Paper given at the Signs and States. Semiotics of the Modern State confernece, held at École française de Rome (2011)
Introduction: In the autumn of 1536, a mass rebellion broke out in the northern counties of England, known as « The pilgrimage of grace for the common wealth ». In their letters and manifestoes, the bulk of the rebels called themselves « commons » or « commonalty » and denounced the policies of Henry VIII’s government. Charged with responding to the claims of the rebels, the royal propagandist Sir Richard Morison reminded them of the authority on which these policies had been agreed : First, why may not the King’s Grace, by the counsel of the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons assembled together in Parliament (of the which many are among your rout), do that that all these and the better part of you then thought best to be done ? And what cruel and blind malice is this, to lay on one or two men’s necks as evil done, that which was thought by the whole counsel and consent of the three estates of England to be most to the honour of God, discharge of the king and weal of this his realm and subjects of the same?
Why, Morison was asking, did these commons in the north object to what the commons in Parliament had done just a few months before ? The answer, of course, is obvious – the Commons House at Westminster, with its mixture of gentlemen and plutocrats, was a very different thing from the rebel host, in which yeomen, craftsmen, priests and chaplains were the driving forces – but the question goes right to the heart of the issue of legitimation with which this conference is concerned. Why was the same term « commons » used to describe both a part of the English legislature and a large gathering of rebellious people? How had this double meaning come about and what did it imply for the workings of politics in late medieval England? « Commons » was one of the master notions of English political life between the fourteenth century and the sixteenth, deployed extensively in parliamentary dialogue, in sermons and public poetry, in bills and manifestoes ; by tracing its development and considering its most prominent associations, we should get at something quite fundamental to the political dynamics of this closely-governed, but highly volatile, kingdom
The commons in medieval England
By John Watts
Paper given at the Signs and States. Semiotics of the Modern State confernece, held at École française de Rome (2011)
Introduction: In the autumn of 1536, a mass rebellion broke out in the northern counties of England, known as « The pilgrimage of grace for the common wealth ». In their letters and manifestoes, the bulk of the rebels called themselves « commons » or « commonalty » and denounced the policies of Henry VIII’s government. Charged with responding to the claims of the rebels, the royal propagandist Sir Richard Morison reminded them of the authority on which these policies had been agreed : First, why may not the King’s Grace, by the counsel of the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons assembled together in Parliament (of the which many are among your rout), do that that all these and the better part of you then thought best to be done ? And what cruel and blind malice is this, to lay on one or two men’s necks as evil done, that which was thought by the whole counsel and consent of the three estates of England to be most to the honour of God, discharge of the king and weal of this his realm and subjects of the same?
Why, Morison was asking, did these commons in the north object to what the commons in Parliament had done just a few months before ? The answer, of course, is obvious – the Commons House at Westminster, with its mixture of gentlemen and plutocrats, was a very different thing from the rebel host, in which yeomen, craftsmen, priests and chaplains were the driving forces – but the question goes right to the heart of the issue of legitimation with which this conference is concerned. Why was the same term « commons » used to describe both a part of the English legislature and a large gathering of rebellious people? How had this double meaning come about and what did it imply for the workings of politics in late medieval England? « Commons » was one of the master notions of English political life between the fourteenth century and the sixteenth, deployed extensively in parliamentary dialogue, in sermons and public poetry, in bills and manifestoes ; by tracing its development and considering its most prominent associations, we should get at something quite fundamental to the political dynamics of this closely-governed, but highly volatile, kingdom
Click here to read this article from Laboratoire de Médiévistique Occidentale de Paris
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