Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T02:03:28.113Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

WHO WAS SIMON DE MONTFORT, EARL OF LEICESTER?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2016

John Maddicott
John Maddicott*
Affiliation:
AT DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY, LEICESTER
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper surveys the political career and personal life of Simon de Montfort. Derived largely from the author's biography of Montfort, it lays stress on his initial position as an outsider in English politics whose military abilities, diplomatic usefulness and personal charisma fostered his rise to power at the court of Henry III, but who subsequently fell out with the king and eventually became his fiercest opponent. It describes his position as lord of the honour of Leicester, from which town he expelled the Jews, and it goes on to assess the paradoxical and contrasting elements in Montfort's character, which combined deep piety and religious fervour with avarice and a self-seeking desire for his own and his family's advancement. It argues that personal differences, based largely on a strong sense of grievance and reflecting some of these character traits, rather than constitutional principles, lay behind his opposition to Henry III. It concludes by reviewing Montfort's role in the period of baronial reform and rebellion, 1258–65, and by describing his legacy, both to Henry III in his later years and to Edward I.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 26 , December 2016 , pp. 43 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This lecture followed the opening of the De Montfort University Heritage Centre by the Royal Historical Society's president and formed part of the university's parliamentary and Magna Carta commemorations.

References

1 A full account of Montfort's career will be found in Maddicott, J. R., Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, 1994)Google Scholar, which provides comprehensive references to the sources.

2 Bémont, C., Simon de Montfort (Paris, 1884), 343–53Google Scholar.

3 Maddicott, Montfort, 1–7.

4 Nichols, J., The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester (4 vols. in 8, 1795–1815), i. i. appendix, 38; The Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, trans. Mantello, F. A. C. and Goering, J. (Toronto, 2010), 65–9Google Scholar; Maddicott, Montfort, 15–17.

5 Flores Historiarum, ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series (3 vols., 1890), ii, 504; Maddicott, Montfort, 109, 308.

6 The Chronicle of William de Rishanger of the Barons’ Wars, ed. J. O. Halliwell, Camden Society (1840), 6; Maddicott, Montfort, 9, 350–1.

7 Maddicott, Montfort, 49–52. For Eleanor's life, see now L. J. Wilkinson, Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England (2010).

8 L. W. V. Harcourt, His Grace the Steward and Trial of Peers (1907), 112–14; Maddicott, Montfort, 23.

9 Maddicott, Montfort, 24–8.

10 Ibid ., 106–24. For the trial, see Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series (7 vols., 1872–83), v, 287–96, and The Letters of Adam Marsh, ed. and trans. C. H. Lawrence (2 vols, Oxford, 2006–10), ii, 78–91.

11 Maddicott, Montfort, 127–8.

12 Maddicott, J. R., ‘Magna Carta and the Local Community’, Past and Present, 102 (1984), 44–8Google Scholar; Carpenter, D., The Struggle for Mastery: Britain, 1066–1284 (Oxford, 2003), 350–1Google Scholar; Maddicott, Montfort, 126.

13 Weiler, B. K. U., Henry III of England and the Staufen Empire, 1216–1272 (Woodbridge, 2006), 147–70Google Scholar; Maddicott, Montfort, 128–9.

14 Maddicott, Montfort, 50, 129–33.

15 Treaty Rolls, i: 1234–1325, ed. P. Chaplais (1955), 48; Maddicott, Montfort, 183.

16 Maddicott, Montfort, 135–7.

17 Manners and Household Expenses of England in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, ed. T. H. Turner, Roxburghe Club (1841), xviii–xix; Paris, Chronica Majora, v, 366, 371–2; Maddicott, Montfort, 30, 76, 121.

18 Maddicott, Montfort, 90–2, 101–2, 205–6, 243–4.

19 Chronica de Mailros, ed. J. Stevenson, Bannantyne Club (Edinburgh, 1835), 207–16; Chronicle of William de Rishanger, ed. Halliwell, 6–7; Maddicott, Montfort, 87–90.

20 Maddicott, Montfort, 79–84, 91–5.

21 Ibid ., 4–6.

22 Letters of Grosseteste, trans. Mantello and Goering, 171–2; Maddicott, Montfort, 99–100, 176.

23 Chronicle of William de Rishanger, ed. Halliwell, 6–7.

24 Maddicott, Montfort, 100–1.

25 Ibid ., 47, 149.

26 Ibid ., 150–72, 178–9, 184–5; Brand, P., King, Barons and Justices: The Making and Enforcement of Legislation in Thirteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 2003), 15–41 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion, 1258–1267, ed. R. F. Treharne and I. J. Sanders (Oxford, 1973), 222–3; Maddicott, Montfort, 158, 261, 361.

28 Maddicott, Montfort, 166–9, 353–4.

29 Flores Historiarum, ed. Luard, ii, 227; Maddicott, Montfort, 84–7, 161–2, 170, 363.

30 Maddicott, Montfort, 183–8, 218–19, 358–60.

31 Ibid ., 270–8.

32 Ibid ., 284–9, 314–17; Maddicott, J. R., The Origins of the English Parliament, 924–1327 (Oxford, 2010), 254–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Maddicott, Montfort, 314–15.

34 Ibid ., 322–7.

35 Flores Historiarum, ed. Luard, ii, 504; Maddicott, Montfort, 310.

36 Rishanger, William, Chronica et Annales, ed. Riley, H. T., Series, Rolls (1865), 32 Google Scholar; Maddicott, Montfort, 327–9.

37 Maddicott, Montfort, 331–42. For the slaughter in the abbey, see de Laborderie, O., Maddicott, J. R. and Carpenter, D. A., ‘The Last Hours of Simon de Montfort: A New Account’, English Historical Review, 115 (2000), 411–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Maddicott, Montfort, 366–7; Brand, Kings, Barons and Justices, 185–6.

39 For the cult, see ‘Miracula Simonis de Montfort’, in Chronicle of William de Rishanger, ed. Halliwell, 67–110, and Valente, C., ‘Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and the Utility of Sanctity in Thirteenth-Century England’, Journal of Medieval History, 21 (1995), 27–49 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 ‘Annales de Dunstaplia’, in Annales Monastici, ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series (5 vols., 1864–9), iii, 217; Maddicott, Montfort, 214.

41 See Johnson, The Rambler, No. 93, Tuesday, 5 Feb. 1751.

42 Chronicle of William de Rishanger, ed. Halliwell, 41–2; Maddicott, Montfort, 317–18.