Gentry Perceptions of Violence in Fourteenth-Century England Rhian
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Gentry Perceptions of Violence in Fourteenth-Century England Rhian Elizabeth McLaughlin Doctor of Philosophy University of York History September 2014 2 Abstract This thesis is an examination of gentry perceptions of violence in fourteenth-century England. It is intended to demonstrate the potential for advancing studies of this nature by combining literary and legal evidence. It is also the aim of this thesis to advance understanding of late-medieval gentry violence by moving beyond focusing on one geographical area, and instead engaging in comparison of different counties, namely Hampshire, Nottinghamshire and Cumberland. This enables an assessment of the impact of different local pressures on gentry perceptions of violence. Ultimately this investigation shows that there was little variety in terms of gentry perceptions of violence nationwide, despite differing local circumstances. Part One of the thesis begins with an introduction to elite society and the balance of power in fourteenth-century Hampshire, Nottinghamshire and Cumberland. It demonstrates that these counties were sufficiently different to enable a meaningful consideration of how far local circumstances affected gentry perceptions of violence. The service engaged in by the sample gentry is then considered. This consideration shows that the sample gentry did not develop a clear preference for military or administrative service and provides a basis for investigation of the impact of different forms of service on perceptions of violence. Part Two commences with the use of legal evidence to provide a range of potential motivations for gentry violence. This is then combined with literary evidence to show that gentry perceptions of violence were affected by motivation, victim, the level of violence, and any impact the violence had on them. The thesis concludes by showing that the gentry did not regard violence as something which was likely to hinder their careers, or a direct affront to the crown. Nonetheless, they did wish for violence to be limited and justified in order to preserve stability. 3 Contents Abstract 2 Contents 3 List of Tables 5 Acknowledgements 6 Author’s Declaration 7 Part One 8 Chapter One: Introduction 8 Theories of Violence 9 Violence in Context: Gentry Society in Fourteenth-Century England 14 Methodology and Evidence 29 Chapter Two: Landed Society and Crown Authority 38 Cumberland 39 Nottinghamshire 50 Hampshire 62 Comparative Conclusion 72 Chapter Three: Gentry Service 76 The Early-Fourteenth Century 83 o Hampshire 85 o Nottinghamshire 87 o Cumberland 90 The Mid-Fourteenth Century 93 o Hampshire 95 o Nottinghamshire 98 o Cumberland 101 The Late-Fourteenth Century 104 4 o Hampshire 105 o Nottinghamshire 108 o Cumberland 111 Conclusion 114 Part Two 118 Chapter Four: Progression to a Study of Perceptions of Violence 118 Chapter Five: Gentry Motivations for Violence: The Legal Evidence 132 Gentry Violence, Land and Theft 134 Accusations of Raptus and Abduction 146 Disruption of Crown and Ecclesiastical Officials 156 Conclusion 163 Chapter Six: Gentry Perceptions of Violence: The Literary Evidence 167 Motivations for Violence 168 Victims of Violence 180 Violent Excess, Chivalry and Restraint 191 Conclusion 200 Chapter Seven: Gentry Perceptions of Violence: Law-Breaking and Public Authority 203 Violent Crime and Administrative Service 206 Violence, Pardons and Service 217 Violence: Against the Law and Against the Crown? 223 Conclusion 230 Chapter Eight: Conclusion 233 Abbreviations 242 Bibliography 243 5 List of Tables Table 1: JUST 1 (Justices in Eyre, of Assize, of Oyer and Terminer, and of the Peace, etc: Rolls and Files) Table 2: KB 27 (Court of King's Bench: Plea and Crown Sides: Coram Rege Rolls) Table 3: KB 9 (Court of King's Bench: Crown Side: Indictments Files, Oyer and Terminer Files and Informations Files) 6 Acknowledgements Producing this thesis in three years has been made far more possible by help from a range of individuals and institutions. I would first like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding my research. My supervisor, Professor Mark Ormrod, has made what at many times seemed a daunting task far more manageable with his patience, advice, and encouragement. For this I am extremely grateful. I would like to thank Doctor Paul Dryburgh for tolerantly answering inane palaeographical questions, and for his helpful feedback and encouragement. I would also like to thank him for taking the time to review my final draft. Doctor Sarah Rees Jones has offered useful advice on draft work and career ideas, and I wish to thank her for this. I would like to thank the staff at the National Archives, Kew, for their assistance when consulting their collections. I would also like to thank the Society of the White Hart for partially funding a trip to Kalamazoo to present some of my research ideas and receive feedback. I am very grateful for the support of my parents. They have encouraged me to work hard, but have also largely reminded me that Saturday nights are not for checking footnotes. I would like to thank my brother, Euan, for accepting the mammoth task of proof-reading my thesis. My York housemates deserve gratitude for the encouragement, the fun, the shared occasional bouts of whinging, and the endless supply of tea, so I offer this now. That I have enjoyed these three years so much is due to the people already mentioned, but also due to the wider group of friends I have made in York. Thank you for a great three years. Finally, I would like to thank friends from Boston and Durham days, who have provided an important means of escape every now and again. Thank you all. 7 Author’s Declaration I declare that, except where explicit reference has been made to the contribution of others, this thesis is the result of my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree at the University of York or any other institution. 8 Chapter One: Introduction The gentry of late-medieval England have been a focus for historical study for a number of decades. Many studies have taken a county-focused or regional approach, which has deepened understanding of gentry communities in particular areas.1 Others have instead considered particular elements of gentry identity or culture nationwide.2 This thesis will combine elements of both approaches by investigating an aspect of gentry society, namely violence, but with the geographical foci of Hampshire, Nottinghamshire and Cumberland. A range of research questions will be addressed. This thesis will consider the motivations for gentry violence from the available evidence, and the extent to which these motivations have been viewed as justifiable by other members of the gentry. The extent to which limits appear to have been placed on the use of violence to render it acceptable in the gentry consciousness will be investigated, as will the nature of these limiting factors. Finally, this thesis will consider the extent to which the gentry appear to have viewed the use of violence as problematic and risky, or were comfortable that engaging in violent crime was unlikely to hinder their progress in society. These investigations do not immediately appear to necessitate a county-focused approach; instead the connected issues could be studied more generally across England. However, this could leave any conclusions open to criticism that they were too generalised and did not take into account the potential for variety between counties or the context of different local pressures, such as warfare in the Borders.3 As will be shown in this chapter, context has been identified as having vital importance when considering violence.4 This thesis will deal with the issue of context by investigating gentry perceptions of violence in 1 For instance, a number of studies of late-medieval gentry in particular counties have been produced: E. Acheson, A Gentry Community: Leicestershire in the Fifteenth Century c.1422-c.1485 (Cambridge, 1992); M. J. Bennett, Community, Class and Careerism: Cheshire and Lancashire in the Age of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Cambridge, 1983); C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity: a Study of Warwickshire Landed Society 1401-1499 (Cambridge, 1992); S. J. Payling, Political Society in Lancastrian England: The Greater Gentry of Nottinghamshire (Oxford, 1991); A. J. Pollard, 'The Richmondshire Community of Gentry during the Wars of the Roses', in C. D. Ross (ed.), Patronage, Pedigree and Power in Late Medieval England (Gloucester, 1979), pp. 37-59; S. Wright, The Derbyshire Gentry in the Fifteenth Century (Chesterfield, 1983); N. Saul, Knights and Esquires: the Gloucestershire Gentry in the Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 1981); N. Saul, Scenes from Provincial Life: Knightly Families in Sussex, 1280-1400 (Oxford, 1986); J. Mackman, ‘The Lincolnshire Gentry and the Wars of the Roses’ (University of York PhD Thesis, 2000); E. Noble, The World of the Stonors: a Gentry Society (Woodbridge, 2009). 2 For examples of this approach see the articles in R. Radulescu and A. Truelove (eds.), Gentry Culture in Late-Medieval England (Manchester, 2005). 3 L. Stone, ‘Interpersonal Violence in English Society 1300-1980’, Past and Present, 101 (1983), p. 30. 4 L. Martines, ‘Introduction: the Historical Approach to Violence’, in L. Martines (ed.), Violence and Civil Disorder in Italian Cities 1200-1500 (Berkeley, 1972), p. 12. 9 three counties, namely Hampshire, Nottinghamshire and Cumberland, and identifying the level of variety between gentry perceptions of violence in each county. These counties have been selected because they offer diversity in terms of external pressure and internal social structures. This diversity will be introduced later in this chapter and discussed in greater detail in Chapters Two and Three. Whilst this thesis is intended to demonstrate the seemingly counter-intuitive principle that geographical influences had little impact on gentry perceptions of violence nationwide, it is necessary to prove this through the use of specific county studies.