knighthood

The Transformation of Knighthood in Early Thirteenth-Century EnglandAuthor(s): Kathryn FaulknerSource: The English Historical Review, Vol. 111, No. 440 (Feb., 1996), pp. 1-23Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/577859 .Accessed: 23/02/2015 04:31

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The Transformation of Knighthood in Early Thirteenth-Century England:

IT has long been accepted that the thirteenth century was a time of great change in the nature of knighthood in England. The men of property and standing in local society who held the title of knight at the beginning of the fourteenth century bore little resemblance to the professional fighting knights of Anglo-Norman England, who were often little better off than the more affluent peasants. This rise in the status of knights was matched by a dramatic decline in numbers, so that by the end of the thirteenth century knighthood was taken up only by a small and relatively affluent elite.1 Although an idea of numbers is central in seeking to understand thirteenth-century society, no figures have yet been calculated for the start of this period of change. The purpose of this paper is to provide hard evidence for the number of knights in England during the reign of King John, showing that there were considerably more knights in early thirteenth-century England than has previously been assumed, and to consider the implications of this evidence for the history of knighthood during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The extensive development of royal justice which took place under Henry II gave knights a new and important administrative role at local level, and the stipulation that they alone were to carry out certain duties makes legal records a gold-mine of extraordinary size and accessibility from which the names of individual knights can be quarried. Yet so far only one estimate of the number of knights in thirteenth-century England has been based on this source, and the resulting figure has only limited value owing to methodological problems.2 The legal records from the reign of John are especially productive, as the procedures introduced by Henry II and described by Glanvill were still being followed remarkably closely, and a good proportion of the rolls of the king's court survive, together with a limited number of eyre rolls. I have used the surviving curia regis and eyre rolls for I 199 to I 216 to compile a

* I should like to thank Dr David Carpenter for suggesting that I study early thirteenth-century knights and for supporting my research with unlimited advice and enthusiasm, and Professor Peter Coss for encouraging me to prepare for publication a paper read at the Institute of Historical Research in March I994.

I. S. Harvey, 'The Knight and the Knight's Fee in England', Past and Present, xlix (I970), 3-43 at I 5; D. Crouch, The Image of Aristocracy in Britain, 1000-1300 (London, I992), p. I45, summarizes the figures produced by Round, Keefe, Denholm-Young and Quick for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

2. J. Quick, 'The Number and Distribution of Knights in Thirteenth-Century England: The Evidence of the Grand Assize Lists', in Thirteenth Century England I, ed. P. R. Coss and S. D. Lloyd (Woodbridge, I986), pp. I I4-23.

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2 THE TRANSFORMATION OF KNIGHTHOOD February list of all those men who carried out the various administrative duties restricted to knights between those dates.1

Certain tasks were very clearly reserved to knights; others were less obviously so. That grand assize electors and jurors, viewers of sickness essoins and those bringing the record from the county court to the king's court were intended to be knights is apparent from Glanvill.2 The theory is clear, but was it borne out in practice in the early thirteenth century? Unfortunately, it is rarely possible to find any corroboratory proof that a man was a knight. The title dominus only began to come into regular use in charter witness-lists during the second quarter of the thirteenth century, so while these could be used to verify lists of administrative knights for the i230s, they are useless for the early thirteenth century.3 In the absence of positive proof of status it is only possible to look at the negative evidence. There are occasional cases where the rules were broken, but they are remarkably few. For grand assizes I have found only one, where in I 207 the electors of a grand assize jury in Dorset were amerced for electing men who were not knights.4 Sickness views provide more exceptions to the rule, but still only five.5 In no cases at all was any doubt thrown on the status of those bringing the record of the county court. Thirteenth-century legal process was characterized by procrastination at every stage. If failure to follow the correct form of having knights as grand assize electors and jurors, viewers of sickness and bearers of record was at all common, it would surely have appeared as cause for complaint and postponement. There are also other indications that those serving on such panels were knights. The explicit distinction between juries of knights and juries of free men is unlikely to have been made if it was without practical meaning. The clearest evidence that the expectation that grand assize juries should consist of knights was real is the disruption caused later in the thirteenth century by a shortage of eligible knights.6 It seems safe to

I. C[uria] R[egis] R[ollsj, vols. i-vii; P[leas before the] K[ing or his J[ustices 1198-1212], ed. D. M. Stenton (Selden Soc., vols. lxvii-viii, lxxxiii-iv, I948-9, I966-7); R[otuli] C[uriae] R[egis], ed. F. Palgrave (Record Comm., 2 vols., 1835); '[The] B[edford] E[yre, 1202]', ed. G. H. Fowler, [Publications of the] B[edfordshire]H[istorical]R[ecord]S[ociety], i (1913), 133-248; The Earliest Northamptonshire Assize Rolls AD I202 and I203, ed. D. M. Stenton (Northamptonshire Record Soc., vol. v, I930); The Earliest Lincolnshire Assize Rolls, AD I202-1209, ed. D. M. Stenton (Lincoln Record Soc., vol. xxii, 1926); 'Staffordshire Suits Extracted from the Plea Rolls, temp. Richard I and King John', ed. G. Wrottesley, C[ollections for a] H[istory of] S[taffordshire], iii (William Salt Archaeological Soc., I882), I-i63.

2. Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinis regni Anglie qui Glanvilla vocatur, ed. G. D. G. Hall (Oxford, I965), pp. 1-2, 30-I, 33, 99, 102.

3. For the use of the title dominus in charter witness lists, see P. R. Coss, Lordship, Knighthood and Locality: A Study in English Society, c. 1180-i2 80 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 215-16; D. Fleming, 'Milites as Attestors to Charters in England', Albion, xxii (I990), 185-98.

4. CRR, v. 109. 5. Ibid., i. 203; iii. 201-2, 2I , 320; v. 327; RCR, i. 32I. In this last case there is no indication as to the

truth of the litigant's accusation that the four viewers were not all knights and were his mortal enemies. 6. Grand assizes were not held in Middlesex and Staffordshire in 12 5 3 for this reason: Cflose] R[olls],

1251-53, pp. 442-3. There were also difficulties in Westmorland: see Quick, 'Number and Distribution of Knights', pp. I 14-15. One of the complaints of the baronial reformers in I258 was that 'in many

EHR Feb. 96


I996 IN EARLY THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND

conclude that lists of grand assize jurors, viewers of sickness and recorders give the names of men who were considered, by either local officials or other knights of the same county, to be knights.1

Flower, in his introduction to the curia regis rolls, suggests that two other types of panel were made up of knights: the panel of four sent to witness the appointment of an attorney by a litigant who had essoined, and juries of attaint.2 Unfortunately there are no comforting contempo- rary statements from Glanvill to bear out the impression Flower gained from the rolls. Glanvill says only that if a party to a suit has essoined, then his attorney must have letters of authority.3 By the beginning of the thirteenth century it was clearly the practice to send four men to hear the appointment of an attorney, but was the procedure considered important enough to merit being carried out by knights alone? The evidence suggests that in John's reign it was: at least thirty-nine cases specify that the men sent to hear who had been appointed, or to check the authenticity of a self-proclaimed attorney, were knights; and analysis of panels where the status of the men sent to hear the appointment was not mentioned indicates that they normally consisted of knights.4 It appears that when a panel of four men was sent to enquire into the appointment of an attorney the expectation was that they would be knights. It may be that this requirement was abandoned later in the thirteenth century, but it remained true throughout John's reign.

At the time Glanvill was written the plea of attaint had not yet developed. This procedure was in effect an appeal against the decision in a grand or petty assize, where the statement of the original jury of twelve was to be considered by a jury of twenty-four. Where the initial plea was a grand assize, it is clearly to be expected that the twenty-four jurors of attaint would be knights, as were the original jurors. What is counties, for lack of knights it is not possible to hold any grand assize, so that pleas of this kind remain unfinished, and petitioners never obtain justice': 'Petition of the barons', May I258, cl. 28, in Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion, I258-67, ed. I. J. Sanders and R. F. Treharne (Oxford, 1973), pp. 88-9.

i. Quick discusses this issue in relation to knights' service on the grand assize during the thirteenth century as a whole and also comes to the conclusion that theory was usually reflected in practice: Quick, 'Number and Distribution of Knights', pp. II4-I6. Thomas found no clear example in Angevin Yorkshire of an individual who was not a knight serving in a knightly capacity: H. M. Thomas, Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders, and Thugs: The Gentry of Angevin Yorkshire, 1154-I216 (Philadelphia, I993), p. 9.

2. C. T. Flower, Introduction to the Curia Regis Rolls (Selden Soc., vol. lxii, I944), pp. 296, 398. 3. Glanvill, p. 13 5. If the attorney is known to be a connection of the litigant he is to be accepted even

without letters of authority. 4. A look at the four Surrey men sent to hear the appointment of an attorney by Alicia Basset in I205

illustrates the point: i) Gilbert de Abingworth occurs frequently as both a grand assize elector and juror, and was one of four knights who viewed land at Compton in I214 (CRR, i. 224, 300; ii. 1 54, 202, 255; iii. 5,253,274, 283, 308; iv. 206, 253, 301; v. 273; vii. 120, 23 1, 247, 303; PKJ, lxvii, no. 3489; RCR, ii. 49, 79, 213); 2) Adam de Aldham occurs on four grand assize juries, twice as an elector, and was another of the knights who viewed land at Compton (CRR, ii. 202; iii. 274, 283; iv. 68, 123, I7I, 206, 207, 253; v. 113, 273; vii. I I9, 231I); 3) Gilbert de Basevill also occurs as a grand assize elector and juror on many occasions, and made one sickness view (CRR, ii. 202; iii. 5, 253, 274, 283; iv. 68, 207, 253; v. 8, 191, 213, 273, 287; RCR, ii. 79, 213); 4) William Malbanc served twice as a grand assize juror (CRR, iii. 308, iv. I8).

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF KNIGHTHOOD February not clear is whether the twenty-four were to be knights even if the initial case was one of the petty assizes. This was in any event a rare procedure: I have found only twenty-four cases of either type between i200 and I2i6.1 In twelve of these cases there is mention at some point that the jurors were knights, including proceedings where the original plea was one of the petty assizes. The only instance where there is an indication that the jurors were not knights is the second recorded case of this type in I201, in which four knights were to elect twenty-four men. It seems likely that the procedure was still in the early stages of its development and subject to some experimentation, but that within a year or two it had been decided that the jurors should be knights. In the earlier years the status of the jurors is commonly recorded in the rolls, but later it survives only through chance mention. Presumably the procedure had become sufficiently well known not to need spelling out.

It could be argued that the omission was because the use of knights was abandoned, but there is no evidence to suggest this. On the con- trary, in 1210 a new procedure was adopted, in which cases of this type were scheduled to be heard by visiting justices, presumably to overcome the difficulties involved in assembling twenty-four knights and the twelve original jurors in one place.2 A task which could result in the imprisonment of jurors who were themselves either reputable free men or knights, and the confiscation of their chattels, would surely be considered important enough to be entrusted only to knights.

To summarize, it can reasonably be assumed that any individual per- forming one of the following duties was perceived by his contemporaries to be a knight:

i. Electors of grand assize juries. 2. Grand assize jurors. 3. Viewers of sickness essoins. 4. Those who brought the record of the county court to the king's

court. 5. Those sent to hear the appointment of an attorney. 6. Jurors for pleas of attaint.

In addition, knights were regularly summoned to perform an assortment of ad hoc tasks, ranging from views of disputed land to an enquiry into the extent of the damage that the market of the bishop and monks of Ely at Lakenham was causing to the market of the abbot of Bury (their verdict was that 'neither they nor anyone else know, only God!).3

I. The first two of these cases, in I200 and I20I, pre-date the Lincolnshire case of 1202 which Richardson and Sayles believed to be the first evidence of this procedure: CRR, i. 23 5; PKJ, lxxxiii, no. 147; H. G. Richardson and G. 0. Sayles, Select Cases of Procedure without Writ under Henry III (Selden Soc., vol. Ix, 1940), p. lxxxvii.

2. CRR, vi. 54, 5, 59, 6o-i. 3. Ibid., ii. I36. Flower, Introduction, pp. 436-9, gives many other examples of the various tasks

knights were called upon to perform.

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IN EARLY THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND

Using these criteria to compile a list of all those individuals who are recorded as having served as knights in an administrative capacity during John's reign produces the remarkably high figure of 3,636 knights. This is more than double the number calculated by Quick, the only other historian to have attempted an estimate of the number of knights in thirteenth-century England from legal records.1 Although most of his data come from the first half of the century, his total was only I, 540. The two sets of figures, broken down county by county, are compared in Table i, with the year for which Quick counted each county's knights given next to his figure.

Why do these figures differ so dramatically? It appears that Quick's calculations were affected by three methodological errors. Firstly, and most critically, the figures Quick uses are from an assortment of dates, ranging from i202 to I269, yet this is a period when the number of knights was declining. To take figures from different points during a sixty-seven-year period at a time of rapid change is clearly going to produce a hugely distorted result. Secondly, he uses only grand assize jury lists. While these are the most productive source of names of administrative knights, the other duties they performed taken together yield a significant contribution. Thirdly, he concentrates on only one year for each county, which means that nearly all his figures are taken from eyre rolls, the only exceptions being the curia regis rolls for Kent in I227, a Berkshire writ file of I248 and the Surrey bench records of I258.2 It may appear reasonable to suppose that the vast majority of knights in a county would attend the eyre and would serve on a jury while they were there, but this was not necessarily the case. Only forty knights served as grand assize electors or jurors during the Bedfordshire eyre of I202, whereas a total of o05 served in some capacity between 1199 and I216, the vast majority of whom would have been active in 1202.

The main reason for the under-representation of knights in grand assize jury lists at this eyre is the stipulation that jurors should be knights 'from the neighbourhood (visneto)', a provision which remained in force well into the thirteenth century.3 Analysis of jury lists indicates that this provision was not just a matter of form: real efforts were made to use knights with local interests and knowledge.4 The requirement that knights should be local can mean that grand assize jury

I. Quick, 'Number and Distribution of Knights', pp. I20-3. 2. Ibid., p. i 8. 3. Glanvill, p. 30o; Bracton de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, ed. G. E. Woodbine, trans. with

revisions and notes by S. E. Thorne (Cambridge, Mass., I968-77), iv. 57. 4. The panels for two Bedfordshire grand assizes illustrate this: all sixteen jurors and three out of

four electors for a case concerning twelve acres at Meppershall held land within ten miles, as did thirteen out of sixteen jurors and all four electors for a case concerning two carucates at Sharnbrook: CRR, iii. 189, iv. 118-19. Sharnbrook and Meppershall are in the north-west and east of the county respectively, and only one man served on both juries. Coss carried out a similar exercise for a Worcestershire jury with the same result: P. R. Coss, The Knight in Medieval England, I000-I400 (Stroud, 1993), pp. 36-8.

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I996 5


THE TRANSFORMATION OF KNIGHTHOOD February

County Quick [Year] 1199-II9926 99-I216 known estimated

Bedfordshire Berkshire Buckinghamshire Cambridgeshire Cheshire Cornwall Cumberland Derbyshire Devon Dorset [bishopric of] Durham Essex Gloucestershire Hampshire Herefordshire Hertfordshire Huntingdonshire Kent Lancashire Leicestershire Lincolnshire Middlesex Norfolk Northamptonshire Northumberland Nottinghamshire Oxfordshire Rutland Shropshire Somerset Staffordshire Suffolk Surrey Sussex Warwickshire Westmorland Wiltshire Worcestershire Yorkshire

51 [I227] 36 [I248] 6o [I227]

43 [I269] 85 [I238]

53 [I254] 49 [I22I] 55 [I236] 28 [I255] 29 [I248]

8I [I227]

46 [I247] 138 [I202]

I08 [I257] 59 [I202] 24 [I269]

45 [I247]

48 [1203] 69 [I243] 55 [I227]

IOI [I240] 41 [I255] 33 [I248] 56 [I232]

47 [I249] 37[I255] 63 [I2I 8-9]

TOTAL I,540

105 84

I3I 136

39 58 6o 48 66 I2

I74 94 86 46

125 28

142

35 79

277 45

273 220

28 65

io8 36 77

I05

I97 75

ii9 57

83 25

I98

3,636

I26 IOI

I57 I63

50 78 70 72

I44 79 50

209 I13 I03

55 I50

84 I70

70 95

332 54

328 264

56 78

130 36 92

I26 120

236 90

I43 68 50 o00

75 238

4,755

Table I: Number of administrative knights per county

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lists produce very biased results. The i 202 Bedfordshire eyre roll con- tains four full lists and three lists of electors only.1 All the properties at issue were located in the east or north-east of the county. The complete absence of any cases involving property in the north, south and west of the county means that jury lists produce an extremely unrepresentative sample of names, especially as the northern part of the county was the most populous and had a higher number of independent landholders.

The cumulative effect of these three factors explains Quick's underestimate of the number of knights who performed administrative service: but how accurate are my own figures? Certain adjustments and qualifications have to be made. The total of 3,636 is an overstatement inasmuch as a number of knights appear in more than one county. To positively identify the owners of all names which occur more than once, in order to establish whether they were single individuals who served in two or more counties, or were different men sharing the same name, would be prohibitively time-consuming. I have therefore applied a rule of thumb. If two knights with the same name occur in adjacent counties I have assumed them to be one person; if they occur in counties which are geographically separated I have assumed them to be different. There will inevitably be errors in both directions, but they can reasonably be expected to cancel each other out. This adjustment produces a revised total of 3,453 knights.

In one respect my figure will still be an overstatement: some of these men were not contemporaries. Between I I99 and 1216 some would have died and been succeeded by their sons or other heirs. The extent to which this inflates my figures is in practice limited. The nature of the records for John's reign means that the majority of names are gathered from the earlier years of the reign. Eyre rolls only survive for 202/3 and I208/9; the decision to abandon the bench at Westminster in I209 reduced the level of business for some time, and by 1215 the system had ground to a halt with the outbreak of rebellion. The great majority of administrative knights are therefore found in the first ten years of the reign. The number of cases where both father and son (or other heir) appear are likely to be very small, if not negligible. Of the io5 knights in Bedfordshire there are several who share a name and might be thought to be father and son. The evidence shows that this was so in only two cases: Roger de Bray and his son Miles, and Odo and Roger Burnard. The others all prove to be related in other ways - brothers, cousins, members of main and collateral family branches - or to have no ascer- tainable connection whatsoever. I found no cases in Bedfordshire where both an individual and his heir bearing a different name appeared in the list.

i. 'BE', nos. 101, I I5, 116-17, I19, 126-7.

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF KNIGHTHOOD February The evidence from Bedfordshire suggests that my list will include

very few knights who were not contemporaries.1 The slight overstatement of numbers this produces is more than offset by those who might be expected to appear in the records as administrative knights, but for some reason slip through the net: some records have been lost, especially eyre rolls, which survive only for a few counties; some eligible knights may have failed to serve in any administrative capacity, perhaps because there were no grand assize cases in their immediate locality. For these reasons my figure of 3,453 administrative knights significantly under- estimates the true number for the early thirteenth century. If we look at Bedfordshire again, a list of knights who carried out administrative tasks in the early part of Henry III's reign gives a clue to some of the names which might have been expected to appear on the list for John's reign. Thirty-five men who served in an administrative capacity between I 216 and I230 had not performed such duties during John's reign. Of these, eighteen are from families which do not occur on the earlier list. Some of these were clearly of knightly status in the early years of the thirteenth century: Henry of Northwood appears as the overlord of another knight, Walter Hacun, in 1g99 when he received ios. relief for land in Silsoe; Ralf Ridel and John of Salford were among six 'knights' who inquired into the holdings of the former secular canons of Bedford in 1207; two others, Walter Ledet and Guy Wake, were the younger sons of minor baronial families.2 It seems reasonable to assume that most, if not all, of these eighteen were either of knightly status twenty years earlier, or were the heirs of knights.

There are several other individuals whose names might be expected to appear on the lists of knights but do not. The Pateshalls and Mepper- shalls were prominent in Bedfordshire throughout the thirteenth century: Walter of Pateshall was another of the six knights who inquired into the holdings of the canons of Bedford in 1207; Gilbert of Mepper- shall held the vill of Meppershall from the king by serjeantry (as royal larderer) and from the honor of Huntingdon. Half a fee each was held from him by two men, Amaury de Landres and Richard de Peincourt: Amaury appears on the administrative list for John's reign, Richard de Peincourt does not.3 Henry Bunion was the overlord of another knight,

I. Thomas in his study of Yorkshire reached the same conclusion, finding that very few of the knights named between the i 90os and 12 8/9 came from the same family: Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders and Thugs, p. Io.

2. RCR, ii. 84. The inquiry into the canons' holdings is recorded only in a monastic cartulary, not in any of the legal records: The Cartulary of Newnham Priory, ed. J. Godber (BHRS, vol. xliii, I953-4 [hereafter Newnham Cartulary]), no. 83. Walter was the younger son of Wischard Ledet I and brother of Wischard Ledet II, holders of the honour of Wardon: Cartulary of the Abbey of Old Wardon, ed. G. H. Fowler (BHRS, vol. xiii, 1930), no. I I 5, P/ ; Guy, who served as a grand assize juror in Rutland in 121 I, is difficult to place in the Wake family tree, but he is most likely to be a younger son of Baldwin Wake II, baron of Bourne: CRR, vi. 132, I65.

3. Newnham Cartulary, no. 83; R[otuli de] O[blatis etJF[inibus in Turri Londinensiasservati], ed. T. Duffus Hardy (Record Comm., I835), p. i6; P[edes] F[inium], i. 6o-i, 63; [The] B[ook of] F[ees] (London, I920-31), ii. 866; F[eudal] A[ids], i. 4.

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Simon de Faldho, for land in Pulloxhill, and was said to have owed Robert de Albini fifty marks relief after the death of his father.1 Some families are represented in the list of knights, but not by their senior members: Miles of Eversholt held one and a half knight's fees, but only his younger brother William, and Richard of Eversholt, probably either another brother or an uncle, are recorded as having carried out administrative service;2 William of Gatesden, who held Stanbridge from the king by serjeantry of falconer, does not appear on the list, but his younger brother Aldulf does.3 Clearly the number of those perceived by contemporaries to be knights in early thirteenth-century Bedford- shire would be greater than the I05 included in my original list. If allowance is made for those families which performed administrative service in the early years of Henry III's reign but not in John's, and other families and individuals who were clearly of sufficient status to be eligible to serve as administrative knights, a figure of I25 knights in Bedfordshire in the first decade of the thirteenth century would probably be a reasonable estimate of the true total.

Bedfordshire is likely to produce more accurate figures than many other counties. Its position in the Home Counties within easy reach of the Bench at Westminster, and the survival of the 1202 eyre roll, helped to ensure that the great majority of knights both served in an administrative capacity and are recorded as having done so. Despite these advantages it still appears that my original figure is around 20 per cent too low. A quick check of another county suggests a slightly larger underestimate, but one of similar magnitude. When those families from Staffordshire which appear to have been of knightly status in the early thirteenth century are added to the I oo00 who appear on my list for 199 to 1216, and allowance is made for those cases where both father and son appear on that list, a revised figure of around i 25 knights is produced - an increase of 25 per cent.4

I. CRR, iii. 151-2. 2. Ibid., vii. 232; 'Roll of the Justices in Eyre at Bedford, I227', ed. G. H. Fowler, BHRS, iii (1916),

I-2o6, no. 222. 3. There is considerable confusion over which member of the family was granted Stanbridge; the

hundred rolls say it was 'Audusus', and a letter patent of Henry III that it was William: 'The Hundred Rolls of I274 and 1279', ed. J. S. Thompson, in Hundreds, Manors, Parishes and the Church, ed. Thompson (BHRS, vol. Ixix, i990), pp. 3-63, at p. 6; C[alendar oft P[atent] R[olls], 1247-58, p. I49. Although there is no indisputable evidence that William held Stanbridge, and it was certainly held by Aldulf's son John, the most likely scenario is that William was the elder brother of Aldulf and as such held the serjeantry, but died without progeny and was succeeded by his nephew. He certainly carried out the duties of falconer: P[ipe] R[oll] 8 Richard I, pp. i8, 60; R[otuli] L[itterarum] C[lausarum in Turri Londinensi asservati], ed. T. Duffus Hardy (Record Comm., 1833-44), i. I9Ib. He also held the manor of Lifton in Devon, which was given to his wife Agatha by Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, and in I204 had to pay 6om. to be allowed to hold it from Queen Isabella as part of her dower: R[otuli] C[hartarum], ed. T. Duffus Hardy (Record Comm., 1827), pp. 128, 213b; ROF, p. 218; PR 6 John, pp. 32, 36.

4. Members of twenty-three families which do not appear on my list for 1199 to I216 performed administrative service as knights between 1216 and 1230. Four other men, Walter de Bradeley, Robert Maunsel, Walter fitzRalf and Ralf de Longok were among those 'knights' said to have been removed

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10 THE TRANSFORMATION OF KNIGHTHOOD February If significant numbers of knights are missing from my list, even for

well-recorded counties, the total figure of 3,453 for the country as a whole must be an understatement of the true figure; but by how much? While it is clearly impossible to produce an accurate and definitive figure, informed guesswork should produce a reasonable approximation. Ideally, county size, density of population and social structure should be considered to check for each county whether the known number of knights appears to be too low when measured against other comparable shires. Unfortunately, population figures are available only at rare (and for my purpose inconvenient) chronological points, and county size alone can only serve as a very rough guide: a large but sparsely populated county may have fewer knights than a small, heavily populated one. Russell's figures for population density in 1086 and 1377 show the scale of variation between counties, but the nature of demo- graphic change between these two dates, with rapid population growth followed by cataclysmic decline in the fourteenth century, makes it impossible to obtain any meaningful figures for I200 by interpolation.1 Even if reasonable estimates of population density were available for the beginning of the thirteenth century it would still be extremely difficult to judge the accuracy of my figures, as the proportion of knights within the population is unlikely to be constant across the country, and could vary very considerably between counties. Calculating numbers of knights from county size would therefore require an equation with three variables, two of which could only be obtained very approximately, and then only by making several dubious assumptions. The end result of such a calculation would be virtually meaningless - a case of lies, damned lies and statistics.

For the majority of counties the original figures seem plausible by comparison with those for Bedfordshire and Staffordshire. I have therefore assumed that the underestimate of the numbers of knights will be of a similar magnitude, and have increased the figures across the board by 20 per cent.2 These estimated numbers are still inherently conservative as early eyre rolls survive for both Bedfordshire and Staffordshire, whereas for the majority of counties no eyre rolls survive from John's

by the serjeants of the hundred from the jury for an assize of last presentment for money: CHS, iv (I 883), 37. The families of Caverswall, Coppenhall, Purcel and Wasteneys all seem to have provided knights at intervals during the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries. However the five or six father/son combinations (William fitzGuy and Richard fitzWilliam, Henry and Robert de Lega, Nicholas de Mutton and John of Salt, Robert and Ivo of Walton, Nicholas and Robert of Maer, and possibly Peter and Simon of Norton) which appear on my original list of Ioo knights need to be offset against these additions.

i. J. C. Russell, British Medieval Population (Albuquerque, 1948), p. 313. 2. Using the lower Bedfordshire figure rather than the higher Staffordshire figure of 25 per cent. I

have not increased the figure for Rutland, which is particularly well represented in the records. Thirty-six knights already looks a large number for such a small county.

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reign, and many knights who served on grand assize juries during an eyre may not appear among the administrative knights named by the curia regis rolls. A clear example of the distortion of knightly numbers which can be caused by the patchy survival of eyre rolls is to be found in Warwickshire. Coss lists ninety-seven administrative knights who served between I220 and I232, during which period rolls for two separate eyres survive, but only forty-one between I200 and 1214, where he had to rely on the curia regis rolls alone.1

There are a few counties for which the number of knights seems remarkably low, especially those on the periphery of the country. Distance from the centre and their character as border societies may well have meant that royal justice did not penetrate in the same way as in the heartland of the country. The figures for Devon (48) and Cornwall (39), two relatively populous counties, look suspiciously low, especially as Quick found eighty-five knights in Devon in 1238, when for every other county his figures are a great deal lower than mine. In the far north, Northumberland (28), although a more sparsely populated county, appears to be underestimated in comparison with neighbouring Cum- berland (58). The exclusion of Westmorland from the shrieval system and the franchise of the earl of Chester mean that there are no records for either Westmorland or Cheshire. The status of Durham as a county palatine also means that in the normal course of events no knights are recorded, although twelve knights of the bishopric are mentioned in one law suit. Lancashire, another administrative oddity, records only thirty- five. Even some more central counties yield apparently anomalous figures, with Worcestershire (25) producing far fewer knights than neighbouring counties of similar size, and Huntingdonshire (28) very low in comparison with neighbouring Bedfordshire. Doubling the figures for the peripheral counties Cornwall, Lancashire and North- umberland, and trebling them for the more populous Devon, Worces- tershire and Huntingdonshire would seem to be reasonable guesswork, as would figures of fifty apiece for Cheshire, Westmorland and Durham.

The outcome of applying these rules of thumb is a revised total of 4,75 5, as shown in the final column of Table i. As this estimated figure was obtained by adjusting the numbers separately for individual counties, allowance must again be made for those knights who performed administrative service in more than one county. If the total is reduced in the same proportion as before the revised figure becomes 4,515. As my estimation has been conservative throughout, I think it is reasonable to

I. Coss, Lordship, Knighthood and Locality, pp. 258-62. The difference between his figure of forty-one knights for 1200 to I 214 and my figure of fifty-seven for i 199 and I 1216 is explained primarily by his omission of those knights who heard the appointment of an attorney and a jury of attaint. To the references cited ibid., p. 262, should be added RCR, ii. 211 I; CRR, i. 172, 358; vi. 6o-i; vii. 134, 286-7.

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF KNIGHTHOOD February conclude that the number of men in England who were considered by their contemporaries to be knights capable of serving as such on grand assize juries and other commissions in the first decade of the thirteenth century was of the order of 4,500-5,000. This seems an astonishingly high figure when it is remembered that the present discussion is limited to knights who were eligible for administrative service: landless knights were not. If knights who earned their living through the profession of arms, as household knights or mercenaries, were to be included as well as knights available for administrative service, then the total number of knights in England must surely have been well in excess of 5,ooo.1

The distinction between a man who was perceived to be a knight for administrative purposes and a law-worthy free man was a very real one, but what was meant by it? What gave these men knightly status? Was it a natural consequence of birth, the possession of a certain amount of property, or a level of military capability; or was it only acquired through a formal ceremony? No legal records survive from Henry II's reign, and very few from Richard's, so it is rarely possible to prove that those who were knights in John's reign were the sons of men who had themselves been knights, and impossible to show that their fathers were not of knightly status. What evidence there is usually comes from the higher echelons of knightly society.2 Knighthood was clearly not restricted only to the eldest son of a knight: in 118 5 Alicia, widow of Fulk Lisures, had two sons who were knights and two other sons (in addition to her six married and three marriageable daughters!).3 It stretches credibility to imagine that all a knight's sons automatically inherited his status, but it is not impossible. Finding the wherewithal to support four or five sons in one family would have been prohibitive, but the younger sons may well have been able to use their professional military skills to find employment.

There was no simple link between landholding and knighthood: clearly there could not be when many knights had no lands of their own. Tenure of less than one knight's fee by no means precluded knightly status: many men clearly held far less than one fee, but still chose to take up knighthood, or were perceived as knights. A survey of fifty administrative knights from Bedfordshire shows that the great majority had small to moderate amounts of land: only seven possessed more than two

I. Coss has rightly pointed out that the distinction between landless household knights and enfeoffed knights has been overstated. Many knights who served in baronial (or even knightly) households also held some land and were therefore eligible for administrative service: Lordship, Knighthood and Locality, pp. 225-6.

2. An example is Richard de Beauchamp, younger son of Hugh II de Beauchamp, baron of Eaton Socon, who served on two grand assize juries; Wardon Cartulary, no. 326; The Memoranda Rollfor the Tenth Year of the Reign of KingJohn (I207-8) Together with the Curia Regis Rolls of Hilary 7 Richard I (1196) and Easter 9 Richard I (1198), ed. R. A. Brown (Pipe Roll Soc., NS, vol. xxxi, I957), pp. 8 5-6; PKJ, lxvii, no. 2262.

3. Rotuli de Dominabus et Pueris et Puellis de XII Comitatibus, ed. J. H. Round (Pipe Roll Soc., vol. xxxv, I913), p. 24.

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1996 IN EARLY THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND

knight's fees; twelve almost certainly, and another four possibly, held between one and two fees; whereas twenty-seven probably held less than one fee, including two for whom I was unable to find any record of their lands.1 Interestingly, there does seem to have been a level below which few men were knights, with the great majority holding at least one-third of a knight's fee. Sally Harvey found the mean holding of Domesday knights to be one and a half hides, or approximately one- third of a knight's fee, assuming a 'normal' fee to be five hides: the average landed endowment has therefore become the minimum, which suggests that the financial status of knights had improved significantly during the twelfth century.2

Family pedigree and landed wealth made a man more eligible for knighthood than a man who had neither, but they did not in themselves make him a knight. Throughout the twelfth century the main qualifi- cation for knighthood in northern Europe remained a military one. As Flori says: 'The word knight meant principally a profession.'3 However, the later part of the century saw an evolution in the means of definition of status from functional to ceremonial. Analysis of twelfth-century chansons de geste has shown that before c. I i 80o the words adouber and armer are virtually synonymous, but from this point onwards 'to dub' rapidly comes to mean something quite different from 'to arm', taking on ceremonial and promotional connotations.4 Before this, it seems that the function defined the status: in Aliscans, Rainouart says that it is enough to be on a horse to be a knight.5 No doubt this is an exaggeration, but one which illustrates a mode of thought: to bear the arms of a knight was to be a knight. Yet this perception was not general. References to knighting ceremonies, such as that of the archetypal knight of the later twelfth century, William Marshal, show that knighthood was not simply a matter of possessing a sword and a horse and knowing what to do with them. Literary examples suggest that men could became renowned for their military prowess long before they became knights: Horn, hero of an English chanson de geste written in the I I7os, established his repu- tation through feats of arms while still a bachelor.6

I. The vagaries of the records mean that these figures can only be a reasonable approximation: evidence of some landholdings may not survive, and often the amount of land held is not mentioned. It is, however, unlikely that any of these would be more than minor interests. The proportion of knights with less than one fee is in line with Coss's figures for Warwickshire, where he found that 44 per cent of administrative knights between 1200 and 1214 had only minor landed interests: Lordship, Knighthood and Locality, p. 247.

2. Harvey, 'The Knight and the Knight's Fee', I 5. 3. J. Flori, 'La notion de chevalerie dans les chansons de geste du XIIe siecle. Etude historique de

vocabulaire', Moyen Age, lxxxi (I975), 2i 1-44, 407-45, at 230. 4. Id., 'Pour une histoire de la chevalerie: l'adoubement dans les romans de Chretien de Troyes',

Romania, c (I979), 21-53, at 25. 5. Id., 'La notion de chevalerie', 223. 6. T. Hunt, 'The Emergence of the Knight in France and England, 1000-I200', in Knighthood in

Medieval Literature, ed. W. H. Jackson (Bury St Edmunds, I981), pp. 1-22, at p. I2.

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF KNIGHTHOOD February It is likely that for much of the twelfth century the definition of

knighthood was ambiguous and contradictory. The profession and the status were probably both interlinked and interchangeable, as was the terminology. It may have been usual for a new knight to achieve that status through formally taking up arms, or through being 'belted' as a knight, but in practice appearance alone could be enough for a man to be perceived as a knight. Possibly only those men described as 'belted knights' had gone through any sort of ceremony, while those described by terms such as milites gregarii were knights simply by profession.1 What is important is that their contemporaries knew who was a knight and who was not. It is tempting, but anachronistic, for historians to try to impose on to the twelfth century a clarity of definition. The difficulty of defining status is by no means confined to knighthood. Similar ambiguity is found in monasticism, where formal entry ceremonies involving consecration and profession grew in importance during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but where the monastic habit alone could still be enough to define its wearer as a monk or nun.2 Clarity of definition developed about fifty years earlier in the monastic world, but the period of ambiguity in defining status parallels remarkably closely that which continued to affect knighthood. By the early thirteenth century a formal rite of passage by which a man was made a knight had probably either become general, as was the case in northern France, or was at least well along the road to becoming so. I think it is likely that the majority of the knights who served in an administrative capacity during John's reign would have been 'knighted' in some way, although some would have reached their majority during the i i6os or i 170s, at a time when the assumption of knighthood could still mean simply the assumption of arms.

The difficulty of understanding what was meant when someone was described as a 'knight' at the beginning of the thirteenth century is indicative of a process of change affecting both the theory and reality of knighthood. The clearest indication of fundamental change is the dramatic decline in the number of knights in England. Denholm-Young's figure of c. 1,250 for the later thirteenth century has been generally accepted by historians as a reasonable estimate, and is given substance by the evidence of the 'Parliamentary Roll' of 1312 which records the arms of I,I I o knights.3 It therefore appears that the number of knights fell during the course of the century to between one-quarter and one-third

I. See Coss, Lordship, Knighthood and Locality, p. 212. 2. G. Constable, 'Ceremonies and Symbolism of Entering Religious Life and Taking the Monastic

Habit from the Fourth to the Twelfth Century', Segni e riti nella chiesa alto medievale occidentale (Spoleto, I987), ii. 771-834 (I should like to thank Sarah Hamilton for this reference). Archbishop Anselm ordered King Harold's daughter Gunnilda to return to her convent, although she had never been consecrated or professed as a nun, because 'the fact that you publicly and privately wore the habit of the holy way of life ... is in itself a manifest and undeniable profession': ibid. 803.

3. N. Denholm-Young, 'Feudal Society in the Thirteenth Century: The Knights', History, xxix (I944), 107-19, at I Io-II.

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of the earlier figure. What was the dynamic and causation of this change?

It has generally been assumed that the transformation of knighthood was a gradual process, with the number of knights already declining steadily by the final quarter of the twelfth century.1 The paucity of sources for the twelfth century makes it difficult, if not impossible, to establish whether knighthood did or did not begin to decline before 1200, but the large numbers of knights in the early thirteenth century appear consistent with rough estimates for the twelfth century. Round, using the incomplete returns of the Cartae Baronum, estimated the number of knight's fees in i i66 as no more than 5,ooo, and Keefe found that 6,500 fees were assessed for scutage between i190 and 12io.2 However, as we have seen, there is only limited correlation between numbers of knight's fees and numbers of knights. Many of these fees would have been held in plurality, and the military service performed (if it was performed at all) by landless knights employed for the purpose; others would have been divided between two, three or even more knights. Nevertheless, a figure of 5,ooo-6,ooo professional knights would probably not be far off the mark for the twelfth century as a whole, although the balance between enfeoffed and household knights would have changed as the century progressed. If this supposition is correct, then any decline in numbers of knights during the latter part of the twelfth century can only have been minimal.

I would suggest that rather than a gradual decline in the numbers of knights during the last twenty years of the twelfth century and the first thirty years of the thirteenth, knighthood in England underwent a fundamental change within a single generation. The critical point appears to have been reached between 1215 and 1230. Of a sample of fifty knights who served in Bedfordshire during John's reign, there are twenty-four for whom I have been unable to find any evidence that their heirs (direct or indirect) were knights.3 For nine of these twenty-four I was unable to identify any heirs at all: if they existed, it is most unlikely that they would have left no trace if they continued their fathers' knightly status. A similar-sized sample for Staffordshire also shows a high proportion of families dropping out of knighthood in this same period, with twenty-one out of fifty apparently failing to maintain that

I. Crouch, Image of Aristocracy, p. I47; Coss, Lordship, Knighthood and Locality, p. 248. 2. J. H. Round, Feudal England (London, I895), p. 292; T. K. Keefe, Feudal Assessments and the

Political Community under Henry II and his Sons (Berkeley, i987), pp. 57-9. 3. The heirs of the following do not appear to have been knights: Henry Blancfrunt, Walter

Blancfrunt, William de Bretevill of Barford, Simon le Chanu, Thomas of Chawston, Simon of Chicksands, Jordan of Colesden, Richard of Eversholt, Hugh of Eyworth, Adam fitzDrogo, Ralf fitzGeoffrey, Richard de Glanvill, Almaric de Landres, David Loring. I have been unable to trace heirs for Benedict de Ailesham, John of Astwick, Robert de Bidun, Hugh de Bray, Simon fitzGodwin, Walter fitzWalter, Simon of Faldho,John Fleming or Nigel Malherbe. Miles de Bray was succeeded by two daughters, neither of whom seems to have married knights or had knightly heirs.

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF KNIGHTHOOD February rank.1 The implication is that within the course of one generation at least one-third, and possibly as many as one-half, of the families whose members provided administrative knights during John's reign abandoned their knightly status. As there is no indication that any significant number of new families replaced them, the number of knights in England must have dropped dramatically.

Ideally, this conclusion should be tested by a complete count of those men serving as knights during the i23os, but by this point the nature of the evidence has changed. The declining popularity of the grand assize, a tendency for jury lists to be omitted from the reports of those grand assizes which were held, and missing records mean that a head count of administrative knights no longer produces sensible results.2 A check of a few sample counties shows the random nature of the exercise at this date: Somerset provides sixty-two knights and Nottinghamshire forty- one, but Leicestershire only twelve and Sussex thirteen. The most eccentric result comes from Cambridgeshire, where only seven administrative knights can be found between I227 and I242, compared with 136 for i 199 to I 216. The only way to obtain a realistic figure for the number of knights during the i230os would be to count those given the title in charters, which would be virtually impossible. However, there is no reason to assume that Bedfordshire and Staffordshire are not repre- sentative of the situation country-wide. Also, the timing of the drop in numbers is supported by the chronology of distraint of knighthood and the appearance of respites and exemptions from administrative service. In I200 there was almost a glut of knights available for administrative duties and, in theory at least, to provide military service. In I224 Henry III tried for the first time to distrain men to become knights, and distraint reached a peak during the I 24os and 25 os; by the I 23 os grants of respite from knighthood and exemptions from administrative service were becoming widespread.3 By the i25os the impact was such that it

I. I was unable to identify the heirs of Robert of Barr, Ralf fitzJordan and William fitzWarin, and Ralf of Blore, William de Bray and Robert fitzPayn left only heiresses. The successors of William Buffery and Richard of Enville were amerced in 1272 for failing to become knights despite being of age and holding full fees, but neither they nor their heirs seem to have taken up knighthood; CHS, iv. 209. I could find no evidence that the heirs of William of Adbaston, Thomas of Biddulph, Richard of Billington, Henry del Broc, Nicholas of Burston, Walter Coyne, Henry of Denstone, Philip of Fernlaw, Richard fitzWilliam, Ralf of Hints, Ranulf of Knotton, Philip of Lutley or Richard Marescal either were or should have been knights.

2. In the early part of the thirteenth century the jurors who defaulted and essoined were often listed when a suit was held over because insufficient jurors appeared in court, but by the 1230os this was rarely the case. Michaelmas 1233, Trinity I234, Easter 1236, Hilary 1238 and Trinity I239 are the only curia regis rolls to survive between Easter 1233 and Easter I242, and eyre roll survival is still very patchy (see CRR, vols. xiv-xvi).

3. For a discussion of respites and exemptions, see S. L. Waugh, 'Reluctant Knights and Jurors: Respites, Exemptions and Public Obligations in the Reign of Henry III', Speculum, lviii (I983), 937-86. For distraint, see M. Powicke, 'Distraint of Knighthood and Military Obligation under Henry III', ibid. xxv (1950), 457-70.

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i996 IN EARLY THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND

could prove impossible to get a panel of knights together for the grand assize.1

Four possible explanations present themselves for this rapid change in the number of knights, none of which are mutually exclusive: knights were administratively overburdened and their heirs abandoned knightly status to avoid this work; families dropped out of knighthood as a result of economic pressure; the nature of knighthood itself altered; the attitude of lords changed. The first suggestion seems to be the least tenable. In John's reign amercements for failure to take up knighthood, respites and exemptions were non-existent. Avoidance of service on juries and panels of knights by simply failing to turn up was widespread, with cases postponed time after time because the jurors had defaulted; but unless they were conspicuously negligent, jurors could usually do so with impunity. On one occasion it is possible to see a jury making serious efforts to get out of the administrative trap in which it was caught. In 1208 a jury of twenty-four knights summoned to attaint the original jury for an assize of mort d'ancestor contributed eight marks of a twenty-mark proffer to have the case settled by a final concord, the other twelve marks being shared between the parties to the suit.2Pleas of attaint were notably difficult cases to conclude because of the problem of getting twenty-four knights, and the original jury of twelve, together in the right place at the right time, which may explain the eagerness of the jurors to escape from this obligation.

The sheer number of available knights meant that for the majority administrative service was not particularly onerous. In Surrey, for example, seventy-five knights performed administrative service during John's reign: fifty-one of them served five times or less, with the greater part of these, thirty-one, serving only once. There was, however, a small group of knights whose involvement in administrative tasks was far heavier: men like Elias de Edinton, who appeared on six grand assize juries, six panels of electors, three panels for sickness views, and once brought the record from the county court; and William de Bures, who served on only two grand assize juries, but was an elector nine times, viewed two sickness essoins and also brought the county court record.3 It is not possible to do more than speculate as to why such men took on so much more than their fair share of administrative duties. Perhaps they had a taste for bureaucracy, or found it profitable. Maybe they were known as honest and 'more law-worthy' knights. Perhaps they had other business which took them often to Westminster. Or were they men who could conveniently be bribed to produce desired results? Men

I. See supra, p. 2, n. 6. 2. CRR, v. i63. 3. Elias de Edington: ibid. i. i66, I83,223, 3 10,466; ii. 73, r54,303; iii. 253, 283, 308; iv. 68, 207, 302; v.

8,20, i3, I9I, 273; vii. 120, i83; RCR, ii. 49, 79,134. William de Bures: CRR, i. I66, 183, 223, 310,466; ii. 73, 202, 303; iii. 4; v. 8, 20, 113, 273; vii. 119, 322; PKJ, lxvii, nos. 2386, 3489; RCR, ii. 49, 79.

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF KNIGHTHOOD February such as these were the exceptions. With relatively large numbers of knights to call on, administrative service was spread quite thinly. The most important knights of a county were often not summoned at all, or only for a particularly important case.1 Pressure of work was a consequence, not a cause, of the decline in the number of knights. The appearance exemptions came after the pool from which knights could be chosen for administrative duties had shrunk to the point where administrative demands had become onerous, perhaps especially so to those more affluent men who still retained their knightly status, but had previously been able to escape the obligations of that status.

Did economic difficulties cause families to abandon knighthood on a massive scale? The hypothesis that the thirteenth century saw a crisis in the economic fortunes of the knightly class, meaning here both those who had been knighted and those whose economic status made them eligible for that honour, has prompted a great deal of discussion.2 It is not my intention to add to that debate at this point, but simply to comment on the possibility that such a crisis may have led to a sudden decline in the number of knights. Any thirteenth-century crisis would have to have been both early and dramatic if it were to be responsible for a widespread drop in numbers in the i 220. There are indications that the knightly class was already facing serious financial difficulties by the later part of Henry II's reign, which foreshadowed, or possibly even eclipsed, those of the thirteenth century. As early as i i 80 Walter Map could speak of 'knights ... who either eat up their patrimony or are shackled by debts'.3 Such difficulties do not, however, seem to have caused any noticeable reduction in the number of knights by the first decade of the thirteenth century; they would, in any case, lead one to expect a steady decline as families gradually gave up the struggle, rather than the dramatic change which actually took place. The decline of the I220s was surely too late to be a direct consequence of economic difficulties experienced forty or more years earlier.

The 'crisis of the knightly class' has normally been seen as the result of the high inflation experienced during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Although the extent of that inflation is now being questioned, the timing of the drop in knightly numbers does suggest

I. Examples are Thurstan Basset and Geoffrey Chamberlain, both of whom held several fees in three or more counties, but served as administrative knights only once, as elector and juror respectively for the grand assize between Hugh de Beauchamp and William de Lanvaley, in which the barony of Eaton Socon was at stake: CRR, i. 401, ii. 4-5.

2. P. R. Coss, 'Sir Geoffrey de Langley and the Crisis of the Knightly Class in Thirteenth-Century England', Past and Present, lxviii (i975), 3-37; D. A. Carpenter, 'Was there a Crisis of the Knightly Class in the Thirteenth Century? The Oxfordshire Evidence', ante, xcv (i 980), 72 I-52; Coss, Lordship, Knighthood and Locality, pp. 264-304; Thomas, Vassals, Heiresses, Crusaders and Thugs, pp. I 56-67.

3. Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, trans. M. R. James, rev. C. N. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, i983), p. 8; see Crouch, Image of Aristocracy, pp. I47-8; see also Thomas, loc. cit.

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that financial pressures may have played a part.1 Could it be that failure to adjust to the demands of an inflationary economy forced many knights to slide down the social scale? The experience of the fifty Bedfordshire knights who were considered earlier suggests that there was in reality very little correlation between financial strain and failure to take up knighthood. Eleven of these men either sold lands, or were in debt at some point during their career, yet no less than nine of them had descendants who were knights.2 One of the others, Miles de Bray, died leaving two under-age daughters, Mabel and Agnes. His property was apparently still an attractive proposition: when custody of Agnes was contested in 1223, Godfrey de Limholt, husband of Mabel, was accused of putting his sister-in-law into Elstow Abbey.3 In only one case was there a male heir who failed to become a knight: the junior branch of the Loring family continued to hold land in Wootton after the death of David Loring, but none of its representatives ever took up knighthood.4 The lack of correlation between economic difficulty and knighthood is further illustrated by the experience of two other families. Both Robert de Jumieges and David of Flitwick appear to have had financial problems; both had sons who were knights but grandsons who failed to take up knighthood, although they still possessed substantial property. Robert de Jumieges II was granted respite from arms in i 242, and in I2 5 5 both Robert and David of Flitwick III held land worth ?I 5 - but were not knights.5

The existence of debt does not in any case necessarily imply financial difficulty, nor need the existence of inflation mean economic crisis. The price increases of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries were not an isolated phenomenon, but part of a true monetary inflation in which prices and wages both rose as new silver reached western Europe and increased the money supply.6 Bolton suggests that the greater avail- ability of coin fuelled economic expansion and increased expectations, especially for those at the more affluent end of society.7 When money is readily available it becomes relatively easy to borrow in order to meet

I. P. D. A. Harvey, 'The English Inflation of 1180-1220', Past and Present, lxi (1973), 3-30. For more recent interpretations of this period of inflation, see J. L. Bolton, 'Inflation, Economics and Politics in Thirteenth Century England', in Thirteenth Century England IV, ed. P. R. Coss and S. D. Lloyd (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. i-i4, at 4-5; A. R. Bridbury, 'Thirteenth Century Prices and the Money Supply', Agricultural History Review, xxxiii (1985), 1-2I, at 9.

2. Hugh de Alno, Roger de Bray, Robert Butevilein, Geoffrey Chamberlain, David of Flitwick, Richard Gobion, Hugh de Hottot, Robert de Jumieges and Hugh de Kahaignes.

3. Bracton's Note Book, ed. F. W. Maitland (London, I887), iii, no. i6o8. 4. Newnham Cartulary, nos. 476, 524, 543. 5. Close Rolls, 1237-42, p. 43 5; G. H. Fowler, 'Records of Knight Service in Bedfordshire', BHRS, ii

(1914), 245-63 at 250-I. I have not found any evidence that Robert or his heirs ever became knights, but both David and his son (David of Flitwick IV) did: id., 'Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, no. II, 1272-I286', BHRS, xix (I937), 1 I-70, at 133; Records of Harrold Priory, ed. Fowler (BHRS, vol. xvii, 1935), no. i5x; FA, i. 3i.

6. Bolton, 'Inflation, Economics and Politics', p. 3; P. Spufford, Money and its Use in Medieval Europe (Cambridge, i988), pp. I 09-3 i.

7. Bolton, 'Inflation, Economics and Politics', pp. 5, I i-i2.

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THE TRANSFORMATION OF KNIGHTHOOD February new aspirations. Debt may therefore be a consequence of affluence rather than economic difficulty. The parallel with recent experience is striking: high inflation in the I970os and i98os was accompanied by rising standards of living and extensive borrowing fuelled by the expectation of continuing affluence, which dropped back during the recession of the 1990s.

Rather than being the result of economic crisis, the decline in the number of knights is more likely to be the result of the changing nature of knighthood, which may in itself have been a consequence of economic expansion. The work of Duby and Flori on the development of knighthood in France has shown that a dramatic rise in the status of knights, accompanied by the adoption of the chivalric trappings of knighthood, took place during the last quarter of the twelfth century and the first quarter of the thirteenth.1 The close links between Angevin England and northern France made it inevitable that these changes would be rapidly imitated in England. Although price evidence for the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries is scanty, the pipe rolls suggest that the cost of knights and their trappings was rising rapidly. The pipe roll of 1162 gives a price of 8d. a day for a knight; the standard price of knights between i i90 and 12I0 seems to have been I2d. a day, but by 1220 it had risen as high as 2s. a day, after which the price stabilized at a level of i 8d. to 2S. a day by 1240. There is very little evidence for prices of armour, but the price of a palfrey rose dramatically, from one pound in I i 6o and i i 80, to five marks in the early thirteenth century and five pounds in the I240S and I25 os.2 It is hard to tell how far these exchequer prices reflect reality, but it is clear that the cost of maintaining knighthood must have increased very considerably. If the late twelfth century did indeed see the beginning of a period of economic growth, this would tie in remarkably well with the chronology of the upgrading of knighthood to a new social and economic status, allowing the better off to afford more expensive ceremonial and a more extravagant 'noble' life-style.

It therefore seems likely that the sudden trend away from knighthood was a reflection, not of any reduction in economic or military capacity among the families whose male members had previously been knights, but of the fact that the condition of knighthood had become a rank, and a costly one, instead of a profession. At the beginning of the thirteenth

1. G. Duby, The Chivalrous Society, trans. C. Postan (London, I979), pp. 178-85;J. Flori, L'Essorde la chevalerie XIe-XIIe siecles (Geneva, I986), pp. 336-7.

2. Forprices of knights, seePR 8HenryII,p. 53;2 RichardI,p. 75;3 Richard I,p. I 12;2John,p. 250; i IJohn, p. 173; 4 Henry III, p. 25; Public Record Office, E372/83 rot. ld, m. i; C[alendarof]L[iberate] R[olls], 1226-40, p. 394; I240-5, p. 94. The 1 I91 pipe roll gives a price of ?o 20for thirty knights for forty days, i.e. 2s. per knight per day, but this also includes unspecified gifts: PR 3 Richard I, p. I. For prices of palfreys, see PR 9 Henry II, p. 7I; 26 Henry II, p. i 5o; CLR, I240-5, p. 3; 1245-5I, p. 22o. There are numerous references to palfreys valued at 5 marks between I 200 and 1230. I am extremely grateful to Nicholas Barrett for providing me with this information.

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century it may still have been possible for a man to be a knight simply because his contemporaries perceived him to be so, but by the I 220s it required an expensive formal ceremony.1 Where I have been able to trace the families and property of knights whose descendants failed to take up knighthood, it seems that they continued to hold the same lands, the only fundamental change being their status. The sons of knightly families resembled their fathers in every other respect, but knighthood itself had moved above them. In many cases such families would have continued to enjoy the same local status, and the more dynastically tena- cious would have emerged as esquires in the fourteenth century or gentlemen in the fifteenth. The knights of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries were in a very real sense the gentry, and the drop in the number of knights which took place in the i220s was the first dramatic phase in the stratification of the gentry, in which the lower layers retained their position but lost their title.

If this hypothesis is correct, one would expect to find that it was the families lower down the social and economic scale which abandoned knighthood, and such does appear to be the case. Of the twenty-four Bedfordshire knights for whom there is no evidence that their heirs ever became knights, seventeen held less than one knight's fee, and three others between one and two fees. The only knight with a large amount of property was Ralf fitzGeoffrey, who held five fees, but for whom I have been unable to trace any heir. Two men can have had only very minor landed interests, of which no trace remains in the records. Robert de Bidun, younger son of a baronial younger son, held only a life interest in mortgaged land, and does not appear to have left an heir. The last of the twenty-four is Richard de Glanvill, whose main lands appear to have been in Normandy, and whose nephew and heir, another Richard, was banished to Normandy in I227 for returning to England without the king's permission: in the circumstances he could not be expected to appear as a knight in England.2 In Staffordshire, it seems that only three of the twenty-one men whose heirs do not appear to have been knights held more than one fee. The lands of two of these were divided between co-heiresses: Ralf of Blore, the holder of one fee and a share in another from the barony of Stafford, left a son William who was dead early in Henry III's reign leaving only two daughters; and Robert fitzPayn, who held two fees, was succeeded by two daughters. The most substantial of these three men, Richard fitzWilliam, held three and a half fees plus various other minor interests. His daughter Matilda was succeeded by her uncle, Richard's brother William. By the late thirteenth century his lands had passed to William's granddaughters Sarah and Margaret, but I can find no record of William or his son Richard fitzWilliam II ever being described as knights. In contrast to those knightly families which

I. See supra, p. I4. 2. CR, I227-3 I, p. 9.

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22 THE TRANSFORMATION OF KNIGHTHOOD February

dropped out, the twenty-nine men whose heirs maintained that status almost without exception held at least a whole fee.1

With knighthood becoming an ever more expensive proposition, it is hardly surprising that the majority of men with less than one knight's fee simply abandoned it. Most probably did so without regret: the higher social rank of the thirteenth-century knight was one to which they had never aspired; and they avoided the inconveniences, minor or major, which attached to knighthood. The status they 'lost' was one their ancestors had never really possessed in its new sense. There is no reason to think that economic difficulties meant they were no longer able to maintain the 'traditional' style of knighthood; but they may have been unwilling, or unable, to take on the additional costs of 'aristocratic' knighthood. Those knights at the more prosperous end of the class may have benefited more than their less well-endowed brethren from economic expansion, and their aspirations probably increased both further and faster. Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, it is possible to suggest that far from being the result of any 'crisis of the knightly class' in the early thirteenth century, the decline in knighthood was a consequence of increased prosperity.

The less affluent knights may also, to a degree, have been pushed out of the knightly ranks by their lords. The new ceremonial element of knighting could prove expensive not just for the recipient, as the lord who knighted him was expected to show suitably chivalric largesse.2 Barons, themselves also knights, became increasingly uncomfortable at being linked by that title with those at the bottom of the knightly scale, and were perhaps less keen to bestow membership of an increasingly exclusive club on men of little social standing.3 Changes in the demands of military tenure may also have encouraged lords to be more parsimo- nious with their favours. In the twelfth century tenants-in-chief had expected those who held land from them to be professional knights, capable of, and available for, military service when required by their lord. By the I 22os the link between military tenure and military capacity remained in theory, but was becoming ever more fictional in practice. The tendency towards fragmentation of military tenures, as holdings were divided among heiresses and reduced through provision for younger sons, daughters' marriage portions, pious gifts and sales, must have made it increasingly difficult for lords to compel their tenants to do anything more strenuous than pay scutage. Royal demands for military

I. It is likely that only John of Blithfield, holder of half a fee in Blithfield, held less. His son Henry of Blithfield (died 1234) was also a knight, but it appears that Henry's son and heir James was not: BF, i. 542, ii. 969; CHS, NS, ix. 153. Henry of Leigh and his son Robert did not hold by knight service, but held the whole manor of Church Leigh from Burton Abbey for an annual rent of ?4: CHS, ii (I881), 227-8.

2. This is regularly implied in the twelfth-century chansons de geste: Flori, 'La notion de chevalerie', 239. Coss, Lordship, Knighthood and Locality, pp. 249-50, gives examples of the gifts from King Henry III to those he knighted.

3. Crouch, Image of Aristocracy, pp. I43-4.

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1996 IN EARLY THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND

service became less effective, and quotas of knight service owed by tenants-in-chief were reduced.1 If barons no longer needed to produce professional knights on demand, there was little incentive to encourage either their lesser tenants, or members of their household, to become knights.

The existence of around 4,500 landed knights in England at the beginning of the thirteenth century means that knighthood changed less during the twelfth century, and more during the thirteenth, than has previously appeared to be the case. Rather than a slow and steady decline in number, there seems to have been a sudden and dramatic drop in the course of a single generation, at its height during the I 220o. The rapid decline in the number of knights took place not because potential knights were anxious to avoid administrative service, or because they were suffering the effects of economic crisis, but because the status of knighthood, and the expenses and expectations attaching to it, rose - possibly as a consequence of economic growth. The knights of the 1230S were clearly aware that they were members of an increasingly exclusive club, adopting the title dominus, which appeared as a matter of course in charter witness-lists from that time onwards. Those at the lower end of the knightly continuum of the early thirteenth century simply stopped becoming knights: not so much because they opted out, but because they failed to opt in. As the pool of knights contracted, the status of those who remained would tend to rise, and the process would have accelerated. With fewer knights to draw on, both military and administrative service became more onerous, causing numbers to shrink still further, and pushing men to avoid knighthood or its consequences through respites and exemptions. By the I 24os and I 2 5 os, when distraint of knighthood was at its height, Henry III was fighting a desperate rearguard action. Like Canute, in trying to turn the tide away from knighthood he was attempting the impossible. He was already far too late.

King's College London KATHRYN FAULKNER

i. M. Powicke, Military Obligation in Medieval England (Oxford, i962), p. 66; Denholm-Young, 'Feudal Society in the Thirteenth Century', i io-i i.

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Article Contentsp.[1]p.2p.3p.4p.5p.6p.7p.8p.9p.10p.11p.12p.13p.14p.15p.16p.17p.18p.19p.20p.21p.22p.23

Issue Table of ContentsThe English Historical Review, Vol. 111, No. 440 (Feb., 1996), pp. 1-278Volume InformationFront MatterThe Transformation of Knighthood in Early Thirteenth-Century England [pp.1-23]The International Mercenary Market in the Sixteenth Century: Anglo-French Competition in Germany, 1543-50 [pp.24-58]British Conservatism and Class Politics in the 1920s [pp.59-84]Notes and DocumentsThe Count, the Bishop and the Abbot: Armengol VI of Urgel and the Abbey of Valladolid [pp.85-103]Colonization Activities in the Frankish East: The Example of Castellum Regis (Mi'ilya) [pp.104-122]

Book Reviewsuntitled [pp.123-124]untitled [pp.125-128]untitled [pp.129-130]untitled [pp.130-132]untitled [pp.132-134]

Shorter Noticesuntitled [p.135]untitled [pp.135-137]untitled [pp.137-138]untitled [pp.138-139]untitled [p.139]untitled [pp.139-140]untitled [pp.140-141]untitled [p.142]untitled [pp.142-143]untitled [pp.143-144]untitled [pp.144-145]untitled [pp.145-146]untitled [pp.146-147]untitled [p.147]untitled [pp.147-148]untitled [pp.148-149]untitled [pp.149-150]untitled [pp.150-151]untitled [pp.151-152]untitled [pp.152-153]untitled [pp.153-154]untitled [pp.154-155]untitled [pp.155-156]untitled [pp.156-157]untitled [pp.157-158]untitled [p.158]untitled [pp.158-159]untitled [pp.159-160]untitled [p.160]untitled [pp.160-162]untitled [p.162]untitled [pp.162-163]untitled [pp.163-164]untitled [pp.164-165]untitled [pp.165-167]untitled [p.167]untitled [pp.167-168]untitled [pp.168-169]untitled [p.169]untitled [pp.169-170]untitled [pp.170-172]untitled [pp.172-173]untitled [p.173]untitled [pp.173-174]untitled [p.174]untitled [pp.174-175]untitled [pp.175-176]untitled [pp.176-177]untitled [p.178]untitled [pp.178-179]untitled [pp.179-180]untitled [pp.180-181]untitled [p.181]untitled [pp.181-182]untitled [p.182]untitled [pp.183-184]untitled [pp.184-185]untitled [pp.185-187]untitled [pp.187-188]untitled [pp.188-189]untitled [pp.189-190]untitled [p.190]untitled [p.191]untitled [pp.191-192]untitled [pp.192-193]untitled [pp.193-194]untitled [pp.194-196]untitled [pp.196-197]untitled [p.197]untitled [p.198]untitled [pp.198-199]untitled [pp.199-200]untitled [pp.200-201]untitled [pp.201-202]untitled [p.202]untitled [p.203]untitled [pp.203-204]untitled [p.205]untitled [pp.205-206]untitled [pp.206-207]untitled [pp.207-208]untitled [p.208]untitled [pp.208-209]untitled [pp.209-210]untitled [pp.210-211]untitled [pp.211-212]untitled [pp.212-213]untitled [pp.213-214]untitled [p.214]untitled [pp.214-215]untitled [pp.215-216]untitled [p.216]untitled [pp.216-217]untitled [p.218]untitled [pp.218-219]untitled [pp.219-220]untitled [pp.220-221]untitled [pp.221-222]untitled [pp.222-223]untitled [pp.223-224]untitled [pp.224-225]untitled [pp.225-226]untitled [pp.226-227]untitled [pp.227-228]untitled [pp.228-229]untitled [p.229]untitled [pp.229-230]untitled [pp.230-231]untitled [pp.231-232]untitled [pp.232-233]untitled [pp.233-234]untitled [p.234]untitled [p.235]untitled [pp.235-236]untitled [pp.236-237]untitled [pp.237-238]untitled [pp.238-239]untitled [pp.239-240]untitled [pp.240-241]untitled [pp.241-242]untitled [pp.242-243]untitled [pp.243-244]untitled [pp.244-245]untitled [pp.245-246]untitled [pp.246-247]untitled [pp.247-248]untitled [pp.248-249]untitled [pp.249-250]untitled [p.250]untitled [pp.250-251]untitled [pp.251-252]untitled [pp.252-253]untitled [pp.253-255]untitled [pp.255-256]untitled [pp.256-257]untitled [pp.257-258]untitled [pp.258-259]untitled [pp.259-260]untitled [pp.260-261]untitled [p.261]untitled [pp.261-262]untitled [pp.262-264]untitled [pp.264-265]untitled [pp.265-266]untitled [p.266]untitled [pp.266-268]untitled [pp.268-269]untitled [pp.269-270]untitled [pp.270-271]untitled [p.271]untitled [pp.271-273]untitled [pp.273-274]untitled [pp.274-275]untitled [pp.275-276]untitled [pp.276-277]untitled [pp.277-278]untitled [p.278]

Back Matter

knighthood

Documents

century knighthood

number of knights

century society

century englandauthors

status of knights

jstor terms

jstor archive

transformation of knighthood