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Presidential Address: Feudal Society and the Family in Early Medieval England: I. The Revolution of 1066

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

J. C. Holt
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Extract

In 1152 King Stephen and his army began an unexpected siege of Newbury castle. The castellan, John fitz Gilbert, warned by his constable, was able to beguile the King and put the castle in a suitable state of defence. To achieve the necessary breathing space for this he surrendered a younger son, William, as a hostage. When his trickery was discovered the boy's life was at risk; it was proposed that he should be hanged or projected over the castle walls. Stephen sent messengers to John fitz Gilbert, threatening his execution. To them John gave the daunting reply that he was not particularly worried since he had the hammer and the anvil for forging even better sons. In fact the boy charmed King Stephen and survived to become Earl of Pembroke and regent of England. Whether the tale is anything more than a tall story it is impossible to say. At least it presents a problem. Family relationships mattered—or did they? In what ways and to what extent did they matter?

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 32 , December 1982 , pp. 193 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1982

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References

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19 See below, pp. 204–5.

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22 Caps. 2,7. The importance of these provisions was succinctly stated by Plucknett, — ‘The charter of Henry I, c. 7, of 1100 accords freedom of testation of chattels only; so it would seem that land was already indevisable by that date’ (A Concise History of the Common Law, 4th edn, London, 1947, p. 698 n.)Google Scholar.

23 See the works of Duby, Georges noted in Holt, ‘Politics and Property’, p. 5, n. 16Google Scholar. Some of these papers are collected in Duby, Georges, Hommes et Structures (Paris, 1973)Google Scholar and translated by Postan, Cynthia in Duby, Georges, The Chivalrous Society (London, 1977)Google Scholar. Among them ‘Lignage, noblesse et chevalerie au xiie siècle dans la region maconnaise: une révision’ (Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, xxvii (1972), 803–23Google Scholar; Hommes el Structures, pp. 397–422) is particularly important in demonstrating that lineage did not necessarily involve primogeniture. The change I have sketched is perhaps presented most forcefully in Fossier, R., La terre et les hommes en Picardie (Louvain, 1968), ii, 534–46Google Scholar. See also Schmid, K. ‘Über die Struktur des Adels in früheren Mittelalter’, Jahrbuch für frankische Landesforschung, xix (1959), 1–23Google Scholar, trans. Reuter, T., The Medieval Nobility (Amsterdam, 1979), pp. 39–59Google Scholar; and the cautionary remarks of DrLeyser, Karl, ‘The German Aristocracy in the early middle ages’, Past & Present, no. 41 (1968), 34Google Scholar. On Normandy, Musset, L. ‘L'aristocratie normande au xie siècle’, La Noblesse au moyen âge, ed.Contamine, P. (Paris, 1976), pp. 71–96Google Scholar, supplements the earlier work of D. C. Douglas.

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29 See, for example, Charles-Edwards: ‘The descent group … I shall call a lineage’ (ibid., p. 16). Whatever the merits of such a definition, it is far wider than the lignage of Georges Duby and others.

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53 Sanders, I. J., English Baronies (Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar; for Castle Holgate and Cause, pp. 28–9; for Chilham, p. 111; for Chiselborough, p. 34; for Mulgrave, pp. 66–7; for Ros, pp. 105–6; and for Wigmore, pp. 98–9. On Castle Holgate see also The Cartulary of Shrewsbury Abbey, ed.Rees, Una (Aberystwyth, 1975), I, 4, 38Google Scholar. The whole problem is examined for a single county and on a wider social basis, stretching from baron to undertenant, in Early Yorkshire Families, ed. SirClay, Charles and Greenway, Diana E. (Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, cxxxv, 1973)Google Scholar.

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56 Ibid., no. 3, pp. 7–10.

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