Fourteenth-Century England Research Articles

Þat Ʒet þe wynd & þe weder & þe worlde stynkes: The Sins of Richard II and the Corruption of the Crown

Many writings from late fourteenth century England reflect a popular conception that English society had deteriorated into serious dysfunction. Four literati who discussed this problem are Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, William Langland, and the Gawain Poet. All four agreed that somehow King Richard II bore responsibility for the kingdom’s travails. The writers disagreed vis-à-vis which exact sins the king had committed to cause society to degrade, but all did concur that whatever exact sins the king had engaged in, those sins had damaged the construct of the Crown of England, and thereby the realm.

:“Winner and Waster” and Its Contexts: Chivalry, Law and Economics in Fourteenth-Century England

:<i>“Winner and Waster” and Its Contexts: Chivalry, Law and Economics in Fourteenth-Century England</i>

The Common Law and Civil War in Fourteenth-Century England: The Prosecution of Treason and Rebellion Under Edward II, 1322–1326

ABSTRACT What did it mean for poor and middling men and women to take up arms against their government? How did they negotiate competing claims for their participation in civil war and what consequences confronted them? This article analyses the crown’s investigation of its opponents following the 1321–22 civil war, comparing its predecessor of the Montfortian civil war (1263–67), to examine how the king, justices and juries tackled these questions. It demonstrates how the crown rooted the summary conviction and execution of Thomas of Lancaster and other noble insurgents in common law procedure; then, at the King’s Bench and a special inquiry in the Welsh Marches, re-framed treasonous offences to tackle non-noble insurgents; then, fearing a new uprising, instrumentalised the common law’s machinery to gather military intelligence. The crown recognized the agency of subjects across society in civil war and juries were ideally placed to investigate it; they also weighed subjects’ culpability, balancing obligation to the king against the mitigating realities of coerced participation in war. Thus, juries and the communities who informed their verdict were invited to engage with the ethical and legal dilemmas of civil war. This article thus presents a people’s history of treason.

“Ful Louder”: Raising the Hue and Cry in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

ABSTRACT In fourteenth-century England, the hue and cry empowered anyone who could make noise with the opportunity to catalyze legal action. This article investigates Chaucer’s deployment of the hue and cry as a narrative device in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale. The legal ritual of the hue and cry appears twice in the tale, once during a story of a murdered pilgrim Chauntecleer recounts and again during the tale’s infamous chase scene. While the first instance depicts the hue and cry as it was intended in lawbooks—a tool of order-keeping that functions to summon the appropriate authorities—the second instance represents the hue and cry in practice: a loud, chaotic legal ritual capable of instigating violence, but which also demands recognition of embodied vulnerability before the law.

Mark Bailey, After the Black Death. Economy, Society, and the Law in Fourteenth-Century England. Oxford, Oxford University Press 2021

Mark Bailey, After the Black Death. Economy, Society, and the Law in Fourteenth-Century England. Oxford, Oxford University Press 2021

COMMEMORATING CANTILUPE: THE ICONOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND’S SECOND ST THOMAS

2020 saw the celebration of significant anniversaries connected with several medieval English saints, led most notably by the triple anniversary of the birth (1120), death (1170) and translation (1220) of St Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury (1162–70, canonised 1173). This offered scholars an occasion to review and revisit important aspects of the documentary sources and material culture relating to the saints’ cults in England and across Europe. The celebrations of St Thomas Becket also coincided with the 700th anniversary of the canonisation of St Thomas de Cantilupe, bishop of Hereford (1275–82, canonised 1320). Renewed scholarly interest in Cantilupe’s posthumous cult has particularly offered insights into daily life and devotion in late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century England and Wales. Likewise, it has recently been demonstrated that, in the wake of the Cantilupe cult at Hereford Cathedral, a period of intense church building occurred throughout the diocese. This paper is the first to assemble and publish a comprehensive catalogue of all known lost and surviving iconographical images of Cantilupe from the Middle Ages. More significantly, keeping the 2020 celebrations of both the Becket and Cantilupe cults in mind, this paper is the first to bring attention to all the examples of medieval iconography that associate England’s two Thomases, demonstrating how Becket was utilised as a model of sanctity par excellence with Cantilupe presented as a ‘second Becket’.

Henry of Lancaster’s Revolt (1328–29): Conflict, the Politics of Kingship, and the Political Public in Fourteenth-Century England

Abstract The late medieval period was an important phase in the history of political communication in England, as more people than ever before became involved in debates about royal governance. The first half of the fourteenth century, however, has been relatively under-studied in this regard. This article analyses a set of arguments put forward during a revolt led by Henry, earl of Lancaster, in 1328–29. After outlining the revolt’s historical and historiographical context, the article reveals how three key themes—the provision of advice; the moral responsibilities attached to royal finance; and the state of the king’s peace—were contested in 1328–29. It then turns to the public orientation of these arguments to suggest that this contest reveals a growing need to engage a political public in order to acquire legitimacy when seeking to reform, or to defend, the direction of royal government. In turn, this helped to set out what the most legitimate paths of political action were and what terms needed to be taken up to describe them by those who wished to involve themselves in the politics of kingship. It is argued that Lancaster’s revolt held a significant position in a much broader history of political communication in England, in which political legitimacy in the exercise of royal authority was claimed before, evaluated by, and generated through a critical body of public opinion which interacted with Plantagenet rule.

The regulation of the rural market in waged labour in fourteenth-century England

AbstractThis article reconstructs the size and organisation of the rural market in hired labour in fourteenth-century England, providing a comparative reference point for arrangements elsewhere in medieval Europe. Quantitative assessment of 1,445 manorial court sessions from six manors casts new light on the English labour market, which was larger and less regulated than previously assumed and the government's wide-ranging labour legislation in the wake of the Black Death was novel in its scale and provisions. Contrary to received wisdom, manorial authorities made few efforts to regulate labour. The older view had placed an over-reliance on the early work of W.O. Ault and had ignored the significance of nil returns. The reasons for the lack of regulation, and its implications for our understanding of the complex interaction between pandemics, labour markets, and legal responses are explored. Finally, the study illustrates how legal responses to pandemics can have inadvertent yet profound consequences.

Mobility and Identity in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Mobility and Identity in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Medieval Nonsense: Signifying Nothing in Fourteenth-Century England by Jordan Kirk (review)

Medieval Nonsense: Signifying Nothing in Fourteenth-Century England by Jordan Kirk (review)

Mark Bailey, After the Black Death. Economy, Society and the Law in Fourteenth-Century England

Mark Bailey, After the Black Death. Economy, Society and the Law in Fourteenth-Century England

W. Mark Ormrod. “Winner and Waster” and Its Contexts: Chivalry, Law and Economics in Fourteenth-Century England. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2021. Pp. 188. $99.00 (cloth)

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

:The Household Knights of Edward III: Warfare, Politics and Kingship in Fourteenth-Century England

:<i>The Household Knights of Edward III: Warfare, Politics and Kingship in Fourteenth-Century England</i>

Jordan Kirk. Medieval Nonsense: Signifying Nothing in Fourteenth-Century England. Fordham Series in Medieval Studies. New York: Fordham University Press, 2021. Pp. 187. $30.00 (paper).

Jordan Kirk. Medieval Nonsense: Signifying Nothing in Fourteenth-Century England. Fordham Series in Medieval Studies. New York: Fordham University Press, 2021. Pp. 187. $30.00 (paper). - Volume 61 Issue 4

The Eucharist as Iconic Experience of Divine Love: Ancient – Future Orienteering with Julian of Norwich

This paper explores Julian of Norwich’s experience of divine love through her understanding of “poynte,” culminating in her mystical revelation of the blood of Jesus. In the medieval context of plague, war, and hopelessness, Julian experiences the blood of Jesus on the cross present in the Eucharist as a place of safety and joy, something which can speak to the contemporary reader during this time of pandemic, racial strife, and global pessimism. First, the stage is set by historically examining the socio-cultural milieu of fourteenth-century England, mystical spirituality, and sacramental practice of the Eucharist in the medieval Church. Next, the image of blood as it relates to Julian Norwich’s idea of time expressed as “poynte” in her Showings is presented to illuminate the transformation of suffering into God’s great love which upends all social and religious barriers to unify people in neighborly love. Contemporary implications are made for viewing the Eucharist as icon of remembrance through which Christ is experienced in his suffering at a kingdom table of divine love for a world that suffers and bleeds. Julian of Norwich presents visions of healing, restoration, and theosis where all of humanity’s wounds are healed by Jesus’ bloody wounds. In a Eucharistic preview of the festal banquet of kingdom shalom, Julian’s vision of divine love as a place of safety and joy inform a present Eucharistic table where all are welcome for Jesus is present with his suffering ones and iconically in the faces of his wounded children gathered around the table.

The Court of Richard II and Bohemian Culture, by Alfred Thomas

This richly illustrated and beautifully produced volume explores the role of Bohemian culture in late fourteenth-century England. John Gower wrote of the ‘newe guise of Beawme’ in his Confessio Amantis, and Alfred Thomas convincingly explores the wider implications of these influences. Richard II married Anne of Bohemia in 1382, and she died in 1394. Anne was the daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, who had been brought up at the French royal court and who transformed the court at Prague into a centre of art and architecture; her siblings were Elisabeth of Bohemia and Wenceslas IV of Bohemia (also of Germany and Luxembourg). Her grandfather was the cosmopolitan John, count of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia and patron of the poet Guillaume Machaut, and her aunt was Bonne of Luxembourg, who married the man who would become King John II of France; her uncle was the duke of Brabant and, famously, the patron of the poet and chronicler Jean Froissart. One could continue listing these cosmopolitan cultural connections for many lines. As presented here, Anne embodied a truly European culture, stretching from Bohemia to Germany to Italy and France. Thomas is principally interested here in the influence of the flourishing and cosmopolitan Bohemian court, the model of French courtly life, and the imperial connections. He argues that Anne embodied a set of cultural influences which were intertwined with Richard III’s wider political goals: he was interested in imperial claims, worked on the presentation of a form of sacral kingship, and was more interested in culture than war. These observations about Richard’s reign are insightful, though perhaps a little too starkly drawn: the claim that a king might be interested in culture rather than war (repeated for Charles V of France on p. 24) is unnecessarily reductive; Richard’s interest in sacral kingship also has a longer, distinctively English history. Reminding the reader that these were not zero-sum games would not in any way weaken the argument.

After the Black Death: Economy, Society and the Law in Fourteenth-Century England

After the Black Death: Economy, Society and the Law in Fourteenth-Century England

Geoffrey Chaucer in Context. The Oxford Handbook of ChaucerThe Oxford Handbook of Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer in Context. The Oxford Handbook of ChaucerThe Oxford Handbook of Chaucer

Little Lewis and Latin Folk in Chaucer's Prologue to the Treatise on the Astrolabe

Little Lewis and Latin Folk in Chaucer's Prologue to the <i>Treatise on the Astrolabe</i>

Hefferan, The Household Knights of Edward III: Warfare, Politics and Kingship in Fourteenth-Century England (Woodbridge, 2021)

Review of Matthew Hefferan, The Household Knights of Edward III: Warfare, Politics and Kingship in Fourteenth-Century England (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2021).