Table Of Content
THE NEW OXFORD HISTORY OF ENGLAND
General Editor (cid:1) j. m. roberts
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Plantagenet England
1225 1360
–
MICHAEL PRESTWICH
CLARENDON PRESS (cid:1) OXFORD
3
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp
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General Editor’s Preface
The Wrst volume of Sir George Clark’s Oxford History of England was pub-
lishedin1934.UndertakingtheGeneralEditorshipofaNewOxfordHistoryof
England forty-Wve years later it was hard not to feel overshadowed by its
powerful inXuence and well-deserved status. Some of Clark’s volumes (his
own among them) were brilliant individual achievements, hard to rival and
impossibletomatch.Ofcourse,heandhisreaderssharedabroadsenseofthe
purpose and direction of such books. His successor can no longer be sure of
doing that. The building-blocks of the story, its reasonable and meaningful
demarcationsanddivisions,thecontinuitiesanddiscontinuities,thepriorities
ofdiVerentvarietiesofhistory,theplaceofnarrative—allthesethingsarenow
muchhardertoagreeupon.Wenowknowmuchmoreaboutmanythings,and
thinkaboutwhatweknowindiVerentways.Itisnotsurprisingthathistorians
nowsometimesseemunsureabouttheaudiencetowhichtheirscholarshipand
writingareaddressed.
In the end, authors should be left to write their own books. None the less,
theNewOxfordHistoryofEnglandisintendedtobemorethanacollectionof
discrete or idiosyncratic histories in chronological order. Its aim is to give an
account of the development of our country in time. It is hard to treat that
developmentasjustthehistorywhichunfoldswithinthepreciseboundariesof
England,andamistaketosuggestthatthisimpliesaneglectofthehistoriesof
theScots,Irish,andWelsh.Yettheinstitutionalcoreofthestorywhichruns
fromAnglo-Saxontimestoourownisthestoryofastate-structurebuiltround
theEnglishmonarchyanditseVectivesuccessor,theCrowninParliament,and
that provides the only continuous articulation of the history of peoples we
todaycallBritish.Itfollowsthattheremustbeunevenandsometimesdiscon-
tinuous treatment of much of the history of those peoples. The state story
remains, nevertheless, an intelligible thread and to me appears still to justify
boththetitleofthisseriesandthatofitspredecessor.
If the attention given to the other kingdoms and the principality of Wales
mustreXectinthisseriestheirchangingrelationshiptothatcentraltheme,this
isnotonlywayinwhichtheemphasisofindividualvolumeswillbediVerent.
Each author has been asked to bring forward what he or she sees as the most
important topics explaining the history under study, taking account of the
present state of historical knowledge, drawing attention to areas of dispute
and to matters on which Wnal judgement is at present diYcult (or,
perhaps, impossible) and not merely recapitulating what has recently been
viii general editor’s preface
thefashionablecentreofprofessionaldebate.Buteachvolume,allowingforits
specialapproachandproportions,mustalsoprovideacomprehensiveaccount,
inwhichpoliticsisalwayslikelytobeprominent.Volumeshavetobedemar-
catedchronologicallybutcontinuitiesmustnotbeobscured;vestigiallyornot,
copyhold survived into the 1920s and the Anglo-Saxon shires until the 1970s
(some of which were to be resurrected in the 1990s, too). Any single volume
shouldbeanentry-pointtotheunderstandingofprocessesonlyslowlyunfold-
ing, sometimes across centuries. My hope is that in the end we shall have, as
the outcome, a set of standard and authoritative histories, embodying the
scholarship of a generation, and not mere compendia in which the determin-
antsarelosttosightamongthedetail.
j.m.roberts
Preface
The period covered by this book ranged over two volumes of the previous
OxfordHistoryofEngland.Ahundredandthirty-Wveyears,from1225to1360,
forthisbook,issigniWcantlymorethanmypredecessorshadtodealwith.Ihave
anunderstandablejealousyofthoseauthorsoflatervolumesinthisserieswho
havetocoveramerefortyyearsorso.Thelogictotheparticulardatesselected
is that by not picking the obvious beginnings and endings of reigns diVerent
themesmayemerge.Theyear1225marksthebeginning,inasense,ofHenry
III’s personal rule, while 1360 saw the end of a major phase of the Hundred
Years War. Any dates have advantages and disadvantages; the main problem
withtheconcludingdateisthatitisnotpossibletoprovideafullaccountofthe
consequencesoftheBlackDeathof1348,forthatinvolveslookingfarbeyond
1360,andthereforetothenextvolumeinthisseries.
The plan of this book needs some explanation. While the past is seamless,
I do not Wnd it possible to write about it without cutting it up into segments,
and in this case some of the pieces are chronological and others thematic. It
may be helpful for readers to note that Chapters 3 to 11 provide a narrative
framework, while the others address distinct themes. Just as the book as a
wholedoesnotusereignsasstartingorendingpoints,sotoothechaptersadopt
a slightly diVerent chronology from that conventionally employed; it makes
sense,forexample,toseetheperiodfrom1290to1311asawholeinpolitical
terms,ratherthantobreakatthedeathofEdwardIin1307.Ihavenottriedto
coverallaspectsofthehistoryofthirteenth-andfourteenth-centuryEngland
inequaldepth;tohavedonesowouldhavemadealongbookevenlonger.Nor
isitpossible for one person to writea fullycomprehensive study. Intellectual
andartisticlifeisnomorethanverybrieXysketched,whilethehistoryofthe
Church has not been made into a separate theme. There is, as a result, no
extendedtreatmentoftopicssuchastheadventofthefriarstoEngland,orthe
development of Benedictine monasticism; I have aimed rather to include
discussion of the Church, where relevant, in chapters that are centred on
othersubjects.Itwouldalsohavebeenpossibletotreatparliamentasaseparate
topic,asIhavedoneinpreviouspublications,butinstead,materialonparlia-
menthasbeenintegratedintovariouspartsofthisbook.
It has, for very good reasons, become fashionable in recent years to write
British,ratherthanEnglish,history.Amongotherthings,thishastheadvan-
tage of providing a comparative dimension. I have not, however, taken this
course;thetitleoftheseriesisTheNewOxfordHistoryofEngland,andIhave
taken this in a literal sense. I was taught, many years ago, by A. J. P. Taylor,
