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The Peasants' Revolt and the Government of England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

W. M. Ormrod
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Extract

The outbreak of the Peasants' Revolt in the summer of 1381 was arguably the most serious threat ever posed to the stability of English government in the course of the Middle Ages. All historians are agreed that government policy was in large part responsible for the rising. The failure of the crown to maintain its hold over territory in France and to defend the coasts of England, the tendency to bow to pressure from the landed classes and restrict the economic and legal rights of the peasantry, and the outrageous and inequitable taxes of the 1370s, culminating in the commissions to enforce the poll tax in the spring of 1381, all these factors combined to provoke a widespread and perhaps coordinated outbreak of rebellion in southeast England, as well as many more spontaneous and isolated revolts in the West, the Midlands, and the North. Not surprisingly, in most areas the rebellion was directed principally against the agents of the crown. The young Richard II may have been immune from attack, but this only served to increase criticism of his ministers and agents, who were believed to have usurped royal authority and abused the trust placed in them by king and community.

Considering the dramatic events surrounding this assault on royal government and the wealth of material available in the chronicles and the official records, it is surprising that so few historians have examined the specific question of how administration was affected during and after the events of 1381.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 1990 , pp. 1 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1990

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References

1 The extensive bibliography on the revolt is summarized in Oman, Charles, The Great Revolt of 1381, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1969), pp. xxxiii–xxxviGoogle Scholar; and Dobson, R. B., The Peasants' Revolt of 1381, 2d ed. (London, 1982), pp. 405–19Google Scholar. For ease and economy of reference, I shall quote wherever possible from Dobson's translations of the chronicles and official sources. More recent specialized contributions to the debate on the Peasants' Revolt are cited in subsequent footnotes. The latest general discussion of the revolt is Kaeuper, Richard W., War, Justice and Public Order: England and France in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1988), pp. 355–60, 366–71Google Scholar.

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7 Dobson, p. 157. The original has “evesqe de Chestre”(Galbraith, V. H., ed., The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1333–1381 [Manchester, 1927], p. 141)Google Scholar, which should be translated as “bishop of Coventry and Lichfield,” not Chester.

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9 Harding, p. 179; Sayles, G. O., ed., Select Cases in the Court of King's Bench under Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V, Selden Society, no. 88 (1971), p. xixGoogle Scholar; Prescott, Andrew, “London in the Peasants' Revolt: A Portrait Gallery,” London Journal 1 (1981): 125–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Prescott, A. J., “Judicial Records of the Rising of 1381” (hereafter cited as “Judicial Records”) (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1984), p. 208Google Scholar.

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15 Ibid., p. 130.

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17 Ibid., p. 128. For Orgrave, see Kirby, J. L., “The Rise of the Under-Treasurer of the Exchequer,” English Historical Review 72 (1957): 667–68Google Scholar. For contemporary comment on unpaid tallies of assignment, see Steel, Anthony, The Receipt of the Exchequer, 1377–1485 (Cambridge, 1954), pp. xxxiv–xxxvGoogle Scholar.

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19 As translated in Hector, L. C. and Harvey, Barbara F., eds., The Westminster Chronicle, 1381–1394 (Oxford, 1982), p. 9Google Scholar.

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24 Tout, , Chapters, 4:410, 459–61, 472Google Scholar.

25 Dobson (n. 1 above), p. 155. The attack seems to have been made by the men of Kent, not, as stated by the Anonimalle chronicle, by the men of Essex (Dobson, p. 155, n. 2, and p. 199).

26 For the destruction of Sudbury's archives at Canterbury see Calendar of Patent Rolls (CPR), 1396–99, p. 509, cited by Post, J. B., “The Tauke Family in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” Sussex Archaeological Collections 111 (1973): 97Google Scholar.

27 Dobson, p. xxvii, text and n. 25, pp. 156–57, 170, 184, 219.

28 Sandys, Agnes, “The Financial and Administrative Importance of the London Temple in the Thirteenth Century,” in Little, and Powicke, , eds., pp. 147–62Google Scholar.

29 CPR, 1381–85, p. 393.

30 Such rolls tended to pile up for several years in the custody of the clerks of the court and were then delivered to the Exchequer in batches; see, e.g., PRO, Exchequer (King's Remembrancer), Various Accounts, E 101/334/21 (printed in SirPalgrave, Francis, ed., The Antient Kalendars and Inventories of the Treasury of his Majesty's Exchequer [London, 1836], 3:290–92Google Scholar).

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32 List of Chancery Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, PRO Lists and Indexes, no. 27 (reprinted 1963), pp. iv–vii.

33 List of Plea Rolls of Various Courts Preserved in the Public Record Office, PRO Lists and Indexes, no. 4 (reprinted 1963), p. 66.

34 Exchequer of Receipt, Receipt and Issue Rolls, PRO List and Index Society, no. 17 (1966), pp. 10–33Google Scholar.

35 For the way in which the receipt rolls were compiled in the fourteenth century, see Ormrod, W. M., “The Protecolla Rolls and English Government Finance, 1353–1364,” English Historical Review 102 (1987): 622–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Steel (n. 17 above), p. 44, was reluctant to draw such conclusions. The level of assignment on the poll tax was not apparently very high. See, e.g., PRO, Exchequer (King's Remembrancer), Lay Subsidies, E 179/123/51, which records that all the money received by the collectors in Cambridgeshire was delivered in cash to the Exchequer on March 4, 1381.

37 For the legal terms see Cheney, C. R., ed., Handbook of Dates for Students of English History (London, 1978), pp. 65–67Google Scholar. Harding (n. 4 above), p. 180, says that the King's Bench should have reconvened on June 16, but this was a Sunday.

38 Calendar of Close Rolls (CCR), 1377–81, p. 458.

39 For the feast days that ought to have been observed by the government offices after 1362, see Cheney, ed., p. 65.

40 PRO, Exchequer of Receipt, Receipt Rolls, E 401/541, PRO E 403/484.

41 PRO Exchequer (King's Remembrancer), Memoranda Rolls, E 159/157; RP(n. 11 above), 3:115, no. vi. For the case of poll tax collectors, see Tuck, J. A., “Nobles, Commons” (n. 5 above), p. 204Google Scholar.

42 CCR, 1377–81, pp. 457–58, 525; Calendar of Fine Rolls (CFR), 1377–83, pp. 260–61; Calendar of Charter Rolls (CChR), 1341–1417, pp. 275–76.

43 Detailed hanaper accounts usually give details of each day's business in the Chancery; see, e.g., PRO, Exchequer (King's Remembrancer), Various Accounts, E 101/212/4 (particulars of the hanaper account, 1347–48).

44 CPR, 1381–85, pp. 16–24, 69; CCR, 1377–81, pp. 457–58; CCR, 1381–85, pp. 75–77.

45 See, e.g., the case of SirBelknap, Robert in Prescott, “Judicial Records” (n. 10 above), p. 143Google Scholar; Prescott's discussion of the case is also cited by Brooks (n. 4 above), p. 254.

46 For the itinerary of the court, see Bird, W. H. B., “The Peasant Rising of 1381: The King's Itinerary,” English Historical Review 31 (1916): 125Google Scholar. For the departure of courtiers see Dobson (n. 1 above), p. 166.

47 CPR, 1381–85, p. 120; CCR, 1381–85, p. 50.

48 Dobson, p. 163.

49 For the canons of St. Stephen's, see Hennessy, George, Novum Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense (London, 1898), pp. 451–54Google Scholar (although note that Hennessy's lists are not completely accurate). For the lodgings of the canons see CPR, 1381–85, p. 365.

50 Dobson, pp. 162–63; Harvey, Barbara, “Draft Letters Patent of Manumission and Pardon for the Men of Somerset in 1381,” English Historical Review 80 (1965): 89–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 PRO, Exchequer of Receipt, Issue Rolls, E 403/484, July 13, 1381.

52 For what follows see Flaherty, W. E., “The Great Rebellion in Kent of 1381 illustrated from the Public Records,” Archaeologia Cantiana 3 (1860): 65–96Google Scholar; Sparvel-Bayly, J. A., “Essex in Insurrection, 1381,” Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, n.s., 1 (1878): 205–19Google Scholar; Powell, Edgar, The Rising in East Anglia in 1381 (Cambridge, 1896)Google Scholar; Réville, André, Le Soulèvement ties Travailleurs d'Angtelerre en 1381 (Paris, 1898)Google Scholar.

53 Oman (n. 1 above), pp. 29–31.

54 Dobson, p. 162, etc. Legge also held office as alnager in Surrey and Sussex (CPR, 1381–85, p. 24).

55 Brooks (n. 4 above), p. 265.

56 For the first outbreak of the plague see Ormrod, W. M., “The English Government and the Black Death of 1348–49,” in England in the Fourteenth Century, ed. Ormrod, W. M. (Woodbridge, 1986), p. 178Google Scholar. My research on the mortality among local officials during the later plagues has yet to be published. For the present, it may be noted that seven sheriffs and no fewer than twenty-one justices of the peace died during the out-break of 1361–62.

57 Brooks, p. 262. It is interesting to note that two men were appointed to succeed Clerk, one in each county (CFR, 1377–83, p. 268). Clerk's son appeared in the Exchequer in November 1381 and agreed to make account for the escheatry during his father's tenure (PRO, Exchequer [Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer], Memoranda Rolls, E 368/154, Recorda, Michaelmas, membrane [m.] 10).

58 CPR, 1377–81, pp. 513, 571–81, 630; Edgar Powell, pp. 30, 48; Dyer, Christopher, “The Social and Economic Background to the Rural Revolt of 1381,” in Hilton, and Aston, , eds. (n. 4 above), p. 39Google Scholar.

59 CPR, 1381–85, p. 76; CFR, 1377–83, p. 301.

60 Grieve, H. E. P., “The Rebellion and the County Town,” in Essex and the Great Revolt of 1381, ed. Liddell, W. H. and Wood, R. G. E., Essex Record Office Publications, 84 (1982), p. 43Google Scholar.

61 CPR, 1377–81, 538; CFR, 1377–83, p. 261. Sewale had occasion to use his exemption again in 1384 (CCR, 1381–85, p. 469).

62 Brooks, p. 256; CFR, 1377–83, p. 268.

63 CPR, 1381–85, p. 76. For Herling see CPR, 1377–81, index, s.v. “Herlyng.” For Fastolf see Saul, A., “Local Politics and the Good Parliament,” in Property and Politics: Essays in Later Medieval English History, ed. Pollard, Tony (Gloucester, 1984), pp. 156–71Google Scholar.

64 For the personnel of these three separate commissions see CFR, 1377–81, pp. 224–28, 248–50.

65 Virgoe, Roger, “The Crown and Local Government: East Anglia under Richard II,” in The Reign of Richard II: Essays in Honour of May McKisack, ed. Boulay, F. R. H. Du and Barron, Caroline M. (London, 1971), pp. 227–28Google Scholar.

66 CFR, 1377–83, pp. 231, 249; CPR, 1377–81, pp. 513, 574, 580; Réville (n. 52 above), pp. 222, 245.

67 CPR, 1377–81, pp. 248, 249, 250, 571, 572. For attacks on these men, see Edgar Powell (n. 52 above), p. 28; Brooks (n. 4 above), pp. 263, 264.

68 Sillem, Rosamond, “Commissions of the Peace, 1380–1485,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 10 (1932–1933): 98–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Putnam, Bertha Haven, “The Transformation of the Keepers of the Peace into the Justices of the Peace,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser., 12 (1929): 47CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Proceedings before the Justices of the Peace in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, Ames Foundation (London, 1938), p. xlviiiGoogle Scholar.

69 Dobson (n. 1 above), p. 124; CPR, 1377–81, p. 571.

70 Dobson, p. 147; Flaherty (n. 52 above), pp. 72–73, 76, 83–84, 86, 89, 92, 93.

71 Grieve (n. 60 above), p. 43.

72 See also Hilton (n. 6 above), pp. 217–20.

73 Dobson, pp. 257–58; Edgar Powell, p. 35. Note also the comments of May McKisack on provincial particularism (The Fourteenth Century [Oxford, 1959], pp. 420–21Google Scholar).

74 Edgar Powell, p. 21.

75 Dobson, p. 147.

76 Edgar Powell, pp. 24, 28, 32–33.

77 PRO, Exchequer (Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer), Memoranda Rolls, E 368/154, Precepta, Pasch, m. 1. It is interesting to notice that the well-known Commons' petition against the villeins in 1377 referred to peasants collecting sums of money among themselves to meet the expenses incurred in resisting their lords' demands (Dobson, p. 77; Hanawalt, Barbara A., “Peasant Resistance to Royal and Seigniorial Impositions,” in Social Unrest in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Newman, Francis X. [Binghamton, N.Y., 1986], pp. 39–40, 42Google Scholar). The existence of a “common purse” was one of the ways in which the courts proved confederacy (see, e.g., Thomas, A. H., ed., Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls of the City of London, 1364–1381 [Cambridge, 1929], p. 292Google Scholar).

78 Dobson, p. 177.

79 Edgar Powell (n. 52 above), p. 42. The phrase is, of course, that used in writs ordering election to Parliament (Edwards, J. G., “The Plena Potestas of English Parliamentary Representatives,” in Historical Studies of the English Parliament, ed. Fryde, E. B. and Miller, Edward [Cambridge, 1970], 1:136–49Google Scholar). It would be unwise lo read too much into the use of this phrase in the indictment, however, since it may well have been worded by the clerk of the court rather than the jurors or the defendant.

80 See most notably Maddicott, J. R., “The English Peasantry and the Demands of the Crown, 1294–1341,” suppl. no. 1 of Past and Present (1975)Google Scholar.

81 Oman (n. 1 above), pp. 114–18.

82 Réville (n. 52 above), pp. 109–10, 116; CCR, 1381–85, p. 4.

83 Dyer, C. C., “The Causes of the Revolt in Rural Essex,” in Liddell, and Wood, , eds. (n. 60 above), pp. 29–31Google Scholar. See also Prescott, Andrew. “London in the Peasants' Revolt” (n. 9 above), p. 130Google Scholar.

84 Faith, Rosamond, “The ‘Great Rumour’ of 1377 and Peasant Ideology,” in Hilton, and Aston, , eds. (n. 4 above), pp. 43–73Google Scholar; Hallam, Elizabeth M., Domesday Book through Nine Centuries (London, 1986), pp. 99–105Google Scholar. See also Tillotson, J. H., “Peasant Unrest in the Reign of Richard II,” Historical Studies 14 (1974): 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

85 Harding (n. 4 above), pp. 165–93.

86 Dobson (n. 1 above), pp. 140, 189.

87 Given-Wilson, Chris, The Royal Household and the King's Affinity: Service, Politics and Finance in England, 1360–1413 (New Haven, Conn., 1986), pp. 121–25Google Scholar.

88 Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, 4:172–73 (no. 307)Google Scholar; PRO, Exchequer (Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer), Memoranda Rolls, E 368/154, Precepta, Pasch, m. 1.

89 CCR, 1381–85, pp. 75, 83, 89.

90 PRO, Exchequer (King's Remembrancer), Various Accounts, E 101/510/22; Fryde, E. B., “Introduction to the New Edition,” (n. 3 above), pp. xx–xxiGoogle Scholar; Tuck, J. A., “Nobles, Commons” (n. 5 above), p. 204Google Scholar. It is now known that Derbyshire too was affected by the disturbances of 1381 (Prescott, A. J., “Judicial Records,” p. 339Google Scholar; Crook, David, “Derbyshire and the English Rising of 1381,” Historical Research 60 [1987]; 9–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

91 RP (n. 11 above), 3:393–94, nos. 12–13; CCR, 1381–85, p. 27; Tuck, J. A., “Nobles, Commons,” p. 204Google Scholar.

92 PRO, Exchequer (Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer), Memoranda Rolls, E 368/154, Records, Pasch, m. 14; Tuck, J. A., “Nobles, Commons,” p. 204Google Scholar.

93 For shrieval archives see Mills, Mabel H., “The Medieval Shire House (Domus Vicecomitis),” in Studies Presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson, ed. Davies, J. Conway (London, 1957), p. 258Google Scholar.

94 Wood, R. G. E., “Essex Manorial Records and the Revolt,” in Liddell, and Wood, , eds. (n. 60 above), pp. 67–84Google Scholar.

95 For the events of 1326–27 see Fryde, Natalie, The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II, 1321–1326 (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 165–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Buck, Mark, Politics, Finance and the Church in the Reign of Edward II: Walter Stapeldon, Treasurer of England (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 217–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96 N. Fryde, pp. 207–27.

97 Ormrod (n. 56 above), “Black Death,” pp. 175–88.

98 Bird (n. 46 above), p. 125.

99 PRO, Exchequer (Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer), Foreign Accounts Rolls, E 364/15, m. 8d.

100 Prescott, A. J., “Judicial Records” (n. 10 above), pp. 41, 43–44Google Scholar.

101 The king's temporary return to Westminster is not mentioned by Bird (p. 125) but may be ascertained from PRO, Chancery Warrants, ser. 1, C 81/472/1905–6, and PRO, Chancery Files, C 256/1/10, no. 6.

102 The place dates given in the extant privy seal writs of this period (PRO, Chancery Warrants, ser. 1, C 81/471-2; and PRO Exchequer [King's Remembrancer], Various Accounts, E 101/213/7) match almost exactly those in instruments under the great seal analyzed by Bird, p. 125. They suggest that there may have been a temporary return to Westminster on June 28 (PRO, Chancery Warrants, ser. 1, C 81/471/1840), but the privy seal office does not appear to have reestablished itself in the capital until after September 20. For the ambiguous relationship between the privy seal office and the household in the middle years of Edward III's reign see Tout, , Chapters (n. 2 above), 5:30–34, 68–74Google Scholar; Ormrod, W. M., “Edward III's Government of England, c. 1346–1356” (D. Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1984), pp. 66–72Google Scholar.

103 The volume of this business is emphasized by Grieve (n. 60 above), pp. 47, 48.

104 Ormrod, , “Edward III's Government,” pp. 66–67Google Scholar. On those occasions when the king also took some of the Chancery staff with him and had separate rolls drawn up to record business done on the Continent, it was normal for all instruments issued under the great seal to be warranted “by the king himself” (per ipsum regem). For this reason I am inclined to think that the large number of warranty notes “by the king” made in the summer of 1381, to which Tuck, J. A. drew attention (“The Baronial Opposition to Richard II, 1377–1389” (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1966], pp. 146–47Google Scholar, “Richard II's System of Patronage,” in Du Boulay and Barron, eds. [n. 65 above], p. 6) represents a mere diplomatic convention and not, as Tuck supposed, the exercise of personal authority by the young Richard II. On the other hand, this does beg the question of who had control of policy in the summer of 1381. See also Sayles, G. O., “Richard II in 1381 and 1399,” English Historical Review 94 (1979): 820–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

105 Tuck, J. A., “Nobles, Commons” (n. 5 above), p. 200Google Scholar. Prescott, A. J. (“Judicial Records,” pp. 44–45Google Scholar) notes that the judicial commissioners took troops with them into the shires where they were to hold their sessions.

106 PRO, Exchequer (King's Remembrancer), Various Accounts, E 101/400/11. The role played by the earl of Buckingham in quelling the rising has been elucidated by Holt, Richard (“Thomas of Woodstock and events at Gloucester in 1381,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 58 [1985]: 237–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

107 CPR, 1381–85, p. 73; CCR, 1381–85, pp. 74–75.

108 CCR, 1381–85, p. 2.

109 The fullest discussion of these commissions is Prescott, A. J., “Judicial Records” (n. 10 above), pp. 30–87Google Scholar.

110 CPR, 1381–85, p. 73.

111 PRO, Exchequer (King's Remembrancer), Various Accounts, E 101/400/11.

112 Réville (n. 52 above), pp. cxx–cxxi; Steel, Anthony, Richard II (Cambridge, 1941), p. 88Google Scholar; Keen, M. H., England in the Later Middle Ages (London, 1973), p. 271Google Scholar; Dobson (n. 1 above), pp. 303–4.

113 For Richard II's attitude to the rebels see Tuck, Anthony, Richard II and the English Nobility (n. 5 above), pp. 51, 53–54Google Scholar.

114 Tuck, J. A., “Nobles, Commons,” pp. 210–12Google Scholar. For the striking difference of opinion between the Commons and the Council on the question of the war, see Lewis, N. B., “Re-election to Parliament in the Reign of Richard II,” English Historical Review 48 (1933): 387Google Scholar.

115 Dobson, pp. 328–33.

116 For the financial history of the period following the revolt, see Tuck, J. A., “Nobles, Commons,” pp. 203–4Google Scholar.

117 There is no direct reference in the Parliament roll to the dismissal of Courtenay, but Roskell, J. S. (The Impeachment of Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk in 1386 [Manchester, 1984], pp. 27–28Google Scholar) has shown that one of the petitions presented in this assembly was in effect a demand for the chancellor's removal.

118 Under Edward III it had been normal pratice for those holding government office to resign their secular responsibilities on promotion to the archbishopric of Canterbury. It is probable, however, that Courtenay's appointment was a stopgap measure, and he might well have resigned the chancellorship on his enthronement in 1382 had he not already been forced out of office. Roskell suggests that Courtenay's dismissal may have been engineered by John of Gaunt (p. 27). See also Dahmus, Joseph, William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1381–1396 (University Park, Penn., 1966), pp. 162–63Google Scholar.

119 For the circumstances of Scrope's appointment in 1371, see Ormrod, W. M., “An Experiment in Taxation: The English Parish Subsidy of 1371,” Speculum 63 (1987): 59–60Google Scholar. Evidence of his contribution to financial administration in the early 1370s is to be found in certain unpublished Exchequer documents which I hope to discuss elsewhere. For Scrope's role in 1376 see Holmes, George, The Good Parliament (Oxford, 1975), pp. 64–65Google Scholar.

120 RP (n. 11 above), 3:101–2, nos. 19–23.

121 Tuck, Anthony, Richard II and the English Nobility, pp. 55–57Google Scholar.

122 RP, 3:104, no. 38.

123 Statutes of the Realm (hereafter cited as Statutes), 2:17–23Google Scholar.

124 Statutes, 2:21–23, nos. ix–xviGoogle Scholar.

125 For the relevant common petitions see RP, 3:118–19, nos. 97–105.

126 Statutes, 2:22, nos. xi, xii.

127 For the contents of the Red Book see Hall, Hubert, ed., The Red Book of the Exchequer, Rolls Series, 99 (London, 1896), 3:lxv–cxlviiiGoogle Scholar.

128 RP, 3:116, no. 88. This was of course an old complaint; see Wilkinson, Bertie, The Chancery under Edward III (Manchester, 1929), p. 60Google Scholar.

129 For the Chancery Ordinances of ca. 1388, see Wilkinson, pp. 214–23.

130 CCR, 1381–85, pp. 7–8.

131 Powell, Edward, “The Administration of Criminal Justice in Late-Medieval England: Peace Sessions and Assizes” (hereafter cited as “Criminal Justice”), in The Political Context of Law: Proceedings of the Seventh British Legal History Conference, ed. Eales, Richard and Sullivan, David (London, 1987), pp. 54–55Google Scholar. This provides an important corrective to the work of Post, J. B. (“The Peace Commissions of 1382,” English Historical Review 91 [1976]: 98–101)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and I have followed Powell's interpretation closely.

132 Compare the personnel of the peace commissions for Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, and Kent issued in May 1380–February 1381 (CPR, 1377–81, pp. 513, 571, 572, 630) with those appointed in November 1382 (CPR, 1381–85, pp. 252, 253, 254).

133 For which see , Ormrod, “Black Death” (n. 56 above), p. 179Google Scholar; Powell, Edward, “Criminal Justice,” pp. 51–52, 55Google Scholar.

134 RP (n. 11 above), 3:102, no. 26.

135 Hughes, A., Crump, C. G., and Johnson, C., “The Debasement of the Coinage under Edward III,” Economic Journal 7 (1897): 185–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Feavearyear, A., The Pound Sterling, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1963), pp. 16–20, 28–32Google Scholar; Mate, Mavis, “The Role of Gold Coinage in the English Economy, 1338–1400,” Numismatic Chronicle, 7th ser., 18 (1978): 126–41Google Scholar.

136 Despite some contemporary comment, it has generally been assumed by historians that these ransoms had little impact on the English coinage (Perroy, Edouard, “Gras profits et rançons pendant la Guerre de Cent ans: l'affaire du comte de Denia,” in Mélanges d'histoire du Moyen Age dédiés a la mémoire de Louis Halphen [Paris, 1951], pp. 573–80Google Scholar; Lloyd, T. H., “Overseas Trade and the English Money Supply in the Fourteenth Century,” in Edwardian Monetary Affairs [1279–1344], ed. Mayhew, N. J., British Archaeological Reports no. 36 [1977], p. 113)Google Scholar. Nevertheless, the sudden increase in purchases of gold at the London mint in and after 1357 is very striking. For mint output see Crump, C. G. and Johnson, C., “Tables of Bullion Coined under Edward I, II, III,” Numismatic Chronicle, 4th ser., 13 (1913): 223–24Google Scholar; Mate, , “The Role of Gold Coinage in the English Economy, 1338–1400,” p. 135Google Scholar. See also the recent comments of Spufford, Peter (Money and Its Use in Medieval Europe [Cambridge, 1988], pp. 282, 341)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

137 Feavearyear, pp. 32–33.

138 Lloyd, pp. 114–15.

139 The original copy of the resulting report is PRO, Chancery, Parliament and Council Proceedings, C49, file 9, no. 17. Two fair copies were made (PRO, Ancient Petitions, SC 8/19/932, SC 8/271/13512). The report was printed in RP, 3:126–27, no. 2, but was misdated to 1381–82, and previous writers have presumed that this episode took place in the Parliament following the Peasants' Revolt (SirCraig, John, The Mint [Cambridge, 1953], pp. 82–83Google Scholar; Feavearyear, pp. 33–36; Reddaway, T. F., “The King's Mint and Exchange in London, 1343–1543,” English Historical Review 82 [1967]: 12Google Scholar; Munro, John H. A., Wool, Cloth and Gold: The Struggle for Bullion in Anglo-Burgundian Trade, 1340–1478 [Toronto, 1972], pp. 12, 44–46Google Scholar; Lloyd, p. 117). That the report was, in fact, compiled in 1379 is made clear by annotations in the PRO Round Room copy of RP.

140 RP, 3:64, no. 39. An original and slightly different copy of this petition survives in PRO, Chancery, Parliament and Council Proceedings, C 49, file 9, no. 16.

141 RP, 3:126, no. 1. I have assumed that this petition dates from 1381, but the matter is open to debate.

142 RP, 3:104, no. 34, 3:119–20, no. 107.

143 Statutes, 2:17, no. iiGoogle Scholar.

144 Craig, pp. 83–84; Munro, pp. 61–62.

145 Mate, Mavis, “Monetary Policies in England, 1272–1307,” British Numismatic Journal 41 (1972): 34–79Google Scholar; Feavearyear, pp. 16–20.

146 Tuck, Anthony, Richard II and the English Nobility (n. 5 above), pp. 1–57Google Scholar; Roskell (n. 117 above), pp. 15–35.

147 Tuck, Anthony, Richard II and the English Nobility, p. 43Google Scholar; Tuck, J. A., “Richard II's System of Patronage” (n. 104 above), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

148 Tuck, Anthony, Richard II and the English Nobility, pp. 43–45Google Scholar.

149 Roskell, pp. 26–30.

150 For the circumstances of Scrope's fall, see Roskell, p. 30. For the significance of Edward III's actions in 1341, see Ormrod, W. M., “Edward III and the Recovery of Royal Authority in England, 1340–60,” History 72 (1987): 4–5, 13–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

151 Given-Wilson (n. 87 above), pp. 39, 78–99, 94, 103–5, 139.

152 For Pole's career to 1383 see Tuck, Anthony, Richard II and the English Nobility, pp. 69–70Google Scholar.