‘Bastard Feudalism’ and the Lancastrian Affinity

Abstract

Abstract ‘BUT the duke of Lancaster does what he likes without check’ complained one bitter chronicler. The most important conclusion to have emerged from each of these county studies is that, in fact, he did not. The limitations on what a magnate, even a magnate as powerful as John of Gaunt, could and could not do at the local level were very considerable. In the palatinate of Lancaster, where the duke was at his most powerful, some prudential limitations were nevertheless placed upon his lordship by the proportion of the county community that remained outside the Lancastrian affinity and, when he tried to enforce a decision given in his own palatinate court, the duke’s authority could still be flouted by a determined gentry opponent who was prepared to resort to violence. There were similar constraints on Gaunt’s freedom of action in the northern Midlands, where the king and the earls of Stafford presented attractive alternatives to his lordship and the duke had difficulty in restraining the unruly violence of his own retainers. If this was the case in areas where he held a clear landed pre-eminence, it is no surprise that John of Gaunt was unable to make much impact on the prosperous and cohesive county community in Norfolk or many inroads into the traditional loyalties of the Sussex gentry. Instead, the duke’s lordship was too often appropriated by the host of minor officials on whom he relied for the administration of his estates and then abused for their personal advantage. Unjust disseisin, petty extortion, and the deliberate obstruction of administrative process were their stock-in-trade, practices that the duke might seek to restrain by the dismissal of delinquent officials, but that he could hardly hope to eradicate.