^{page 29 note 1} I am indebted to Professor V. H. Galbraith for many helpful criticisms and suggestions in the preparation of this paper.

^{page 29 note 2} Cam, H. M., ‘The Decline and fall of English feudalism’, in History, xxv. 225.Google Scholar

^{page 29 note 3} Jolliffe, J. E. A., The constitutional history of medieval England, p. 424.Google Scholar

^{page 29 note 4} 13 Richard II, c. 3; Stat. Realm, ii. 75.

^{page 30 note 1} Stat. Realm, i. 145, 303, 304; ii 3, 75.

^{page 30 note 2} Ibid., ii. 75: though the right to give livery to retainers of both types is limited to laymen of the rank of banneret upwards, and indentured retainers who receive it must be of the rank of knight or squire.

^{page 30 note 3} Public opinion had long recognised the right of magnates to give such retinues their livery; as is shown in the thirteenth-century reference, discovered by Mrs. F. M. Stenton, to the robber chief who clothed his band in uniform ‘as if he had been a baron or an earl’ (quoted by H. M. Cam, op. cit., p. 224).

^{page 30 note 4} Mr. MacFarlane has recently drawn attention (‘Parliament and bastard feudalism’, Trans. R. Hist. S., 4th Series, xxvi. 70, 71) to the extreme instability of their allegiance and the undesirable results of that instability.

^{page 30 note 5} Rot. Part., ii. 62, § 18, and Cal. Close Rolls, 1330–3, p. 390.

^{page 31 note 1} Above, p. 30, n. 1.

^{page 31 note 2} Const. Hist. (5th edit.), p. 559.

^{page 31 note 3} e.g. Morris, J. E., The Welsh wars of Edward I, p. 278Google Scholar; N. Denholm-Young, Seignorial administration in England, p. 23, and J. Conway Davies, The baronial opposition to Edward II, p. 36. Mr. Conway Davies also calls attention to the very widespread use of written bonds and verbal oaths of alliance as a means of building up parties and confederacies for political purposes on the principle of personal contract.

^{page 31 note 4} Considerations of space prevent the quotation of examples, but considerable numbers are in print in two of the volumes of John of Gaunt's Register published by the R. Hist. Soc., Camden 3 Ser., xx. 288–350, and lvi. 13–26 (referred to below as Reg. I and III respectively). Other printed copies are referred to below and a number are fairly fully summarised in J. Bain, Cal. of documents relating to Scotland, ii. nos. 905, 1407, 1899; in the Catalogues of ancient deeds, iv. nos. A. 6404 and 8019, v. no. A. 11547, and in Dugdale–s Baronage, i. 183, 780.

^{page 31 note 5} See Morris, Welsh wars, and Prince, A. E., ‘The indenture system under Edward III’, in Hist, essays in honour of James Tait, pp. 283–297.Google Scholar

^{page 32 note 1} Most of these points are illustrated in John of Gaunt's contracts (above, p. 31, n. 4).

^{page 33 note 1} There are a few temporary contracts for peace service only (e.g. the fifteen months' contract between the earl of Pembroke and Sir Robert Fitzpain (Bain, op. cit., ii. no. 1407)), and a certain number of contracts for limited periods of service in peace and war (e.g. the earl of Hereford's contract with Sir Thomas Mandeville for a year's service (Ancient Deed, L. 1981)), but the vast majority of known contracts in which peace service is included are for life in both peace and war. No instance appears to be known of a retainer being engaged for war and then for peace, or vice versa.

^{page 33 note 2} Prince, op. cit., p. 291.

^{page 33 note 3} The Black Prince, for example, entered into several such engagements (Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1377–81, pp. 192, 249 and 345).

^{page 34 note 1} Percy, Henry and Neville, Ralph: Percy Chartulary (Surtees Society, vol. 117), p. 274.Google Scholar

^{page 34 note 2} The earl of Lancaster and Sir Philip Darcy: Ancient Deed, L. 3254.

^{page 34 note 3} The earl of Nottingham and Sir Thomas de Clinton: Patent Roll, 1 Henry IV, pt. i, m. 15.

^{page 34 note 4} See n. 2.

^{page 34 note 5} The earl of Lancaster and Sir John Eure: Bodleian Library, MS. Dugdale 18, f. 39 v.

^{page 34 note 6} The earl of Warwick and Walter Power: Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1391–6, p. 465.

^{page 34 note 7} The duke of Gloucester and William Cheney: Patent Roll, 1 Henry IV, pt. iii, m. 8.

^{page 34 note 8} The duke of Exeter and Thomas Proudfoot: ibid., pt. vi, m. 18.

^{page 34 note 9} See n. 3.

^{page 34 note 10} In one or two cases, as in that of John Darcy, who was retained in 1309 as a yeoman ‘to serve diligently about the person’ of the earl of Pembroke (Ancient Deed, L. 6404), it seems that the retainer must have been in or less constant attendance. But the statute of 1390, as we have seen, makes a clear distinction between the indentured retainer and the resident household attendant (above p. 29), and in the great majority of cases the contracts also make it clear, either by laying down that the retainer shall come to the lord whenever he is summoned, or by specifying, as most of John of Gaunt's contracts do (p. 31, n. 4), that he shall have wages or travelling expenses from the time when he leaves his own home on the lord's summons, that normally he maintained his own household and came into residence or attendance on the lord, only for limited periods as and when he was required. And sometimes the lord is under obligation to give quite a substantial period of notice of his requirements—a month in the case of Hugh Despenser and Sir Peter Ovedale (Cat. anc. deeds, iv. no. A 8019).

But this intermittency of attendance was probably common among existing forms of household retinue. Knights and squires who had estates of their own must have had substantial periods of leave to attend to their affairs; and we find indications of an arrangement similar to that of the fourteenth-century indentured retainer, for example, in Walter Map's statement (De Nugis Curialium, Camden Soc. vol. 1. Dist. V, Ch. vi. p. 224) of Henry I of England: ‘Quemcunque juvenem infra montes Alpium audiebat captantem boni famam principii ascribebat familiae … et quandocunque contigisset ab ipso mandari, suscipiebat in adventu suo singulis diebus a recessu residentiae suae singulos solidos.’

^{page 35 note 1} First century of English feudalism, pp. 139–45.

^{page 35 note 2} John Smyth, in his Lives of the Berkeleys (vol. i, p. 169), gives the names of the three knights and, relying presumably on a household account or other family record, states that the third member of the troop was a ‘domesticke knight’ of the leader. And as far as the names of the three are concerned he is confirmed by the official Marshal's register in Parl. Writs., i. 212.

^{page 35 note 3} These, like the exact extent of the services to be rendered, vary considerably from one retinue to another, and even between members of the same retinue holding the same rank and having the same obligations. And some of them, it is true, do not necessarily imply personal attendance. The commonest and most valuable of all, for example the fixed annual fee, paid generally in cash from a specified treasury or manor, or sometimes, as in the earl of Norfolk's contract with Sir John Segrave (N. Denholm-Young, op. cit., p. 167), taking the form of an outright grant of land itself: or the equally common grant of robes and saddles, although normal forms of reward to the household attendant, are not necessarily proof of residence. But the other forms of allowance, which are compatible only with residence, are equally common and almost equally important.

^{page 36 note 1} The duke of Exeter and Thomas Proudfoot. (Above, p. 34, n. 8.)

^{page 36 note 2} The earl of Lancaster and Sir Philip Darcy. (Above, ib., n. 2).

^{page 36 note 8} Exch. Accts., 68/1, m. 1: summarised by Bain, op. cit., ii. no. 905.

^{page 36 note 4} e.g. Henry, earl of Lancaster and Sir Edmund Ufford (Ancient Deed, L.S. 155): the earl of Salisbury and Sir Edmund Doumer (ibid., B. 4915): Gaunt's Register, i. nos. 802, 823, 835 and 849.

^{page 36 note 5} Henry Green, for instance, whose name appears in the list of John of Gaunt's knights drawn up between 1379 and 1383 (Reg. III, p. 7), and who, as early as November 1379, was drawing a fee as ‘nostre bien ame bacheler’ (Duchy of Lancaster Misc. Books, 14, f. 20), does not seem to have been indentured till 1391 (Cal. Pat., Rolls, 1396–9, p. 522). Similarly, though the name of William Holme appears in the list of squires in 1379–83 {Reg. Ill, p. 11), there is no indenture for anyone of that name till 1397 (ibid., p. 564).

^{page 37 note 1} The duke of Exeter and Thomas Proudfoot esq. (above, p. 34, n. 8).

^{page 37 note 2} As in William Daventre's contract (Pat. Roll, 1 Henry IV, pt. v, m. 24).

^{page 37 note 3} The earl of Hereford and Sir Bartholomew Denefeud (Bain, op. cit., ii, no. 1899).

^{page 37 note 4} John of Gaunt and Sir William Beauchamp (Reg. I, no. 832, p. 332). William Daventre also, apparently, is free to go to war with another leader if his lord gives permission (above, n. 2).

^{page 37 note 5} The earl of Pembroke and John Darcy (Cat. Anc. Deeds, v. no. A. 11547).

^{page 37 note 6} As in William Daventre's contract (above, n. 2).

^{page 37 note 7} This is stated with particular explicitness in the very detailed and interesting contract of Sir John Segrave with the earl of Norfolk printed by Mr. Denholm-Young (op. cit., p. 168) and referred to above (p. 35, n. 3): ‘E il ne lyra james al avaunt dist sir Johan, taunt come le dist counte vist, a autre seignur demorer por nul fee ne bienfet ke em lui pusse doner saunz le gre e le volunte le Counte e ceo ad il premis e plein au Counte en sa bone leaute.’

^{page 37 note 8} Above, p. 33, n. 1. Other examples are: Hugh le Despenser the elder and Sir Robert Fitzwalter for six months (Ancient Deed, A.S. 271); the earl of Pembroke and Sir Thomas Berkeley for an indefinite period (Bain, op. cit., ii. no. 905).

^{page 38 note 1} Sir Ralph Hastings and John de Kirkby (Huntington Library, Hastings MS., no. 934: summarised in Hist. MSS. Comm., no. 78 (Hastings MSS.), vol. i, p. 198.

^{page 38 note 2} e.g. Reg. I, nos. 830, 832.

^{page 38 note 3} The earl of Lancaster and Sir Philip Darcy (Ancient Deed, L. 3254).

^{page 38 note 4} The younger Despenser and Sir Peter Ovedale (Cat. Anc. Deeds, iv. no. A. 8019); Sir Stephen Segrave and Sir Nicholas Cryel (Berkeley Castle, Select charters, no. 490).

^{page 38 note 5} See n. 3.

^{page 38 note 6} Sir John Bluet and William Marcel (British Museum, Addit. Chart., no. 1531) and the earl of Hereford and William de Stapleton (Pat. Roll, 47 Ed. III, pt. i, m. 23).

^{page 38 note 7} Many of John Gaunt's retainers, for example, secured confirmation of their indentures after his death (Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1396–9, pp. 489–593), and the Black Prince's retainers, similarly, after his death, in the early months of Richard II's reign (ibid., 1377–81, pp. 155, 159, 161, and 209). Confirmation of the indentures of private persons are found from time to time on the patent rolls of Edward III's and Richard II's reigns.