Blog | The Gascon Rolls Project

Final upload

2019-11-01T15:04:39+00:00

Nous sommes ravis d'annoncer que les 'calendars' (résumés détaillés) de tous les rôles gascons de 1317 à 1467 sont maintenant terminés et seront mis en ligne vers fin novembre ou début décembre.

Nous remercions toutes les personnes qui ont travaillé pour ce programme depuis son lancement en 2007. Nous adressons des remerciements tout particuliers pour les institutions et les personnes qui ont soutenu financièrement ce programme.

Many more calendars coming soon

2018-03-15T11:01:21+00:00

We are pleased to announce that more calendars are coming soon to fill the gaps in the rolls for the reign of Edward III.

In early June we will be putting on the site calendars for 1330-1334, 1336-42, 1351-58.

We are working hard on the remaining rolls for 1342-4, 1348-51, 1358-60. Watch this space

Many thanks to the University of Southampton for its financial support.

Anne Curry and Guilhem Pepin

Mysterious Entries on Roll C 61/32: A Reconsideration.

2016-11-07T12:00:00+00:00

Mysterious Entries on Roll C 61/32: A Reconsideration (C 61/32 (11 Edward II), entries 101 & 102 (29 January 1318); and entries 103 & 104 (4 February 1318))

These four entries are inserted together in a blank space on m.12 of C 61/32 (11 Edward II). They are written in a darker ink and in a hand which differs from the preceding and following entries on the roll; all four have been crossed through, with possible signs of an attempt to erase them (even using an ultraviolet lamp, it is very difficult to read everything in the entries); the word ‘vacat’ is written in the left margin of the roll, implying that the entries do not belong and are to be recorded elsewhere. As the editors observe, there is no obvious reason for the initial inclusion of the four entries, none of which has any connection with the usual business of a Gascon Roll, except that items 103 and 104 refer to possible payments to be made from the revenues of Gascony. The editors are also of the opinion that the entries are in a much later hand, perhaps later fifteenth- or even sixteenth-century.

The original roll, C 61/32, was examined in TNA and, for the purpose of comparing the script, so also was C 61/137 (28 Henry VI, 1449-50). C 76/9 (Rotuli Franciae et Pontivi, 3-17 Edward II) was checked in case the entries appeared there. The file of Chancery Warrants, C 81/103, including the relevant dates in late January and early February 1318, was also examined. C 62/94 (Liberate Roll, 11 Edward II) was later consulted online through the website of the Anglo-American Legal Tradition, Quinn Law Library, University of Houston. The results of this research were inconclusive, but there are a few clues and it is possible to make some tentative suggestions.

File of Chancery Warrants, TNA, C 81/103: There is no direct mention of the subjects of entries 101-104 in C 81/103, but the following privy seal writs are interesting:

a. C 81/103, 4537A (29 Jan. 1318, Westminster) corresponds with item 105 on the Gascon Roll;

b. C 81/103, 4537B (30 Jan., Westminster) refers to a former treasurer of the Agenais, John de Husthweyt. See CPR, 1317-21, p.76.

c. C 81/103, 4537C (30 Jan. 1318, Westminster) refers to John de la Marche, yeoman of the pantry, appointed to custody of the gate of Guernsey castle. The writ was added from unsorted miscellanea on 4 Nov. 1924. See CPR, 1317-21, p.75.

d. C 81/103, 4537D (30 Jan. 1318, Westminster): exemption to Thomas de Grey from being put on assizes, juries, etc. Also added from unsorted miscellanea on 4 Nov. 1924. See CPR, 1317-21, p.75.

e. C 81/103, 4538A (31 Jan. 1318, Westminster). Re appointment of John Hathewy as forester of Forest of Dean. See CPR, 1317-21, p.102.

f. C 81/103, 4538B (31 Jan. 1318, Westminster). Re an assize of novel disseisin. Also added from unsorted miscellanea on 4 Nov. 1924. No corresponding entry in CPR, or in CFR, CCR.

g. C 81/103, 4539 (1 Feb. 1318, Windsor). Re presentation of Robert Hillary to church of Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire. See CPR, 1317-21, p.104.

h. C 81/103, 4540 (4 Feb. 1318, Windsor). Re the bridge at Kingston-on-Thames. No corresponding entry in CPR, or in CFR, CCR.

i. C 81/103, 4541 (6 Feb. 1318, Windsor). Re appointment of John de Fenwyk to custody of Bamburgh castle. See CPR, 1317-21, p.76.

One of the writs relates directly to Gascony and appears on the Gascon Roll (item 105); one mentions the Agenais; one refers to something vaguely French (Guernsey). Three writs, in poor condition, were added from unsorted miscellanea in November 1924. This indicates a damaged file of C 81 privy seal writs, which might, if better preserved, have thrown some light on entries 101-104.

TNA, C 76/9 (Rotuli Franciae et Pontivi, 3-17 Edward II). Nothing relevant found.

TNA, C 62/94 (Liberate Roll, 11 Edward II). Consulted online through the website of the Anglo-American Legal Tradition, Quinn Law Library, University of Houston. Nothing relevant found.

TNA, C 61/32, entries 101-104:

Entry 101: Garin de Glapion, seneschal of Normandy, who is the subject of entry 101, can be found in the Norman Rolls for 2 John, TNA, C 64/1-4. He also appears in a fragmentary payment roll, TNA, E 373/5; most of the rest of the account is in TNA, E 101/349/1A, printed in S R Packard, Miscellaneous Records of the Norman Exchequer, 1199-1204, Smith College Studies in History, vol XII (1926-27). It may be relevant that entries 93-96 (28 January and 4 February 1318) relate to the disputes between the men of Normandy and Bayonne. Normandy was at least in the official mind at the same time as entries 101 and 102.

Even though Normandy had been lost by the English crown in 1204, business concerning Normandy was still appearing in English records even during the reigns of Edward I and Edward II. There are several examples of petitions sent to the English Crown by religious houses in Normandy, usually relating to lands held in England or in the Channel Islands, the so-called ‘alien priories’. Such cases may be analogous to entries 101 and 102, in that they may sometimes have required a search of much earlier English government records. Like the three examples cited below, entries 101 and 102 also include references to ecclesiastical matters, the churches of Cocherel and Augelville.

Petition of abbot of Cormeilles-en-Vexin to Edward I, 1307. Printed in Rotuli Parliamentorum, I, p.274, with Edward I’s reply dated June 12, 35 Edward I, at Carlisle, printed on p.275. . The original is TNA, SC8/2/60. It is mentioned in PROME (Parliament Rolls of Medieval England) in the Appendix of Unedited Petitions at the end of Edward II section.
Petition of Abbot of Premonstratensian house of Blaunchelaunde in Normandy, 1298: TNA, SC8/288/14353. See PROME under 1298.
Petition of Abbot of Préaux in Normandy, 1298: TNA, SC8/288/14351. See PROME under 1298.

Entry 102: It is not clear who Guillaume de Augelville was, other than also being in Normandy in early John.

Entry103: The man whose name was transcribed by the editors as 'Haaiz Notit', lord of Molendino, is a real mystery. An initial reading of the name was 'Isaatz Nebit', but it is more likely that his first name was ‘Isaacz’ or ‘Isaacus’ (with an abbreviation of ‘us’ written as a superscript) or ‘Isaac’: but an apparently Jewish name raises other problems of identity. His second name is even more problematic. ‘Nebit’ seems less and less likely. The first letter may be ‘N’ but is nothing like the capital N in Normandy in entry 101 and may be ‘r’ (although it is not like the definite ‘R’ in ‘Raynaldus’ in the next entry. The second letter is ‘a’; the third letter is ‘t’ (see ‘quadraginta’ two lines below); and the fourth letter is ‘i’. The name may be ‘Natit’ or ‘Ratit’ or indeed the editors’ suggestion ‘Notit’. It is baffling. Perhaps it is a Jewish name. The location of 'Molendino' is another problem. There are plenty of placenames, in various countries, deriving from the Latin for ‘mill’. This entry is particularly hard to decipher. Seeing the original helped a little, but even ultraviolet light did not resolve the problem.

One possible clue is in the first line of the entry which appears to refer to a ‘domino Everardo’. This could be the French name Erard. Edward II had a brother-in-law named Erard de Bar (Bar-le-Duc in the Meuse valley) whose brother Count Henry of Bar had married Edward’s sister Eleanor in 1293. Erard had visited England for the marriage in 1293, was again in England in 1301, and once more in 1305 to arrange the marriage of his niece Joan de Bar and the earl of Surrey. Various dependents of the county of Bar also served the English crown in Scotland. It is possible that one of the men who accompanied Erard to England or who served in Scotland is the man referred to, although none of the known followers of Erard de Bar matches the name in entry 103. However in 1317-18 the county of Bar was very much in the minds of Edward II and his officials. The capture and ransoming of the earl of Pembroke in 1317 was connected with a Bar dependent, Jean de Lamouilly, who had a grievance against the English crown over unpaid wages for service in Scotland. There was also a great row going on over the breakdown of the earl of Surrey’s marriage with Joan of Bar. One consequence was a lot of correspondence with members of the French nobility, including Erard de Bar. There is some information in Seymour Phillips, Edward II (New Haven & London, 2010), pp.288-90, and more detail in J.R.S. Phillips, Aymer de Valence (Oxford, 1972), pp, 111-117. The answer to the mystery may lie somewhere in the area of the Meuse and in a connection with Erard de Bar, but it is no more than a possibility.

Entry 104, referring to Raynaldus de Bello Loco, is also a puzzle.

Like entries 101-2, entries 103-4 may have nothing at all to do with Gascony (except that in the latter two cases Gascon revenues were to be a source of payment). It is likely that each of the four entries was the consequence of a recent, but no longer extant, petition to the crown (TNA, Ancient Petitions, SC 8, was checked without success); that the resulting orders were initially enrolled on the Gascon Roll for want of anywhere better to put them, and then removed after second thoughts. If they were enrolled anywhere else, there is no trace.

Although entries 101-104 are clearly written by a different clerk than the rest of C 61/32, and appear to have been written with less care, the hand seems to be consistent with the dates of the entries in early 1318. If the entries had been inserted in, for example, the fifteenth century, it raises the even more puzzling questions of why anyone should want to insert entries relating to early 1318 at a much later date, in a space on the roll of 1317-18 which just happened to be vacant, and then had a change of mind and cancelled the entries.

Seymour Phillips (2015).

Cases of treason (lèse majesté) in the Gascon rolls

2016-08-23T23:00:00+00:00

Guilhem Pépin (GP) in conversation with Anne Curry (AC), August 2015

GP: I have found in the Gascon Rolls several legal cases of the late 14^th century and of the first half of the 15^th century. Particularly interesting are the cases of lèse-majesté. The most famous is the case and the trial of Guilhem-Sans IV de Pommiers, vicomte of Fronsac, a major fortress near Bordeaux. This trial took place at Bordeaux before the Seneschal of Aquitaine, Thomas Felton and the ‘feudal’ court of Gascony, in the last year of the reign of Edward III. The whole trial is copied into several membranes of the Gascon roll of this year, in C 61/91, m. 19 to 16, entry no. 1. There is also a copy of this trial in TNA, EXT 7/18 (formerly E 101/181/1, no. 6))

It is a very interesting piece because it gives all the procedures, including the sending of summons to local lords and communities, in order to get a quorum in order to sentence Pommiers. They wanted to make an example, so he was condemned to death by this assembly. It is also interesting linguistically speaking because it is written in Latin, French and Gascon. It is a very complex text, quite difficult sometimes to understand, but the Gascon Rolls project gives us an opportunity to publicise it.

We have also found another case of lèse-majesté, the trial of a former judge of Gascony (1375-83), the clerk of the town of Bordeaux (head of its administration) Guilhem Boneu, in February 1389. In this case the trial is not on the Gascon roll but we have on the roll of 1392 his later pardon and various orders for the restoration of his good name and goods.

The trial is in a manuscript in the Archives Nationales in Paris. (Procès de Guilhem Boneu, Chartrier de Serrant, Archives Nationales, Paris, 1 AP/1645. Kept now at the new site of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine.) I have transcribed it fully in order to publish it. It’s a very interesting piece.

We have several mentions of this judge in the Gascon Rolls. The trial record gives a lot of information about life in Bordeaux, particular military life. Our judge was bribed - he obtained tuns of wine for instance - and also he tried to raise a revolt in Bordeaux against the official ruler of the town. Guilhem Boneu was condemned and was ordered to be jailed in Wallingford Castle (in Berkshire before the 1974 administrative reforms, but now in Oxfordshire), but he survived. We know this because he was pardoned and again became a judge in Gascony when Henry IV became king. So apparently he enjoyed a renewal of his career because of the change of dynasty.

AC: So does this show that the judicial system of Gascony is actually under the control of the English government back in Westminster, would you say?

GP: No, it’s quite autonomous because it was very difficult to control everything from Westminster. You have some appeals to the king of England in order to bypass the local authorities such as the seneschal of Aquitaine or the constable of Bordeaux. This shows the wealth and influence of some people. But the reason why some cases are in the Gascon Rolls is because they have reached Westminster in one way or another.

AC: So this is an enrolment of the whole case, but solely on the basis that it’s an enrolment of the king’s agreement to the petition?

GP: It is because the king’s council officially accepted the outcome, and because of the execution of Guilhem-Sans de Pommiers. But most of the time we have only a part of the procedure. Sometimes we don’t have the end of the procedure, so we don’t know what happened. There is also evidence that decisions were not always enforced. Sometimes in the same case you can have another mention years after, and the decision had still not been enforced.

AC: So essentially the judicial operation of the area is entirely within Gascony? It’s just in exceptional circumstances that anything is sent to England or indeed recorded on the Gascon Rolls, which are being kept in England?

GP: Yes and the Gascon Rolls are not really a ‘legal’ source. Only rarely do we have mention of legal cases, but it is good when we do, because quite often the original trial record no longer survives.

AC: So the Gascon Rolls are, in effect, the only legal record we have of a lot of these cases?

GP: Yes, as far as I know we have no mention of them at all in French archives, apart from the Boneu trial of course.

AC: It’s interesting with the appeals that quite often when they do come to the king, the king’s first decision is to send them straight back again.

GP: Yes, but it was less the case in this period, in the late 14^th and in the first half of the 15^th century because it was a last appeal.

From the end of the principality of Aquitaine of the Black Prince, when the king of France renewed the war (1369) English didn’t have any problems in organising a sovereign court of Aquitaine. From1369, they had two courts in Aquitaine; the court of Gascony, the traditional judicial court, and the Sovereign Court of Aquitaine which was another court of appeal, higher than the court of Gascony. And normally it should have been the last level of appeal. However sometimes, some people were not happy with the sovereign court of Aquitaine’s decisions, so they wanted to bypass the final decision. In this case they tried to reach the king and Westminster, but it was not the normal procedure. They were exceptions.

AC: That sounds interesting Guilhem. Was it set up as a result of the failure of the Black Prince’s administration?

GP: No, no it was just a natural conclusion of the creation of the principality of Aquitaine which had to be independent from France and also in a certain way from England. The king of England didn’t want Gascon appeals to arrive all the time in England because the English didn’t know the local law of the duchy and local laws. They preferred most of the time that the locals and local court of Bordeaux decide on these matters. That comes out in the Gascon Rolls very clearly when the principality was set up in 1362. It seems to me quite clear that they hadn’t actually thought through the implications for justice at the creation of the principality in 1362. There were therefore two attempts at actually making the grant to the prince, because they had forgotten to put Bordeaux and Bayonne into it. They have to make an announcement afterwards saying the king retained his right of appeal and resort on Aquitaine.

A tale of two Thomases: Thomas Felton, seneschal of Aquitaine, and Thomas Hoccleve, clerk of the privy seal office and poet .

2016-08-23T23:00:00+00:00

By Philip Morgan

One of the frustrations of the project is the fact that we very rarely get the chance to see the documents behind the Gascon Rolls, so that what we have is an echo of the reality of life, both in the duchy and what’s going on at Westminster. That’s been one of the things that’s exercised me in the project. There seemed to me to be two cases, one very small, one a bit more significant, that are of interest in this context.

One of them is looking at the collapse of the principality after 1369 and looking particularly at the career of Thomas Felton, the seneschal of Aquitaine from 1364 to 1377, who of course went the whole gambit from being successful seneschal to being himself captured and ransomed later on in his career. As seneschal, he features on the Gascon Rolls when he is appointed, and we also have a sense of the retinue of about 300 men that accompanied him to that expedition.

There is, rather unusually, the surviving negotiations between his auditor, a man called Sir John Tilley and some of the members of his retinue, which included, you’ll not be surprised to learn, a group of Cheshire archers and men, particularly a member of the Leicester family of Tabley. We also have the indenture between John Leicester and Felton’s auditors for the contribution that Leicester made to that retinue of the seneschal. This material is rather interesting since it reveals the sub-payments, and so the nature of the companies that Leicester’s sub-retinue was made up of. All of this is dealt with at Southampton, so that’s where the audit takes place: this is Leicester not arriving back from Gascony but going again to the duchy at some point. And it’s just one phrase in the document that seemed to me to say a lot about the context that’s missing from the Gascon Rolls, and that is for the agreement of the auditor, which this document records. At the end after the dating clause we read ‘For which pardon the said John has given to the same lady of Felton’ (i.e. Thomas Felton’s wife), ‘a white horse’. So in order to have the audit completed, there’s been a little exchange of a bribe, in this case a horse.

This reminded me about some of the other opportunities that we’ve had but not been able to follow up yet, about documents that link to other documents. The most significant is the degree to which, or the way in which, most of the enrolments which we find on the Gascon Rolls have at some stage gone through the Privy Seal office at Westminster before being enrolled in chancery and appearing on the Gascon Rolls themselves. The warrants are very familiar source for military service because the National Archives C 81 class has been used by those trying to reconstruct military service. The Privy Seal clerks themselves, that is, the people who are responsible for sending the warrants out, include people who are interesting to other people, to other historians and literary scholars, whereas in the Gascon rolls project we are mostly concerned with the nature of the administration.

The most interesting of these men is the poet, Thomas Hoccleve, who serves as a Privy Seal clerk in the last quarter of the 14^th century and at the beginning of the 15^th century, and who interestingly had a formulary book compiled, British Library Additional manuscript 24062.This is of considerable interest to literary scholars who’ve been looking for the handwriting of the poet Hoccleve. The formulary book is not all in Hoccleve’s hand, but it’s an office copy for use in the Privy Seal office, which Hoccleve has commissioned.

Characters like Hoccleve have a day job, which is working in the royal administration, and their hobby is their poetic output. One assumes they are not paid for their poetry, and they are paid rather badly for their Privy Seal work as well!

Hoccleve’s formulary book contains a section on the forms of instrument to be used in enrolments on the Gascon Rolls. We find a section of protections, another on letters, and a section on the Gascon Rolls. So we have a quite interesting group of, as it where, the original letters which went through the Privy Seal office which it would be possible to compare with their final enrolments on the Gascon Rolls. Although Hoccleve’s formulary book is well known to literary scholars, it is less well known to historians. It presents an opportunity in terms of what would be called data linkage between different sources, and stands as a future research possibility that comes out of what we’ve been able to do on the project.

In the small number of entries in Hoccleve’s formulary that we have been able to compare with the Gascon Rolls, they’re not entirely the same, but of course this is not uncommon in formularies. The idea was to provide models for scribes to do, and it was customary for them to disguise the source by making some changes. However, Hoccleve does include in his formulary some real documents in full - the challenge of Louis, duke of Orleans to Henry IV, for instance. He also has a section on enrolments for the Chester chancery which are also going through the Privy Seal office, at a time of course when the king is also the earl of Chester. So that’s why Hoccleve is seeing them as opposed to it being the earl of Chester’s administration. And those two can be compared to the originals in TNA Class CHES 2.

Who wrote the Gascon rolls then? Probably clerks of the third and fourth grade.

They do not seem to be Gascons since they have some difficulty with Gascon place names.

The Regulation of trade: The Grant of Licences to the Mercantile Community

2016-08-23T23:00:00+00:00

By Simon Harris

It has long been recognised that the trade relationship between England and Aquitaine during the period of the rule of the kings of England as dukes of Aquitaine was of great importance. The English demand for wine was satisfied from the annual vintage shipped from Bordeaux, and the shortage of grain and other crops in Aquitaine was made good by substantial quantities shipped from England, and many other goods including cloth, and wool found their way there as well. So it should be no surprise that the Gascon Rolls, the most significant and voluminous of the administrative records for that rule, should contain a wealth of material concerning trade matters in various forms. The entries contained in the rolls concern a wide range of issues, though many are heavily influenced by the frequent periods of conflict between the English and French.

One of the major issues facing the Anglo-Gascon administration was the regulation of the wine trade. Strict rules controlled when wine from the upper reaches of the Dordogne and Garonne could be brought to Bordeaux, and these rules needed periodic reinforcing. Further issues concerning the levying of taxation on the wine were also frequently addressed. Several different taxes, such as the issac, and the custom of Royan (originally levied in this coastal town situated at the mouth of the Gironde) were levied on the wine passing through Bordeaux, and other places sought permission to levy tolls, or attempted to levy customs and tolls unilaterally.

One of the other very evident concerns was the inability to resolve trade disputes. Throughout the records from 1317 onwards the continued problems of trade between the French, on one hand, and English and Gascons on the other, but more particularly between the latter and that great maritime power of Castile, appear, and often these are perpetuations of disputes that originate in the reign of Edward I.

Other frequent references deal with the problems around the arrest of shipping and goods. On occasion merchants complained when their ships were seized for the use of the Anglo-Gascon government. On other occasions it relates to trade disputes within the Anglo-Gascon merchant community. So for example in 1319 Johan de Bouygues secured possession of wine that had been seized at Kingston upon Hull from Arnaut Dubédat, a fellow Gascon from Bayonne, to satisfy a debt.

One of the other complaints that finds regular space on the rolls is the issue of piracy. Merchant ships, especially lone merchant ships, could be easy pickings for enemy privateers. Even in the supposed security of the mouth of the Gironde merchant ships could be seized, and it was not always the enemy that was undertaking these attacks. In 1320 the Gascon merchants Bernat Durand, Ramon Rolland and Arnaut de Laroque complained that a group of nine named Irish pirates from Waterford, Youghal and Cork seized a ship carrying a cargo of wine of theirs, killed its crew, and stole its cargo, all of which was attested by letters patent of the mayor and jurats of Bordeaux.

However, another issue amply illustrates how a series of records can change over time. Previous calendaring work on the Gascon Rolls concluded at the end of the 1340s, and the current Leverhulme Trust funded project commenced in the roll for 1360-1. In the intervening period licences begin to appear on the rolls that granted permission for merchants to trade between England and Aquitaine, though occasionally alternative destinations in Iberia could be inserted, and the origins of the merchants was, on occasion outside of Anglo-Gascon jurisdiction. But the point is that the records appear in the 1350s, and there is no clear explanation why this should have happened at this time, and they continue to be granted until the last roll of the Gascon Rolls series, that for 1467, long after the English crown had lost the duchy of Aquitaine.

Before we go any further it would be useful to consider a couple of reasonably standard examples:

C 61/92, Entry 2.

28 June 1378 . Westminster .

[marginated] For the transport of corn.

To all admirals.

Licence to John de Prescott , that he can take, in person or by his servants, 100 quarters of wheat and 20 quarters of beans and peas loaded on to ships in Dartmouth to Gascony and to Bayonne for the sustenance of the king's subjects living there. Prescott had requested that the king grant this, and the king agreed because William Borleston' and Thomas Nottecombe of Devon had mainprised before the king in chancery that he would take the wheat, beans and peas to Gascony and Bayonne, and to nowhere else, under pain of forfeiture of what is carried. It is ordered that Prescott be permitted to take the wheat, beans and peas to Gascony and Bayonne, paying the customs and other dues, any proclamations or orders to the contrary notwithstanding.

In this entry, a licence granted early in Richard II’s reign, the English merchant John de Prescott was given a licence to take substantial quantities of wheat, and a smaller quantity of beans and peas to Gascony in general, and Bayonne in particular. The licence also stated that the grain and beans and peas were to be loaded for export in Dartmouth, perhaps the home port of Prescott. However, the licence was only granted because two Devon men mainprised, in other words stood security, for Prescott that he would take the foodstuffs to Gascony and Bayonne, and not to anywhere else. The licence concluded with an order that Prescott be permitted to do this provided he had paid the customs due on the goods.

The later example, one from near the end of the Rolls series, shows differing aspects of the licence. Some of these are merely variations in format, whilst others reveal how the type of entry was modified through time.

The second entry comes from the time right at the end of English rule in Aquitaine:

C 61/140, Entry 14.

19 December 1453. Westminster .

[marginated] Concerning a licence to carry.

Grant to John Shipward of Bristol , merchant , at his request, of a licence that he, in person, or by his deputies, is able as often as he likes to charge a certain ship called le Kateryne of Bristol of 300 tuns capacity or less with goods and merchandise that do not pertain to the Calais staple, and take it to Spain and Aquitaine, and sell the goods and merchandise there, and load the ship with other goods and merchandise that he has bought, and return to England. The king being favourably inclined to the request, has granted the same, and the king, does not wish that Shipward, or his deputies, should be troubled or harmed by the king or his officers or ministers, provided that Shipward answers to the king for the customs, subsidies and other dues for the goods and merchandise.

In this entry John Shipward of Bristol, a merchant, was granted a licence to take a general cargo to Spain and Aquitaine. In this example we are told the name of the ship in which the goods were to be carried, and the capacity of the same. In addition, unlike the earlier example, the Calais staple was a reality, the goods were not to be those that had to pass through that port. In other entries that could be cited, merchants from Bordeaux and Bayonne could be found, and on occasion Spanish and Flemish merchants also appear.

The licences provide a considerable amount of information, giving an insight into the trade patterns for the period of study – which English ports were trading with Aquitaine, and what cargos were being taking there. We get glimpses of networks of merchants, both through those actually doing the trading, and those providing security that they will comply with the licence. We also get some information about the ships that they were trading in, giving us the names, homeports and an indication of the capacity of those ships. This is all valuable data to complement evidence from other records.

If one looks at the rolls for the period 1360 to 1370, the first series of rolls where these licences can be found, it appears to be very much a novelty:

Roll	Regnal Year(s)	No. of Licences	Total No. of Entries	Percentage
C 61/73	1360-1	1	19	5.26
C 61/74	1361-2	20	127	15.74
C 61/75	1362-3	5	130	3.84
C 61/76	1363-4	3	77	3.89
C 61/77	1364-5	4	79	5.06
C 61/78	1365-6	4	110	3.63
C 61/79	1366-7	1	159	0.62
C 61/80	1367-8	5	65	7.69
C 61/81	1368-9	1	77	1.29
C 61/82	1369-70	1	180	0.55

Apart from the year 1361-2 the number of licences on each roll remains very low, though the percentage was to begin to change into the reign of Richard II. In the last few rolls of the series, the number of licences amounted to a considerably higher proportion:

Roll	Regnal Year(s)	No. of Licences	Total No. of Entries	Percentage
C 61/137	1450-1	4	16	25
C 61/138	1451-2	15	119	12.6
C 61/139	1452-3	3	71	4.22
C 61/140	1453-4	32	55	58.18
C 61/141	1454-5	36	50	62
C 61/142	1455-6	12	19	63.15
C 61/143	1456-61	33	54	61.11
C 61/144	1461-8	1	8	12.5

Although one must not seek to compare these two sets of figures too closely, for the first set clearly come from the time when these types of entries began to be recorded, and the last set concern in part the time after the period of English rule, when one might have expected the recording of licences to be of greater importance when trading with what had become enemy ports displaced then moribund administrative entries, they do show a very distinct change.

So what is going on here, why did these licences begin to be recorded? Well the simple answer is that we cannot be sure, for there seems to be no clear order or a parliamentary statute that required it. It is also interesting to consider why these licences were taken out. The figures that are given in the tables above cannot account for all of the trade between England and Aquitaine, so were the other merchants not taking out these licences, or was there something particular about those who chose to take them out? Again this is unclear, but we can speculate. One possible solution could be that not all licences were recorded, or were recorded elsewhere than on the Gascon Rolls. It is also possible that these licences were not essential, but provided the merchants obtaining them with protection from interference in their trade. This could be considered worthwhile when orders to arrest shipping by the Anglo/Gascon authorities for the shipping of men and equipment were regular occurrences.

Conclusions:

Whilst there are many unanswered questions, it remains clear that there had been some change of procedure in the 1350s, which begin to become evident in the 1360s, and by the end of the Gascon Rolls series, had come to account for a very high percentage of business. Whilst it is beyond the scope of this short discussion to provide firm conclusions, it is evident that these licences provide us with valuable data about merchant communities, active trading ports with Aquitaine, the goods being shipped, and the ships themselves.

The Gascon rolls and the administration of the Plantagenet Empire

2016-08-23T23:00:00+00:00

A discussion between: Anne Curry (AC), Simon Harris (SH), Philip Morgan (PM), and Guilhem Pépin (GP), August 2015

PM: I think one of the things that has struck me about working with the Gascon Rolls is the challenge that it makes to certain of one’s general assumptions about the nature of administrative records. Both Simon and Guilhem who have spent their time with the detail of the contents. For me it’s the notion that these are essentially enrolments of the English chancery, produced in London, never leaving London, so they’re the records of a remote administration. And they are to that degree English records.

That has created all sorts of problems in terms of their use. They escaped the 19^th century passion for calendaring administrative records as part of the view that it was national administration that marked out England as top nation. And they were left to the end, and latterly of course they’ve almost been ignored somewhat by French historians on the grounds, one suspects, that better no records than English records. That’s probably unfair, but I think there’s a certain cruel truth to it.

What’s extraordinary about the rolls is the degree to which they’re concerns are about the enrolment of records produced in Gascony, which come to Westminster. And what’s remarkable is how much of a different view they’ve put on certain well known events. A good example of this is when one looks at the enforcement of the Treaty of Bretigny as it appears on the Gascon Rolls.

When it appears in the roll for 1361-2, its presented almost entirely through the lens of the recently captured port of La Rochelle, so the letters which are enrolled, the concerns which matter, work on the one side to represent the concerns that the town of La Rochelle has, the nature of its previous jurisdiction, and on the English side, a concern not to tread on local loyalties and sympathies. So that the quotation or the citation of the peace at Bretigny is written almost entirely from perspective of those members of La Rochelle who were present at the negotiations, and who came back with a text in which they particularly emphasised the issues which seem to them to threaten their traditional liberties and status.

That’s one example and that sort of thing continues throughout the rolls. One is extraordinarily impressed by the degree to which privy seal or chancery clerks, depending on who is receiving these things, have skills, not merely in what we expected at the beginning of the project, Latin and French, but those occasions when we’ve thought ‘gosh this is not French either, this much be Gascon’. But certainly these documents were enrolled by clerks, who would have had no facility in the Gascon language and who were in that sense just working as very good copyists. It’s extraordinary how accurate their transcriptions of these documents seem to be. It occurred to me, listening to Anne talk about the last phases of the Gascon Rolls where documents from Calais and Normandy are accidentally enrolled on the Gascon Rolls. It’s the loss of this trained administration at Westminster who became accustomed to dealing with a different part of the dominions of the king of England, as duke of Aquitaine.

Are these French archives, are they English archives, are they simply, in one sense therefore local archives that happen to find their way to one jurisdiction or another?

AC: Philip, what do you think? Are they records of Gascony, or are they records of English crown?

PM: I think, the obvious dodge for this is to say they’re both. It is true to a degree that there is what might be called the very predictable routine administrative record of the English crown - the appointment of officers, the transmission of letters of protection. official instruments that deal usually with the patronage also that is being directed to English servants going to Gascony, very many of whom receive the grant of estates, and lands and revenues and rents in Gascony - many of which they’d never see personally, so you must have this whole industry of proctors who are collecting, or attempting to collect revenues in Gascony on behalf of people who will not physically be there.

But on the other hand what is also significant is the enrolment, rather in the way that medieval peasants begin to control manorial courts in their own interest, to have their interests represented in a manorial court. You get the impression in the Gascon Rolls that Gascon communities, or some Gascon communities at least, are able not to manipulate the record but to direct the attention of the king-duke towards their own affairs. I am thinking particularly of the way in which the affairs of Bayonne are constantly reported. If we think about which parts of Gascony are more represented than others in the coverage of the rolls, it’s a predictable and not complete range of the parts of Gascony. Some places seem to have a greater input than do others, and again Bayonne is the case, that comes most to mind. Rather more in some ways than Bordeaux. Bordeaux is the venue where things happen, but it’s less dominant in the record than one might expect from the head lordship of the Duchy.

AC: So essentially the towns and the lords of Gascony are wanting their transactions registered, so to speak?

That’s what we’re seeing. It strikes me that there is a large number of entries for towns in general, like Saint-Emilion for instance. Towns are very keen to have their privileges recorded.

What do you think about this, Guilhem, that there are certain groups, as Philip is suggesting, who are keen to have their business recorded on the Gascon Rolls?

GP: Maybe not recorded on the Gascon Rolls, but recorded by the king’s administration so they didn’t care so much if it was on the Gascon Rolls, or another document. The Gascon Rolls were a record for internal purposes and were useful to check if a grant had been made. But most of the Gascons didn’t have a clue about where the Gascon rolls were kept and were not even aware of their existence. For them the idea was to have a decision analysed by the king and by his court, by the English central administration in order to reinforce the decision or the grant, the grant of an office or the grant of revenues. Westminster probably had in their eyes more power and more prestige than things just confirmed by the seneschal of Aquitaine, or the constable of Bordeaux, or even the lieutenant of the king, because the king was the sovereign. An act confirmed by the king, or the decision of the king was not easily challengeable even if it was wrong sometimes. As you know sometimes we have several grants of the same thing, to two different persons and they are conflicting.

PM: But it’s not just like pushing a note up the chimney for Father Christmas, because we do know that lots of Gascons on occasion are prepared to go to England in order to make those representations! I agree with you that they don’t know where the record ends up, but it’s the act of going to the centre as they see it - the highest power, where the king is. It’s a metropolitan thing so lots of the entries on the Gascon Rolls start with what’s clearly in response to a petition, and it’s a petition in person.

GP: Not all of the petitions to the king were presented in person. There were proctors of course. But sometimes they Gascon plaintiffs came in person at Westminster. In fact, I found, particularly in the rolls from 1380s up to the end that there was a greater integration of western Gascony, I mean from Bordeaux to Bayonne, to the crown of England. In the sense you have more travels, regular travels of Gascons to Westminster and London, and more generally to England. Also, more Englishmen obtained grants of lands and proprieties and revenues in Aquitaine, even if they didn’t live there. And also you have expression of this integration in the vocabulary of the Gascons, for example, we have late entry concerning the community of the town of Saint-Sever (in the Landes) and obviously the vocabulary is coming from a petition of this community. They called themselves true English: ‘We are true English from time immemorial.’ (from Gascon Roll C 61/130, m. 7, entry no. 74).

AC: So essentially what we’re saying here has been said by other historians before, that Gascony is like a county in England, like one of the shires where people might come from, say Derbyshire, with a petition to the chancery in Westminster? Is there really any difference?

SH: Well except that you have a completely different legal and administrative basis.

AC: That seems a big exception.

SH: Well, yes. I’ve come more to think that what we see in the Gascon Rolls is actually more a direction of what the king wants to happen, and that what is really important is how the ministers actually act there. Because we get all these enrolments from actions of the lieutenant and the seneschal, we get a glimpse of what actually was really governing the duchy. It gives us an idea of what we have lost, of all the local documents that these officials would have been creating, which were the real driving force in Aquitaine.

GP: Definitely. With the surviving records, both in the Gascon Rolls and in the other documents including documents kept by chance in French archives, or copies, we discover things we cannot notice in the Gascon Rolls. Just an example I came across, with my own research, with an 18^th century copy of a mandate, an order by Henry of Lancaster, earl of Derby before his expedition of 1346 in Poitou. Lancaster sent an order from the town of la Réole to the prévot of Saint-Émilion asking the four nobles of the prevoté of Saint-Émilion to come on a certain day with all their men to La Réole, in order to join the army for the next expedition against the French. Such a military order never appears in the Gascon Rolls or, as far as we know, even in another Anglo-Gascon source in TNA.

This kind of document was not copied normally into the Gascon Rolls because it was just useful at the moment and there was no need at all for it to be sent to Westminster

SH: But it’s curious there are a lot of documents to do with the lieutenancy of Henry of Grossmont, and also of the lieutenant under the last years of Edward III, which all get confirmed in Richard II’s reign. So it seems to be particular lieutenants and at particular times. The other lieutenants are very anonymous

GP: But you have more confirmations of act made by lieutenants than by seneschals. Because lieutenants where like viceroys, with large powers and higher prestige, and so the people tended to ask them things they would normally ask a king.

AC: That would be a good research topic in the future for someone to look in more detail at seneschals and lieutenants and also to compare the powers given to those people. I was fascinated by them in the 15^th century, because some of them seem to be the model for the lieutenants appointed in Normandy when Henry V conquered that area. Maybe we should also link to the powers of the lieutenant in Ireland. I think there that would be a good way of looking at how Gascony is integrated by seeing the sort of interplay with other powers for other lieutenancies elsewhere in the Plantagenet dominions. After all before the Treaty of Troyes and the conquest of Normandy by Henry V, Aquitaine was the main position of the king of England on the continent.

Gascon rolls for the reign of Henry V

2016-08-23T23:00:00+00:00

Anne Curry (AC) in conversation with Guilhem Pépin (GP), Simon Harris (SH) and Philip Morgan (PM), August 2015.

AC: I thought I’d have a closer look at the rolls for the reign of Henry V (ten regnal years). What is interesting we only have five rolls. We have one covering year 1, one covering year 2, one covering year 3 and then they seem to have lost interest so to speak. We have two more rolls covering the rest of the reign, one for years 4 to 6 and the final one years 7 to 10. It’s perhaps a little bit unfair that I have said this because of course the rolls are of different lengths, so the 4-6 actually has 19 membranes and is the longest for the reign as a whole. But I don’t know if any of you have any views as to why sometimes we have an annual roll and on other occasions we don’t have an annual roll.

GP: It’s difficult to say because I think there were no rules. It depended on the amount of material they had to copy. And maybe it depended on the person in charge of the chancery at this period. What do you think?

SH: Well there seems to be variation. Sometimes we just have to assume someone made a conscious decision to sew together materials from different years, though it is common for materials from different years to be on different membranes.

AC: Occasionally you get very long cases, so the 19 membranes for Henry V years 4-6 do not actually contain a huge amount of business: there’s one very long case with lots of confirmations. If there is something that is going back to the time of the Black Prince (1355-7 and 1362-72), or occasionally even earlier, the entry can be exceptionally long, and made longer by repeating confirmations which themselves contain earlier confirmations.

GP: This shows how much record keeping memory there was. Bayonne documents can go right back to Edward I and cite all the evidence relevant, before adding new material. This is a tremendous testimony isn’t it to their knowledge of the past really in their ability and it presupposes there were very good filing systems so they could access these documents from the past.

AC: We know that Henry V spends the first couple of months of his reign sorting things out. On 12 June 1413 the king asks the lieutenant of Aquitaine, the seneschal of Aquitaine and the constable of Bordeaux for a full report on the lands, offices and revenues granted since the beginning of the reign of Edward III, in order to seize these into the hands of the constable of Bordeaux. The king has learnt that the excessive grants have been done in the duchy since the time of Edward III to persons not deserving them, so that no money remained for the costs of defensive and the payment of wages of officials.

In this roll Henry Bowet, the archbishop of York who has a lot of Gascon links, asks for and gets exemption. But it’s not the only time in Henry V’s rolls that you get this impression that the king is thinking ‘can I get more money out of Gascony, without much investment’. There seems to be anxiety throughout this reign over money in the duchy. By the end of it, the last roll (118) for the 7^th to 10^th year of the reign, Sir John Tiptoft who had been appointed seneschal in 1415 and who had taken a troop out there just before the Agincourt campaign, gets the right to be paid before everyone else.

There is quite a lot of evidence of patronage under Henry V. You spot some quite interesting cases, for instance, in the second roll a grant to the Englishman, Henry Wilmot for services he had done to the king and his ancestors. He has fallen into poverty but is granted 3d a day. Clearly a petition has been behind that. There’s also quite a lot of grants of offices. The first and second rolls of any new reign can seem boring because you are mainly seeing confirmations, but they give an insight into what people feel need confirming there.

At one time I didn’t think there was a kind of colonial administration across the areas that were under the English, but having looked as these Gascon rolls I’m beginning to think maybe there was more of it. For instance Hugh Spencer in the second roll is granted the office of the bordenage of the city of Bordeaux (an office linked to pilgrimage, to obtain the tax from the pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela. Hugh Spencer was later quite a prominent bailli in Lancastrian Normandy and a captain. William Oldhall becomes keeper of the seal and counter seal for contracts in Bordeaux by grant of the 15 January 1414. He also becomes an important captain and bailli in Normandy and I think he serves in Ireland as well. Oldhall actually hold the Bordeaux office for very long; in the next roll is granted to the Gascon Bénedeyt Espine. I assume that’s because Oldhall was going to go on the campaign to France in 1415, so we’re seeing him being moved around the administrations.

The first roll of the reign of Henry V is also interesting because there is still an army in the area, the remnants of the army that had been sent under Clarence in 1412. This is under the command of Thomas Beaufort, earl of Dorset. On 26 June 1415, again quite close to the beginning of the reign, Dorset is given power to receive homages in the king’s name, having been appointed king’s lieutenant in the duchy: his powers are very interesting. It parallels the tone in Normandy in the campaign of 1417-19 where commanders were given power to take homages. I’m sure the conquest of Normandy is modelled to a considerable degree on how they’ve already been organising things in Gascony. Also we know the Dorset had his chaplain and his herald with him in Gascony, from the evidence of protections enrolled on the Gascon roll.

Although Thomas, duke of Clarence, had gone home for his father’s funeral he had already held a meeting of the Three Estates of Guyenne (or Aquitaine) and had got quite a substantial tax levy out of the duchy of 12 pence per pound on all the goods of Englishman, Gascons and foreigners entering or leaving the duchy. I believe it’s thought by some historians that this was not a popular tax, that it was felt that the Gascons were having to pay too much at this point.

It also looks as though the English are pretty certain Gascony is well defended. William Clifford, constable of Bordeaux, was also appointed for eight years as captain and constable of Fronsac, the only place where the English held a garrison that was paid for by the English. He was given a thousand marks each year. Clearly the eight year appointment implied he was committed to a career in the duchy. Pay is given as a lump sum: he was not told how many troops he should hold in Fronsac. This system was a way of arranging garrisons that are not deemed to be vulnerable. You get it on the Scottish frontier at times when it’s not deemed there’s going to be any war, and you get it in Normandy after the battle of Verneuil in 1424, instead of having the usual system of organising pay and muster on a 3 monthly basis, and saying how many troops they’ve got to have and checking this via a quarterly muster. In some ways it is a form of privatisation!

The roll for the third year of the reign has several confirmations for Carlos de Beaumont, who was the alférez of Navarre (head of the army of the kingdom of Navarre) who was to serve on the Agincourt campaign with 3 men-at-arms and 12 archers. He seems to have gone to Southampton in order to cross to Normandy. The fact he had confirmations of properties indicates this was patronage in order to persuade him or to reward him for the fact that he had joined the campaign. And you get the same for Bénedey Espine, who was present at the siege of Harfleur. He gets recompense for the wine he’d given to two servants of Henry V when Henry was prince. The servants are named as Edmond Ferris and Robert Roddington. This made me think of Prince Henry not paying his bills when prince and Espine using the opportunity of the king being desperate to get support in 1415 for the campaign.

Carlos de Beaumont was summoned by Henry V to go to England again to the king for 22 July 1417: it seems that he had not indented for the campaign. We can see, in the place dating of the Gascon Rolls for 1417, the king staying at Titchfield Abbey and then moving on to Portsmouth.

Sir John Tiptoft crossed to Gascony in mid-August 1415 as seneschal, just before the Agincourt campaign. It is often forgotten that in addition to the large army that Henry takes to Normandy, he’s also sent several hundred with Tiptoft to Gascony. Perhaps this shows the king wanting to distract the French; he did not want to leave Gascony vulnerable. The protections for those crossing with Tiptoft include a number of Gascon names. They also include the illegitimate son of John Hawkwood.

When the king went to France, he appointed the duke of Bedford as keeper of the realm. This leads to the documents being dated at different places. On 16 August 1415 there’s one dated at Farnham Castle, suggesting that Bedford, keeper of the realm had been down in the Southampton area bidding his brothers farewell as they set sail. He then starts his journey back to London.

GP: The Gascons are also being asked for military equipment including siege engines. But by far the most fascinating is the warship ordered to be built at Bayonne. The king ordered it in 1417 but it was not complete in May 1419 even though there had been a levy granted, 4 pence in the pound for 4 years on goods passing through Bayonne. There survives a report in April 1419 about the size of this ship and several technical indications about it, written in English by an English man called John Alcestre, one of the deputies of the seneschal Tiptoft. Tiptoft had probably had been requested by Henry V to find out what had happened to this ship. There is no further information on the ship after May 1419. It seems that it was never built as Bayonnais asserted in a letter, and it was true, that they were too busy fighting the neighbouring Castilians who were allied to the French. Mentions of it in the Gascon rolls are present because they relate to the tax and also to the requisitioning workmen to build it.

AC: The final thing to comment on is the Treaty of Troyes of 1420 where Henry became heir to the throne of France and regent of France. It’s always interested me that there is no mention of the duchy of Aquitaine in the treaty. There has been some debate as to whether the duchy of Aquitaine was still deemed to be separate and held in full sovereignty thanks to the treaty of Brétigny-Calais. There is no mention in the Gascon rolls of the reign of Henry V of the treaty of Troyes (but there are mentions of it in the first rolls of Henry VI, about negotiations with the count of Foix). Perhaps this is simply because Henry died quite soon afterwards in 1422. The rolls were not compiled quickly enough. There are some relevant items in the first roll for the reign of Henry VI, especially the negotiations after the Treaty of Troyes between Henry V, Charles VI and Johan, count of Foix and vicomte of Béarn: this aimed at getting the oath of the count to accept the Treaty of Troyes by appointing him governor of the Languedoc. This is a very good example of how, in the post Treaty of Troyes period, Henry V operated as regent of France, drawing on the power of the French king, the French monarchy. Appointing the count governor of Languedoc and giving him also the county of Bigorre would have been a huge act of patronage and very much a gesture against the Orleanist supporters and the Armagnac party in the south. Languedoc was a very rich region. That explains partly why Charles VII was able to resist the Lancastrian government because Languedoc was also faithful and provided him with much finance.

The plan concerning the count did not prove successful in the long term, but the item in the first roll of the reign of Henry VI on the propose size of the count’s army shows how keen Henry was to gain military support. An army of 1500 men was to be mustered by Sir John Radcliffe, who was the constable of Bordeaux and captain on Fronsac, along with his fellow musterer the captal de Buch (who had been made conte de Longueville in Normandy in 1419), an interesting combination of an English official and a local lord. With the help of this army the count of Foix was supposed to conquer Languedoc.

PM: Thomas Barnaby, chamberlain of Chester, was also sometime constable of Bordeaux, another example of cross-channel administration. John Grosvenor was made constable of Fronsac: mention of the loss of lands in Wales suggests he was another cross-channel operator. He was given 500 francs per annum from the custom of wine from the Haut Pays, the land situated upstream outside the diocese of Bordeaux, the wine that was coming in for export through Bordeaux. He was related to the Grosvenors famously involved with the heraldic dispute with the Scrope family in 1386. John is not the only Grosvenor to have held Fronsac, since several did so in the fourteenth century.

GP: There is also an interesting character, John du Bourdieu, who was chancellor of Guyenne (or Aquitaine), one of the rare Gascons educated in England, he was a doctor of the University of Oxford. He was with Henry V at the siege of Harfleur, from which he wrote a letter to the community of Bordeaux and another letter almost the same to the community of Bayonne asking for wine and supplied to be sent to Henry V. He has finished his career as vicar of Harfleur and we have his will at the National Archives. His closeness to Henry V is confirmed by the fact that the latter made him vicar of Henry V. Bourdieu has been put forward as a possible author of the Gesta Henrici Quinti. His career emphasises that Gascons went to England for opportunities. According to an entry in a Gascon roll he had experienced difficulties in Aquitaine in being accepted in his post of chancellor by other Gascons, probably because he was partly seen as an outsider because of his career. So he maybe tried to find a way out, to establish new links with England and have another career outside Aquitaine-Gascony.

England’s first Empire?

2016-08-23T23:00:00+00:00

A discussion between: Anne Curry (AC), Simon Harris (SH), Philip Morgan (PM) and Guilhem Pépin (GP), August 2015

AC: So Guilhem, perhaps you could kick off by saying what you think about the underlying hypothesis in this project: ‘Was this England’s first empire’? Having worked on the rolls, what do you think?

GP: If we understand empire as a collection of different lands, of different cultures and languages, then yes, it was an empire. But after all there was also already a Norman empire, of William the Conqueror and Henry I as well as the Angevin Empire of the Plantagenets. It is difficult to use the term ‘empire’ because it reflects, especially for a British audience, with the British Empire of the 19^th and 20^th century. I consider we risk an anachronism in using the term ‘empire’ or even colony or any colonial terminology. We never find them in documents of the period. I tried in my own research to be cautious and to use the more traditional terms of ‘Crown of England’ etc.

However, men involved in the government of the king of England’s possessions were well aware of the multinational nature of the crown of England. At the Council of Constance in 1417, an English cleric said that in the English kingdom people spoke five languages or nations – English, Welsh, Gaelic, Gascon and Cornish - and they do not understand each other. This proved to him that England was a great kingdom. It was a sense of pride to have such diversity, and so many people under the same rule.

I think it is very difficult for people like us to understand the logic of people of this period because we are used to living in countries very unified with a standard language, either English or French. It is even worse in France because it is still a very centralistic state. The composite state with different states, different people and yet at the same time affiliated to the same king seems to us quite odd, because it was not as unified and standardised as what we take to be a country today.

British and French historians alike see their own country as central. Gascony is the default, as it was neither purely English, or purely French. So it stands between the two and that has sometimes worked against its study. I am happy that the Gascon Rolls project has worked well, even if we still have not edited the rolls for all of the period of their existence as yet. Gascony was a region in Europe that was connected to a kingdom abroad, separated by several days at sea. But it is not the only example of this: the kingdom of Naples was connected with Provence, and even with Anjou at a certain moment, as well as Sardinia with the crown of Aragon. Even when Gascony was not the central concern of the kings of England (Henry V was more concerned by Normandy and northern France) none of them would have relinquished any rights, or any inch of land in Gascony. It was the tradition of the family to keep it, even if they did not go there in person anymore.

The loss of Guyenne (or Aquitaine) in 1451 and 1453 was considered as much of a humiliation as the loss of Normandy. In the texts of the period, it was not considered as less important than Normandy. It was put on equal footing. The king of France knew that well. Charles VII wrote to the King of Scotland in 1457, that this region, Guyenne, had been united with England for 300 years, and that all the inhabitants were English at heart. In England it was very well known that it had been the longest held possession on the Continent.

Of course in the fifteenth century it had lost importance compared to the time of Henry of Lancaster, earl of Derby (who went there as king’s lieutenant in 1345-6) and the Black Prince, and especially since the Treaty of Troyes, because after that settlement, the priority was the kingdom of France itself. But Gascony was still something important in the minds of the kings of England and their court.

PM: I think I find myself agreeing with Guilhem, but there is no doubt, in my mind that if you have an empire, you must have an emperor. There are none of the kings with whom we have been concerned who could be seen as having imperial ambitions. Edward I did so in the British Isles. That, of course, is the reason why its permissible (as Professor Rees Davies argued) to call English relations with the rest of the British Isles in his reign a first British empire because it had all those elements of disparagement, forcible integration, supremacy of one system of law over another. By contrast, what we have seen constantly in Gascony is a respect for lordship.

So I am much more happy with traditional titles like the ‘lordship’ of which is now southwestern France (don’t forget Edward III called himself Lord of Aquitaine after the treaty of Brétigny of 1360), rather than thinking of it as either an imperial possession, or indeed as a colonial possession. One of the striking things is there is a measure of integration between each of these continental possessions, with people of talent moving between the two. That said, the relatively low number of people clearly of English origin, whom we see as having possessions in Gascony and putting down some kind of roots, is striking. Our English tend on the whole to go home.

GP: The majority of the English were officers and people sent by the English kings. But there were people at Bordeaux of English origins who did not have administrative roles. These were no only merchants. We also find notaries, craftsmen. It is difficult to assess their degree of integration into local society at Bordeaux. But I think many of these Englishmen became Gascon at the end of the day. Often their families had been settled for several generations and they had been raised in the duchy.

AC: But did they inter-marry Guilhem? One force for integration is inter-marriage, and I have not got the impression there is much.

SJH: You do get the two well-known examples under the principality and afterwards with John de Stratton who married a local heiress.

GP: There is also an interesting brass of an English merchant called John Scott who was living in the suburb of Saint-Pierre of Bordeaux, and who was buried at Bordeaux with his local wife, not in England. His brass is still visible at the Musée d’Aquitaine of Bordeaux. At Bordeaux there was definitely an English community. Maybe there was no parallel elsewhere in the duchy to Bordeaux although it is fair to say we do not have as much documentary evidence for towns of the duchy other than Bordeaux.

SH: Isn’t it just like London having its own foreign merchant communities, except that in Bordeaux the foreigners were more likely to be English, whereas in London there was probably a much more mixed bunch?

GP: Yes it was probably a little bit less mixed at Bordeaux than in London. You had all sorts, Germans, people from all over Europe, but the majority were English definitely, and some were integrated into the local Gascon society. You will find useful here Sandrine Lavaud’s article, ‘Une communauté enracinée : les Anglais à Bordeaux à la fin du Moyen Age’, Revue historique de Bordeaux et du département de la Gironde (Le cosmopolitisme bordelais), troisième série, 1 (2002), p. 35-48.

Speaking of the presence of merchants. This, of course, in modern imperial/colonial theory would indicate an exploitive situation - we’ve got people, English people if you like, going to Gascony and enriching themselves. The implication being that it is at the expensive of the local community.

But we also have it the other way, Gascon merchants in London, and elsewhere. They were particularly keen to be considered as equals to the English when they were settled in England. We find in the Gascon Rolls, and in the Rolls of Parliament as well, since it is copied into both, a petition of the people of Guyenne living in England (1411), and who had married someone in England, and who were doing trade in London on a permanent basis. They asked to be considered as the same as English, who had been born in England. They claimed that they were often being called aliens and that for them was an insult. (The reference in the Gascon roll is C 61/113, m. 9, entry no. 99, and in the Rolls of Parliament C 65/72 – the whole text of that is given at the end of this essay).

There was recently an article in the English Historical Review linked to England’s Immigrants project (B Lambert and Mark Ormrod, ‘Friendly Foreigners and International warfare: Resident Aliens and the Early History of Denization in England c. 1250-1400’, EHR, vol 130 (2015), 1-24.. I alerted them to this petition by the people of Guyenne in 1411. Interestingly, England’s immigrants project found that there were no letters of denization granted to Gascon after 1411, but the article does not make the explicit link. Technically Gascons were not aliens although on some occasions in our period they were treated as though they were.

AC: I think ifs rather like nowadays where there are different sorts of forms of identify, or kind of rights. It is interesting that some muster rolls of soldiers, particularly those in Normandy and occasionally in Ireland, had a notion that you should limit recruitment to people born in England. Birth was therefore seen as significant, and certainly at the end of the Hundred Years War there was a concern about those whose wives had been born outside this realm. So you could be a subject of the king of England as the Gascons were, but not born in England.

I think this ethnic element is what still makes people think there is a colonial or imperial aspect. It is the idea of an English king ruling Gascons. It is rather like a parallel with Algeria which became three départements of France, yet which is still seen as foreign rule because you have got French people ruling over people who consider themselves to have a different ethnic identity.

Surely it was the same with attitudes to the Welsh wasn’t it? England and Wales were united, there was no separation at all. The prince of Aquitaine – in the case of the Black Prince - was the same idea as the prince of Wales – both were heirs to their royal father. And yet there was a sense of different ethnicity. In Wales too English people had certain rights that the Welsh did not have. But there again, Wales was a conquest whereas Aquitaine was not. The parallel with Ireland is closer in a sense, with the pale and an area which would look much more like western Gascony, especially Bordeaux and its vicinity.

GP: But without the support of the local population of Bordeaux Anglo-Gascon Aquitaine would have collapsed long before 1451-1453.

AC: So isn’t therefore the key to understanding this that the French monarchy wanted control of geographical France, and got more worked up about this when an English king was claiming to be king of France, particularly after the treaty of Troyes. You didn’t get this in Wales. You might have rebels, but there was not another national power that is claiming it.

PM: There are elements of integration aren’t there? We’ve only talked about the movement of peoples, but economically the wine trade going one way is reciprocated by a grain trade coming the other way.

GP: Grain and other things. After the renewal of war in 1369 there was an increase of problems on the Garonne, Dordogne and so on. This made it difficult for grain to come from the French regions so that’s why they had to compensate by greater supply from England.

AC: One thing we noted before is that Edward I was the last king of England to go to Gascony. The kings obviously go to Ireland pretty infrequently. Richard II did, but I don’t think any of the others go there. And Wales, they very rarely go there except in the Glendower rebellion. So we shouldn’t emphasize the fact that kings don’t go to Gascony since nor did they go to Wales or Ireland much. It is often a point that’s made, and it is argued that it shows lack of royal interest in Gascony but in fact it doesn’t.

GP: The lack of interest is because the king have their own priorities just as the Gascons do. I have published an article about a song of the time of Edward II or the beginning of the Hundred Year War which complains about the fact that the king, duke of Guyenne, is not coming. (G Pépin, ‘Le sirventés El dugat… Une chanson méconnue de Pey de Ladils sur l’Aquitaine anglo-gasconne’, Les Cahiers du Bazadais, 152 (2006), pp. 5-27.)

The Gascons were very angry about this fact. The writer, a late troubadour from Bazas called Pey de Ladils, said ‘we have suffered during 15 years, day and night because of the king of the French’. He criticised the king of England for not coming. He said the king of France had been attacking the duchy without enough help coming from England. He wrote ‘Come to in person and be brave, he writes, otherwise you are going to lose us like your ancestors lost Normandy’. (He was referring here to King John’s loss of Normandy in 1203-4 of course.)

AC: So therefore it is the presence of the French monarchy as a rival powerbase which is the crucial factor. That is what makes Gascony a different circumstance from other parts of the dominions of the English crown. It is a potential rival authority. We see that in the Hundred Years War as crucial because of the potential of appeals outside the duchy to the king of France. That situation is exploited by the king of France, and also by some inhabitants of the duchy. It created a tense situation which contributed to the beginning of the Hundred Years War in 1337.

Parliament Rolls:

TNA C 65/72

[memb. 9]

Pur les gentz de Guyen'	[On behalf of the people of Guyenne].
22. Item, une peticion feust baillee en parlement par les gentz de Guyene, en les parols q'enseuent:	22. On behalf of the people of Guyenne. Also, a petition was delivered in parliament by the people of Guyenne, as follows:
Au roy nostre tressoveraign seignur, et a toutz les atures seignurs de cest present parlement, suppliont treshumblement voz foialx lieges de vostre paiis de Guyene, que come par les grauntz oppressiouns, demolicions d'osteilx, et destruccioun de biens, et desheritementz de leurs propres heritages, et autres devoirs et appartenances quielxconqe, pluseurs d'iceulx sont deserts et mys hors par les garnes [p. iii-657][col. a] et forces de voz anemys, qi par long temps ont dure en vostre dit paiis de Guyene, come ceulx qui pur garder leur loiaulte envers vostre tresexcellente coroune ont voullu du tout de gerpir et lesser toutes leur ditz heritages et biens dessuisditz. De quoy pluseurs a cause de ce se sount retraits en vostre roialme d'Engleterre, et pluseurs autres y sont venuz demurer de leur bone gree, les quielx tant des uns qe des autres se sont mariez en vostre dit roialme en pleuseurs bones villes, et autres lieux d'icelluy; esquielx ils sont demurantz et habitantz come voz vrayes lieges, et y ount acquis par leur graund labour et travail pluseurs hostielx, terres, rendes, possessiones, et revenues. Et soit ainsy qe pleuseurs nes de vostre dit roialme par graund mespris lour font et dient de jour en jour pleuseurs injures et villanies, come de les appeller alliants, et autres pleuseurs inconvenients, les quielx injures leur sont faitz a tresgrant mespris de vostre dit paiis de Guyene, et de la graund loialte qu'ilx ont toutditz envers vostre dite coroune, et a leur perpetuel et final destruccioun come ceux qi ne scevent aller aillours pur acquerir leurs vies, leur honneur garde, si de vostre benigne grace en pite ne leur est surce purveu de remedie graciouse et covenable.	To our most sovereign lord the king and all the other lords in this present parliament, your faithful lieges of your land of Guyenne most humbly request that because of the great oppressions, demolition of houses and destruction of goods, and disinheritances of their rightful inheritances and other rights and appurtenances, many of them are destroyed and excluded by the armies [p. iii-657][col. a] and forces of your enemies, who have been in your said land of Guyenne for a long time; for those who maintain their loyalty towards your most excellent crown have been required to abandon and entirely leave all their said inheritances and aforesaid goods. On account of which many of them have withdrawn to your realm of England, and various others have come to live there willingly, and some from each of these groups have married in your said realm in various good towns and other places there; and they are living and dwelling as your true lieges and have acquired various houses, lands, rents, possessions and revenues there by their hard labour and work. However, many people who were born in your said realm through their malice do and say many injuries and evils to them day by day, such as calling them aliens, and many other undesirable names, which wrongs are committed to the great slander of your said land of Guyenne and the great loyalty which it has always shown towards your said crown, and may lead to their permanant and final destruction, since they do not know where else to go in order to protect their lives and preserve their honour, unless a gracious and suitable remedy is ordained for them on this.
Qu'il pleaise a vostre roialle magnificence, de vostre grace especiale grauntier, qe toutz maneres des gentz voz liges de vostre dite paiis de Guyenne, quielxconqe, et de quiel estat ou condicioun qe soient, qui a present sont demurans en vostre dit roiaulme, et y ont demoure, ou seront demourans par temps avenir, et leurs heirs et successours a jamays puissent estre desclarez, reputes, recordes, et publies en cest present parlement pur voz foialx liges et loiaulx, et qu'ilx puissent demurer, vendre, achatre, possedir, et acquerir terres, rendes, possessions, tenementz, et autres biens quielxconqe, pur eulx et pur leurs heirs et successours, de deins vostre dit roiaulme. Et qu'ilx puissent user, joyr, et exploiter generalment de toutz leur biens, terres, rendes, possessions, hosteilx, esmoluments, tenementz, devoirs, et revenues, par eulx acquis, ou acquerre, quielxconqe, si avant come voz autres liges nees dedeins vostre dit roiaulme d'Engleterre, come droit et raison le requirent. Et enoutre, comander et chargier estroitement a toutz voz justices, officers, subgitz, et ministres, et a chescun d'eux, et a toutz voz autres liges quielxconqe, qe a voz ditz liges de vostre dit paiis de Guyene, demurantz a present en vostre dit roialme, et qi y ont demoure, ou demoureront ou habiteront, et a leur heirs ou successours qi ores sont ou par temps avenir seront, ne facent, ne seuffrent estre fait, ou a aucun de eulx, mal, damage, force, grevance, destourbier, ne empeschement, en corps ne en leurs biens cy dessuz desclares et expressez, ne autres en nulle manere par nulle voie ou condicioun qe soit. Et si aucune chose estoit faite a l'encontre, qe prestment et sanz delay le facent reparer et mettre en estat dehu. Et surce facent inhibicioun et proclamacioun a toutz voz lieges par toutes les bones villes, et autres lieux de vostre dit roialme, qe d'ores enavant ne les vueillent appeller alliants, ne dire aucunes villenie, injures, ne reproches, sur tielle peine come a vostre tresexcellent discrecioun, par advys et deliberacioun de vostre tres honourable counseil, semblera mieulx affaire en tiel cas. Et qe toutes ces choses dessuisdites puissent estre entrees et enactes en rolle de parlement de record, et qe puissent estre proclamees par toutes les citees, burghs, et bonnes villes, et par toutes les countees d'Engleterre; pur Dieu, et en oevre de sainte charitee.	May it please your royal magnificence to grant of your special grace that all manner of your liege people from your said land of Guyenne, whomsoever, and of whatever estate or condition they be, who at present are dwelling in your said realm, or have dwelt there, or will dwell there in future, and their heirs and successors forever should be declared, considered, reported, and proclaimed in this present parliament to be your faithful and loyal lieges, and that they should be able to live, sell, buy, possess and acquire lands, rents, possessions, tenements and other goods whatsoever, for themselves and their heirs and successors, within your said realm. Also that they should be able to use, enjoy and generally benefit from all their goods, lands, rents, possessions, houses, emoluments, tenements, rights and revenues whatsoever acquired or to be acquired by them, as fully as your other lieges born within your said realm of England, as right and reason demand. And moreover to order and charge urgently all your justices, officers, subjects and ministers, and all your other lieges whomsoever, that to none of your said lieges of your said land of Guyenne who are presently dwelling in your said realm, or who have dwelt or will dwell or live there, and their present and future heirs or successors, will they cause, nor suffer to be caused, harm, damage, force, grievance, hindrance, or impeachment against their persons or goods, as declared and expressed above, or otherwise in any way or by any means. And if anything should be done against them, that they should make amends and redress it at once and without delay. Whereupon let them issue a prohibition and proclamation to all your lieges throughout all the major towns and other places in your said realm that henceforward they will not call them aliens, nor speak any evil, injuries, or insults, under threat of whatever penalty seems best in accordance with your most excellent discretion, with the advice and deliberation of your most honourable council in this matter. And that all these aforesaid things should be entered and recorded on the roll of the record of parliament, and that they should be proclaimed throughout all the cities, boroughs and good towns, and throughout all the counties of England; for God, and by way of holy charity.
Quele peticion lue et entendue feust responduz en la fourme q'enseute: le roy, de l'advys et assent des seignurs espirituelx et temporelx en plein parlement, ad grauntez ceste peticion, et q'ils ent aient litteres patentes et briefs de temps en temps, tantz et tielx come serront bosoignables en le cas.	Which petition having been read and heard, reply was given as follows: The king, by the advice and assent of the lords spiritual and temporal in full parliament, has granted this petition, and that they should have letters patent concerning it and writs from time to time, as many and such as will be necessary in this matter.

Appeals to the King in the Period of the Principality of Aquitaine.

2016-08-23T23:00:00+00:00

By Simon Harris

The problems of appealing legal cases in Aquitaine has received a considerable amount of attention from historians. During the reigns of Edward I and II, the kings struggled to prevent their authority being deliberately undermined by appeals out of their jurisdiction. After the assumption of the crown of France by Edward III, the problem changed. The situation was more dramatically transformed by the treaty of Brétigny which granted an enlarged duchy of Aquitaine to Edward III and his successors in full sovereignty, a grant that permitted Edward III to create an appanage – the principality of Aquitaine - for Edward of Woodstock, his eldest son and heir (better known to us by his sobriquet of the Black Prince). This short presentation will consider the background to the problem of appealing process, and will examine the treatment of appeals to the king in the time of the principality of Aquitaine.

During the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, their lordship was placed within the strictures of the treaty of Paris of 1259. By this treaty the kings of England had recognised their feudal dependence of the kings of France, and as a consequence of this the king of France, through the arena of the parlement of Paris, became the last stage of the appealing process. This meant that in judicial affairs the authority of the king of England as duke of Aquitaine could be overruled by an appeal to the king of France as overlord. At the time of the making of the treaty of Paris, the relationship between the kings of France and England was good, and this appeals situation could be managed in a way acceptable to both kings. However, as the relationship between subsequent kings deteriorated in the late thirteenth century, and the early fourteenth century, and the kings of France from Philip IV onwards became more assertive in their authority, the appeals process became an active means of challenging and undermining the power and jurisdiction of the king/dukes. Appeals to the parlement of Paris became numerous, and because the appeals process suspended all legal action against the appellant, and placed them under French royal protection, the legal system in Aquitaine could be paralyzed, and French royal officials often entered the duchy of Aquitaine to carry out French royal orders concerning the appeal. Both Edward I and II attempted to limit the appeals both by heavy handed intimidation against potential appellants, and by administrative devices, but none of these could prevent numerous appeals still being directed to Paris.

The problem for the king/dukes was effectively brought to an end in 1340 when Edward III assumed the title of king of France. Once Edward held both the title of king of England and of France, in addition to the title of duke of Aquitaine, Edward became the last stage of appeal for appellants from within his jurisdiction, effectively excluding the parlement of Paris. However, it is curious to note that appeals originating from the duchy of Aquitaine were received by Edward III as king of France, and not by his other titles of king of England, or duke of Aquitaine.

The situation was further modified by the treaty of Brétigny/Calais in 1359-60. By this treaty Edward III renounced his claim to the crown of France in return for a grant of an enlarged duchy of Aquitaine, held in full sovereignty. Of course this did not change the situation that had existed since 1340, with Edward III and his successors, remaining as the last stage of appeal, but it did mean that with the enlarged duchy, that substantial areas that had not been under the rule of the king/dukes since the earlier thirteenth century and the final days of the Angevin Empire, or had never been under such rule, now had to direct their appeals initially to Bordeaux, and then to London, and not to Paris.

Secure in the rule of the enlarged duchy in full sovereignty, Edward III took the opportunity to create a semi-independent appanage for Edward of Woodstock. The principality of Aquitaine gave the newly created prince a great deal of independence from his father, as well as a great new title to augment those already held by the prince – prince of Wales, duke of Cornwall and earl of Chester. But it also threatened to recreate the judicial problems of appeal from the position that had existed before 1340 by allowing appeals from the prince’s jurisdiction to that of his father.

So how was this situation managed? It should be said that Edward III made it very clear at the time of the grant of the principality that he retained his full rights of overlordship, including those concerning judicial appeals. The grant of the principality to the prince on 19 July 1362 was made giving him power over his principality including ‘high, middle and low justice’, and this was to be held:

‘just as the king holds them now, has held them or the king’s ancestors held them at any time (C 61/75, Entry 54)’

However, a further entry had to be made on the same date to clarify an oversight in the grant, a grant that was already a reissue of a previous version that had made the astonishing omission of the cities of Bordeaux and Bayonne. The entry was made to clarify the position of judicial authority:

C 61/75, Entry 50.

19 July 1362. The palace of Westminster.

[marginated] For Edward, prince of Aquitaine and Wales.

Announcement that the king has reserved for himself the direct lordship, sovereignty and resort (la directe, toute la soveranité et ressort) of the principality of Aquitaine and Gascony, although he has given to his elder son Edward of Woodstock, prince of Wales, the title of prince of Aquitaine for his lifetime by his letters patent that follow. …

The position was further confirmed by yet another document on the same day when it was stated that Edward III declared that:

‘… the direct lordship, all the sovereignty and resort should remain forever to the king, exercising the same as the king sees fit, the king not wishing to give up and transfer the same to his son, by the said title of the principality …’

The prince confirmed the situation by promising:

‘… his father full obedience, without making any contradiction or impediment on anything touching direct appeal to his father’s sovereignty;’

So what provision then did Edward III make for the hearing of appeals during the time of his son’s lordship in Aquitaine? At the most basic levels appeals came directly to Edward III in England. However, Edward does not seem initially to have had a fixed plan, for on 26 November 1362, he sent orders to the various seneschals of the divisions of the newly enlarged Aquitaine to summon the ecclesiastical and lay lords of his jurisdiction, as well as mayors, consuls and communes of their jurisdiction, to suggest central places where appeals to the king’s court of sovereignty, should be held (C 61/75, Entry 121).

Ultimately Edward III seems to have been content to delegate the hearing of appeals to others, usually individuals in Aquitaine, who would presumably have greater knowledge of, or at least the opportunity to examine the case more closely. In an entry of 26 February 1365, the case of Arnold Savage, a former lieutenant of the seneschal of Aquitaine, the prince of Aquitaine’s seneschal, the lord of Pommiers and Esteve de Caseton, lord of Gourdon, were ordered to examine another appeal by Jenkin Mouton which was attempting to overturn a judgment against Mouton, who had been captured by Savage and who had subsequently escaped, and who had killed a kinsman of Savage during his recapture. (C 61/78, Entry 27).

That the process of appeal first to the prince of Aquitaine and then to the king of England was causing an intolerable delay in the doing of justice, can be found in an entry whereby the king delegated further power to his son to streamline the appeal process. However, the king still reserved the right of further appeal. (C 61/78, Entry 33)

The king began to make a clearer delegation of authority on 8 June 1366. In an appeal brought by Ramon II de Montaut, lord of Mussidan, against Ramfré de Montpezat, lord of Montpezat, the king delegated the appeal to the archbishop of Aquitaine, the abbot of la Sauve-Majeure, and Arnaut Desclaus, canon of Bordeaux. (C 61/79, Entry 59)

On other occasions Edward III sent the hearing of appeals back to his son, with an enjoinder to the prince to do justice ‘so that no further complaints are made to the king for default of justice’, such as the complaint made by Jeanne Maingot, lady of Surgères on 24 October 1366. (C 61/79, Entry 106).

During the remainder of the principality, Edward III continued to delegate his appeals jurisdiction to leading clerical and lay figures in Aquitaine. The retention of these powers seems to have been an awkward intrusion into his son’s jurisdiction. Whether this arrangement could have been continued in the long-term is impossible to know. However, the problem of the appeals process was ultimately resolved by the collapse of the principality of Aquitaine, and with the resignation of the prince in October 1372.

Trials in England noted in the Gascon rolls

2016-08-23T23:00:00+00:00

Guilhem Pépin (GP) in discussion with Anne Curry (AC), Simon Harris (SH) and Philip Morgan (PM), August 2015

GP: Among the trials taking place in England mentioned in the Gascon Rolls the most interesting example is the trial at Westminster, opposing Augerot de Saint-Pée against and James Hersage because the latter had obtained for life the lordship of Gamarde in 1438. Augerot de Saint-Pée was a Basque noble from Labourd and represented there two Gascon lords of the Landes, Arnaut-Guilhem de Caupenne, lord of Osserain, and Bernadon and the lord of Cauna, near Saint-Sever. And he represented as well two troops of men-at-arms from Dax and Saint-Sever who had besieged the Gamarde in 1435. In 1441 the earl of Huntingdon, then king’s lieutenant of Aquitaine had granted them one thousand pounds on the revenues of Gamarde to repay them of the cost of the siege. When Augerot appeared in Westminster, he asserted that according to the Magna Carta he should have been summoned in the Court of Common Law, not at Westminster. And he also asserted that the places conquered in Guyenne had to be left to the conquerors and as a law of England and the law of Guyenne were different. It suggested indirectly that this case should be relocated in Guyenne. However the king and his council nullified the grant to the Gascon lords and confirmed it Harsage on 10 March 1442.

This decision had bad consequences and Caupenne and Cauna rallied to Charles VII after his ‘Journée de Tartas’ (his expedition to Gascony) in 1442, and Harsage, captain of the castle of Dax submitted to the same king when his castle was about to be besieged, after the town of Dax had surrendered. He took an oath to this king and even took the white cross, the symbol of the French, so it was a case of

We have also another trial trial copied in the Gascon Rolls and taking place in England in 1450, almost at the end of the Anglo-Gascon period. Pey de Montferrand a descendant of the lords of Lesparre through the Soudans de la Trau family (one of them having been knight of the Garter) also requested the relocation of a trial, opposing him to the duke of Exeter, Henry Holland, for the possession of the lordship of Lesparre. It was a very great lordship in the Médoc, near Bordeaux. Montferrand has not been impatient, as we learn that he occupied by force in 1451 the town and lordship of Lesparre. In fact, he did not wait for the conclusion of the trial. But, as Bordeaux surrendered to the French on 23 June 1451, the ad hoc commission appointed by Henry VI never gathered and Montferrand did not keep his conquest.

PM: That’s a very interesting reference to Magna Carta. Were you surprised by it Guilhem, when you saw it?

GP: Yes, particularly because it is mentioned by a king’s subject of the duchy of Aquitaine and not by the James Harsage, the Englishman. So either Augerot was advised an English lawyer and it is quite likely, either he had made several unnoticed stays in England and he has learned about those sorts of things, because it was quite well know. The basic principles of course, he should not have known the details of the Magna Carta.

PM: So he didn’t cite a specific cause of Magna Carta?

GP: Not, he just said that he had to be heard on a court of the common Law, and it was probably not a court of common law where he was summoned at Westminster. But it is an interesting mention, particularly because he underlined logically enough that the legal system in Guyenne (or Aquitaine) was different from England. It is another evidence that the duchy was not a regular colony in the sense the English laws have not been applied to Aquitaine. There was a specific legal system. I do not known if it was the same in Ireland or Wales.

PM: Well if you work on the basis that the one big independent lordship in England has its own Magna Carta, you wonder whether Magna Carta is just applied to England, and if you’re going to extend it you would have to different charters, for instance, Ranulf III of Chester issues his own Magna Carta. What is the outcome of this case? I mean, they just ignored his reference to Magna Carta did they?

GP: Yes it was just an argumentation in a way. In the end it was given to Harsage as I said, and the local lords who expended a lot of money to conquer Gamarde dit it not only for the king of England, but also for their own interest. They were not happy with the outcome of the decision, and it was a bad decision in a sense, probably when the ‘Journée de Tartas’ (Charles VII’s expedition of Gascony in 1442) took place, a lot of Landais nobles whose families were faithful to the king of England since the 13^th century and the 12^th century sometimes, rallied to Charles VII because he was the strongest, and also maybe as they had bad experience with Henry VI”s government with that sort of decision, promoting in this case without good reason an Englishman, foreign to the place. Particularly someone like Harsage, who finally was not very courageous because he surrendered very quickly to Charles VII and he openly submitted to him.

So its particular circumstances of the threats that the French were imposing in the early 1440s. The second case of 1450 is interesting, because it strikes me that the Hollands, who had, sort of got control of territories and this is Henry Holland, the duke of Exeter. Maybe Pey de Montferrand felt in the opposition of such an important peer, the only thing he could do was appeal to the king in England. Pey de Montferrand must have thought that the only way to become lord of Lesparre, was to take Lesparre and to impose his authority de facto.

AC: Pey de Montferrand was married to Mary Bedford. The illegitimate daughter of John duke of Bedford?

GP: Yes, exactly and he has been married just before the death of this duke, because we learns in the Gascon Rolls that the dowry of Mary Bedford promised by her father had not been paid. So clearly it was before his death. And accordingly to what Anne Curry told me Pey de Montferrand’s father, the lord of Montferrand, Bertran III was in the household of Bedford.

AC: He was. And quite an important captain in Normandy.

GP: But it’s interesting that it’s only in these final years that there seems to be a change of policy, where you do get a lot of English lords in the duchy of Aquitaine. Holding land and getting grants of land. Even under the principality of Aquitaine of the Black Prince (1362-72), there were not that many English obtaining lands and revenues there.

Making maps

2014-08-20T17:00:09+00:00

Research materials on this site include a map displaying the political geography of medieval Aquitaine. While a useful resource in its own right, the map is difficult to overlay directly onto a user interface for various reasons:

* It is based on IGN maps, which use the Lambert projection, while in general (as previously discussed), we tend to use WGS-84. This leads to variations that are individually quite small, but visible in aggregate.
* It is a raster image (even though it is stored inside a PDF). If it were a vector image, the lines that make up the map would look smooth at any zoom level. Raster images start to look 'jagged' as the user zooms in.
* We do not know the exact correspondence between points on the raster map and WGS-84 coordinates.

Fortunately, this is quite a common problem in GIS and one for which there are several solutions. In this post, we talk through the use of the freeware software application QGiS to help solve each of these problems.

Step 1: Load some reference data into QGIS

Before we try to match the map, we ideally need something to match it to. For this purpose, we download a set of shapefiles of France and load them into QGIS. This gives us an idea of the overall outline of the country's shoreline, which has not changed significantly. We also load a detailed set of outlines of current local geographical boundaries - 'communes'.

Step 2: Georeferencing

Georeferencing in general refers to the assignment of physical coordinates to objects such as elements on a map. In this case, we will use the georeferencing tool from the Raster menu to estimate the correct placement and projection/distortion to apply to our medieval map, in order that it is correctly overlaid on our reference map of France.

First we load our raster file. Once loaded, we choose a number of reference points that we know have not changed greatly, such as city centres mentioned on the map or geographical features. Working in WGS-84, we enter each point, along with the known coordinates of that reference point. When we have enough reference points spread across the map, we ask QGiS to estimate the best fit, to enable us to merge the maps.

Once we have identified our preferred means of fitting the two maps together (which is to say, we would like to ensure that all the points of reference chosen are in approximately the same place; if that results in a slightly misshapen coastline, then so be it), we accept this solution and move on to Step 3. Essentially, we are seeking a best fit allowing us to minimise error.

Step 3: Drawing (or adapting) regions to represent the map data

On a new layer, we now draw around the boundaries represented in the raster map to create polygons representing the areas in the map. In so doing, we will retain the existing French shapefiles, using them as a target to 'snap to' in the event that they happen to be close to our boundary. This can be justified on the grounds that the boundaries are often geographic in nature. Given that the raster map is not very precise, these boundaries may sometimes offer a better estimate of the 'right' position for the boundary to fall.

Step 4: Validation

We now load all the point data for the major and minor cities represented in the original map. If one of these cities falls in the wrong location, particularly on the wrong side of a boundary, it is a sign that our map is not quite correct. Because the allegiance of cities is likely to be validated against historical sources, we prefer to ensure that the cities fall in the correct administrative zone. In the event, we identify one city on the wrong side of a boundary. There are also a couple of small locations that do not appear quite where they are expected to be on the map, in particular Lourdes. A few such issues are not unexpected, given that we are working from a hand-sketched map.

Step 5: Use

Now that we have a set of polygons representing regions in medieval Gascony, we can use these support various activities. Polygons can be used in search and retrieval ('find all points that lie within this polygon' - that is, 'find all events that occurred within a given seneschalcy'). They can also be used for display purposes.

Visualising spatial data

2014-08-14T20:15:07+00:00

In earlier posts in this series, we covered the geocoding of French locations and discussed the shape of the resulting dataset. To recap briefly:

Place entities are resolved into a geographic point. We do not at this stage consider the boundaries or area of a given region; we simply look up the centrepoint of the region in question in a large lookup table and, metaphorically, stick a pin in the map at that point.
The coordinates of each point are stored in WGS-84, which is something of a lingua franca for display of spatial coordinates. Therefore, it is possible to use the coordinates directly in software packages such as Google Maps and OpenLayers.
Many place entities appear infrequently; a small number of place names appear very frequently.
Overall, we have a large number of individual data points, but many of them refer to the exact same point on the map.

In this post, we will explore some approaches to visualisation of this data using the statistical computing software package R. These examples will use a set of French location entity instances, based in the Bordeaux region.

Plotting coordinates on a map

Let's start by plotting the coordinate set directly onto a map. We will simply fill each occupied point with a red dot.We will also draw in the political boundaries of France and neighbouring countries as they exist today, using the rworldmap library. It is true that historical boundaries may be more informative, but in general, visualisation packages are intimately tied to the geography of the present day. For the time being, at least the use of present-day shapefiles (that is, geographical data files describing the vector graphic that forms the boundary of a given geometric shape (country, county, lake, river) provides us with an entry point into the visualisation.

We run the following code:

library(rworldmap) # use the rworldmap library
newmap <- getMap(resolution = "low")

# get a world map.
# Keep the resolution low; the higher the resolution, the larger the file 
# and processing time (but better quality output)

plot(newmap, xlim=c(-5,9),ylim=c(44,52), asp=1) # just plot France and a bit of England and western Europe
data<-read.csv("place-data.dat", header=FALSE,sep="\t"); # Read the file from CSV
colnames(data) <- c('cal','lat','lon'); # Retrofit titles onto the data file
points(as.numeric(data$lon), as.numeric(data$lat), col = "darkred", cex = .1)
dev.off();

There; we've plotted the data points onto a graph. The output looks like this:

Periphally, it looks reasonably appropriate. There are a few minor issues; for example, there is a point rather too near the sea by La Rochelle. There are two likely reasons for that:

The shapefile drawn in the background does not include detailed mapping information and it would appear that the Ile de Ré, for example, is not included at this level of detail (recall that we intentionally avoid working with highly detailed maps).
The transformation between Lambert and WGS coordinates leads to arbitrarily high accuracy; we chop it to 2 decimal places to keep the filesize down. This no doubt leads to a few minor inaccuracies.

There's a third problem, too, although it is not obvious solely from looking at this map. It is this:some of these points have thousands of pins stuck in them, but most have just one or two.

The Robin Hood problem

Computers are perfect marksmen. If a computer is asked to stick a point in a map at a precise point, it will do exactly that. As a consequence, where multiple coordinate sets refer to the same point, this visualisation does not show the frequency of references to that point. It draws the same image whether one record or a hundred thousand records refer to a given point.

How should we fix this? One solution offered by R is the jitter() function, otherwise known as jogging Robin Hood's elbow, causing him to miss on purpose. Yes, this adds a small variation to the coordinates plotted, resulting in a random spread (Gaussian or normal distribution) around the targeted point. This is unlikely to be beautiful (we have essentially smudged the ink on the map) but it will give us a better idea of the true density of points on the map.

In one sense, this is a great improvement: it gives a better idea of the density of points identified. On the other hand, it is clear that the number of data points is overwhelming. Additionally, the sparseness of the underlying map tile is visually boring and uninformative.

Mosaic tiling

If, instead of using dots, we tile in sections across the map (like a mosaic, using colour to symbolise the denseness of coverage of the area), we can use a semi-transparent overlay over a detailed map of France. For this, we use the ggmap library instead of rworldmap.

library(ggmap)
library(RColorBrewer)
pdf("mapped2.pdf",width=10,height=10);
map<-get_map(location='France',zoom=6); # get a detailed map from Google Maps
# load data as before...
chart2<-ggmap(map) #print out the map
chart2<- chart2+geom_tile(data=instancedata, aes(x=round(lon, digits=1), y=round(lat, digits=1),
     fill=log(freq)), alpha=0.7, contour=TRUE)+ scale_fill_gradientn(colours=brewer.pal(9,"OrRd"))+
     guides(fill=FALSE) + theme(legend.position="none");
chart2 # print out the chart
dev.off() # close the file

Using an orange colour scheme (the 'OrRd' colour scheme provided by RColorBrewer) the result looks like this:

From this more detailed map, it is possible to see that one of the most densely referenced (reddest) areas is the centrepoint of Bordeaux.

Interpreting geocoded data

2014-08-10T12:11:44+00:00

In the first post of this series, we covered the geocoding of entities in metropolitan France using INSEE data and entity data provided by expert indexers.

This process rapidly generates a large number of data points. Even though the currently published Gascon Rolls contain only a subset of the full dataset, there are already many thousands of unique entities encoded into the XML. A large subset of these appear more than once. To see what this means, it is useful to begin by describing the data model in use in the Gascon Rolls.

Data model in the Gascon Rolls

The Gascon Rolls, predictably enough, is composed of a series of rolls. These are literal rolls of material, composed of a large number of individual pieces of parchment ('membranes'), held together with a sprawling, wide-gauged zigzag stitch. The physical rolls are held by the British Archive at Kew.

This provides us with the first two components of our data model: a roll containing multiple membranes. Each membrane contains a number of entries. Each entry typically contains references to one or more entities.

So far so good: geocoding information from entities contained within an entry can therefore be used to geocode entries, membranes and rolls. Right?

Yes… and no.

Entity frequency in the Gascon Rolls

The distribution of place entities across the currently published subset of the Gascon Rolls is shown in the graphs below:

Graph: Distribution of place entities in the currently published subset of the Gascon Rolls

To make these graphs, we have counted the number of times that each place appears in the Gascon Rolls, and ordered them by descending number of appearances. For example, Westminster is the most popular location in the rolls, so it is ranked first. You will note that the frequency count descends very rapidly; the second most popular location appears only about a fifth as often as the most popular location, and so on.

This might seem surprising, but in fact this type of distribution is very common and has been widely studied during the last century. A German physicist, Felix Auerbach, identified a similar phenomenon in population distribution in cities[1], which he described as 'Das Gesetz der Bevölkerungskonzentration', the law of population concentration. This law proposes that city size distribution follows a power law. From a common-sense perspective, this seems logical: there are many small villages, a small number of towns and a very small number of cities. Rank the cities, towns and villages by population, and you would expect something a little bit like our left-hand graph.

Other researchers, such as the American linguist George Kingsley Zipf[1], followed this observation through into other domains and areas of analysis, asking: in which areas is this distribution visible, and why does this arise?

It's a little early for us to say that the distribution of royal attention follows any strict power-law distribution. Many things look like a power law which aren't[2], and those with an interest in statistical analysis will note that the (log-log) graph to the right demonstrates that the distribution of place entities is rather jagged, especially in the top few entries: our distribution is moderately irregular. That having been said, it does not seem intuitively unreasonable; perhaps we may further discuss proxy indicators for medieval populations at some later time.

Practical implications for the use of geocoded data

Leaving behind the statistical technobabble, this 'long-tail' distribution (a few popular locations, many less popular locations) has practical implications for the use of this data. As we have seen in the above section, a few entities are almost ubiquitous. These entities are, therefore, not very distinctive. They do not tell you a great deal about the subject matter of a particular entry.

Compare with the frequency of words in the English language. The most common words include 'a', 'and' and 'the', but if one were building a text classification algorithm, one generally wouldn't want to classify a text according to the presence of these words, because they carry no information about the ways in which a text differs from any other. These are called 'stop-words' in search engine design, and they are typically filtered out by search engines at an early stage. They are the building blocks of a grammatically accurate English-language text, so their presence does not imply a particular type of text.

As one 'zooms out' from the entry level to the membrane, or even the roll, we begin to find ourselves with a large number of data points, always distributed in a broadly similar manner: a large number of occurrences of a small number of geographical locations, and a large number of geographical locations that appear only very seldom. A 'grammatically accurate' entry in the Gascon Rolls will tend to include a reference to Westminster in the majority of cases. Westminster is the seat of government throughout the majority of this time period; entries tend to contain what is, in effect, creation metadata referring to the seat of government. Westminster is, therefore, rather like a geographical 'stop-word', and we may not wish to consider those data points if we are looking to answer questions like, "How did the focus of the Rolls change geographically over time?" Classifying rolls, membranes or entries by geographical entity involves more than a 'word cloud' approach; we are interested not only in which locations are most common, but which are the most characteristic.

We will explore this subject further in later posts. In our next post, however, we'll discuss the visualisation of geocoded points.

References

[1] Rybski D (2013), "Auerbach’s legacy" Environment and Planning A 45(6) 1266 – 1268. Available from http://www.envplan.com/openaccess/a4678.pdf

[2] Shalizi, C (2007). So You Think You Have A Power Law - Well, Isn't That Special? Available from http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/491.html

First steps in geocoding

2014-08-05T10:15:14+00:00

As part of the calendaring process, historians working on the Gascon Rolls routinely identify and encode a variety of types of entity: people, places, things, entry type and so forth. This information, whilst useful in itself, may be considered most useful when placed in a broader aggregate context. How did things change throughout the life of this foothold of English royalty in France? Did the focus move over time, from one town to another, or from one wealthy family to the next?

Answering these questions and others involves the enhancement of the entity information held by the project to allow us to store and present as much information as possible about the entities involved and the contexts in which events occurred and transactions were made. In plain terms; we would like to be able to answer the core metadata questions of who, what, when, where: the answers to these questions can become useful evidence to underlie speculation about the fifth W: 'why'.

In this blog post we cover the geocoding of entities. In later posts, we'll talk about the use of this information to connect calendar entries and membranes (that is, images of the 'pages' of the Rolls) and show how the resulting dataset can be visualised using the open-source R data analysis and statistics package.

This geospatial work is part of the Bordeaux and Leverhulme funding phases of the Gascon Rolls project;we're collaborating with the team at Bordeaux led by Frederic Boutoulle and Francoise Lainé on geospatial issues.

From names to numbers

By convention, the Gascon Rolls encoding process includes the provision of basic location information: name of locality, region and so forth. For example, Westminster is linked to other entities in the location hierarchy including its parent, London. Consequentially, this encoding provides partial address information. These can be geocoded (that is, we can establish the approximate geographic coordinates belonging to that entity) using an approprate address/ location database.

In the case of French locations, the Gascon Rolls project has made use of a dataset provided by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) which provides location name, 'partial address', unique identifier (INSEE code) and location coordinates. Using this, it becomes possible to resolve many location entities into coordinate sets.

Frames of reference

There's more to be done before these coordinates can be used with standard web APIs. One might be forgiven for presuming that there is just one standard for sharing coordinates, but in fact this is not so; far from it. There are two broad approaches for describing geographic positions on the surface of the planet, which is more or less a (slightly bulgy) sphere. The first is to model the planet as more or less a bulgy sphere, and describe the positions accordingly; "the place we're interested in is this far from the equator and this far around the world from a convenient baseline". An example of this is the World Geodetic System, which happens to be essentially the approach used by Google. It is therefore of particular interest to us, since many programming tools have adopted this convention.The second approach is to give up on the sphere and flatten out the planet instead, or at least that part of the planet which interests you, into a flat sheet.

Our INSEE data, for example, is encoded in a particular coordinate system often used in metropolitan France, Lambert-93. This is a conic map projection method intended to provide good coverage over France. This essentially involves using a conical surface to approximate the surface of the Earth where the cone is in contact with the surface of the sphere.

To see how that might work, take a piece of paper and form it into a cone-shaped paper hat, something like a dunce's cap. Now perch it at a jaunty angle on the planet, or a reasonable facsimile. Then trace the national boundaries onto the paper; this is more difficult to do in person than using a computer, because distortion can be minimised by allowing the paper to pass underneath the surface of the globe at some points. In any case, when you've finished, take the cap off the planet, remove the sticky tape and flatten the paper back out. The quality of the result will depend on whether you have chosen to perch the cap at a sensible angle. Some Lambert projections look positively majestic. Lambert-93 stipulates that the cap must be placed on the planet at just the right angle and height to display France with minimal distortion. It uses the reference parallels of 44°N and 49°N: that is, the cone hits the sphere at the 49°N, and pops out again at 44°N.

If the above process proves to be a little difficult to imagine, you may enjoy this YouTube visual: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGXP23icm4I

Conversion process

Lambert-93 coordinates can be converted into the standards used by most Web APIs using a conversion algorithm: an appropriate approach has been published by France's Institut Géographique National (IGN). The problem with this is that there are not very many convenient approaches for this conversion, since Lambert-93 is not widely used internationally. Industry standard tools such as QGis can perform these transforms. There are also some libraries that provide conversions. A couple of examples below:

The OpenLayers JavaScript library (code source):

viewer.getMap().getExtent().toGeometry().transform(viewer.getMap().getProjection(), new OpenLayers.Projection("IGNF:LAMB93"));

Or, using a Java library (lambert-java):

import net.yageek.lambert.*;
public static void main (String[] args) {
         ...
        xval=Double.parseDouble(args[0]);
        yval=Double.parseDouble(args[1]);
        LambertPoint pt = Lambert.convertToWGS84Deg(xval, yval, LambertZone.Lambert93);
}

A medieval Gascon view of Europe

2014-07-05T00:07:24+00:00

In which countries did the administration take an interest?

To answer this question, we will use RWorldmap, a library that I have mentioned in previous posts. RWorldmap is at its best when used for visual analytics.

The illustration below is a map showing the frequency of reference to different countries in the published Gascon Rolls.The darker blue the country, the more prominently it features in the Rolls.

The Gascon Rolls and the End of English Gascony 1451-1453

2014-05-08T09:00:29+00:00

By Anne Curry

The city of Bordeaux, capital of English Gascony, surrendered to Charles VII of France on 30 June 1451. This marked the end of effective English rule in an area of France which had been held by the English crown since the mid twelfth century. Yet the Gascon rolls do not end until 3 March 1468. That is almost seventeen years later.

Why should a Gascon roll have been continued for so long? This is one of the topics we are working on in the Leverhulme phase of the project. Here we consider the continuation of the rolls between 1451 and 1454.

An initial explanation for the continuation of the rolls is that, in both England and Gascony, there were early hopes of recovery. Richard Woodville, lord Rivers, was appointed seneschal for five years on 18 October 1451: 45 protections for men to cross in his company were enrolled on the Gascon rolls between November 1451 and April 1452 (C61/138). No expedition was in fact launched but the entries include licences for victuals to be sent to the duchy. In September 1452 John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, a veteran of the French wars, was appointed lieutenant-general for six years. He reached the duchy with his troops in October and Bordeaux was recovered on 23 October. Talbot’s successes vindicated the hopes of recovery which had supported the continuation of the Gascon rolls after 1451. But he was defeated and killed at the battle of Castillon on 17 July 1453, ‘by the unfavourable fortune of war’ as the rolls put it.

Even with news of Castillon, the government in England proposed a response and hence had reason to continue enrolments. The first entry on the Gascon roll for the regnal year 1453-54 (C61/140) is the appointment on 12 September 1453 of Sir William Bonneville as lieutenant of the duchy, and we can also see efforts to raise an army. Bonneville had not been given a fixed term appointment, but was to be in office ‘during royal pleasure’ – an expression either of optimism or imagination, depending on how one looks at these things!

Bordeaux surrendered for a second time on 19 October 1453 after a three month siege. The duchy was in enemy hands ‘against God and against justice’. News of the fall of the city was received in England by 20 November when an entry notes that it was in enemy hands ‘ut dicitur’ (C61/140 m. 8).

Many, if not the majority, of entries on the rolls between the first and second losses of Bordeaux concern Gascons. Some had taken refuge in England: grants made to them, which we find on the rolls, were an effort to persuade them to return. This seems to be a conscious policy begun in April 1452. A proclamation was issued for all those Gascons in England to appear before the royal council on 6 May to hear matters ‘for the good and utility of us and this kingdom’ (C61/138 m. 12). Right up to the battle of Castillon there are a large number of grants of offices and lands in the duchy to Gascons and also to Englishmen who had served in the duchy. We have found 33 grants between early June and 31 August 1452 (C61/138), with a further 19 in the roll for 1452-3 (C61/139).

The sirventés (political song) ‘El dugat…’, A little known song of Pey de Ladils on the Anglo-Gascon Aquitaine

2014-05-07T08:01:15+00:00

By Guilhem Pépin

Le sirventés ‘el dugat…’. Une chanson méconnue de Pey de Ladils sur l’Aquitaine anglo-gasconne (article published in French in Les Cahiers du Bazadais, 152 (2006), pp. 5-27)

Attributed for a long time to the late troubadour from Rouergue Ramon de Cornet, the sirventés, (political song in langue d’oc) El dugat… is in reality the work of Pey de Ladils, a Gascon troubadour originating from Bazas who wrote it during the war of Saint-Sardos (1324-5) between the king of England – duke of Aquitaine (the king-duke) Edward II, and the king of France Charles IV. This song is one of the last literary remnants giving us the viewpoint of a Gascon of the English party. Pey de Ladils strongly criticizes the king-duke Edward II, the first king-duke who never came to Gascony and who did not come to defend the Gascons of the duchy of Aquitaine against the attacks of the king of France. However, this song does not favour the king of France either, and is after all an expression of the fidelity of the Gascons of the duchy towards the king of England – duke of Aquitaine.

Le sirventés ‘El dugat…’. Une chanson méconnue de Pey de Ladils sur l’Aquitaine anglo-gasconne

2014-05-07T07:57:44+00:00

Guilhem Pépin

Le sirventés ‘El dugat…’. Une chanson méconnue de Pey de Ladils sur l’Aquitaine anglo-gasconne (article publié dans Les Cahiers du Bazadais, n° 152, 2006, p 5-27)

Longtemps attribué au troubadour tardif Rouergat Ramon de Cornet, le sirventés (chanson politique en langue d’oc) El dugat… est en fait l’œuvre de Pey de Ladils, un troubadour tardif gascon originaire de Bazas, qui l’écrivit pendant la guerre de Saint-Sardos (1324-1325) entre le roi d’Angleterre – duc d’Aquitaine (roi-duc) Édouard II et le roi de France Charles IV. Cette chanson est donc l’un des rares vestiges littéraires qui nous donne l’opinion d’un Gascon du parti anglais. Pey de Ladils y critique fortement le roi-duc Édouard II, le premier roi-duc qui ne vint jamais en Gascogne et qui ne vint pas défendre les Gascons du duché d’Aquitaine contre les attaques du roi de France. Cependant, cette chanson n’est pas favorable au roi de France et est en définitive l’expression de la fidélité des Gascons du duché envers le roi d’Angleterre – duc d’Aquitaine.

Garrisons, communication routes and supplying in 1324-5: the Anglo-Gascon troops in the duchy of Aquitaine

2014-05-07T07:54:42+00:00

Françoise Bériac(-Lainé) et Sophie Cauchois,

Garnisons, voies de communication et ravitaillement en 1324-1325 : les troupes anglo-gasconnes dans le duché d’Aquitaine
(article published in French in Châteaux, routes et rivières. Actes des rencontres d’archéologie et d’histoire en Périgord les 26, 27 et 28 septembre 1997, ed. F. Bériac, A.-M. Cocula et A.-M. Dom (Bordeaux, 1998), pp. 46-71)

The summary account of the expenses of the Anglo-Gascon troops during the war of Saint-Sardos (1324-5) of the English clerk Nicholas de Huggate is held at the British Library, London. This exceptional document gives us considerable data on the number of the troops and size of the garrisons, the arrival of English troops, the organisation of their supply centred on Bordeaux as well as the Anglo-Gascon strategic measures.