The Conquest in Later Medieval English Law II

Chapter 7 begins with the resurrection in Edward II’s reign of the London Collection of the Leges Anglorum, which had first been composed in John’s reign. They were commissioned by Andrew Horn, Chamberlain of the city. More recent works were appended to the Collection, including the Mirror of Justices. The role of this rejuvenated Collection in the politics of the reign is examined, with particular reference to the new clauses of the coronation oath devised in 1308. Items in the Collection are linked with the Modus tenendi parliamentum of 1320-1The chapter then pursues the Conquest as a point of reference through records of later medieval forensic practice, particularly as recorded in the Year Books, and the great works of later medieval jurisprudence. Those of Sir John Fortescue are shown to be exceptional, in that he continued to be explicit about viewing English law in a broad historical perspective, which he showed had traversed the Conquest. Thomas Littleton’s Tenures, Anthony Fitzherbert’s Abridgement, and Year Book cases are adduced as evidence of more conventional, less historically attuned attitudes. The chapter concludes with a consideration of two jurisprudential works of the 1530s—St German’s Dialogue between Doctor and Student and Starkey’s Dialogue between Pole and Lupset—and the sudden interest of government propagandists in the London Collection of the Leges Anglorum, as evidenced by compendium of historical precedent known as Collectanea satis copiosa.

The Audiences for English History in the Early Twelfth Century

Chapter 2 attempts to establish who the audience was for the sudden spate of books on the history of England, and about English saints, which appeared from the beginning of the twelfth century. The audience is shown to have been mainly but not exclusively monastic and clerical. There is extensive discussion of the circumstances in which books were read and listened to. Suggestions are made about lay audiences, particularly in the case of Gaimar’s (French) vernacular history of the English, and also about the influence of the lay experience on clerical authors. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s parody of the new genre of historical writing is considered in depth.

The Printing of Twelfth-Century English Historiography, and the Integration of Law with History

Chapter 10 opens with the first printing in the 1590s of several of the great works of twelfth-century English historical writing: Lord William Howard’s edition of John of Worcester (1592); and Henry Savile’s of William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, Roger of Howden, and (purporting to be twelfth-century) Pseudo-Ingulf’s Historia Croylandensis (1596). It then proceeds to the editing and publication of works of Norman historiography which encompassed the Conquest: William of Jumièges, William of Poitiers, and Orderic Vitalis. It pays a great deal of attention to William Camden and Robert Cotton. The chapter culminates with a discussion of John Selden’s edition of Eadmer’s Historia novorum. This is shown to combine the two strands of antiquarian interest examined in preceding chapters: medieval historical writing, and medieval law. In terms both of choice of text and focus of editorial attention, it reveals that by the reign of James VI and I, the Conquest had again become the key issue in English medieval history. The chapter also discusses chorographical history as espoused by William Lambarde and William Camden, and the beginnings of scholarly investigation of Domesday Book. It ends by looking forward to the central role which controversy about the Conquest would play in political arguments of the seventeenth century.

The Preservation of the Sources for English Medieval History in the Sixteenth Century

Chapter 8 opens with two events which took place in the summer of 1568: the commission to Archbishop Matthew Parker to identify and record manuscripts dispersed from monastic libraries, especially books with a bearing on English history, and the publication of William Lambarde’s APXAIONOMIA, his edition of Old English law, much of it in parallel text, Old English and Latin. The chapter then reverts to the dissolution itself, and who can be shown to have saved which particular books. It pays particular attention to the activities of John Leland, John Bale, and certain bibliophilic royal commissioners, most notably Sir John Prise. Although initial official interest in English history concentrated on the period of the conversion and before, collectors saved the great works of the twelfth century, and it was these that Prise envisaged in his will should be edited and printed. The chapter then considers the circle around Parker, most particularly John Joscelyn, and the use they made of the medieval English histories in their polemical works on ecclesiastical history. Parker’s editions of Matthew Paris were the first works of medieval English historiography to be printed, probably on account of Matthew’s anti-papal instincts. In counterpoint with all this concern for the sources, the chapter also addresses the Italian Polydore Vergil’s recently published and influential attempt to write up English medieval history, for the period in question largely on the basis of the great histories of the early twelfth century.

The Conquest in Later Medieval English Law I

Chapter 6 begins by demonstrating how the compilations of Old English royal law codes underpinned the great thirteenth-century conspectus of common law known as Bracton. It traces them, and the theme of the Conquest, through subsequent thirteenth-century books of English jurisprudence—specifically Britton, Fleta, and the Mirror of Justices. It examines the role of historical material, particularly ancient charters and Domesday Book, in forensic practice in the thirteenth century and later. There are two particular foci: ‘ancient demesne’ cases, and the Quo warranto inquest, on both of which this discussion throws new light. Much use is made of the recent substantial edition of thirteenth-century Law Reports.

The Excavation, Reconstruction, and Fabrication of Old English Law in the Twelfth Century

Chapter 3 examines the attempt, parallel with the writing of English history, to preserve and fabricate mainly in Latin pre-Conquest English royal law codes—codes which William I and his successors were said to have endorsed. The first of these compilations of Old English law translated into Latin, dating from the very beginning of the twelfth century, was Quadripartitus. There were also many others, including Tripartita, the Leges Henrici, and the Leges Edwardi Confessoris. The chapter shows that many of these are preserved in manuscripts which also include contemporary works of history; others—most notably for the rest of this book, the codex which ended up sequentially in the hands of Archbishop Matthew Parker and of Sir Edward Coke (BL MS. Add. 49366)—were purely legal. It demonstrates that these authentic and apocryphal collections did not become obsolete with the establishment of new common law procedures in Henry II’s reign, but continued to be treated as foundational of English law. The watchword in this case too was continuity with the pre-Conquest past.

Introduction

The Introduction provides an overview of the argument of the whole volume. It concludes by anticipating how the first volume will connect with the second volume.

Edward the Confessor

Chapter 4 shows how during John’s reign the baronial opposition appropriated the figure of the recently canonized Edward the Confessor, and used him as a standard against which to judge the current king. A key part was played by the London Collection of the Leges Anglorum, which compiled and in important respects elaborated and extended the compilations of Old English law codes made during the twelfth century. The Collection informed opposition thinking prior to the crisis which produced Magna Carta. The chapter also subjects to minute analysis two very unusual episodes recorded in thirteenth-century annals of provincial churches. First, the St Augustine’s, Canterbury account of Duke William’s having allowed the men of Kent, uniquely, to continue to use Old English Laws and customs. This episode is supposed to have taken place at Swanscombe Down in 1066. The second is the Burton Abbey account of what purports to be a dialogue between King John and a papal legate, allegedly in 1211. The nub of the dialogue is a disagreement about the role of Edward the Confessor. The chapter then shows how Henry III re-appropriated St Edward for the royal cause, but by emphasizing his saintliness rather than his alleged legislation. Henry focussed on the development of the cult, expressed in liturgical, artistic, and architectural terms, and focussed on the rebuilt Westminster Abbey. The chapter concludes with a brief envoi on the later medieval expression of the cult, especially under Richard II.

The Early Twelfth-Century Perspective in English Historical Writing

Chapter 1 explains why, about 40 years after the Conquest, a number of English monastic historians tried to construct the first histories of England to be written since Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. According to William of Malmesbury, English historical writing has been a chain broken at Bede’s death. The sudden initiative to mend that chain at the beginning of the twelfth century was prompted by the need, consequent on the Conquest, to validate title to ecclesiastical land and to authenticate the claims of English saints to sanctity. The chapter argues that the wholesale rebuilding of major English churches in the half century after the Conquest also played a key part. It explains why most of the historians were precentors (or cantors) of their institutions. By examining in detail their treatment of the Conquest itself, it shows how they connected post-Conquest England with what had preceded it. The effect was to create a continuous history of England which transcended the Conquest.

The Conquest in Historical Writing from the Late Thirteenth Century

Chapter 5 analyses three genres of historical writing about England in the later middle ages: histories of individual churches, universal histories, and histories of the kingdom. It confirms the provisional judgement reached in Chapter 4: that with respect to the Conquest and earlier England, historical writing fossilized. There were, however, exceptions, most of which could be categorized in the first genre. These are examined in great detail, and follow on from the treatment of the unusual episodes recorded during the thirteenth century at St Augustine’s, Canterbury and Burton Abbey which were considered in Chapter 4. The first is the problematic, neglected Historia Croylandensis attributed to (Pseudo-)Ingulf, which is for the most part a fabrication of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, but which masquerades as the work of the abbot at Crowland at the end of the eleventh century, and therefore as contemporaneous with the great post-Conquest histories of England. The second is the early fourteenth-century Lichfield Chronicle, written by Alan of Ashbourn. The third is a general history of England conventionally attributed to John Brompton, abbot of Jervaulx in the early fifteenth century, and perhaps written at the abbey. All three pay a great deal of attention to (different) twelfth-century compilations of Old English and immediately post-Conquest law. This unusual characteristic accounts for their exceptional interest in the Conquest. The chapter also includes a briefer discussion of the more conventional histories into which condensed earlier discussions of the Conquest were inserted.