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Dear Reader, This book was referenced in one of the 185 issues of 'The Builder' Magazine which was published between January 1915 and May 1930. To celebrate the centennial of this publication, the Pictoumasons website presents a complete set of indexed issues of the magazine. As far as the editor was able to, books which were suggested to the reader have been searched for on the internet and included in 'The Builder' library.' This is a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by one of several organizations as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online. Wherever possible, the source and original scanner identification has been retained. Only blank pages have been removed and this header- page added. The original book has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. 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Please do not assume that a book's appearance in 'The Builder' library means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. The Webmaster WyR!':'- f\vWAW)iWO««««?«»W' , UNIVERSITY OF LONDON INTERMEDIATE SOURCE-BOOKS OF HISTORY. No. I. ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHAUCER'S ENGLAND. Edited by Dorothy Hughes, M.A. With a Preface by A. F. Pollard, M.A., Litt.D. Fellow of All Souls, and Professor of English History in the University of London. No. II. ENGLAND UNDER THE YORKISTS, 1460-1485. Illustrated from Contemporary Sources. By IsoREL D. Thornlkv, M.A. With a Preface by A. F. Pollard, M A., Litt.D. No. III. ENGLAND UNDER THE LANCASTRIANS, 1399-1460. By Jessie H. Flemmlng, M.A. With a Preface by A. F. Pollard, M.A., Litt.D. Other volumes are being arranged. THE REIGN OF HENRY VII FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES. Selected and Arranged with an Introduction. By A. F. Pollard, M.A., Litt.D., etc. In Three Volumes. Crown 2>vo. Vol, I. Narrative Extracts. Vol. II. Constitutional, Social, and Economic History. Vol III. Diplomacy, Ecclesiastical Affairs, and Ireland. LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. I ENGLAND UNDER THE YORKISTS I460-I485 ILLUSTRATED FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES BY ISOBEL D. THORNLEY, M.A. ASSISTANT IN THE DEPARTHENT OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON WITH A PREFACE BY A. R POLLARD [UNIVERSITY OF LONDON INTERMEDIATE SOURCE- BOOKS OF HISTORY, No. II] SEW IMPRESSION LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON FOURTH AVENUE & 30th STREET, NEW YORK BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 1921 PKEFACE. The general scope and object of the series of Inter- mediate Texts, of which the present is the second volume, have been indicated in the preface to Miss Dorothy Hughes's " Illustrations of Chaucer's England ". The first object is to supply University students of history with some means of appreciating and understanding the materials out of which English history is, or should be, constructed ; and the second is to provide a different if not a wilder public with a sort of introductory library of English historical sources, particularly with a view to illus- trating those periods which are commonly but erroneously supposed to be poor in original records. The two objects are not incompatible. There is no reason, apart from the limitations of editorial scholarship, why collections of sources intended for use in schools and colleges should be limited to extracts from priiited authorities. There are materials as appropriate in manuscri{)t as in print, far more abundant, and often more apt ; and it is quite feasible, while catering primarily for the needs of junior students, to multiply the printed sources available for their elders. vi PREFACE *' England under the Yorkists" does not make quite the same appeal to students of literature as "Illustrations of Chaucer's England". But for those in search of fresh historical truth it has greater attractions. The stereotyped commonplace that, with the decline of the Middle Ages, the sources of English history diminish in quantity and detei'iorate in quality is no more than a hasty generalisation from the facts that the monastic chronicles, which form the bulk of the Rolls Series, dwindle, and that the Rolls Series still constitutes for many students the ne plus ultra of historical research. It would be as rational to think that the sources of English history grow worse in the eighteenth century because the golden age of poli- tical pamphleteering then passed away ; and this, too, would have become a commonplace, did there exist a corpus of political pamphlets so compre- hensive, and so exclusive of other sources, as the Rolls Series of chronicles. The decline of monastic historiography is a symptom of a general failure in outlook and intelligence in monastic orders ; but it was accompanied by a wider development outside their walls which we call the Renaissance. The tree does not die because new buds sap the old leaves, and the withering of monastic records was followed by an et!lorescence of other growths. Town chronicles supplant those of the monasteries, lay minds supersede ecclesiastical intelligence, and the activities of the State surpass those of the Church. All these intellectual phenomena, which PEEFACE vii necessarily preceded the changes of the sixteenth century, left their mark on the fifteenth and pro- duced fresh categories of historical material. Until, however, the New Monarchy had done its work, England remained locally-minded and English history a matter largely of local record. Hence the importance of those town chronicles, some of them unprinted and none of them collected into a body of historical evidence, upon which Miss Thornley has frequently drawn. The bulk of historical material does not in fact diminish during this period. It changes its form and direction, but it rapidly increases as a whole, in spite of gaps caused by the anarchy of the Wars of the Roses ; and its multifarious variety is ex- emplified in these pages. A striking instance of the neglect of materials is afforded by the Calendars of State Papers. Historians of the sixteenth cen- tury have drawn freely upon them, but medieevalists have apparently been under the impression that such sources throw no light upon any period prior to 1485, although the first volume of the Venetian Calendar has been in print for fifty years. There is more excuse for the neglect of the numerous MS. sources from which Miss Thornley has drawn much of her material. Their abundance makes the task of selection arduous ; but few, even among specialists, will fail to find some fresh light on the Yorkists and their kingdom, and Miss Thornley has, in her '' Brief Account of Sources," provided viii PEEFACE students with better guidance than has hitherto been avaihible for the Yorkist period. This volume, like its predecessor, is not in- tended to supplant the teacher's comment or the student's thought ; its purpose is to supply the teacher with material for his discourse and the student with food for historical reasoning. For help in interpreting this evidence they must have recourse to histories like the relevant volumes in Longmans' and Methuen's series, Ramsay's ''Lan- caster and York," the later chapters in Stubbs' '' Con- stitutional History," and Gairdner's '* Richard III," and introduction to the '' Paston Letters ". Every student should have at hand the ''Index and Epi- " tome to the Dictionary of National Biography ; ' and even those who possess the Dictionary ' itself will find in these two hundred documents material for correcting and supplementing that monumental work. A. F. POLLARD. CONTENTS. PAQB Preface v A Brief Account op Sources xi Note on the Translations . xix List op Abbreviations xx Book I. Political . 1 Book II. Constitutional 136 A. Parliament 137 B. Councils 144 C. Royal Revenue . 151 D. Lawlessness and Justice . 157 Book III. Ecclesiastical 180 Book IV. Economic and Social 198 A. Commercial Treaties and External Trade . 198 B. Industry and Internal Trade 218 C. Social Conditions, Manners, and Customs . 227 D. Education .247 Book V. Ireland 263 Index 263 IX A BKIEF ACCOUNT OF SOUECES.' The standard bibliography of the Yorkist period is Dr. C. Gross's ** Sources and Literature of English History from the Earliest Times to about 1485". (2nd ed., 1915.) It includes both secondary authorities and printed collections of sources ; but as many of the records of this period are still unprinted and un- calendared, a brief survey of the more important classes may be useful as indicating the extent and nature of the material from which these extracts are partly drawn. Professor Tout, in the appendix to Vol.

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