‘Castles of Communities’: medieval town defences in England; Wales and Gascony
By Oliver H. Creighton
Château Gaillard, Vol.22 (2006)
Introduction: This paper introduces the findings of a research project exploring the phenomenon of town defences in the later medieval period. The research is aiming to exploit the full range of available source material – including architectural, cartographic, documentary, archaeological and topographical data – to compile a database of fortified towns in the period c. 1050-1550. A secondary objective is the interpretation of town walls within the broader context of the townscapes they enclosed and the communities that built and maintained them. This paper serves two purposes: first, it provides a summary of key data regarding the number of fortified towns in England and Wales and the character of their defences; and, second, it presents a case study of the defences of bastide towns in England, Wales and ‘English’ Gascony.
This research is endeavouring to address deficiencies in our understanding of the subject in a number of areas. Overall, town defences have attracted comparatively little serious scholarship relative to their better studied cousins, castles. Perhaps lacking something of the glamour of ‘private’ fortifications and frequently leaving vestigial physical remains ravaged by development (or in numerous cases no aboveground evidence), urban defences are, at best, a neglected branch of scholarship and, in Britain at least, perhaps perceived as second-rate features of medieval fortification.
Ships and Fleets in Anglo-French warfare, 1337-1360
By Timothy J. Runyan
American Neptune, v.46 (1986)
Introduction: The most consuming military and naval conflict of later medieval Europe was the Hundred Years’ War. Beginning in 1337 and continuing until 1453 this struggle involved most of the states of western Europe although the principals were England and France. Edward III claimed the French throne by right of inheritance intending to remove the newly established Valois dynasty as usurpers. Dynastic claims or consequent ties of vassalage, however, were not the precipitating factors in the outbreak of war. Researchers over the past few decades have emphasized much more strongly the role of England’s possessions in France, especially Gascony, to explain the origins of the war. This approach recognizes the economic and strategic importance of English possessions and control in France as compelling factors in Edward III’s decision to initiate the conflict. French encroachments and claims on Gascony and other English possessions struck at the heart of Edward’s state – a kingdom which was transmarine.
Naval conflict in the English Channel and elsewhere between the French and their allies and the English was not a sudden result of the actions of 1337. Undeclared warfare at sea is the best description of the state of naval and mercantile relations between these parties extending back at least to the reign of Edward I at the turn of the century. Merchants frequently pirated or were pirated with the excuse that the other parties were the enemies of France or England. Truces seem to have been conveniently forgotten and suits to the crown were often the recourse.3 These appeals remain our record of these piratical raids. They were, in effect, crimes of convenience with convenient excuses generated to justify plundering.
The solution achieved at some point in the late thirteenth or fourteenth century to help abate this problem was the introduction of convoys. These were especially successful in the English wine trade routes to Gascony. Larger fleets of merchants often escorted by royal ships filled with men-at-arms could deter individual raiders or even small pirate fleets. But not all merchants could afford or were prepared to wait for the cumbersome process of gathering a fleet at a designated port, awaiting royal escorts to join them and then sailing a prescribed course to Bordeaux or elsewhere. Many ship-owners preferred to push on with their trade and risk encounters with French merchants cum pirates. The same held true for the French, although they were not as active in the trade of wine or wool which was so important to the English economy.
Gossip and Resistance among the Medieval Peasantry
By Chris Wickham
Past and Present, No. 160. (1998)
Introduction: I aim in this article to offer a defence of the study of gossip in medieval (and not only medieval) history. It is therefore, perhaps, appropriate to begin with a story, which I will use as a point of reference for some of the themes I want to discuss. It takes shape from a court case from twelfth-century Tuscany: that is to say, from the testimonies of seventeen witnesses recorded in or around 1138 in a dispute between a peasant cultivator called Compagno and the very rich and powerful monastery of Passignano, situated in the Chianti hills about forty kilometres south of Florence, over the ownership of a piece of land at Mucciana on the river Pesa, where Passignano had just built a mill. To be precise, we have two stories, one for each side; and we do not have the final arbitration, so we cannot be sure even what the arbiter thought was true. But the two stories are interesting in their own right, as images of plausible and thus possible truths.
Domesday Book and the Malets: patrimony and the private histories of public lives
By K.S.B Keats-Rohan
Nottingham Medieval Studies, Vol.41 (1997)
Introduction: Established on ducal demesne lands at Graville-Sainte-Honorine in the Pays de Caux by the beginning of the eleventh century, the ‘grand lignage’ of Malet is one of the most inadequately discussed of all the great Norman houses to enjoy large landholdings in England after 1066. An account of the formation of their Norman honour, much of which was held not directly of the duke but of the Giffard family, has been given in recent years by J. Le Maho. They also held land near the ducal centre at Caen, a connexion that frequently recurs in consideration of their family and tenurial relationships. These are matters fundamental to a study of Malet, but also essential to an understanding of the family’s career in the eleventh century is the examination of its association with England. The Malets were the only Norman family of any significance to have had associations with both Normandy and England throughout the century, something that both entitles them to a special status as the ‘Anglo-Norman’ family par excellence and merits a fresh study.
The present study takes as its focal point the career of the Domesday landholder Robert I Malet. The most serious difficulty concerns the period 1087-1100. During this time his Honour of Eye is known to have been held by a powerful favourite of William Rufus, Roger the Poitevin, while he himself apparently completely disappeared from all English and Norman documents.
Landscape with Two Saints: How Genovefa of Paris and Brigit of Kildare Built Christianity in Barbarian Europe
By Lisa Bitel
Oxford University Press, 2009
ISBN: 9780195336528
At a time when Europeans still longed to be Roman and were just learning to be Christian, two extraordinary holy women-Genovefa of Paris (ca. 420-502) and Brigit of Kildare (ca. 450-524) -began to roam their homelands. One of these saints raised an apostolic church in the imperial city that would become Paris. The other scavenged fragments of that dwindling empire for the foundations of a grand Roman basilica built deep in barbarian territory. Both brought Christianity and romanitas (Roman-ness) to their people. By examining the ruins of their cities and churches, the workings of their cults, and the many generations of their devotees, Lisa Bitel shows how Brigit and Genovefa helped northern Europeans map new religion onto familiar landscapes. Landscape with Two Saints tells the twin stories of these charismatic women but also explains how ordinary people lived through religious change at the very beginning of the Middle Ages.
Tales of ancient conversions on distant landscapes have much to teach us about lived and built religion, why people choose new beliefs, and how they act out those beliefs in meaningful ways. The combined history of Brigit and Genovefa explains not just how a couple of legendary peripatetic women could become targets of devotion, but how and where Europeans became Christian, and what it meant to them on a daily basis. The story of these two saintly cults-not just in the pages of manuscripts, but on the streets of cities, in the stones of cemeteries, and in the walls of churches-also demonstrates the pervasive influence of gender and ethnicity, as well as regional culture and material environment, on the whole process of religious change. Bitel contends that in the building blocks of their churches and the tracks they once traveled, Genovefa and Brigit show us what the written words of missionaries and theologians never can: the active participation of converts in the history of their own conversion.
This novel details the events of one knight, Sir John Potenhale, serving under the Black Prince, Edward, son of Edward III, during his campaigns in France in the mid-14th century.
The story begins with Sir John Potenhale seeking out the widow of another knight. He comes to deliver something of value to the knight’s widow when she asks him to tell her how she met her husband and to start his story at the point when he was knighted. Potenhale then begins his tale when he was serving as a squire to Sir John Chandos who was a knight in service to King Edward and his son. Potenhale is fortunate enough to witness Prince Edward’s knighting and dreams of the day when he too will become a knight.
After the battle of Crecy, Edward knights Potenhale and takes him into his service and household. Potenhale meets Margery, a lady-in-waiting to the prince’s cousin, Joan of Kent, and falls in love with her. However, the Black Plague strikes and Potenhale is wracked with guilt as to whether he should remain a knight or save his soul and take monastic vows. The book details his inner struggle with his knighthood, his growing prowess and adventures as a knight, and his love of Margery.
The book was exciting and enjoyable. A lot of the novel detailed battles at Calais, Crecy, at sea and military marches across France.There is the small side bar of Potenhale pursuing Margery but the book does not really focus on their love story, it is more a retelling of his experiences as a knight and of his relationship with the widow’s husband, Sir Geoffroi. Potenhale meets him after a battle where Geoffroi is taken as Potenhale’s prisoner. Geoffroi remains in the custody of the English for a year until a ransom can be raised to free him. Potenhale respects the French knight greatly and it is in him that he seeks advice about whether he should remain a knight or take holy orders.
The descritpions of battles were not tedious and drawn out at all and added colour to the story. I found Potenhale to be an interesting character and I liked the way the story was told from his memories in the first person. I enjoyed watching him grow as a knight and I liked the twist of the side story about his love for Margery and the difficulties that surround their union. Potenhale’s relationship to the Black Prince and the backdrop of Plagues stricken England, flagellants, notions of redemption and knightly honour also make the book a good read.
There is but one small complaint – there is a line near the end of the book where the author makes a reference to tennis and I found it a very odd analogy for a medieval historical novel. I looked up the history of tennis and while it technically existed in the 12th century, it existed as a handball sport and was not that well known. The reference made in the novel is very modern in tone and I found it jarringly out of place. I doesn’t fit at all and should be removed.
All in all, the book was great and I recommend it for a light summer read. It is battle heavy, and plot heavy but not boring in the least and I really enjoyed it.
Forgetting the Weakness of Her Sex and a Woman’s Softness: Historians of the Anglo-Norman World and their Female Subjects
By Kimberly Klimek
Ph. D. Dissertation, University of New Mexico, 2009
Abstract: The number of historians who wrote during the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries creates the unusual problem of too many sources. The sheer number of interesting and powerful women does the same. In order to narrow the topic of the presentation of women in texts from this period, I have chosen nine historians and six women to focus on.
The period from 950 to 1150 is a crucial period for the development of the scholastic method and therefore it gives us the most interesting, if not most confusing, period to work from. Additionally, this project focuses geographically on the Anglo-Norman world: England, Normandy, Blois, and the surrounding counties of influence. This work is further restricted to eight major historians, one historical compilation, and six women from this place and time.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle will form the basis for a study of monastic methods of the early period. Eadmer, Hugh of Fleury, and William of Jumièges will round out the monastic historians. William of Malmesbury, Orderic Vitalis, the author of the Gesta Stephani, and Robert of Torigny comprise the category of liminal historians. William of Poitiers, Henry of Huntingdon, and John of Salisbury will represent the scholastic historians. The Mercian lady Æthelflæd, the Norman Adela of Blois, the four Anglo-Norman queens, Matilda of Flanders, Matilda of Scotland, the Empress Matilda, and Matilda of Boulogne, will form the basis of the historical study.
Trials for Sorcery in Early Fourteenth-Century Avignon
Session:Politics, Condemnation, and Sorcery in the Fourteenth Century
ByRobert Ticknor, Tulane University
This paper dealt with the question of magic and sorcery and the bridge between abstract theological questions and actual magic.
The general category of magic is crucial to the understanding cultural mores in societies. Magic takes a more central position in religion and certain social groups than previously thought; it is not just a sidebar to the witch hunt.
What does it mean to charge someone with witchcraft in the 14th century?When can one use the term “magic”? Historians often look to anthropologists however, some of these definitions don’t fit into phenomena considered “magic” by people in the 14th century. Classic authors and texts by early Christian writers were used as definitions of magic even if these were now obsolete, i.e., the writing of Isadore de Seville. Scholastic and theological treatises don’t offer much in the way of the practice of magic but they do serve as a starting point. Magic and miracles are fundamentally opposed but can look the same. Modern historians blur these lines but in the minds of people in the Middle Ages – there was a very definite separation of these two ideas of magic and miracles.
A case of sorcery in the 14th century: In 1303, a Franciscan friar by the name of Bernard of Délicieux preached a sermon that rose up against the Inquisition; Bernard took over the town and freed people incarcerated by them. Bernard also prophesied the Pope’s death; when the Pope died a few months after his prophesy, Bernard was accused of sorcery in the Pope’s “murder”. In 1317, Bernard was arrested for the Pope’s murder after ‘lying low’ since 1306. Bernard claimed he prophesied the Pope’s death through Scripture, but nonetheless, he was tortured and then released. He was convicted of impeding the Inquisition and then stripped of his clerical status and sentenced to life in prison where he died in 1320.
Taking the war to Scotland and France: The supply and transportation of English armies by sea, 1320-60
By Craig Lee Lambert
PhD Dissertation, University of Hull, 2009
Abstract: In the fourteenth century England’s kings embarked on a series of wars in Scotland and France. The ensuing campaigns ushered in a new era of warfare, both in its scale and scope. From a claim made by Edward I to be the rightful overlord of Scotland England’s kings gradually extended their ambitions until, in 1340, in a market place in Ghent, Edward III laid claim to the throne of France. Because the series of wars known to posterity as the Hundred Years War drew in most of the kingdoms of Europe as allies of Edward or the French it has been an area of fruitful and immense research. However, the majority of the studies completed thus far have tended to favour the grand personalities, such as the duke of Lancaster and the Black Prince. And to a certain extent the land-based operations that resulted from daring acts of chivalry have dominated the research.
Consequently, the naval element of the wars has received little attention over the last twenty years and has failed to capitalise on the new methodological approaches that have been adopted by some land-based historians. We are still uncertain, for example, how large the fleets were that operated in the Scottish and French wars, which ports contributed the ships, what was the service record of shipmasters that sailed on board these ships. Indeed, such a study should be seen as the first step towards a large comparative study between the army and navy payrolls and the particulars of the custom accounts.
This present thesis aims to provide this foundation. The study will analyse the involvement of the English merchant marine in the wars of Edward II and Edward III. The study will examine the fleet raising procedures adopted by the English government. It will also individually reconstruct each of the major fleets of the period, noting its size and structure. Finally it will examine some of the administrative and organisational changes that were developed by successive kings in order to exploit the kingdoms merchant marine.
