Edward III and the English Peerage Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART ONE New Parliamentary Peerage Creations, 1330–77: the Sources and Uses of Royal Patronage
- 1 The ‘new’ nobility
- 2 Mechanisms of royal largesse
- 3 Royal feudal rights
- 4 Annuities and assignments
- 5 Routine patronage
- PART TWO The Impact and Rationale of Edward III's Patronage
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - The ‘new’ nobility
from PART ONE - New Parliamentary Peerage Creations, 1330–77: the Sources and Uses of Royal Patronage
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART ONE New Parliamentary Peerage Creations, 1330–77: the Sources and Uses of Royal Patronage
- 1 The ‘new’ nobility
- 2 Mechanisms of royal largesse
- 3 Royal feudal rights
- 4 Annuities and assignments
- 5 Routine patronage
- PART TWO The Impact and Rationale of Edward III's Patronage
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Among the signs of royalty we considered it to be the most important that, through a suitable distribution of ranks, dignities and offices, its position (vallatum) is sustained by the wise counsels and protected by the many powers of formidable men. Yet, the hereditary ranks in our kingdom, both through descent to coheirs and coparceners according to the law of the kingdom and through a failure of issue and various other events, having returned into the hand of the king, this realm has experienced for a long time a substantial loss in the names, honours and ranks of dignity. (From the charter raising Robert Ufford to the earldom of Suffolk on 16 March 1337.)
TO VARYING DEGREES, all medieval English monarchs promoted underlings, supporters and/or friends during their reigns. Henry I's promotions were made up of ‘men raised from the dust’ – Geoffrey de Clinton, Ralph Basset, Rainer of Bath and Hugh of Buckland, to name but four – individuals with, at best, obscure origins who rose in the king's service as well as in personal wealth. These were the men who had helped Henry I regain firm monarchical control of England after the reign of an unpopular, elder brother (William Rufus) and a succession disputed by another, belatedly ambitious, one (Robert Curthose). Although Henry's were not the first ‘new men’ in the post-Conquest period, as has been emphasised by Hollister and Green, nor, more obviously, would they be the last.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Edward III and the English PeerageRoyal Patronage, Social Mobility and Political Control in Fourteenth-Century England, pp. 15 - 27Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2004