Justice and Grace Private Petitioning and the English Parliament in the Late Middle Ages

by Dodd, Gwilym

• ISBN13: 9780199202805
• ISBN10: 019920280X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-09-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Focusing on the key role of the English medieval parliament in hearing and determining the requests of the king's subjects, this ground-breaking new study examines the private petition and its place in the late medieval English parliament (c.1270-1450). Until now, historians have focussed on the political and financial significance of the English medieval parliament; this book offers an important re-evaluation placing the emphasis on parliament as a crucial element in the provision of royal government and justice. It looks at the nature of medieval petitioning, how requests were written and how and why petitioners sought redress specifically in parliament. It also sheds new light on the concept of royal grace and its practical application to parliamentary petitions that required the king's personal intervention. The book traces the development of private petitioning over a period of almost two hundred years, from a point when parliament was essentially an instrument of royal administration, to one where it was self-consciously dispatching petitions as the highest court of the land. Gwilym Dodd considers not only the detail of the petitionary process, but also broader questions about the government of late medieval England. His conclusions contribute to our understanding of the nature of medieval monarchy, and its ability (or willingness) to address local difficulties, as well as the nature of local society, and the problems that faced individuals and communities in medieval society.

Author Biography

Gwilym Dodd is Lecturer in History at the University of Nottingham.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. xi
List of Abbreviations	p. xii
Introduction	p. 1
Private Petitions in Parliament
The Emergence of Private Petitions	p. 19
Beginnings	p. 19
Motives	p. 25
Pressures	p. 26
Incentives	p. 31
'High Noon'-Private Petitions, c.1290-c.1330	p. 49
The Growth of Petitioning and the Growth of Bureaucracy	p. 50
Patterns of Petitioning, 1297-1325	p. 60
Responding to the Petitions	p. 78
Decline and Consolidation: Private Petitions in the Reign of Edward III	p. 89
The Triers	p. 91
The Committees of Triers	p. 91
The Work of the Triers	p. 103
The Crown and Private Petitioning, 1327-1377	p. 108
Contraction in the Fourteenth Century	p. 116
'Common' Petitions in the Fourteenth Century	p. 126
Phase One: The Antecedents-'Community Petitions'	p. 128
Phase Two: The Commons' Petitions	p. 133
Phase Three: Enrolled Common Petitions	p. 141
Private Petitions in the Fifteenth Century	p. 156
Enrolled Private Petitions	p. 157
Private Petitions Addressed to the Commons	p. 166
Petitions to the Lords	p. 174
Petitions to the Commons	p. 179
Common Petitions in the Fifteenth Century	p. 187
Private Petitions and Private Petitioners
Individual Petitioners	p. 199
Preliminary Considerations	p. 200
The Identity of Petitioners	p. 205
Peasants	p. 207
Women	p. 211
Nobility	p. 215
The Content of the Petitions	p. 220
The King's Grace	p. 232
Petitions from Communities	p. 242
Petitions from the Clergy	p. 243
Petitions from County Communities	p. 254
Petitions from Towns	p. 266
Writing and Presenting Private Petitions	p. 279
Structure and Formulae	p. 280
Language and Rhetoric	p. 290
Writing and Presentation	p. 302
Conclusion	p. 317
Rolls and Files	p. 326
The Evolution of the Petitionary Form	p. 335
Bibliography	p. 339
Index of Personal and Place Names cited in Petitions	p. 361
General Index	p. 367
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