The History of England from the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) Appendix byTout, T.F. (M.A.)
ON AUTHORITIES.
(1216-1377.)
Our two main sources of knowledge for medieval history are records and
chronicles. Chronicles are more accessible, easier to study, more
continuous, readable, and coloured than records can generally be. Yet
the record far excels the chronicle in scope, authority, and
objectivity, and a prime characteristic of modern research is the
increasing reliance on the record rather than the chronicle as the
sounder basis of historical investigation. The medieval archives of
England, now mainly collected in the Public Record Office, are
unrivalled by those of any other country. From the accession of Henry
III. several of the more important classes of records have become
copious and continuous, while in the course of the reign nearly all the
chief groups of documents have made a beginning. The whole of the
period 1216 to 1377 can therefore be well studied in them.
A large proportion of our archives is taken up with common forms,
technicalities, and petty detail. It will never be either possible or
desirable to print the mass of them in extenso, and most of the
efforts made to render them accessible have taken the form of
calendars, catalogues, and inventories. Such attempts began with the
costly and unsatisfactory labours of the Record Commission (dissolved
in 1836); and in recent years the work has again been taken up and
pursued on better lines. The folio volumes of the Record Commission
only remain so far of value as they have not been superseded by the
more scholarly octavo calendars which are now being issued under the
direction of the deputy-keeper of the records. These latter are all
accompanied by copious indices which, though not always to be trusted
implicitly, immensely facilitate the use of them. The records were
preserved by the various royal courts. Of special importance for the
political historian are the records of the Chancery and Exchequer.
Prominent among the Chancery records are the PATENT ROLLS, strips of
parchment sewn together continuously for each regnal year, whereon are
inscribed copies of the letters patent of the sovereign, so called
because they were sent out open, with the great seal pendent. Beginning
in 1200, they present a continuous series throughout all our period,
except for 23 and 24 Henry III. The publication of the complete Latin
text of the Patent Rolls of Henry III. is now in progress, and two
volumes have been issued, including respectively the years 1216-1225
and 1225-1232. From the accession of Edward I. onwards the bulk of the
rolls renders the method of a calendar in English more desirable. The
Calendars of the Patent Rolls are now complete from 1272 to 1324 and
from 1327 to 1348 (Edward I., 4 vols.; Edward II., 4 vols.; Edward
III., 7 vols.). For the years not thus yet dealt with the
unsatisfactory Calendarium Rotulorum Patentium (1802, fol.) may still
sometimes be of service.
The letters close, or sealed letters addressed to individuals, usually
of inferior public interest to the letters patent are preserved in the
CLOSE ROLLS, compiled in the same fashion as the Patent Rolls. The
whole extant rolls from 1204 to 1227 are printed in Rotuli Literarum
Clausarum (2 vols. fol., 1833 and 1844, Rec. corn.), and it is
proposed to continue the integral publication of the text for the rest
of Henry III.'s reign on the same plan as that of the Patent Rolls. One
volume of this continuation, 1227-1231 (8vo, 1902), has been issued.
For the subsequent periods a calendar in English is being prepared
similar in type to the Calendar of Patent Rolls. The periods at
present covered by the Calendar of Close Rolls (1892-1905) are,
Edward I., 1272-1296 (3 vols.): Edward II., the whole of the reign (4
vols.), and Edward III., 1327-1349 (8 vols.).
A third series of records preserved by the Chancery officials is the
ROLLS OF PARLIAMENT, including the petitions, pleas, and other
parliamentary proceedings. None of these are extant before 1278, and
the series for the succeeding century is often interrupted. Many of
them are printed in the first two folios (vol. i., Edward I. and II.;
vol. ii., Edward III.) of Rotuli Parliamentorum (1767-1777). A
copious index volume was issued in 1832. A specimen of what may still
be looked for is to be found in Professor Maitland's edition of one of
the earliest rolls of parliament in Memoranda de Parliamento (1305)
(Rolls series, 1893) with an admirable introduction. For the reigns of
Edward I. and II. the deficiencies of the published rolls are
supplemented by SIR F. PALGRAVE'S Parliamentary Writs and Writs of
Military Service (vol. i., 1827, Edward I.; vol. ii., 1834, Edward
II., fol., Rec. Corn.) with alphabetical digests and indices.
Formal grants under the great seal called Charters, characterised by
a "salutation" clause, the names of attesting witnesses, and, under
Henry III. after 1227, by the final formula data per manum nostram
apud, etc., and implying normally the presence of the king, are
contained in the CHARTER ROLLS, extant from the reign of John onwards.
They are roughly analysed in the Calendarium Rotulorum Chartarum
(1803, Rec. Com.); and the Rotuli Chartarum (fol., 1837, Rec. Corn.)
contains the rolls in extenso up to 1216, Vol. i., 1226-1257, of an
English Calendar of Charter Rolls, printing some of the documents in
full, was published in 1903.
The documents formerly known as ESCHEAT ROLLS, or INQUISITIONES POST
MORTEM, are concerned with the inquiries made by the Crown on the death
of every landholder as to the extent and character of his holding. Some
of the information contained in these inquests was made accessible in
the Calendarium Inquisitionum sive Eschætarum (vol. i., Henry III.,
Edward I. and II., 1806; vol. ii., Edward III., 1808, fol., Rec.
Corn.). The errors and omissions of these volumes were partially
remedied for the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. by C. ROBERTS'S
Calendarium Genealogicum (2 vols. 8vo, 1865). A scholarly guide to
all this class of documents has been begun in the new Calendar of
Inquisitions Post Mortem and other Analogous Documents, of which vol.
i. (Henry III.) was issued in 1904. The first volume of a separate list
of the analogous inquisitions Ad pod damnum is also announced.
Of the FINE ROLLS containing the records of fines1 made with the Crown
for licence to alienate, exemption from service, wardships, pardons,
etc., those of Henry III. have been made accessible in C. ROBERTS'S
Excerpta e Rotulis Finium, 1216-1272 (1835-36, 8vo). Other rolls such
as the LIBERATE ROLLS have not yet been published for the reigns here
treated.
1 A fine in this technical sense is an agreement arrived at
by a money transaction.
Of special or local rolls, preserved in the Chancery, the most
important for our period are the GASCON ROLLS. The earlier documents
called by this name are not exclusively concerned with the affairs of
Gascony; they are miscellaneous documents enrolled for convenience in
common parchments by reason of the presence of the king in his
Aquitanian dominions. Of these are F. MICHEL'S Roles Gascons, vol.
i., published in the French government series of Documents Inédits sur
l'Histoire de France (1885), including a "fragmentum rotuli
Vasconiæ," 1242-1243, and "patentes littere facte in Wasconia,"
1253-1254, years in which Henry III. was actually in Gascony. This
publication was resumed in 1896 by M. CHARLES BÉMONT'S Supplément to
Michel's imperfect volume, containing innumerable corrections, an
index, introduction, and some additional rolls of 1254 and 1259-1260.
The later of these, the roll of Edward's delegated administration, is
the first exclusively devoted to the concerns of Gascony. "Gascon
Rolls" in this later sense begin with Edward I.'s accession, and M.
Bémont has undertaken their publication for the whole of Edward's reign
from photographs of the records supplied by the English to the French
government. In 1900 vol. ii. of the Roles Gascons, containing the
years 1273-1290, was issued. Other classes of Chancery Rolls accessible
in print are Rotuli Scotiæ, 1291-1516 (2 vols., 1814-1819, Rec.
Corn.), and Rotuli Walliæ, 5-9 Edward I., privately printed by Sir
Thomas Phillipps (1865). Among isolated Chancery records the Rotuli
Hundredorum (Rec. Corn., 2 vols. fol., 1812-1818), containing the very
important inquests made by Edward I.'s commissioners into the
franchises of the barons, may specially be noticed here.
Of not less importance than the Chancery records are those handed down
from the Court of Exchequer. The most famous of these, the PIPE ROLLS,
which, unlike the Chancery Enrolments, were "filed" or sewn skin by
skin, are decreasingly important from the thirteenth century onwards as
compared with their value for the twelfth. For this reason the Pipe
Roll Society, founded in 1883, only undertook their publication up to
1200. Fragments of Pipe Rolls for our period can be seen in print in
various local histories and transactions, as e.g., "Pipe Rolls of
Northumberland" up to 1272 in HODGSON-HINDE'S History of
Northumberland, pt. iii., vol. iii., and 1273-1284, ed. Dickson
(Newcastle, 1854-60), and of Notts and Derby (translated extracts) in
YEATMAN's History of Derby (1886). The only gap in our series is for
Henry III. Of other Exchequer records we may mention: (i) the
ORIGINALIA ROLLS, containing the estreats or documents from the
Chancery informing the Exchequer of moneys due to it, beginning in 20
Henry III., a summary of which is published in Rotulorum Originalium
in Curia Scaccarii Abbreviatio, 20 Henry III,-51 Edward III (2 vols.
fol., Rec. Corn., 1805-1810); (2) the MEMORANDA ROLLS, containing
records of charges upon the Exchequer, etc., are complete for this
period. They were kept by the king's and the treasurer's remembrancer,
and are illustrated in print by extracts from the Memoranda Rolls,
1297, in Transactions of the Royal Hist. Soc., new series, iii.,
281-291(1886), and by the roll of 3 Henry III. in COOPER'S Proceedings
of the Record Commissioners (1833); (3) MINISTERS ACCOUNTS, i.e.,
accounts of royal bailiffs, etc., for royal manors, etc., not included
in the sheriffs' accounts, beginning with Edward I., of which a list is
given in the P.R.O. Lists and Indexes, Nos. v. and viii.; (4) of the
PELL RECORDS, recording issues and payments, samples given in DEVON'S
Issues of the Exchequer (Rec. Corn., 8vo, 1837), DEVON'S Issue Roll
of Thomas of Brantingham in 1370 (Rec. Corn., 8vo, 1835). The pells of
receipt were entered on the (5) RECEIPT ROLLS, specimens of which,
along with the corresponding issues, are to be found in SIR JAMES
RAMSAY'S abstracts of issue and receipt rolls for certain years of
Edward III. in the Antiquary(1880-1888); (6) SUBSIDY ROLLS of various
types, illustrated by Nonarum Inquisitiones tempore Edwardi ZZZ.
(Rec. Corn., 1807), the record of a subsidy of a ninth collected by
Edward III. in 1340-1341; (7) WARDROBE and HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS
containing for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries information on
national as well as private royal finance; specimens in print include
the important Liber Quotidianus Contra-rotulatoris Garderobæ, 28
Ed. I.(1299-1300), (1787, Soc. Antiq.).
From the Exchequer records come also the following: (1) Testa de
Neville sive Liber Feodorum temp. Hen. ZZZ. et Edw. I. (Rec. Corn.,
fol., 1807), a miscellaneous and ill-digested but valuable collection of
thirteenth century inquisitions; (2) Nomina Villarum, g Ed. II.,
published in PALGRAVE'S Parl. Writs, ii., iii., 301-416; (3)
Kirkby's Quest, a survey made by Bishop Kirkby, the treasurer, in
1284-85, of which the Yorkshire portion has been printed by the Surtees
Soc., ea. Skaife (1867), and other portions elsewhere; (4) Taxatio
Ecclesiastica Angliæ et Walliæ, 1291 (Rec. Corn., 1802), the
taxation of benefices by Nicholas IV. by which assessments of papal and
ecclesiastical taxes were long made. A very useful compilation,
recently undertaken under the direction of the deputy-keeper, is
Inquisitions and Assessments relating to Feudal Aids, 1284-1431, of
which three volumes, dealing in alphabetical order with the shires from
Bedford to Norfolk, are published Cheshire and Durham are entirely
omitted and Lancashire very scantily dealt with as exceptional
jurisdictions. The work is based upon the various lay records
enumerated above and other analogous inquests. Ancient compilations of
miscellaneous documents by officials of the Exchequer are exemplified
in Liber Niger Scaccarii (ed. Hearne, 2 vols., 1774), and in the Red
Book of the Exchequer (ed. H. Hall, 3 vols., Rolls ser., 1896).
The records of the common law courts, the King's Bench and the Court of
Common Pleas, are of less direct historical value than those of the
Chancery and the Exchequer. Extraordinarily bulky, they require a good
deal of sifting to sort the wheat from the chaff. As yet a very small
proportion of them has been printed, and few have even been calendared.
A brief index of them has been compiled in the useful List of Plea
Rolls (1894, P.R.O. Lists and Indexes, No. iv.). Of the various
types of these records the FEET OF FINES have been largely used by the
topographer and genealogist, and the feet of fines for many counties
during this period have been calendared, summarised, excerpted, and
printed, wholly or in part, by local archaeological societies, as for
example, W. FARRER'S Lancashire Final Concords till 1307 (Rec. Soc.
for Lancashire and Cheshire, 1899), and many others. The PLEA ROLLS are
of wider importance. For the days of Henry III. Placita Coram Rege
(i.e., of the King's Bench) and the Placita de Banco (i.e., of
the Common Pleas in later phrase) are classified as Rotuli Curiæ
Regis, while the rolls of the local eyres for the same period are
called Assize Rolls. Separate series for each court begin with Edward
I. Specimens of most of these types have been printed. Placitorum
Abbreviatio Ric. I.--Edw. II. (Rec. Com., fol., 1811) is a careless
seventeenth century abstract. Placita de Quo Warranto, Edward I. to
Edward III. (Rec. Com., fol., 1818), is a record of local eyres of
particular importance for the reign of Edward I. as the corollary of
the Hundred Rolls and the attack on the local franchises. HUNTER'S
Rotuli Selecti (Rec. Com., 1834) contains pleas of the reign of Henry
III. A typical year's pleadings of the King's Bench for 1297 is given
in full in PHILLIMORE's Placita coram rege, 25 Edward I. (1898,
British Rec. Soc.). Selections from the proceedings of the commission
appointed by Edward I. in 1289 to hear complaints against judges and
officials will shortly be published by Miss Hilda Johnstone and myself
for the Royal Historical Society. Of special importance are the plea
rolls issued by the Selden Society, which include for our period F.W.
MAITLAND'S Select Pleas of the Crown, 1200-1225; BAILDON'S Select
Chancery Pleas, 1364-1471; J.M. RIGG'S Select Pleas of the Jewish
Exchequer; and G.J. TURNER'S Select Pleas of the Forest; all have
translations and introductions, of which those of Professor Maitland
are of exceptional value.
To these types must be added the records of the local courts, now
largely also in the Public Record Office, though vast numbers of court
rolls and manorial documents are still in private hands, and among the
archives of ecclesiastical and secular corporations. The Selden Society
has done excellent work in publishing such muniments; as in particular,
MAITLAND'S Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, vol. i., Henry III. and
Edward I., illustrating the social and legal life of a medieval
village; MAITLAND and BAILDON'S Court Baron; HUNTER' s Leet
Jurisdiction of Norwich; C. GROSS's Select Cases from the Coroners'
Rolls, 1265-1413. The records of the Bishopric of Durham, the County
Palatine of Chester, the Principality of Wales, and the Duchy of
Lancaster are deposited in the Public Record Office, and calendars and
lists scattered over the Deputy-Keeper of the Records' Reports throw
some light on their contents. Unluckily these records of franchise are
incompletely preserved and often in bad condition. The best preserved
for our period are the Durham records, described in LAPSLEY'S County
Palatine of Durham, pp. 327-337 (Harvard Historical Studies); some of
the most important are printed in Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense, ed.
Hardy (Rolls Series, 4 vols.), which is also an Episcopal register.
Welsh records may be illustrated by the Record of Carnarvon (Rec.
Corn., fol., 1838). Academic records are illustrated by the Oxford
Munimenta Academica (ed. Anstey), Rolls Series. Municipal records are
very numerous and important; full particulars as to them can be found
in C. Gross's Bibliography of British Municipal History (Harvard
Hist. Studies). Admirably edited examples of our wealth of municipal
records for this period are to be found in Records of the Borough of
Nottingham (ed. W.H. Stevenson), vol. i. (1882); Records of the
Borough of Leicester (ed. Mary Bateson), vols. i. and ii. (1899 and
1901); and Munimenta Gildhallæ Londoniensis (ed. H.T. Riley), Rolls
Series. The Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission afford
much information as to every type of document in private or local
custody. Ireland and Scotland have archives of their own; but there are
no systematic records in the Register House at Edinburgh before the War
of Independence. Among the enterprises now abandoned of the Public
Record Office were Calendars of Documents relating to Scotland and
Ireland. The Scottish series covers all this period (vols. i.-iv.),
the Irish was stopped at 1307. They are derived, by a rather arbitrary
selection, from various classes of English records, but contain much
valuable material. JOSEPH STEVENSON'S Documents illustrating the
History of Scotland (1286-1306) (Scot. Rec. Publications, 1870), and
PALGRAVE'S Documents and Records illustrating the History of Scotland
(Rec. Corn., 1837), are useful for the reign of Edward I. as are for
limited periods of it the Wallace Papers (Maitland Club, 1841) and
Scotland in 1298 (ed. Gough, 1888).
A new class of records begins in the thirteenth century with BISHOPS'
REGISTERS. These, so far as they survive, are preserved in the diocesan
registries. Of printed registers for this period the most important is
MARTIN'S Registrum Epistolarum J. Peckham (3 vols., Rolls Series,
1882-1886), the earliest surviving Canterbury register. Other registers
printed or calendared are HINGESTON-RANDOLPH'S Exeter Registers,
1257-1291, 1307-1326, and 1327-1369 (5 vols., 1889, etc.); excerpts,
particularly from the York registers, in RAINE'S Letters from the
Northern Registers, Rolls Series; the two oldest York Registers of
ARCHBISHOPS WALTER GREY (1215-1255) and WALTER GIFFARD (1266-1279),
both in Surtees Society; the Wells Registers of BPS. DROKENSFORD,
1309-1329, and RALPH OF SHREWSBURY, 1329-1363 (Somerset Record
Society); the Worcester Register of BP. GIFFARD, 1268-1302 (Worcester
Historical Society); the Winchester Registers of BISHOPS SANDALE and
RIGAUD, 1316-1323, and WYKEHAM, 1366-1404 (Hampshire Record Society). A
society called the Canterbury and York Society has recently been
started to set forth episcopal registers systematically in print. It
has begun to publish the earliest Lincoln Register extant, that of
Hugh of Wells, bishop of Lincoln, 1209-1235, whose Liber Antiquus de
Ordinatione Vicariorum was printed in 1888. Analogous documents are
LUARD'S Rob. Grosseteste Epistola (Roll Series, 1861), and the like.
Monastic CARTULARIES are less important for general history in this
than in previous periods; large masses of monastic records of this age
have survived, not a tithe of which is to be found in DUGDALE'S
Monasticon. Some monastic records illustrate the domestic economy or
religious life of the house as KIRK'S Accounts of the Obedientiaries
of Abingdon, 1322-1479 (Camden Soc.); J.W. CLARK's Observances in use
at Barnwell Priory, 1295-1296(1897), and the like.
For this period by far the most important series of foreign records is
the magnificent collections of the papacy. A summary of many of these
is to be found in BLISS, JOHNSON, and TWEMLOW's Calendars of Papal
Registers illustrating the History of Great Britain and Ireland; Papal
Letters (vols. i.-iv., 1198-1404), and Petitions to the Pope (vol.
i., 1342-1419), of special importance for the fourteenth century. These
useful calendars, however, do not always dispense us from consulting
the grand series of papal records published or analysed under the care
of the French School of Rome, which has not yet sufficiently been
studied in this country. This enterprise is divided into two sections.
In the first the Registers from Gregory IX. to Benedict XI. are in
course of publication; in the second the letters of the Avignon popes
relating to France are printed or analysed. Portions of the letters of
John XXII, Benedict XII, and Clement VI, are already issued. PRESSUTI
has published one volume of the Registers of Honorius III (1888).
From the Vatican archives also comes THEINER'S Vetera Monumenta Hib.
et Scot. Historiam illustrantia (1864), beginning in 1216.
Extracts from various archives are found in such collections as RYMER's
Foedera of which the Record Commission's edition in folio reaches
just beyond the end of this period; WILKINS'S Concilia (1737),
containing many extracts from episcopal registers and canons of
councils; HADDAN and STUBBS'S Councils, vol. i. (for the thirteenth
century Welsh Church); CHAMPOLLION-FIGEAC'S Lettres des Rois et des
Reines d'Angleterre (2 vols., 1847, Doc. Inédits); STUBBS'S Select
Charters (Henry III. and Edward I.), and BÉMONT'S excellent Chartes
des Libertés anglaises in the Collection de Textes pour l'Étude et
l'Enseignement de l'Histoire. Equally useful is COSNEAU'S Grands
Traités de la Guerre de Cent Ans also in the same Collection de
Textes. The Statutes of the Realm (vol. i., fol., 1810) contains the
text of the laws and of the great charters of this period.
Chronicles, with all their deficiencies, must ever be largely used as
sources of continuous historical narrative. For the thirteenth century
our chief reliance must still be placed upon the annals drawn up in
various monasteries, some based upon little more than gossip or
hearsay, others showing real efforts to acquire authentic information.
The greatest centre of historical composition in thirteenth-century
England was the Abbey of St. Alban's, whose chronicles form so
important a series that they may appropriately be considered as a
whole, before the other chroniclers are dealt with in approximately
chronological order. The fame of St. Alban's as a school of history had
its origin in the order of Abbot Simon (d. 1183) that the house should
always appoint a special historiographer. The first of these whose work
is now extant is ROGER OF WENDOVER (d. 1236), whose Flores
Historiarum (ed. H.O. Coxe, Engl. Hist. Soc., 1842, or ed. Hewlett,
Rolls Series, 1886-89--this latter edition is unscholarly) becomes
original in 1216 and remains a chief source, copious and interesting,
if not always precise, until 1235. On Wendover's death, MATTHEW PARIS,
who took the monastic habit in 1217, became the official St. Alban's
chronicler. His great work, the Chronica Majora, is, up to 1235,
little more than an expansion and embellishment of Wendover. He
re-edited Wendover's work with a patriotic and anti-curialist bias
quite alien to the spirit of the earlier writer, whose version should
preferably be followed. Paris's book is a first-hand source from 1235
to 1259. The narrative of the years 1254-1259 is considerably later in
composition to the history of the period 1235-1253, since on reaching
1253 Paris devoted himself to an abridgment of what he had already
written, called the Historia Minor. On completing this he resumed his
earlier book, and carried it on to the eve of his death in 1259, though
he did not live to complete its final revision; that was the work of
another monk who added a picture of his death-bed. The Chronica
Majora has been excellently edited by Dr. H.R. Luard in seven volumes
for the Rolls Series, with elaborate introductions tracing the literary
history of the work and a magnificent index. The Historia Minor has
been published in three volumes by Sir F. Madden in the Rolls Series.
Paris also wrote the lives of the abbots of his house up to 1255, a
work not now extant, and the basis of the later Gesta Abbatum S.
Albani, compiled by Thomas Walsingham (d. 1422?) and likewise issued
in the Rolls Series. The thirteenth century biographies have some
original value. Paris's Life of Stephen Langton is printed in
LIEBERMANN'S Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen (1870).
Paris, perhaps the greatest historian of the Middle Ages, has literary
skill, a vivid though prolix style, a keen eye for the picturesque,
bold and independent judgment, wonderful breadth and range, and an
insatiable curiosity. He was a man of the world, a courtier and a
scholar; he took immense pains to collect his facts from documents and
eye-witnesses, and had great advantages in this respect through the
intimate relations between his house and the court. Henry III himself
contributed many items of information to him. His details are
extraordinarily full, and he tells us almost as much about continental
affairs as about those of his own country. He wrote with too flowing a
pen to be careful about precision, and had too much love of the
picturesque to resist the temptation of embellishing a good story. His
narrative of continental transactions is in particular extremely
inexact. But the chief cause of his offending also gives special value
to his work; he was a man of strong views and his sympathies and
prejudices colour every line he wrote. His standpoint is that of a
patriotic Englishman, indignant at the alien invasions, at the
misgovernment of the king, the greed of the curialists and the
Poitevins, and with a professional bias against the mendicants. His
writings make his age live.
The falling off in the St. Alban's work of the next generation is
characteristic of the decay of colour and detail which makes the
chroniclers of the age of Edward I. inferior to those of his father's
reign. The years after 1259 were briefly chronicled by uninspired
continuators of Matthew Paris, and the reputation of St. Alban's as a
school of history led to the frequent transference of their annals to
other religious houses, where they were written up by local pens. This
led to the dissemination of the series of jejune compilations which in
the ages of Edward I. and II. were widely spread under the name of
Flores Historiarum. Dr. Luard has published a critical edition of
these Flores in three volumes of the Rolls Series, which range from
the creation to 1326, with an introduction determining their
complicated relations to each other. They are of no real value before
1259, and for the next sixty-seven years are only important by reason
of the defects of our other sources. No unity or colour can be expected
in books handed from house to house and kept up to date by jottings by
different hands. The ascription of these Flores to a conjectural
Matthew of Westminster by earlier editors is groundless. Dr. C.
Horstmann, Nova Legenda Anglie, i., pp. xlix. seq.(1901), maintains
that John of Tynemouth's Historia Aurea, still in manuscript, is the
official St. Alban's history from 1327 to 1377.
In the reign of Edward I. the credit of the school of St. Alban's was
revived to some extent by WILLIAM RISHANGER, who made his profession in
1271 and died early in the reign of Edward II. To him is assigned a
chronicle ranging from 1259 to 1306 published by H.T. Riley in the
volume Willelmi Rishanger et Anonymorum Chronica et Annales (Rolls
Series). Rishanger's authorship of the portion 1259-1272 is more
probable than that of the section 1272-1306, which, not compiled before
1327, is almost certainly by another hand, and the attribution of even
the earlier section to Rishanger is doubted by so competent an
authority as M. Bémont. The compilation is frigid and unequal. Of the
miscellaneous contents of Mr. Riley's volume, the short Gesta Edwardi
I. (pp. 411-423), of no great value, is clearly Rishanger's work. We
may also ascribe to Rishanger the Narratio de Bellis apud Lewes et
Evesham (ed. Halliwell, Camden Soc., 1840), which tells the story of
the Barons' Wars with vigour, detail, and insight. Written by a true
inheritor of the prejudices of Matthew Paris, this chronicle is a
eulogy of Montfort. It was put together not before 1312.
Another volume of Chroniclers of St. Alban's was edited by Mr. Riley
for the Rolls Series in 1860. Three of its chronicles concern our
period. These are: (1) Opus Chronicorum, 1259-1296, a source of
"Rishanger's" chronicle; (2) J. DE TROKELOWE'S Annales, 1307-1322;
(3) H. DE BLANEFORDE'S Chronica (1323). These last two are important
for Edward II.'s reign. After these works, historical writing further
declined at St. Alban's. At the end of our period, however, another
true disciple of Matthew Paris was found in the St. Alban's monk who
added to a jejune compilation for the years 1328 to 1370 a vivid and
personal narrative of the years 1376-1388, our chief source for the
history of the last year of Edward III.'s reign. In his bitter
prejudice against John of Gaunt and his clerical allies, such as
Wychffe and the mendicants, the monk is so outspoken that his book was
suppressed, and most manuscripts leave out the more offensive passages.
It has been edited by Sir E. Maunde Thompson as Chronicon Angliæ,
1328-1388 (Rolls Series). Before that its contents, like that of other
St. Alban's annals, were partially known through the fifteenth century
compilation under the name of a St. Alban's monk, THOMAS OF WALSINGHAM,
whose Historia Anglicana (2 vols., Rolls Series, ed. Riley) is not an
authority for our period.
For the early years of Henry III. we have besides Wendover's Flores:
(i) The CANON OF BARNWELL'S continuation of Howden published in
STUBBS'S Memoriale Fratris Walteri de Coventria (Rolls Series),
written in 1227 and copious for the years 1216-1225. (2) RALPH OF
COGGESHALL's Chronicon Anglicanum (ed. Stevenson, Rolls Series),
ending at 1227 and important for its last twelve years. (3) The
Histoire des Ducs de Normandie et des Rois d'Angleterre, which,
published by F. Michel in 1840 (Soc. de l'histoire de France), was
first appreciated at its full value by M. Petit-Dutaillis in the Revue
Historique. tome 2 (1892). (4) The Chronique de l'Anonyme de Béthune
printed in 1904 in vol. xxiv. of the Recueil des Historiens de la
France. (5) A French rhyming chronicle, the Histoire de Guillaume le
Maréchal, discovered and edited by P. Meyer for the Soc. de l'histoire
de France. Written by a minstrel of the younger Marshal from materials
supplied by the regent's favourite squire, it is, though poetry and
panegyric, an important source for Marshal's regency.
St. Alban's was not the only religious house that concerned itself with
the production of chronicles. Other Annales Monastici have been
edited in five volumes (Rolls Series, vol. v. is the index) by Dr.
Luard. They are of special importance for the reign of Henry III. In
vol. i. the meagre annals of the Glamorganshire abbey of Margam only
extend to 1232. The Annals of Tewkesbury are useful from 1200 to
1263, and specially for the history of the Clares, the patrons of that
house. The Annals of Burton-upon-Trent illustrate the years 1211 to
1261 with somewhat intermittent light, and are of unique value for the
period of the Provisions of Oxford, containing many official documents.
Vol. ii. includes the Annals of Winchester and Waverley. The
former, extending to 1277, though mainly concerned with local affairs
are useful for certain parts of the reign of Henry III., and
particularly for the years 1267-1277. The annals of the Cistercian
house of Waverley, near Farnham, go down to 1291. From 1259 to 1266 the
narrative is contemporary and valuable; from 1266 to 1275, and partly
from 1275 to 1277 it is borrowed from the Winchester Annals; from 1277
to its abrupt end it is again of importance. The Annals of Bermondsey
in vol. iii. are a fifteenth century compilation. The Annals of the
Austin canons of Dunstable are of great value, especially from the
year 1201, when they become original, down to 1242. This section is
written by RICHARD DE MORINS, prior of Dunstable from 1202 to 1242.
After his death the annals become more local, though they give a clear
narrative of the puzzling period 1258-1267. They stop in 1297. The
chief contents of vol. iv, are the parallel Annals of Oseney and the
Chronicle of THOMAS WYKES, a canon of that house, who took the
religious habit in 1282. To 1258 the two histories are very similar,
that of Wykes being slightly fuller. They then remain distinct until
1278, and again from 1280 to 1284 and 1285-1289. In the latter year
Wykes stops, while Oseney goes on with independent value until 1293,
and as a useless compilation till 1346. Wykes is of unique interest for
the Barons' Wars, as he is the only competent chronicler who takes the
royalist side. The Oseney writer, much less full and interesting,
represents the ordinary baronial standpoint. Wykes is occasionally
useful for the first years of Edward I.; after 1288 his importance
becomes small. The Annals of Worcester are largely a compilation from
the Winchester Annals and the Flores; the local insertions have some
value for the period 1216-1258, and more for the latter part of the
reign of Edward I., at whose death they end.
Other monastic chronicles of the thirteenth century, of small
importance, enumerated by Dr. Luard (Ann. Mon., iv., liii.) are not
yet printed in full. Extracts from many are given in PERTZ'S Monumenta
Germaniæ Hist. Scriptores, vols. xxvii. and xxviii. The Annales
Cestrienses (to 1297) have been edited by R.C. Christie (Record Soc.
of Lancashire and Cheshire); EDMUND OF HADENHAM'S Chronicle (down to
1307) is given in part in WHARTON'S Anglia Sacra, and M. Bémont
publishes in an appendix to his Simon de Montfort (pp. 373-380) a
valuable fragment of a Chronicle of Battle Abbey on the Barons'
Wars, 1258-1265. For the latter part of that period we have some useful
notices in HENRY OF SILEGRAVE's brief Chronicle (ed. Hook, Caxton
Soc., 1849), whose close relationship to the Battle Chronicle M.
Bémont has first indicated. To these may be added the Annals of
Stanley Abbey (1202-1271) in vol. ii. of Chronicles of Stephen, Henry
II. and Richard I. (ed. Hewlett, Rolls Series, 1885), and the
Chronicle of the Bury monk, JOHN OF TAXSTER or TAYSTER, which becomes
copious from the middle of the thirteenth century and ends in 1265; it
was partly printed in 1849 by Benjamin Thorpe as a continuation of
Florence of Worcester (English Historical Society), and the years
1258-1262 are best read in Luard's edition of Bartholomew Cotton (Rolls
Series). Taxster's work became the basis of several later compilations
of the eastern counties, including: (i) JOHN OF EVERSDEN, another Bury
monk, independent from 1265 to 1301, also printed without his name by
Thorpe, up to 1295, as a further continuation of Florence. (2) JOHN OF
OXNEAD, a monk of St. Benet's, Hulme, a reputed continuator of Taxster
and Eversden up to 1280, who adds a good deal of his own for the years
1280-1293, edited somewhat carelessly by Sir Henry Ellis as Chronica
J. de Oxenedes (Rolls Series). (3) BARTHOLOMEW COTTON, a monk of
Norwich, whose Historia Anglicana, original from 1291 to 1298, and
specially important from 1285 to 1291, is edited by Luard (Rolls
Series). Some thirteenth and early fourteenth century Bury chronicles
are also in Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey, ed. T. Arnold (vols.
ii. and iii., Rolls Series). The Chronicon de Mailros (Bannatyne
Club), from the Cistercian abbey of Melrose, goes to 1270; though
utterly untrustworthy, it may be noticed as almost the only Scottish
chronicle before the war of independence, and as containing a curious
record of the miracles of Simon de Montfort.
Among the historians of Edward I.'s reign is WALTER OF HEMINGBURGH,
Canon of Guisborough in Cleveland (ed. H.C. Hamilton, 2 vols., Engl.
Hist. Soc.). His account of Henry III.'s reign is worthless, but from
1272 to 1312 his work is of great value, though never precise and full
of gaps. It contains many documents and is remarkable for its stirring
battle pictures. Hemingburgh probably laid down his pen when the
narrative ceases early in the reign of Edward II. Another writer,
identified by Horstmann with John of Tynemouth, carries the story from
1326 to 1346.
In striking contrast to the flowing periods of Hemingburgh is the
well-written and chronologically digested Annals of the Dominican
friar NICHOLAS TREVET or TRIVET, the son of a judge of Henry III.'s
reign (ed. Hog, Engl. Hist. Soc.). Beginning in 1138, his work assumes
independent value for the latter years of Henry III. and is of
first-rate importance for the reign of Edward I., at whose death it
concludes, though Trevet was certainly alive in 1324. It was largely
used by the later St. Alban's chroniclers.
Franciscan historiography begins earlier than Dominican with the
remarkable tract of THOMAS OF ECCLESTON, written about 1260, De
Adventu Fratrum Minorum in Anglia, published with other Minorite
documents (including Adam Marsh's letters) in BREWER'S Monumenta
Franciscana (Rolls Series, continued in a second volume by R.
Hewlett). The first important Franciscan chronicle, called the
Chronicon de Lanercost (ed. J. Stevenson, Bannatyne Club, 2 vols.),
really comes from the Minorite convent of Carlisle. It covers the years
1201 to 1346. The early part is derived from the valueless chronicle of
Melrose, and its incoherent cult of the memory of Montfort does not
save it from the grossest errors in dealing with his history. It
becomes important for northern affairs from Edward I. onwards, giving
full details with a strong anti-Scottish bias. Another north-country
chronicle is Sir T. GREY'S Scalacronica (ed. Stevenson, Maitland
Club, 1836), useful for the Scottish wars and for Edward III.'s reign
up to 1362.
A sign of the times is the beginning of civic chronicles. The London
series alone is important for English history. It begins with the
Liber de Antiquis Legibus, or Chronica Majorum et Vicecomitum
Londoniarum (1188-1274, ed. T. Stapleton, Camden Soc.). The work of
ARNOLD FITZTHEDMAR, alderman of the German merchants in London, it is
copious for the years 1236 to 1274, and is, with Wykes, the only
chronicle of the Barons' Wars written with a royalist bias. Fourteenth
century civic chronicles, based upon Flores Historiarum, and
continued independently, form the main contents of the two volumes of
Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and II. (ed. by Dr. Stubbs for
the Rolls Series). These are: (1) Annales Londonienses, perhaps
written by ANDREW HORN, chamberlain of London, and compiler of the
Liber Horn; they have much general value for the period 1301 to 1316,
and deal more narrowly with London history from 1316 to 1330, when they
conclude. (2) Annales Paulini, 1307-1341, compiled by one of the
clergy of St. Paul's, but not by Adam Murimuth. These take up Dr.
Stubbs's first volume. The second contains: (1) JOHN OF LONDON'S
Commendatio Lamentabilis in Transitu magni Regis Edwardi quarti, a
funeral eulogy containing the most elaborate contemporary analysis of
Edward's character. (2) The CANON OF BRIDLINGTON'S Gesta Edwardi de
Carnarvon, with a continuation down to the death of Edward III., of
little value after 1339. It has frequent reference to the vaticinations
of the local prophet, John of Bridlington, and was not put in its
present shape before 1377. Its first part is based on earlier sources,
and it is, for lack of better, a prime authority for north-country
history and Anglo-Scottish relations; the continuation contains the
best account of Edward Balliol's attempts on the Scottish throne. (3)
Vita Edwardi II., from 1307 to 1325, attributed by Hearne on slight
grounds to a MONK OF MALMESBURY, with many notices of the history of
Gloucestershire and Bristol, of which the famous rising is described at
length. The writer is the most human of the annalists of the reign,
prolix, self-conscious, moralising, and somewhat incoherent. He is the
most outspoken of all the fourteenth century critics of the Roman
curia, and has more insight than most of his contemporaries.
The following are of primary importance for the early years of Edward
III.; it is significant that they are nearly all secular, not monastic,
in origin. (1) Continuatio Chronicorum, 1303-1347, by ADAM MURIMUTH,
a canon of St. Paul's much employed by Edward III. (ed. E.M. Thompson
in Rolls Series), a mere continuation of the Flores until 1325,
thence enlarged from personal sources, but still meagre until 1337,
when it becomes a first-rate authority to 1346. Murimuth's adoption of
Michaelmas day as the beginning of the year has often confused those
who have imitated him. Chief among these is (2) GEOFFREY LE BAKER of
Swinbrooke, an Oxfordshire man, and like Murimuth, a secular clerk,
whose Chronicon (ed. E.M. Thompson), beginning in 1303 on the basis
of Murimuth, has independent value after 1324, and is noteworthy for
its touching details of Edward II.'s fall and death. It ends in 1356
with an excellent account of the battle of Poitiers. The early part of
Baker's chronicle, widely circulated as Vita et Mors Edwardi II., was
previously assigned to Sir Thomas de la Moor, and was so edited by
Stubbs, but Sir E.M. Thompson showed clearly that this Oxfordshire
knight was Baker's patron and not the writer of a chronicle. With many
defects, Baker can tell a story picturesquely. (3) ROBERT OF AVESBURY,
a canon lawyer, wrote De mirabilibus Gestis Edwardi III., of special
importance for the war from 1339 to 1356, and containing many state
documents. It is edited by E.M. Thompson in the same volume as
Murimuth. (4) HENRY KNIGHTON, Canon of Leicester, wrote a Chronicle
about 1366 which is valuable for the period 1336-1366 and includes the
best contemporary account of the Black Death. The latest edition by
Lumby in the Rolls Series is not a scholarly work. (5) Eulogium
Historiarum (ed. Haydon, Rolls Series) is contemporary and valuable
for 1356-1366 only. There is a great dearth of English chronicles for
the latter years of Edward III. The signal exception is the important
St. Alban's Chronicon Angliæ already mentioned.
In the age of Edward III. the Flores Historiarum were superseded by
the Polychronicon (often called the "Brute" after WACE'S Brut
d'Angleterre), the voluminous compilation (to 1352) of RANDOLPH
HIGDEN, a monk of Chester (edited by Babington and Lumby, Rolls
Series). ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER, PETER LANGTOFT, and ROBERT MANNYNG have
been referred to elsewhere. The first is of some original value for the
Barons' Wars and Edward I., while Langtoft, a Yorkshire canon specially
interested in the Scottish wars, is a contemporary for all Edward I.'s
reign. Among rhyming chronicles, French in tongue but English in
origin, may be mentioned Le Siège de Carlaverock, 1300 (ed. Nicolas,
1828), of value for heraldry, and CHANDOS HERALD'S Prince Noir (ed.
H.O. Coxe, whose edition was pillaged by F. Michel for his more
accessible version of 1883). L'Histoire de Foulques Fitz Warin (d.
1260?), a picturesque marcher hero, a prose romance of the end of the
thirteenth century, can be read in Stevenson's edition of COGGESHALL
(Rolls Series), or Englished by A. Kemp-Welch (1904).
No contemporary Scottish chronicles of importance deal with the War of
Independence, though fairly full Scottish versions of it exist in later
books. The earliest of these is the Bruce of JOHN BARBOUR, Archdeacon
of Aberdeen. Written in 1375 at the instigation of Robert II.,
Barbour's spirited verses are inspired by patriotic rather than
historic motives. His details are minute, but impossible to control by
other sources, and he is more valuable as the epic poet of Scottish
liberty than as an historical authority. He is edited by Skeat (Early
English Text Soc.), Jamieson, and Innes. The earliest prose Scottish
chronicle, that of JOHN FORDUN, who died about 1384 (ed. Skene, in
Historians of Scotland), is of value for the fourteenth century.
ANDREW WYNTONN'S Originale, a metrical history written in the
fifteenth century, has next to no authority until the end of this
period (ed. Laing, in Historians of Scotland), BLIND HARRY'S
Wallace, written in 1488, is romance not history.
Wales is more fortunate than Scotland in preserving contemporary
thirteenth century annals, of which a Latin chronicle, Annales
Cambriæ, extending to 1288, and a Welsh one, Brut y Tywysogion
(i.e., Chronicle of the Princes), down to 1278, are edited by J.
Williams in the Rolls Series, the latter with an English translation. A
more critical version of the Welsh text of the Brut is that of J.
RHYS and J.G. EVANS' Red Book of Hergest, vol. ii. (1890).
The close relations between England and France for the whole of this
period render the French chronicles by far the most important of
foreign sources for English history. They are enumerated in detail by
Auguste Molinier in vols. iii. (up to 1328) and iv. (after 1328) of the
first part of Les Sources de l'Histoire de France (Manuels de
Bibliographie historique). The chief French chronicles of the period
1226-1328 are collected in vols. xx.-xxiv. of the Recueil des
Historiens de la France begun by Dom Bouquet. Some of them are of
special importance for English history. For Anglo-Netherlandish
relations under Edward I. see Annales Gandenses (1296-1310), "la
chronique la plus remarquable de la fin du xiiie siècle," the French
Chronique Artésienne (1295-1304), and the Chronique Tournaisienne
(1296-1314), all edited by F. Funck-Brentano in the already mentioned
Collection de Textes. For the Hundred Years' War the French
chroniclers are indispensable, especially for military history. The
most famous of these writers, JEAN FROISSART, has been characterised in
my text (p. 419). He can best be studied in Luce and Raynouart's
excellent edition for the Soc. de l'Histoire de France (tomes i.-viii.,
1869-1888) which completes the story up to Edward III.'s death. Luce's
careful "sommaire et commentaire critique" often affords means of
checking Froissart by other sources. The magnificent volumes of indexes
of Kervyn de Lettenhove's complete edition (vols. XX.-XXV.) are still
of immense use, though his text and comments are inferior to those of
Luce, Froissart's spirit may well be caught in Lord Berners's racy
English translation (Tudor Translations), or in G.C. Macaulay's useful
abridgment. The three redactions of Froissart's first book (from 1327
to 1373-1377), which is all that concerns our period, have been clearly
distinguished by Luce. (1) The first edition, written about 1373, at
the request of Count Robert of Namur, is inspired by an English bias.
Up to 1360 it is largely derived from the chronicle of JEAN LE BEL,
Canon of St. Lambert of Liège; after that date it is original. (2) The
second edition, only represented by two MSS., of which one is
incomplete, is a modification of the first with a French bias. The
earlier part is more independent of Jean le Bel. (3) The third edition,
preserved in a single MS., ends with the death of Philip VI in 1350,
and, written after 1400, is even more hostile to England than the
second. The best edition of Jean le Bel is by Polain for the Académie
royale de Belgique.
A few of the more important French chronicles after 1328 may be
mentioned shortly. (1) Grands Chroniques de France (ed. Paulin
Paris). Original from 1350 to 1377, a work of first-rate importance,
where, if truth is altered, it is altered deliberately from political
motives. (2) JEAN DE VENETTE, 1340-1368, written with a popular bias,
and partly favourable to Charles of Navarre (edited as a supplement to
Géraud's edition of Guillaume de Nangis, ii., 178-378, Soc. de l'Hist.
de France). (3) Chronique Normande du xiv'e siècle, 1337-1372 (ed.
Molinier, Soc. de l'Hist. de France, 1882), exact and very important
for the wars 1337 to 1372. (4) Chronique des quatre premiers Valois
(Soc. de l'Hist. de France). (5) CUVELIER'S poetical Vie de Bertrand
du Guesclin (2 vols., Doc. inédits). Further details can be found in
Molinier's bibliography. Netherlandish sources for the Hundred Years'
War are summarised in PIRENNE'S Bibliographie de l'Histoire de
Belgique (1895). Of special importance is JAN VAN KLERK'S Van den
Derden Edewaert Rym Kronyk. (1840), useful for 1337-1341, and written
with an English bias.
The unofficial legal literature of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries is of exceptional variety and value. Many lawyers' treatises
throw light on matters far beyond legal technicalities. HENRY OF
BRACTON or BRATTON'S De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ
illustrates the union of English and Roman juridical ideas
characteristic of the age of Henry III. It has been edited badly by Sir
T. Twiss in six volumes (Rolls Series), and some portions well by
Professor Maitland in his Select passages from Bracton and Azo
(Selden Soc.). Maitland's Bracton's Note Book includes extracts from
plea rolls seemingly made by Bracton. Bracton's book on the laws was
translated, condensed, and rearranged by a writer of the next
generation called Britton. It may be studied in a modern edition in
NICHOLLS'S Britton on the laws of England, while Fleta, an almost
contemporary Latin law book, must be read in Selden's seventeenth
century edition. Another thirteenth century law-book, Le Mirroir des
Justices, has been edited by Maitland and W.J. Whittaker for the
Selden Society. From Edward I.'s time onwards unofficial reports of
trials called YEAR BOOKS, written in French, become valuable for their
vividness and detail, and for the light which they throw on the more
technical records of the plea rolls. Many of them are printed in
unsatisfactory seventeenth century editions, but the Year Books of five
of Edward I.'s regnal years, between 1292 to 1307, together with the
Year Book of 11-12 Edward III., are accessible in A.J. Horwood's
editions in the Rolls Series. L.O. Pike has also edited in the Rolls
Series the Year books of Edward III. from 1338 to 1345, and
Maitland's Year books of Edward II. for the Selden Society are the
first two instalments of a scheme for publishing the Year Books of the
reign. Besides their legal value, the Year Books are an almost unworked
mine for social and economic, and often even political and
ecclesiastical, history.
Of literary aids to history T. WRIGHT'S Political Songs (Camden Soc.)
illustrate this period to the reign of Edward II. One of Wright's
pieces has been more elaborately edited in C.L. KINGSFORD'S Song of
Lewes (1890), and C. Hardwick published a Poem on the Times OF
Edward II. for the Percy Soc. (1849). With Edward III. such literature
becomes copious. Of special importance are T. Wright's Political POEMS
and SONGS FROM the accession of Edward III., vol. i. (Rolls Series,
1859), J. Hall's Poems of LAURENCE MINOT, Skeat's editions of CHAUCER
and LANGLAND, and G.C. Macaulay's edition of GOWER. The Latin works of
Wycliffe, published by the Wycliffe Society, mainly belong to the
succeeding period, but De Dominio Divino and De Civili Dominio, as
well as some tracts printed in the appendix to LEWIS'S Life of Wiclif
and in Shirley's edition of Fasciculi Zizanioram (Rolls Series), were
written before 1377.
Of modern works treating of this period, many monographs, dealing with
particular points, have been mentioned in notes in the course of the
narrative. Of general guides to the period the best by far are Stubbs
and Pauli. STUBBS'S Constitutional History (vol. ii.) is as valuable
for the chapters summarising the political history as for the more
strictly constitutional matter. R. PAULI'S Geschichte von England,
iii., 489-896, and iv., 1-505, 716-741, remains, after half a century,
the fullest and most satisfactory working up in detail of these reigns,
though the great additions to our material make parts of it a somewhat
unsafe guide. It can be supplemented for particular aspects of history
by the following: For legal history, POLLOCK and MAITLAND'S History of
English Law before the time of Edward I., especially vol. i., book i.
(chapters iv.-vi.), and book ii.; and most of vol. ii.; to which should
be added the prefaces by Prof. Maitland and others to the volumes of
the Selden Society. MAITLAND'S Roman Canon Law in the Church of
England (1898) is also of great importance. For economic history, W.J.
ASHLEY'S Economic History, parts i. and ii.; W. CUNNINGHAM's Growth
of English Industry and Commerce, Early and Middle Ages; VINOGRADOFF'S
Villainage in England, S. DOWELL'S History of Taxation (2nd
edition), H. HALL'S Customs Revenue of England, and, as a collection
of materials, J.E. THOROLD ROGERS' History of Agriculture and Prices,
vols. i. and ii. For ecclesiastical history, W.R.W. STEPHENS'S History
of the English Church, 1066-1272; W.W. CAPES'S History of the English
Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, and F. MAKOWER'S
The Constitutional History and Constitution of the Church of England
(translated from the German). For academic history, DENIFLE'S
Entstehung der Universitäten des Mittelalters bis 1400, especially
pp. 1-40, 237-251 (Oxford) and pp. 367-376 (Cambridge), HAURÉAU'S
Histoire de la Philosophie scholastique and RASHDALL'S Universities
of the Middle Ages, i., 1-74, and ii., part ii. (Oxford and
Cambridge). For military history, KÖHLER'S Entwickelung des
Kriegswesens in der Ritterzeit, OMAN'S History of the Art of War in
the Middle Ages, CLARK'S Mediæval Military Architecture, and (above
all) J.E. MORRIS'S Welsh Wars of Edward I. For naval history,
NICOLAS'S History of the Royal Navy, and C. DE LA RONCIÈRE'S
Histoire de la Marine Française. For particular reigns the following
may be found useful: For Henry III., PETIT-DUTAILLIS'S Étude sur Louis
VIII., GASQUET'S Henry III. and the Church (1905), BÉMONT'S Simon
de Montfort, PROTHERO'S Simon de Montfort, and BLAAUW'S Barons'
Wars (2nd ed., 1871). For the reign of Edward I., SEELEY's Life and
Reign of Edward I. (1872), my Edward I.; GOUGH'S Itinerary of
Edward I., MAXWELL'S Robert the Bruce (Heroes of the Nations), and
MORRIS'S above-mentioned Welsh Wars of Edward I. For some aspects of
Edward II.'s reign, STUBBS'S prefaces to Chronicles of Edward I. and
Edward II. are of special value. For Edward III.'s reign, BARNES's
History of Edward III. (1688) is not quite superseded by LONGMAN'S
Life and Times of Edward III. (2 vols., 1869), and MACKINNON'S
History of Edward III. (1900). For the Hundred Years' War, E.
DÉPREZ'S Préliminaires de la Guerre de Cent Ans (1328-1342) (Bibl. de
l'Ecole française de Rome, 1902) for diplomatic history, and DENIFLE's
Désolation des Églises et Monastères de la France pendant la Guerre de
Cent Ans (ii., part i., 1899) for the best general survey of the war
to 1380. See also LUCE'S La Jeunesse de Bertrand de Guesclin and La
France pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans, and (for Brittany) A. DE LA
BORDERIE'S Histoire de Brétagne (1899). The end of Edward III.'s
reign is illustrated by S. ARMITAGE SMITH'S John of Gaunt (1904), J.
LECHLER'S Wiclif und die Vorgeschichte der Reformation (2 vols.,
1873), also translated, not very adequately, Wycliffe and His English
Precursors (1878 and 1881), F.D. MATTHEW'S introduction to Wyclif's
English Works (Early English Text Society), and R.L. POOLE'S
Illustrations of the History of Mediæval Thought (1884), and
Wycliffe (1889). G.M. TREVELYAN's England in the Age of Wycliffe
(1899) is interesting but not always very scholarly.
Some account of the general foreign history of the period can be found
in LAVISSE and RAMBAUD'S Histoire générale (tomes ii. and iii.),
LOSERTH'S Geschichte des späteren Mittelalters (good bibliographies),
and, briefly, in my Papacy and Empire (up to 1273), and LODGE'S
Close of the Middle Ages (after 1273). For French history of the
period LAVISSE'S Histoire de France (iii., pt. i., 1137-1226, by A.
LUCHAIRE; iii., pt. ii., 1226-1328, by C.V. LANGLOIS, and iv., pt. i.,
1328-1422, by A. COVILLE) cover the whole of the period. More detailed
works are, PETIT-DUTAILLIS'S Louis VIII., E. BERGER'S Blanche de
Castile, WALLON'S Louis IX., BOUTARIC'S Saint Louis et Alfonse de
Poitiers, C.V. LANGLOIS'S Philippe le Hardi, BOUTARIC'S France sous
Philippe le Bel, LEHUGEUR'S Philippe le Long, PETIT'S Charles de
Valois, FOURNIER'S Royaume d'Arles et de Vienne, L. DELISLE'S Hist.
de Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, and (for the south) the new edition of DE
VIC and VAISSÈTE's Hist. générale de Languedoc. Much recent work has
been done by French scholars towards the reconstruction of the external
history of England during the whole of our period. For the Low
Countries, PIRENNE'S Hist. de Belgique, ii., ASHLEY'S James and
Philip van Artevelde, and VANDER KINDERE'S Le Siècle des Arteveldt.
PAULI is good for the relations of England and Germany.
Maps illustrating the period are to be found in POOLE'S Oxford
Historical Atlas, LONGNON'S Atlas historique de la France, and
SPRUNER-MENKE'S Historischer Hand-Atlas; special maps of Edward I.'s
Scottish expeditions in GOUGH'S Itinerary of Edward I., of Edward
III.'s and the Black Prince's campaigns in THOMPSON'S Chronicon
Galfridi le Baker, and KERVYN'S Froissart, of John of Gaunt's in
ARMITAGE-SMITH's John of Gaunt, and of Wales in the thirteenth
century in Owens College Historical Essays. VIDAL DE LA BLACHE'S
Tableau de la Géographie de la France (LAVISSE, Hist. de France,
i., pt. i.) is instructive for the physical features of the campaigns
of the Hundred Years' War.
Further details as to English authorities, ancient and modern, can be
found in GROSS'S excellent Sources and Literature of English History
(1900). The Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Scriptores, vols.
xxvii., xxviii., consist of excerpts from English writers of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the introductions (in Latin) by Pauli
and Liebermann contain noteworthy estimates of the works from which the
extracts are taken.
NOTE TO PAGES 390-92.
My reasons for my account of the battle of Poitiers demand longer
explanation than can be given in a footnote. Like most modern writers,
I have based my narrative on the Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker as
expounded by Sir E.M. Thompson, though I agree with Professor Oman in
holding that Baker's "ampla profundaque vallis et mariscus, torrente
quodam irriguus," must be the valley of the Miausson. I also, however,
agree with Father Denifle in not setting great store on Chandos Herald,
though I would not reject him altogether, as all prudent writers must
reject Froissart. My conjectural account of the movements of the armies
is an attempt to combine Baker with what may be true in the Herald. I
hope elsewhere to be able to justify my narrative at length.
