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Purveyance for War and the Community of the Realm in Late Medieval England*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

W. R. Jones
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A new topic of controversy was interjected into relations between the English crown and the community of the realm during the late thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries as a result of large scale purveyancing of victuals, military supplies, and transport to provision a nation at war. The old right of purveyance or prise-taking, which permitted the king, members of his family, royal officials, and the greater nobility to preempt foodstuffs and requisition carriage for their personal use, was transformed into an elaborate mechanism for supplying English armies fighting in Scotland and France. The conflict provoked by this institutional change dominated crown-community relations in England from the latter part of Edward I's reign forward through the reign of Edward II and much of Edward III's. In order to defend private property against royal purveyance, representatives of the community experimented—especially during the period 1297 to 1362—with several methods for restricting the practice. But efforts to regulate purveyance were hindered by the ambiguous nature of the king's right, which could be viewed both as a royal prerogative and as a simple act of buying necessities for the king and his court. Further, depending on its scope and extent, purveyance by the crown could be seen either as a means of provisioning the household alone or as a form of national taxation applicable to the country at large. Occasionally during this period the community equated purveyance with regular taxation and tried to subject it to parliamentary control. Eventually, however, the nation was compelled to accept the view of purveyance as a commercial arrangement between English kings and their subjects based on the more or less legitimate right of the crown to take goods and services by forced loan or under promise of future payment. Accordingly, attempts to regulate it assumed the form of legislation designed to assure the prompt compensation of sellers, the accountability of the king's agents, and the punishment of corruption.

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Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , Winter 1975 , pp. 300 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1975

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Footnotes

*

A version of this paper was presented to the 1975 meeting of the Pacific Coast Conference of British Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The author expresses his appreciation to his colleagues of the Columbia University Collegium on the History of Legal and Political Thought for the opportunity to discuss some of the issues of this paper at a meeting of the Collegium.

References

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2 Prestwich, , War, Politics and Finance, p. 119.Google Scholar

3 Two versions of the treatise are printed under the title, De Speculo Regis Edwardi III, ed., Moisant, Josephus (Paris, 1891)Google Scholar. See references to the beginning of purveyance on pp. 115, 167.

4 Prestwich, , War, Politics and Finance, pp. 29ff, 114ffGoogle Scholar; SirPowicke, Maurice, The Thirteenth Century: 1215-1307 (2d. ed.; Oxford, 1962), p. 659Google Scholar. Merchants were still ordered during the fourteenth century to bring supplies into the war zones. See McKisack, May, The Fourteenth Century: 1307-1399 (Oxford, 1959), p. 242.Google Scholar

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16 Ibid., p. 119. Edward I purveyed supplies in Ponthieu, Gascony, Ireland, and England to provision his troops fighting the Welsh.

17 Ibid., p. 135. In 1303 the poor were protected by ordering that no corn should be taken from persons with less than £10 worth of goods.

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29 Select Charters and Other Illustrations of English Constitutional History from the Earliest Times to the Reign of Edward the First, ed., Stubbs, William (9th. ed.; Oxford, 1913), p. 376 (cc. 22, 23)Google Scholar. The Dictum of Kenilworth promised relief, Statutes of the Realm, I, 51 & 52 Henry III, c. 10.Google Scholar

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33 Statutes of the Realm, I, 277Google Scholar: 10 Edward III, Statute 2, c. 2. The office of the keeper of the king's war horses has been described by Neilson, Nellie, “The Forests,” in English Government at Work, I: 437–44Google Scholar. For complaints against the providers for the king's horses in 1341-44, PRO Just 1/258/5, 6d, 12.

34 This is the conclusion of Fryde, E. B., “Parliament and the French War, 1336-40,” in Essays in Medieval History Presented to Bertie Wilkinson, ed., Sandquist, T. A. and Powicke, M. R. (Toronto, 1969), p. 258Google Scholar. But Prestwich believed that the wealthiest were the most vulnerable, War, Politics and Finance, p. 135.

35 See the legislation of 1330, Statutes of the Realm, I, 262Google Scholar: 4 Edward III, c. 3; and for the problem of weights and measures, Jones, , “Rex et ministri,” p. 11.Google Scholar

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37 The best edition of the Monstraunces is that printed by Edwards, , “Confirmatio Cartarum and the Baronial Grievances,” p. 170Google Scholar; Wilkinson, translated it, Constititional History, I: 220.Google Scholar

38 Statutes of the Realm, I, 125Google Scholar: 25 Edward I, Statute de Tallagio, c. 2.

39 Ibid., I, 123: 25 Edward I, Confirmatio Cartarum, c. 6.

40 Ibid., I, 137: 28 Edward I, Articuli super Cartas, c. 2., mistranslated by the editors as “Secondarily.” For Sirde Keighley's, Henry bill, see The Parliamentary Writs and Writs of Military Summons…, ed., SirPalgrave, Francis (2 vols.; London, 1827–1834), I: 104–05Google Scholar. Prestwich stressed the continuity between the reigns of Edward I and Edward II with respect to opposition to purveyance, War, Politics and Finance, pp. 273ff.

41 Statutes of the Realm, I, 153–54Google Scholar: 2 Edward II; I, 154-55: 3 Edward II, Statute of Stamford. See also the inquiry into alleged abuses, Parliamentary Writs, ed., Palgrave, , vol. II: pt. 1, p. 41.Google Scholar

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43 Quoted by the annals of London, ibid., I: 168.

44 Statutes of the Realm, I, 158–59Google Scholar; 5 Edward II, Ordinances, cc. 4, 8, 10.

45 It has been shown that the phrase, “the king should live on his own,” referred specifically to purveyance. See Wolffe, B. P., The Royal Demesne in English History (London, 1971), pp. 48–49.Google Scholar

46 Maddicott, , Thomas of Lancaster, pp. 173–74, 327Google Scholar; Davies, James Conway, The Baronial Opposition to Edward II (New York, reprint 1967), pp. 110, 318–20Google Scholar. In 1315 the king confirmed the statute of Westminster I's exemption of the clergy, for which see the annals of London, Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, I, 234–36Google Scholar. That abusive and corrupt purveyance continued, however, is shown by the complaint of an anonymous member of the regular clergy writing to the king's confessor in 1316, which is quoted by the monk of Malmesbury, Vita Edwardi Secundi Monachi Cuiusdam Malmesberiensis, ed. and trans., Denholm-Young, N. (London, 1957), p. 75Google Scholar and Introduction, p. xvii.

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