Category: General Topics

The manorial courts were one step up in law enforcement from the tithings that we looked at last week. Each manor had a court and the court governed the lives of everyone who lived on the manor, even determining when they could plant and when they could harvest. It fined them if they allowed their animals to stray onto the lord’s demesne, and it was where they took their claims against one another to be judged.

The manor was made up of the lord’s demesne as well as the land that he leased to tenants. The demesne was the farm that the lord kept for his own benefit.  The people who worked the manor’s land were both freemen and serfs (cottagers, smallholders or villeins). The manorial court dealt with the serfs’ issues, while the freemen were able to go to other courts, which we’ll come to later.  It was also able to create new bylaws for the manor.

Some lords had more than one manor and could not look after all of them closely, or they were away at war or absent for some other reason. The manorial court was one of the ways in which the manor could be managed whether the lord was there or not. He had a steward, who looked after his interests in his absence, but it was the village officials (reeve, hayward and beadle amongst others) who made sure that things happened as they should.

The manorial court decided the land boundaries and the days on which animals could graze in the fields. The steward presided over the court, but the village elected the officials from among themselves. The steward could not tell the court what to do and the court could appeal to the lord if necessary. Usually the business transacted by the court had no direct reference to the lord’s own affairs since it dealt with village problems such as loans not being repaid; men not turning out to work on the lord’s demesne; theft; the erection of a fence in the wrong place; or one villager injuring another.

The court was run by the rich villeins who provided the jurors and officials. The court was supposed to meet every three weeks, but some met less often. All the serfs in the village had to attend. Those who did not were fined. The court was often held in the nave of the church, the part that ‘belonged’ to the village. There were not many places in the village large enough to hold the court and many were simply held in the open air, often in the churchyard. Some manorial courts met in the hall of the manor house itself.

The jurors pronounced judgement on their fellow villagers (and occasionally on the lord) and this was sometimes put to the rest of the village as well for their assent. When making a judgement they had to take into account what they knew of the law, the customs of the manor and the manor’s bylaws. All the jurors and everyone else in the court knew both parties in every case that was brought before them, which was supposed to make it easier to come to a correct judgement. The system of justice was mostly based on the way in which society worked. People lived in small communities where everyone knew everyone else’s business and character. If you, as a villein, were asked whether your neighbour, Peter, had stolen from another neighbour, John, you would know the characters of both men and could assess whether John was making a false claim against Peter or whether Peter was a known thief. You did not have to have seen the (alleged) crime take place in order to be able to work out what had happened, nor did you need any evidence.

Villagers had to pay a fee to the lord get their case heard. The lord of the manor benefited from any fines issued by the court and the court was often the source of a large part of the lord’s income. The manorial court also required payments to the lord on all kinds of occasions – death, inheritance and marriage all had their appropriate fee. When these things happened part of the lord’s land was transferred from one person to another and the fee was to obtain the lord’s permission for that transfer. The court could generate a lot of income for the lord, and fines and fees tended to increase after the Black Death when there were fewer tenants to pay rents. The steward’s clerk recorded the cases and any fines or fees. As well as fines which went into the lord’s coffers, the court could also award damages to be paid by the guilty party in a case to the injured party.

One of the commonest cases to come before a manorial court was the accusation that someone was selling ale before it had been tasted by the ale taster. Ale was brewed at home and sold to the neighbours, who came to the brewer’s house to drink it. The ale taster’s rôle was to ensure that a consistent quality and price were maintained.

It is thanks to the surviving manor court rolls that so much is known about everyday life in the Middle Ages in England. What they show, however, is the things that went wrong and not the things that happened exactly as everybody thought they should.

 

Sources:

England in the Reign of Edward III – Scott L. Waugh

Medieval Lives – Terry Jones

Life in a Medieval Village – Frances and Joseph Gies

Making a Living in the Middle Ages – Christopher Dyer

The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England – Ian Mortimer

 

APRIL MUNDAY is the author of the Soldiers of Fortune and Regency Spies series of novels, as well as standalone novels set in the fourteenth century.

Available now:

 

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I’ve found that it’s easy to misjudge history, to confuse timelines from the relative luxury of the twenty-first century because we know the outcome of events in the nineteenth. When I started research for a series of books called the King’s Germans, I felt certain of both the timeline and the narrative. But research has that uncanny knack of unseating you. A story that flowered in 1808, was firmly planted in 1803. But the seed of the story was set in 1793. By 1808, Napoleon has conquered the major powers of Europe, except Russia and Great Britain. With the former, he has a treaty and a framework for co-operation, or at least non-aggression. With Great Britain, his intention is to turn the British blockade into a continental blockade of British trade. The French army numbers hundreds of thousands of men, with an array of experienced and highly capable leaders. And of course, Napoleon himself! So far, not too radical a narrative.

But this is not the world of 1793. Then the fledgling republic that declares war on Great Britain and every other royal house in Europe is hardly united. It does have a large army, men forced into uniform by the Levée en masse. John Lynn (The Bayonets of the Republic) suggests that the volunteers of 1792 gave the French around 275 battalions, a field strength of 220,000. By February 1793, manpower is estimated between a paper-strength of 450,000 and worse case estimates of 290,000. But how does this affect Great Britain? Again, that firmly held conviction that I had before research was of the unquestioned superiority of the Royal Navy. As I sat and read Fortescue’s British Campaigns in Flanders, the narrative was rather different. The fleet was under tremendous strain, policing Great Britain’s global interest. Manpower was the most crippling deficiency, despite the greatest efforts of the press-gang.

The influx of émigrés saw the formation of communities in Marylebone, Richmond and St. Pancras. The government’s response to the threat of spies and revolutionaries embedding themselves within London, was the Aliens Act, 1793. Immigrants had to provide their names, ranks, occupations, and addresses. Anyone who shared a room or house with an immigrant was also required to do likewise. Failure so to do was to risk being held without the prospect of bail and the possibility of deportation.

The wider debates on the very essence of society and rights were popular and real arguments. Edmund Burke had expressed the fears of the gentry in his essay Reflections on the revolution in France, an essentially conservative treatise condemning the revolutionaries. It sold well, with some 30,000 copies going into circulation. The rebuttal, by Thomas Paine, both defended the revolution and set out costings for welfare for the poor and the means to educate over one million children. At the time the population of the United Kingdom was estimated at around eight million. It’s also estimated that after the initial printing of the Rights of Man were withdrawn in February 1791. A new printing, in March of the same year, was estimated to have sold around a million copies. Paine was tried in his absence for sedition and sentenced to death by hanging. He declined the invitation to return from France and meet such a fate.

How were the fear of invasion and the possible treachery from within were to be avoided? The answer was in the expansion of Fencible units, where the gentry were encouraged to raise infantry and cavalry formations, for the protection of the homeland. Life as a Fencible had certain advantages, a man was exempt from both the press-gang and drafting into the army. Thus, the estates of many landed estates were preserved of their workers and the sons of the nobility received military half-pay and pension safe from the prospect of ever been posted abroad. The ire that Fortescue directs to the obvious junket is worth reading. There was at least one case of an individual claiming a lieutenant’s half-pay for over sixty years. Nineteen thousand men were drafted into militia and Fencible units in 1793, according to Fortescue.

The net result for an army destined for the continent was that only one brigade of two thousand men, drawn from the Foot Guards, was available for deployment. A second under Major-general Abercrombie was being prepared but these were so awful that the Adjutant-general wrote to the Duke of York and to Abercrombie to apologise.

“I am afraid that you will not reap the advantage that you might have expected from the brigade of the Line just sent over to you, as so considerable a part of it is composed of undisciplined and raw recruits; and how they are to be disposed of until they can be taught their business I am at a loss to imagine… I was not consulted upon the subject until it was too late to remedy this evil.”

Such a letter shows the deep division between Horse Guards and Dundas, the War Minister. It exposes the fault lines over which the Duke of York was to attempt to exercise control of his army and a strategy to successfully conclude the war, with no firm indication of what such war aims might look like.

The Black Lions of Flanders
(King’s Germans Book 1)

In the war of the First Coalition, friend and foe know one simple truth: trust your ally at your own peril.

February 1793.

Private Sebastian Krombach has joined the army to escape the boredom of life in his father’s fishing fleet. Captain Werner Brandt yearns to leave his post and retire into civilised society and Lieutenant Erich von Bomm wants nothing more than to survive his latest escapade that has provoked yet another duel. Each man is a King’s German; when they are called to war, their lives will become inextricably linked.

The redcoats of the 2nd Battalion, 10th Regiment, must survive the divisions that sweep through their ranks before they are tested in combat. On the border of France, the King’s Germans will face an enemy desperate to keep the Revolution alive: the Black Lions of Flanders.

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The King of Dunkirk
(King’s Germans Book 2)

May 1793: The French border.

Valenciennes, Paris then home! Every common soldier knows the popular refrain so why can’t the commanders see sense?

The protracted siege of Valenciennes exposes the mistrust between the allies. National interests triumph over military logic. The King’s Germans find themselves marching north to the coast, not east to Paris. Dunkirk has become a royal prize, an open secret smuggled to the French, who set a trap for the Duke of York’s army.

Lieutenant Erich von Bomm and Captain Werner Brandt find themselves in the thick of the action as the 14th Nationals, the Black Lions, seek their revenge. In the chaos of battle, Sebastian Krombach, working alongside Major Trevethan, the engineer tasked with capturing Dunkirk, must make a dreadful choice: to guide a battalion of Foot Guards to safety across the Great Moor or carry a message that might save the life of a friend.

The King’s Germans and the Black Lions do battle to determine who shall be crowned the King of Dunkirk.

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AUTHOR BIO:

The King’s Germans is a project that has been many years in the making. Currently I manage to juggle writing and research around a crowded work and family life. The Black Lions of Flanders (set in 1793) is the first in the King’s Germans’ series, which will follow an array of characters through to the final book in Waterloo. The King of Dunkirk will soon be released and I hope that the response to that is as encouraging as the reviews of Black Lions have been.
While I’m self-published now, I have an excellent support team that help me to produce what I hope is a story with professional feel, and that readers would want to read more than once. My family back-ground is in paperback book sales, so I’m very keen to ensure that the paperback design is something that I would be proud to put on my bookshelf.
I live just outside of Tavistock, Devon, where I enjoy walking on the moors and the occasional horse-riding excursion as both inspiration and relaxation.

LINKS:

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Instagram: kingsgermans

 

Cut-and-dried? Not on your life. Primogeniture, or the “law” governing inheritance, even in its basic form could prove elusive to the most determined lawyer. “Primogeniture among males, equal shares between females, a son always preferred to a daughter, a daughter to a brother or other collateral. For the fief to retain its coherence, it was thus essential that its proprietor, if not childless, should have at least one son or, failing sons, not more than one daughter.” (see K.B. McFarlane’s “The Nobility of Later Medieval England”). Easier said than done! Sorting out the details got messy very quickly.

According to McFarlane, approximately 25% of all noble families failed in the direct male line in every generation. So according to the laws of inheritance, any daughters would be next in line, even if there was a male nephew, for instance, or a surviving brother, known as collateral heirs. When the inheritance went to an heiress, the line would be passed to her husband—an unfortunate outcome, needless to say. A famous example of this was the Beauchamp inheritance. When in 1446 the Earl of Warwick died with no male heir, his lands and title passed on to his daughter who died in infancy; after that the earldom passed on to his full sister, married to Richard Neville who was already Earl of Salisbury—and later known as the Kingmaker. If there were multiple daughters, they would split the inheritance. In the case of Richard Neville, he had no sons—only two daughters, the elder married to George Duke of Clarence and the younger to Richard Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III. George became next Earl of Warwick through Isabella, then was executed, passing the title to his son Edward Plantagenet. Imprisoned in the Tower of London at age 10, Edward spent the rest of his life there and was executed in 1499, at which point the line became extinct.

If the father had a big family, naturally he would want to take care of younger sons and daughters, notwithstanding the legends of the younger son driven from home to seek his fortune. In the case of royalty, the younger sons often were often made earls, or dukes—and married to an heiress, if possible. And of course there was sometimes a situation where a younger son was preferred over the direct heir. What was a man to do? What’s important to the study of primogeniture is to know that property could not be devised by a will, as we know it today. According to McFarlane, “If a landowner died, his heir inherited; if he wanted to benefit his younger children he had to do it in his own lifetime.” Most people did not want to divest themselves of their lands à la King Lear, so this was not a common option.

Clever aristocrats soon found a way around this restriction: the estate tail. What happened here is that the grantor would surrender his fief as a “conditional gift” to his king, his immediate lord, or a group of friends. Then he would receive it back “on terms different from those governing ordinary inheritance”. He no longer owned the fief in “fee simple” (by definition unconditional); he held it in “fee tail”. This way he could cut out the direct heir, or possibly his daughter in favor of collateral heirs (or any other situation—even bastardy). If women were excluded altogether, or at least until all male descendants were extinct, this estate was called “tail male” or “entail”. The entail was irrevocable and perpetual, even if the principal changed his mind before he died. No one could alter it. However, in the legal interest of the direct heir, entails usually reverted back to the head of the family if there was a total failure of male heirs in the cadet branches after three generations.

Slightly more adaptable was another legal device known as the use.  A man would grant his lands, “or any part of them, to a number of his friends, usually called his feoffees, to hold to his use as long as he lived and to dispose of when he was dead in accordance with his last will.” (McFarlane)  For all intents-and-purposes the grantor was now a tenant for life rather than owner of the estate. The use had the added advantage that an underaged lord who inherited was not subject to a wardship in his minority—hence, it was a bit of a tax dodge, since wardships had a monetary value. A disadvantage was that the feofees had to be trusted implicitly; if they acted fraudulently or in disobedience, there was little established recourse for the wronged party.

By the end of the fourteenth century, “tail male” became ingrained and extended to earldoms as well. An added bonus, by the way, is that an estate held in “fee tail” could not be forfeited for treason. Ultimately this new freedom to bequeath land had its own consequences: too many unsustainable cadet branches weakened the line. Primogeniture reasserted itself around 1500, though many permutations continued to exist.

In 1846 William John Thoms, a British writer, penned a letter to The Athenaeum, a British Magazine. In this letter, he talked about “popular antiquities.” But instead of calling it by its common name, he used a new term — folklore.

What did Thoms mean by this new word? Well, let’s break it down. The word folk referred to the rural poor who were for the most part illiterate. Lore means instruction. So folklore means to instruct the poor. But we understand it as verbal storytelling. Forget the wheel  — I think storytelling is what sets us apart. We need stories, we always have and we always will.

The Dark Ages is, I think, one of the most fascinating eras in history. However, it does not come without challenges. This was an era where very little was recorded in Britain. There are only a handful of primary written sources. Unfortunately, these sources are not very reliable. They talk of great kings and terrible battles, but something is missing from them. Something important. And that something is authenticity. The Dark Ages is the time of the bards. It is the time of myths and legends. It is a period like no other. If the Dark Ages had a welcoming sign it would say this:

“Welcome to the land of folklore. Welcome to the land of King Arthur.”

Throughout the years there have been many arguments put forward as to who King Arthur was, what he did, and how he died. England, Scotland, Wales, Brittany and France claim Arthur as their own. Even The Roman Empire had a famous military commander who went by the name of Lucius Artorius Castus. There are so many possibilities. There are so many Arthurs. Over time, these different Arthurs became one. The Roman Artorious gave us the knights. The other countries who have claimed Arthur as their own, gave us the legend.

We are told that Arthur and his knights cared, for the most part, about the people they represented. Arthur was a good king, the like of which has never been seen before or after. He was the perfect tool for spreading a type of patriotic propaganda and was used to great effect in the centuries that were to follow. Arthur was someone you would want to fight by your side. However, he also gave ordinary people a sense of belonging and hope. He is, after all, as T.H. White so elegantly put it, The Once and Future King. If we believe in the legend, then we are assured that if Britain’s sovereignty is ever threatened, Arthur and his knights will ride again. A wonderful and heartfelt promise. A beautiful prophecy. However, there is another side to these heroic stories. A darker side. Some stories paint Arthur in an altogether different light. Arthur is no hero. He is no friend of the Church. He is no friend to anyone apart from himself. He is arrogant and cruel. Likewise, history tells us that the Roman military commander, Lucius Artorius Castus, chose Rome over his Sarmatian Knights. He betrayed them and watched as Rome slaughtered them all. It is not quite the picture one has in mind when we think of Arthur, is it? It is an interesting paradox and one I find incredibly fascinating.

But putting that aside, Arthur, to many people is a hero. Someone to inspire to. This was certainly true for Edward III. Edward was determined that his reign was going to be as spectacular as Arthur’s was. He believed in the stories of Arthur and his Knights. He had even started to have his very own Round Table built at Windsor Castle. He also founded The Order of the Garter— which is still the highest order of chivalry that the Queen can bestow. Arthur, whether fictional or not, influenced kings.

So how do we separate fact from fiction?

In our search for Arthur, we are digging up folklore, and that is not the same as excavating relics. We have the same problem now as Geoffrey of Monmouth did back in the 12th Century when he compiled The History of the Kings of Briton. His book is now considered a ‘national myth,’ but for centuries his book was considered to be factually correct. So where did Monmouth get these facts? He borrowed from the works of Gildas, Nennuis, Bede, and The Annals of Wales. There was also that mysterious ancient manuscript that he borrowed from Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. Monmouth then borrowed from the bardic oral tradition. In other words, he listened to the stories of the bards. Add to the mix his own imagination and Monmouth was onto a winner. Those who were critical of his work were brushed aside and ignored. Monmouth made Britain glorious, and he gave us not Arthur the general, but Arthur the King. And what a king he was.

So is Arthur a great lie that for over a thousand years we have all believed in? Should we be taking the Arthurian history books from the historical section and moving them to sit next to George R. R. Martin’s, Game of Thrones? No. I don’t think so. In this instance, folklore has shaped our nation. We should not dismiss folklore out of hand just because it is not an exact science. We should embrace it because when you do, it becomes easier to see the influence these ‘stories’ have had on historical events.

The Du Lac Prophecy

(Book 4 of The Du Lac Chronicles)
By Mary Anne Yarde

Two Prophesies. Two noble Households. One throne.

 Distrust and greed threaten to destroy the House of du Lac. Mordred Pendragon strengthens his hold on Brittany and the surrounding kingdoms while Alan, Mordred’s cousin, embarks on a desperate quest to find Arthur’s lost knights. Without the knights and the relics they hold in trust, they cannot defeat Arthur’s only son – but finding the knights is only half of the battle. Convincing them to fight on the side of the Du Lac’s, their sworn enemy, will not be easy.

 If Alden, King of Cerniw, cannot bring unity there will be no need for Arthur’s knights. With Budic threatening to invade Alden’s Kingdom, Merton putting love before duty, and Garren disappearing to goodness knows where, what hope does Alden have? If Alden cannot get his House in order, Mordred will destroy them all.

BUY LINKS: 

Amazon US
https://www.amazon.com/Du-Lac-Prophecy-Book-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B07GDS3HPJ

Amazon UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07GDS3HPJ/

Amazon CA
https://www.amazon.ca/Du-Lac-Prophecy-Book-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B07GDS3HPJ/

 

Author Bio:
Mary Anne Yarde is the multi award-winning author of the International Bestselling series — The Du Lac Chronicles.

Yarde grew up in the southwest of England, surrounded and influenced by centuries of history and mythology. Glastonbury — the fabled Isle of Avalon — was a mere fifteen-minute drive from her home, and tales of King Arthur and his knights were a part of her childhood.

Media Links:

Website/Blog: https://maryanneyarde.blogspot.com/

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Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Anne-Yarde/e/B01C1WFATA/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15018472.Mary_Anne_Yarde

As my title suggests, the king’s wardrobe was actually broken into four parts. Each part had its own officer, separate function, and different location. And surprisingly, their names aren’t always intuitive.

The WARDROBE, was the most important and expensive of the four. It was responsible for the king and his household’s expenses, such as food and drink, coal, wood, candles, etc. as well as oats and litter for the horses and daily wages. Incidental expenses for the household such as medicine, ink-horns and parchments were included, as well as gifts, robes, hunting expenses, and the cost of entertaining foreign ambassadors. For the last several years of King Edward III’s reign and the first half of Richard II’s reign, Wardrobe expenses hovered around £18,000. But after Queen Anne’s death in 1395, when Richard was accused of excessive extravagance and especially when he employed his 300 Cheshire archers as bodyguards, his expenditure swelled to over £37,000. Ironically, even though this was a bone of contention, King Henry IV continued this huge spending spree, allegedly because he preferred to maintain a large and extravagant domestic establishment. Eventually he had to bow to the complaints of Parliament, and managed to bring his annual expenses down to about £19,000.

The GREAT WARDROBE was responsible for cloth, furs, and linen. These were for robes (sometimes part of an annuity, as well as robes for tournaments, marriages, funerals, anniversaries, chapel vestments, trappings for royal horses), wall hangings, coverings—even garters. Just to give an example of how costly certain events could prove, “for Princess Joan’s funeral (mother of the king) in 1385, the keeper had to provide special mourning robes for four earls, ten bannerets, fifty-four knights, forty-eight clerks, 161 esquires and sergeants, 157 valets, eighteen minstrels, a further 320 lesser servants of the king” (see “The Royal Household and the King’s Affinity” by Charles Given-Wilson). No sewing machines; they must have needed a whole army of seamstresses.

The Great Wardrobe was also divided into four sub-departments, headed by a tailor, armorer, pavilioner, and embroiderer. It was housed next to Baynard’s Castle between St. Paul’s and the Thames; this house was purchased by Edward III in 1360 and remained in use until the great fire of 1666. As in the Wardrobe expenses, there was a huge escalation of costs from the early part of Richard’s reign (averaging about £3,000-£3,500 a year) to £8,000 at the end of his reign. This is attributed to his great love of finery.

The PRIVY WARDROBE was essentially dedicated to arms and armor and was located in the Tower of London. Although the stock of weaponry was impressive (among the 1396 inventory it contained 796 basinets, 2328 bows, 1392 coats of mail, 11,300 quarrels, 14,280 arrows), this was the least expensive of the four household departments. This is because the sheriffs were expected to provide most of the weaponry, deducting the costs from their annual payments to the exchequer. When members of the king’s household were sent out on military duties, they were usually equipped from the Privy Wardrobe.

The CHAMBER, as you would expect, was the king’s personal wealth. This included his jewels and plate, which were sometimes used as pledges for loans. How was the Chamber money accrued? Income from the king’s personal estates, fines, wardships, ransoms (remember the French King John?), licenses, traitors’ chattels, dowries (800,000 francs in 1396 for little Princess Isabella) among other sources. Money was passed back and forth between the Chamber and the exchequer; not only was the Chamber given annual installments, but there were times the king would deposit large sums in the exchequer. According to Given-Wilson, “between 1368 and 1377, Edward in fact transferred a total of more than £160,000 of his personal wealth, from the chamber, the Tower hoard, and the ransom installments which continued to accrue, into the exchequer, the vast majority of which was spent on military needs”. Since the Chamber money was the king’s business and nobody else’s, there are no official accounts for historians. Nonetheless, Edward must have collected quite a hoard, for in 1365-66 he erected the Jewel Tower (pictured) in the Palace of Westminster which was surrounded by a moat.

As you may suspect, this post concerns the reigns of Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV as described by Chris Given-Wilson. If you are interested in the early development of the Wardrobe, I heartily recommend T.F. Tout who has written four volumes on the subject entitled “Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediaeval England” which have recently been reprinted. Both of these historians have contributed greatly to our knowledge of the period.

In a broad sense, from the time of Henry II (and before, probably) until the 15th century, the royal court was itinerant. There was no home base as we think of it; the king often spent a few days or a couple of weeks in one place. He rarely lingered more than a couple of months. Travel, or “removing” was a part of life. But because the king took most of his household with him, it was quite a venture: “the household included many hundreds of horses, and a massive store of baggage: crockery and cutlery, hangings, furnishings, clothes and weaponry, wax, wine and storage vessels, parchment and quills, weights, measures, and so on.” (See The Royal Household and the King’s Affinity by Chris Given-Wilson.) What this entailed was sending ahead a whole crew of harbingers to find lodging and purveyors to purchase food and drink, oats and fodder for the horses, etc. This put a huge strain on local neighborhoods through which the court passed, for the appetite of the household was often much greater than the local towns could accommodate. Because the locals were obliged to cooperate—even though the purveyors usually didn’t carry any money with them and wrote medieval IOUs to be cashed at the exchequer—there had to be a parameter within which the mandatory purveyance operated. And this was the verge, defined as a 12-mile radius from the presence of the king; when he king moved, the verge moved along with him.

Whenever possible, the purveyors would buy in bulk at ports and markets throughout the country. If the items were perishable, they naturally had to work the local markets. Purveyors were universally hated, partly because of delayed payments, and partly because the merchants were paid less than market value for their goods. According to Given-Wilson, “There were nine purveying offices in the household: the pantry, or bakehouse, for corn and bread; the buttery, for wine and beer; the kitchen, for all food not covered by other offices; the poultery, for poultry, game-birds, and eggs; the stables (or avenary, or marshalsea) for hay, oats and litter for the horses; the saucery, for salt and whatever was needed for sauces; the hall and chamber, for coal and wood for heating and rushes; the scullery, for crockery, cutlery, storage vessels, and coal and wood for cooking; and the spicery, for spices, wax, soap, parchment, and quills.” Before 1362—when the “great statute of purveyors” was enacted to regulate the problems—one purveyor after another would come knocking on an unfortunate’s door. Oh, and local carts and beasts were requisitioned to transport the goods, usually without payment.

You can imagine what kind of unrest this caused! Furthermore, if anyone refused to cooperate with the king’s servants, they could be brought up before the court of the verge (also known as the Marshalsea court) which was the legal arm of the household. Sometimes the Marshalsea dealt with offenses within the household such as pleas of debt or disagreements between members; often it reviewed offenses between a member of the household and someone outside of it. Sometimes it dealt with trespassers within the verge (with force and arms) or levied fines against those who used false measures. Assaults, thefts, and transgressions, if committed within the verge, were tried, sometimes with juries. Apparently murders were outside of its jurisdiction.

As the fourteenth century drew on, the king tended to stay closer and closer to London, which made the city almost perpetually within the verge. Apparently the Marshalsea claimed precedence over London’s common law (reminds me of the Church), and criminals often crossed the Thames to Southwark to evade punishment. In 1373 Edward III ordered a prison to be built in Southwark for his own convenience, known as the Marshalsea prison.  It was one of the first London buildings to suffer the wrath of the Peasant’s Revolt. The infamous Marshalsea of Charles Dickens’ time was a different prison altogether, and much more notorious than its namesake.

In Part One we followed Jasper and Henry Tudor’s escape from West Wales to Brittany. Now we follow events up to their return:

When Yorkist agents began plotting to capture the Tudors Duke Francis moved Jasper and Henry to different fortresses further inland. I stayed by the river within sight of the magnificent Château de Josselin, where Jasper was effectively held prisoner. Although the inside has been updated over the years, the tower where Jasper lived survives and I was able to identify Tudor period houses in the medieval town which he would have seen from his window.

Henry’s château was harder to find but worth the effort. The Forteresse de Largoët is deep in the forest outside of the town of Elven. His custodian, Marshall of Brittany, Jean IV, Lord of Rieux and Rochefort, had two sons of similar age to Henry and it is thought they continued their education together. Proof I was at the right place was in the useful leaflet in English which confirmed that: ‘On the second floor of the Dungeon Tower and to the left is found a small vaulted room where the Count of Richemont was imprisoned for 18 months (1474-1475).’

Entering the Dungeon Tower through a dark corridor, I regretted not bringing a torch, as the high stairway is lit only by the small window openings. Interestingly, the lower level is octagonal, with the second hexagonal and the rest square. Cautiously feeling my way up the staircase I was walking in the footsteps of the young Henry Tudor, who would also have steadied himself by placing his hand against the cold stone walls, nearly five and a half centuries before.

On my return to Wales I made the journey to remote Mill Bay, where Henry and Jasper landed with their small invasion fleet. A bronze plaque records the event and it was easy to imagine how they might have felt as they began the long march to confront King Richard at Bosworth.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Tony Riches is the author of the best-selling Tudor Trilogy and other medieval historical fiction. Born within sight of Pembroke Castle, he lives by the sea in Pembrokeshire, West Wales with his wife and enjoys sea and river kayaking in his spare time. For more information about Tony’s other books please visit his popular blog, The Writing Desk and website www.tonyriches.com and find him on Facebook and Twitter @tonyriches.  The Tudor Trilogy is available in paperback, ebook and audiobook from Amazon UK  Amazon US and Amazon AU

 

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