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For the Good Order to be had thereby: Civic Archives and the creation of conformity in late medieval London, c. 1475-1525 Evan F. May A Thesis In the Department of History Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of History at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada January 2010 ©EvanF. 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The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. •+• Canada iii ABSTRACT For the Good Order to be had thereby: Civic Archives and the creation of conformity in late medieval London, c. 1475-1525 Evan F. May, Ph.D Concordia University, 2010 Medieval cities were complex communities supervised and controlled by elite groups who sought to impose their conception of order upon them, a conception which included strict ideas of proper behaviour and social hierarchy as well as the prevention of criminal behaviour. How they were able to do so in the absence of coercive instruments such as a police force is an interesting problem, and there is little doubt that both royal authority and the members of the elite themselves expected that it was an achievable goal. This thesis explores a variety of strategies used by the government of late medieval London to maintain order in their city, including the mobilization of peer supervision and the craft guild system. Most significantly, I argue that the composition of the civic court records used as evidence in this study are themselves another tool used by London's mayor and aldermen to promote their ideals of correct behaviour, hierarchy, and deference in the mind of the reader, and therefore in their city at large. This argument has implications not only for the management of medieval urban communities, but also for the approaches taken by historians to medieval documents in general, which must be interrogated carefully to determine the agendas their creators may have had, so that these are not accepted unproblematically by the researching historian. iv Acknowledgements Throughout the completion of this thesis, I have been most fortunate to have the support and assistance of many people. I must first express my gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Shannon McSheffrey, whose guidance, criticism, and support have been invaluable both in the research and writing of this thesis and throughout my Ph.D. studies. She has been generous with her time, observations, and resources, and I thank her for this and her patience throughout the process. I am also grateful for the assistance of the staff at the libraries used in my researches; at the National Archives in Kew, the Corporation of London Record Office, and at Concordia University Libraries I met extremely helpful and knowledgeable people who aided my work immensely. I am endlessly grateful to my friends and family for their encouragement and support throughout my studies at Concordia. In particular, I owe a debt to my colleagues in the History Department, especially Matthew Barlow, Paul Hebert, Stephanie Jowett, Sylvia Marques, and Lindsay Pattison, who all provided encouragement, valuable discussion, and suitable distractions when they were necessary. I give them all my most sincere thanks and affection. Finally, my deepest gratitude is due to my beloved wife Laura, who has been steadfast in her support, confidence, and patience throughout this degree and the preparation of this thesis. I could not have done it without her. Of course, any and all errors of fact or interpretation that, despite best efforts, still persist in this thesis, are entirely my own. V Table of Contents Notes on Style and Abbreviations vi Introduction 1 Structure of the City 4 Governing the City 14 Analysis of Main Sources 32 'The Archival Turn' .-. 36 London's Archival Agenda 39 Chapter One: Guilds and Guild Regulation 43 Chapter Two: Recognisance Bonds 84 Chapter Three: Public Ritual Displays 122 Chapter Four: 'Serious' Disorder 161 Chapter Five: Court Troubles 207 Chapter Six: Use of Records 251 Conclusion 287 The Archives in London 288 The 'Invisible' Londoners 290 London's Archival Agenda Revisited 295 Bibliography 299 Notes on Style and Abbreviations Throughout this thesis, I have followed a number of conventions when quoting from primary sources, intended to aid ease of comprehension. Abbreviations have been silently expanded and insertions between lines or in margins have been included in the text where they were intended. I have followed the dating system used in my sources with the exception that the year has been taken to begin on 1 January. Spelling has not been modernized, although when multiple spellings were used for the name of a single person, one spelling was selected and used consistently. English currency during this period consisted of the pound sterling, which could be divided into twenty shillings, which were then made up of twelve pence. The abbreviation for shilling is simply "s", whereas for the pence, a "d", for the Latin denarii, was used. The documents also frequently refer to the mark, which was not an actual coin, but was a notional unit of currency equal to two-thirds of a pound, or 13s 4d. INTRODUCTION If people in the twenty-first century were asked about medieval society, many would probably not include towns and cities in their description at all, the urban environment generally taking a back seat to crusades, inquisitions, knights in shining armour, and damsels in distress. If they were prompted to imagine a medieval city, most would probably not have many favorable associations. The one fact that almost everyone seems to be able to recall about medieval cities is that chamber pots were emptied onto the street from upper story windows. Overall, the image of a medieval city in modern culture is a place that is filthy, dangerous: a city of chaos. I originally set out to examine ideas of chaos and of order in an English medieval urban community, with the hope of illuminating how misbehaviour was contained, and orderly relations promoted, in a context that appears to lack many of the institutions of control found in later societies. London was selected as the subject of the analysis, in part because of its importance in English society, and also because of the proliferation of records available for examination. It was also decided to focus on the late medieval period, from around 1475 to around 1525, partly because this period is known to be one during which London was under significant stress, but also in hopes of helping to fill a historiographical gap. Many studies of "medieval" society end in the mid to late fifteenth century, while many works of "early modern" history begin in the 1550s or later. This has left the intervening years somewhat neglected, and although this will not be a particular focus of the current study, the gap also leaves many questions of transition, and precisely when and how the "medieval" became "early modern" unanswered, or answered unsatisfactorily. 1 2 The men who held authority in medieval London would have been horrified to learn of the negative impression their city had left on the future. For them, creating and maintaining a community that was not only orderly, but also morally respectable and impressive to visitors, was the primary aim of London's government and institutions of authority. How they attempted to accomplish this task in a community with a population upwards of 50,000, and without the assistance of a standing police force to coerce proper behaviour, was the starting premise of this study, and one of the first questions I set out to answer. To be entirely fair to our notional modern audience as well, many medieval people had negative ideas about cities, and London in particular. One famous example is the anonymous poem, the "London Lickpenny", in which someone attempting to press a lawsuit comes to the city, is thwarted in all their designs for lack of money to grease various palms, robbed of their possessions, and eventually retreats back to the country, bewildered and disgusted with the disorder and avarice they have encountered.1 Certainly there were many problems with the society of medieval London, both from the perspective of the authorities and of more "ordinary" residents.