HIS3406 Early English Constitutional History by Prof. Frederick Hokming Cheung

1
HIS3406 Early English Constitutional Historyby
Prof. Frederick Hok-ming Cheung
2
Medieval English History (I William I to Henry
I)Medieval English Kings

• The Anglo-Saxon Kings
• Harthacnut, r. 1040-1042
• Edward (the Confessor), r. 1042-1066
• Harold (Godwineson), r. 1066
• The Norman Kings
• William I (the Conqueror), r. 1066-1087
• William II (Rufus), r. 1087-1100
• Henry I (Lion of Justice), r. 1100-1135
• Stephen, r. 1135-1154

3

• The Angevin (Plantagenet) Kings
• Henry II (Father of the English Common Law), r.
  1154-1189
• Richard I (the Lion-Hearted), r. 1189-1199
• John (the Lackland), r. 1199-1216
• Henry III, r. 1216-1272
• Edward I, r. 1272-1307
• Edward II, r. 1307-1327
• Edward III, r. 1327-1377
• Richard II, r. 1377-1399

4

• The Lancastrian Kings
• Henry IV, r. 1399-1413
• Henry V, r. 1413-1422
• Henry VI, r. 1422-1461
• Edward IV, r. (1461) 1471-1483
• Edward V, r. April 9 July 6, 1483
• Richard III, r. 1483-1485

5

• The Tudor Kings
• Henry VII, r. 1485-1509
• Henry VIII, r. 1509-1547
• Edward VI, r. 1547-1553
• Mary, r. 1553-1558
• Elizabeth I, r. 1558-1603

6

• The Stuart Kings
• James I, r. 1603-1625
• Charles I, r. 1625-1649
• Charles II, r. 1660-1685
• James II, r. 1685-1689

7
(Main reference C. Warren Hollister, The Making
of England to 1399.)

• In January 1066, Edward the Confessor (the last
  Anglo-Saxon King) died (childless).
• Earl Harold (Godwineson) was at his deathbed.
  With the support of Archbishop Stigand of
  Canterbury, Harold claimed that Edward had
  designated him as his heir.

8

• However, King Harold Hardrada of Norway also had
  a claim to the English throne, arising out of the
  treaty made between Harthacnut and King Magnus
  Norway in 1038.

9

• The third claimant to the English throne was Duke
  William of Normandy, whom King Edward the
  Confessor had named as his heir in 1051.
  Furthermore, William also claimed priority over
  Harold Godwineson on the basis of an episode that
  had occurred in 1064 or 1065 according to the
  Norman sources, Earl Harold

10

• Godwineson took a solemn public oath,
  acknowledging Duke Williams right to the English
  throne. The Pope in Rome in 1066 granted Duke
  William a papal banner to carry with him when he
  invaded England. The story of Harolds oath did
  more than an additional element to Duke Williams
  legal claim to the English throne. It also
  allowed William and his supporters to paint
  Harold as a feudal traitor who had betrayed his
  lord.

11

• The Battle of Hastings was fought on Saturday,
  October 14.
• On Christmas Day 1066, William the Conqueror was
  crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey as
  the legitimate successor of King Edward the
  Confessor.
• It remained only for William the Conqueror to
  consolidate his conquest of England and establish
  firm rule over an already highly centralized
  kingdom.

12

• (Please also see Frederick Hok-ming Cheung,
  Conquest, Consolidation, and Legitmation of
  Norman England, in The Legitimation of New
  Orders Case Studies in World History, ed. Leung
  Yuen-sang, Hong Kong The Chinese University of
  Hong Kong, 2007, pp. 179-195 and The Role of
  the Christian Church in the Court Politics of
  Norman England, in Politics and Religion in
  Ancient and Medieval Europe and China. Hong
  Kong The Chinese University Press,1999,
  pp.147-162.)

13
The Administrative Contributions of William the
Conqueror

• The vigor of the Anglo-Norman royal government
  under William the Conqueror, r. 1066-1087,
  unmatched elsewhere in western Christendom, is
  illustrated in his consolidation of the Christian
  Church in 6 years, by 1072, replaced all the
  Anglo-Saxon bishops by others, mainly Norman and
  administrative accomplishments, especially the
  Domesday Survey later published in two large
  volumes known as Domesday Book (1086). Circuits
  of royal administrators toured the countryside,
  gathering information from as many as 7,000
  jurors representing the local shire and hundred
  courts.

14

• The Kings officials undertook to list every
  manor, the name of the person (the tenant) who
  held it in 1066 and in 1086, from whom it was
  held, its assessment in hides, its value in 166
  and in 1086, and the number and social status of
  its tenants. Some historians -- noting that the
  survey is organized not by shires and hundreds,
  but rather by tenants-in-chief within each shire
  have suggested that Domesday was intended to
  inform the King about the new structures of
  landholding that had emerged in his Anglo-Norman
  Kingdom since 1066, so that when a tenant-

15

• in-chiefs property fell to the King, the Kong
  would know where his estates were located and how
  much they were worth. Professor James C. Holt
  has noted that the presentation of Domesday Book
  to the King coincided with the Salisbury Oath
  when William the Conqueror demanded an oath of
  direct allegiance from all the landholding
  tenants of England Prof. Holt has suggested
  that these two events were related and that they
  were planned together at the 1985 Christmas
  court thus, the

16

• Domesday Survey was intended to survey the new
  patterns of landholding that had emerged in
  England in the two decades after the Conquest (in
  1066). Hence, the King would know the potential
  wealth of his Anglo-Norman Kingdom and its
  existing tax assessment system. He would also
  know the value of all the estates that might,
  through death or forfeiture, fall into the Kings
  hands, for which the royal sheriffs might be
  required to account. According to Prof. C.
  Warren Hollister, But the

17

• reason Williams great men went along with the
  Domesday survey and with the Salisbury Oath was
  because in return for the homage and fealty they
  swore to him at Salisbury, William guaranteed
  their clear title to all the property Domesday
  Book recorded as holding. After twenty years of
  conquest, expropriation, forfeiture, and
  exchange, many Normans had no clear legal title
  to the lands they currently possessed. Domesday
  Book provided this title and thus set a seal of
  permanence on their acquisitions. Thereafter,
  Williams followers would not need to appeal to
  the charters

18

• and writs of their Anglo-Saxon predecessors to
  defend their rights to their property. They
  would need to appeal only to the record of
  Domesday itself. From Domesday, however, there
  would be no appeal and hence its title, which
  means judgment day.
• C. Warren Hollister, The Making of England.
  (Boston Houghton Mifflin, 2001), pp.148-149 see
  also James C. Holt, 1086, in Domesday Studies,
  ed. James C. Holt (Woodbridge, 1987), pp. 41-64
  and Robin Fleming, Domesday Book and the Law
  Society and Legal Custom in Early Medieval
  England. (Cambridge, 1998).

19

• William II (Rufus), r. 1087-1100 was crowned King
  of England by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury
  in Westminster Abbey on September 26, 1087.
• On August 2, 1100, William II was killed by an
  arrow while hunting in the New Forest. Rufus was
  at his early forties when he was killed, and his
  sudden death provoked a crisis in the royal
  succession. (Please see C. Warren Hollister,
  The Strange Death of William Rufus, Speculum
  48(1973), pp. 637-753 reprinted in Monarchy,
  Magnates, and Institutions, pp. 59-75).

20

• Henry, the youngest brother, moved swiftly and
  surely seized the royal treasury in Winchester,
  won the approval of a royal council, and then
  dashed to London where he was crowned at
  Westminster Abbey on August 5 (only three days
  after the shooting). In preparation for Robert
  Curthose, the eldest brothers return from the
  First Crusade, Henry did everything in his power
  to win the support of his subjects. He sought to
  appease the barons and the Church by issuing an
  elaborate coronation charter, known in later
  years as the Charter of Liberties, in which he
  agreed to discontinue the predatory practices of
  William Rufus.

21

• In the Charter of Liberties (1100), Henry I, r.
  1100-1135, promised to neither sell nor put at
  farm nor, on the death of an archbishop, bishop,
  or abbot, take anything from a Churchs demesne
  or from its vassals during the interval before a
  successor is installed. If any of my barons
  or earls or other tenants shall die, his heir
  shall not redeem his land as he did in my
  brothers time, but shall henceforth redeem it by
  a just and lawful relief. And if the wife of
  one of my tenants survives her husband I will
  not give her in marriage unless she herself
  consents. (English Historical Documents, Volume
  II, p. 433 translation by C. Warren Hollister).

22

• However, according to Prof. Hollister, The
  coronation charter Charter of Liberties, 1100
  was neither a prelude to constitutional monarch
  nor an open act of royal generosity, but one of
  several gambits that Henry employed to gain
  needed support in the oncoming crisis.
  (Hollister, The Making of England, p. 159).
• The reign of Henry I contributed significantly to
  royal administration. Henry I was known as the
  Lion of Justice, and he ruled firmly and
  justly. Please refer to C. Warren Hollister,
  Royal Act of Mutilation The Case against Henry
  I. Albion 104(1978), pp. 330-340 reprinted in
  Monarchy, Magnates, and Institutions, pp.
  291-301 and Henry I. (New Haven Yale University
  Press, 2001).

23

• Judicial fines added to the royal revenue, and by
  extending the scope of the Kings justice, Henry
  I increased the flow of money into his treasury.
  The reign of Henry I witnessed a dramatic growth
  in the royal judicial system and the royal
  administration. Although local justices were
  appointed in each shire to assist the sheriffs in
  judicial business, the important legal cases were
  judged by the King and his curiales at the royal
  court (curia Regis). Henry I also started the
  practice of sending itinerary justiciars to
  various parts of England to hear pleas. These
  itinerant justices, or justice in eyre, acted
  in the Kings name. During the reign of Henry I,
  the judicial tours grew ever more systematic
  until, by the reigns end, they had developed
  into a comprehensive, regularized procedure.

24

• The chief instrument of command of Henry I was
  his royal writs, which were brief royal commands
  or statements, written in Latin, witnessed and
  authenticated by the attachment of the royal
  seal. Usually, a writ would be addressed to the
  local sheriff or justiciar, or to the baronial or
  ecclesiastical lord of an area, or to all the
  Kings officials and faithful men of a particular
  shire or group of shires. About 1,500 royal acts
  have been recorded and collected in Regesta Regum
  Anglo-Normannorum, Volume II Regesta Henrici
  Primi, 1100-1135, ed. Charles Johnson and H.A.
  Cronne (Oxford, 1956). These writs, according to
  Prof. Hollister, address an immense

25

• variety of judicial and administrative matters
  grants or confirmations of lands and privileges,
  orders of restitution, commands to act in some
  way or to cease to acting in some way, exemption
  from certain taxes, or freedom from tolls. Taken
  together, they convey a powerful impression of
  the scope and authority of royal government of
  Henry I. (Hollister, The Making of England, p.
  165 on the administrative Kingship of Henry I,
  please refer to C. Warren Hollister, The Rise of
  Administrative Kingship Henry I, American
  Historical Review 83(1978), pp. 867-891,
  reprinted in Monarchy, Magnates, and
  Institutions, pp. 223-245).

26

• During the reign of Henry I, the exchequer
  started its work, which was a twice-yearly audit
  of the royal income from the shires. The term
  exchequer derives from the table around which
  the auditors worked. On the table lay a
  chequered cloth resembling a checkerboard,
  divided into columns representing various
  denominations of money. The auditors placed
  markers on these columns to represent the
  accounts of sheriffs who reported in. The
  exchequer accounts were recorded on long rolls of
  parchment known as pipe rolls, now valuable
  historical sources (especially for the reign of
  Henry I, because only the 1130 survived). The
  single surviving pipe roll of Henry I, for the
  year 1129-1130, constitutes the earliest extant
  fiscal account of a major principality in the
  history of Western Europe.

27

• The reign of Henry I marked the age of
  Anglo-Norman royal administration, which Prof.
  W.L. Warren saw as the seed of the modern state.
  (Please see W.L. Warren, The Myth of Norman
  Administrative Efficiency. Transaction of the
  Royal Historical Society, 5th Series, 34(1984),
  pp. 113-132.

28
(No Transcript)