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Kings, Lords and Liberties in the March of Wales, 1066–1272

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

R. R. Davies
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Extract

The lords of the March of Wales enjoyed a remarkable position within the dominions ruled by the kings of England in the thirteenth century. They were subjects of the king and held their lands, in Wales as in England, of him as feudal tenants; but within their Marcher lordships they claimed and exercised a measure of authority unsurpassed elsewhere within the king's dominions. The nature of that authority was not the subject of a contemporary treatise or of a quo warranto inquiry; but that it was of the most comprehensive seems evident enough. Within his lordship the Marcher lord was governor and universal landlord; only the lands and the affairs of the church lay beyond his reach. Jurisdictionally his competence was equally wide. Contemporary lawyers characterized it curtly by referring to the March as an area in which the king's writ did not run. That was to express the point negatively and inadequately. The clerks of the royal chancery put it more clearly and positively later when they declared that a Marcher lord was to enjoy ‘all royal rights, prerogatives and customs belonging to royal lordships, and all royal courts and other jurisdictions, … an authentic seal for commissions, writs and warrants, and power of appointing justices to hold sessions in eyre and other sessions and courts’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 29 , December 1979 , pp. 41 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1979

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References

1 For a fuller analysis of the range of powers claimed and exercised by the lords of the March, see Davies, R. R., Lordship and Society in the March of Wales, 1282–1400 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 217–20Google Scholar.

2 The King's writ did not run within the greater franchises of thirteenth-century England (Lapsley, G., The County Palatine of Durham (New York, 1900), p. 10, n. 2Google Scholar; Barraclough, G., The Earldom and County Palatine of Chester (Oxford, 1953), p. 10Google Scholar).

3 Calendar of Patent Rolls (henceforth Cal. Pat. Rolls), 1461–7, pp. 425–6. For an earlier definition of the ‘royal jurisdiction’ of a Marcher lord, see Calendar of Charter Rolls 1341–1417, pp. 289–90 (1383)Google Scholar.

4 For this phrase, see Calendar of Chancery Rolls Various, p. 343 (1291)Google Scholar.

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7 For examples of these phrases which, significantly, become more common from the mid-thirteenth century onwards, see Davies, , Lordship and Society, p. 217Google Scholar and the references given there.

8 Merrick, Rice, A Booke of Glamorganshire Antiquities (1578), ed.Corbett, J. A. (1877), p. 33Google Scholar: ‘As this Lordshipp before the wining thereof was a Lordship Royall and houlden of none other, soe it continued after …’. For Sir Edward Stradling, see Griffiths, R. A., ‘The Rise of the Stradlings of St. Donat's’, Morgannwg, 7 (1963), 37–47Google Scholar, and below n. 13.

9 It is not amiss to suggest that the argument of the transmission of regalian rights from native Welsh princes to their Norman or English successors seems to surface in the documents of the later-thirteenth century and then largely in the hands of royal apologists (e.g. Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. Haddan, A. W. and Stubbs, W. (Oxford, 1869), I, 598Google Scholar). Such an interpretation accords both with Edward I's view of the essentially royal origin of such rights and with the conscious fashion in which he deliberately based his territorial authority in Wales after 1284 on the principality of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd. This thesis of institutional and constitutional continuity is admirably expounded in Edwards, J. G., The Principality of Wales 1267–1967. A Study in Constitutional History (Caernarvon, 1969)Google Scholar.

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13 The two interpretations were, for example, coalesced into one in the interesting memoranda on the origins and character of Marcher lordship compiled by Sir Edward Stradling and Anthony Mansell in the late sixteenth century (National Library of Wales, Penrice and Margam MSS. 1096 and 1100). I wish to thank Dr. R. A. Griffiths for drawing my attention to these memoranda.

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18 Le Patourel, , Norman Empire, p. 63Google Scholar; Rotuli Chartarum, ed. Hardy, T. D., I, i (Record Commission, 1837), 66bGoogle Scholar. Future acquisitions in Wales are occasionally referred to in charters (e.g. Archaeologia Cambrensis (henceforth Arch. Camb.), 4th ser., XIV (1883), 148Google Scholar (‘decimam omnium rerum quas adquisiero in Wallia’, 1143–55)). For later examples of royal licences to conquer lands from the Welsh, see Cal. Pat. Rolls 1258–66, pp. 672–4 (1266).

19 Domesday Book, i, 186b.

20 Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. Chibnall, M., IV (Oxford, 1973), 139–41Google Scholar.

21 This is reflected in the frequent reference to the eventuality of war—or peace—in the legal documentation of the March (e.g. Episcopal Acts Relating to the Welsh Dioceses, ed. Davies, J. Conway (Historical Society of the Church in Wales, 1946–1948), II, L. 45 (1126)Google Scholar; The Worcester Cartulary, ed. Darlington, R. R. (Pipe Roll Soc., new series, 38 (1968), no. 256 (1175)Google Scholar; The Welsh Assize Roll 1277–84, ed. Davies, J. Conway (Cardiff, 1940), 291 (1280)Google Scholar).

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23 Davies, , Lordship and Society, p. 220Google Scholar. For references to such truces see also Close Rolls 1254–6, pp. 434–5.

24 Cartae de Glamorgan, II, 360 (1218–1230), 550 (1245)Google Scholar.

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26 For example, feudal custom refers to the practice of peers settling disputes on the boundaries of their lands (Leges Henrici Primi, ed. Downer, L. J. (Oxford, 1972), pp. 105, 320Google Scholar). For rules on the display of banners and the division of spoils, see Keen, M. H., The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages (London, 1965), pp. 101–18, 137–55Google Scholar, and Hay, D., ‘The Divisions of the Spoils of War in fourteenth-century England’, T.R.Hist.S., 5th ser., 4 (1954), 91–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 The bishops of Durham, for example, on occasion made truces and alliances with the Scots and claimed a share of all booty taken (Lapsley, , County Palatine of Durham, pp. 36–40Google Scholar). For the taking of booty as a way of life on the Scottish border see Hay, D., ‘Booty in Border Warfare’, Trans. Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 31 (1954), 148–66Google Scholar.

28 Cf. SirPowicke's, Maurice discussion of the situation in Poitou (King Henry III and the Lord Edward (Oxford, 1947), I, 166–7)Google Scholar. It was one of the customs of Poitou ‘ut magnates causas proprias invicem gladiis allegarent’ (Chronica Rogeri de Hoveden, ed. Stubbs, W. (Rolls Series, 1868–1871), III, 255Google Scholar).

29 Cartae de Glamorgan, III, 811 (1281).

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32 Domesday Book, i, 269 (‘et caput est huius terrae’). For an excellent characterization of the role of the castle in the conquest and colonization of Wales, see Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 112–14Google Scholar.

33 Episcopal Ads, I, D. 406. Cf. the grant to William Braose in 1206 of the castles of Grosmont, Skenfrith and Whitecastle with their appurtenances (Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, ed. Hardy, T. D. (Record Commission, 1835,), p. 337Google Scholar).

34 B.L., Add. MS. 10,013, fo. 3 (1391).

35 Stenton, , First Century of English Feudalism, p. 49Google Scholar.

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37 See, for example, the references to ‘theservices and aids…of the honourof Brecon’ and to a request for a claim to land to be tried ‘according to the custom of the honour of Glamorgan’: (P.R.O., Duchy of Lancaster, Ancient Deeds, series L.S. (D.L. 27), no. 1 (c. 1200); Rotulis de Oblatis et Finibus, 535 (1214)Google Scholar).

38 These issues are too large to be discussed and documented here; I hope to return to them on another occasion. For some preliminary comments and references, see Davies, , Lordship and Society, pp. 77–9Google Scholar and Davies, , ‘The Law of the March’, Welsh History Review, 5 (1970–1971), 12–15Google Scholar.

39 See, for example, reference to the honour of Gloucester ‘tam in Wallia quam in Anglia’ (Cartaede Glamorgan, II, 423). In 1240 the court of Brecon passed a fine concerning land in Bredwardine (co. Hereford) held of the honour of Brecon (P.R.O. Duchy of Lancaster, Cartae Miscellaneae (D.L. 36), 1, no. 260).

40 Tait, J. in V.C.H. Lancashire, II, 180–3Google Scholar; Stenton, , First Century of English Feudalism, pp. 67–8, 88, 105Google Scholar.

41 Stenton, , First Century of English Feudalism (first edition, 1932), p. 66Google Scholar.

42 First Century of English Feudalism (second edition), p. 51. Cf. the suggestive remarks of Miller, E., ‘The Background of Magna Carta’, Past & Present, 23 (1962), 75–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Sir John Edward Lloyd was of the opinion that in South Wales the division of the country into commotes had not been undertaken ‘before the appearance of the Normans’: A History of Wales from the earliest limes to the Edwardian Conquest (third edition, 1939), I, 301Google Scholar.

44 Barrow, G. W. S., ‘The pattern of lordship and feudal settlement in Cumbria’, Journal of Medieval History, I (1975), 132 (referring to south-western Scotland)Google Scholar.

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46 References to lands ‘in Wales’ are frequent (e.g. Cat. Documents preserved in France, I, 353, 369; Arch. Camb., 4th ser., XIV (1883), 44, 142Google Scholar).

47 Glamorgan County History, III, 12, 208–16, Map 3. Cf. the truncating of Cantref Selyf (Lloyd, , History of Wales, II, 438Google Scholar).

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49 Cf. the remarks on the relationship between commotes and lordships in the barony of Powys in Davies, J. Conway, ‘Lordships and Manors in the County of Montgomery’, Montgomeryshire Collections, 49 (1946), 75–8Google Scholar.

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51 In much the same spirit Jocelin of Furness dedicated a Life of St. Patrick to one of the new Anglo-Norman lords of Ireland, John de Courcy, and addressed him as ‘princeps Ultonie’ in the dedication (Lydon, J. F., The Lordship of Ireland in the Middle Ages (Dublin, 1972), p. 56Google Scholar).

52 Brut y Tywysogyon, Peniarth Ms. 20 Version, ed. and trans. Jones, T. (Cardiff, 1952), p. 18Google Scholar. Cf. Episcopal Acts, II, L. 6 (king of the English and the Welsh).

53 Episcopal Acts, I, D. 65, 98, 99; Ancient Charters to 1200, nos. 6, 26; Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum 1066–1154, (Oxford, 1968) III, ed. Cronne, H. A. and Davies, R. H. C., nos. 386–88Google Scholar.

54 For examples, see Rotuti Litterarum Patentium, 1201–16, ed. Hardy, T. D. (Record Commission, 1835), p. 88Google Scholar; Close Rolls 1259–61, pp. 23–4.

55 The prolonged royal custodies of the counties of Pembroke and Glamorgan, and the royally-arranged marriages for the heiresses to both counties during the twelfth century, illustrate this point clearly enough (Lloyd, , History of Wales, II, 423–4, 441, 571Google Scholar; Glamorgan County History, III, 27, 37–40).

56 Glamorgan County History, III, 233.

57 Welsh Assize Roll, pp. 23, 25, 32, 35. Cf. the arguments advanced ibid., pp. 266, 290.

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59 See below, p. 58.

60 Welsh Assize Roll, pp. 300, 309, 327, 329, etc. For an important ordinance on the role of the king in boundary disputes in the March, see ibid., p. 309.

61 Cal. Chancery Rolls Various, p. 336. Cf. his endorsement to a letter of 1279 (Calendar of Ancient Correspondence concerning Wales, ed. Edwards, J. G. (Cardiff, 1935), 93Google Scholar).

62 Brut y Tywysogyon, p. 42.

63 Eyton, R. W., Antiquities of Shropshire, XI, 228Google Scholar.

64 Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, V, ed. Dimock, J. F., (Rolls Series, 1867), 274Google Scholar.

65 Gesta regis Henrici secundi, ed. Stubbs, W. (Rolls Series, 1867), I, 93Google Scholar.

66 Rotuli Curiae Regis 1194–99, ed. SirPalgrave, Francis (Record Commission, 1835), I, 426Google Scholar.

67 Eyton, R. W., Antiquities of Shropshire, XI, 247Google Scholar.

68 Glamorgan County History, III, 67–8; Davies, , ‘The Law of the March’, 19–23Google Scholar.

69 Cam, H. M., ‘The Medieval English Franchise’, Speculum, 32 (1957), 427–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barraclough, , Earldom and County Palatine of Chester, pp. 16–20Google Scholar; Lapsley, , County Palatine of Durham, pp. 165–73Google Scholar.

70 Bruty Tywysogyon, p. 105. See also Williams, G. A., ‘The Succession to Gwynedd’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, XX (1962–1964), 393–413Google Scholar.

71 Edwards, J. G., ‘The Early History of the counties of Carmarthen and Cardigan’, English Historical Review 31 (1916), 91–2Google Scholar; Glamorgan County History, III, 49.

72 Abbreviatio Placitorum, p. 109; Howell, Margaret, ‘Regalian Right in Wales and the March: The Relation of Theory to Practice’, Welsh History Review, 7 (1974–1975), 285Google Scholar. For statements in 1241 as to the position of the bishopric of St. David's vis à vis the Crown, see Cat. Pat. Rolls 1232–47, p. 242; Cal. Charter Rolls 1226–57, p. 258.

73 Close Rolls 1242–47, pp. 506–7; Howell, , ‘Regalian Right in Wales’, 281–2, 286–287Google Scholar.

74 Abbreviatio Placitorum, pp. 114–15.

75 Cal. Pat. Rolls 1232–47, p. 272.

76 Cartae de Glamorgan, II, 547–55; Glamorgan County History, III, 50–1.

77 Abbreviatio Placitorum, p. 138.

78 Calendar of the Gormanston Register c. 1175–1397, eds. Mills, J. and McEnery, M. J. (Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 1916), pp. 9Google Scholar, 181. The decision almost certainly relates to the 1245 expedition and is to be connected with the royal command of 26 August 1245 to various Marcher lords ‘ad inimicos regis in partibus Marchie gravandos’ (Close Rolls 1242–47, p. 363). I wish to thank my colleague Dr. R. F. Walker for his comments on this episode.

79 Clanchy, M. T., ‘The Franchise of Return of Writs’, T.R.Hist.S., 5th ser., 17 (1967), esp. 64–72Google Scholar; Clanchy, , ‘Did Henry III have a policy?’, History, 53 (1968), esp. 208–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 Littere Wallie, ed. Edwards, J. G. (Cardiff, 1940)Google Scholar.

81 For a full discussion of this roll (Coram Rege Roll, 159) see Welsh Assize Roll, 13–28.

82 Placita de Quo Warranto, Edward I–Edward III, ed. Illingworth, W. (Record Commission, 1818), pp. 675, 677, 681–6Google Scholar; Rotuli Hundredorum (Record Commission, 1812–1818), II, 90–1, 96, 108Google Scholar.

83 Thus their early writs might single out their Welsh lands and their tenants there (Earldom of Gloucester Charters, ed. Patterson, R. B. (Oxford, 1973), nos. 93–105, 167, 182Google Scholar); but equally they might be addressed to their barons and tenants in England and Wales indifferently (nos. 89, 110–11, and ‘Charters of the Earldom of Hereford 1095–1201’, ed. Walker, D. G. (Camden Miscellany XXII, (1964)), no. 7Google Scholar), or might refer to their lands in England, Wales and Normandy (Earldom of Gloucester Charters, no. 104).

84 Thus Earl Robert of Gloucester in a charter of 1132 refers to ‘omnes libertates quas ego habeo et donare possum… ubicumque dominium habeo’ (Earldom of Gloucester Charters, no. 156).

85 On at least one occasion Robert of Bellême introduced the phrase ‘dei gratia’ into his title as earl of Shrewsbury (Mason, , ‘Roger de Montgomery and his sons’, 27, n. 2Google Scholar). Likewise in Ireland some of the Norman lords assumed or were given regal titles (Lydon, , Lordship of Ireland, p. 56Google Scholar; Otway-Ruthven, A. J., A History of Medieval Ireland (London, 1968), p. 60Google Scholar).

86 Abbreviatio Placitorum, p. 109. For a later and clearer articulation of this argument, see Cartae de Glamorgan, III, 811 (1281).

87 Cartae de Glamorgan, II, 548.

88 Eyton, , Antiquities of Shropshire, X, 343–4Google Scholar.

89 Eyton, , Antiquities of Shropshire, VII, 257Google Scholar.

90 Paris, Matthew, Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, H. R. (Rolls Series, 1872–1883), V, 95Google Scholar.