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New Evidence About Sir Geoffrey Luttrell's Raid on Sempringham Priory, 1312

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New Evidence About Sir Geoffrey Luttrell's Raid on Sempringham Priory, 1312 NEW EVIDENCE ABOUT SIR GEOFFREY LUTTRELL'S RAID ON SEMPRINGHAM PRIORY, 1312 JOYCE COLEMAN WE know more about Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, commissioner of the Luttrell Psalter (BL, Add. MS. 42130), than about the patrons of many other medieval manuscripts.^ Unfortunately for the many admirers of the Psalter, not all of what we know about Geoffrey casts him in a positive light. In particular, scholars have had to grapple with records that show him leading a violent raid on the Gilbertine priory of Sempringham. According to the royal order dated 27 July 1312, which set up a commission of inquiry in response to the complaint of Prior John de Camelton, 'Geoffrey Literel of Irnham, Edmund de Coleville of Westbitham, John son of John Gobaud, Roger de Birthorpe with John and Thomas his brothers, John de Graveneye, William Pleseleie and John le Hunte, with others' broke the doors and walls of the priory, carrying away goods worth ^^500 and assaulting several of the men who tried to stop them.'^ Art historians have been eager to dissociate Geoffrey from any actual barbarity towards his neighbours. Eric Millar, for example, notes: One would be tempted to infer... that Sir Geoffrey was a person of hasty disposition, were it not that these picturesque details almost certainly represent little more than the common form of pleading in cases of distraint and the like, and refer to what was probably at most a technical assault.^ Janet Backhouse explains this charge, and a later one from 1320 regarding a raid on Sir Ralph de Sancto Laudo, as property disputes regarding land held in Bulby, a village just east of Irnham (site of the Luttrell manor; see fig. i).^ Such 'events', she says, 'which were not at all unusual at the time, reflect nothing more sinister than local disputes over boundaries and the non-payment of local dues.'^ Although acknowledging a possible misuse of seigneurial power, Michael Camille also favours dismissive language in discussing Geoffrey's raids. 'These episodes were likely the result of squabbles over rents or rights', Camille wrote in 1987, 'in which Sir Geoffrey felt within his bounds forcibly to enter and take what was his by force'.^ In his new book on the Psalter, Camille employs an even more radical means of exonerating Geoffrey: he reverses the historical order of events. Geoffrey's raid on Sempringham, Camille notes, 'was probably a reprisal for the prior forcefully retrieving a number of his 103 ^. /. Geoffrey Luttrell's corner of Lincolnshire; drawn by Rachel Wagner beasts that had been impounded by Roger'.^ This refers to a raid in which the Prior of Sempringham and his men entered the close of Roger de Birthorpe, 'broke his park there, drove away certain animals of the prior which he had taken at Birthorpe,... carried away his goods, and assaulted...his men and servants'.^ However, as noted above, the commission to investigate Geoffrey's raid on Sempringham was set up on 27 July 1312, while that to investigate Sempringham's raid on Roger de Birthorpe is dated 7 September 1312. The terms of the second commission make it clear that the Sempringham-Birthorpe raid was a reprisal for the Luttrell-Sempringham raid, rather than the other way around, as Camille suggests.^ The art historians have been energetic in their attempts to rehabihtate Sir Geoffrey, patron as he is of one of the most beloved manuscripts in the British Library. On the other hand, the historians of the Gilbertine order, unconstrained by codicological loyalties, have taken a darker view of Luttrell's activities. Tracing a decline in the fortunes of the Gilbertine houses over this period. Rose Graham gives a prominent place to their 'severe losses from the assaults of neighbouring knights', of which the chief example is the Luttrell raid.^** Must the art historians' minimizations be rejected, then, and the truth faced that Geoffrey Luttrell was as much local bully as patron of the arts? 104 A petition recently discovered in the Public Record Office sheds new light on this issue. Addressed to the King and his council from Roger de Birthorpe, Geoffrey's associate in the raid on Sempringham Priory, the document establishes that Geoffrey's role in the raid was less prominent, and thus less worrisome, than previously assumed.^^ It also reveals that the urge to minimize the incident is a phenomenon of no recent origin. More importantly, the new information provided by this document points to an unsuspected political context for the Sempringham raid. This investigation has, in turn, shed new light on Geoffrey Luttrell's connection with the rebel earl, Thomas of Lancaster, and on the picture in the Psalter that is often supposed to depict Thomas's execution. ROGER DE BIRTHORPE'S PETITION The petition is written in a Chancery hand, on a long strip of parchment (io| inches long by 35 inches wide) in Anglo-French, still the language of the upper classes in early fourteenth-century England. In translation, it reads: Roger de Birthorpe shows to our Lord the King and to his council that, as a dispute had developed between John de Camelton, prior of Sempringham, and the said Roger owing to a seizure of cattle that the said Roger had taken from the said prior, and to make a good accord between them, the said Roger called together Sir Edmund Coleville, Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, Sir Guy Gubaud, and many other great lords and good men of the country and led them to the priory of Sempringham to treat with the said prior about the said affair. And the said prior, perceiving their coming, had the doors closed and did not want to speak with them. But as soon as they had left, conceiving a malicious plan, he had the doors cut down by the men of his household, and raised a hue and cry about the said Roger with a great pursuit up to the manor of Birthorpe. And on this [ground], by the patronage and support of Sir Hugh le Despenser and his sisters, ladies m the said priory, [the prior] brought a writ of trespass oyer and terminer against the said Roger [i.e., called for a legal inquiry to 'hear and determine' the extent of Roger's misdoings]. And [the prior] did so much by his false planning and procurement that the inquest found against the said Roger for damages to the prior [of] 500 marks [about £333], whereas neither the said Roger nor any other man acting for him had committed any trespass. And for the great malice of the said prior, the said Roger did not dare remain in England but crossed into Ireland. And the said prior would not let the matter drop, but proceeded with his suit to take his body [i.e., to arrest and imprison Roger]. And [the prior] applied so much pressure that by his contumacy he [Roger] was made outlaw. Because of which outlawry. Sir Henry de Beaumont took possession of his [Roger's] manor of Birthorpe, which was worth £40 a year, as lord-in-chief. And has held it since [as] his land in disinheritance of the said Roger. For which he [Roger] prays that as our lord the King gave him his charter of pardon and restored [him] to his peace, that he might have restitution of his land and [a writ of] attaint on the inquest which found falsely against him. On the other side of the parchment (the 'dorse') are two legal comments, evidently made by the king's councillors who examined this document: As to the land, sue at [i.e., seek remedy from] the common law. 105 And as to the attaint, let it be declared by the great council if their intention is that the statute applies as well to inquests already held as to inquests which will be The reference to a statute involving attaint suggests that the petition dates from 1327. In 1326 Edward IPs estranged queen, Isabella, and her lover, Roger de Mortimer, had successfully invaded England. Edward was deposed in January 1327 and murdered soon after, with Mortimer's connivance. ^^ Ruling on behalf of the young Edward III, Isabella and Mortimer then ' launched an unusually serious executive effort to improve the state of peace'.^* One of their first reforms, early in 1327, was to enact a statute allowing writs of attaint to be obtained in oyer and terminer cases.^^ A writ of attaint, according to Whartons Law-Lexicon^ is 'issued to inquire whether a jury of twelve men gave a false verdict, so that the judgment following thereupon might be reversed';^^ basically, it allows a defendant to appeal against a negative judgment. The councillors who examined Roger's petition were evidently unsure if the new statute could be made to apply retrospectively; we will see below what the apparent results of their decision were. It is difficult to decide if the incident described in Roger's petition is the one that led to the 27 July 1312 commission of oyer and terminer, or came subsequent to it. If these are two separate incidents, the previous seizure of cattle, mentioned at the beginning of Roger's petition, would presumably be the event described in the 27 July 1312 commission. The 'visit' recorded in Roger's petition would be a return encounter, which the prior not unreasonably took to be another raiding sortie. The cast of characters is nearly identical in both accounts, except that the party Roger describes in his petition includes Guy Gobaud, whereas the raid recorded in the Calendar of Patent Rolls lists not Guy but his brother, John.^' According to Roger, it was this second, ill-starred visit that led to the commission of oyer and terminer.
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