Holt, J.C.

, “The Northerners”

Introduction
←
• the barons were fighting for an idea, a programme, unlike any
other revolt before.
• The 1215 civil war had some similarities with Stephen’s war but
the essential was different.
• Magna Carta was a founding principle.
• Streams of thought and experience leading to M.C: churchmen’s
views on the proper constitution of society; civilian and canonist
doctrines of law; the develop. and practice of English courts;
participation of barons and knights in all branches of admin;
rapidly spreading literary tastes of epic and romantic poetry.
←
← Inimici nostri or the Army of God?
← Define the Northerners, nominally, geographically
• the term Northerners and its uses, occurrences, significance;
barones contra nos, inimici nostril from the royal perspective;
disparaging name; used by many sources and chronicles; first
time a nickname was used for the rebellious party in the history
of England; the North in Northerners is imaginary, a zone, not a
line; Who was northerner than another? Unanswerable;
←
← The Northern Barons
← Who are they? How can we know?
• There are virtually no descriptions of these people and info about
them is derivative. It is in their relation to the central institution
that we can discern their character. Record evidence is crucial for
this: shows skeleton bio and king’s treatment of them;
• The baron profile:
• habitual litigant, speculative gambler, making promises of
material gifts to the King.
• Refuse to serve on the continent, pay scutage; they had
surrendered hostages into K. hands (Gilbert de Laval, .
Committed to rebellion
• Power and authority: many knight fees; mesne tenures;
• They weren’t young.
• William of Mowbray was indebted and antagonized by the King in
the land dispute with Rob. Stuteville.
• Active in the defense of Normandy, looked beyond their shires.
• Land seizure followed by restoration upon the giving of hostages.
• Robert de Ros (landed wealth, shrievalties, admin and military
experience, creditor, monastic patronage, king’s gaming partner,
defender of the border, vacillator, poor prisoner guardian, friend
of the Templars, founder of hospitals)
• John de Lacy (constable of Chester, young, solvent, landed
wealth, important family, son of the defender of Chateau
Gaillard)
• Gilbert de Gant (wealth, owed $800 to Jews, leader in rebellion
campaign at Lincoln in 1217)
• Nicholas of Stuteville (huge successorial relief, debt of
$10.000, wealth but unfortunate – ransom, Jew debt)
• Northumberland (Roger Bertram of Mitford, Richard Bertram of
Bothal, Mabel de Cler, James de Cauz, John le Viscunt lord of
Embleton, Gilbert de Laval, Jordan Heron, Adam of Tyndale);
only two barons stood by the king:Hugh de Balliol, Hugh de
Bolebec
• Cumberland (Richard Gernon, Richard son of Adam lord of
Levington; Adam son of Odard, Rovert de Vaux, Robert de Brus
of Edenhall); supporting the king were William de Fors, Robert
de Vieuxpont
• Yorkshire (Maurice de Gant, Henry of Neville, Gerard de
Furneval, Hugh Paynel)
• Lincolnshire (Simon de Chancy, Thomas and William de
Scotigny, Norman Darcy, Richard of Sandford, Oliver de Aincurt,
Matilda de Caux of Laxton
• Geographical centre of rebellion: North Yorkshire Moors
• Association of Norman aristocrat and Poitevin parvenu was
characteristic of the cooperation which usually existed between
loyalist barons and royal bailiffs in the final critical months of the
reign.
 • Typical members of their class = great landlords, keen business
men, interested in commerce and industry
• Many had personal grievances, wrongs to set right.
• Conclusion: what was the rebellion: not by an adventurous party
but by the failures and the aggrieved: a protest against the
monopoly of privilege by the King and his close friends; a call not
to break bonds but to impose them no the most active and
experimental admin foce of the day, the monarchy; A rebellion
of the King’s debtors
←
← The Northern Knights
← Tenurial relations
• the knights were divided in 1215.
• They played a large part under the Magna Carta stipulations: the
programme depended on them for execution and cooperation
(local inquiries by juries of knights, non-compliance to the 25);
but they disagreed over the lords’ right to aids
• Many knights followed their lords
• The tie of tenure was a powerful bond and bound the knight to
his lord and the tenant to the great magnates. But exceptions,
tenants might turn against their lord; geographical closeness
brought tenants together despite tenure or homage; sometimes
homage to King or distant lord prevailed.
• The multiplicity of the tenurial bond;
• Under-tenants involved in the rebellion are known from the lists
of reverse on the close roll 1217. Unreliable record for
homonymy and chancery chaos at the time the writs were sent
• Many barons held extensive tenures of other baronies
• Tenants might change lords when tenurial advantages were
obvious
• Loyalist lordships had fresh lords and barons as a result of royal
favour. Context for rebellious undertenants.
• Tenurial solidarity; most tenants forced to John’s side came from
Lincolnshire.
• Surrenders were temporary, tenants would rebel again.
 • The absence of sharp social distinctions between knights and
barons
• The barons promised their tenants the same principles that
Magna Carta would make possible to them and it was to win
their support and to acknowledge their importance as a social
and political group.
• The whole system relied on knights; many of them were
stewards, had political opinions and were active.
←
← The Ties of Faction
← Local groups, proximity, tenure, regional alliances
← baronies were scattered; men defeated distance;
← there seems to have been a genuine division of interest between
north and East Anglia.
• The spread of territorial interests was confusing the barons.
• The fickleness of some barons make it difficult to think of the
baronial as a coherent group.
• Family ties between leading rebels of northern counties. Similar
relations bound the lesser men; families divided internally in
1215 (sons and fathers, nephews and uncles, brothers between
themselves); marriages contracted in the course of the 12th c.
were remoulding the tenurial structure of society. Families ties
only support political alliances, not the other way around.
• The northern group was neither monolithic in composition or
single-minded in policy.
• The north came to be a network of relations excluding royal
officials.
• Friends and allied barons stood as debt pledges for their
partners. The group of pledges was sometimes highly localized;
there is a declining trend in royal officials pledging for barons’
debt. Pledge-making behavior can explain how the Northerners
became a closely-knit group. Those who pledged each other
fought together. The pledge system provided for alliance-
making. Networks were formed and sustained.
• The Northerners had a distinct and continuous policy that
survived personal self-interest.
←
← The Rebellion
← In 1212 John was in full control of the realm, nothing seemed to
forewarn the rebellion:
• the administration machine was at full power (forest eyres, Jew
debts, inquiries)
• preparations for continental expedition
• John learns about the plot against his life; watershed in the way
he treated the barons, henceforth he became increasingly
suspicious and harsh of his barons; total distrust.
• Having heard of the plot, John asks for guarantees (castles and
hostages from Richard de Unfraville on 24 Aug; David of
Huntington, Robert fitzWalter’s sister Alice Peche, Roger de
Merlay, Robert de Muschamps, Gilbert de Laval, Geoffrey de Say,
Adam of Newmarket, Earl Richard of Clare)
• John’s new policy on sheriffs, debt, forest. Transfer of
shrievalties into baronial hands as a concession; replacements
• Philip Augustus imminent invasion, barons confined to a single
county, ominous prophecy.
← Refusal to serve on the continent:
• Three reasons for refusal to commit militarily to the king: 1. The
king was excommunicate; 2. Financial exhaustion; 3. Tenurial
bonds did not imply continental military participation. By refusing
to serve abroad, they were provocative.
• 1213-1214 scutage antagonizes the northern barons.
in 1201 some earls had refused to accompany the king on the
continent until their rights had been restored.
One gets the impression that limited military service was being
forged in the fire of these refusals. The barons were pushing with
these demands in order to force concessions from the K.
Cornage or noutgeld = form a tenure particular to the border
counties characterized by the payment of a customary rent. They
were called cornage tenants. It wasn’t equated with knight
service;
← In the face of mild opposition to his military plans, John might have
promised general reform which made possible the 1214 campaign
preparations: (Wendover is alone in this)
• Restoration of ancient liberties according to the good laws of
predecessors (Edward)
• Destroy evil customs
• Just judgment
• Restoration of rights
← The scutage issue related to the Poitevin expedition
← The road from Bouvines to Runnymede was direct, short and
unavoidable.
← Resistance to scutage:
• From the eastern and home counties
• The barons met at Bury St Edmunds and swore to compel the
king by force to confirm the Coronation Charter of Henry I
(Wendover again is alone in relating of these proceedings). The
implication is that if the Bury meeting took place under these
circumstances, then the centre of opposition shifted to the
eastern and home counties.
← John has the sense of a forthcoming civil war and makes
preparations:
• Recalls mercenaries from Poitou to garrison royal castles; foreign
troops were all over the country
• Construction of siege machines and defense equipment
• John was buying his time
• John causes transfer of property to be made in the North to even
out the balance of power. John rewarded his supporters and
attempted to keep leakage to the rebels’ ranks to a minimum.
• The fall of London
← Runnymede
←
← The 25 barons in charge of the commission provided by chapter 60
of MC:
• Three had been guarantors of the safe-conduct to barons
• Four were fresh rebels
• Eleven had served in Poitou
 • Not all equally committed to fighting the K
• Dilution of the opposition
• Divide and rule
• Continuous negotiation
• John took the Cross and made small promises unacceptable to
the barons. When he asked Langton to excommunicate the
barons, the latter refused.
• The year dividing good and evil custom, first 1189 (John’s
promises) then 1199 (MC)
• The moderation of the Articles of the Barons as well as MC was a
product of the dominant moderate barons
• The unknown charter bore a northern stamp.
• The barons had refused to guarantee their fealty in writing, John
was thereby as suspicious as the barons themselves when he
failed to execute the Charter dispositions.
← The conference of Oxford
• It indicated a deadlock
• While submitting to the will of the barons in sacking mercenary
captains, John was still strong for he transferred the offices to
some loyal agents (keeping control of local gov and royal
castles), so it was not a question of getting things out of hand.
John was taking the Charter chapter ad litteram.
• By the end of the conference of Oxford, K must have asked the
Pope to annul the charter and he was preparing for war. Most
barons returned to their homes only to get ready themselves.
• Important differences of interpretation of MC
• Langton chose exile to avoid taking sides. His brother Simon
passed to the barons.
• John was building the argument that he had done his part of the
deal while the barons failed to do theirs. He victimized himself.
←
← The Civil War
←
← The first civil war in 1215 had started with baronial muster at
Stamford, formal defiance of K, march on London. No dramatic opening
for second war.
 • Impression there was more than one civil war because of
fragmentation of almost everything. Every castle had a civil war
around it; no unifying strategy
• John cuts the north in two and makes impossible for the rebels
to cooperate effectively.
• Barons transfer the border counties to the King of Scots under
the charter provisions for the lawful exercise of justice. King
Alexander became a buffer between the barons and John
• The fall of Rochester
• John seizes many northern castles. John advanced easily in
enemy territory because the barons had adopted a policy of
withdrawal
• The siege of York by the rebels
• Indecisive military results and temporary political achievements.
• John was expecting to win back many rebel barons and we can
see this by the granting of safe-conducts. I think it was too late
for this policy of free-handedness. Some important barons
passed over having been taken prisoners and held out for
ransom like William de Albini who had given his brother as
hostage. Gilbert fitz Reinfrey too gave ten hostages
• The landing of Prince Louis stops the leakage of barons to the
king’s camp. To that is added a resurgence of the northern
rebels
• John’s last actions were engaging and indicative of sound
strategic grasp: he broke any possible connection between
Alexander in the North and Prince Louis in the South by
strengthening the royal garrisons in the north.
• After the barons swore fealty to Louis at Dover, many other
barons who had reverted to the King came back to the rebels’
camp. French successes determined the allegiance of erstwhile
staunch royal supporters.
← Increasing disorganization of the administration:
• Financial diff. of castellans
• Confusing land grants (burden placed on royal memory)
• Increasing loss of control over officers
 • After John’s death, the rebels appeared more united and more
powerful than before 1216.
← Yet the rebel bloc was crumbling and approaching surrender:
• John’s death
• Consolidation of power of loyalist barons
• Division and rivalries around Louis
• Reissue of MC in Nov. 1216
• By the end of the first week of November, the last rebels
surrendered and made peace.
←
← The Loss of Normandy and its Consequences
←
← John’s profile, commitment and ambitions
• Chroniclers are divided on John’s character. While criticism
seems the more obvious, adulation might have come from some
authoritarian quality so appealing to some. A dynamic force.
Barnwell says unlucky.
• Overcome by contextual misfortunes; almost a victim of the time
undid by the events
• Lost territory but never gave them up, breathlessly trying to
regain them, “a true son of Eleanor of Aquitaine”.
• 1204 is the crucial date.
• England having become the only place the king could be, it was
governed more immediately by the king (not merely power
behind the administrative machine, but machine itself):
o Expansion of financial control of Chamber
o Increasing use of small seal
o Increasing decentralisation of financial operations to great
royal castles
o Closer supervision by King of judicial work of curia regis
• Before 1204, he had land and estates and privileges to sell to his
barons in exchange for huge cash payments. (safety valve)
• Sale of forest privileges
• Barons treated somewhat like mercenaries in that John could not
rely on feudal dues anymore and needed to find an incentive to
bring his barons to war.
 • Transformation of local government: transfer of personnel,
introduction of new men; the profit system of the farm inspired
by the custodian and the escheat-managing principle.
• Forest eyre in 1207-1209; destruction of enclosures and
prohibition to hunt for birds.
• Forest law was outside the custom of the realm. Magna Carta
brought it within the general framework.
• Often foresters were hereditary
• Forest law was sapping the personal baronial interests.
• The systematic and pervasive system of Jewish debt; John takes
the debts into his hands and looks to collecting the bonds;
• From 1207 consolidation of bonds under one heading
• The rate of repayment: generally mild; therefore, barons make
slight reduction of debt, no compelling force.
• Lacking cash, some barons made repayments in kind (knight
service)
← The Law of the Exchequer and the Custom of the Realm
← Maitland: one of the striking aspects of MC is its length
• the security clause – not programmatic but the lack of faith in
John; if accepted as the barons’ lord, he was to become a good
lord, and the barons made sure of that, they had all suffered at
his hands.
← The Government of the North
• The northern shires were not uniform; idiosyncrasies
• The difficulty of defending the border from the Scots
• Norman border families had mixed allegiances
• John tries to control the north but it’s hard.
• The Marsh counties sided with the king and ensured royal
authority in the shires.
• Reduce the northern barons to a disciplined subjection to sheriff
and castellan
← The King’s Friends
• the new reign produced no clean sweep. John kept some of
Richard’s men while setting his own in key gov positions.
• William de Stuteville was in control of the border
• Steady sale of offices
• Roger de Lacy defended Chateau Gaillard in 1204, had +100 fees
• Foreigners and parvenus fill the royal offices and positions
(central government, local gov); they were all deep in the King’s
counsel.
o 1207-1208: the influx of foreigners into England acting as
John’s officials: Engelard de Cigogné in Gloucestershire,
Gerard d’Athée first in Nottinghamshire, then in
Herefordshire, Philip Mark, sheriff of Nottingham.
o Robert de Vieuxpont and Brian de Lisle were intruders,
easy money
o Philip of Oldcotes had the King’s ear and trust, most active
of all parvenus
o Hubert de Burgh, parvenu, held shrievalties and earldom of
Kent, enriched himself at the King’s table, defender of
royal castles
o These foreigners and parvenus were both dangerous and
unpleasant; dangerous because they kept their jobs
through ruthless efficiency; unpleasant because a slap in
the face of traditional families. No-one likes new men in old
positions.
o They were not isolated but coherent, self-conscious group:
familiar egis, the royal household
o Although they quarrelled among themselves, they stood by
the King until the end.
• Saleable offices were thought of as estates by the King and the
receivers.
• Royal action was biased:
o he gave custody of abbeys to his curiales, instead of those
whose families had founded the houses. One can only
imagine the resentment and anger that must have caused
among the displeased.
o Bias in the acquittal of fines proffered for land ownership
troubleshooting.
o In litigation too – royal favour made the games and tipped
the balance.
 o Pardon and forgiveness of debt in exchange for military
service
• The King’s friends would despoil a victim once outside the King’s
favour – they would collect the breadcrumbs as soon as the King
was done eating.
• “The loyalists had used the war as an opportunity for robbery
and the expansion of their estates” (p.243): land seizure,
merchant goods seizure, piracy
• it’s the loyalists against the rebels but not for the King’s sake or
against him, but against each other, personal vendettas and land
seizing opportunities on both sides, but mainly loyalists making
inroads into rebel territory for their own gain.
• When a rebel might consider changing sides and coming to the
King, he would find it impossible to live up to the King’s requests
as loyalist local barons would prevent the newcomer from
making peace with the King. Local sheriff would not obey the
King in repossessing the newcomer. Letters of safe-conduct
would be valueless. Rentering into the King’s peace didn’t mean
winning back the barons’ peace. The King was in an awkward
situation, really. It was not for the king to settle it, but the legate
through the threat of excommunication if non-compliance. It
seems from this point that there sometimes were three
belligerent parties, the rebels, the King and the loyalists.
• Ransom
← Epilogue
← Anticipation and the end of the Civil War
• Magna Carta represented general baronial aims; it became more
with the passage of time;
• The reissue of a more limited Magna Carta appeased the warring
barons. It united them against royal abuse. They found a
common enemy that helped them become collaborators.
• War against John’s foreigners
← Conclusions:
• Resuming conclusions of past chapters: why did the barons
rebel? Financial and social reasons (estates, treatment by King,
family tradition with respect to royal allegiance)
 • “John had no pathological mistrust of the baronage; some barons
he did trust; for the rest he simply had no use”
• baronial division along in/out (of Kingly presence) lines
• royal patronage and personal influence was left untouched by the
Charter. It was not a question of principle concern.
• Holt detects the influence of court poetry and chivalric values
and imagination in the formulation of the Charter. General rules
of conduct were to be followed. How would John compare with
Arthur (the imaginary king, not the Breton)?
← John’s character:
“With John, there is no trace of the mystique of monarchy, no
ability to lead and inspire by character and personality”
“John was not too cruel as a medieval king, but too supple, too
clever”.
←
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← The average number of hostage. Significance?

← Who?
← Why? Barons but also lesser men
← The hostages’ fate
←
← Hold, North.
← Surrender hostages and charters of fealty and compelled to buy the
K. grace and benevolence.
←
← P. 205: the pipe rolls bear witness to the continued retention by the
King of hostages and various prisoners: 3 John p xix; 4John xv-xvi; 5John
xvi-xvii; 6John 133; 159, 193
←
← Roger of Montbegon and Robert de Ros rendered hostages (p. 206)
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