formulae of the exchequer lay
concealed a great deal of negotiation and cajoling.
In the event, the Mortimer expedition of 1375 was no more successful than
the one of 1372. The fault probably did not lie with Mortimer or with his fellow
commanders. They had initially agreed to serve for one year in Brittany, being
paid wages for six months only and recouping their expenses thereafter from
ransoms, booty, and the other prots of warin itself an eloquent comment
on the English governments view of how the costs of war were to be met. But
the military campaign of 1375 ran parallel with peace negotiations at Bruges:
they were twin aspects of a single policy of bringing the French king and his
allies to the negotiating table. And when the time was right for such negotiations
Edmund Mortimer and his fellow commanders found that any prospect of
military glory and prots which they may have entertained was snatched from
them. On 20 July 1375less than three months after he and his army had
landed in BrittanyEdmund Mortimer was peremptorily ordered to return
with his retinue to England. His sense of disillusion with the handling of the
whole enterprise may well have contributed to Mortimers role in the political
For details of this campaign see G. Holmes, The Good Parliament (Oxford, 1975), 3945,
1502.
The contract for the 1372 expedition is published in Lloyd and Stenton (eds.), Sir Christopher
Hattons Book of Seals,, 162; that for the 1375 expedition is in TNA E 101/34/6.
Holmes, Good Parliament, 45.
130
Lords and Lordship
crisis of 1376, when his steward (Sir Peter de la Mare) acted as Speaker at the
Good Parliament.
But perhaps even more interesting from our point of view are the shafts
of light that the 1375 expedition throws on the question of how aristocratic
armies were assembled. A document in the Mortimer archives shows that Earl
Edmund raised his army in part from the ranks of his own retainers and
tenants. Several of his leading Herefordshire tenants and retainers (now or
prospective) turned out to serve himincluding Sir John de la Bere, Sir John
Bromwich, Sir Ralph Lingen, Sir Robert Tresgoz, and John Joce. Equally
interesting is the way in which Mortimer scoured his own estates in Wales and
the March for foot soldierseleven from Ludlow, eleven from Ewyas, six from
Pembridge and Kingstone, twelve from Dinas, fourteen from Cedewain, three
from Montgomery, and twenty-seven from Usk, each of them a Mortimer estate.
But even a great lord such as Earl Edmund Mortimer could not assemble an
expeditionary force from his own resources. He relied on other lords to raise
contingents to swell the ranks of his army. One of these was Thomas Berkeley,
who brought with him many of his principal gentlemen, his neighbours. But he
also cast his recruiting net much further aeld. One of the recruiting agents to
whom Earl Edmund turned was Sir John Strother, whose fascinating subcontracts
have been cited above. Strother was not a Mortimer tenant or retainer, nor did he
move in Mortimers geographical orbit (he came from Northumberland). But
he was a well-known military recruiting agent who offered his services and his
men to any magnate seeking to assemble an army. Assembling, coordinating,
and leading an army composed of such motley groups, and then over-wintering
them in Plymouth for months, posed huge problems; but they were the sort of
problems which medieval magnates regularly faced.
Another glimpse of the way an aristocratic expeditionary force was assembled
is provided by the unusual survival of the account of the treasurer of war of
Thomas, duke of Gloucester (d. 1397), for his proposed Irish expedition of
1392. Once more what we glimpse beyond the formal contract is the hard
bargaining, led on Gloucesters side by members of his council and especially
Sir Thomas Mortimer (who in effect headed the administration of the great
Mortimer estates during the minority of Earl Roger (d. 1398)). Gloucester
secured the payment of a bonus or regard of 600 marks, payable in advance of
the dates formally specied in the indenture of retinue, and 10,000 marks for
BL Egerton Rolls 8751. For details of Mortimers retainers, Holmes, Estates, esp. 61.
Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, II, 7; Walker, Prot and Loss in the Hundred Years War,
1006.
BL Add. Roll 40859A. Royal documentation on the expedition may be found in J. F.
Baldwin, The Kings Council in England during the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1913), 498, 503 and TNA
E 101/74/13.
For Thomas Mortimer see the entry by R. R. Davies for Roger Mortimer, fourth earl of
March, in ODNB 39, 4034.
The Lord at War
131
the actual period of service. He also extorted a stipulation that the number of
troops to be taken on the expedition should be left to his discretion and that he
was discharged of responsibility for any deterioration in the situation in Ireland
pending his arrival. This was hard-headed bargaining, born of long experience.
It paid off. The full sum promised was handed over and much of it was diverted
to purposes not directly related to the proposed expedition.
Equally interesting is the list of squadron commanders to whom the duke
turned to provide him with an army. He could obviously call on those who
had in effect a professional, long-term link with his servicesuch as Sir Walter
Clopton, a life retainer, or Sir John Clifton, who was in receipt of a regular
annuity. Others were men who had already served under Gloucester in earlier
campaignsLord Darcy in Brittany in 1381, Sir John Clifton in expeditions
in 1377 and 1380, or Robert Turk in the aborted Prussian expedition of
1391. Some were quasi-professional war captains, always ready for adventure
and for the windfalls of war. Such a one was Sir John Mascy of Puddington
(Cheshire) who provided the largest contingent for Gloucesters force. Many
of them had seen service in many theatres of war and in the pay of different
magnatesClifton in Brittany and Lithuania, Darcy in Brittany and Scotland,
Robert Turk with de la Pole and Arundel, Roger Drury with de Vere in Ireland
and Arundel at sea. These men, therefore, were not regulars in Gloucesters
service but they could draw on a wide range of experience. The problem would
be converting them into an effective and cohesive ghting force, especially in
the challenging conditions which they would face in Ireland with its fragmented
polities, difcult terrain, and faction-ridden English and Gaelic societies. In
the event Gloucesters modest Irish expedition of 1392 was aborted; but the
documentary detritus it has left opens a welcome window on the recruitment
practices of an aristocratic world.
Had the duke of Gloucester actually crossed to Ireland in 1392 he would have
soon encountered a society where the experience of warfare was very different
from the world he was familiar with in lowland and southern England. He would
also have witnessed a military lordship which was a far cry from the routines
and civilities of southern England. This chapter, indeed this whole book, is
overwhelmingly based on that English experience. From this fact there is no
escape: there is no documentary evidence remotely comparable for Scotland or
Ireland with that available from the (overwhelmingly royal) archives for England.
This is particularly ironic and regrettable with regard to military lordship, since
there can be little doubt that society was more militarized and militaristicand
I have assembled the information about the individuals discussed here from a variety of sources
including Holmes, Estates; Goodman, Loyal Conspiracy; Walker, Lancastrian Afnity; Morgan, War
and Society in Medieval Cheshire; and especially The House of Commons, 13861421, ed. J. S.
Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliffe, 4 vols. (Stroud, 1992).
132
Lords and Lordship
thereby so also was lordshipin the outer zones of the British Isles than it
was in the heartlands of England. So we should at the very least indicate, very
roughly and inadequately, in what ways military lordship and the experience of
war differed from one part of the British Isles to another.
Even within England itself there were zonesbroadly speaking on the frontiers
of the kingdomwhere the military aspect of lordship and power was to the
fore in a way which would have distressed the peoples of midland and southern
England. The border counties of northern England were one such area. Here
for much of our period raids and counter-raids, cattle rustling, booty taking,
and the building of tower-houses indicate a society in recurrent preparation for
campaign, if not for war. Cheshire was another area notorious for its militarism
and for the disproportionate contribution it made to the recruitment of English
armies. So, of course, were the March and Principality of Wales. The March of
Wales was the most densely encastellated region of the British Isles, while Wales
as a whole contributed huge forces (in proportion to is population) to English
armies in Scotland and on the continentsuch as the contingent of 6,200 for
the Scottish campaign of 1322. Lordship and power in all of these areas lay
considerably in the leadership of men and the assembling of armies.
The same was even more true of much of Ireland and Scotland. Medieval
Ireland, it has been said, was a society where warfare was a routine part of life.
That was a reality to which the English lords and settlers in Ireland had to adjust;
they did so quickly. They could, it is true, contribute contingents of troops to the
king of Englands campaigns (especially in Scotland) and they could also provide
the escort for the justiciar as he toured the country in order to impose a modicum
of authority on it. But equally, and indeed more regularly, English lords and
Gaelic chiefs alike used their troops to pursue their own ambitions and to further
their quarrels. In the essentially decentralized and localized collection of societies
that was medieval Ireland, the powers of military lordship and the resources of
military might were of the essence of aristocratic power. The standing of men
such as Maurice Fitz Thomas, earl of Desmond (d. 1356), or of the Butler earls
of Ormond rested on a variety of sources, but far more obviously and regularly
than in England did it rest on active military leadership, on the raising of troops
(Macthomass rout, as the earl of Desmonds retainers were called) especially
the kerne from among their dependants, and on the billeting and feeding of
these troops. However much these great magnates turned in the outer circles of
English court culture, the landscape of their lives and lordship was dominated by
forces and circumstances far removed from those of aristocratic lordship in most
of England.
For Cheshire see esp. Morgan, War and Society in Medieval Cheshire and for the March of
Wales, Davies, Lordship and Society, ch. 3.
Frame, Ireland and Britain, 222.
Note the tables in Frame, English Lordship in Ireland, 40, 79.
The Lord at War
133
The same was true of much of Highland and western Scotland. Indeed power
and military leadership in most of Scotland was organized on regional and
provincial lines in a way that was alien to the centralized, royal, tradition of the
control of war and peace in England. In Scotland the earls retained their control
of at least the mustering of the common army, the servicum Scoticanum. The
imperatives of local warfare and competition were too immediate to be able to
wait on coordinated royal direction. Whereas, admitted Robert Bruce, earl of
Carrick (d. 1304), I have often vexed the abbeys tenants . . . by leading them all
over the country in my (my italics) army, although there was no summons of the
common army of the realm. The truth was that in the highly competitive and
militarized societies of upland Scotland the proprieties of constitutional power
were regularly overtaken by the actual exercise of military power, especially
in the world of the highly militarized clan-lordships of the Highlands and
the west.
This was a world in which Gaelic lords hired the galloglass of Argyll and the
Hebrides to reinforce their own kerne. Rival earls and local leaders hired their
own mercenary bands of kerne (caterans as they were called), and deployed
them ruthlessly in the pursuit of their ambitions. None more so than Alexander
Stewart, earl of Buchan (d. 1405), the notorious Wolf of Badenoch, whose
rumbustious aunting of his power included the burning of Elgin cathedral by
his caterans in 1390 and a massive raid by the same caterans into Angus in 1392.
His ruthlessness could be paralleled by that of other regional magnates such as
that of his son Alexander, earl of Mar (d. 1435), who waged semi-permanent
local warfare to extend the area of his authority in north-eastern Scotland, or
the lordship of the Campbells in Argyll. Such an active and aggressive military
lordship could only in exercisedin Scotland as in Irelandby quartering
these bands of hired followers on the countryside. It was a very different
kind of lordship from that familiar to most English magnates and thereby to
most English historians. By the close of the fourteenth century, so it has
been argued, it was clear that a substantial military following, which lifted its
supplies and wages directly from tributary populations and estates, had become
an essential element in the successful exercise of power across much of Gaelic
Scotland.
Nor should we too readily dismiss such a phenomenon as one peculiar to
backward, chieftain-dominated Highland societies. Scotland, especially from the
Duncan, Scotland, 1678, 381; Barrow, Anglo-Norman Era in Scottish History, 161.
Quoted in G. W. S. Barrow, Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland (3rd
edn., Edinburgh, 1988), 124.
S. Boardman, Lordship in the North-East: The Badenoch Stewarts I, Alexander Earl of
Buchan, Northern Scotland 16 (1996), 130, at 3.
A. Grant, The Wolf of Badenoch, in Moray: Province and People, ed. W. D. H. Sellar
(Edinburgh, 1993), 14362; Brown, Regional Lordship in North-East Scotland.
Boardman, Lordship in the North-East, 7.
134
Lords and Lordship
1290s, was a society habituated to war and invasion. In such a society power,
including political power, naturally gravitated towards those who excelled in
the arts of military leadership. Nowhere is this more self-evident than in the
case of the Black Douglas family, the most powerful parvenu aristocratic family
in fourteenth- and early fteenth-century Scotland. It is not the details of the
familys astonishing rise to this premier position which interests us here. This has
been amply analysed in Michael Browns book, and we have already very briey
characterized the nature of one of its architects, Archibald Douglas the Grim
(d. 1400). Rather what is particularly relevant is the way that a record of military
leadership (duly mythologized by the family) laid the foundations for astonishing
royal liberality, both in lands and in extensive judicial and scal liberties. The
familys lordship, especially in the Marches, was founded very considerably on
war-leadership rather than on landed status and resources, though the latter
might follow where the former had been asserted. Alliances and submissions
based on the tide of war, it has been pointed out, turned into more lasting bonds
of lordship and landholding. It is an observation which applies not only to the
Douglas family or indeed to Scotland; it is a window to the way that the powers of
lordship were often assembled in medieval society generally. We catch a glimpse
of the process at work in the charter of 1354 to William, Lord Douglas, granting
to him the leadership of the men (my italics) of the sheriffdoms of Roxburgh,
Selkirk and Peebles. Such leadership had to be regularly and effectively exercised
if it was to be converted into sustained lordship. It was a task at which Archibald
the Grim excelled, especially in eastern Galloway. There, in the terms of the royal
charter of 1369, he pacied the district and asserted his authority forcefully in
person. The great tower which he built at Threave in the heart of the lordship
stood as a visual and forbidding expression of the military power which lay at the
root of his standing.
Military power was the original foundation and ultimate sanction of all
lordship in medieval society. But the format and prominence of such power
varied greatly from place to place and from period to period; so did the context
within which it operated and/or was allowed to operate. This truism is brought
home by even a cursory consideration of military lordship in different parts
of the British Isles. It is from England with its exceptional archives of service
in royally commissioned armies that far and away the best evidence survives.
Paradoxically the very richness of that evidence may distort our picture of military
lordship generally. From a broader perspective it is the unusualness of the English
experience which is perhaps most striking. England enjoyed the luxury in our
period of ghting its wars in other peoples backyards. It was a society where the
making of war was clearly an exclusive royal right and where aristocratic armies
were raised on an ad hoc basis, by royal command and paid by national wages.
To move from this relatively well-ordered and closely regulated society to the
Brown, Black Douglases; see above, pp. 478.
Brown, Black Douglases, 48, 49, 63.
The Lord at War
135
much rougher, unregulated, and fragmented worlds of much of Ireland and of

parts of Scotland was to encounter a very different world. It was a world of raids
and counter-raids, pillage, private truces, groups of quasi-professional warriors
(kerne/caterans, idlemen are some of the contemporary phrases), and billeting
of such troops on the local population. Here lordship was military lordship or
it was no lordship at all. Not the least of the attractions of attempting to study
the nature of lordship across the face of the British Isles is that it serves to
remind us of how lordship had to follow the contours of power, geography, and
custom.
A social elite which was trained from childhood for the prospect of war and
whose imaginations were fed on a diet of feats of arms and tales of prowess
lived in dread of the tedium of peace. Particularly was such tedium profound in a
country such as England. One solution to the tedium which became increasingly
popular from the thirteenth century was to stage a joust (a combat between
two mounted knights armed with lances) or a tournament (a contest between
two teams using sharp weapons in a melee). Such occasion allowed the chivalric
classes to let off steam, to socialize with their friends and peers, and to keep their
military skills in good order. The tournament became so much part of the cursus
of the aristocratic year that attendance at it was not infrequently mentioned as
an obligation in indentures of retinue. There was clearly an agreed timetable of
known tournaments and of venuesBlyth, Hereford, Coventry, Exeter, Bristol,
Guildford, Kenilworth, Hertford, Kennington, and Dunstable among them. Nor
were English magnates unwilling to travel abroad, especially to Calais, to indulge
their passion for the sport.
Jousts and tournaments could certainly be risky occasions: at least three
members of the Mortimer family are recorded in the Wigmore chronicle as
being killed in tournaments, while the death of the seventeen-year-old heir
of the earldom of Pembroke in a tournament in 1389 extinguished the male
line of the Hastings family. But in spite of such tragedies, tournaments and
round tables were superb displays of aristocratic theatre. They bonded the
aristocracy in a common cult of chivalry and prowess and became high festivals
of aristocratic sociability. The most lavish of such occasions became part of the
collective memory of the nobility. Such, for example, according to contemporary
chronicles, was the lavish three-day tournament held at Kenilworth in 1279
by Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, Edward Is condant. It was attended, so
we are told, by 100 knights and as many ladies. The leading lady was none
other than the queen of Navarre, Earl Edmund of Lancasters wife. Even
Cf. R. R. Davies, The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles 10931343
(Oxford, 2000), 902.
For example Private Indentures, nos. 7, 11, 1416, 28 etc.
Annales Monastici, ed. H. R. Luard, 5 vols. (London, 18649), IV, 2812; Dugdale,
Monasticon, VI, I, 34950.
136
Lords and Lordship
more impressive, though also politically sinister, was the famous tournament
held at Dunstable in June 1309 at which 235 participants are recorded as being
present, including six premier earls with their retinues. Tournaments were often
held as part of the wedding festivities of the aristocracy: Henry of Grosmont
(d. 1361), one of the great patrons of tournaments and, appropriately, a founder
member of the Order of the Garter, held a splendid tournament at his castle
at Leicester in 1344 to celebrate the marriage of his daughter, Maud, to Ralph,
Lord Stafford.
The lives of many young aristocrats must have been lled with talks of jousts
and preparations for tournaments. The household accounts of the young Henry
Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV) for 13912, for example, show him attending
tournaments at Waltham, Hertford, Kennington, and elsewhere. He had by then
an established reputation as one of the most gallant knights in Christendom in
the wake of his performance at the magnicent and prolonged tournament held
at St Inglevert in the marches of Calais in 1390. Bolingbroke would have been
reared from childhood in these chivalric enterprises: his grandfather, the famous
Henry of Grosmont (d. 1361), had left a reputation as a great jouster and as the
captain for life of a group of knights who secured a licence to hold a yearly joust at
Lincoln; Bolingbrokes uncle was Thomas, duke of Gloucester (d. 1397), who
composed a standard manual for devotees of the tournamentOrdinaunces
and Fourme of ghting within Listes. A whole service industry of followers
and attendants, heralds and minstrels was engaged for the occasion. London
merchants made a killing, supplying arms, tents, pavilions, banners, expensive
liveries and collars and all the accoutrements of power-dressing and ostentatious
display. Theatrical performances would be staged to titillate the audience such
as the procession of masked knights and esquires to the church of St Pauls in
London on the eve of the four-day tournament held at Stepney in 1331 or the
company of knights, dressed as the pope and twelve cardinals, who took on
all comers at the jousts at Smitheld in 1343. Such occasions were certainly a
drain on noble incomes. Thomas, lord Berkeley (d. 1361), knew as much from
experience: in 1327 he spent at least 53 on three tournaments, while in the
following year his expense account on at least three further tournaments cost him
at least 86 and a further 8 for armour for his body. Expenditure on this scale
and with this regularity suggests that tournaments and jousts were not marginal
or even optional activities for ambitious young aristocrats. Rather were they a
key feature of their promotion of their self-image as a warrior elite and of their
habits of sociability.
A. Tomkinson, Retinues at the Tournament of Dunstable, EHR, 74 (1959), 7089;
Knighton, Chron., 501. See in general J. Barker, The Tournament in England 11001400
(Woodbridge, 1986); Vale, Edward III and Chivalry.
TNA DL 28/1/3, ff. 12, 15, 16, 18v; McFarlane, Lancastrian Kings, 378.
Fowler, Kings Lieutenant, 1445.
Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, I, 325.
The Lord at War
137
Should the nobility feel that tournaments were too much like playing war games
without incurring the real risks of war, they could opt instead to participate in a
crusade. It was an opportunity for them to bring their military pretensions and
their Christian convictions into practical alignment. The crusading enterprises of
Henry Bolingbroke are a case in point; they also show the continuum from the
world of the tournament through to that of the grand tour to participation in a
crusade. In 1390 Henry was twenty-four years old and had already established
a reputation for himself as one of the most formidable jousters in Europe. He had
returned from the international competition at St Inglevert covered in glory, and
he now searched for new worlds in which to boost his renown further. In this he
was probably encouraged, and certainly nanced, by his father, quite possibly to
be out of England at a politically fraught time. Be that as it may, on 20 July 1390
he set out with a company of 150200 for Prussia on crusade, returning to
England in April 1391. But his wanderlust had not been satised. Three months
later he set out again for Prussia from Kings Lynn. His proposed crusade had
to be aborted; but Bolingbroke was not to be denied his chance to see the world
and to enhance his reputation. He set out via Vienna and Prague for Venice
and then travelled to Rhodes, Jerusalem, and Cyprus before heading back for
England. He could hardly claim that he had covered himself with military glory;
but he could join the long roster of English aristocrats who had extended the
range of their military activities to include the lands of the indels. Bolingbrokes
grandfather had distinguished himself at the siege of Algeciras in 1343 and
went to Prussia in 13512 with the intention of leading a campaign against the
Turks. His near contemporary Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford (d. 1373),
campaigned in Prussia in 1363 and with Pierre de Lusignan in the Middle East
in 1365, and the three sons of the earl of Devon campaigned in Prussia in 1368.
And so the list could be easily lengthened. Indeed the prospect of being called
upon to accompany ones lord on a crusade was such an anticipated contingency
that it could be formally stipulated as an obligation of service in an indenture
of retinue.
As we saw in the case of Henry Bolingbroke, it was not easynor indeed
is it sensibleto draw a clear distinction between tournaments, crusades,
pilgrimages, and travel in the cursus of the young aristocrat. They were activities
which merged easily and naturally into one another. They were an occasion for
these privileged young men and their entourages to see the world, to aunt their
power and wealth, to extend their horizons and contacts, to hone their military
skills, and to do so in the name of faith. In short they were truly and distinctively
For general discussion of this theme see M. H. Keen, Chaucers Knight: The English
Aristocracy and the Crusade, in Scattergood and Sherborne (eds.), English Court Culture, 4561.
Toulmin Smith (ed.), Expeditions to Prussia; F. R. H. Du Boulay, Henry of Derbys
Expeditions to Prussia in 13901 and 1392, in The Reign of Richard II: Essays in Honour of May
McKisack, ed. F. R. H. Du Boulay and C. M. Barron (London, 1971), 15373.
Private Indentures, nos. 14, 93.
138
Lords and Lordship
the enterprises of a noble, military elite. We can perhaps best capture their
character through the pictorial representation of the career of one of the great
aristocratic military heroes of the early fteenth century, Richard Beauchamp,
earl of Warwick (d. 1439). Earl Richard inaugurated his distinguished military
career at the age of twenty in an unpromising theatrein the wars in Wales. By
1408 the threat from Owain Glyn Dwr
had largely ebbed away. So Earl Richard
felt free to travel abroad for two years, performing notable feats of arms at Verona
and elsewhere, visiting Rome and the Holy Land, Russia and Poland. And in this
Jurney, comments his later biographer, Earl Richard gate hym greet worschip
at many turnaments and other faites of warre. He returned, no doubt, with his
horizons extended and his reputation enhanced. He had completed his military
apprenticeship; ahead of him would lie exemplary years of service for Henry V
and Henry VI in France. The career of Earl Richard was more rounded and
more successful than that of most great aristocrats; but in the centrality that
military prowess and activityin the tournament, on campaign, on crusade, in
his castle building, in his travelshe was at one with most of the noblemen of
his day.
For the commemoration of a particular warrior, D. Green, Edward the Black
Prince: Power in Medieval Europe (Harlow, 2007), ch. 4. For individual battles
and campaigns, C. J. Rogers, War Cruel and Sharp: English Strategy under
Edward III, 132760 (Woodbridge, 2000); D. Green, The Battle of Poitiers,
1356 (Stroud, 2002); A. Ayton and Sir P. Preston, Bart., The Battle of Crecy,
1346 (Woodbridge, 2005); A. Curry, Agincourt: A New History (Stroud, 2005).
The retinue roll of Lionel of Antwerp, earl of Ulster, for his Irish expedition
of 13614 [TNA E 101/28/18] is published in Appendix 2 of Handbook and
Select Calendar of Sources for Medieval Ireland in the National Archives of the
United Kingdom, ed. P. Dryburgh and B. Smith (Dublin, 2005). For the earl
of Arundels recruitment of troops in the reign of Richard II, A. R. Bell, War
and the Soldier in the Fourteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2004). For the English
aristocracy and warfare more generally, M. Prestwich, The Enterprise of War,
(Cambridge, 2006), and D. Simpkin, The English Aristocracy at War: From the
Welsh Wars of Edward I to the Battle of Bannockburn (Woodbridge, 2008). For the
militarism of Cheshire, T. Thornton, Cheshire: The Inner Citadel of Richard
IIs Kingdom?, in The Reign of Richard II, ed. G. Dodd (Stroud, 2000).
Dillon and St John Hope (eds.), Pageant of the Birth, Life etc. of Richard Beauchamp, earl of
Warwick, 44.
ODNB sub Beauchamp, Richard.
The Lord at War
139
For chivalry in the context of the Anglo-Scottish wars, A. King, War and
Peace: A Knights Tale. The Ethics of War in Sir Thomas Grays Scalacronica,
in War, Government and Aristocracy in the British Isles c.11501500: Essays
in Honour of Michael Prestwich, ed. C. Given-Wilson, A. Kettle and L. Scales
(Woodbridge, 2008); A. J. Macdonald, Border Bloodshed: Scotland and England at
War, 13691403 (Edinburgh, 2000). For Scotland more generally, K. Stevenson,
Thai War Callit Knychtis and Bere the Name and the Honour of that Hye
Ordre: Scottish Knighthood in the Fifteenth Century, in The Fifteenth Century
VI: Identity and Insurgency in the Late Middle Ages, ed. L. Clark (Woodbridge,
2006), and K. Stevenson, Chivalry and Knighthood in Scotland, 14241513
(Woodbridge, 2006). For Gaelic Irish ideas of conduct in warfare, K. Simms,
Images of Warfare in Bardic Poetry, Celtica, 21 (1990). For the galloglass, the
essays in The World of the Galloglass: Kings, Warlords and Warriors in Ireland and
Scotland, 12001600, ed. S. Duffy (Dublin, 2007), esp. K. Nicholls, Scottish
Mercenary Kindreds in Ireland, 12501600.
For the tournament, D. Crouch, Tournament (London, 2005). For crusading,
E. Matthew, Henry V and the Proposal for an Irish Crusade, in Ireland and
the English World in the Late Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Robin Frame, ed.
B. Smith (Basingstoke, 2009).
5
Land, Family, and Marriage
Family and land were two of the central features around which concepts
of standing, status, and power were built in medieval rural societies. This was
arguably true of all orders of society above the ranks of the landless, labourers, and
vagrants. Peasant society, it is now widely acknowledged, was in many respects
an assemblage of family units. It was the family which was often the primary
social and economic organism. It was the unit of production, consumption, and
seigniorial obligation. Its customs of inheritance, and the conventions which
determined claims to its land and chattels between widows and children, formed
the framework for the distribution and inheritance of property, especially at
death. Land was also the means to, and the guarantor of, status. It was in
terms of the amount of land that he held that the medieval peasant was often
identiedvirgater, half-yardlander, bovate-holder, and so forth. Ownership of
land also made him a fully edged member of the village community with all the
rights and dutiesincluding a share in communal agriculture, use of common
meadow and pasture, access to woods, forest, and turbarythat this could
entail. The hierarchies of landed wealth and the accumulation, transmission,
and inheritance of land were paramount features of peasant status and life
cycles.
What was true of peasant society applied equally, if not more so, to the
other orders of society. Particularly did it apply to the greater aristocracy. We
will misunderstand their priorities and concerns if we overlook the degree to
which their policies were regularly preoccupied by the issues of land and family.
Furthermore many of the documents which they carefully preserved in their
archives, copied into their cartularies, and bequeathed to their descendants were
concerned with these very issues. For the historian this is both a strength and
a weakness. From these documents it is often possible to glimpse the strategies
which families deployed to protect and enhance their landed fortunes and
family interests. Most of these documents were carefully drafted by lawyers.
They are precise and technical, and grow steadily more so across the period
studied in this book. They have been the subject of excellent detailed studies,
notably on issues such as entails, jointures, marriage contracts, settlements in
tail male, and enfeoffments to useall of them devices developed to extend
the familys control over its lands and its transmission from one generation to
141
the next. It is not the aim of the present chapter to summarize this vast and
technical body of historiographical comment except in so far as a brief review,
accompanied by some selected examples, can help us to identify the approach of
the aristocracy to issues of land and family. It is precisely in that area that we
become aware of the limitations of the evidence. Abundant it may be, but it is
also deliberately technical and formulaic. It is very rare indeedat least until
we enter the much better-documented world of private correspondence in the
fteenth centurythat we are given a glimpse of the personal considerations
and passions which shaped the decisions which underlie the bloodless language
of the legal documents. Nor is it always easy to separate social reality from legal
ction in many of these documents.
But even when we have conceded as much, it is abundantly clear that land and
family lay at the heart of the aristocracys ambitions. In England at leastless
so arguably in Scotland and Irelandland and aristocracy went hand in hand,
especially at the higher echelons of the titled nobility. An adequate competence
(as it was called) in land was as essential for a great magnate, as were jewels
for a lady or the tools of agriculture (wainage) for the peasant. This is vividly
demonstrated in the territorial provision that Edward III made when he created
six new earls in 1337. Thus in elevating William Clinton to be earl of Huntingdon
in that year, the king gave him land and rent worth one thousand marks annually
so that he could more properly continue and better sustain the status and honour
of earl. Honours and titles were all very well, but the medieval period took
a down-to-earth view of both. Only the possession of land and rents and the
control of people gave a meaningful content to aristocratic lordship.
Land, therefore, was the source of wealth and power; it was also the focus of
family tradition and family ambition. It is true that a common distinction was
drawn between inherited land (an estate which had descended to an individual
through his/her place in the family tree and whose transmission to the next
generation was largely determined by convention and custom) and acquired land
(an estate which an individual had securedor purchased in the contemporary
phraseby purchase, marriage, or exchange and was his, therefore, theoretically
to dispose of as he wished). But even this distinction, in so far as it was applied
in practice, could only last for one generation, since the acquired land of one
generation became the inherited land of the next. Land was in effect held in
trust by an individual on behalf of his/her family, past, present, and future. Just
A full bibliography is not called for here, but the following (cited in order of publication)
have been particularly useful: Holmes, Estates, ch. 2; J. M. W. Bean, The Decline of English
Feudalism, 12151540 (Manchester, 1968); McFarlane, Nobility, esp. chs. 34; Given-Wilson,
English Nobility, esp. chs. 56; Bean, Landlords, 52686; Carpenter, Locality and Polity; Payling,
Social Mobility, Demographic Change and Landed Society, 5173; idem, The Politics of Families:
Late Medieval Marriage Contracts, in The McFarlane Legacy: Studies in Late Medieval Politics and
Society, ed. R. H. Britnell and A. J. Pollard (Stroud, 1995), 2149; idem, The Economics of
Marriage in Late Medieval England. The Marriage of Heiresses, Econ. HR, 54 (2001), 41329.
Holmes, Estates, 4 n.1.
142
Lords and Lordship
as the familys coat of arms and its profound attachment to its name and lineage
expressed its anxiety to display, conrm and, if necessary, invent and embellish its
continuity through time, so the descent of the familys estates in the (preferably)
main family line helped to assert and display the familys antiquity and standing.
So it was, for example, that the Mortimer family was inordinately proud of the
brass horn which, so it was claimed, was their charter for the land of Wigmore.
Whether the horn was authentic or not, the Mortimers had good reason for their
pride since they can be shown, from independent historical evidence, to have
been lords of Wigmore since the days of William the Conqueror. Titular horns,
family legends (again amply provided in the case of the Mortimers by a full
family chronicle), genealogies, and carefully assembled collections of title deeds
all of them proclaimed the emphasis on the continuity of great families.
In fact few of the really great aristocratic families showed a somnolent
continuity over time. Some familiesthe Courtenay earls of Devon are a wellknown exampleshowed a remarkable stability over several generations; but
that was more a comment on their lack of enterprise, character, and success.
More commonlyand much more so among great magnate families rather than
county gentrythe territorial fortunes of families uctuated, sometimes wildly,
from one generation or even one decade to the next. A fortunate marriage or
a handsome royal gift or the windfalls of an unexpected failure of heirs in a
family or even the investment of the gains of war could all transform a familys
chances dramatically and unexpectedly. But so, in reverse, could a major political
blunder or the sudden extinction of direct male heirs of the male line. In this, as
in other respects, the swings of fortune and misfortune were more dramatic in
their impact for the greater aristocracy than for other orders of society.
We will, once more, choose the Mortimers of Wigmore to illustrate the truism,
largely because the scale and pace of change in the familys fortunes across the
fourteenth century are unusually vivid and partly because the survival of a family
cartulary and chronicle and scattered family muniments help to illuminate the
story. In 1272 the Mortimers could look back on almost two centuries as lords of
Wigmore (Herefordshire) and nearby Welsh lordships. They were a rumbustious
lot and had been ruthless frontier barons but on the whole they looked as if they
would have to be content with their long-accustomed role as Herefordshire and
Marcher barons, and no more. Over the next century this situation was to be
dramatically transformed and they were catapulted into the very front rank of the
English aristocracy. The routes to success were many, but two in particular can
be selected for attention here. The rst was royal patronage, in return, of course,
for service to the king. The familys rise to pre-eminence was built on successive
See above, pp. 2833.
See above, pp. 349.
For the Mortimers see Holmes, Estates, 1019; Davies, Lordship and Society, 5366. For maps
of Mortimer lands in Wales see R. R. Davies, The Age of Conquest: Wales 10631415 (Oxford,
1987, 2000), 396, 407.
143
bouts of royal municencerst by Edward I to Roger Mortimer (d. 1282);

then by Edward II to Rogers junior son, Roger of Chirk, and to his grandson,
Roger of Wigmore, in the years 130721; then in an orgy of shameless grants
to the latter Roger, now aunting the newly invented title earl of March, in
the minority years of Edward III (132730); and nally by the extraordinarily
generous, if high-handed, acts of Edward III in rebuilding the Mortimer fortunes
almost completely in the 1350s for the next Earl Roger (d. 1360).
The second route to the transformation of the familys fortunes and standing
lay through the spoils of marriage. Indeed the two routes were linked in as much
as royal consent, and even direct royal intervention, were essential pre-requisites
for success in the major marriage stakes. We may again select two examples from
the annals of the family to illustrate the point. The rst was the betrothal in
1301 of the young Roger Mortimer, at the age of fourteen and during his fathers
lifetime, to Joan Geneville (or Joinville), only daughter and heir of Peter and Joan
de Geneville. Intense negotiations and calculations of possible consequences no
doubt preceded the contract. Over the next few years, the fruits of the marriage
fell into the lap of the Mortimers: they included a major accession to the familys
standing in the Welsh March (the lordship of Ewyas Lacy and a moiety of
Ludlow) and a totally new stake in the English colony in Ireland (the lordships of
Trim and Meath). Even more spectacular in its import, and this time involving
direct royal intervention, was the marriage of Earl Edmund Mortimer (d. 1381)
in 1368 to Philippa, daughter of Lionel, duke of Clarence, and granddaughter
of Edward III. Earl Edmunds marriage had originally been promised to the earl
of Arundels daughter; but when the king stepped in with his offer, the promise
to Arundel was cancelled on due payment of compensation. Few families could
resist the attering offer of a royal marriage alliance. But attery apart, the 1368
marriage quickly brought very tangible rewards for the Mortimers. Philippa was
the heiress of Elizabeth de Burgh (d. 1360) and so brought to her new husband
a goodly part of the vast former Clare inheritance, including great lordships
in south-east Wales, East Anglia, and Ireland. From being in 1301 a baronial
family of sound but modest regional standing the Mortimers had become within
three generations possibly the second richest aristocratic family in England, with
estates stretching from East Anglia through southern England, a predominant
position in the March of Wales, and a towering position in the ranks of English
magnates in Ireland.
Presented in this fashion the story of the Mortimers from 1272 to 1398 would
appear to be one of remorseless advance and consolidation. It was, of course,
nothing of the sort. Rather was it a series of episodic successes and disastrous
setbacks. No one could predict from one generationor indeed one decadeto
the next what the consequences might be of a political disaster, a childless
marriage, the failure of male heirs, or the demands of successive widowsto
CCR 135460, 9294; McFarlane, Nobility, 86 n. 3.
144
Lords and Lordship
name but some of the most obvious contingencies. Such disasters could destroy a
family irretrievably, as happened to the cadet branch of the Mortimers of Chirk
after the death of Roger in 1326. But other familiesincluding our Mortimers
of Wigmorerecovered from their failures and disasters, partly because they
relearnt the art of climbing the greasy pole of political success in each generation
andwhich is much the same thingmastered the arts of winning the support
and patronage of the king. For the Mortimers the fourteenth century was a roller
coaster of a century, punctuated by disaster, minorities galore, and widowhoods.
But there was no doubt, if one takes the long view, that the trajectory of their
fortunes was very much upwards. As was true of most aristocratic families, wealth
and fortune seemed to attract more wealth and fortune.
The Mortimers had built up their territorial fortune through the enterprise of
individual members of the family and the luck of a series of key marriages. Their
task now was to secure the integrity of the inheritance and to prevent it being
dissipated by alienation and fragmentation. The assumptions of English land law
helped them in this respect. Its inbuilt prejudice in favour of the eldest male heir
of the body as the rightful expectant owner of his fathers lands was a powerful
force in keeping the estate integral. So, at least formally, was the absence of
means by which land (outside boroughs) could be devised by will. We will, in
fact, see that there were various ways in which these limitations could be, and
were regularly, circumvented. But in the vast majority of cases the rights of the
eldest surviving son to succeed to the family estates, or at least the greater bulk of
them, were respected. Sometimes, indeed, the integrity of the estate was formally
protected against the indigence or extravagance of the father in the interests of
the son. Thus when in May 1316 the powerful Bartholomew de Badlesmere
struck a marriage agreement with Robert Fitz Pain, he insisted that the latter
should have no power to alienate any of his land (beyond 200 worth) without
Bartholomews consent. Bartholomew was thereby protecting the interests of his
daughter (who was betrothed to Roberts son) but he was also ensuring that his
future son-in-law should enter into his family inheritance more or less intact.
Aristocratic families were obsessed with the fear that a family inheritance built
up over the generations might be dissipated and fragmented by often totally
unforeseen events, both natural and man-made. They had good reason to be very
apprehensive about the issue. In a famous calculationwhich broadly stands in
spite of subsequent reservations and qualicationsK. B. McFarlane estimated
that a quarter of his sample baronial families became extinct in the direct male
line every twenty-ve years during the period 13001500. It is little wonder
that the best lawyers in the land were busy preparing legal devices for coping as
For the virtual dispossession of the Mortimers of Chirk see Davies, Lordship and Society, 467.
GEC, sub Robert Fitz Pain. For another comparable example see Thomas de Multon as cited
in Holmes, Estates, 43.
McFarlane, Nobility, 146 and ch. 2 passim. See also Payling, Social Mobility, Demographic
Change, and Landed Society, 54.
145
best they could with such a contingency. Indeed it was but one of a galaxy of
concerns which disturbed the sleep of any self-respecting aristocrat. How could
the consequences of a long minority and the depredations which often came
in the wake of a royal custody be mitigated, if not altogether avoided? What
about the claims of widows, cadets, and collaterals? When should the affection
one naturally felt for daughters who happened to be heirs make way for the
superior claim of maintaining the integrity of the family inheritance? How could
one do any sort of justice between children from a rst and a second marriage?
There were no universal answers to these and many other similar questions.
Each family would have to work out its own, sometimes highly individual,
solutions. But those solutions drew increasingly on a body of accepted practices
and legal devices on which the whole aristocracy could, in principle draw. Much
the same sets of practices and devices also prevailed in much of lowland Scotland
and in English Ireland, in other words in areas which were, albeit at one remove
and often with their own distinctive technical vocabulary (e.g. tailzie for an estate
in tail in Scotland), within the orbit of the English common law tradition. The
main thrust of these various legal devices was to determine, in so far as possible,
the descent of the family inheritance at the death of the owner and to do so in a
way which both preserved the integrity of the estates and respected the owners
wishes in so far as they had been expressed and specied.
The entail was perhaps the most fundamental of these devices. Stated baldly,
an entail altered the legal status of the land and gave a much greater say to
the wishes of its current lord in determining its descent. It was no longer held
in fee simple with its exclusive emphasis that it was a tenancy held in fee
(and thereby subject at the death of its holder to crown rights of custody and
wardship) and that the right of the primogenitary heir determined succession.
The landholderprovided he had secured a royal licencecould use the entail
to determine the descent of his inheritance in accordance with his wishes. There
were many possibilitiesincluding specifying a sequence of remainders (i.e.
indicating to which member of a family the land should descend in the event
of the failure of the designated heir(s) or his direct descendants), preferring
male collaterals to daughters or claimants through the female line, or excluding
collaterals as prospective heirs at the time of a marriage contract (as happened
when Thomas, earl of Lancaster (d. 1322), took the daughter and heir of the earl
of Lincoln (d. 1311) as his wife in October 1294). Since family circumstances
and the wishes of individual magnates varied widely there is no general pattern to
these arrangements, even though they drew on the same body of legal principles.
The best we can do, therefore, is to select a few well-known instances to
illustrate how these arrangements shaped the fortunes and descent of noble
For Scotland see esp. H. L. MacQueen, Common Law and Feudal Society in Medieval Scotland
(Edinburgh, 1993), esp. 1801.
Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 34; McFarlane, Nobility, 263.
146
Lords and Lordship
families. Perhaps the best known and most comprehensive such settlement was
that made by Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1369) in 13445 when
he devised the bulk of his estates to himself and to his eldest son jointly, with
remainders to younger sons and provisions for his daughters dowries. The
provisions had to be revised several times to take account of deaths (including
that of his eldest son) and other changes in family circumstances. Thomas
Beauchamps entail arrangements were even-handed as between his children,
those of other magnates less so. Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (d. 1376) was
a shrewd and ruthless operator. Having ditched his rst wife since he regarded
her now as a political embarrassment, he made three separate entails of different
portions of his estateat the time of his second marriage in 1345 to the daughter
of the earl of Lancaster, then in 1347 when this marriage produced a son, and
nally in 1366 to lock in the Warenne inheritance (which had descended to him)
with the Arundel fortunes. Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland (d. 1425), was
to follow much the same route in his family settlements and to show the same
degree of ruthlessness.
Shrewd family calculations informed all such settlements. Keeping the inheritanceor at least the main part of itintact was a basic desideratum, and
preferably in the direct male line. The Beauchamp family once more provided
two highly instructive instances. Earl Thomas (d. 1369), as we have seen, engineered a series of arrangements to determine the descent of the family lands and
to give a good start in life to all his children. But he had not bargained for
the ruses of the Great Reaper. Three of his ve sons predeceased him. But Earl
Thomas was not to be thwarted. A fourth son, William (d. 1411), was already
marked out for an ecclesiastical career, no doubt eventually a bishopric; he was
already canon of Salisbury. But the continuity of the family took precedence over
ecclesiastical convictions and scruples. He was retrained as a soldier and a valuable
portion of the Beauchamp inheritance was given to him and his heirs male. It
was a calculated insurance policythat of establishing a credible cadet branch
of the family against the possibility that the remaining Beauchamp heir Thomas
(d. 1401) might, like his three other brothers, die prematurely and without a male
heir of the body. In the event, the reverse happened: it was Richard Beauchamp
son of William Beauchamp (recently created earl of Worcester) who died in 1422
without a son. The Beauchamp instinct for reintegrating the family inheritance
now swung remorselessly, and probably uncanonically, into action. The widow
of Richard Beauchamp (d. 1422) was married to his namesake and cousin,
Richard Beauchamp earl of Warwick (d. 1439) in November 1423. What for
us is instructive is the shaft of light that a whole series of marriages, deaths, and
settlements casts on the shaping and reshaping of aristocratic fortunes. Entails
CPR 13435, 2512; Holmes, Estates, 489.
CPR 13435, 4878; CPR 13458, 3289; CPR 13647, 198, 2379; GEC sub
Westmorland.
147
and settlements could have totally unforeseen long-term consequences; families

worked out strategies which maximized the opportunities of all its members but
never lost sight of the overriding priority of family solidarity (where it could be
achieved) and the continuity of the family inheritance; the cadet branch could
easily become the senior residuary legatee of family plans in one generation only
to nd the boot on the other foot in the next.
The bias of these settlementsand increasingly so as our period progresseswas in favour of male heirs, preferably of the body. Medieval aristocratic
England was not an agnatic society, in the sense that medieval Wales was, excluding formally all claims to landed property by females or through the female line.
The prominent role played by widows, dowagers, daughters, and other female
heiresses makes that evident enough. Nevertheless the advantages of unilineal
male descent were obvious in a society anxious to preserve the family name
and the integrity of the inheritance. Interestingly, perhaps some of the most
forthright statements of this credo come from Scotland and Ireland. These were
societies where clan or family leadership in peace and war-captaincy in regions
of frequent warfare reinforced the preference for male inheritance. The charter
of entail for the barony and castle of Dalkeith did not mince its words on this
score. The barony was to be entailed to male heirs; failing such heirs it was
to pass to the next male heirs bearing the surname Dalkeith. And in case the
point was not sufciently explicit it was decreed that no descent to a female
heir was to be permitted unless male heirs were totally lacking. It was an
attitude that would have been fully understood in English Ireland. In 1299 the
barony of Skeathy (Co. Kildare) was to pass, in the absence of male heirs, to
the most noble, worthy, strong and praiseworthy of the pure blood and name of
Rochfordeyn . . . to whom the whole barony . . . shall remain indivisible, so that
the inheritance shall never pass to daughters. That statement enunciated a set
of principles in an uncompromising form which any English or indeed Scottish
magnate family would have understood.
Another device which greatly extended a landowners control of the descent
of his landsand helped him avoid feudal inheritance lawlay in the trust or
enfeoffment to use. It may well have been developed among gentry landowners
in the late thirteenth century, but it was in the period after 1350 that it seems to
have been widely practised among leading aristocratic landowners. It is possibly
best illustrated by a concrete example rather than by a theoretical exposition of
its legal possibilities. The history of the Mortimer estates serves us well once
more. In 1359, on the eve of his departure for a campaign in France, Earl Roger
R. Archer, Rich Old Ladies: The Problem of Later Medieval Dowagers, in Property and
Politics: Essays in Later Medieval English History, ed. A. Pollard (Stroud, 1984), 1535.
Mort. Reg., I, no. 97.
Calendar of the Justiciary Rolls . . . of Ireland, ed. J. Mills et al. 3 vols. (Dublin, 190556), I,
326, quoted in A. J. Otway-Ruthven, A History of Medieval Ireland (London, 1968), 1067. Other
examples are cited in Frame, English Lordship in Ireland, 234.
148
Lords and Lordship
(d. 1360) demised a goodly proportion of his estates to a group of friends and
councillors headed by the bishop of Winchester, William Wykeham. The grant
meant that the title to the estates was now vested formally not in the earl but
in the feoffees as they were called, provided they observed the conditions on
which the grant was madeoften involving paying an annual fee farm to the
feoffor. On his deathand in the case of Earl Roger death followed within one
year of the enfeoffmentthe feoffees would run the estate in accordance with
the feoffors (or late magnates) wishes as expressed in the enfeoffment and/or
his will. Side by side with the entail, the enfeoffment to use was a crucial device
in shaping the descent and status of a magnates estate after his death. There
were doubtless a variety of complex motives behind the adoption of uses, both
negative (to avoid the consequences of a prolonged period of royal custody) and
positive (to ensure that the owners wishes were indeed observed after his death).
Perhaps one of the most explicit statements of what those wishes might involve
are those specied in the will of Hugh, earl of Stafford who died on pilgrimage to
Rhodes in 1386: to guarantee the lands and rents given to his servants for their
lives; to provide a dowry for his daughter; and to provide an annuity for each
of his younger sons. In short it was as much a means of upholding a family
settlement as it was a way of avoiding the death duties of feudal tenure.
Entails and enfeoffments to use were parts of the legal paraphernalia that
were developed, especially in the fourteenth century, to cope with the wish of
aristocratic landowners to exercise as much control as possible over the descent
and transmission of the family inheritance. Preserving the name of the family,
retaining the integrity of the inheritance, preferring generally the established
claims of the eldest surviving male heir and ensuring, in so far as possible, that the
wishes of the owner continued to shape decisions after his death were certainly
among the primary considerations. But they were by no means the only ones,
since the magnate was the head of a family as well as the heir of an estate, and
he needed to balance these considerations against one another. Working out
that equation amicably and effectively was a major challenge to his talent and
ingenuity.
Top of the list of claims on the magnates generosity was the need to make
provision for his wife, especially in anticipation that he would predecease her and
she would survive him as a widow for years. Conventional practice stipulated
that a widow had a claim to a third of her husbands property at his death.
This had been supplemented by the practice of his nominating specied lands
to her on the marriage as a maritagium, further consolidating her claim; but this
practice had largely been replaced by the grant of a marriage portion to the brides
father, a practice to which we will return. The really important development
was the growing fashion in the fourteenth century of creating a joint tenancy
CPR 135861, 266; Holmes, Estates, 45.
CPR 137781, 219; CPR 13859, 344.
149
in survivorship for a landholder and his wife, stipulating which lands should
be held by joint title and which therefore would be held by whichever party
lived the longer. Sometimes only a few manors were included in a jointure
arrangement but occasionally the terms were extended to the greater part of an
inheritance. The impact of dower portions and jointure settlements could have
a major impact on the land available to the heir and thereby on his standing,
wealth, and political prospects. Particularly so was this the case when multiple
dowager ladies put in their claims more or less simultaneously. Earl Roger of
March (d. 1360) had his work cut out to salvage as much as he could of the
Mortimer lands forfeited by his grandfather and namesake (d. 1330); but his task
was made all the more frustrating by the fact that three Mortimer widowshis
great-grandmother, his grandmother, and his motherall had legitimate claims
to dower. It was not until 1358two years before his own deaththat he was
able to reassemble the whole of his fragmented inheritance. Jointure settlements
further complicated these contingencies. The example par excellence is of course
that of Margaret, countess (and briey at the end of her life duchess) of Norfolk
(d. 1399). Granted jointure rights in most of the lands of her rst husband,
John, Lord Segrave (d. 1353), she survived him for forty-six years, keeping her
male descendants out of the inheritance for the better part of sixty years. The
vagaries of the law of dower and the practice of jointure were not merely matters
of antiquarian legal interest; they profoundly affected the map of the distribution
of landed wealth, and with it power, in medieval society. Nor was this a retiring
group of ladies. On the contrary, what we know of themof Joan of Bar, the
estranged wife of the earl of Surrey, the thrice-widowed and immensely rich and
shrewd Elizabeth de Burgh (d. 1360), or Mary of St Pol countess of Pembroke
(d. 1377) or the formidable Joan countess of Hereford (d. 1419) and the even
more formidable Joan Beauchamp lady of Abergavenny (d. 1435)proves the
reverse to be the truth. They managed their affairs and presided over their
families with authority. They were hard-headed if not necessarily hard-hearted:
when another Mortimer dowager, Philippa (d. 1378) left her son 500 in her will
it was on the rm condition that he disclaimed any right to her property, goods,
and outstanding debts and on the understanding that he would not impede the
activities of her executors. Maternal affection was not to cloud her insistence
on her rights in these matters.
Family responsibility did not, of course, end with the claims of the wife or
the widow. Other members also had strong claims on the familys affections and
thereby on its fortunes. Younger brothers might be well provided for. Roger
See generally Ward, English Noblewomen. Among older studies Jenkinson, Mary de Sancto
Paulo is rewarding. The latest attempt to provide an account of the life of Elizabeth de Burgh (far
and away the best documented heiress of the fourteenth century) is F. A. Underhill, For Her Good
Estate: The Life of Elizabeth de Burgh (New York, 1999).
Nicholls, Wills, 98.
150
Lords and Lordship
Mortimer, earl of March (d. 1398), was notably generous in this respect. During
the years 13948that is on reaching his majorityhe granted manors worth
at least 160 to his young brother, Edmund, to which he later added the lordship
of Narberth. He also awarded his brother-in-law, Henry Hotspur, land worth
100 marks. This was largesse indeed but not out of line with the practice of
the Mortimers, and many other families, of looking after the interests of the
family in general. This could be achieved by grantsoften in tail maleof
lands and rents; but other members of the family had to be content with a rich
ecclesiastical plum in the lords gift. Edmund Mortimer (d. 1304) did not have
the wherewithal to provide land for his large family. Instead he nominated three
of them to Mortimer family livings and placed a daughter in a nunnery.
Daughters were indeed both a problem and an opportunity. Even if they were
consigned to nunneries as was Joanna Mortimer they were no doubt expected
to bring an endowment with them. If they were to be placed on the marriage
market, the costs would be much higher and the negotiations often complex.
But no self-respecting magnate could afford to opt out of his responsibilities in
this respect. We will return in a moment to the question of marriage settlements
and marriage strategies. Here we will be content to give a couple of examples of
how great aristocrats discharged their responsibilities in this respect. Humphrey
Bohun, earl of Hereford (d. 1361), was hardly a representative example of the
English higher aristocracy. He was a retiring, sickly bachelor; but he also felt
his responsibilities to his female kin, leaving bequests to his sisters and nieces
in his will. His near contemporary Richard earl of Arundel (d. 1376) was easily
the richest magnate in England and could afford to shower his largesse liberally
among family membersincluding bequests totalling 14,000 marks in cash to
his sons and daughters; a further 2,500 marks to four grandchildren; and 1,400
marks to his nephews and nieces. Earl Richard could well afford to be hugely
magnanimous; but the circle of his family beneciaries indicated the orbit of
family affection and obligation among the aristocracy generally. It is not only
their complicated legal landed agreements which open a window on to their
world of obligation and duty; so do their bequests and gift-giving. They were
family patriarchs as well as the heads of landed inheritances.
Given the close intertwining of land and family in all sorts of directions, the
successful arrangement of the marriage of offspring, male and female, constituted
one of the most delicate and critical acts of lordship. It was an opportunity to
forge alliances with other families, to use such alliances as a bargaining counter,
and to arrange the future descent of the family estates. Magnates must have kept
an eye on the prospects of the marriage market as any stockbroker does on the
CPR 13969, 428, 457; BL Egerton Charters 8783.
Dugdale, Monasticon, VI, part 1, 351.
Test. Vet., I, 946 and more fully in Lambeth Palace Library, Archbishop Sudburys Register,
f.92vf.94v.
151
fortunes of the stock exchange, and since both activities had a strong risk, both of
spectacular prot or devastating loss, attached to them, they inevitably dabbled
in futures. John of Gaunt was, of course, in a particularly strong position in the
bidding stakes. Like many other magnates he had calculated that the wardship
and marriage of young John Mowbray could be a very rich picking indeed,
since he had an ultimate claim to the Mowbray and Brotherton inheritances,
frustrated only by the exceptional longevity of Mowbrays grandmother, Margaret
countess of Norfolk. It was a long-term prospect but a very enticing one. So
Gaunt purchased young Johns marriage from his grandmother in 1379 and
simultaneously the wardship from the earl of Northumberland. The young John
was now brought up in the dukes household and there was every prospect that
he might be married to one of Gaunts daughters, relatives, or retainers. It must
have been judged a shrewd move by Gaunts contemporaries; but the gamble
did not pay off this time, since young John died early in 1383 still a minor. But
for gambling men, occasional failures of this kind were not a deterrent. Nothing
ventured, nothing gained.
On the contrary, the competition for eligible partners for sons and daughters
was a consuming passion of most aristocratic families. Catching them young was
one way of settling the issue, even though betrothal between children was not
canonically secure until the parties were of an age to consummate the marriage.
Two examples from the annals of the de Burgh earldom of Ulster may illustrate
the point. Elizabeth, suo jure countess of Ulster (d. 1363), was betrothed to
the four-year-old Lionel of Clarence at the Tower of London on 9 September
1342 when she was ten; their daughter Philippa (d. 1378) was betrothed at the
age of thirteen to Edmund Mortimer, then aged eight, in 1368. These were,
as it were, pre-emptive acts to settle the minds of the young parties and to
warn off alternative bidders. The king was, of course, particularly well placed
to control such marriages to suit his tastes and policies. Edmund Mortimer was
indeed the victim of such a royal intervention. His hand had been intended,
and indeed pledged, to the daughter of the earl of Arundel until Edward III
stepped into the process. Short of taking over an heir, a royal nod and a wink
could accelerate the completion of a marriage contract, so valuable was royal
consent. So it was that the king ordained the marriage pact between the
daughter of the earl of Ormond and the son of the earl of Desmond in 1359.
The problem with child marriages is that they could be challenged until the
parties were fully of contractual age in the eyes of the church. The Cliffords had
good cause to know that. They thought that they had secured the hand of the
rich heiress of Multon of Gilsland; but they were to be gazumped when Ralph
Dacre came along citing a pre-existing contract between Thomas Multon and
William Dacre.
Reg. JG, II, no. 88; S. Walker, Lancastrian Afnity, 178; Goodman, John of Gaunt, 280.
CCR 135460, 576.
GEC, sub Dacre, quoting the chronicle of Lanercost priory.
152
Lords and Lordship
As the word contract suggests, marriages or betrothals were only concluded

after long and detailed negotiations between the two families in question.
They were no doubt drawn up after careful legal scrutiny and hard-headed
business discussions. Thus the proposed marriage of the sister of the earl of
Stafford in 13912 involved the earls council in frequent journeysincluding
to Nottingham, the New Forest, Bristol, and Newport in Walesto discuss
the matter among themselves and then with the council of the prospective
husband, the earl of Kent. One can imagine that great family conclaves would
be assembled, sometimes fraught with tension. In 1435/6 the earl of Warwick,
his countess, and his household rode to Abergavenny (the home of Aunt Joan
Beauchamp) to conclude the marriage of Anne, the earls sister, with Lord
Despenser. It was the formidable and hugely experienced Margaret, countess
of Norfolk, who led the negotiations for the marriage of her grandson, John
Hastings, heir to the earldom of Pembroke, to Philippa, daughter of the late earl
of March (who was represented by the earls executors).
We sometimes catch a glimpse of the complicated issues which called for
discussion and see the way in which a marriage alliance might be deployed
to defuse an old problem. The Mortimer family provides us once again with
a telling example. In 1354 it was, with active royal support, reassembling the
great territorial fortune assembled by the rst earl of March but lost in the
debacle of his downfall in 1330. Many of the families who had beneted from
that debacle were now peremptorily deprived of their gains by royal at; but
Richard Fitzalan, the great earl of Arundel (d. 1376), was too powerfulif only
in respect of his credit operationsto be treated in such a way. He bargained to
hang on to what he held and used marriage as a tool. He was allowed to retain the
lordship of Chirk, which lay conveniently next to two existing Fitzalan Marcher
lordships of Oswestry and Bromeld and Yale, even though Chirk had been of
the inheritance of a cadet branch and subsequently of the senior branch of the
Mortimers. An inter-family deal was struck whereby Edmund, the two-year-old
Mortimer heir, was betrothed to Alice, the daughter of the earl of Arundel.
In the event the marriage did not take place; but this in no way reduces the
interest of the case in demonstrating the way marriages were deployed to bury
family feuds. Occasionally the bond of marriage was extended to include a life
retainership. When Hugh Despenser married his daughter to Sir Peter Ovedale,
Sir Peter agreed to be retained simultaneously in peace and war.
Marriage was, as we shall see, an expensive business for both parties. K. B.
McFarlanes illustration of the costs of marrying three of the daughters of the
*Marquess of Bath MS. Longleat House Misc. VIII f.21vf.22.
CCR 13859, 4723.
Holmes, Estates, 1517.
CCR 135460, 93; A Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Deeds in the Public Record Ofce (6 vols.,
London, 18901915), III, no. 4882.
Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Deeds, IV, no. 8019.
153
earl of Stafford 134350 is particularly telling: the father was required to nd

466 13s. 4d . in portions and annual rents and lands totalling at least 2,800.
It was a sum which would make a huge dent in any familys income, and remains
so even if we make allowances for the jointures the daughters received from their
husbands or in-laws. One way of limiting the costs and of solidifying the alliances
formed by marriage was to arrange a bilateral agreement, whereby the son of
one family married the daughter of another family and vice versa. A striking
example was the Clarede Burgh marriage axis in the early fourteenth century,
with its possibly wide-ranging implications for aristocratic territorial fortunes
in England, Wales, and Ireland. On 29 September 1308 Maud, one of the
daughters of Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster (d. 1326), was betrothed to Gilbert
de Clare, the young and powerful earl of Gloucester (d. 1314); on the next day at
Waltham abbey and in the kings presence John, at that date the surviving eldest
son of the earl of Ulster, was married in the kings presence to Elizabeth, young
Gilbert de Clares youngest sister and, eventually, heiress of much of both the
de Burgh and de Clare inheritances. It is but one of several examples that could
be cited. In 1343 John lord Mowbray married his eldest son to the daughter
of the earl of Salisbury and, as part of the arrangement, Salisburys eldest son
took Mowbrays daughter to be his wife. The earls of Arundel and Northampton
made a similar contract for their respective children in 1359.
In this latter case no portion was paid. We touch here on what was for the
family and its fortunes a central aspect of all marriagesthe size of portions and
jointure settlements. Stated baldly, the portion was the sum, normally in cash
and often payable in instalments, paid by the grooms father or kinsman to the
brides father or guardian. Parallel with the grant of the portion, a jointure in
rent income or land would be settled on the wife by the husband with reversion
to him and his heirs, or on the new husband and wife jointly by the husbands
father with similar reversion. Such complicated bilateral contracts were preceded
by extensive and no doubt occasionally very tense negotiations. The size of the
portion does not seem to have been determined by any rigid formula but rather
by the relative power of the two families and by their anxiety to conclude an
agreement. A very rich earl could display his wealth in the size of the portion he
gave with his daughter: Richard Fitzalan (d. 1376) offered a portion of 4,000
marks (2,667) to his daughter Alice on her marriage to Thomas Holland in
1364. In English Ireland, portions might be paid in cattle: so it was that when
Theobald, the son of Walter de Burgh, took the daughter of the earl of Ormond
as his wife the portion was calculated as 240 cows and 20 stud horses. It is
McFarlane, Nobility, 86 n. 2.
Descriptive Catalogue of the Charters and Muniments in the Possession of the R. Hon. Lord
FitzHardinge at Berkeley Castle, ed. I. H. Jeayes (Bristol, 1892), no. 511; McFarlane, Nobility, 86
n. 2.
Reg. BP, III, 480.
Calendar of Ormond Deeds, 11721350, ed. E. Curtis, 6 vols. (Dublin, 193243), II, no. 353.
154
Lords and Lordship
a reminder that a marriage contract was an occasion for the redistribution of

wealth, be it in cash, landed resources, or moveable goods.
Marriage was also an occasion for momentous decisions with regard to a whole
dynastys wealth. Family conclaves were no doubt assembled and bargains struck.
The affairs of the Mortimer family of Wigmore once again provide illustrative
material. Towards midsummer 1316 Roger Mortimer (d. 1330) took time out
from a busy military and political career to arrange the marriage of Edmund, his
eldest son, and to arrange the descent of his estates. On 9 May at his manor
of Earnwood in Shropshire he struck an accord with Bartholomew Badlesmere,
another powerful and rich baron and a key gure in the turbulent politics of
Edward IIs reign. It was a contract for the marriage of young Edmund to
Elizabeth, Badlesmeres daughter. Badlesmere paid the handsome sum of 2,000
for the marriage, which is a measure of his assessment of Mortimers standing
and prospects. In return, Mortimer endowed the young bride with ve valuable
manors for life and the reversion of other lands. Such was the marriage deal.
More or less simultaneously Mortimer agreed to re-enfeoff nearly all of his
possessions in fee and reversion, with remainder to his right heirswho would
be Edmund, Elizabeth, and their descendants, if they survived. Roger Mortimer
and Bartholomew Badlesmere had taken the best legal advice possible and were
doing all in their power to ensure the future descent and integrity of the estate.
Mortimer and Badlesmere were more or less a match for each other in wealth
and standing, but this was by no means always the case. In that event the contract
showed the disparity of power. A week before concluding the Mortimer marriage
agreement Bartholomew Badlesmere extracted much tougher conditions when
he married another daughter, Maud, to Robert the son of Robert Fitz Pain.
Badlesmeredominus dives, as he was appropriately described in the Mortimer
family chroniclegave the grooms father a grant of 1,200 marks (800) and
ensured that the daughter would have independent means by giving her land
worth 200 marks (167) per annum. He also arranged that after his death 200
marks worth of her land should be bestowed on his son-in-law. Badlesmere
was clearly wielding his wealth to ensure a sound future for his daughter and
son-in-law. But what perhaps showed best that he was in the driving seat was
that Robert Fitz Pain the father was now debarred from alienating any of his own
land without Badlesmeres permission and was required to convey three named
manors and the revenue thereof to Maud Badlesmere and her new husband. This
was more a calculated takeover than a contract of equals.
Bartholomew Badlesmere had concluded the marriage contracts for his daughters within a week of each other. It is a reminder to us that marriage policy
was often dynastic and coordinated, not least because it involved a huge outlay
The contract is published in Holmes, Estates, 1212 and the other aspects of the agreement
are discussed therein at 434.
GEC, sub Fitz Pain.
155
of liquid wealth and landed assets and, often, a carefully considered plan for
the future of the family estates. Sometimesas in the Badlesmere casethe
plan was coordinated at a single point in time; more often, and of necessity, it
was put into operation piecemeal, as opportunities arose and children reached
marriageable age. But whatever the tempo, marriage was a critical occasion in
all aristocratic families for working out the relationships between land, family
obligation, political and personal alliances, and calculations of the familys future
direction. In this respect daughters could occupy an important role in a familys
marital strategy. Too often details of the marriage of daughters is difcult to
uncover. Here again the Mortimer family chronicle in its amplitude enables
us to see how the tentacles of a family spread through marriage. The rst earl
of March (d. 1330) had eleven recorded children, an unusually large brood.
Of the four boys, one was killed in a tournament, two seem to have been
established in Ireland where a good part of the familys fortunes were now based,
and the eldest, Edmund, was, as we have seen, married in 1316 to Elizabeth
Badlesmere. Four of the daughters married into the ranks of the higher English
aristocracychoosing the future earl of Pembroke, the earl of Warwick, Lord
Audley, and the son of Thomas of Brotherton earl of Norfolk as their husbands.
The remaining three girls were deployed to consolidate Mortimer alliances and
relationships in western England and the Welsh March, the base of Mortimer
power. One was married to Thomas Berkeley, another to Sir Piers Grandison of
Ashperton (Herefordshire), and the third to John Charlton of Powys. There
is every reason to believe that these marriages were carefully assessed for their
dynastic and, possibly, political impact. Aristocratic history is the story of great
noble dynasties. To do any kind of justice to a familys ambitions we need to
bear in mind not only the descent of the main and the cadet branches but also
the web of links forged by marriage contact both by and into the family.
But it is here that in general we are frustrated by the evidence, or rather lack
of it, for the fourteenth century. What we have for the most part are the facts
of marriage and, much less frequently, the formal legal contract. What we do
not have, as we have for the age of the Pastons and the Stonors, are the letters
which reveal the negotiations, pressure, and cross currents which must have been
a recurrent feature of marriage diplomacy in all ages. Legal documents maximize
the assumption that marriages were carefully calculated business arrangements in
which the views of the couple to be married are subsidiary to family policy and
ambition. That may have been true in many cases; and in other cases the two
considerations were brought into some sort of rough alignment, whether under
duress or persuasion. But not always. Personality and will were also elements in
the equation. The awesome Edward I learnt that to his cost when his headstrong
daughter, Joan of Acre, in effect eloped with a landless young courtier, Ralph
Monthermer. Joans rst marriage in 1290 to the earl of Gloucester (almost
Dugdale, Monasticon, VI, I, 352.
156
Lords and Lordship
thirty years her senior) had been a classic example of using a young daughter as
a bargaining chip in Edward Is dynastic schemes. She was not to be fobbed
off with a greybeard the second time and so confronted her father with a fait
accompli by marrying Ralph Monthermer. It must have been the talk of the
town, indeed of the kingdom. Edward was beside himself with fury; but there
was little he could do except explode. He had been trumped. He was not the
only father to be trumped by a determined child. Almost a century later the
great John of Gaunt was taught a similar lesson. He and his close condant,
Sir Richard Burley, had secured custody of the lands of the widow of the earl of
Pembroke (d. 1375). More important, the son of the heir to the earldom was
pledged to marry Gaunts daughter, Elizabeth. It was a neat arrangement: Gaunt
could claim that he was next friend to the young heir and had great tenderness
for the inheritance. But fair words are no match for a ladys will. As the record
puts it, Elizabeth has now disagreed to the marriage and is married elsewhere, so
that the alliance is terminated. And that was that.
Daughters could be awkward; so no doubt could fathers and other members of
the family. Their awkwardness sometimes exploded into the records and reminds
us that passion as well as calculation were elements in the marital equation. Let
us return briey to the family of the earl of Pembroke (d. 1375). When John
Hastings left on a continental venture in 1372 he had no heir of his body. What
personal bitterness and/or affection at that time persuaded him to disinherit
his heir general (Reginald Grey of Ruthin) and to divert his landed fortunes
to Sir William Beauchamp, his cousin on the distaff side (their mothers were
sisters)? And there are other examples where the right heirs by law were done
out of an estate by the whims of a family patriarch. Indeed the Greys of Ruthin
were the beneciaries of such a family quarrel. On the death of Sir John Grey in
1323 the extensive Grey inheritance would normally have devolved to his elder
son Henry. But there seems to have been a mighty falling-out between father and
son because in 1311 the father granted a large part of the estates (including the
lordship of Ruthin and thirty-one manors) to the younger son Roger, thereby
inaugurating the line of the Greys of Ruthin. The elder brother did not take this
brutal disinheritance lying down; he harassed his brother, and laid siege to Ruthin
castle. But by 1328 he decided that he had better accept his fathers decision.
Henry Grey was by no means the only victim of paternal spleen. Equally striking was the disinheritance of Sir William Cantelou of Ravensthorpe (Yorkshire).
Sir Williams father, Nicholas, married twice and it may well be that it was
the ambitious nature of the second wife which prompted the explosive family
settlement in 1354. Nicholas in effect settled his estate on himself and on his
second wife with remainders not to William (his heir by his rst wife) but to
the heirs of the body of the second marriage and, failing that, to Nicholass two
M. Prestwich, Edward I (London,1988), 128.
Cal. Anc. Pets., no. 11176, p. 375.
Jack, Entail and Descent: The Hastings Inheritance, 119.
157
grandsons. In short it was a set of arrangements which deliberately disinherited

the eldest son, short at least of the failure of all other claimants. In the event
William had the last laugh. The second marriage did not produce an heir; both
grandsons predeceased their father and left no heirs. But what is of interest to
us here is the shaft of light which cases such as theseand a similar family
storm among the Brians of Tor Brian (Co. Devon)shed on the highly personal
sentiments which often lie beneath the bloodless veneer of the legal documents.
For the acquisition of land by Roger Mortimer, rst earl of March, I. Mortimer,
The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ist Earl of March, Ruler
of England, 132730 (London, 2003); P. Dryburgh, Roger Mortimer and the
Governance of Ireland, 131720, in Ireland and the English World in the Late
Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Robin Frame, ed. B. Smith (Basingstoke, 2009).
For entails, J. Biancalana, The Fee Tail and the Common Recovery in Medieval
England (Cambridge, 2001); M. Prestwich, Plantagenet England, 12251360
(Oxford, 2005), ch. 15.
For female inheritance in Ireland, G. Kenny, Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Women
in Ireland c.11701540 (Dublin, 2007), ch. 2. For revealing case studies of,
respectively, Margaret de Lacy (d. 1266), and Isabel de Mortimer, widow of
John Fitzalan III (d. 1272), including their role as estate managers, L. Wilkinson,
Women in Thirteenth-Century Lincolnshire (Woodbridge, 2007), ch. 1, and
E. Cavell, Aristocratic Widows and the Medieval Welsh Frontier: The Shropshire
Evidence, TRHS 6th ser., 17 (2007). For more general treatment, P. Fleming,
Family and Household in Medieval England (Basingstoke, 2001) and for a slightly
later period, B. J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women, 14501550: Marriage,
Family, Property, and Careers (Oxford, 2002).
See entries sub the respective families in GEC.
6
The Sinews of Aristocratic Power
By the time we reach the chronological focus of this study (12721422) many
of the powers of lordshiplike those of kingshiphad been regularized and
routinized. As contractual relationships were increasingly dened in writing, so
the loose uncoordinated powers of an earlier period were replaced by a much
more closely dened range of powers. Furthermore the richness of seigniorial
documentation from c.1250 now allows us to see lordship in action routinely and
regularly. The aim of the present chapter is to try to capture, in very broad terms,
the scope and penetration of lordship as reected in that documentation. Two
preliminary observations should be made. First, lordship was hugely variable in
its range and impact. It operated within the geographical, economic, and social
context in which it found itself. In much of lowland British Islesincluding
parts of Wales, Scotland, and Irelandit functioned at a small-scale and often
intensive manorial level; at the other end of the scale in many parts of upland
Britain it was little more than a loose, occasional superioritas. Thus in the lordship
of Glamorgan the contrast between the intensive lordship of the lowland manors
(both those held directly by the lord, such as Roath, and those subinfeudated to
his followers, such as Sully) and the loose tributary, lordship claimed over the
patriae (as they were signicantly termed) or commotes of the upland was sharp.
It is a contrast which can be replicated in almost every part of the British Isles.
Part of our intention is to try to encompass this whole range of lordship within
our analysis.
The second prefatory comment relates to the term lordship. All those who
exercised a measure of control over others practised lordship. They called
themselves lords and often added the term as a status designation to their
names. The lord of Sully was in that sense as much a lord as Gilbert de Clare,
his overlord, earl of Gloucester and lord of Glamorgan. As such there was a
See Glamorgan County History, III: The Middle Ages, ed. T. B. Pugh (Cardiff, 1971), esp. ch. 1;
J. B. Smith, The Lordship of Glamorgan, Morgannwg, 9 (1965), 938; Davies, Lordship and
Society, 8689.
The studies of Adrian Empey of the nature of English lordship in lowland Ireland are particularly
illuminating in this respect. See esp. The Norman Period, 11851500, in Tipperary: History and
Society, ed. W. Nolan (Dublin, 1985) and Conquest and Settlement: Patterns of Anglo-Norman
Settlement in North Munster and South Leinster, Irish Economic and Social History, 13 (1986),
531. For an excellent short introduction, R. Frame, Colonial Ireland, 11691369 (Dublin, 1981),
esp. 7983.
159
continuum in the nature of lordship from that of the single-manor squire to that
of one of the great magnates of the land. But it is with aristocratic lordship, rather
than lordship tout court, that this book is concerned. It is partly a matter of scale,
of course: Edmund, earl of Lancaster (d. 1296), was lord of 632 separate units
of property and of 49 demesne manors. He would not have been personally or
directly involved in the exercise of lordship at the local level in these units. He
operated on an altogether grander scale of power and lordship, even if ultimately
his ability to do so was grounded in the control that his agents exercised over the
local units of lordship. It is alsoas we have frequently insistedpartly a matter
of documentation. Whatever its deciencies, the range and variety of available
documentation from c.1250 allows us to glimpse the scale and multifaceted
character of aristocratic lordship in a way which is not possible for earlier periods
or lesser lords. Finally, whatever the common features of all lordship, aristocratic
lordship was in a league of its own in the powers that it could aggregate, in
the role that it could and did play at national, regional, and county level, and
in its capacity to shape the dynamics of power in medieval society. It may be a
pardonable exaggeration to claim that the great magnates ruled the England of
their day; but their role as a group needs to be analysed in all its complexity and
range.
Aristocratic power in late medieval society was normally measured in terms of
landed wealth and income and in the range of powers that lords exercised over
those who lived on the land. But in an overview of lordship in the British
Isles in the medieval period, it is not with land that our analysis should begin.
Rather should it attend rst to the tributes, renders, and dues which were, or
had been, payable to lords in respect of their control and authority over their
men. At the taproot of lordship lay rule over men rather than control of land;
so it was also with royal lordship. If we are to look for the origins of seigniorial
power in European society we will nd them not in the ownership of land
but in charismatic and military leadership, in village or kin chieftainship, and
in the protection that the powerful (potentes) could extend to the unprotected
(pauperes). Likewise if we are to trace the history of what dependants owed to
lords we will nd them not in rents or leases but in hospitality dues and renders.
It is true that over time many of these dues became territorialized and the landed
aspect of the powers of lordship came increasingly to the fore. But in any rounded
discussion of late medieval lordship in Britain we cannot afford to overlook the
elements of its prehistory which had shaped its character.
This is so for at least two reasons. First, late medieval lordship was always
more, much more, than land-lordship. The danger of modern historiography has
W. E. Rhodes, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, EHR, 10 (1895), 1940, 20937.
Holmes, Estates, 1.
For a recent seminal discussion of these issues see Faith, English Peasantry.
160
Lords and Lordship
been to reduce it to the latter and to measure its impact and range in nancial
and territorial terms. In fact lordship remained the lordship of men (however
much some of its powers had been appropriated by royal and state authorities).
It was the power of command, jurisdiction, control; it involved the leadership
of men at all social levels; it exercised rights of discipline, grace, protection, and
favour which have been appropriated by state authorities and declared to be
public rights in modern society. These powers were grounded in the history of
lordship as an ancient institution; they still coloured its characteralbeit more
anaemically at least in southern and midland Englandin the later Middle
Ages. It is the range of these powers which we will attempt to capture in the
subsequent discussion.
The second reason for opening the discussion with what we may term by way
of shorthand tributary lordship is that the evidence for such lordship even in
fourteenth-century Britain is far more extensive than is normally acknowledged
by historians. Historiographical discussion of central and late medieval lordship
has drawn overwhelmingly on detailed English regional, county, and manorial
studies. But if we cast our nets more widely geographicallyto include much
of upland northern England, most of inland Wales, the west and Highlands
of Scotland, and most even of English Ireland outside the islands of manorial
lordshipwe encounter a very different image of the contours and character of
lordship. Bringing these areas into the eld of discussion is not merely a matter
of rectifying the balance geographically within the British Isles; it also, crucially,
allows us to chart some of the critical developments in the evolution of lordship
over the centuries. In other words, history and geography connive to encourage
us to take a broad view of the character of lordship in the British Isles in the
medieval period.
What then were the features of tributary lordship and what traces did it leave
in the late medieval evidence? Let us take the evidence of the detailed survey of
the great lordship of Denbigh (valued at more than 1,000 per annum, that is,
the notional value of a sizeable English earldom) compiled in 1334. It opens
a window on to a seigniorial world which had long since vanished in much of
lowland England and even Scotland but which reveals to us vividly the character
of early lordship in much of the British Isles. What we nd in essence is a massive
purveyance network in which kings and lordsthe distinction between the two
is easily overdrawnwere sustained by renders from their dependants. Many of
these renders were biennial or triennial communal grants of livestock, normally
in cows (the common economic coin of a pastoral society). In this respect the
commorth Calan Mai (the cattle subsidy of 1 May) of Wales corresponded closely
to the cornage, horngeld, nontgeld, and other dues so common in the four
northern counties of England and in north Lancashire, the cain which was to be
found throughout Celtic Scotland and was paid to the king (or lord) in virtue of
Survey of the Honour of Denbigh, ed. P. Vinogradoff and F. Morgan (London, 1914).
161
his lordship, or the collective levies of cattle which are such a feature of power
relationships in Gaelic and English Ireland. Alongside these communal tributes
were a host of other renders and dues which were also tributary, rather than
landed, in character. Such were the hospitality rent, or conveth as it was known
in Scotland and wayting in Lothianthe right of a lord, his ofcers, and his
retinue to hospitality and lodging from his men and dependants. Such also were
the food rents, often payable once or twice a year, collected from free and unfree
dependants alike according to different formulae. All these are fully itemized
in the Denbigh Survey of 1334 and in other comparable surveys. As Edmund
Spenser was to observe of Ireland in the late sixteenth century, they constituted
the right of the lords to have a common spending on their tenants.
There were huge local variations in these tributary renders and by the later
Middle Ages there was an air of the archaic about them where they survived.
But they are assuredly signicant in an understanding of the origins and scope
of medieval lordship. They were communal and personal, not territorial, in
character. They were collected from individuals, kin-groups, and communities
rather than being rent on land. As a shrewd early Stuart observer of the Welsh
borderlands noted, they were not properely rent issueinge out of land but only a
some of money annexed as a Royaltie to my Lordes person. The comment has a
three-fold signicance for us. First, it draws no fundamental distinction between
so-called royal and non-royal lordship; both were lordships, both were personal
and, at one level, both were royal. Secondly, the observers astonishment registers
his awareness that the perception and practice of lordship ran the whole gamut
from the personal and tributary to the territorial. Thirdly, it is in the context of
tributary lordship that we can best understand the range of judicial, disciplinary,
protection, and command powers which still characterize late medieval lordship
and distinguish it sharply from the mere territorial power of the rent-collecting
landlord. The roots of medieval lordship lie deep in the folds of its past.
But equally there can be little doubt that over the passage of the centuries the
powers of lordship became increasingly territorialized. It was in the control of
land and income from estates and in the exploitation of those who lived on those
estates that the powers of lordship were, literally and metaphorically, grounded.
Land for the aristocracy was the source of wealth, power, and status. Nulle terre
sans seigneur, no land without a lord, declared the contemporary tag; but it was a
tag which also worked in reverse: no lord without land.
Key studies include J. E. A. Joliffe, Northumbrian Institutions, EHR, 41 (1926), 143; G. W.
S. Barrow, Northern English Society in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Northern History,
4 (1969), 128; Duncan, Scotland, quotation from p. 154; T. M. Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and
Welsh Kinship (Oxford, 1993).
Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Ireland, ed. W. L. Renwick (London, 1934),
1412.
For echoes of this tag in Welsh legal lore see Davies, Lordship and Society, 134.
162
Lords and Lordship
The twinning of land and lordship comes as no surprise. Landed wealth was the
asset par excellence in medieval society; it wasfor peasants and lords alikethe
source of status as well as of income. The later medieval aristocracy was preeminently a landed aristocracy. Noble titles could not be conferred without an
appropriate landed endowment, with 1000 marks worth of land being regarded
as the minimum competence for an earl. It was on their landed estates, in their
parks and forests, and in their rural residences, as we have seen, that the higher
nobility levied and displayed their apartness. Wealth acquired from war, trade, or
other means was immediately invested in land, for landed wealth was the socially
acceptable measure of status. By the size of his patrimony, as a contemporary
observed, you may assess his power (my italics). The descent of the patrimonial
estates and the establishment of appropriate landed endowments for daughters,
cadets, and dependants wasas we have seenan abiding preoccupation of the
aristocracy.
Given the equation between land, lordship and power it was inevitable that
the aristocracy took a keen interest in the land market. It was the most obvious
way of enhancing their status and power, in other words their lordship. Of many
of them could it have been said as of Thomas Berkeley (d. 1361) that he was
this great rich lord and landmonger. Among such land-mongers we should
include the immensely rich Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (d. 1376), who
spent at least 4,000 on purchasing manors in Sussex in the period 135070; the
highly successful war captain, William Bohun, earl of Northampton (d. 1360)
who embarked on a systematic land-purchase policy in both Wales and Essex
from his war winnings; the Beauchamps; and perhaps most spectacularly a series
of northern familiesincluding Percy, Neville, and Scropewho transformed
the conguration of landed power in northern England during the fourteenth
century. There is no single chronological or strategic pattern to such examples of
land purchase. They were dictated by individual circumstances and opportunities.
Some aristocratssuch as Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln (d. 1311), or William
Bohun of Northampton (d. 1360)snapped up Cistercian lands as part of
their investment in the wool trade; others, such as the earl of Arundel, bought
aggressivelyboth in Sussex and Shropshirein order to broaden the basis
of their standing in their own country; others seized on an opportunity to
purchase lands to build up an endowment for a second family, as did John of
Gaunt for John Beaufort at the expense of the heirless earl of Salisbury. Whatever
the compunction, all shared the conviction that investing in land was the surest
Vita Edwardi Secundi. The Life of Edward II by the so-called Monk of Malmesbury, ed.
N. Denholm-Young (London, 1957), 29. [See now Vita Edwardi Secundi: The Life of Edward II,
ed. W. R. Childs (Oxford, 2005), 51.]
Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, I, 331.
For brief introduction and references see Given-Wilson, English Nobility, 1268, 1325;
Holmes, Estates, 78, 11314; McFarlane, Nobility, 1956.
163
way of enhancing their status, power, and standing. They followed the market
shrewdly and calculated their moves carefully. Even the great John of Gaunt
moved with circumspection: when contemplating the purchase of land in Dorset
in 1372 he ordered his steward to nd out the value of the land, to identify
any jointure or entailed interest in it, and in the meantime to be favourable and
gracious to the owner.
As the source of their wealth and status, the aristocracy had to exercise eternal
vigilance in defending their title to their lands, especially recently acquired or
inherited land. The accounts of the ofcers of the English aristocracyMortimer,
Bohun, Stafford, Beauchamp, Lancaster among themare eloquent and detailed
on this score. Fees were paid to lawyers, attorneys, and justices; records (often
dating back more than a century) were transcribed; local juries and supporters
were laboured and so were royal ofcials; food and drink were distributed and
so were gifts; money was spent to buy off counter-claims; seigniorial councils
met for days at a time to work out compromise settlements. The costs could
be substantial, even for a man of John of Gaunts standing: on one occasion
he spent 46 on four serjeants; attorneys in all the major royal courts and
departments; clerks, ushers, and scribes and the preparation of writs. But
these were the sorts of costs which could not be avoided. The aristocracy was
recurrently haunted by two spectres in respect of its landed title: the rst was the
vagaries of royal policy and whim which could so easily undo a family, especially
in periods of political turbulence; the other were the loopholes which clever
lawyers could so easily exploit in a familys titles. That is why for example the
extraordinarily hard-headed business woman, Joan Beauchamp (d. 1435), lady
of Abergavenny, left 500 in her will to her executors for the defence of her lands
in case they be challenged and impugned wrongfully. For us the signicance
of these disbursementsrecurrent as they areis how central the acquisition
and defence of its landed title was to the aristocracy. Its glory may have come
from birth, noblesse, and military prowess; but its power was increasingly rooted
in land and in the control of those who lived on it.
Title to land was, of course, only the rst stage in lordship; the next question
was how that land was to be exploited to the maximum advantage of the lord. Part
of it, known to historians as bond-land or demesne, might be worked directly
for the lord, exploiting the labour dues of tenants attached to the demesne. In
earlier centuries demesne production had been a crucial source of food supply
for the lord, his household, and his entourage. Indeed, as we saw above, on
the estates of Elizabeth de Burgh (d. 1360) the produce of her manorsshe
was one of the most substantial demesne farmers of her generationcontinued
Reg. JG, I, no. 1129.
Reg. JG, II, no. 1245. For an illuminating list of the legal and associated costs of the duke
of Clarence 141821 see Household Accounts, II, 64850. See also N. Ramsay, Retained Legal
Counsel, c.1275c.1475, TRHS, 5th ser., 35 (1985), 95113.
164
Lords and Lordship
to make an important contribution to her household needs. But the glory days
of high demesne farming were coming to a close in the fourteenth century:
the mechanisms of the market undermined its appeal; so did the increasingly
acute problems of the labour market and what John Smyth memorably referred
to as the soure and irksomenes of toile and hind servants. Historians have
established that on most seigniorial estates in England and Wales, arable demesne
farming had gone into terminal decline c.1380c.1420. It had become, in the
words of John of Gaunts auditors, a dead loss (grande perte). In fact, as we
can see from the full accounts of Elizabeth de Burghs estates for the 1330s,
arable demesne famingwhat contemporaries called prot de la garneriehad
never constituted a major source of income on aristocratic estates. Even so, the
demise of arable demesne exploitation was an important stage in the evolution
of medieval lordship. The lord and his ofcials were no longer directly involved
in the agricultural life of their estates, even of those few which were classied as
demesne; that was bound to change the nature of his relationship with those who
lived on his estates.
But the aristocracy had not opted out of direct exploitation of their estates
altogether. Rather did they shift the focus of their attention from arable
agriculturewith all its attendant problems of management, labour, supervision,
and marketingto large-scale, pastoral, agriculture. Here the management and
marketing opportunities were much more favourable. The wool and cloth
industries were remarkably protable for most of the long fourteenth century;
labour problems were at a minimum; the advantages of coordinated and integrated
policies for the purchase and sale of livestock were self-evident. Lordship was
shifting from the intricacies of small-scale manorial production of cereals,
embedded as it was in local circumstances and restrictions, to the advantages
of large-scale capitalist stock-farming on a national and even international
scale. A few gures will indicate how the aristocracy had adjusted to the new
opportunities and how in the process the nature of demesne lordship was
changing. Sheep farming (and, to a lesser extent, cattle breeding) was big business
for many aristocrats. Elizabeth de Burgh had almost 5,000 sheep on her estates
in 1337; Thomas, earl of Lancaster, 5,500 sheep and lambs on his Peak estates;
but neither could compete with the earl of Arundel who had almost 15,430
sheep on his Sussex lands alone in 1397. Furthermore these gures did not
necessarily decline over the passage of time: John of Gaunt was still purchasing
large ocks for his southern English manors in the 1390s and so was the
Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, II, 6.
The phrase is taken from the valor for 13945: TNA DL 29/728/11982. See also the auditors
report for 1388 published in Holmes, Estates, 1268.
See summary tables in Holmes, Estates, 14357.
Holmes, Estates, 11; Ward, English Noblewomen, 118; Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 2930;
Given-Wilson, Wealth and Credit, 19. For this whole topic see now B. M. S. Campbell, English
Seigniorial Agriculture, 12501450 (Cambridge, 2000).
165
duke of York in 141112. The whole business was organized on capitalist

lines and extricated from the control of local ofcials. The earl of Salisbury,
for example, had a surveyor of husbandry and livestock; as had Isabella de
Fortibus a century earlier. Marketing was likewise organized on metropolitan
or international lines: the wool of the Mortimer, Bohun, and Fitzalan ocks
was sent in bulk to major London merchants; so were the more than 6,000
eeces of Elizabeth de Burgh from her Clare estates, and the 136 sacks of wool
which Hugh Audley exported via the port of London. Such policieswhich
can certainly be paralleled from other English aristocratic estateswere by
no means altogether new; but they do show clearly that aristocratic demesne
farming was now fully adjusted to the demands of an international and national
market and to the practices of capitalist agriculture. It was leaving behind it
the world of manorial lordship, local arable production for household and
associated needs, and the exploitation of the manorial and associated labour
force. It is an important stage in the evolution of late medieval aristocratic
lordship.
Important as was demesne exploitation, it was in reality but a relatively
small component of the income and power that the aristocracy derived from
its control of land. Rarely on lay estates did it exceed 20 per cent of the lords
annual income; often it was far less. The major source of income was rent,
broadly denedincluding xed rents (established by custom and normally
non-negotiable), sale and commutation of labour services (now virtually a form
of rent), and leases of, for example, individual parcels of land and mills (farms
as they were generically known). This was already so on the estates of Edmund,
earl of Cornwall (d. 1300), in the late thirteenth century or those of Elizabeth
de Burgh in the 1330s, however enterprising she was in exploiting both the
arable and pastoral resources of the manors. Even clearer is the outstanding
evidence from the comprehensive list of the valors for the huge estates of John
of Gaunt in the 1390s: they reveal that on average at least 80 per cent of the
landed revenue of the duke of Lancaster came from rents and leases, broadly
dened. Nor does the situation seem to have been very different in those parts
of lowland Scotland for which some fragmentary scraps of evidence survive. The
bulk of the income of the earl of Fife in 12945 came from fermes of tenants
Goodman, John of Gaunt, 337; BL Egerton Roll 8780.
Holmes, Estates, 65; Denholm-Young, Seigniorial Administration in England, 5366.
Davies, Lordship and Society, 119 (and sources cited); Holmes, Estates, 90, n. 1; Reg. BP,
I, 146.
Ministers Accounts of the Earldom of Cornwall, 12967, ed. L. M. Midgley (Camden Soc.,
London, 19425); Holmes, Estates, 112. I have also drawn upon the exceptional valor of 13389:
TNA SC 11/801. For comparable gures for the estates of Anne, countess of Stafford, in 14356
see Ward, English Noblewomen, 1223 (rents and farms accounted for almost 90% of her revenue).
TNA DL 29/787/1197587. For discussion see Bean, Landlords, 56971, and R. R. Davies,
Baronial Accounts, Incomes and Arrears in the Later Middle Ages, Econ. HR, 2nd ser., 21 (1968),
21129.
166
Lords and Lordship
and likewise the rental of James Douglas of Dalkeith for 13767 reveals the
predominance of rent. When we look more closely at the evidence we will
nd signicant regional and local variations in the composition of seigniorial
income; we will also nd that there was perhaps more to rent than meets the
eye. Yet it is still difcult to dissent from George Holmess conclusion that on
lay estatesgreat ecclesiastical and particularly monastic complexes may have
been differentrent dominated the economy . . . at all times in the fourteenth
century. In that sense the aristocratic lords of England were now primarily
land -lords in terms of their regular income and the source of their lordship and
power. It was a far cry from the tributary lordship of earlier centuries and of the
outlying parts of the British Isles.
Yet we would be mistaken to conclude that the role of the lord has been
largely conned to that of a rent collector, whose impact on his estates was little
more than that of revenue-raising. When we peer beneath the externalities of
the nancial accounts, we nd that the exploitative and disciplinary powers of
lordship continued to penetrate deeply into the lives of the communities of their
estates. One area in which they notably did so was in what may be collectively
classied as communal, non-arable resourcesnotably forest, woodland, pasture,
waste, and sheries. Throughout Europe the struggle over the control of these
resources reverberated down the centuries, with an aggressive and predatory
lordship pitched against conservative and defensive rural communities.
There was much at stake for both parties. For the local communities these
resources were not peripheral extras; they were central to the economic and
ecological balance of their subsistence. Particularly was this so for the upland
communities of the north and west of the British Isles. They relied on woodland
and pasture for their fuel and building materials, for pannage for their pigs, for
the fruits of the forest, for extra land to be taken into temporary cultivation,
and for much else. It is no wonder that it was said of the area of Hopedale in
north-east Wales that the greater part of their sustenance is derived from the
woods. It was a comment which could have been echoed across much of the
northern and western British Isles. It drew its force not only from arguments of
economic necessity but also from deep-rooted communal convictions that these
resources were indeed the God-given fruits of nature and rightfully belonged to
the community as a whole. That is why access to forest, pasture, waste, and river
gure prominently in tussles between lords and communities across Europe and
were often codied in charters of liberties when the community had the whip
hand; that is also why the rst act of deance of the community was to destroy
the palisades and fences round the lords woods, to hunt in his forest, and in
general to challenge his recently appropriated rights (as it saw it).
Duncan, Scotland, 4267; Grant, Independence and Nationhood, 132.
Holmes, Estates, 112.
Bloch, French Rural History, 1809.
Cal. Anc. Pets., no. 2598, p. 74.
167
But equally lords were determined to consolidate and extend their power
over forest, pasture, and waste; and indeed there is no doubt that they did
so successfully. They had many reasons for doing so. It was a growth point
of their lordship. The vast majority of revenue from rents and services was
xed, customary and inexible in character. Revenue from forest and pasture,
on the other hand, was open to negotiation, often on an annual basis, so
anxious was the community to have access to these resources. Furthermore, it
was access which was carefully policed and enforced by the lords ofcer. At a
time when manorial lordship and seigniorial demesne exploitation were, in many
respects, in decline, control of these assets was an important manifestation of
the continuing power of lordship. That is why keepers, foresters, parkers, and
associated ofcials continue to gure prominently in late-medieval seigniorial
accounts and court rolls. In the small Grey lordship of Ruthin (Dyffryn Clwyd)
in the fourteenth century there were at least ten foresters and seven parkers in
charge of eleven forests and twenty-seven acres of reserved woodland. Very
similar examples could doubtless be cited elsewhere, especially for upland Britain.
Even in the market-oriented economy of lowland England, control of access to
forest, waste, and water remained among the touchstones of lordly power and
community resentment into the late fourteenth century and beyond. We can
see as much in the demands that the rebels made during the Great Revolt
of 1381.
Control of these assets was critical to seigniorial authority but it was also an
important source of aristocratic revenue. Sale of wood and charcoal could be very
signicant items of income. Elizabeth de Burgh exploited the timber resources of
her southern Welsh estates to maximum effect: they yielded almost 20 per cent
of the income of the lordship of Usk in 132930. There was certainly big
money in timber for great lords: the Black Prince, ever short of cash and always
ruthless in laying his hands on it, sold all the wood (except the great oaks) in
Peckforton Park (Cheshire) in 1354 to a consortium for 533. Ultimately
more signicant than once-off clearance sales such as this was the seigniorial
campaign to defend and extend rights over forest and pasture at every turn. So
it was, for example, that Earl Thomas of Lancaster (d. 1322) allegedly enclosed
800 acres of wood in Kenilworth par son seigneurie et son grant poiar. So it was
likewise, on a much more modest scale, that the auditors of the earl of Salisbury
calculated that if he let 366 acres of woodland at a minimum of two pence an
acre (rather than at a xed farm of 6s. 8d.) he would increase his prot more
R. I. Jack, Welsh and English in the Medieval Lordship of Ruthin, Transactions of the
Denbighshire Historical Society, 18 (1969), 2349.
See for example the demands of the rebels at St Albans, The Peasants Revolt of 1381, ed.
B. Dobson, 2nd edn. (London, 1983), 26977.
TNA SC 11/799; Holmes, Estates, 107 n. 6, 143.
P. H. W. Booth, The Financial Administration of the Lordship and County of Chester,
12721377 (Chetham Society, Manchester, 1981), 131.
168
Lords and Lordship
than eightfold. And increase forest and waste revenue often did, as seigniorial
income from arable and associated sources fell: the farm of the Great Forest of
Brecon, one of the largest tracts of upland in Wales, increased from 47 in 1340
to 110 in 1400. Nor does the story seem to have been different elsewhere:
by the mid fteenth century Ettrick Forest yielded rents of 520, outstripping
the revenue of earldoms such as Mar or Strathearn. Individual examples do
not necessarily form the sound basis for a general claim; but it is not difcult to
see why historians have concluded that control of multure, forest, and turbary
was an increasingly important aspect of lordship and one which may well have
been underestimated. It was particularly important for aristocratic lordship, for
it was great lords who (alongside the king) controlled the large tracts of forest
and pasture and had the jurisdictional rights and ofcialdom to exploit them to
the full.
Alongside forests, waste, and pasture we should certainly add other sources of
seigniorial revenue and control, notably mills and sheries. Continental historians
have long since argued that some of the most momentous developments in
the entrenchment and elaboration of seigneurie from the eleventh century
onwards took the form of the extension of the powers of the ban, as they
term itthat is, the claims of lords to economic and associated monopolies
over the peasantrysuch as the use of seigniorial mills, ovens, vine presses;
the right to control brewing and baking, and the seigniorial tallage. These
powers of the ban do not gure so prominently in the English evidence or the
English historiography (partly because of the pre-eminence of royal power and
royal documentation); on a broader British basis we may well underestimate
their importance. Throughout Europe, the struggle over the control of milling
rightsso crucial to a cereal-based economyformed one of the most critical
chapters in the history of the advance of lordship and of community resistance.
Long accustomed to the use of hand-mills, querns, and their own mills, the
local communities found themselves the target of seigniorial ambition. The lord
alone often had the capital to buy the equipment and hire the expertise to build
watermills; to this he added the crucial claims that his tenants were required to
grind their corn at his mills (either for a xed fee or for a proportion of the corn
ground) and to repair the mill and transport the millstones. Manorial and other
rolls show that these obligations were often zealously exacted, even when other
aspects of the powers of lordship were in decline. Particularly, again, were they
important in upland communities, where rent rolls were often skeletal but where
mills stood as patent symbols of seigniorial authority and proteering. Such, for
example, is the clear evidence for the March of Wales; so likewise mills and
Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 32; Vinogradoff and Morgan (eds.), Survey of the Honour of
Denbigh, 1112.
Brown, Black Douglases, 1667.
Duncan, Scotland, 35160.
169
sheries gure prominently in the revenue of the earls of Ulster, as do sheries

in Moray.
If we are to understand the nature of medieval lordship, especially aristocratic
lordship, aright, we need to bring these items within the purview of our analysis.
But we must go further. Landlordship in medieval society was much more than
a matter of rent collection; it often entailed close control over the sale, exchange,
transmission, and disposal of peasant land and often over those who lived on that
land. The roll call of opportunities for the lord to exercise his power, and increase
his prots, in this respect were almost limitless, as close study of seigniorial
court rolls quickly reveals. Land sales had to be registered in the lords court and
due payment made; tenants had to swear oaths of fealty and pay entry nes;
exchanges of land had to be sanctionedfor a price; appropriation from the
waste or forest had to be licensed; when there was a total failure of heirs the lord
claimed that the land reverted to him; and in upland districts, such as Wales, the
lords title to escheated land (that is, land to which he claimed that the title had
lapsed) was vigorously and protably pursued and even as vigorously resisted by
the community. The story of this tightening seigniorial control of tenant land
and the efforts that seigniorial ofcers, increasingly armed with written evidence
and title, made to promote it is one of the key chapters in the history of lordship
in the British Isles from the twelfth century onwards. It was still in full swing in
the fourteenth century, as other aspects of seigniorial exploitation were faltering.
It was clearly at its most aggressive and effective where the tenants were unfree
since there the scope for seigniorial control was proportionately the greater. What
has struck historians time and time again was the remarkable tenacity, bordering
on the vindictive, with which great lay and ecclesiastical lords defended and
exploited their rights over serfs and their lands, even when the heart had gone
out of demesne farming and an active manorial lordship, especially in the later
fourteenth century. The Mortimers, for example, were ruthless in this respect:
their council decreed in 1391 that bond tenements were not to be transferred to
a freeman so long as a serf of blood can be found and no male or female bond
person was allowed to leave the manor of Odcombe (Somerset). It was a policy
which was followed by many other lords. But ultimately more important than
the spectacular sums occasionally raised from fugitive serfs is the evidence of the
way, year in year out, that lords exploited their power over land and those who
lived on it to the end of our period; and none more effectively than some of the
great lay lords.
The power of lordship over land, so we have argued, did not necessarily lie solely
or even primarily in demesne exploitation or rent collection. It often operated
Davis, Lordship and Society, 1289 (and sources cited); Orpen, Earldom of Ulster.
Holmes, Estates, 1289; see also for the policy of the Mowbrays, McFarlane, Nobility, 221. In
general R. H. Hilton, The Decline of Serfdom in Medieval England (London, 1969) remains basic.
170
Lords and Lordship
more aggressively, and made greater prots, by pressing its claims to forest,
woodland, sheries, waste, and pasture; by exploiting its economic monopolies,
such as those over mills; and by maximizing its power over the lands and lives
of its tenants. The instrument par excellence for this latter power was the lords
court. Lordship and the dispensing of justice went hand in hand in medieval
society, in a fashion which it is difcult for the modern mind to appreciate. In
modern society justice is the preserve of the state and of public authority; it has
become detached from economic and social power. But in the medieval world
it was quite otherwise. Those who claimed lordship expected to exercise powers
of justice over those whom they controlled, and over their lands. The paradigm
of all lordship was, after all, the lordship of God: His was a judicial lordship as
He presided at the Last Judgment. Such was also the lordship of the king: he was
the fountain, and lion, of justice; his crown existed, as the theorists put it, to do
judgment and justice and to give peace.
What was true of God and the king was true also of lords in general, great and
smallfrom the one-manor lord to the greatest duke or earl. By common law, as
a lawyer put it in the early fourteenth century, every free man ought to have a court
for his tenants. The right to hold a court was a sine qua non of lordship: when
the bishop of Moray gave the lordship of certain lands and of the men who lived
on them to the earl of Fife, he also gave the earl and his heirs the right to hold a full
court (plena curia). This was the point that Gilbert Hay made as a generalization
and with admirable clarity: A man is not a lord suppose he have never so much
of worldly goods, but he is a lord that has seignory and jurisdiction over other
men, to govern them, and hold law and justice upon them when they trespass.
As this quotation suggests, a court was much more than a judicial tribunal.
Civil and criminal cases between the lords tenants and between the lord and
his tenants certainly formed a good deal of the business of seigniorial courts;
but they by no means represented the totality of their activity. Rather could the
court be characterized as the forum where the lord brought his power of lordship
to bear on his tenants and dependants and coerced them to accept and obey his
authority across many aspects of their lives. The obligation to appear at the lords
courtsuit of courtwas a minimum obligation on all those who accepted the
lords authority. It was particularly important in upland and western Britain where
other seigniorial powersfor example, over landwere relatively skeletal; but
even in lowland, manorialized England, where royal justice was pervasive and royal
records have been allowed to dominate the historical argument, the seigniorial
courts were, in Rodney Hiltons words, a formidable element of control.
Quoted from Year Book 17 Edward II in Select Pleas in Manorial and Other Seigniorial Courts,
I: Reigns of Henry III and Edward I, ed. F. W. Maitland (Selden Society, London, 1889), xli.
Moray Reg., no. 16.
Quoted in J. L. Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, 1996), 65, n. 270.
R. H. Hilton, A Medieval Society: The West Midlands at the end of the Thirteenth Century
(London, 1967), 240.
171
There can be little doubt that the control exercised in and by seigniorial courts
grew apace from the twelfth century, and is particularly evident when local
court rolls survive in some numbers from the mid thirteenth century onwards.
It was at this stage, so Ros Faith has argued, that the era of truly seigniorialized
justice arrived in England and that manorial justice became the very lifeblood
of the agrarian and economic system. The articulation and exercise of the
lords judicial power was a momentous chapter in the history of lordship. Much
of that power had to do not with law and justice narrowly conceived but
with disciplinary and coercive power over tenants and dependantscontrolling
their land transactions and titles, supervising and enforcing their tenurial and
associated obligations, issuing ordinances and statutes, and so forth. It may well
be that historians, especially historians of medieval England, have underestimated
the pervasiveness and effectiveness of seigniorial justice in this respect. It is partly
that in much of England the powers of high criminal and even civil justice
were reserved for the king and his courts; it is also undoubtedly the case that the
richness of royal and associated court records has served to focus attention on
the activities of the king and his ofcers and away from lords and their ofcials
and courts.
Be that as it may, it is clear that there was a network of seigniorial courts
alongside royal, communal, and ecclesiastical courtswhich brought the justice
of lords to bear on the lives of their tenants and dependants in much of the
British Isles. Some of them had no more than a modest manorial jurisdiction;
but elsewhere, especially on the estates of the great magnates, extensive powers
had been appropriated by, or conrmed to, local lords. These courts met on a
regular, often three-weekly, basis, though some of the major investigative courts
(such as the tourn) would only assemble twice yearly. In many respects they were
the instruments par excellence of lordship. It has been calculated, for example,
that in the lordship of Ruthin in north-east Wales 136 court sessions were held
in the year 13223 alone. Some of them were no doubt merely formal sessions;
in other cases there was much overlap and confusion of jurisdiction. But what
cannot be doubted is the way that lordship, through its courts, shaped the lives
of those who lived under its authority.
Lordship and justice went hand in hand at all levels of society; but what
is of particular interest to us is the effectiveness and range of lordly justice
at the levels of the higher aristocracy. Here again the perspective gained by
bringing the whole of the British Isles within the purview of our analysis helps
to redress the imbalance induced by concentrating on the southern and midland
English evidence. It is true, of course, that the lords of the great palatinates
of England (such as Chester and Lancaster) and of its extensive ecclesiastical
liberties (such as Durham, Ely, Bury St Edmunds) claimed and exercised a range
Faith, English Peasantry, 116; Maitland (ed.), Select Please in Manorial Courts, lx.
Jack, Welsh and English, 27.
172
Lords and Lordship
of jurisdictional powers which were a very far cry from the modest powers of
manorial lords. But it is when we leave the much-governed and royally dominated
world of England that we catch a glimpse of the full possibilities of the range
of seigniorial jurisdiction. It is a world of power structures very different from
the neatly reticulated and hierarchical pattern of royal and communal justice so
characteristic of royal England.
Such is the world that we come across in the March of Wales, where each
lordship was truly a sovereign jurisdictional unit, where the kings writ was not
served by his ofcers, and where (in a near contemporary phrase) the lords were
the soveraigne governors of their subjects. English Ireland was in some respects
differentnot least because the constitutions of English law and administration
had been consciously imported into the country and because the king of England
had reserved to himself the four major pleas of the crown and jurisdiction in
error. But in truthwhatever the veneer of institutional formsmuch of the
reality of governance and justice in English Ireland lay in the hands of local
magnates, their followers, and ofcers. It could hardly be otherwise, particularly
in the major libertiesUlster, Trim, Kildare, Kilkenny, Wexford, Tipperary,
and Thomondwhich lay outside the area of shire ground and accounted for
over half of the territorial extent of English Ireland.
Turning to Scotland, it is the hybrid character of its power structures which has
increasingly struck historians. English-type institutionsnotably the shire, the
justiciarship, and the formulae of English writstook deep root in the country,
especially in the south and the east. They have been understandably privileged by
historians, partly because the future belonged to them and partly because royal
documentation provided one of the few points of entry into the world of medieval
Scottish justice. But in any overview of Scotland as a whole it is what have been
called regionalized power structures and the role of the aristocracyand,
crucially, the local community in its various formswhich have attracted
attention. Indeed in some respects, with the denition of what were the rights of
free baronies and the wide powers conferred in regalities, the aristocratic avour
of governance and justice in later medieval Scotland was further conrmed. It
is little wonder that a recent historian of Scotland has concluded that in localities
under the rule of a great magnateand such localities were extensive in much
of Wales, Ireland, and Scotlandaristocratic justice was the norm. The
signicance of this claim stands even if we concedeas we surely mustthat
much, probably most, justice was dispensed in medieval society in and by the
community through arbitration and extra-curially.
Frame, English Lordship, 12, 25.
For regalities and baronies see Duncan (ed.), Regesta Regum Scottorum, V, 3943 and the
excellent series of maps and discussions by Alexander Grant in McNeill and MacQueen (eds.), Atlas
of Scottish History, 2017.
M. Brown, The Wars of Scotland, 12141371 (Edinburgh, 2004), 106; MacQueen, Common
Law and Feudal Society, 5054.
173
But what is perhaps of most interest for the present analysis is that the nonEnglish evidence allows us to glimpse a world in which great lords dominated
the jurisdictional horizon. It was a world which had been overlaid in England by
the institutions and mechanisms of royal government and by the common wash
of a common law, common legal practices, and an increasingly professional legal
cadre. Elsewhere in the British Isles we come across a seigniorial world much
more redolent of the practices of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The central
or honour courts of the great Welsh Marcher lordshipssuch as Glamorgan,
Pembroke, Brecon, Gowercontinued to meet as feudal assemblies, presided
over by the lords steward and attended by his vassals (deles). Within these
lordships their jurisdiction was complete and unchallenged in matters civil,
territorial, and criminal. It is a world which is replicated in the honorial
courts of the great Irish liberties such as Trim, Meath, Kildare, and Carlow.
The situation was probably similar in much of aristocratic Scotlandas in his
honorial courts which Earl David of Huntingdon (d. 1219) held in his lordship
of Garioch or the plenary court of the lord Maleis, earl of Strathearn.
That the court of Strathearn should be referred to by the name of its lord is a
reminder to us that, however much the forms and practices of aristocratic justices
had been formalized and institutionalized, the lords personality and power lay
at its origin. The court after all was not only a judicial assembly; it was a forum
in which the lord displayed his authority and through which he exercised his
power. That is why it was often held in the most majestic and authoritative
of venues. The court of the great Warenne/Fitzalan lordship of Bromeld and
Yale in north-east Wales was held in the bailey of the castle of Holt. It was the
least convenient venue in the lordship but the sheer scale of the castle which
towered over it was a reminder of the power of lordship. These occasions were
all the more impressive when the lord attended in person, either in his own right
or as the representative of the keep. We hear graphically of Alexander Stewart
(d. 1405), the Wolf of Badenoch as he was unatteringly called, holding his
court at the standing stone of Ester Kyngncy in Badenoch and sitting there
as a lord among his vassals and subjects (vassallos et subditos) to give judgements
(ad jura reddenda), or of the earl of Mortons justiciar holding his court at the
outer gate of the castle of Dalkeith.
For details Davies, Lordship and Society, 1567.
For example, Calendar of the Gormanston Register, c.11751397, ed. J. Mills and M. J.
McEnery (Dublin, 1916), nos. 161, 169, 182; Curtis (ed.), Calendar of Ormond Deeds II, no. 49,
pp. 4051. For a discussion of the liberty court of Tipperary, see Frame, English Lordship, 267.
Stringer, Earl David of Huntingdon, 103; Moray Reg., no. 14. For the history of the earldom
of Strathearn see the various studies by Cynthia Neville, including A Celtic Enclave in Norman
Scotland: Earl Gilbert of Strathearn, 11711223, in Freedom and Authority: Historical and
Historiographical Essays Presented to Grant G. Simpson, ed. T. Brotherstone and D. Ditchburn (East
Linton, 2000), 7592.
Davies, Lordship and Society, 75, n. 33.
Moray Reg., no. 159 (1380); Mort. Reg., II, no. 229 (1476).
174
Lords and Lordship
Nor are these examples simply Scottish exceptions. Few lords could resist the
temptation to preside at their courts when they visited their lordships on tour.
Henry Bolingbroke, recently promoted to be duke of Hereford, did so at Brecon
on 6 November 1397; Reginald Grey did so on his frequent visits to Ruthin in
north Wales. Even when he was not personally present, the lords wishes were a
source of nal, and often rst, resort in quite minor judicial and quasi-judicial
mattersissuing pardons, cancelling penalties, laying down procedures, and
vehemently defending the honour of the court and its authority. And if the
lord did not appear to sit at his court, he could reinforce the authority of his
local judicial ofcials by sending members of his council on quasi-judicial visits
to the localities and, in Wales and Cheshire, by holding sessions in eyre when
local courts were suspended and the lords justicesmuch like the royal justices
in eyre in England in the thirteenth centuryexercised the most ample judicial
powers in his name.
The wider we cast our historical nets in the British Isles, the more impressive
and multifaceted does the range of aristocratic jurisdictional power strike us. It
was more far-reaching than the evidence for much of lowland Englandwhere
so many of the powers and prots of high justice had been reserved for the
kingwould suggest. This is reected in the prots that aristocratic lords
derived from judicial revenue. In much of lowland England it was rarely more
than 10 per cent of seigniorial revenue: the court yields of Elizabeth de Burgh
for her Dorset and East Anglian manors were, for example, paltry. But once we
move outside this area the gures can be truly impressive. The Black Prince made
huge judicial prots from his judicial powers in the palatinate of Chester; so did
the dukes of Lancaster from the county of Lancaster, especially after they were
granted palatinate powers there in 1351 (limited only by the royal prerogative
of pardon and the crowns right to correct errors of justice). In 13956, for
example, the county courts, tourns, wapentakes, and various other ofcers of
the county of Lancaster yielded 514a very handsome annual income for a
baron. But it is when we move into the March of Waleswe do not seem to
have comparable gures for Scotland and Irelandthat court yields become
a truly impressive source of seigniorial revenue. There were, of course, local
variations and in particular between the Welsh upland districts and the lowland
manorialized regions, but in general terms court issues brought in between 25
and 30 per cent of the lords income. If to this we add the nes for redeeming
See examples quoted in Davies, Lordship and Society, 1423. They could be readily paralleled
from the English evidence: see, for example, Ault (ed.), Court Rolls of Abbey of Ramsey, 83, 945.
Pugh (ed.), Marcher Lordships of South Wales, 3141; and for earlier evidence, Davies, Lordship
and Society, 1679.
Walker, Lancastrian Afnity, 1424; Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, I, 415.
TNA DL 29/728/11984 (valor of north parts of the Duchy of Lancaster estates).
Though we do know that the liberty court of Tipperary yielded 180 in three months in
1339: Frame, English Lordship, 26.
175
(that is, buying off ) the visit of justices in eyre, the gure stood as high as 50
per cent or more. It made good the modest income from land and rents; it
is also a reminder of the amplitude and signicance of judicial lordship in the
world of the aristocracy.
Nor was that lordship conned to regular meetings of seigniorial courts.
The concept of justice and judicial authority was much more ample in medieval parlance and practice that it is in modern terminology. The distinctions
between law, arbitration, administration, grace, and favour were blurred in a
fashion which modern categories nd puzzling. The open-ended character of
royal justicedispensing equity, grace, and mercy as well as operating along
institutionalized curial lineswas replicated in aristocratic justice. Much of
itas has of late been fully appreciated by historiansoperated through
arbitration, both between the magnates own retainers and in private cases. Such
arbitration was an acknowledgement that it was the duty of great lords, such as
John of Gaunt, as much as of the king to defuse social tensions and to do so
extra-curially as well as in pursuit of their judicial power.
Indeed the world of aristocratic lordshiplike that of royal lordshipoperated through patronage, grace, and favour as well as through court procedures.
We do not do justice to its character and range if we overlook this truism.
The lords protection, support, and pardon regularly lubricated relationships
and eased tensions. The lord himself, his major ofcials, and his council were
in receipt of an endless ow of petitions and requests, oral and written.
Sifting and assessing such requests was one of the most delicate acts of lordship,
whether done in person or by proxy. If lordship was not to become an engine
of oppression and not to cross the line into the extortionate, it was vital that
this channel of dialogue be kept open and regularly used. No doubt lords acted
arbitrarily and high-handedly from time to time; but when we have a substantial
body of evidence of the petitionary process at workas we have amply in the
correspondence of John of Gauntwhat is generally impressive is the way that
the duke of Lancaster insists on due process of investigation, proper inquiry, and
respect for established custom. To take one case, when John Batter sent a bill of
complaint to the duke, the dukes steward was ordered to scrutinize the bill and
the record and process to which it referred, to correct any errors if there should
be such, and do right as well for our prot and of the parts, according to the
laws and customs of the region.
Fully documented in Davies, Lordship and Society, 17994.
E. Powell, Arbitration and the Law in England in the Later Middle Ages, TRHS 5th ser. 33
(1983), 4967; M. T. Clanchy, Law and Love in the Middle Ages, in Disputes and Settlements: Law
and Human Relations in the West, ed. J. Bossy (Cambridge, 1983), 4767; L. B. Smith, Disputes
and Settlements in Medieval Wales; The Role of Arbitration, EHR, 106 (1991), 83560.
For an example of Gaunt acting as arbitrator: Reg. JG, II, no. 1204.
For examples Reg. BP, I, 67, 73, 1267; Holmes, Estates, 129.
Reg. JG, I, no. 1552.
176
Lords and Lordship
What we have tried to capture in this chapter is some of the ways in which
aristocratic lordship exercised its power over medieval society in the British Isles.
There was, of course, no single such agenda: the character of lordship varied
from region to region and period to period; its powers and effectiveness had to
adjust to the social and economic contours of its various worlds. Lordship was
founded on custom; it took the world as it found itthough this did not mean
that it could not exploit and innovate (as we saw with forests, wastes, and mills).
By and large the rationale of its authority was taken as given; it was part of the
natural order and ultimately divinely sanctioned. If there were doubts, it was
about the exercise of lordship (and particularly the novelty of its claims), not
about lordship itself. Beyond the abstractions of the schoolmen about dominium,
there is no evidence that a defence or analysis of lordship was called for. Auditors
could certainly submit insightful reports on the state of the lords nances and
fascinating memoranda could be submitted to the lords council on improving
the conduct of estate management; but it required the cataclysm of a social
revolt, the Peasants Rising of 1381, to raise the fundamental questions about
the justication and propriety of lordship and even to insist that there was no
lordship other than that of the king.
The lordship which we have tried to bring into view in this broad-brush
sketch is in many respectsas we insisted at the outseta universal lordship.
Royal lordship partook of it and shared many of its functions and powers. But
royal lordship, especially in England and to a rather lesser extent in Scotland,
had become increasingly distinctive in the public character of its claims and
justication, in the way its authority penetrated into the interstices of local life
and governance, and in the exclusiveness of its claim in crucial matters such as law,
taxation, coinage, custom dues, and military service. We have insisted that if we
take the British Isles as a whole as our historical agenda, the distinction between
royal and aristocratic lordship has arguably been exaggerated, especially from an
English perspective; but this is in no way to deny that a chasm now existed and
that it was becoming more pronounced. At the other end of the spectrum of
power, many of the features described abovetributes, rents, control of land
and tenants, jurisdiction among themwould gure among the rights exercised
by very modest manorial lords.
Where, therefore does such a vague formulation leave aristocratic lordship?
Was it more than ordinary lordship writ large and multiplied manifold by the
breadth of its territorial base? In parts of Ireland and Wales it approximated
(or could do so) more closely to royal lordship than we sometimes care to
acknowledge. The lords of the Welsh March raised their own armies, launched
their own wars, aunted their own law of the March, and were exempt from
the kings scal demands. But in generaleven in the palatinates of England,
For the former see, for example, Holmes, Estates, 1268; for the latter the fascinating
memorandum submitted to the Mortimer council in BL Egerton Roll 8718 (13957).
177
the great liberties of English Ireland, and the regalities of fteenth-century

Scotlandaristocratic lordship fell well short of such ambitions. Yet aristocratic
lordship was more than the sum of the individual components of its parts. Even
the sum was important: the sheer size of aristocratic inheritances, extended over
several shires and even countries, set them apart, and so did the status of their
lords. So did the stagesnational and even international as well as local and
regionalon which these lords moved. So did the scale of their income, the
inuence they wielded, and the deference they almost automatically commanded.
As the author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi had put it, it was by the size of his
patrimony that one could assess a great magnates power. It is the roots of that
power that we have reviewed above; but lordship was manifested in the way it
was exercised. That is the theme of the following chapters.
For tributary lordship in Ireland, K. Simms, Guesting and Feasting in Gaelic
Ireland, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 100 (19789). For
the balance between tributary and land-lordship in the south-west of the country,
A. McCormack, The Earldom of Desmond, 14631583: The Decline and Crisis
of a Feudal Lordship (Dublin, 2005). For the situation in Scotland, C. Neville,
Native Lordship in Medieval Scotland: The Earldoms of Strathearn and Lennox,
c.11401365 (Dublin, 2005), ch. 3; S. Boardman, The Campbells, 12501513
(Edinburgh, 2006), chs. 4 and 11.
For aristocratic interest in the land market, C. Dyer, Seigniorial Prots on the
Land Market in Late Medieval England, in Le March de la Terre au Moyen ge,
ed. L. Feller and C. Wickham (Rome, 2005). For the balance between arable and
pastoral farming, and the signicance of demesne farming in early fourteenthcentury England, B. M. S. Campbell and K. Bartley, England on the Eve of the
Black Death: An Atlas of Lay Lordship, Land and Wealth, 130049 (Manchester,
2006), and B. M. S. Campbell, The Agrarian Problem in the Early Fourteenth
Century, Past and Present, 188 (2005). For the late Middle Ages more generally,
B. M. S. Campbell, The Land, in A Social History of England, 12001500, ed.
R. Horrox and W. M. Ormrod (Cambridge, 2006). For the king as landlord,
D. Crook, King and Lord: The Monarch and his Demesne Tenants in Central
Nottinghamshire, 11631363, in English Government in the Thirteenth Century,
ed. A. Jobson (Woodbridge, 2004). For the decline of demesne farming, a case
study from East Anglia is presented in D. Stone, Decision-Making in Medieval
Agriculture (Oxford, 2005). The same area in a slightly later period is studied in
Quoted above, p. 162.
178
Lords and Lordship
J. Whittle, The Development of Agrarian Capitalism: Land and Labour in Norfolk,

14401580 (Oxford, 2000).
For the use of forest resources, S. A. Mileson, Parks in Medieval England (Oxford,
2009); G. Foard, Medieval Woodland, Agriculture and Industry in Rockingham
Forest, Northamptonshire, Medieval Archaeology, 45 (2001). Records relating
to the forest are published in Oxfordshire Forests, 12461609, ed. B. Schumer,
Oxfordshire Record Society, vol. 64 (Oxford, 2004). For sheep-farming, A. R.
Bell, C. Brooks, and P. R. Dryburgh, The English Wool Market, c.12301327
(Cambridge, 2007). For mills, J. Langdon, Mills in the Medieval Economy:
England 13001540 (Oxford, 2004).
For the manor, its court, and associated records, M. Bailey, The English Manor
c.1200-c.1500 (Manchester, 2002); Medieval Society and the Manor Court, ed.
Z. Razi and R. Smith (Oxford, 1996); R. Evans, Whose was the Manorial
Court? in Lordship and Learning: Studies in Memory of Trevor Aston, ed. R. Evans
(Woodbridge, 2004). For control of peasant land and legal transactions, C. Biggs,
Seigniorial Control of Villagers Litigation Beyond the Manor in Later Medieval
England, Historical Research, 81 (2008), 399422; P. Schoeld, Manorial Court
Rolls and the Peasant Land Market in Eastern England, c.1250 c.1350 and
M. Mller, Seigniorial Control and the Peasant Land Market in the Fourteenth
Century: A Comparative Approach, both in Feller and Wickham (eds.), Le
March de la Terre au Moyen ge. Recent publications of court rolls are The Court
Rolls of Walsham le Willows, 130550 and 135199, ed. R. Lock. 2 vols. Suffolk
Record Society, vols. 41 and 45 (Woodbridge, 1998, 2002) and The Court Rolls
of Elmley Castle, Worcestershire, 13471564, ed. R. K. Field, Worcestershire
Historical Society, vol. 20 (Worcester, 2004). For court rolls from fteenthcentury Ireland see Handbook and Select Calendar of Sources for Medieval Ireland
in the National Archives of the United Kingdom, ed. P. Dryburgh and B. Smith
(Dublin, 2005), section 3.
7
The Agencies and Agents of Lordship
There is a ne and great lordship there, which if it were well managed would be
worth not less than two thousand marks a year. Such was the excited report that a
royal commissioner submitted to Edward I in 1302, commenting on the potential
of the Bohun lordship of Brecon in the March of Wales. It was a report to make
the mouth of the cash-strapped king water, particularly as he had Humphrey de
Bohun, earl of Hereford and lord of Brecon, in a tight corner at the time. But it
was a report with a sting in its tail: the potential of the lordship was dependent on
sound management. This was, of course, a basic truism for all lordship, from the
level of the household and the manor upwards. But it had a particular relevance
to the great aristocratic lordships which are the subject of this book.
This was in good part because of the size and the distribution of such lordships.
A distinctive feature of aristocratic power in England before, and even more so
after, the Norman Conquest was the way it was widely fragmented geographically.
Such fragmentation was frequently compounded in each generation as estates
were divided, temporarily or permanently, in family settlements or as the windfalls
of marriage and inheritance added new estates which needed to be absorbed into
the familys power orbit. Similar fragmentation was certainly not unknown in
other parts of the British Isles, not least because the norms of English common
law and inheritance practices had come to dominate the aristocratic world in
much of lowland Scotland, Marcher Wales, and English Ireland. Nevertheless in
broad terms it may be suggested that in these areas aristocratic power was more
consolidated in territorial blocsbe it in the provincial earldoms and regional
lordships (as they have been termed) of Scotland, the great Marcher lordship of
Wales (several of which such as Glamorgan or Brecon were close to the size of a
small English county), or the extensive liberties of English Ireland.
It was otherwise in England, as extensive aristocratic estates sprawled over
vast swathes of the country. A couple of examples may serve to make the point
briey. By far the largest aristocratic lordship in the mid and late fourteenth
century was the duchy of Lancaster. It had been assembled largely by royal
municence and well-calculated marriages, from the late thirteenth century
CIM, I, no. 1870. For the context of the report, McFarlane, Nobility, 261.
See below, pp. 18990.
The most helpful map of the Lancaster estates remains that in Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt.
180
Lords and Lordship
onwards, to cadet members of the English royal family and their descendants.
By the time of John of Gaunt (d. 1399), its estates extended into almost all
the counties of England and into south Wales. Not all these estates were, of
course, equal in value and importance. Rather were they composed of groups
of estatesoften still termed honorswhere the dukes power was dominant,
pervasive, and extensive; these were, in the contemporary phrase, the lords
country where his castles and parks dominated the countryside and where he
expected his authorityalongside that of the kingto be openly acknowledged
and taken for granted. John of Gaunt had several such countries: in Lancashire
(centred on Lancaster, where palatinate rights had further reinforced the dukes
standing from 1351 and again from 1377), Yorkshire (centred on the honour of
Pontefract), in a batch of major honorsincluding Bolingbroke, Tutbury, and
Leicesteracross the north Midlands, and to a rather lesser degree in Norfolk,
Suffolk, and south Wales. Over and above these major concentrations, there
was a substantial scattering of castles, lordships, and manors across the face of
England from Dunstanburgh in Northumberland to Aldbourne in Wiltshire and
Pevensey in Sussex. Individually these outliers were not in the front rank of
Lancaster property; but in their localities they were nodal points of the dukes
authority and inuence. The Lancastrian inheritance as a whole gave Gaunt an
immense income and was clearly one of the foundationsthough not necessarily
the most important oneof his power as a national and indeed international
gure. It also posed hugely challenging problems for him.
So likewise did the complex of lands which Gaunts much younger contemporary, Roger Mortimer, earl of March (d. 1398), had come to control. The
yield of his estates in the year he died was probably around 4,000, that is, about
a third of that of John of Gaunts vast inheritance. Even so, such an income
certainly placed Earl Roger in the ranks of the top four richest earls of his day.
But what is of interest to us in the present context is that though the Mortimer
lands were not, within England, by any means so geographically widespread as
the duchy of Lancaster, they were still geographically extensive and, thereby,
managerially daunting. Initially they had been concentrated not far from the
Mortimer caput at Wigmore and, later, Ludlowin the western counties of
England and across into a large clutch of upland lordships in the Welsh March.
This western bias was further emphasized by the acquisition of two other great
Marcher lordships (worth close on 1,000 each in annual income) of Denbigh
and Usk/Caerleon in 1354 and 1368 respectively. But the Mortimers also had
valuable individual manors and boroughs (such as Bridgewater and Cranbourne
in Dorset) in southern England and, after 1368, a major footholdand a
See Walker, Lancastrian Afnity, ch. 5 for an outstanding analysis of Gaunts power in Sussex.
The growth of the Mortimer estates across the fourteenth century is briey but conveniently
sketched in Holmes, Estates, 1019. For maps of the Mortimer estates in Wales see Davies, Age of
Conquest, 396, 4067; and for the manors of the bailiwick of Clare, Holmes, Estates, 87. Details on
the valuation of the Mortimer estates in Davies, Lordship and Society, 1889.
181
favourite residencein a group of manors centred around Clare in East Anglia.

Nor did that exhaust the span of their lands: through two marriages they had also
secured the title to major lordships in Ireland (Trim, Meath, Connacht, and the
earldom of Ulster) and were to spend much of their time and energy in the reigns
of Edward II and Richard II discharging their responsibilities and enforcing their
lordship there.
The fragmented and geographically dispersed nature of great aristocratic
inheritances, such as those of Lancaster and Mortimer, posed daunting managerial
problems for their lords. Management is not a word which we readily associate
with great aristocratic lords. Terms such as honour, largesse, prowess, display, and
magnicence seem more appropriate. Yet these qualities were hardly unmatched
by a shrewd and often ruthless business sense. It is written large in the valuations on
the folios of Domesday Book or in the famous entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
on William Is auction of assets to the highest bidder. Where kings led, the great
magnates would assuredly follow. Their lordship, especially in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, became a ruthlessly exploitative lordshipad maximum
detrimentum possidentium (to the maximum disadvantage of tenants), as the earl
of Gloucester put it in a devastating aside. In the process they put in place
the mechanisms for transforming lordship into a routinized, micro-managing
mechanism and recruited the personnel to staff it. It is an achievement which has
been consistently underrated; it is ultimately an important chapter in the history
of lordship and governance in medieval England. It is well worth asking briey
why it has not warranted more attention.
The governance of medieval Englandand to a lesser but still considerable
extent of Scotland and English Irelandhas been constructed and described in
primarily royalist, king-centred, terms. This is inevitable given the ubiquitousness
of royal power, law, and jurisdiction; a fairly uniform and streamlined pattern
of ofces and ofcers, appointable by and answerable to a central authority; and
the institutions of common taxation, coinage, and assembly. None of that is, of
course, to be gainsaid especially in England, even if we need to add that most
of the work of royal and communal government in the localities was discharged
by magnates and county gentry and that much of the hundredal organization,
though formally in public control, was in private hands. But what qualies
the picture particularly for us is that alongside this complex framework of royalcommunal governance was, often, a puzzlingly complex network of non-royal
governance. The sheriff of Yorkshire operated cheek by jowl with the steward
of Pontefract, the receiver of the manor of Leicester with the escheator of the
county. Such non-royal governance ranged from the modest powers of the local
manorial lord (sometimes fortied by specic franchises such as the assize of ale)
to the extensive powers of great ecclesiastical corporations and monasteries. The
power network operated and controlled by the great lay lords of the British Isles
Hilton, Medieval Society, 132.
182
Lords and Lordship
was an essential part of the portfolio of governance and lordship in medieval

society. It alone eventually enabled the duke of Lancaster and the earl of March
to manage their widely scattered inheritances efciently and to exercise their
lordship to best effect.
It is not difcult to explain why the importance and achievement of this
pattern of seigniorial governance has been frequently overlooked, or at least
underestimated, by historians. It is, as usual, partly a matter of documentation.
Royal nancial records survive regularly from the 1150s; royal secretarial records
from c.1200. It is not until c.1250though earlier on ecclesiastical estatesthat
the nancial and court records of the lay nobility begin to survive and even then
very patchily, and hardly at all in an unbroken series. Then again such records
as survive are the archives of individual families, each with their own format
(especially at the central level) and often pattern of ofcers. They do not form
the basis of easy generalizations about the nature of seigniorial governance.
Furthermore, the very widespread nature of so many large aristocratic estates
meant that the administrative arrangements which were put in place to govern
and exploit them partook of the nature of a spiders web rather than the solid
blocs of governance familiar in Scotland, Wales, and Irelandor for that matter
much of France. Seigniorial stewards and receivers often held authority over
widely dispersed manors and lordships, their sphere of activity criss-crossing
in a confusing plethora of patterns with those of other lords ofces (lay and
ecclesiastical) and those of the king. That is why it has proved impossible to
represent such patterns cartographically.
But this should not be allowed to conceal the fact that in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries in particular the pattern of seigniorial governance changed
so profoundly that it affected the nature of lordship itself and brought the power
of such lordship to bear more intensively and regularly on those who lived under
its authority. This change needs to be placed in the context of a broad cultural
transformation. Lordship continued to base its authority on custom and was not
afraid of wielding its coercive power; but economic exploitation, protability,
and the opportunities of the market now became some of the watchwords
of seigniorial policy. They were inculcated in treatises on estate management.
They were accompanied by, and expressed in, a growing emphasis on regular
record-keeping and accountability. This was part of the triumph of what has
been called pragmatic literacy. On seigniorial estates in Englandand soon by
imitation in English-controlled or -inuenced parts of the British Islesthe key
take-off period seems to be the late thirteenth century. Manorial and household
accounts, court rolls, and enrolled series of ministers accounts begin to survive
and by the mid fourteenth century had acquired a largely standardized form
which they were to retain for generations. Such a transformation could only be
For a recent excellent introduction to the documentation see R. H. Britnell, Britain and Ireland,
10501530: Economy and Society (Oxford, 2004), chs. 13 and 23.
183
effectively serviced by the training and recruitment of a cadre of ofcials who

could employ their skills in the world of the triumph of the written word and
the audited account. The impact on the effectiveness and reach of lordship was
enormous: central control, close local supervision, regular reporting and auditing,
and a nexus of close relationships between the scattered parts of a large seigniorial
inheritance were now possible, indeed normal. It was these long-term cultural
changes which made late medieval lordship truly manageable and it is to the
nature of that management that we now turn.
There is no single formula which will describe adequately the mechanisms and
arrangements which came to constitute the pattern of seigniorial governance in
medieval Britain. Variety was the keynote, as was to be expected in a world
of plurality of lordships and challenges. In the late thirteenthearly fourteenth
centuries in particular, there is as yet little indication of the establishment of
a unied, streamlined administrative framework which would weld the lords
inheritance into an effective unit. The inheritance appears to be, administratively,
little more than the sum of its component estates. The extensive lands of
Edmund, earl of Cornwall (d. 1300), were simply composed of nine local receipts
each under its local steward; likewise, there were threefour receiverships, rather
than a single nancial ofce, for the far-ung estates of Gilbert earl of Gloucester
(d. 1298) and Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk (d. 1306). Even such annual
accounts as survivesuch as the rich Bigod local accounts for the late thirteenth
century or the large composite counter-rolls for the Lacy and Lancaster estates
12956, 13045, and 131314still reveal ofcials and scribes fumbling
rather uncertainly towards a coherent pattern of accounts and answerability.
Uniformity never became the hallmark of seigniorial governance and its records;
but by the mid to late fourteenth century (partly no doubt due to the spread of
good practice, especially in the ranks of the professional managerial class) a broad
pattern of the character and operational practices of seigniorial governance had
clearly emerged. It is that broad patternnot its particularities or individual
specicitieswhich we will now try to capture as part of our understanding of
the nature of lordship. Evidence will be drawn from a variety of sources, but
two in particular have been privilegedthe archives of the duchy of Lancaster
in the later years of John of Gaunt because they are, far and away, the richest
and most integrated set of seigniorial records; and, secondly, the muniments
of the Mortimer family, earls of March, the distinction of which lies not in
their quality and quantity but in the fact that they include a good deal of draft
memoranda and expense accounts which take us behind the bland formulae of
the nal accounts.
I readily acknowledge my debt on this topic to K. B. McFarlanes unpublished 1954 course
of lectures, English Seigniorial Administration and its Records 12901536 (Magdalen College,
Oxford, GPD/26/II/36).
184
Lords and Lordship
Ultimately the character of seigniorial governance depended on the person of

the lord; so it was with lordship as it was with kingship. It was he who set the
tone. When a report sought to explain the discrepancy between the potential
of a lordship and what was actually collected, its comment was brutally frank:
the earl was lax. There is abundant evidencesome of which has been quoted
aboveof the close attention that great aristocrats could pay to the minutiae
of estate affairs and of the way that petitions and requests were regularly deferred
for their personal attention. One has only to turn the pages of the Register of
Edward the Black Prince to hear the strident tones of his ofcials and tenants: that
was hands-on, hard-nosed lordship. And it worked at a distance: a steady ow
of messengers and letters (such as those between Richard Beauchamp, earl of
Warwick (d. 1439), from France and his council in England) kept lords regularly
briefed on their ofcers. Even when the bureaucratic and administrative machine
of a great inheritance had become complex and routinized, the lords personal
wishes were often still the nal word. So it is, to take a late example, that we catch
a glimpse of Duke Edward of Buckingham (d. 1521), syttynge in his councell,
putting to his councillors his reasons for going to Wales.
Since the lord was the central gure, it was natural that his household should
form the basis of such centralized control and accountability as began to develop.
That, after all, had been likewise the case with royal governance: it grew out
of the personal, household ofces of the king, the curia regis, until it reached
the point of sophistication and complexity when the ofcers and the ofces
began (in the phrase of historians) to go out of court. So it was with seigniorial
administration. After all, the prime purpose of the lords estates was to provide
the nancial wherewithal to meet the needs of his household. So it was that in
early days the steward of the household often doubled up as steward of the estates.
Above all, it was to the households nancial ofcersthe chamberlain and the
wardroberthat estate revenues were transferred. This remained the practice on
the estates of Elizabeth de Burgh (d. 1360), lady of Clare, which have a strong
case to be regarded as the most professionally run (and well-documented) noble
inheritance of the mid fourteenth century, or of the Bohun estates of the earls
of Hereford. In neither was there as yet a separate nancial ofce or ofcer;
moneys were paid directly by local accountants into the household coffers of
the lord.
But it was inevitable that such a skeletal, informal household framework should
gradually be supplemented by a dedicated set of central estate ofces, institutions
and ofcers. To that degree household and estate administrationthough,
of course, still interdependent in many respectsbecame separate. It was an
inevitable development on all major aristocratic estates. The need for continuity
and supervision during periods of minority and custody was one imperative;
CIM, I, no. 1870.
Rawcliffe, The Staffords, 15.
185
others were the growing professionalization of the lords administrative cadre,

the regular production of sets of annual, interrelated accounts, and the need to
coordinate policies and decisions.
The head of the lords central staff was often known as the chief steward
or occasionally as the surveyor of the lords lands. These descriptions indicated
that he had a supervisory authority over subsidiary local stewards and was in
overall charge of policy decisions on the lords estates. He no doubt presided
over the lords council in his absence; dealt with many of the petitions that were
forwarded to him by the lord; went on inspection tours of the lords estates either
under his own authority (as on the tour of the Stafford estates in 1386) or as
head of a conciliar delegation. So vast was the range of lands under the rule of
the Lancaster duchy that the responsibilities of the chief steward were divided
into two and occasionally three areas of jurisdictionnorth and south of the
Trent and a more restricted southern circuit. These men worked, and rode, hard:
the chief steward of the duchy of Lancaster in the north parts went on tour
through Nottingham, Leicester, and Pontefract in FebruaryMarch 1397, spent
nineteen days supervising the lords household at Hereford, followed by a further
thirty-two days in London with other members of the dukes council. It was by
such dedication and itineration that the lordship of the duke of Lancaster was
kept in good heart.
The men who held such a responsible position were almost invariably persons
of some standing in their own localities as well as in the estimation of their lords.
Such, for example, was Sir Peter de la Mare, the rst known Speaker of the
House of Commons (1376), M.P. for Herefordshire and steward of Edmund
Mortimer earl of March; or Sir Thomas Mortimer, a junior member of the
Mortimer dynasty who in effect headed the council which ran the Mortimer
estates 138193; or Sir Thomas Hungerford, Gaunts chief steward in the south
parts of the duchy of Lancaster (137593), MP and Speaker (1377) and a man
so highly regarded that he was retained in the services of at least ve other lords;
or John Throckmorton, a Worcestershire esquire, the key person in the council
of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and his trusted condant. These
men could not be expected to give full-time service to their lords or to eat at
his table day-in, day-out. They had their own estates and careers to attend to
and they played a leading role in county and, occasionally, in national society.
But they were men of standing and weight; most of them, no doubt, had a
good smattering of legal knowledge and were conversant with the problems and
challenges which all landowners faced. They were precisely the sort of men who
could bring the lords authority to bear on local society but who could also be
relied upon to address the broad issues involved in governing a large aristocratic
inheritance.
TNA DL 28/3/5 f.8.
For their biographies see Roskell et al. (eds.), House of Commons 13861421.
186
Lords and Lordship
The steward or chief steward provided authority and policy direction, especially
when the lord was a minor, on campaign, or otherwise preoccupied. But in terms
of the routine supervision and integration of the administration it might well
be that two other sets of ofcials were more centralthe chief nancial ofcer
and the auditor. We cannot expect consistency and uniformity here any more
than in any other sphere of seigniorial administration; but on an increasing
number of estates a single nancial ofcialoften bearing the title receivergeneralbecomes the chief accounting and supervising ofcer for the estate
revenue (but often not for other sources of income) of the lord, thereby
separating clearly household and estate responsibilities. It would appear that it
was from about the mid fourteenth century that the practice becomes common.
The Black Prince had a receiver-general by 1346 (and it is noteworthy that the
kings son should follow the practice and terminology of the seigniorial world
rather than that of the royal exchequer); the dukes of Lancaster certainly had
such a post by 1362 (even though the earliest account to survive is for 13767)
and probably considerably earlier; there was certainly such an ofcer in charge of
Beauchamp nances by the late fourteenth century.
The men who held the post were different, professionally and vocationally,
from the stewards. They were what we would call professional accountants,
well-versed in the accounting treatises of the period. They were normally clerics
and would expect their reward in a benece or even a canonry. The demands
on their services were much more full-time than those of the steward. When
they were not in attendance at the lords court and council, they were regularly
on tour inspecting the nances and affairs of the lords local estates. Walter
Brugge, the receiver-general of the Mortimer estates in the 1380s and 1390s,
travelled ceaselessly (as we know from his crabbed expenses accounts) from one
end of England to the other, throughout Wales, and regularly to Ireland. He
earned his rewardsincluding the archdeaconry of Meath and a canonry of
Yorkbut he had little time to enjoy them or to discharge the duties attached
to them. What is not in doubt is that his hard work was critical to ensuring
the protability and good running of the Mortimer inheritance during a long
and difcult minority. Walters career could be paralleled by that of many of his
fellow senior seigniorial accountantssuch as John Leventhorp, the nancial
condant of Henry Bolingbroke, who was promoted to be receiver-general of
the duchy of Lancaster when his master seized the throne in 1399.
The receiver-general was frequently accompanied on his tours by the auditor.
Audit was the central ritual of efcient lordship and it was conducted with
astonishing thoroughness. Local ofcials were ruthlessly cross-examined; their
indentures and tallies were rigorously scrutinized; pleas for allowances were
monitored and often reduced or disallowed; arrears were listed and instalment
Davies, Owain Glyn Dwr,
423.
For Leventhorp (and his journeys), Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, I, 132, 1568.
187
arrangements for their payment put in place; rentals were reviewed and composed;
and major decisions on local policyfor example, on repairing mills or continuing demesne farmingwere taken. Written and no doubt oral reports were
compiled and submitted to the lords senior ofcers and council, with requests
for a nal decision. We can guess the rigour of the exercise if we recall that
the half-yearly audit (visus compote) of three Mortimer estates (Clare, Bardeld,
and Sudbury) lasted for eighteen days in 1389. The men who undertook such
exercises were professionals to their ngertips. The auditor in 1389 was Thomas
Hildeburgh: he had moved up from local service (he was clerk of accounts for
the bailiwick of Clare in 13667) into central duties and from the service of
Lionel, duke of Clarence (d. 1368), to that of Clarences son-in-law, Edmund
Mortimer, earl of March (d. 1381). There were many like him: Philip Melreth
was receiver-general of Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford (d. 1373), but with
the death of his master without male heirs of his body he looked for new openings
and became one of John of Gaunts auditors.
It was this handful of top ofcialsoften supplemented by others, such as
the chancellor who headed the secretariat of John of Gaunt or the secretariat
who looked after the ofcers of Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester
(d. 1397)who formed the kernel of the lords professional advisers (much as
the chancellor, treasurer and keeper of the privy seal performed a like function for
the king). They would no doubt keep in close touch with the lords household
ofcersincluding the chamberlain, keeper of the great wardrobe, treasurer of
warand would draw on the service of a body of clerks. It was this group which
gave coherence and direction to the policies which integrated the inheritance of
the lord into an effective administrative unit. They would be members of his
council.
In all that we know about aristocraticas indeed of royalcouncils, we
would do well to steer clear of over-denition and institutional clarity. The lord
(when he was of age) took counsel from whomsoever it pleased him and on an ad
hoc basis; so were many of his momentous decisions shaped. Yet it was inevitable
that as central aristocratic governance habits became more sophisticated and
regular, the role and power of the lords habitual adviserswhether formally
called a council or notshould come into sharper focus (especially in the
archives of the Black Prince, John of Gaunt, the Mortimers, the Beauchamps,
Holmes, Estates, 1268 publishes the reports of the duchy of Lancaster auditors for some of
the southern estates in 1388. Equally revealing, with marginal notes, are the memoranda submitted
to the keepers of the estates of the earl of March, e.g. BL Egerton Rolls 8718, 8757.
TNA SC 6/1112/2.
Hildeburgh: TNA SC 6/1111/11; SC 6/986, 27; Melreth: Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster,
I, 369.
For seigniorial councils see C. Rawcliffe, Baronial Councils in the Later Middle Ages, in
Patronage, Pedigree and Power in Later Medieval England, ed. C. D. Ross (Gloucester, 1979),
87108; for the council on the Lancaster estates, Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, I, 8084,
12130.
188
Lords and Lordship
and the Mowbrays). As with the kings privy council, so it was with the
aristocracy: a small group of his professional servants (whose duties we have
outlined above) would meet on a regular basis to deal with the plethora of
administrative and nancial problems and petitions which had to be attended
to on a weekly basis. We catch a glimpse, for example, of three menSir
George Felbrigg (a Mortimer retainer and county knight), William Forde (a
trusted clerk), and Walter Brugge (the receiver-general)at the earl of Marchs
council in 1393. Such a small, workaday council would be reinforced for the
discussion of more weighty and legal matters by a group of local retainers and
gentlemen and by hired legal advisers. Such meetings might be held over a
number of days, as happened during the long-drawn-out and bitter negotiations
in the 1390s between the duke of Gloucester and the earl of Hereford over
the partition of the Bohun inheritance. These reinforced meetings were often
referred tocertainly in the documents of the Black Prince, John of Gaunt,
Roger Mortimer, the Beauchamps, and the Mowbraysas the great council of
the lord or the entire and continuous council. The business which the council
could and did attend to was almost limitless: it regularly received petitions and
acted as an appellate body: tricky local issues and policy decisions were referred
to it; local ofcers and tenants were summoned to testify before it. It often met
at the lords headquarters (frequently his London residence); but equally it could
travel around his estates, dealing with issues locally.
What we have found in this outline description of the central agencies of
aristocratic lordship is that in general terms the agents and agencies which
coordinated the activities of aristocratic governance corresponded, on a smaller
scale, to those we nd in the kings administration of his realm. So did the
procedures that were followed, the regular and integrated sets of household,
central, and local documents that were produced, the reliance on written
commands, vouchers, and evidence, the processes of audit and the personnel
(increasingly professionally trained clerical bureaucrats complemented by literate
and capable retainers and laymen of standing). To that extent there was a
continuum of experience and habits across the eld of governance, royal,
aristocratic, and ecclesiastic. Given that this was so, there could be a transfer of
personnel, and a sharing of responsibilities, between one sphere and another.
William de Manton served as wardrober and later clerk of the chamber for that
outstanding businesswoman, Elizabeth de Burgh (d. 1360); migrated on her
BL Egerton Roll 8739.
The expenses incurred are listed in TNA DL 28/3/3 no. 5 and TNA DL 29/3/4 no. 12,
no. 39v. During another legal dispute, Derbys council met at the wardrobe of John of Gaunt in
London to discuss the issue.
BL Egerton Roll 8715 (13957); SC 6/1112/3 (1391) (Mortimer); CPR 13969, 422
(Mowbray); BL Egerton Roll 8769 (Beauchamp, 1397); Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, I, 129
(Lancaster); M. Sharp, The Household of the Black Prince, in T. F. Tout, Chapters in Medieval
Administrative History, 6 vols. (Manchester, 192033), V, 382.
189
death to the service of the kings son, Lionel of Clarence, and then rose to be
Edward IIIs keeper of the wardrobe 13616. There were, one suspects, very few
tricks of the administrators trade that William needed to learn in royal service;
indeed, given the remarkable precociousness of the de Burgh administration,
the transfer of skills may well have been the other way. There must have been
many like him, especially as aristocratic estatesand thereby the personnel of
their administrationpassed, temporarily or otherwise, under royal control.
And inevitably in a small and intimate world posts were shared: the description
of Roger Cheney as steward of the earl of Arundel and at that time (1316) sheriff
of Shropshire is merely a single example.
The signicance of this is at least twofold. First, it reminds us that the quality,
effectiveness, and importance of aristocratic governance has been regularly
underestimated in historical writingpartly because of the plurality of lords (as
opposed to the singularity of royal administration) and the quality of the surviving
evidence, partly because of an unfounded assumption that seigniorial governance
was necessarily inferior or derivative. Second in a balanced and rounded view of
the governance of medieval society, the agencies and agents of aristocratic lordship
should gure alongside those of kings, bishops, ecclesiastical corporations, and
others. These were the men who governedand never doubted their right to
governsociety; the distinction in status and in the niceties of their relationships
was less important than the common factor that they exercised lordship.
It was at the central level that seigniorial governance was probably most innovative
and challenging in its practices. But the lords inheritance was composed of scores
and indeed often hundreds of lordships and manors often scattered across large
swathes of Britain. Here the lords authority was enmeshed in local traditions
and power structures and relied overwhelmingly on the services of local men. It
comes as no surprise, therefore, that there is little that is uniform and streamlined
about seigniorial governance in the localities. If we are to witness the scale and
ambitiousness of aristocratic power in the locality we will nd it not in England
(with the exception of the palatinates) but in the great liberties of Ireland, the
Marcher lordships of Wales, and the provincial earldoms of Scotland. What
we see hereespecially in the rst two, for the evidence for Scotland appears
scantyis how lords could in effect produce little kingdoms in miniature on
their estates. The great advantage of the Irish liberties and Welsh lordships was
that they were large, consolidated estates where the lords powernancially,
jurisdictionally, and otherwisewas close to exclusive. A range of ofces and
ofcers were put in place to run them, normally from a central castle, as selfcontained units: a shire, liberty, or great court, a chancery, an exchequer, a
Ward, English Noblewomen, 57; R. W. Eyton, The Antiquities of Shropshire, 12 vols. in 6

(London, 185460), X, 159.
190
Lords and Lordship
lordship-specic seal, a register of writs among them. Ofcers might include a

steward, sheriff, constable, chancellor, receiver, and escheator.
Elsewhere the pattern of local seigniorial governance was much more ad hoc;
and it is not easy to detect a general pattern. On some inheritancesthose
of Bohun, Mowbray, Mortimer, and Beauchamp among themthe individual
manors and units were directly answerable to central ofcers and accountants,
presumably because the estates were too geographically compact to warrant
the establishment of an intermediate tier of administration. But on other
inheritancesthe vast duchy of Lancaster is the prime examplelocal units
were gathered into regional receiverships/stewardships. The headquarters of each
receivership was normally a local castle: there courts were held, the ofcers had
their chambers, and moneys were collected. Each unit was headed by a steward,
a receiver, and sometimes a constable. The steward was normally a man of gentry
status from the locality or from the cadre of the lords retainers. On some of
the great estates he increasingly discharged his duties by deputy and his post
becameespecially in the duchy of Lancasterpart of the lords patronage
portfolio. Thus Sir Richard Burley was appointed steward of Monmouth by
Gaunt in 1379, but he can have spent little time on his ofcial duties there, since
he was one of the lords condants and retainers and died on campaign with
Gaunt in Spain in 1386. Much more crucial in the day-to-day local governance
of the lordship was the receiver (often doubling up as deputy-steward). He was
often a local cleric or burgess and needed to have a basic mastery of accounting
and audit procedures. It was he who kept the local machinery of lordship in
working order and was the recipient of an avalanche of correspondence and
visits from the lords central ofcers. Answerable to the receiver were a whole
host of local ofcialsbailiff, reeves, parkers, beadles, foresters, and others.
They wereand had to belocal men, often the leaders of their own local
communities. It was on their conduct and honesty that the reputation of lordship
at the local level often depended. That is why the correspondence of the lords
ofcials is brimful of threats and periodic purges; that is also why the terms of
reference of ofcials were sometimes closely specied and why they were bound
over in large recognizances to discharge the duties of their ofces properly.
But this was not, of course, a problem unique to aristocratic service. Medieval
governance was based on the one hand on a small cadre of professional ofcials
and on the other on a very large pool of amateur leaders of local society who
alone had the knowledge, ties, and status to command the obedience of that
society. If in the process they lined their own pockets and boosted their own
prestige, that was an inevitable price that had to be paid. And it was a price paid
by all lordsking, magnates, and bishopsalike. When the commissioners
tried to explain why the yield of Brecon in 1302 did not match its target,
For Marcher lordships, Davies, Lordship and Society, 2001; for Irish liberties, A. J. OtwayRuthven, A History of Medieval Ireland, 1838; Frame, English Lordship, 247.
191
his explanation was simple: there have been bad and disloyal stewards and
bailiffs.
Integrating the activities of widely dispersed inheritances and coordinating the
policies and supervision of an assemblage of ofcials posed daunting administrative problems. Communications were poor and sanctions often ineffective as
they came up against the inertia and vested interests of local power structures.
But if lordship was to be fair and effective it was imperative that central
control and supervision of local governance be regular and directive. It could
operate broadly along two channelsthose of the written command and of the
personal visit.
The effectiveness and reach of lordship, so we have insisted, were transformed
by the triumph of the written word in governance. The aristocratic world of
late medieval England was bound together by a network of correspondence and
oral messages entrusted to condential messengers to a degree which can hardly
be guessed at from the tiny proportion that survives. Gossip and greetings
were exchanged between lords and ladies, laymen and ecclesiastics; ears were
kept close to the ground for political rumour; favours were requested and
petitions forwarded; good lordship was sought and mutual promises made. Such
correspondence kept lords in touch with each other as they retired to their estates.
Much of it was composed for them, but some of it was penned in the lords own
hand, such as the letter Richard, earl of Arundel (d. 1397) wrote de ma mayn.
This was private correspondence; but letters were equally crucial if the lord was to
keep in touch with his retainers and followers and to weld them into an effective
corps of supporters. The accounts of Earl Thomas of Lancaster (d. 1322) are
particularly eloquent in this respect. On 17 April 1319 alone, seventy-two letters
were despatched to members of his afnity, including twenty-three knights, and
on 9 May a further seventy-six letters were addressed to named abbots and priors.
These were, it is true, totally exceptional gures in exceptional circumstances;
four-to-six letters per day would probably be more normal. Even in more placid
times the travel network of the earls couriers and messengers was impressive,
as they fanned out from Pontefract to Spalding, Thoresby, Halton, Lancaster,
or Denbigh and as one of them set out on an eighteen-day journey to Lord
Courtenay in Devon.
Correspondence kept lords and their followers in regular touch with each
other; but, from the point of view of the current discussion, it is the role of the
written word in integrating the lords inheritance into an effective administrative
and governmental unit which is crucial. Just as the chancery and exchequer of
I have drawn in particular on the splendid, and underused, collection in Legge (ed.),
Anglo-Norman Letters and Petitions, and on references in account rolls.
Legge (ed.), Anglo-Norman Letters and Petitions, no. 30.
TNA DL 28/1/13.
192
Lords and Lordship
the king of England sent a regular stream of directives to the sheriffs and ofcers
of the localities, so did the great aristocratic lords to their stewards, receivers,
and local ministers. Very little such correspondence survives; if it does at all, it
would be as les of warrants and vouchers which an accounting ofcer would
produce to justify his allowances and expenditure when he appeared before
the lords auditors. One such le in the Mortimer archives (admittedly mainly
receipts rather than letters) for one year runs to almost a hundred items. It
was, as far as we know, only from the mid fourteenth century that copies of
such seigniorial administrative correspondence were made and kept in registers.
Such registers survive from the estates of the Black Prince and of John of Gaunt
(certainly on Gaunts estates by 1367, though the earliest surviving register only
begins a decade later). They cover a vast range of business: many of them are
directives from the lord, his council, or his major ofcers; others are responses
to local petitions and pleas; many are acts of pardon and largesse; quite a few
are reactions to visits and recommendations made by the lords central ofcers
(especially his auditors) on their visits to the localities. In the case of John of
Gaunt we know that c.300400 such letters were sent annually and copied into
the registers.
It may well be that the sheer size of the estates of the Black Prince and John
of Gaunt meant that the degree of seigniorial supervision and direction of local
affairs was more intense and sophisticated than a smaller inheritance; but all that
we know of other aristocratic estatessuch as those of Fitzalan, Mortimer, and
Staffordsuggests otherwise. Written directions were underpinned by frequent
personal visits from the lords central ofcialscoming on a regular basis (as did
the auditors normally twice yearly) or on individual visits, be it singly or in small
groups or, occasionally, as the lords council. Whatever the format of the visit, it
brought the full authority of central investigation and direction to bear on local
affairs.
The sequence of visits paid by the ofcials of Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel
(d. 1397), in 13867 to his border lordship of Clun and his contiguous estates
in western Shropshire may serve as an illustration. Some of the visits were for
a specic purpose: a group of ofcials spent three days sorting and weighing
the wool from the large Fitzalan ocks in the lordship (a task which was clearly
too important to be left to local ofcials); the auditor took eight days and in
May a further four days to audit the accounts there (again suggesting a degree of
thoroughness). Even more impressive are the references to the extended visits of
the lords council to this rather remote, upland lordship. Members of the council
(so-called) were there in December, staying at the abbey of Haughmond and
TNA SC 6/1293/4.
Shropshire Record Ofce. Shrewsbury 552/1A/8.
193
visiting the Arundel castle at Shrawardine (both in Shropshire) en route; another

batch of councillors paid a visit in August and dined together at Shrewsbury. But
the most impressive visit was one which lasted in total for nine days. It was headed
by Sir David Hanmer, chief justice of the Kings Bench and a man retained for
his legal expertise by Arundel, Sir Stephen Dauntsey, and others. They were
met by an assemblage of local ofcers who were no doubt closely cross-examined.
The scribes description of the terms of reference of this extended visit indicates
how comprehensive and thorough it was: to supervise and determine divers
items of the lords affairs and the business of the lords lordships of Clemsland
and Shropshire and to make arrangements for the healthy governance (salubre
gubernatione) and fortune of those lordships. After this extended visit, the local
regime in Clun could not have been under any illusion that its every move and
action was subject to close central scrutiny.
These regular local ofcial visits were supplemented occasionally by overview
visitations of all, or a goodly portion, of the lords inheritance. Such visitations
were often headed by the chief steward, the receiver-general, and other key
ofcers and might be called a tourn. Few records of such tourns have survived;
but one undertaken on the estates of the earl of Stafford in 1386quite possibly
to inaugurate the rule of a new earlshows how comprehensive they could
be. It began in the lordship of Newport in south-east Wales on 11 May
and proceeded, on a full weekly timetable, via Caw (Shropshire), Stafford,
Thornbury (Gloucestershire) and so across the Stafford manors of England to
Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, and East Anglia. At each venue ofcers and
tenants submitted petitions, decisions were endorsed on bills, pleas for the
remission of arrears were considered, and the state of buildings was reviewed. It
was investigative, administrative lordship in itinerant action.
The regular high point of this interaction between central direction and local
accountability was the twice-yearly audit (corresponding closely to the timetable
followed by the royal exchequer). Sometimes (as on the Lancaster estates) such
audits were conducted regionally; elsewhere (as on the Lacy inheritance) the
auditors themselves went on circuit. Thoroughness was the keynote: ofcers
(including the lords central ofcers) were required to submit their accounts well
in advance; court rolls were also submitted; and local accounts were then sealed
prior to further inspection by the chief steward. The basic purpose of the audit
was to check on the honesty and competence of the accountant, not to calculate
the yield or protability of the unit he controlled. That is why historians have
so frequently misread the nature of these accounts. But this did not mean that
For Hanmers career see Davies, Owain Glyn Dwr
(he was Owains father-in-law), passim.
Staffordshire Record Ofce, Stafford, D 641/1/2/3.
For example Reg. JG, I, no. 1629.
194
Lords and Lordship
auditors conned themselves to this basic task. On the contrary, the audit could
be a platform from which the lord could be provided with a range of shrewd
nancial advice on the running of his estates.
One critical issue was that of the protability of the estates in general and of
demesne farming in particular. The audited account was not designed to yield
such information; but from the late thirteenth century onwards, on some lay
(Bigod, Clare) as well as monastic estates calculations of prot were being made.
How such calculations were made remains far from clear, since the notes of prot
are cryptic in the extreme. Nevertheless they represent an important departure
in seigniorial policy, indicating as they do a shift from mere accountability to
calculations of prot. Furthermore, from the 1330s the most advanced aristocratic
administrationsthose of Henry, earl of Lancaster (d. 1345), Elizabeth de Burgh
(d. 1360), and Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (d. 1376)consolidated the
individual valuations of estates into a general valuation of the lords inheritance,
the valor. By the late fourteenthearly fteenth century such valors became
increasingly common on aristocratic estates, including those of Stafford and
Beauchamp. We must, it is true, not overestimate them. They are consolidated
statements of estimated yield in a particular year, based on the details of the
local accounts; they are not strictly a valuation of the lords income, let alone an
estimate of his prots. But they do represent a signicant attemptnot least as
compared with the documents of the royal exchequerto provide an overview
of the lords potential assets in any particular year and even (on the Clare estates)
a comparison of yield as between accounting years.
Another document which bespeaks growing nancial enterprise was the
consolidated arrears account. Arrears were a perennial problem for medieval
auditors; they represented the gap between potential and actual revenue. By no
means all arrears were, to use the medieval term, desperate, that is, uncollectible;
many were due to be paid in future instalments on agreed terms. Nevertheless,
if the issue of arrears was not to get out of hand, it was crucial that the lords
auditors keep an overview of them and arrange tight schedules for prompt
repayment. The consolidated arrears accounts did precisely that. They are often
immensely detailed and on the Lancaster estates (and probably elsewhere) were
compiled annually. They are another indication of the thoroughness of seigniorial
nancial administration.
E. Stone, Prot-and-Loss Accountancy at Norwich Cathedral Priory, TRHS, 5th ser., 12
(1962), 2548. For full references to the primary and secondary sources on that topic see Davies,
Baronial Accounts, 21129.
The valors in question are TNA DL 40/1/11 fos. 4355 (Lancaster); TNA SC 11/799,
801 (de Burgh, tabulated in Holmes, Estates, 1437); Shropshire Record Ofce 552/1A/1
(Arundel).
For arrears accounts and their interpretation see Davies, Baronial Accounts, 21829.
195
The signicance of valors, arrears accounts, and the other documents which
have been discussed in this chapter extends far beyond a diplomatic study in
the nancial archives of the medieval baronage. They represent one of the
few ways we have of measuring the effectiveness, enterprise, and methods of
seigniorial governance. The documentation that survives is but a tithe compared
with that of royal nancial records and even from that tithe we have made
a limited selection, while admitting that variety rather than uniformity is
the keynote of baronial archives. But, on balance, there remains little doubt
that the quality and effectiveness of seigniorial administrationwhen due
allowance has been made for its scale and problemsbears ready comparison
with the best of royal and ecclesiastic administration. There was little that the
ofcials of Edward III could have taught the remarkably enterprising cadre of
servants who ran the estates of Elizabeth de Burgh, or those of Richard II, the
regiment of ofcers who administered the vast duchy of Lancaster for John of
Gaunt. If we aggregate the great aristocratic estates of the late medieval period,
there can be little doubt that they made a very considerableand regularly
underratedcontribution to the governance of the British Isles. Their role
needs to be recognized.
For the records of a household ofce unique to one lordship, The Haveners
Accounts of the Earldom and Duchy of Cornwall, 12871356, ed. M. Kowalski.
Devon and Cornwall Record Society, new series, vol. 44 (Exeter, 2001). For the
employment of the same individuals in seigniorial and royal service, P. Brand,
Stewards, Bailiffs and the Emerging Legal Profession in Later ThirteenthCentury England, in Lordship and Learning: Studies in Memory of Trevor Aston,
ed. R. Evans (Woodbridge, 2004), and P. Brand, A Versatile Legal Administrator
and More: The Career of John of Fressingeld in England, Ireland and Beyond,
in Ireland and the English World in the Late Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of
Robin Frame, ed. B. Smith (Basingstoke, 2009).
For the administration of particular lordships, M. Potterton, Medieval Trim:
History and Archaeology (Dublin, 2005), ch. 3; M. Morris, The Bigod Earls
of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2005); A. McCormack,
The Earldom of Desmond, 14631583: The Decline and Crisis of a Feudal
Lordship (Dublin, 2005), ch. 2; R. Blakely, The Brus Family in England and
Scotland, 11001295 (Woodbridge, 2005), ch. 7; C. Neville, Native Lordship
in Medieval Scotland: The Earldoms of Strathearn and Lennox, c.11401365
(Dublin, 2005), ch. 2. For John of Gaunts household, E. Will, John of Gaunts
196
Lords and Lordship
Household: Attendance Rolls in the Glynde Archive, MS 3469, in Fourteenth

Century England V, ed. N. Saul (Woodbridge, 2008).
For liberties in the British Isles see the essays in Liberties and Identities in Later
Medieval Britain, ed. M. Prestwich (Woodbridge, 2008). For Irish liberties and
Welsh Marcher lordships, R. Frame, Lordship and Liberties in Ireland and Wales
c.1170c.1360, in Power and Authority in the Middle Ages: Essays in Memory of
Rees Davies, ed. H. Pryce and J. Watts (Oxford, 2007).
8
Dependence, Service, and Reward
Dependence, service, and reward were fundamental concepts in medieval society, to a degree which our allegedly egalitarian and democratic mindsets nd
difcult to grasp. They operated at every social level and, formally or informally,
bound together the different orders of society in a complex web of relationshipsking and subjects, lords and followers, tenants (including unfree tenants)
and their manorial masters. But there are problems for the historian in trying to
characterize the nature and scope of these relationships.
Two in particular may be cited at this prefatory stage. Dependence is a
vague, elastic concept; it lacks the specicity and hard content which makes it
amenable to historical analysis and measurement. This alone becomes possible
when what we may call the documents of dependence begin to survivesuch
as the feudal charters of the twelfth century onwards which stipulate the tenurial
obligations of vassals to lords or, from the later thirteenth century in particular,
the indentures of retinue which specify the terms on which retainers entered
formally into the service of a lord. The appearance of such documents is itself a
matter of historical importance. It marks part of the triumph of the written word
(ius scriptum) in the denition of human relationships and obligations. It is little
wonder that historians have paid such attention to these documentswitness the
intensive study of indentures of retinue in late medieval English historiography;
they provide a secure documentary foothold in what is otherwise a sea of vague
abstractions. With this, however, comes the danger that we mistake novelty of
documentation for novelty of institutions and relationship.
The second reservation we need to bear in mind is that documentation,
especially formal documentation, constructs the world of relationships on its
own terms and in furtherance of its own agenda. Historians can become its
prisoners as well as its beneciaries. This, as has been frequently pointed out,
can apply, for example, to the centrality given to bonds of feudal tenure. It
is not that they are necessarily important; but they were kept alive in the
documentation often for reasons of intense legal conservatism. Perhaps, above
For the latter development see S. L. Waugh, Tenure to Contract: Lordship and Clientage in
Thirteenth-Century England, EHR, 101 (1986), 81139.
A. A. M. Duncan has some characteristically trenchant and shrewd comments on the tired
vocabulary of feudal terminology in Scotland in his Scotland, chs. 78.
198
Lords and Lordship
all, concentration on particular genres of documentation can direct analysis to

restricted interpretations of the complexity and variety of ties of dependence:
those that can be documented, measured, and itemized.
Lordship was built around the concepts of dependence and service. Beyond
the specic obligations and rewards that it brought for both parties (lord and
dependant) lay a whole set of expectations within which it was structured
and interpreted. At its heart, as we have noticed, was an essentially personal
relationship. The acceptance of lordship was inaugurated, often formally and
ceremonially, by the proclamation of this personal relationship of dependence.
The feudal vassal did so by doing homage and swearing fealty to his lord.
By the later Middle Ages such ceremonies may appear increasingly formal and
routine; but when we note the vigour with which men such as the Black Prince
and John of Gaunt assembled their feudal tenants to perform homage to them
publicly we must surely recognize that this was a relationship which still had
life and meaning to it. Such life may have been primarily scalthe exaction
of feudal incidents such as custody, wardship, and marriage; but it was also
assuredly a visual display of the dependence and control which were at the heart
of lordship.
Nor was this insistence on the choreography of personal lordship conned to
the knightly, feudal classes. It applied equally in a modied form down the social
scale. When a tenant came into the manor court to be invested with a tenement,
he was expected to swear an oath of fealty to the lords steward in full court.
Other obligationsincluding the payment of an entry newere normally
part of the contract; but in a society where the aural and visual were so crucial
in establishing the formality and publicity of relationships, the oath of fealty
was certainly not without signicance. It was regularly copied into formulary
books both in England and in Scotland. It had legal consequence: the tenant
was now in a real sense the lords man: he was subjected to obligations on the
one hand, and was entitled to receive protection on the other. That the bond
was essentially personal, not territorial, was particularly clear in a category of
dependants which is well known in Wales and Ireland, and probably likewise
in much of upland Britain. In Wales they were known as advowry men: they
did not hold land directly of the lord nor were they members of the kindred
and lineage groups from whom the lord collected tributes and renders. But
they had acknowledged the lords personal authority over them, paying him a
token annual sum in recognition of the relationship. To use the term familiar
to students of Anglo-Saxon and early medieval lordship, they had commended
themselves to him. Nor were their numbers trivial: in the lordship of Bromeld
and Yale (north-east Wales) in 1391 they numbered 857. They held no land as
F. Pollock & F. W. Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2 vols.,
reissued with an introduction by S. F. C. Milsom (Cambridge, 1968), I, 296307.
For Scottish example see Moray Reg., nos. 299300.
199
such from the lord nor did they pay him rent; but they were certainly within the
orbit of his lordship and ultimately justiciable by him. They were among his
dependants.
It is perhaps from an unexpected quarterlate medieval Scotlandthat we
are reminded yet again how fundamental was this personal bond of lordship
and dependence, and how its signicance did not necessarily decline over time.
Some eight hundred bonds of manrent, as they are termed, have survived from
late medieval and early modern Scotland. Their signicance extends far beyond
Scotland (though they have been little noticed beyond it) because they open a
window on to the personal bond of lordship and away from tenurial obligations.
The essence of the bond was that the dependant gave the bond to the lord (not
vice versa) and in return secured maintenance and protectionwith the bond
often extending to the dependants kin, men, and friends as well as to himself. It
involved no land nor an annuity or pension as such. It corresponded closely to the
homage of the feudal oath and as such dwelt in the world of the intangible, the
personal relationships between lords and their men, the baseline of all lordship
and dependency.
Such a relationship operated at a collective and communal, as well as at a
personal and individual, level. When a new lord visited his lordshipwhether
it came to him by inheritance or by royal granthe inaugurated his arrival by
insisting on a public acknowledgement of his lordship (just as the king did so by
the ceremony of acclamation at his coronation). Three examples may be cited;
they are all from Wales but there is no reason to think that in their essence
and format they were not replicated elsewhere in the British Isles. The rst took
place at Wrexham (lordship of Bromeld and Yale in north-east Wales) in 1284
when the heir of the earl of Surrey took formal possession of the lordshipand
with it the service of its inhabitantsfrom his father. Twenty-nine leading
men of the lordship did homage to their new lord individually, followed by
a communal act of homage by the rest of the tenants with hands raised and
joined unanimously. This splendid spectacle was repeated in another great and
valuable lordship, Brecon, in 1302, when royal commissioners formally took
seisin of the lordship on behalf of the king (in a deal he had made with the earl of
Hereford) and took the fealty of two thousand Welshman through an interpreter.
Even more impressive was the way that Edward, the Black Prince, inaugurated his
rule in north Walesand doubtless through the rest of his principality lands in
1343. His commissioners travelled around each district, assembling the leading
men and requiring an oath of fealty from them (reminiscent of the Ragman Roll
of 1296 which recorded individually the names of 1,600 individuals in Scotland
The quotation is from p. 2 of J. Wormalds outstanding Lords and Men in Scotland.
CIPM, II, no. 633 (but inadequately calendared); CIM 12191317, no. 1870.
200
Lords and Lordship
who had submitted to Edward I). Likewise when the relationship between the
lord and his dependants was fractured, it had to be formally and visually repaired
in a great public act of contrition and reafrmation. So it was, to take another
Welsh example, that in March 1414 a series of assemblies was held in north
Walesthere were said to be 600 men present at the one at Balain which the
local community apologized for its rebellion and renewed its personal submission
to its lord, the king.
What was basically entered into in such a relationship was a set of abstract
commitments (to which specic obligations could, of course, be added). As with
friendship, so with dependence it was a human bond and obligation which was
at its heart. It came as no surprise that it borrowed the vague terminology of
an earlier age. To be faithful (delis) was the prime obligation, and what that
entailed was the giving of aid (auxilium) and advice (consilium), two of the
oldest and vaguest words in the lexicon of medieval dependence. There was
talk of the lords honour and right and the need to uphold and defend them
and of taking the lords part in all his actions. There was even an echo of the
language of family sentiments and the ethic of friendshipof the need for the
dependant to show good cousinship and total benevolence (bonecousinage et
entiere naturesse).
The relationship between lord and dependant varied hugely, of course,
according to the relative status and powers of the two parties. Between near
equals it was close to an alliance; between lord and tenant it was very much de
haut en bas humble and obedient in body and chattels as a serf might be
described. But even the serf was the serf of the lord, nativus domini; and there
was an element of mutuality in the relationship. Lordship and dependence were
constructed around this expectation of mutuality. Protection was the baseline
obligation due from the lord. As a German legal handbook put it directly: we
should serve our lords for they protect us; if they do not protect us, justice
does not oblige us to serve them. Nor was such a promise of protection
merely an idle boast. The letters of the Black Prince, for example, are full of
the bluster and threats which he directed at thoseincluding the archdeacon
of Cornwallwho dared to extort money from his tenants or did not pay
for their goods. At all levels of society, protectionwhether open or kept
under wrapswas one of the most treasured facets of lordship. We should not
underestimate its signicance because it does not correspond to our notions of
public order and governance.
The fealty roll of 1343 for Wales is published in Archaeologia Cambrensis: Original Documents
Printed as a Supplement to the Journal. Vol 1, (London, 1877), cxlviiiclxxv.
See Davies, Owain Glyn Dwr,
2 and sources cited there.
See, for example, Private Indentures, no. 1 (1278).
Private Indentures, no. 77 (1389); no. 90 (1397).
Quoted from Schwabenspiegel c. 308 in Brunner, Land and Lordship, 200.
Reg. BP, II, 7, 32; IV, 59.
201
To have a lordwhether he was called such or notwas the expectation.

One danger is to limit the circuit of dependence to those for whom we have
formal documentation of its existence. Of course, the reach of lordship extended
much further than those who, according to the late medieval evidence, were in
receipt of annuities or formally retained by a lord. Sometimes lords could blurt
out the scope of their inuence, even among the knightly classes. There was
hardly a knight, so the earl of Leicester boasted, whom he could not overthrow
if he refused the earl aid. It is a comment which could have been echoed down
the centuries and across the British Isles. The format of the dependence varied
and so did the ceremony which might inaugurate it. In much of Gaelic Ireland,
for example, dependence was announced by entering the house of the superior,
being entertained by him and receiving his gifts. The ceremonies corresponded
to those of homage and investiture, but the end result was the same.
The Beauchamp afnity, it has been observed, can best be described as a
series of concentric circles with the earl at the centre. This denition can
serve as a general point of introduction to the range and scope of aristocratic
dependence. Historians have, on the whole, compartmentalized their discussions
of the operation of lordship within self-contained segmentsfrom, for example,
the groups of retainers (knights, gentry, and esquires by and large) who composed
the lords indentured retinue, to the large groups of tenants and their families who
lived on his manors/lordship and were nancially and judicially answerable to him
and his ofcials. Clearly the distinction between these groups of dependantsand
the other groups between the two polaritieswas huge and so, therefore, was
the nature of lordship exercised over them. But equally we would be mistaken
not to take note of the continuum that was involved in lordship at all social and
economic levels. Just as our understanding of royal lordship should bring within
its embrace the whole way in which a kings authority and power (especially
in England) impinged on all his subjects as well as his relationship with his
magnates, so our interpretation of aristocratic lordship should be ecumenical.
French historians have even tried to estimate the actual numbers of men who
contributed to the resources of a seigneurie 1,800 being justiciable and 1,040
persons owing rent on one such seigneurie in Champagne.
It is with this broad-based aspect of dependence that we begin. Lordship over
men, as we have insisted, was the primary form of lordship, as was the collection
Jordan Fantosme, Chronicle, ed. R. C. Johnston (Oxford, 1981), 70.
For excellent discussions of the rituals of submission in Gaelic Ireland see Simms, From Kings to
Warlords and M. T. Flanagan, Irish Society, Anglo-Norman Settlers, Angevin Kingship (Oxford, 1989).
C. Carpenter, The Beauchamp Afnity: A Study of Bastard Feudalism at Work, EHR, 95
(1980), 51432 at p. 515.
P. Verdier, La Construction dune Seigneurie dans la Champagne du XIIIe sicle: Renier
Acorre, seigneur de Gouaix (12571289), in Seigneurs et Seigneuries au Moyen ge (Paris, 1995),
99110.
202
Lords and Lordship
of tributary dues, food renders, and entertainment obligations. This pattern

may have been substantially overlaid, especially in the lowlands, by other claims
and relationships, notably dues from land and all that came in their wake. But
if we take the British Isles as a whole what is striking (especially in the west and
uplands) is the centrality of the leadership of men as a feature of lordship. Thus
when King David II of Scotland transferred three named sheriffdoms to William,
Lord Douglas, he bestowed upon himin a signicant phrasethe leading of
the men of these sheriffdoms, and likewise in 1370 James Douglas was granted
leadership of all the men of his lands. Some of these men were tenants in that
they held land tenurially of the lord, but most were not: it was simply that they
lived within the orbit of the lords power and were thereby beholden, directly or
indirectly, to himat least when he made demands of them. Their relationship
with the lord was often at one or indeed several removes: they might belong
to lineage groups which acknowledged the lords ultimate superiority or they
might be the dependants of gentry or lairds who were in turn in the lords orbit.
The nature and even the terminology of dependence varied from place to place:
lordship had to adjust to the landscape of existing social institutions and practices.
Even so, the language of the dependent groups and their leaders is revealing:
we hear of people and liegemen, afnity, lynages, adherence, retanance,
and nation (in the restricted sense of kinsmen); as for the lords themselves, we
hear of captain of the nation, principal of his nation, tam de natione quam
de familia. Some of these terms were restricted to the western British Isles; but
others were not. And at the root of many of them lies an echo of the vocabulary
of family and kin leadership, some of the oldest features of lordship itself.
The leadership of men dimension of lordship has tended to be underestimated
by historians, partly because it was not tied to specic obligations but rather to
a broad pool of contingency support and partly, no doubt, because in England
in particular it operated within a framework of royal lordship and control. But it
never lay far below the surface of the power structure of medieval society. When
a lord wished to raise an army to display his power (and possibly to serve the
king) it was to this pool of men that he turned. So, for example, did Edmund
Mortimer, earl of March (d. 1381), whose military recruitment for the 1375
Breton expedition has been cited above. So even more obviously were the
forces which the earls and great lords of Scotland and Ireland assembled in what
were in effect lands of war. Even in lands of peace (as England certainly was
in comparison) a lord could bare the teeth of his power, in periods of political
turbulence, by drawing upon the service and loyalty of the men of his country.
Such, for example, was much of the key to the success of Henry Bolingbrokes
coup in summer 1399. The surviving local Lancastrian accounts show vividly
how he deployed the resources and contents of his estates (those of his late father
Brown, Black Douglases, 49.
203
and of his wife) to coordinate the downfall of Richard II. Similarly over a
century earlier, when Edward I had tried to destabilize the power of Humphrey
de Bohun, earl of Hereford, his agents had to report that his efforts were a
failure, for the men of Earl Humphrey had stood solidly with their lord. Earl
Humphrey had won them over in part by conrming their charters of liberties:
he had recognized that the loyal commitment of his meneven in the wake of
royal bluster and bribeswas the return on good lordship.
Even short of such dangerous confrontations, a powerful aristocratic lord
could deploy his pool of supporters to promote his interests in a ruthless fashion.
When the Percies and the Cliffords were preparing for their showdown with
Henry IV in 14034, the constable of Bamburgh reported how their knights
had procured to themselves a great multitude of your men and given them
livery of the crescents [the Percy livery] and have sworn to keep the castles
against you and all others. The Percies were, of course, involved in full-scale
rebellion; but even in much more local disputes the support of the lords
men could prove truly menacing. Thomas Herbert must have been relieved
when a force of forty-ve men and horses rode from Licheld, Maxtoke, and
Atherston to threaten his enemies. By the mid 1440s the situation was even
more volatile: the duke of Buckingham summoned various knights, esquires,
gentlemen, and others from Kent and Surrey to come to meet him and another
group of at least sixty-six persons to ride in support of his cause from Kent to
Essex.
Examples such as these are legion, especially by the time we reach the more
abundant documentary sources of the fteenth century. They are, very properly,
cited in discussions of the onset of civil war and the perversion of the normal
processes of justice. But they also, from the present perspective, cast light on the
sources and assumptions of aristocratic power and on the way that great lords
could manipulate the resources of dependent lordship to further their power
and ambitions. Nor would the magnates have been in the least embarrassed by
proclaiming as much; theirs was a social, even governmental, superiority which
was part of the natural order and, within limits, deserved recognition and respect.
The point was made most diplomatically by Bishop Russell in his draft sermon
in 1483 when he declared that the polityk rule of every region wele ordeigned
stondithe in the nobles. The duke of Norfolk, in a passage already cited, was a
good deal more forthright: We lete yow wete [know] that nexst the kynge our
soverayn lord, be his good grace and lycence, we woll have the princypall rewle
Somerville, Duchy of Lancaster, I, 1368; N. Saul, Richard II (New Haven, 1997), 4078;
Cal. Anc. Corr., 101 (wrongly dated); CPR 12921301, 293.
Royal and Historical Letters during the Reign of Henry the Fourth, King of England and of France,
and Lord of Ireland, ed., F. C. Hingeston, 2 vols. (London, 18601965), I, 2067.
*Staffordshire Record Ofce, D 641/1/2/15; McFarlane, England in the Fifteenth Century,
2345.
204
Lords and Lordship
and governance throwh all this schir. He had doffed his cap to the kings
ultimate authority; but in every other respect what he was claiming was nothing
less (to borrow the Scottish phrase) than the leadership of the men of his lands.
It was a claim which most of his fellow magnates would at least have understood.
We opened this brief review of the orbit of aristocratic dependence at the very
outer limits of such an orbitsimply those who were, directly or indirectly,
within the range of the lords power and appeal. The link of this group was at best
spasmodic and open-ended; it was not based on written or even real contract,
but simply on the magnetic appeal and expectation which a lord exercised on
his own country. Dependence in the minor orbit of the lords authority was
a very different matter. It was often a matter of daily or weekly service, of
regular obligations and regular rewards. These were the troupes of servants and
menialsvalets, pages, grooms, nursemaids, and otherswho provided the
basic services of the household below stairs and attended to the multifarious
domestic needs of the household. They often numbered somewhere between
80 and 100 per noble household. The vast majority were nameless, living in
the household and travelling with it; but the bequests in aristocratic wills show
that occasionally, and not unsurprisingly, a bond of affection grew up between
them and the lord. Higher up the echelon of service, and sometimes bound by
ofcial indentures, came a group of followers who recommended themselves for
their professional skills as cooks, masons, clarioners, trumpeters, bargemen, and
so forth. It was in this spirit, no doubt, that Master William Holme, kings
physician, was retained for life receiving 10 per annum, robes with fur, and
other allowances. Such men were not resident at the lords household on a
regular basis, but within reason were at his beck and call when their services
were required; they wore his livery, especially when on his service, and often
drew a regular annuity or reward. Alongside them we should place key estate and
household ofcials, some of whom, as we have seen, were more or less full-time
professionals, some key local ofcials, and the lords councillors. The livery roll
of the earl of Devon for 13845 included eighty-two names, ranging from seven
knights to three ladies in waiting and six pages. And we need to recall that the
earl of Devon was among the poorer earls and his power was largely localized.
Among those who were in receipt of his livery were fourteen lawyers. It is
a group which is represented on the payroll of all major aristocrats. Many
of the kings leading judges and serjeants-at-law were paid a retaining fee;
so were apprentices at law and attorneys at the central courts; in addition,
Quoted in S. B. Chrimes, English Constitutional Ideas in the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge,
1936), 172; Gairdner (ed.), Paston Letters, I, 230.
CPR 13747, 392.
Cherry, Courtney earls of Devon, 7197.
The classic studies of this topic are, especially, J. R. Maddicott, Law and Lordship: Royal
Justices as Retainers in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century England (Past and Present Supplement
no. 4, 1978) and Ramsay, Retained Legal Counsel.
205
many minor administrative and legal ofcials, including doorkeepers and clerks,
were paid regular, if normally modest, fees in the hope, no doubt, that they
would expedite the lords business. When we learn, to take a single example
from many, that in 1384 among the lawyers who were feed (admittedly
modestly) by the earl of Stafford were some of the leading legal luminaries
of the dayincluding Sir Robert Belknap, Sir Robert Plessington, Sir David
Hanmer, Robert Charletonas well as a clerk of the bench, we realize how
entrenched and extensive was the habit of protecting the aristocracys legal ank
in advance of litigation. It is a practice which attractedespecially in respect
of royal judgesa great deal of contemporary criticism and was substantially
curtailedat least as far as judges were concernedby the end of the fourteenth
century. Historians have, understandably, been equally suspicious: retaining royal
judges and other feed lawyers seems a particularly reprehensible example of the
corruption of the judicial system. It is a topic to which we will return below,
pp. 211 and 21315, when we discuss the charge of maintenance (the claim
that justice was perverted by the abuse of aristocratic inuence). But in the
present context it is worth making two observations. The rst is the self-evident
truth that in a world where disputes were generally settled by litigation and where
the title to land was regularly under challenge, the need to have ready access to
professional advice inevitably entailed the retaining of a corps of legal advisers.
Such advice, and the payment which went with it, did not guarantee success;
but it was an insurance policy which no lord could afford to overlook. Secondly,
most leading judges and lawyers were retained simultaneously by several lords
(and doubtless religious corporations). Their loyalties were rarely exclusively
committed. That did not necessarily guarantee their neutrality; but it needs to
be set alongside the assumption that these men were in the pocket of a particular
lord. The case of Sir David Hanmer, chief justice of the Kings Bench in the
1380s, illustrated the point: his portfolio of fees included retainers from John of
Gaunt, the earl of Stafford, the Charltons of Powys, and Lestranges of Knockin;
he was also a member of the councils of the earls of Arundel and March. Sir David
was certainly ecumenical in the way he dispensed his legal expertise and collected
his rewards.
The various groups which we have hitherto classied under the vague formula
of the lords dependants did indeed form a series of concentric circles which
ranged from those who were daily and menial employees, through those whose
professional services as lawyers, masons, or ofcers made their assistance desirable,
and on to the crowds of supporters from the lords country who answered his
beck and call as the occasion arose. But there was another group of dependants
which has a much higher and distinctive prole in the historiography of the
*Staffordshire Record Ofce D. 641/1/2/2.
For references to the sources for his fees, see Davies, Owain Glyn Dwr, 357 n.18.
206
Lords and Lordship
subject. This group is often known as the lords afnity. It consisted for the
most part of client gentry, men of independent means and standing in their own
localities and counties, but bound by ties of dependence to a lord, or to more
than one lord.
It is not difcult to understand why the lords afnity has been the focus
of such close historiographical attention, especially for late medieval England.
Substantively, it represents the obvious point of entry into the world of dependent
aristocratic bonds, the complex links which connected the various orders of
gentle society, and thereby into the whole vexed issue conjured by the phrase
bastard feudalism and with it the social and political dynamics of late medieval
society. This is why the issue has occupied centre stage especially since the
appearance of K. B. McFarlanes classic study of 1945, followed by a host of
individual and general studies. Compiling lists of members of the afnity,
and thereafter tracing their careers and the web of their connections, gives a
texture to our understanding of the character of political society at county and
regional level, which is impossible for earlier periods; the survival from the late
thirteenth century of a genre of document which species in detailed written
form the obligations of lord and the members of the afnity in a precise and
unprecedented fashion is clearly hugely signicant. The document in question
is, of course, the private indenture for life service in peace and war. More than
150 of these indentures survive in England and Ireland for the two centuries
12781476 and have been gathered together in an exemplary edition. They are
a cardinal source for the study of late medieval lordship.
Paradoxically their very existence may do the historian a measure of disservice.
As with any novel genre of document, we may exaggerate their novelty. As Simon
Walker shrewdly pointed out, an indenture of retinue merely formalized and
recorded, for a specic occasion, the unwritten rules by which they (those retained
by formal written indenture) always lived. Nor need we assume that the formal
indenture was by any means unusual in its usage. Apart from the usual problem of
rates of survival of such private documents, we need to recall that it may not have
been favoured by all aristocratic families or in all areasthough the survival of a
considerable number of examples, and early ones, from parts of English Ireland
is a timely reminder that this area (so often overlooked by English historians) was
within the same social-cultural aristocratic world as England itself and borrowed
its habits quickly and readily. Above all, perhaps, we need to recall that the range
of aristocratic dependence extended far beyond the small numbers of those for
whom formal indentures happen to survive. There were many dependants who
were not formally retained but were in receipt of annuities and occasional gifts.
K. B. McFarlane, Bastard Feudalism, BIHR, 20 (1945), 16180. Among a plethora of other
studies two general overviews may be cited: Bean, From Lord to Patron, and M. Hicks, Bastard
Feudalism (London, 1995). An exceptional book about an exceptional afnity is Walker, Lancastrian
Afnity.
207
To take a late example, it has been pointed out that only 31 out of 141 known
annuitants of the duke of Buckingham (d. 1460) had their tenure of service
regulated by indenture of retinue.
In spite of these caveats and others which may be added to them, the indentures
of retinue do provide a valuable list of what were increasingly considered, on
legal advice, as the basic terms and conditions of service between lord and
dependant. Especially was this so by the second half of the fourteenth century as
such indentures became increasingly, though by no means totally, uniform and
were no doubt copied into seigniorial formularies. They were bilateral contracts
for life service in peace and in war as opposed to short-term contracts for a
specied period or to raise troops for a specic expedition; they laid down the
obligations of the retainer, in peace and war: they specied the rewards due
to the retainer, typically an annuity or rent in land, and the rights of lodging
and food he and some of his followers could claim when he attended the lords
household (bouche de court); they often entered into detail on how the losses
(for instance, of horses) or gains (for example, ransoms) of the retainers were to
be compensated or shared. They were formally validated contracts and as such
enforceable at law. Beneath these broad terms there were, of course, variations
in the conditions: on issues such as the obligations of the retainer, which might
include attendance in parliament, tournaments, or crusades, and in rates of
reward. The latteras with so much else in gentle societybecame increasingly
tied to rank: often 20 or 20 marks (13 6s. 8d.) for a knight and 10 for a
squire, with a proviso that the higher rate might be paid if the status of the
retainer changed.
Beneath the neat formulae of the indentures, there wasone suspectsrather
more negotiation than meets the documentary eye. We catch a fascinating
glimpse, for example, of a would-be retainer petitioning for a contract; but
having to be told that the lord had a waiting list of such requests and that there
was in effect a freeze on such grants for two years. Retainers might also lay
down limitations on their terms of service: in 1317 (no. 15) John Darcy, in
concluding an agreement with Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke (d. 1324),
reserved the right to serve with whichever lord he wished at tournaments, and
added that if the earl wished for his service on such an occasion he was obliged
to offer Darcy as much as he could gain from any other lord. Likewise Sir John
Russel on entering into an indenture with the earl of Warwick in 1383 (no. 71)
limited his obligation to serve the earl in war to those occasions on which the
earl himself served in person. Clearly there was hard bargaining at work. So
much so that occasionally a lord was prompted to re a shot across the bows
Rawcliffe, The Staffords, 23240.
References in brackets in the texte.g. (no. 12)refer to the edition of the indentures by
Michael Jones and Simon Walker, Private Indentures.
208
Lords and Lordship
of a petulant petitioner. In a famous letter of 1478 Lord Strange spelt out the
position unambiguously to Sir William Stonor: I woll not be ovirmastred with
none of my feedmen . . . yf ye dele as ye owght I vrolbe your goode lorde, and
eke I dare better displese yow than ye me. Occasionally, indentures of service
were part of a broader set of agreements: so it was that when Hugh Despenser
retained Sir Peter Ovedale, the deal also involved the marriage of Sir Peter to
Hughs sister (no. 22).
The opportunities and benets of indentures served the interest of both
parties. The lord secured a denitive statement of the retainers obligations. His
ability to attract men of good local standing displayed his pulling power in
the local community; they were his eyes, ears, and supporters within it. The
retainers could be expected, even required, to attend the lord on great public
occasionsparliament or a tournament or other assemblies, again in a visual
reminder of the lords appeal. When he assembled an expeditionary force, at
the core would be retainers permanently bound to him to serve; they in turn
could, and did, serve as his recruiting ofcers, so as Bean has emphasized, a great
household was composed, in part, of some smaller households absorbed within
the greater one where their lords attended their lords. It is at the domestic level
that the role of such retainers is arguably most elusive. We must not assume that
their rights to board and lodging at the lords household were mere formalities.
They no doubt turned up there on the high feasts of the lords social calendar
and whenever they were summoned. They acted, alongside others, as his natural
councillors. It is striking, for example, how often some of the retainers of the
house of Mortimer witness the key transactions of the familyendowing a
monastery or arranging a marriage deal. None of these obligations was peculiar
to indentured retainers but they formed an obvious group on whose services he
could contractually rely.
For the retainer the advantages were even more self-evident. He was no longer
a oater, needing to make an introduction and a request to a lord on each
occasion. He could expect to have rights of access, directly or indirectly, to his
lords patronage and support, and not only for himself but in turn also for his
own dependants and even their dependants. He was in receipt of the lords
livery or badgea visual expression of his attachment and a reminder to all of
the patronage he enjoyed. He would normally be in receipt of an annuity, which
could often be a substantial addition to his income. He could offer his military
support in return for the prospect that his lord would open the sluice gate of
The Stonor Letters and Papers, 12901483, ed. C. L. Kingsford, 2 vols. (London, 1919), II,
no. 230; Kingsfords Stonor Letters and Papers 12901483, ed. C. Carpenter (Cambridge, 1996),
no. 230.
Bean, From Lord to Patron, 40.
The whole web of patronage in this respectincluding cajolery, threat, wheedling, bargains,
etc.is vividly illustrated at an early date in The Letters of Edward Prince of Wales, 13045, ed.
H. Johnstone (Roxburghe Club, London, 1931).
209
royal patronage in his favour. In addition the dependant could tap into the
fund of favours that a great lordor his friendshad at their disposalofces,
ecclesiastical livings, pensions, pardons, legal protection, wardships, marriages,
gifts of timber and venison, leases of estates. Above such individual awards,
and ultimately more central, was simply basking in the favour of a powerful
patron.
Men who were important enough to be the subject of a life contract were
already people of standing in their own local societies or in their own careers
or professions. Detailed studies of some of the best-documented noble afnities
of the periodamong them those of Thomas of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, the
earl of Devon, Elizabeth de Burgh, and the Beauchampshave established the
broad character and recruitment base of such afnities. It is not in the least
surprising that many of them were bound together by family ties and had served
the lord and his descendants over two or three generations. At least seventeen
of the identiable annuitants of Duke Henry of Grosmont (d. 1361) passed
into the service of John of Gaunt, and John of Gaunt in turn built upon afnity
for his son, Henry Bolingbroke, in part from the ranks of his own knights
and esquires. A good number of others were drawn from the lords estates
and even from the broader country which was his sphere of inuence. This
was a natural catchment area and helped to shape the geographical character
of the afnity: the Courtenays, for example, concentrated their recruitment
in Devon and the Percies in Northumberland; but a really great lord such
as Gaunt spread his recruiting net much further, concentrating, it is true,
initially in Lancashire and Yorkshire, but expanding over the decades into
the midlands, East Anglia, and beyond. Between 1370 and 1378when the
evidence is particularly richhis retainers were drawn from twenty-two different
counties.
Recruitment was not conned by history or geography. Ambitious young men
were in search of good lords and vice versa. A letter of recommendation from
an existing member of the afnity might do the trick; so would talks of military
prowess or the recommendation of a powerful patron. Both parties had to work
at the relationshipto establish it and to keep it in good heart. Lords had to
prove their worship as much as retainers their service. If a retainer wished to offer
his services to another, additional lord, there was an etiquette to be observed.
Please do not be displeased, said one lord writing in a revealing letter to another,
that we have retained E. de C. with us, before he came along to you to get your
permission. . . . Rather grant him your good lordship (bone seigneurie) as he very
much wishes to have it. This was the world of the formation of the aristocratic
afnity.
See, for example, the interesting letter published in Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 355.
210
Lords and Lordship
The aristocratic afnity and the indenture of life service have been at the centre
of much of the historical discussion of late medieval lordship and in particular of
what has been characterized, generally pejoratively, as bastard feudalism. They
have been seen as part of the cancer in the body politic, as a manifestation of
the disruptive inuence of so-called over-mighty magnates in the local, regional,
and national life of late medieval society, especially in England. We are not
called upon here to enter into these debates, but in the light of our broad-brush
discussion of the nature and dynamics of aristocratic dependence, some of the
issues deserve an airing from such a perspective, rather than from that of the
historical pathology of late medieval English political society.
Perhaps the oldest charge against the aristocratic afnity is that it represented
the distortion, the bastardization, of the healthy relationship between lord and
man which had been at the heart of the original, pristine, feudal bond. The
reward of land was replaced by that of money; exclusive loyalty to one lord
by cynically multiple commitments to several. These chargesboth of which
have substance in terms of money-rewards and multiple servicehave long
been shown to be based on a false and idealized contrast between feudal and
bastard feudal relationships. Men of the status of indentured retainers were
not Pavlovian dogs, responding unilaterally and exclusively to the command
of a lord. A valued retainer would not nd it difcult to secure contracts of
service, annuities, and rewards from more than one lord; likewise an ambitious
lord would not be inhibited from seeking the service of a valued prospective
retainer even though he had an existing link with another lord. Norcontrary
to common opinionwould such multiple loyalties have put a strain on the
retainers choice of loyalties, at least in normal circumstances. In relatively stable
political societiessuch as late medieval England was for the most partand in
a world where the nodal points of a lords power were geographically dispersed,
multiple loyalties reinforced the complexity of ties of loyalty and service. England,
in particular, was not a collection of zones of exclusive aristocratic power where
a single lord enjoyed a monopoly of control; multiple service was a reection of
the kaleidoscopic and fragmented character of aristocratic lordship.
There is one other point which should be made on this issue. It is tempting
to interpret the careers and behaviour of indentured retainers mainly or even
exclusively in terms of their vertical relationships with their lord, as members
of an afnity. This, after all, is how we come across them in the documents.
Yet this is, of course, a simplication, even a distortion. The retainers were men
of standing and power in their own communities and often on a wider stage.
Normally they would spend only a small proportion of their time in the service
of their lord. Much of their time would be devoted to their own estates and
affairs, dealing with neighbours and tenants, pursuing their family ambitions and
strategies, discharging their duties in the governance of the localities, serving on
Prof. Daviess text at this point reads even if we return to it more fully in a later chapter.
211
campaigns, and answering the commands of the king. It was within this broad
context that their lives were conducted and their decisions made, not in a oneeyed, automatic, knee-jerk obedience to their obligations, however important, to
their lord. Men such as Sir Peter de la Mare, steward and retainer of the earl of
March, or Sir Andrew Sackville, likewise household steward of an earlier earl of
March, or Sir George Felbrigg who is to be found, sometimes simultaneously, in
the service of the duke of Gloucester, the duke of Norfolk, and the earl of March,
had busy, varied careers militarily and governmentally. Their obligations to
their indentured lords were only one of the many strands which went into the
making of their careers and decisions. For the most partand except possibly at
times of high political dramaneither they nor their lords found it difcult to
balance these various claims to their satisfaction.
In the lexicon of the late medieval period, again especially in England, two
other terms have come to be part of the shorthand for the malaise of aristocratic
lordshiplivery and maintenance. Both are topics which need not command
our attention in detail, since they have been the subject of excellent historical
discussions. Attention will be conned to what these two contemporary
explosive issues reveal about perceptions of aristocratic lordship and changing
views of its code of conduct in late medieval society.
Livery, the granting out of cloth by a lord in his distinctive colours and at his
expense to his dependants, was an unexceptional and long-standing feature of
what may be called displayed dependence. As such it was no different from other
gifts and rewards that any lord expected to give and a retainer to receive. Bishop
Robert Grosseteste (d. 1253) of Lincoln was no worshipper at the altar of secular
worldly conventions but he had no doubt of the importance of livery. Order
your knights and your gentlemen who wear your livery (vos robes) that they
ought to wear that same livery every day, and especially at your table and in your
presence to uphold your honour. The distribution of livery, once or twice a year
normally, was one of the key visual rituals of lordship. The quality of the cloth
and its length were strictly regulated by status and reinforced the hierarchical
distinctions between the lords dependants. The lords top ofcialsincluding
his legal advisers and members of his councilwere dressed in his livery; but so
also, for example, were his craftsmen, oarsmen, and musicians. For the lord,
the distribution of liveryincreasingly to be supplemented and replaced by
For de la Mare, see above pp. 41, 45, 46, 130, 185; for Sackville, Saul, Scenes from Provincial
Life, 4981; for Felbrigg, Roskell et al. (eds.), House of Commons.
Bean, From Lord to Patron, 1722 provides a good starting point on livery; so does the
introduction by G. L. Harriss to McFarlane, England in the Fifteenth century. I have also beneted
from reading McFarlanes unpublished lectureshis last set of lectures in Trinity term 1966, in
Magdalen College Oxford archiveson lords and retainers.
Walter of Henleys Husbandry: Together with an Anonymous Husbandry, Seneschaucie, and Robert
Grossetestes Rules, ed. E. Lamond with an introduction by W. Cunningham (London, 1890), 85.
See, for example, Household Accounts, II, 658 (duke of Clarence); Reg. BP, I, 12.
212
Lords and Lordship
collars, badges, caps, and hoods in the later fourteenth centuryrepresented a

considerable investment in the politics of display. The two surviving livery rolls
for our period are for a lord and lady who were not key gures in the power
politics of their day; even so the list of those in receipt of Elizabeth de Burghs
livery in 1340 extended to 272 persons, that of Edward Courtenay, earl of Devon,
to 135 persons. These were paltry numbers as compared to extravagant numbers
of livery distributed by Earl Thomas of Lancaster: he spent 1,080 under this
heading in 131314 and 687 in 131819. His ofcers purchased the cloth
from London merchants and had it transported to Pontefract to be tailored into
liveries. Earl Thomas was spending inordinately in unusual circumstances; so
was Bolingbrokes receiver-general in the summer of 1399 when he distributed
192 gilt collars.
It is not difcult to envisage how a group of liveried followers posed an
intimidating threat. Gangs of such followers hid behind the skirts of their lords
protection and readily abused their status. It is no wonder that Gaunts followers
thought that their badges would give them the earth and the skyhowever
much Gaunt himself may have sought to curb their boasts and activities. Gaunt
at least was the premier lord in the land; but others of lesser status followed suit.
Part of the resentment that built up against Sir Simon Burley, one of Richard IIs
leading chamber knights, in the 1380s was centred on the claim that he issued
220 robes every Christmaswhen he was not a great lord with a great income.
Likewise in parliament in January 1404 the earl of Northumberland admitted
to the gederying of power, and yevyng of liverees in his recent conict with
the king.
By the midlate fourteenth century the indiscriminate distribution of livery
had come to be seen, among the new aristocratic gentle classes, as the unacceptable
and oppressive face of irresponsible lordship and as a root cause of disorder. A
vigorous campaign was mounted in the Commons to limit the practice severely,
leading to the ordinance of 1390 and statutes of 13991401. It was not so much
an attempt to prohibit the distribution of livery as to dene who was able to grant
it (magnates) and who to receive and wear it (knights and esquires retained by
life indenture and resident household servants). What is of interest to us in the
present context is what these debates and arguments reveal about the fracturing
of views about the nature and exercise of aristocratic lordship. The attitude of the
great magnates was brusquely summed up in 1384 in John of Gaunts dismissive
comment that he was well able to control and discipline his own men; it was
echoed again in 1388 when the lords resisted a campaign for the abolition of all
Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, 267; TNA DL 28/1/13 m.4; TNA DL 28/4/1 f.18v.
Thomas Walsingham, Chronicon Angliae, 13221388, ed. E. M. Thompson (R.S., 1874),
125; Knighton, Chron., 500. [PROME, VIII, 231, item 11.]
R. L. Storey, Liveries and Commissions of the Peace, 138890, in The Reign of Richard II,
ed. F. R. H. du Boulay and C. M. Barron (London, 1971), 13152; N. Saul, The Commons and
the Abolition of Badges, Parliamentary History, 9 (1990), 30215.
213
liveries given by badges and hoods. But the Commons and their allies were not to
be browbeaten so easily. They persisted in their campaign and it bore a measure
of legislative fruit. What we catch here is a glimpse of the cross-currents which
inevitably owed in a complex body politic. Both parties respected, and did
not challenge, the power of the vertical claims of aristocratic lordship, properly
exercised, especially on those who were in a menial, contractual, and/or long-term
dependence on a lord. That after all was, as it had been for centuries, part of the
cement of a hierarchical society. But such dependence had to operate both within
a framework of (changing) conventions of behaviour and in a society which
was, at the level of gentry/lairds and above, sophisticated and multi-textured and
far more complex than merely one of aristocratic power and dependence. This
was ever more so with the passage of time, in the wake of far-reaching social,
economic, and political changes. Lordship did not stand still, nor did those who
played the games of power on its stage.
The other word which regularly featured in any analysis of the malaise of late
medieval lordship was maintenance. It referred to the improper and excessive
support which a lord could give to a client or dependant in the pursuit of his
case, legal or otherwise. Here again our interest is centred on what the issue can
reveal about perceptions of late-medieval aristocratic lordship and the framework
of conventions within which it had to operate. Historians have done a great
deal to show that some of the crude claims about the nature and vicissitudes of
maintenance have been taken too much at their face value rather than being
seen as part of contemporary polemic and explored within the context of other
contemporary practices. After all, at one level maintenance was the residuary
legatee of an age-old expectation that the lord would, indeed should, further his
clients quarrelthrough distraint, force, pillage, even feud if necessaryand
should do so as an obligation of honour, especially in a society very considerably
grounded on self-help and help by lord, family, and friends. Then again it is
recognized that the mechanisms of maintenance worked alongside the normal
processes of litigation and court procedure, seeking no doubt to accelerate and
inuence them, but not working directly against them or challenging their
authority.
In spite of the assumptions of the modern outlook, maintenance was not
necessarily regarded as a covert, reprehensible activity. Conducted within the
rules, it was an obligation of good lordship and good clientship. So it was,
for example, that the earl of Ormond in 1356 pledged to help favour, aid
and maintain (juvare, fovere et mauntenere) Sir Richard de Burgh in all his just
quarrels, as a lord ought to help, aid and maintain his knight or his vassal. So
likewise in Scotland what men wanted was supple help mantenans and defence
Prof. Daviess text at this point reads It is a topic to which we will need to return in order to
try to get aristocratic lordship in perspective.
Private Indentures, no. 44.
214
Lords and Lordship
and in return to take the lords part in all his actions. So it was that good
lordship could be translated simply as maintenance.
The evidence of how such maintenance was deployed to support a client is
amply documented both from private correspondence (especially in the fteenth
century) and from seigniorial account rolls. No attempt is made to conceal it.
Bribes, threats, and cajolery were regular parts of the armoury; so was an occasional
display of physical force as a lord or his ofcers or even his council led a troop of
his tenants to attend a local court. More common were rather less intimidating
ploys: labouring juries, and ofcials such as sheriff, distributing gifts including
robes, wine, and food, identifying would-be supporters and possible opponents.
These games were played by all and sundry: cities, such as Norwich and Kings
Lynn, were as willing to pay handsomely in gifts and entertainment to win the
friendship of a great lord as he was anxious to have their support. Such practices
were endemic in a society which lacked a substantial professional bureaucracy,
local and central, and where seeking preference was an acknowledged way of
speeding up procedures and oiling the wheels of a sclerotic machinebe it in
the payment of exchequer debts or in moving along a becalmed judicial process.
So long as all parties played the systemthough, of course, the dice were as
always loaded in favour of the more powerfulthen it might even be said to
be, at least in theory, self-cancelling with one litigants bribe being trumped by
that of his opponent. Contemporaries were certainly fully apprised of how the
system was played: Denholm-Young many years ago published a fascinating
list of the kind of objections which could be used to challenge jurorssuch as
afnity, taking robes, godparenthood, being of the counsel of one of the parties,
among others. Modern sensibilities may be offended at the practices employed,
sometimes from outrage at what is seen as blatant old corruption; but such
charges often isolate maintenance from the legal and social context in which it
operated, including a context in which arbitration (especially by great aristocrats)
was often a better guarantee of the restoration of social peace and a modicum of
good order than the interminable tergiversations and contrived delays of strict
judicial process.
Furthermore, as with livery, so with maintenance there was a recognition
that the system could be abused. Misrule was dangerous to good lordship;
it undermined its reputation. When the lord promised to maintain his client
he always did so scrupulously in his just causes. Thus when the fourth earl of
Douglas gave an annuity in 1407 to Herbert Maxwell he promised to supowelle
and defende [him] in all his ryghtwys cause, als we awe to our man and our
kosyn. Great lords were jealous of their reputations and could be fastidious
about the observance of due procedure and neutrality. The Black Princes ofcers
Wormald, Bonds of Manrent, 23, 669, 73, 102.
Denholm-Young, Seigniorial Administration, 11718.
Grant, Acts of Lordship, no. 12.
215
noted how a justice excused himself from a case because one of the parties was
staying with him, that juries should be empanelled from men who were not allied
to either party, and that since the plaintiffs father was the sheriff, other ofcers
ought to be appointed for the occasion. Indeed, if a client abused the lords
maintenance the consequences could be dire: when John of Gaunt found that
his feodary for Lancashire was guilty of maintenance, he ned him 200 and
banned him from Gaunts court and presence for life.
Much late medieval English historical scholarship on the aristocracy has concentrated on the afnity; on its composition, size, role in local and national
affairs, and its responsiveness to the lords policies and demands. Arguably, it
has received too much attention. Most aristocratic afnitiesin the sense of
men under indentured contract for lifewere not large. That of John of Gaunt,
about which we are exceptionally well informed, was totally unusual in standing
in 1387 at 173, of whom 7 were bannerets, 70 knights, and 96 esquires. This was
the afnity of a prince and titular king. Even Thomas of Lancasterextravagant
in so many respects in his retainingwas not in the same league. Earl Thomas
of Warwick (d. 1401) paid fees only to six knights and thirty-three others.
Nor should we be misled by gures, since the standing of the retained was as
important a measure as were numbers. Equally indicative is the fact that in
generalGaunt again being the outstanding exception in spending 4,000 by
the 1390s on the cost of his retinuemost magnates spent 10 per cent or less
of their income on the grant of annuities and associated costs to their afnity.
That suggests that we should keep a sense of proportion in our discussions of the
afnity as a feature of aristocratic lordship.
Nor would we expect the afnity to have, or demonstrate, a clear corporate
identity. It consisted of a group of individuals recruited into the lords service
at different points in time. Beyond this commitment to him, their lives and
careers had their own trajectories and priorities. But they were drawn from the
same social and geographical orbits, often cooperated as neighbours, kinsmen,
and in local magistracy, and no doubt shared a pride in serving the same lord.
The claims that the afnity made on a dependants time and service would be
determined by individual circumstanceshis personal standing, his personal
and military ambitions, the openings afforded to him. Our tendency, perhaps, is
to underrate these claims and the element of real personal affection and devotion
which could underpin them. When Sir Richard Barley, the marshal of John of
Gaunts army in Castile, asked to be buried in a tomb opposite that of his lord in
(Old) St Pauls church, or when Robert Swillington left Gaunt his best harness
of gold and silver and his best horse, or when the widow of Sir Edward St John
Reg. BP, II, 934.
Gaunts letter dates from 1380. Reg. J.G. II, no. 302.
The evidence is admirably summarized, as with so many other topics discussed here, in
Harriss, Shaping the Nation, 18993.
216
Lords and Lordship
bequeathed a great gilt-covered cup embellished with her fathers arms to the earl
of Arundel and a matins book to his eldest son, we catch a glimpse of the world
which lies beyond the aridities of the formal indentures of retinue.
Furthermore, though the afnity was for much of the time a loose body of
followers, it did enjoy moments when it operated corporately. It would do so,
no doubt, on grand social occasions of the Christian calendar when the lord
would summon his dependants to dine and lodge with him, or when he set out
for a tournament, parliament, a wedding or a funeral. More menacingly, the
onset of political trouble or a military expedition might prompt the retinue to be
summoned to display the lords standing. In 1378 Earl Edmund of March gave
fourteen days notice to his retinue (pro retinencia suo munienda) before he set
out for Scotland; in the stressful circumstances of the early years of Henry IVs
reign, the earl of Stafford summoned his retinue to come to help him to suppress
Thomas Hollands revolt and then to contribute to campaigns in Scotland and
Wales; or, to cite a nal example, in 1436 the earl of Warwick travelled from
Abergavenny to have discussions for twelve days with his retinue (cum retinencia
sua) prior to his journey to Flanders. Failure to respond to such summonses
could lead to the cancellation of the contract and the annuity: some of the Black
Princes dependants found that to their cost and so did those who failed to turn
up to support the king at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403.
All in all, we should perhaps not underestimate the signicance of the afnity
as a window into the world of aristocratic dependence. It does at least provide
a fairly secure documentary foothold in a world of suggestive guesses. But one
needs to recognize that what the afnity represents is the tip of an iceberg of
extensive formal and informal circles of dependence, reward, and service which
were a central feature of late medieval lordship, both aristocratic and royal. If
those circles were effectively and sensitively managed by the lord and his mnage,
and if tensions between individuals and groups within and across the lords
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demands that we now nally turn.
217
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Index
Abergavenny (Mon.) castle and town of 113,
152, 216; lordship of 72, 76; see also
Beauchamp
acclamation 199
advowry men 198
afnity 33, 191, 201; see also retinue
Agincourt 116, 128
Agnes Hastings 61 n. 7
Albany, duke of, see Stewart
Aldbourne (Wilts.) 107, 180
Aldersgate (London) 88
Aldgate (London) 88
Alexandria 119
Alice Chaucer, duchess of Suffolk (d. 1475) 78
Alice Fitzalan, countess of Kent (d. 1415) 152,
153
Alice Lacy, countess of Lancaster (d. 1348) 26
Algeciras 118, 137
Altofts (Yorks.) 107
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 181
Angus, earldom of 23, 55, 133
Anne Beauchamp, Lady Despenser 152
Anne of Woodstock, countess of Stafford
(d. 1438) 41, 67, 165 n. 26
annuity 68, 148; as reward for supporters
199, 201, 20410, 21416; role in
recruitment of armies 121, 123, 131
Aquitaine 89; prince of, see Edward the Black
Prince
Arbroath, declaration of 23
Arden (Warw.) 66
Argyll, 133; see also Campbell
Arundel (Fitzalan), Thomas, archbishop of
Canterbury (13967 and 13991414) 9
Arundel (Sussex), castle and town 34 69, 76,
85, 91, 93, 111, 193; earls and earldom
of 25, 85, 93, 189, 216; see also, Fitzalan
Ashperton (Heref.) 155
Atherston (Warw.) 203
Atholl, earldom of 23, 26, 55
attorneys 88, 163, 205; see also lawyers
audit, auditorial reports 36, 43, 104, 183,
1868, 1924; auditors 41, 86, 164,
167, 176
Audley, Hugh, earl of Gloucester (d. 1347) 53,
155, 165; Lady Audley 67
Austria 18
Avallon 118
Bache, Simon 104 n. 77

Badenoch (Highland) 173; lord of, see Stewart,
Alexander
badges and collars 323, 65, 73, 121, 208,
21213
Badlesmere, Sir Bartholomew (d. 1322) 37,
38, 144, 1545
Bala (Gwynedd) 200
Bamburgh (Northumberland) 203
Bangor, bishop of 67
Bann, river 35
banquets, feasts 44, 66, 68, 70, 76, 93, 96, 97
baptism, christening 67, 70, 90, 98
Bardeld (Essex) 107, 187
Barley, Sir Richard 215
Barnard Castle (co. Durham) 108
Basset, Ralph (d. 1390) 30
bastard feudalism 5, 65, 206, 210
Batter, John 175
Bean, J. M. W. 10, 208
Beauchamp, Joan, see Joan Fitzalan; John,
lord of Beauchamp and baron of
Kidderminster (d. 1388) 59, 75;
Richard, earl of Worcester (d. 1422)
146; Sir William, lord of Abergavenny
(d. 1411) 29, 42, 71, 72, 146, 156
Beauchamp, earls of Warwick: Guy
(d. 1315) 44, 98
Richard (d. 1439) 41, 75, 81, 110 n. 98,
146, 216; approach to management
70, 184, 185; as military commander
118, 123, 138
Thomas (d. 1369) 31, 119, 146
Thomas (d. 1401) 65, 71, 146; see also
Warwick
Beauchamp, family of 13, 25, 38, 85, 108;
administration of estates 162, 163, 186,
187, 188, 190, 194; afnity 201, 209;
cultivation of image and history 31, 32,
33, 75, 146
Beaufort, John, earl of Somerset, marquis of
Dorset (d. 1410) 59, 162; John, duke of
Somerset (d. 1444) 128; Thomas, earl of
Dorset, duke of Exeter (d. 1426) 60, 105
Beaufort, family of 52, 54, 61
beds 32, 63, 89, 92
Belknap, Sir Robert (d. 1401) 205
bequests, see wills
242
Index
Bere, Sir John de la 130

Bergerac 61, 128
Berkeley (Glocs.), 37
Berkeley, Thomas, Lord (d. 1321) 95, 155;
Thomas, Lord (d. 1361) 66, 136, 162;
Thomas, Lord (d. 1417) 130
Bermingham, John, earl of Louth (d. 1329) 57
Berwick-upon-Tweed 122
Bigod, Roger, earl of Norfolk (d. 1306) 25,
42, 53, 83, 84, 100, 183, 194
Bisham abbey (Berks.) 72, 73
Bishopsgate (London) 88
Bisson, Thomas 2
Black Prince, see Edward, the Black Prince
Blanche, duchess of Lancaster (d. 1368) 75, 76
Blickling, Roger 109
Bloch, Marc 1, 2
Blyth (Notts.) 135
Bohun, earls of Hereford: Humphrey
(d. 1299) 43, 203; Humphrey
(d. 1322) 72; Humphrey (d. 1361) 74,
150; Humphrey, earl of Hereford,
Northampton, and Essex (d. 1373) 26,
101, 137, 187
Bohun, William, earl of Northampton
(d. 1360) 72, 162
Bohun, family of 7, 13, 25, 91, 92, 108, 188;
estate management 163, 165, 179, 184,
190
The Boke of Noblesse 116
Bolingbroke (Lincs.) 180
Bolingbroke, Henry, see Henry IV
bond-land, see demesne
Bordesley abbey (Worcs.) 98
Boutruche, Robert 2, 4, 6
Bower, Walter (d. 1449) 7 n. 16, 48
Braose, family of 64
Brecon (Powys) 42, 79, 80, 174, 199; lord of,
see Bohun; men of, loyalty to Bohun 43,
179; use of resources from 108, 168, 173,
190
Breton expedition (1375) 46, 124, 129, 202
Brian, family of 157
Bridgewater (Dorset) 180
Bridgwater (Somerset) 38
Bristol 90, 106, 109, 135, 152
Brittany, 131; see also Breton expedition
Bromeld and Yale, lordship of (Salop) 15, 79,
152, 173, 198, 200
Bromwich, Sir John 130
Brotherton, see Thomas of Brotherton
Brown, Michael 134
The Bruce 47
Bruce, family of 22, 23
Bruce, Edward, earl of Carrick, king of
Ireland (d. 1318) 44; Robert, earl of
Carrick (d. 1304) 133; Robert, king of

Scotland, see Robert I
Bruges 129
Brugge, Walter, archdeacon of Meath, canon of
York 186, 188
Brunner, Otto 17
Brut chronicle and legend 34 n. 32, 35
Buchan, earl of, see Stewart
Buckingham, duke of, see Stafford; earl of, see
Thomas of Woodstock
Buke of the Howlat 35
Bungay (Suffolk) 84, 108
Burgh, family of 24, 151, 153, 189
Burgh, earls of Ulster: Richard (d. 1326) 14,
46, 48, 49, 68, 113, 124; biography
435; marriage strategies 70, 153;
William (d. 1333), 27, 46, 66; see also
Ulster
Burgh, Elizabeth, see Elizabeth Burgh; John
(d. 1313) 153; Maud, see Maud Burgh;
Sir Richard 214; Theobald 153;
Walter 153
Burley, Sir Simon (d. 1388) 156, 190, 212
Burtscher, Michael 31 n. 21
Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk) 66, 171
Butler, family of 132
Butler, Edmund, earl of Carrick (d. 1321) 68
Butler, James, earl of Ormond (d. 1382) 68,
214; see also Ormond
Caerleon (Mon.) 37, 180
cain 160
Caithness, earldom of 23
Calais 135, 136
Caldicot (Gwent) 85, 87
Calveley, Sir John 71
Campbell, family of, lords of Argyll 6, 133
Cantelou, Nicholas (d. 1355) 156;
Sir William, 146
Canterbury (Kent) 71, 72
Canterbury, archbishops of, see Arundel,
Courtenay, Stafford
captain of the nation 202
Cardiff 90, 109
card games 96
Carlow 173
Carmelites, house of, London 97
Carpenter, Christine xi, xii
Carrick (Scotland), earldom of 23, 44, see also
Bruce
Carthusians 100
Cas Troggy (Gwent) 84
Castile 215
castles 33, 76, 190, 203; administrative
centres 37, 189, 190; construction and
domestic arrangement of 44, 48,
Index
82113, 138; focal points of lordship 78,
79, 118, 125, 173, 180 venues for feasts,
tournaments 65, 66, 69, 136
Castle Philippa, see Shrawardine
cattle 44, 90, 108, 132, 153, 160, 161, 163,
see also commorth
Caw (Salop) 193
Cedewain (Powys) 130
chamberlain 103, 104, 184, 187
Champagne 201
chancellor 66, 112, 187, 190
Chandos, Sir John (d. 1370), herald of 117
Charlemagne, 91
Charleton, Robert 205
Charlton, family of, 205
Charlton, John, of Powys (d. 1360) 35, 155,
charters, 16, 17, 33, 37, 122, 134, 147, 166,
203; as source for study of lordship before
c.1250 8, 9, 31, 142, 197
Chastellain, Georges 102
Chedworth, Thomas 46 n. 63, 113
Cheney, Roger 189
Chepstow 84, 106, 107, 109; see also Strigoil
chess 89, 96
Chester 53, 108, 121, 171, 174; earl of, see
Edward
chevauchee 119, 123, 125,
Cheyette, Frederic 2
Cheyney, Sir Hugh 123
Chichester (Sussex) 47
Chirk, lordship of (Salop) 144, 152; see also
Mortimer
chivalry 11, 31, 39, 40, 44, 48, 94; literary
aspects 95, 98; military aspects 689,
117, 135, 136; see also Court of Chivalry
Cilgerran (Cardigan) 29
Cistercians 100, 162
Clare (Suffolk) 45, 90, 165, 180 n. 5, 181
Clare College Cambridge 100
Clare, family of 25, 44, 143, 153, 187, 194
Clare, earls of Gloucester: Gilbert (d. 1295)
27, 70; Gilbert (d. 1314) 153, 158;
Richard (d. 1262) 92
Clare, Elizabeth, see Elizabeth, lady of Clare
Claverdon (Warw.) 66
Clee, John 88
Clemsland (Cornwall) 193
Clerkenwell (London) 70
Clifford family 151, 203
Clifford, lordship of (Wales) 107
Clifton, Sir John 131
Clinton, William, earl of Huntingdon
(d. 1354) 141; Sir William 29
Clopton, Sir Walter (d. 1400) 131
Clowne, William, abbot of Leicester
(d. 1378) 9
Clun, lordship of (Salop) 79, 111, 1923
243
Cobham, Reginald, Lord (d. 1361) 117

Coleraine (Derry) 35
Colne priory (Lancs.) 74
commendation 198
commorth 160
competence (in land) 11, 64, 141, 162
Comyn, family of 22, 23, 55
Connacht 45, 181
Constance of Castile, duchess of Lancaster
(d. 1394) 72
Contrariants 36
conveth 161
Conway, Sir Henry 68
cornage 160
Cornwall 78, 121; archdeacon of, 200; earl,
duke of, see Edmund, Edward
coronation 23, 30, 199
Coucher Book 38
council, 45, 71, 87, 94, 109, 112, 148, 152;
membership 204, 205, 208, 211, 214;
military aspects; 124, 130; presence of
lord at 41, 66, 184, 1923; role of in
administering estates 163, 169, 1746,
1848; royal 11, 21, 46, 82, 88 187,
188
Courtenay, earls of Devon 25, 33, 38, 142,
191, 209: Edward (d. 1419) 98, 212;
Hugh (d. 1377), 60; see also Devon
Courtenay, William, archbishop of Canterbury
(138196) 9
courts: bouche de court 124, 207; manorial
198; seigniorial 41, 65, 85, 86, 91, 94,
97, 103, 104, 112, 16975, 184, 186,
189, 21315; royal 14, 22, 43, 82, 90,
96, 132, 163; suit of court 78
court rolls 9, 36, 41, 167, 169, 171, 182, 193
Court of Chivalry 32
Coventry (Warw.) 135
Cranbourne (Dorset) 180
Crawford, earldom of 26
Crecy 118
Crouch, David 8
crown xi, 80, 104, 127, 174, 217
crusade 32, 70, 97, 1189, 1378, 207
Cyprus, 92, 137
Dacre, Ralph 151; William 151
Dagworth, Sir Thomas (d. 1350) 119
Dalkeith (Midlothian) 147, 173; lord of, see
Douglas
Darcy, Sir John (d. 1347) 207; Philip
(d. 1333) 66; Philip, Lord Darcy
(d. 1399) 131
Dauntsey, Sir Stephen 193
David II, king of Scotland (132971) 26, 202
David, earl of Huntingdon (d. 1219) 14, 173
Dee, river (Scotland) 48
244
Index
demesne 12, 82, 159, 170; demesne

farming 83, 1078, 1635, 167, 169,
187, 194
Denbigh, lordship of 1601, 180, 191
Denholm-Young, N. 4, 214
Desmond, earls of, see Geraldines
Despenser, family of 25, 152; Edward, lord of
Glamorgan (d. 1375) 16; Hugh the
younger (d. 1326) 41; Sir Hugh
(d. 1349) 12, 75, 128, 152, 208
Devon, 98, 125, 157, 191; earls, countesses
of, 33, 60, 62, 137, 204, 209, see also
Courtenay
dice, games of 96
Dieppe 28
Dinas (Dyfed) 130
Diss (Norfolk) 108
Domesday Book 181
Dorset 30, 163, 174, 180; duke, earl of, see
Beaufort
Douglas, family of 16, 26, 38, 48, 120, 128,
134, 214; cultivation of image and
history 32, 35
Douglas, earls of: Archibald, the Grim
(d. 1400) 47, 48, 49, 134; James
(d. 1388) 16, 47, 117, 202; William
(d. 1384) 26, 85, 134, 202
Douglas, Sir James (d. 1330) 32, 47; James,
lord of Dalkeith (d. 1420) 30, 99, 166
dower 111, 149; see also jointures
Drayton (Warw.) 30
Drury, Roger 131
Dublin 23, 27, 66, 68; marquis of, see Vere
Duby, Georges 3
Dugdale, William 5
Dunbar, earls, earldom of 23, 55, 56
Duncan MacDuff, earl of Fife (d. 1353) 55,
165, 170
Dunstable (Beds.) 135, 136
Dunstanburgh (Northumberland) 87, 180
Durham, bishop of 32; liberty of 172
Dyffryn Clwyd, see Ruthin
Earl Marshal, see Mowbray, John
Earnwood (Salop) 154
East Anglia 43, 45, 46, 79, 143, 174, 181,
193, 209
Edeligion (Mon.) 36
Edmund of Almaine, earl of Cornwall
(d. 1300) 25, 60, 165, 183
Edmund, earl of Lancaster (d. 1296) 135, 159
Edmund of Langley, earl of Cambridge, duke
of York (d. 1402) 29, 52, 70
education, educational bequests 35, 47, 945,
96, 100
Edward I, king of England (12721307) 27,

28, 31, 39, 79, 113, 135, 200; promotion
of relatives 60, 68, 144 ; relationship with
nobles 42, 43, 44, 69, 124, 143, 179, 203
Edward II, king of England (130727) 11,
25, 28, 39, 68, 122, 143, 154, 181
Edward III, king of England (132777) 46,
62, 103, 189, 195; promotion of
relatives 26, 29, 69, 151; relationship
with nobles 12, 256, 28, 30, 59, 61, 94,
141, 143; wars of 11718, 119
Edward, the Black Prince, earl of Chester, duke
of Cornwall, prince of Wales, prince of
Aquitaine (d. 1376) 26, 45, 59, 96, 111,
199; funeral of 713; management of
estates 367, 40, 66, 167, 174, 184,
1868, 192, 198200, 214; as
warlord 117, 118, 121, 125
Edward, duke of York (d. 1415) 90, 95, 99,
1089, 116, 128, 165
Eleanor, countess of Leicester (d. 1275) 100
Eleanor Bohun, duchess of Gloucester
(d. 1400) 75, 87, 91, 92, 93, 98 101
Eleanor Clare (d. 1337) 34
Elgin cathedral 133
Elizabeth Badlesmere, countess of
Northampton (d. 1356) 154, 155
Elizabeth Berkeley, countess of Warwick
(d. 1422) 97
Elizabeth Bohun, countess of Arundel
(d. 1385) 72
Elizabeth Burgh, countess of Ulster (d. 1363),
wife of Lionel of Clarence 57, 69, 151
Elizabeth [lady of] Clare (widow of John
Burgh) (d. 1360), 100, 149; afnity
of 209, 212; domestic arrangements and
estate management of 63, 88, 90, 107,
108, 1635, 167, 174, 184, 188, 194,
195; funeral of 73, 75; marriages and
descendants of 83, 143, 153
Elizabeth of Lancaster (d. 1425), daughter of
John of Gaunt 156
Elizabeth Mohun, countess of Salisbury
(d. 1415) 73
Elmham, Sir William 71
Elsing (Norfolk) 12
Ely (Cambs.), bishop of 89; liberty of 171
enfeoffments to use 72, 140, 1478
England, English: composition and size of
nobility in 11, 22, 1424; crown-noble
relations 5960, 126; dispersed nature of
estates of nobility 13, 278, 82, 17980;
economic exploitation and value of
lordship in 40, 16372; military aspects
of lordship in 1279; noble self-image
Index
and tastes in 30, 457, 746, 923, 95,
98; sources relating to lordship in 13, 31,
338, 163; study of lordship in 16, 8,
14, 17, 133, 1401, 160, 197, 215;
warfare in the British Isles and with
France 11920, 1312, 1345
English, Barbara 8
entails 47, 140, 1458, 163
entry ne, 169, 198
Erpingham, Sir Thomas (d. 1428) 30
esquires 39, 124, 136; as members of afnities
201, 203, 209, 212, 215; in noble council
and households 90, 105, 107, 185
Essex 108, 162, 203; earl and earldom of, 26;
see also Bohun
Etchingham (Sussex) 12
Etchingham, Sir William 12
Ettrick Forest (Borders) 168
Evesham, abbot of 67
Ewyas Lacy, lordship of (Heref.) 130, 143
Exeter (Devon) 78, 135; dukes, earls of, see
Beaufort
Eye, church of (Suffolk) 78
Faith, Rosamund 171
falconry 82, 96
fealty, oath of 7, 789, 169, 198200
Feast of the Swans, (1306) 68
feasts, see banquets
Felbrigg, Sir George 63, 188, 211
Ferrers, family 37; Lady Ferrers, see Margaret
Percy
Fife, earl, earldom of, see Duncan
Fish, sheries 1057, 109, 166, 16870
Fitzalan, family of 13, 25, 42, 79, 85, 88, 152,
165, 173, 192
Fitzalan, earls of Arundel:
Richard (d. 1376): marriage dealings 28,
146, 151, 152, 153; wealth 45, 76,
111, 162, 194; will 31, 64, 150
Richard (d. 1397) 69, 73, 131; conict
with Richard II 65, 86, 91, 96;
management of estates 87, 164, 191,
1923, 205; will 72, 74, 77, 92
Thomas (d. 1415) 110, 128
Fitz Pain, Robert 30, 144, 154
Fitz Thomas, John, earl of Kildare, see
Geraldines of Offaly
Fitz Walter, Walter, (d. 1406) 124, 128
Fitzwarin, Fulk (d. 1374) 25
Flanders 14, 128, 216
Fleet, prison (London) 76
Forde, William 188
forest, rights of tenants in 43, 140; seigniorial
exploitation of 82, 125, 162, 16670,
176; foresters 167, 190; see also hunting
245
formulary books 198, 207

Forncett (Norfolk) 834
Fortescue, Sir John (d. 1479) 127, 128
Fossier, Robert 1
Fotheringay (Northants.) 27
Fountains (Yorks.), abbot of 109
Frame, Robin 24, 44
Framlingham (Suffolk) 84, 96, 106, 107, 108,
109, 110
France, French, 104, 184; study of lordship
in 1, 2, 3, 201; language of lordship 94,
98; negotiations with 46, 48 129; war
with 30, 41, 90, 110, 111, 11718, 119,
138, 147, 184; war prots 128 see also
Agincourt; chevauchee; Crecy
franchises 2, 12, 36, 181
Freskin the Fleming 23
Froissart, Jean (d. 1404) 48, 117
funerals 47, 714, 76, 90, 216
Furness and Whalley (Lancs.), abbot of 125
furnishings, furniture 32, 64, 89, 923; see
also beds; tapestries
Gaelic society 1313, 161, 201
galloglass 133
Galloway 47, 48
Gamelyn 91
gardens 87
Garioch (Scotland) 14, 173
Gascony 14, 44, 126; see also wine
Geneville (Joinville), family 83; Peter 143
gentry 5, 10, 11, 78, 93, 142, 147; relations
with lords 181, 190, 201, 202, 206,
213
George, St 91, 93
Geraldines of Desmond 24, 27, 44, 56, 120,
128, 151; Maurice Fitz Thomas, earl of
Desmond (d. 1356) 66, 132
Geraldines of Offaly, 24, 27, 44, 56; John Fitz
Thomas, earl of Kildare (d. 1316) 14, 44
Germany 1, 2, 3, 6, 18, 200
Gilsland (Cumbria) 151
Glamorgan 15, 27, 158, 173, 179; lord of, see
Clare; Despenser
Glanvill 15
Gloucester 24, 44, 65, 90, 106; dukes, earls of,
see Audley; Clare; Thomas of Woodstock
Glyn Dwr,
Owain (d. c.1416) 138
Gogan, Ralph 84
Good Parliament (1376) 46, 130
Goodrich (Heref.) 13, 103, 106
Gower 173
gowns, robes 65, 73, 93, 104, 204, 212, 214;
see also, livery
Grandison, Sir Piers 155
Great Revolt (1381) 36, 89, 122, 167, 176
246
Index
Green, Judith 8
Greenway, Diana 8
Grey, family of 41, 156, 167; Henry 156;
Sir John (d. 1323) 156; Reginald, lord of
Ruthin (d. 1388) 29, 156, 174; Robert
son of Richard of Codnor, 30; see also
Fitz Pain, Robert
Greyfriars, London 100
Grosseteste, Robert, bishop of Lincoln
(d. 1253) 58, 211
Guildford (Surrey) 135
Guy, Sir Thomas 71
Guy of Warwick 31, 33
Gwent 15
Hakeluyt, Leonard 123
Halton (Cheshire) 191
Hamilton, John 30
Hamstead Marshall (Berks.) 84
Hanley (Worcs.) 90, 109
Hanmer, Sir David, chief justice of the Kings
Bench (d. 1388) 193, 205
Harvey, Barbara 11
Hastings, family of 25, 30, 135; earls of
Pembroke: John (d. 1375) 29, 61, 72, 75,
116, 156; John (d. 1389) 71, 72, 135,
152
Hastings, Sir Hugh (d. 1347) 12, 124
Haughmond abbey (Salop) 192
Hay, Gilbert (d. c.1465) 170
Hebrides 133
Henry III, king of England (121672) 13
Henry IV, (Henry Bolingbroke, duke of
Hereford), king of England (13991413);
lifestyle and interests, 63, 88, 967, 98,
109, 111; marriage 70, 101; participation
in crusades and tournaments 1367;
retinue and lordship 79, 80, 89, 90, 103,
104, 174 186, 202, 209, 212; as
king 110, 126, 203, 216
Henry V, king of England (141322) 110,
119, 138
Henry VI, king of England (142261) 138
Henry, earl of Lancaster (d. 1345) 52, 66, 194
Henry of Grosmont, duke of Lancaster
(d. 1361) 4, 59, 61, 209; management of
estates and retinue; 82, 89, 209 marriage
alliances 70, 136; military career 118,
123, 1278 religious interests 62, 74, 77,
83, 94, 95, 99 101
Henry of Huntingdon 8
heralds, heraldry 312, 35, 36, 38, 39, 64,
117, 136
Herbert, Thomas 203
Hereford 70, 118, 130, 135, 142, 185; bishop
of 46; countess of, see Joan; duke, earls
of 71, 188, 199; see also Bohun; Henry IV
Heron, William, Lord Say (d. 1404) 127

Herrschaft 1, 2, 3
Hertford 82, 87, 89, 93, 135, 136
Higham Ferrers (Northants.) 82, 107, 125
Highlands, Scottish, 7, 120, 122, 133, 160
Hildeburgh, Thomas 187
Hilton, Rodney 11, 170
Holborn (London) 89
Holland, earls of Huntingdon and dukes of
Exeter: John (d. 1400) 96, 116; John
(d. 1447), 128
Holland, earls of Kent: Thomas
(d. 1397), 153; Thomas (also duke of
Surrey) (d. 1400) 216
Holland, Isabel, mistress of John of Warenne,
earl of Surrey (d. 1347) 28
Holme, Master William, kings physician 204
Holmes, George 166
Holt (Norfolk) 111, 173
Holy Land 138
homage, act of 7, 15, 23, 789, 1989, 201
Hopedale (Flintshire) 166
horngeld 160
Hotspur, see Percy
House of Commons 185
household 4, 6, 12, 13, 46, 151; accounts 9,
13, 36, 63, 136, 183, 184; constitution
and support 82113, 1635, 1858,
208, 211; military aspect 120, 125, 126
servants 65, 71, 74, 204, 212;
travelling 70, 152
Howell, Oliver 68
Hungerford, Sir Thomas, M.P., Speaker of the
House of Commons (d. 1397) 185
hunting, chase 31, 824, 90, 93, 94 957,
99, 102, 116, 118, 166; lodge 65, 84
Huntingdon, earl of, see Clinton, David,
Holland
indentures of retinue xi, 123, 129, 186,
197216; nature and use of
documents 9, 17 1201; specications of
service 127, 130, 135, 137
investiture 60, 201
Ireland, Irish xi, xii, 2, 5, 10, 60, 98, 155, 206;
aristocratic estates in 12, 13, 14, 27, 143,
145, 147, 153, 179; castles and their
modication in 82, 86; economic
exploitation and value of estates in 158,
174; Gaelic (Celtic) society in 13, 17,
161, 201; nature and reputation of
lordship in 15, 24, 28, 113, 141, 160,
172, 1767, 1812, 189, 198; size and
composition of resident nobility; 224,
25, 437; visits to and military campaigns
in 65, 71, 117, 120, 1225, 128, 1313,
135, 186, 202
Index
Isabel Despenser, countess of Warwick
(d. 1439) 75
Isabella Fortibus, countess of Devon and
countess of Aumale (d. 1293) 41, 165
Jerusalem 91, 137
jesters 91, 97
Joan of Acre, countess of Gloucester
(d. 1307) 69, 70, 155
Joan of Bar, countess of Surrey (d. 1361) 28,
149
Joan Bohun, countess of Hereford
(d. 1419) 149
Joan Fitzalan, lady of Abergavenny
(d. 1435) 78, 163; lifestyle 87, 97;
management of estates 42, 113, 149;
provisions of will 734, 76, 78, 163
Joan Fitz Pain 30
Joan Geneville, countess of March
(d. 1356) 143
Joan de Munchensi, countess of Pembroke
(d. 1307) 69, 99, 103, 106
Joce, John 130
John, duke of Berry (d. 1416) 91
John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster
(d. 1399) 10, 32, 45, 111, 117, 175, 180,
198, 205, 212; lifestyle 64, 66, 82, 84,
867, 89, 957; management of estates
and household 36 40, 103, 104, 105,
107, 109, 110, 112, 163, 164, 165, 183,
187, 188, 192, 195; marriage alliances
and provision for family 67, 70, 72, 75,
76, 88, 151, 156, 162, 209; as member of
royal family 25, 29, 62; provisions of
will 71, 74; religious concerns 99100,
101; as warlord 122, 123, 125, 126, 215
John Fitz Thomas, see Geraldines of Offaly
John son of the duke of Brabant 69
John of Salisbury 31
jointures 109, 111, 140, 149, 153, 163
Joinville, see Geneville
joust 32, 48, 64, 68, 70, 97, 99, 116, 118,
1357; see also tournament
judges 46, 2045
Kenilworth (Warw.) 83, 85, 86, 87, 89, 93,
135, 167
Kenneth Mor 7 n. 16
Kennington (Surrey) 135, 136
Kent, 203; earl and earldom of 152; see also
Holland
kerne, caterans 1323, 135
Kidderminster, baron of, see Beauchamp
Kidwelly (Dyfed) 86
Kildare, earls, earldom, liberty of 24, 27, 44,
172, 173; see also Geraldines of Offaly
Kildrummy (Aberdeenshire) 79
247
Kilkenny 27, 172

Kilmainham (Dublin) 66
Kimbolton (Cambs.) 108
kindred, lineage groups 44, 198, 202
Kings Bench 193, 205
Kings Lynn (Norfolk) 137, 214
Kingstone (Heref.) 130
Knaresborough (Yorks.) 83, 122
knights, 30, 67, 83, 95, 198; ceremony of
knighting 44, 48, 689; position relative
to nobles 10, 11, 12, 25, 39, 58, 91, 106,
201; profession of arms 11619, 123,
1356; as retainers 33, 65, 71, 75, 84,
94, 102, 103, 107, 188, 191, 2034, 207,
209, 21112, 213, 215
labour service 165, 167
Lacy, family of 25, 37, 53, 183, 193; Henry,
earl of Lincoln (d. 1311) 26, 107, 162;
Sir Hugh 68; Sir Walter 68
lairds 10, 48, 202, 213
Lancashire 123, 160, 180, 209, 215
Lancaster 121, 171, 174, 180, 191; dukes,
earls of see Edmund; Henry; Henry of
Grosmont; John of Gaunt; Thomas
Lancelot 91
lands of peace 202,
lands of war 24, 48, 122, 202
Lanercost priory (Cumbria), chronicle of 41
n. 52, 151 n. 27
Langford, Sir Nicholas 71
lawyers 2, 21, 140, 144, 163, 170, 2045
Leake, treaty of 44
Ledbury (Heref.) 90, 109
Leicester, 9, 70, 77, 82, 83, 94, 99, 100, 118,
136, 180, 181, 185; earldom of 201; see
also Montfort
Leland, John (d. 1552) 86
Lennox, earldom of 23, 55
Lestrange, family, of Knockin 205
Leventhorp, John 186
Lewyn, John 87
Leyser, Karl 6
Liber Niger de Wigmore 38
liberties, 2, 24, 101, 134, 166, 1717, 179,
189, 203; see also franchises
Lincoln, earl of, see Lacy
Lincolnshire 125, 193
lineage 31, 142; lineage groups, see kindred
Lingen, Sir Ralph 130
Lingeld (Surrey) 117
Lionel of Antwerp, earl of Ulster and duke of
Clarence (d. 1368) 45, 57, 69, 143, 151,
187, 189
Lithuania 131
livery 33, 63, 65, 72, 89, 97, 103, 121, 203;
cost of 104, 204, 208; criticism of
248
Index
livery (cont.)
distribution of, 22, 2123, 214; livery
rolls, 204, 212
Livre de Seyntz Medecines 62, 74, 94, 101
Lochmaben (Dumfries and Galloway) 117
London 37, 70, 78, 84, 100, 212; bishop
of, 46; nobles residences in 32, 63, 82,
889, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 1079, 185,
188; merchants 63, 104, 11011, 136,
165, 212; as place of burial 71, 74, 75;
see also Tower of London
Lothian 161
Louth, earl of, see Bermingham
Lucy, Sir William 113
Ludgate, prison (London) 76
Ludlow (Salop) 36, 67, 83, 130, 143, 180
Lusignan, Pierre, king of Cyprus and Jerusalem
(135869) 137
Luttrell, Sir Geoffrey (d. 1345) 70
Luttrell Psalter 90
McFarlane, K. B. xi, xii, 4, 7, 11, 21,
25, 42, 58, 127, 144, 152, 183
n. 8, 206
Maconnais, 3
Macthomass rout 132
Madeley (Glocs.) 85
Malise, earl of Strathearn (d. 1317) 56, 173
Magna Carta 11, 21
maintenance xi, 15, 199215
Maitland, F. W. 17
Makeley, Robert 88
manrent, bond of 7, 199
Manton, William 188
Mar, earl and earldom of 23, 168; see also
Stewart
March, earls and earldom of 24, 41, 62, 64,
69, 90, 117, 152, 182, 205, 211; see also
Mortimer
March, law of 176
March of Wales xii, 5, 7, 53, 79, 155, 179;
estates of nobility in 13, 278, 45, 46,
91, 111, 143, 180; use of men and
resources from 122, 130, 132, 168, 174,
176; dealings with tenants in 15, 423,
90, 113, 172
Mare, Sir Peter de la (d. 1387) 41, 45, 46,
130, 185, 211; Thomas de la, abbot of
St Albans (d. 1396) 9
Margaret, daughter of King Edward I, wife of
John son of the duke of Brabant 69, 70
Margaret Bohun, countess of Devon
(d. 1391) 98
Margaret Brotherton, the countess Marshal,
countess and duchess of Norfolk
(d. 1399) 59, 75, 109, 149, 151, 152;
lifestyle and tastes 100, 105, 106, 107,

108
Margaret Holland, duchess of Clarence
(d. 1439) 99
Margaret Percy, Lady Ferrers (d. 1375) 70
market 12, 89, 105, 106, 1089, 1645, 167,
182
marriage 12, 13, 25, 26, 30, 32, 35, 445, 62,
76, 92, 14057, 180, 181, 198, 2089;
ceremony and celebration 6970, 136;
role of crown in 14, 26, 29, 91, 101, 143;
social advancement by 83, 85, 179;
unhappy or rejected 28, 1556
Mary Bohun, countess of Derby (d. 1394),
wife of Henry Bolingbroke (Henry
IV) 70, 96, 101
Mary of St Pol, countess of Pembroke
(d. 1377) 32, 100, 149
Mascy, Sir John 131
Mason, William 110
The Master of Game 95
Maud Badlesmere, wife of Robert Fitz
Pain 154
Maud Burgh, countess of Gloucester
(d. 1320) 153
Maud, Lady Stafford, duchess of Bavaria
(d. 1362) 136
Mauny, Sir Walter (d. 1372) 75, 119
Maxtock (Warw.) 108
Maxtoke (Warw.) 203
Maxwell, Herbert (d. 1453) 214
Meath 15, 45, 143, 173, 181; archdeacon of,
see Brugge
Mediterranean 119
Melreth, Philip 187
Menteith, earldom of 23, 26
Michelwood (Glocs.) 95
Middle East 137
Milan, duke of 96
mills 165, 168, 170, 176, 187
Milsom, S. F. C. 8
Milverton (Somerset) 38
ministerium 77
ministers accounts 182, 192
Minoresses 88
minstrels, see music, musicians
Mold, lordship of (Clwyd) 78
Monk of Westminster 47, 69
Monmouth 90, 190
Montagu, earls of Salisbury: John (d. 1400)
99, 162; William (d. 1344) 72, 153;
William (d. 1397) 41, 78
Montagu, Sir John 75
Montfort, Simon, earl of Leicester
(d. 1265) 95
Monthermer, Ralph (d. 1325) 155, 156
Index
Moray 120, 122, 169, 170
Moreton Valence (Glocs.) 69
Mortimer, family and estates of 13, 24, 25, 31,
32, 36, 72, 74, 83, 88, 144, 147, 149,
163, 165, 169, 183, 186, 190, 208;
cartulary, muniments of 35, 37, 38, 192;
chronicle of, Wigmore chronicle 35, 68,
135, 142, 154, 155; Edmund
(d. 1304) 150; Edmund (d. 1331) 154;
Edmund (d. 1408/9) 150; Hugh
(d. 1185) 34; Joanna 150; Matilda 35;
Ralph (d. 1246) 37; Roger, of Chirk
(d. 1326) 143; Roger, of Wigmore
(d. 1282) 113, 136, 143; Sir Thomas 38,
130, 185
Mortimer, earls of March: Edmund
(d. 1381) 48, 49, 143, 151, 152, 185,
187; career and reputation 457;
military leader 122, 123, 12930, 202,
216; will 31, 64, 74, 76
Edmund (d. 1425) 96, 100, 109, 110 n. 98;
Roger (d. 1330) 26, 31, 36, 63, 74, 79, 98,
143, 149; marriage alliances 35, 154;
retaining by 102, 104, 122
Roger (d. 1360) 118, 149
Roger (d. 1398) 43, 71, 93, 100, 150, 180,
180, 188; visits to his estates 79, 90
Morton, earl of 173
Mowbray, family of 31, 32, 64, 88, 151, 169
n. 41, 188, 190; John, Lord Mowbray
(d. 1361) 153
Mowbray, earls of Nottingham, earls and dukes
of Norfolk: John, earl Marshal
(d. 1432) 64, 105, 110, 126, 128, 151;
Thomas, earl of Norfolk (d. 1405) 109;
Thomas, earl of Nottingham and duke of
Norfolk (d. 1399) 69, 71; see also Norfolk
Multon, Thomas (d. 1313) 144 n. 8, 151
music, musicians, minstrels 33, 66, 70, 87, 91,
967, 117, 136, 211
Narberth, lordship of (Dyfed) 150
Navarre 135
Needwood (Staffs.) 107
Nevill, Richard, of London, money-lender 109
Neville, family of 85, 86, 87, 162; John, lord
of Raby (d. 1388) 86; Ralph earl of
Westmorland (d. 1425) 86, 146
New Forest (Hants.) 152
Newgate, prison (London) 76
Newport (Gwent) 90, 152, 193
Neyte, La, manor of Westminster abbey 89
nontgeld 160
Norfolk 12, 30, 109, 180; countess of, see
Margaret; dukes, earls of 16, 17, 24, 32,
249
203, 211; see also Bigod; Thomas of

Brotherton; Mowbray
Norman Conquest 31, 34, 58, 83, 84
Normandy 99
Northampton, countess of, see Elizabeth
Badlesmere; earls of 117, 153; see also
Bohun
Northamptonshire 193
Northumberland 130, 180, 209; earls of 46,
151, 212; see also Percy
Norwich (Norfolk) 30, 109, 214
Nottingham 152, 185; earl of, see Mowbray
Oaksey (Wilts.) 108
Odcombe (Somerset) 38, 169
Order of the Garter 136
Ormond, earls and earldom of 24, 27, 69,
151, 153; see also Butler
Orpen, [Henry] Goddard 27
Oswestry, lordship of (Salop) 152
Otterburn (Northumberland), battle of
(1388) 117, 128
Oxford 72, 100; earl of 16, 106 n. 84, 117; see
also Vere
Ovedale, Sir Peter 152, 208
The Pageants of Richard Beauchamp 33
Painter, Sydney 8
palatinates 2, 121, 171, 174, 176, 180, 189
pannage 166
parliament 5, 11, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, 33,
43, 59, 60; attendance by nobles at 61,
70, 82, 88, 90, 97, 1023, 119, 127;
presence of retainers at 65, 207, 208,
212, 216; see also Good Parliament
Pauncefoot, Sir John 123
Peak (Derbs.) 164
Peasants Revolt, see Great Revolt
Peche, John 111
Peckforton Park (Cheshire) 167
Peebles (Borders) 117, 134
Pembridge (Heref.) 130
Pembroke 15, 29, 106, 107; countess of, see
Mary of St Pol; earl and earldom of 12,
13, 155, 173; see also Hastings; Valence
Pembroke College Cambridge 100
pension 199, 209; see also annuity
Percy, family of 4, 38, 87, 88, 126, 162, 203,
209; castle building by 856; Henry, earl
of Northumberland (d. 1408) 62, 85;
Henry Hotspur (d. 1403), 128; see also
Northumberland
petitions, petitioners 16, 41, 175, 184, 185,
188, 191, 192, 193, 2078
Pevensey (Sussex) 180
250
Index
Phebus, Gaston count of Bearn (d. 1391) 95

Philipot, John 111
Philippa Montagu, countess of March
(d. 1382), wife of Earl Roger Mortimer
(d. 1360) 72
Philippa Mortimer, countess of Pembroke and
Arundel (d. 1400) 87, 152
Philippa Plantagenet, countess of March
(d. 1378), wife of Earl Edmund Mortimer
(d. 1381) 45, 143, 149, 151
Pickering (Yorks.) 83
pigs 105, 166; see also pannage
Pleshey (Essex) 85, 913, 99
Plessington, Sir Robert (d. 1393) 205
Plymouth (Devon) 129, 130
Poer, family 10
Poitiers 48
Poland 138
Pole, de la, family 128, 131; Michael, earl of
Suffolk (d. 1388) 60; William, duke of
Suffolk (d. 1450) 78
Pontefract (Yorks.) 37, 83, 95, 102, 125, 180,
181, 185, 191, 212
Porchalion, Thomas 75
Powell, Edward xi
Poynings, Lord 31
Prague 137
Principality of Wales 132
protection 15, 16, 48, 15961, 175,
198200, 209, 212
provincial lordships (Scotland) 23
Prussia 97, 118, 119, 131, 137
Pryce, Huw xii
Puddington (Cheshire) 131
Quo warranto 2
retainers, retaining 46, 58, 65, 85, 102, 104,

1302, 151, 175, 188, 190, 191; duties
66, 68, 1201, 152, 193, 207, 208;
expectations and rewards 123, 185, 201,
204; general discussion 197215
Rhodes 137, 148
Richard II, king of England (137799) 22,
46, 48, 109, 119, 123, 181, 195;
establishment of new titles and lords 59,
60, 61, 212; difcult relations with
nobles 25, 43, 65, 71, 86, 109, 203
Richard Wych, St 47
Richards Castle (Heref.) 67
Roath (Cardiff) 158
Robert I, king of Scotland (130629) 23, 32
44, 47, 122
Robert II, king of Scotland (137190) 23
Robert III, king of Scotland (13901406) 61
Robert Fitzhamon (d. 1107) 34
robes, see gowns
Roche, family 10
Rochford (Essex) 87
Rochfordeyn, family 147
Rodley (Glocs.) 107
Rolls of Arms 11, 31
Rome 138
Ross (Scotland) 23, 61
Ross-on-Wye (Heref.) 90
Rothesay, duke of, see Stewart
Rous, John 34
Roxburgh (Borders) 134
Russel, Sir John (d. 1405) 207
Russell, John, bishop of Lincoln (d. 1494) 203
Russia 138
Ruthin (Dyffryn Clwyd), lordship of 41, 156,
167, 171, 174; see also Grey
Raby (co. Durham) 86

Radnor, lordship of (Powys) 36
Ragman Roll 79, 200
Ramsey, abbot of 78
Randolph, Thomas, earl of Moray
(d. 1332) 122
ransom 111, 116, 123, 1278, 129, 207
Ravensthorpe (Yorks.) 156
receiver-general 1868, 193, 212
regalities (Scotland) 48, 172
registers 9, 16, 36, 38, 66, 111, 190, 192;
Register of Edward the Black Prince 184;
Registrum Honoris de Morton 38
Reigate (Surrey) 86, 92
religious sentiment 47, 73, 757, 92, 945,
99102; see also crusade
renders, see tributes and renders
Restormel (Cornwall) 78
Sackville, Sir Andrew 211

St Agnes, London 88
St Albans, abbey and abbot of (Herts.) 9, 100
Sainte Chapelle
St Denys, Paris 48
St Emilion, see wine
St Inglevert 136, 137
St John, Sir Edward 216
St Mary Newarke, Leicester 77
St Marys, Leicester 9, 100
St Marys, Warwick 75
St Pancras, Lewes 71
St Pauls, London 75, 76, 111, 136, 216
Salisbury, cathedral of 72, 146; countess of, see
Elizabeth; earl and earldom of 26, 62, 75,
78, 153, 165, 167; see also Montagu
Saul, Nigel 10
Savoy palace (London) 36, 66, 82, 87, 89
Index
Saxtead (Suffolk) 96
Say, Lord, see Heron
Scone (Perthshire) 61
Scotland, Scots xi, 147, 177; composition of
nobility 223, 24, 25, 267, 28;
crown-noble relations 2, 14, 60, 176,
202; economic exploitation and value of
lordship in 38, 1601, 1656, 173, 174;
military aspects of lordship in 82, 85, 86,
11920, 122, 128, 1335; nature and
reputation of lordship in 7, 15, 16, 478,
113, 141, 145, 158, 179, 182, 189, 199,
204, 2134; noble self-image and tastes
in 32, 35, 61, 98 9, 198; study of lordship
in 5, 8, 10, 172, 181; warfare with
England and in France 44, 46, 68, 79,
90, 103, 1167, 118, 124, 131, 132, 216
Scrope, family 87, 162
Scrope-Grosvenor dispute (1386) 32, 117
Seals, signets 32, 39, 40, 62, 95, 112, 116,
187, 190, 193
Seigneurie 1, 2, 3, 17, 41, 167, 168, 201, 209
Segrave, family arms of 64; John, Lord Segrave
(d. 1353) 149
Selkirk (Borders) 134
serf, serfdom 6, 161 169, 197, 200
serjeants-at-law 163, 204; see also lawyers
Severn, estuary, river 85, 87, 90, 107
Sheriff Hutton (Yorks.) 86
Shrawardine (Salop) 85, 87, 913, 193
Shrewsbury (Salop) 35, 43, 193, 216
Simpson, Grant 8
Skeathy (Kildare) 147
Slimbridge (Glocs.) 97
Smitheld (London) 136
Smyth, John 164
Somerset 30, 38; duke, earl of, see Beaufort
Southampton (Hants.) 106
Spain 32, 117, 190
Spalding (Lincs.) 191
Spenser, Edmund 161
Stafford 85, 193
Stafford, family of 4, 12, 33, 59, 88, 108, 185,
216; documents relating to lordship
of 13, 38, 163, 192, 193, 194; Anne,
countess of, see Anne; Edward, duke of
Buckingham (d. 1521), 113, 184; Henry,
duke of Buckingham (d. 1483) 113;
Hugh, earl of Stafford (d. 1386) 148,
205; Ralph, Lord, later earl of Stafford
(d. 1372) 12, 70, 85, 136, 153; Thomas,
earl of Stafford, (d. 1392) 80 n. 64, 152,
193
Stafford, John, archbishop of Canterbury
(144351) 11 n. 29
Stenton, F. M. 4, 8,
Stepney (London) 136
251
steward 45, 46, 86, 104, 113, 130, 163, 173,

175, 1816, 18993, 198, 211
Stewart, family of 23, 61; Alexander, earl of
Buchan (the Wolf of Badenoch),
(d. 1405) 61, 133, 173; Alexander, earl of
Mar (d. 1435), 62, 68, 79, 133, 173;
David, duke of Rothesay (d. 1402) 61;
Robert, duke of Albany, earl of Atholl,
Fife, and Menteith (d. 1420) 26, 61
Stonor, Sir William 155, 208
Strange, Lord 208
Strathearn, earl, earldom of 23, 168, 173; see
also Malise
Strigoil/Chepstow, lordship of 84, see also
Chepstow
Stringer, Keith 8, 14
Strother, Sir John (d. 1494) 124, 130
Sudbury (Suffolk) 187
Suffolk 30, 71, 84, 109, 125, 180; Alice,
duchess of, see Alice; earls and earldom of,
see Pole; Ufford
Sully (Glamorgan) 158
Surrey 29, 203; earls of, see Warenne; duke of,
see Holland
Sussex 29, 85, 162, 164, 180
Sutherland, earldom of 23
Sutton Coldeld (Warw.) 65
Swillington, Sir Adam 65, 66; Robert 215
Swineld, Richard, bishop of Hereford
(12831317) 89
tail male 30, 140, 151
tailzie 145
Talbot, John, 67
tallage 168
Tamworth (Staffs.) 66
Tantallon (East Lothian) 85
Tany, Sir John 69
tapestries 32, 33, 63, 89, 912
Taunton (Somerset) 6
Tenby (Dyfed) 29
tenure, tenurial obligations 17, 78, 148, 171,
197, 199, 202, 207
Teutonic Order 96
Tewkesbury (Glocs.) 34, 75, 109
Thelwall, Thomas, chancellor of the duchy and
county of Lancaster 66
Thetford, prior of 110
Thomas of Brotherton, earl of Norfolk
(d. 1338) 155
Thomas Cantilupe, St 47
Thomas, duke of Clarence (d. 1421) 72
Thomas, earl of Lancaster (d. 1322) 4, 15, 44,
209; acquisition and management of
estates 26, 102, 107, 145, 164, 167;
lifestyle 83, 84, 104, 106; retinue 65, 66,
191, 212, 215
252
Index
Thomas of Woodstock, earl of Buckingham,

duke of Gloucester (d. 1397) 63, 65, 67,
104, 111,136, 187; lifestyle 63, 85, 88,
89, 912, 96, 98, 99; marriage alliances
and family 67, 87, 101; military
career 124, 125, 126, 130
Thomond 172
Thoresby (Notts.) 191
Thornbury (Glocs.) 37, 193
Threave (Galloway) 48, 85, 134
Throckmorton, John (d. 1445) 185
Tickhill (Yorks.) 83
Tintern abbey (Mons.) 36, 84, 100
Tipperary 172, 173, 174
titles 16, 21 25, 5861, 141, 162; hierarchy
of 11, 22, 23, 24, 26, 5860; pride
in 28, 29, 61
Tor Brian (Devon) 157
Touraine, duke of, see Douglas
Tourn 171, 193
tournaments 66, 6970, 93, 155, 207, 208,
216; as regular feature of aristocratic
life 31, 64, 82, 90, 98, 103; as substitute
for war 116, 118, 127, 1358
Tower of London 36, 69, 151
Tower-house, 85, 132
Trent, river 185
Tres Riches Heures 91
Tresgoz, Sir Robert 130
tributes and renders 44, 47, 48, 82, 108
15961, 176, 198, 202
Trim (Meath) 45, 68, 143, 172, 173, 181
Trokesford, Lady Isabel 66
Turk, Robert 131
Turks 137
Tutbury (Staffs.) 83, 97, 112, 125, 180
uchelwyr 10
Ufford, family of, earls of Suffolk 25
Ulster 14, 24, 44, 172; earls, earldom of 32,
35, 43, 45, 120, 151, 169, 181; see also
Burgh; Lionel; Mortimer
Umfraville, family of 23
unfree tenants, see serf, serfdom
Usk/Caerleon, lordship of (Mon.) 35, 37, 83,
90, 100, 107, 130, 167, 181
Usk, Adam (d. 1430) 35, 42, 47, 100
Valence, family of 88; Aymer, earl of
Pembroke (d. 1324) 4, 25, 32, 207; Joan,
countess of Pembroke, see Joan de
Munchensi; Sir William (d. 1296) 13
valor 9, 36, 41, 165, 1945
Varenne 28
vassal, vassalage 59, 173, 197, 198, 213
Venice 137
Venour, William 111

Vere family, earls of Oxford 25, 38, 74;
Robert, earl of Oxford, marquis of
Dublin, duke of Ireland (d. 1392) 59,
131
Verona 138
Vienna 137
Wales, Welsh 2, 12, 37, 82, 86, 121;
aristocratic estates in 27, 29, 143, 153,
162, 180, 182; economic exploitation and
value of lordship in 1078, 164, 166,
168; native (Celtic) society in 10, 13,
35, 84, 123, 147, 160; nature and
reputation of lordship in 7, 40, 412, 43,
113, 158, 169, 171, 172, 176, 198;
recruitment of soldiers from 44, 118,
120, 121, 130, 132, 216; visits to and
military campaigns in 14, 79, 90, 138,
152, 174, 184, 186, 193, 199200; see
also March; Principality; uchelwyr
Waltham (Essex) 136; abbey 70, 153
Walton (Suffolk) 84
Ward, Jennifer 107
wardrobe, 63, 88, 89, 95, 98, 104, 106, 125,
187, 189; wardrober, 104, 184, 188
Warenne, John de, earl of Surrey (d. 1347) 15,
25, 289, 30, 71, 73, 146, 173
Warkworth (Northumberland) 85
Wars of Independence 14, 27
Warwick 33, 37, 85, 87, 108, 123; countess
of, see Elizabeth; earls and earldom of 12,
37, 42, 65, 85, 123, 155, 207; see also
Beauchamp; Guy of Warwick
Waterton, Hugh 103
wayting 161
Wells, Lord 71
Wenlok, Walter, abbot of Westminster
(12831307) 89
Wentwood Forest (Mons.) 84
Westminster 24, 68, 88, 97; abbey 75, 89; see
also Monk of Westminster
Westmorland, earl of, see Neville
Wexford (Ireland), lordship of 14, 172
Wigmore (Heref.) 31, 46, 47, 83, 110 n. 99,
142, 180; abbey 34, 35, 67, 72, 74, 77,
101, 135; see also Mortimer
William I, king of England (the Conqueror)
(106689) 28, 181
wills, bequests, 30, 31, 32, 46, 634, 101,
112, 148, 149, 150, 163; acts of
charity 62, 73, 768, 105, 204; detailing
funeral rites 47, 714, 76; listing prized
possessions, 92, 93, 98, 116
Wiltshire 61, 180
Winchester, bishop of 6, see Wykeham
Index
Windsor (Berks.) 86
wine, 66, 94, 1056, 109, 214;
St Emilion 106
Wintringham, William 87
Wodecock, John 88
Wooton (Oxon.) 97
Worcester 37, 42, 109, 185; earl of, see
Beauchamp
Wrexham (Denbyshire) 199
Writtle (Essex) 108
253
Wycliff, John (d. 1384) 16, 101

Wye, river 84
Wykeham, William, bishop of Winchester
(13671404) 148
Yevele, Henry 75, 87
York, 88, 103, 186; archbishop of, 96; dukes
of, see Edmund of Langley; Edward
Yorkshire 180, 181, 209
Ystlwyf (Carmarthenshire) 29

R.R. Davies - Lords and Lordship in The British Isles in The Late Middle Ages

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LORDS AND LORDSHIP IN THE BRITISH ISLES

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Lords and Lordship in the

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 2 6

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

1. The Higher Aristocracy: Identity and Memory

2. Display and Magnicence

3. The Lord at Home

4. The Lord at War

5. Land, Family, and Marriage

6. The Sinews of Aristocratic Power

7. The Agencies and Agents of Lordship

8. Dependence, Service, and Reward

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Adam Usk, Chronicle, 13771421, ed.

Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research

Cal. Anc. Corr.

Calendar of Ancient Correspondence Concerning

Cal. Anc. Pets.

R. R. Davies, Lordship and Society in the March

Economic History Review

Frame, Ireland and Britain

R. Frame, Ireland and Britain 11701450

The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland,

G. Holmes, The Estates of the Higher Nobility

Knightons Chronicle, 13371396, ed. G. H.

A Collection of all the Wills, Now Known to

National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From

Private Indentures for Life Service in Peace

Register of Edward the Black Prince, 4 vols.

Scottish Historical Review

Testamenta Vetusta: Being Illustrations from

The National Archives: Public Record Ofce,

H. A. Doubleday, W. Page, L. F. Salzmann,

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Lords and Lordship

Lords and Lordship

major wielder of power, lordship, in medieval society, as indeed in the ancien

composition of aristocratic afnities and their role in the phenomenon known

Lords and Lordship

underestimating the possible changes in the character of aristocratic lordship over

Lords and Lordship

scholarly preoccupation during my academic lifetime; but it has been an abiding

Lords and Lordship

can be extended as a term to include arguably all members of gentle society, at

acknowledged in contemporary terminologybe it in titles (for example, duke,

Lords and Lordship

Lords and Lordship

of lowland, manor-centred lordship, an aristocratic power already substantially

Lords and Lordship

Lords and Lordship

Such a claimbased as it was on German and Austrian evidencemay seem

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Lords and Lordship

The Higher Aristocracy: Identity and Memory

Lords and Lordship

But such a statement is at best a half-truth. Aristocratic lordship in English Ireland

The Higher Aristocracy: Identity and Memory

Lords and Lordship

The Higher Aristocracy: Identity and Memory

Lords and Lordship

thirteenth or fourteenth centuries a good proportion of English earls held one or