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Arbitration and the Growth of Urban Liberties in Late Medieval England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Lorraine Attreed
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Extract

In December 1448, the city of Exeter agreed with the bishop and dean and chapter of the cathedral church to abide by the arbitration of two local magnates who settled a complex dispute over urban jurisdiction. That the arbitrators decided against the city, which suffered a slight constitutional setback as a result, is only one of several important conclusions to be drawn from a study of the dispute and its resolution. The nature of the argument and the procedures by which both parties sought to resolve it shed light on the character of urban constitutional growth in the later Middle Ages, on legal procedures and what medieval people thought about the law, and on the lengths they were willing to go to assure a decision that was as favorable as possible without poisoning relations between two institutions that coexisted within city walls. The case also illustrates the important role arbitration played in dispute settlement and reveals this method to be as viable an alternative as recourse to the common-law and equity courts of the royal government.

Exeter's case is unique in that so much written evidence survives to testify to the financial investments and political aims of both parties involved. Comparisons will be drawn to other boroughs that endured similar jurisdictional disputes in the fifteenth century, but their evidence is far less revealing of decision and motivation than that remaining for Exeter. Although many of the major documents associated with the case have been in print for over a century, and examined in some detail in a brief monograph published over fifty years ago, the nature of the records has focused more attention on the city's participation than on that of the cathedral.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 205 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1992

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References

1 Moore, Stuart A., ed., Letters and Papers of John Shillingford, Mayor of Exeter 1447–50, Camden Society, n.s., vol. 2 (London, 1871)Google Scholar; Curtis, Muriel E., Some Disputes between the City and the Cathedral Authorities of Exeter, History of Exeter Research Group, monograph 4 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1932)Google Scholar.

2 Details of York's case can be found discussed in Palliser, David, Tudor York (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 29–30, 45Google Scholar; published primary sources include Attreed, Lorraine C., ed., The York House Books, 1461–1490 (London: Alan Sutton, 1991), pp. 193–94, 213–14, 243–44, 280–81, 294, 303–4, 321, 335–37, 340–41, 515–16Google Scholar; and Raine, Anglo, ed., York Civic Records, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series 103 (Wakefield: Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1941), 2:107–16, 123, 155–58, 163, 165–66, 169–70, 173, 180–81Google Scholar. The introduction to vol. I of The Records of the City of Norwich, ed. Hudson, William and Tingey, John C., 2 vols. (London and Norwich: Jarrold & Sons, 1906, 1910)Google Scholar, contains an overview of the city's dispute with transcriptions of original documents. Also helpful is Tanner, Norman P., The Church in Late Medieval Norwich, 1370–1532, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies and Texts 66 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies and Texts, 1984), chap. 4Google Scholar. Detailed analysis of the York and Norwich cases can be found in Attreed, Lorraine, “The English Royal Government and Its Relations with the Boroughs of Norwich, York, Exeter and Nottingham, 1377–1509” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1984), chaps. 8 and 12Google Scholar. Examples could be easily multiplied. Saint Albans's Abbey went to great lengths to defend its liberties against the claims of the surrounding town; see Gransden, Antonia, Historical Writing in England, vol. 2, c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982), pp. 119–20Google Scholar. The town of Brecon took its disputes with Saint John's priory to the council of the duchy of Lancaster; see Somerville, R., “The Duchy of Lancaster Council and Court of Duchy Chamber,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser., 23 (1941): 174CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Savage, William, The Making of Our Towns (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1952), pp. 97–101, for a discussion of similar conflicts in developing boroughsGoogle Scholar.

3 On a broader scale, Exeter's situation raised basic questions about the nature of royal justice and whether it was always either welcome or fair to any medieval local society. This is a topic raised in terms of rural, landholding society by Christine Carpenter. “Law, Justice and Landowners in Late Medieval England.” Law and History Review 1 (1983): 235 and passimGoogle Scholar; many of her conclusions are valid for medieval towns, as well. See also Post, J. B., “Local Jurisdictions and Judgment of Death in Later Medieval England,” Criminal Justice History 4 (1983): 1–21Google Scholar; and Powell, Edward. King-ship, Law and Society: Criminal Justice in the Reign of Henry V (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 42–44Google Scholar. Powell discusses arbitration in this work (pp. 97–107), but the fullest treatments are to be found in his two articles, cited in nn. 5 and 7 below.

4 Problems with the common-law courts are well described in Avery, Margaret, “The History of the Equitable Jurisdiction of Chancery before 1460,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 42 (1969): 129–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 The origins of chancery's equitable jurisdiction can be found in Nicholas Pronay, “The Chancellor, the Chancery, and the Council at the End of the Fifteenth Century,” in British Government and Administration: Studies Presented to S. B. Chrimes, ed. Hearder, H. and Loyn, H. R. (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1974), pp. 87–103Google Scholar. See Carpenter, p. 212, for the association of equity with natural law; and Powell, Edward, “Settlement of Disputes by Arbitration in Fifteenth-Century England,” Law and History Review 2 (1984): 40, for the range of equitable resortsCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Exeter's bishop and dean and chapter were hardly unique in such activity: see Pegues, Frederick, “A Monastic Society at Law,” English Historical Review 87 (1972): 548–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for similar activities of Saint Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, in the early fourteenth century. Noonan, John T. Jr., Bribes (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1984), pp. xi–xxiiiGoogle Scholar, reflects on the difference between gifts, freely given without expectation of return, and bribes, which oblige the recipient to return the favor. The behavior one sees in these legal cases expected the return of the favor sometime in the future, but because the nature of the return was left unspecified and undefined, it is doubtful whether bribery was at work. See Byrne, Muriel St. Clare, ed., The Lisle Letters: An Abridgement (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), pp. 12–16Google Scholar, for sixteenth-century examples of “the regular, almost ritual, distribution of gifts in kind” (Pegues, p. 557).

7 Some of the defensiveness was in reaction to a cutting description of arbitration made by Storey, R. L., The End of the House of Lancaster (London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1966), p. 155Google Scholar. For threats of litigation made in order to make an opponent come to terms, see Powell, Edward, “Arbitration and the Law in England in the Late Middle Ages,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 33 (1983): 62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Powell, , King-ship, Law and Society, pp. 100–101Google Scholar. Compare Baker, J. H., ed., The Reports of Sir John Spelman, Selden Society, vol. 94 (London: Selden Society, 1977), 2:91Google Scholar. Post, J. B. describes the various courts and procedures used in a property dispute in “Courts, Councils, and Arbitrators in the Ladbroke Manor Dispute, 1382–1400,” in Medieval Legal Records, Hunnisett, R. F. and Post, J. B., general eds. (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1978), p. 290Google Scholar.

8 Post, J. B., “Equitable Resorts before 1450,” in Law, Litigants and the Legal Profession, ed. Ives, E. W. and Manchester, A. H. (London: Royal Historical Society, 1983), pp. 74–77Google Scholar; Rawcliffe, Carole, “The Great Lord as Peacekeeper: Arbitration by English Noblemen and Their Councils in the Later Middle Ages,” in Law and Social Change in British History, ed. Guy, J. A. and Beale, H. G. (London: Royal Historical Society, 1984), p. 40Google Scholar. The disputants could also agree to a loveday, a day on which the dispute could be settled without recourse to courts or formal arbitration; see Bennett, Josephine W., “The Mediaeval Loveday,” Speculum 33 (1958): 354CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The increasingly formal processes of self-help, mediation, and formal arbitration and adjudication are studied in Roberts, S., Order and Dispute (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979), pp. 69–71Google Scholar. Urban governments and guilds offered arbitration as the first step in problem solving: for examples, see Powell, Edward, “Arbitration and the Law,” pp. 53–54Google Scholar; Smith, Toulmin, ed., English Gilds, Early English Text Society, o.s., vol. 40 (1870; reprint, London: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 21, 76, 96, 115, 158–59, 279, 322–23, 426Google Scholar; Thomas, A. H., ed., Calendar of Select Pleas and Memoranda of the City of London, 1381–1412 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), pp. xxix–xxxGoogle Scholar. Magnates themselves submitted to arbitration. In 1441, the arbitrators in the Exeter case, Thomas, earl of Devonshire, and William Bonville, agreed to settle their dispute over the steward-ship of the duchy of Cornwall, but no award was ever made; see Storey, pp. 87–88; Nicolas, Nicholas H., ed., Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, 6 vols. (London: Record Commission, 1834–1837), 5:158, 161, 165, 173–75Google Scholar. See Rawcliffe, pp. 42-43, for equally abortive examples from national politics. For praise of arbitration earlier than the fifteenth century, see Given, James B., Society and Homicide in Thirteenth-Century England (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1977), p. 201Google Scholar; Cheyette, Fredric L., “Suum Cuique Tribuere,” French Historical Studies 6 (1970): 287–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; White, Stephen D., “ [Pactum … Legum Vincit et Amor Judicium]: The Settlement of Disputes by Compromise in Eleventh-Century Western France,” American Journal of Legal History 22 (1978): 281–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Clanchy, Michael, “Law and Love in the Middle Ages,” in Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West, ed. Bossy, John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 47–48, 50, 52, 61–62Google Scholar, explores the meaning of these terms in medieval society. Its voluntary nature, and the need to accept compromise, often prevented arbitration from being the first choice of extremely distressed disputants, as Richard III found out when he scolded the citizens of York for rioting first and considering the arbitrament abilities of the mayor, the Council of the North, or the king himself last; see Attreed, , York House Books, pp. 340–41Google Scholar.

10 Hicks, Michael, “Restraint, Mediation and Private Justice: George, Duke of Clarence as [Good Lord,]” Journal of Legal History 4 (1983): 56–57, 61–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rowney, Ian, “Arbitration in Gentry Disputes of the Later Middle Ages,” History 67 (1982): 371–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Payling, Simon J., “Law and Arbitration in Nottinghamshire, 1399-1461,” in People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Rosenthal, Joel and Richmond, Colin (Gloucester: Alan Sutton Publishing; New York: St. Martin's, 1987), pp. 140–60Google Scholar; Powell, , “Arbitration and the Law,” p. 55Google Scholar. Nobles anxious to raise their public standing and build a loyal following were especially careful to render fair decisions; see Rosenthal, Joel, “Feuds and Private Peace-making: A Fifteenth-Century Example,” Nottingham Mediaeval Studies 14 (1970): 86–87Google Scholar.

11 Cheyette, pp. 293–95; Powell, , “Settlement of Disputes,” pp. 36, 39Google Scholar; White, pp. 300–302.

12 Curtis, , Some Disputes (n. 1 above), pp. 17–23Google Scholar, reviews the case. Other ecclesiastical liberties in Exeter included those claimed by the Benedictine priory of Saint Nicholas, but they did not come into such severe and bitter conflict with the civic authorities. For general remarks on the topic, see Ault, W. O., Private Jurisdiction in England (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1923)Google Scholar.

13 Dean and Chapter Archives (DCA), Exeter, MS no. 2093, printed in Curtis, Some Disputes, app. A, pp. 60–61.

14 Devonshire Record Office (DRO), Exeter, Receivers' Rolls, 11–12 Henry IV, 3–4 Henry V, 11–12 and 12–13 Henry VI.

15 DCA, nos. 503, 2890, 2892, 4720; DRO, Book 55, Freeman's Book, fols. 71v–74v; Public Record Office (PRO), London, Early Chancery Proceedings, C1/12/243; Calendar of Patent Rolls (CPR), 1429–36 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1907), pp. 358–59Google Scholar. It should be noted that even a cursory study of Exeter's records reveals that tenants of exempt jurisdictions used city courts, acted as jurors in them, and were elected to various civic offices. Their place of residence did not totally exclude them from Exeter's responsibilities.

16 Moore, ed. (n. 1 above), pp. 84, 99.

17 Curtis, , Some Disputes, pp. 11–14Google Scholar; Moore, ed., pp. 117–18; Victoria History of the Counties of England: Devonshire (London: Constable & Co., 1906), 1:417–18Google Scholar. The church referred to in the Domesday Book was probably not Saint Stephen's, from which the bishop's fee takes its name but which he gained only during the reign of Henry I; more likely, it was (as the cathedral party argued) the pre-Conquest monastery on whose site the later cathedral church of Saint Peter rose. (The existing Lady Chapel seems to be over the original site; see Fox, Cyril, The Siting of the Monastery of St. Mary and St. Peter in Exeter [Exeter: Friends of Exeter Cathedral, 1953], p. 8Google Scholar.) Bishop Leofric employed papal authorization and royal help to move his see from Crediton to Exeter in 1050, “for its safety and in accordance with the canonical rule that a bishop's see should be in a city” (Fox, p. 8). The present cathedral was begun 1112–1206 by his successors; see Barlow, Frank, The English Church. 1000–1066: A Constitutional History (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1963), pp. 84, 213–14Google Scholar.

18 Schopp, J. W., ed., The Anglo-Norman Custumal of Exeter, History of Exeter Research Group, monograph 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925), p. 31Google Scholar. Around 1318, the bishop complained to the king and council that Exeter's mayor did not respect these exemptions and insisted on holding various pleas that were reserved for the cathedral; see PRO, Ancient Petitions, SC8/109/5446, printed in Curtis, Some Disputes, app. B, pp. 61–62. However, residents of Saint Stephen's fee successfully asserted their freedom from the city's murage tax in 1377; see Kowaleski, Maryanne, “Tax Payers in Late Fourteenth Century Exeter: The 1377 Murage Roll,” Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries 34 (1980): 218–19Google Scholar.

19 DCA, nos. 2114–19; CPR, Edward I. A.D. 1281–1292 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1893), p. 215Google Scholar. In 1387, the chapter ordered the gates closed at night to prevent citizens from going in and out of the churchyard with intent to harm: DCA, no. 3550, fol. 20v (Chapter Act Book, 1382–1434).

20 Hudson and Tingey, eds. (n. 2 above), 1:31–33.

21 Moore, , ed., p. xiv. Curtis, Some Disputes, pp. 24–25, prints the mayor's version of the sceneGoogle Scholar.

22 Calendar of Charter Rolls, 1427–1516 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1927), 6:60Google Scholar; CPR, 1441–46 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1908), pp. 451–52Google Scholar. The letter patent is dated July 14, 1446; the charter was granted November 14, 1445, and allowed the bishop and his successors to hold “before their steward and bailiffs all assizes of novel disseisin, fresh force and mort d'ancestor and all pleas real personal and mixed from their fees, possessions, lands and tenements and those of the Dean and Chapter of Saint Peter's, Exeter, and of the canons and vicars thereof, lying within the city of Exeter and its suburbs” (CPR, 1441–46, pp. 451–52). It is evident that neither the king nor his government checked to see that these privileges did not conflict with those granted to the city over previous centuries. Henry himself confirmed the city's charters June 1, 1447, and missed a second opportunity to check for conflicts; see DCA, no. 2335.

23 DRO Receivers' Roll 24–25 Henry VI; DCA, no. 3679 (evidence of the special rate, beginning Easter 1446 and meant to last three years, to maintain the suit between the city and the cathedral); Dunstan, G. R., ed., The Register of Edmund Lacy, Bishop of Exeter, 1420–1455, Registrum Commune, 5 vols. (vol 1: Devon and Cornwall Record Society, vol. 60 [Torquay: Devon and Cornwall Record Society, 1963]Google Scholar; vol. 2: Canterbury and York Society, vol. 61, and Devon and Cornwall Record Society, vol. 61 [Torquay: Canterbury and York Society in conjunction with the Devon and Cornwall Record Society, 1966]; vol. 3: Devon and Cornwall Record Society, vol. 62 [Torquay: Devon and Cornwall Record Society, 1967]; vol. 4: Devon and Cornwall Record Society, vol. 63 [Torquay: Devon and Cornwall Record Society, 1971]; vol. 5: Devon and Cornwall Record Society, n.s., vol. 18 [Torquay: Devon and Cornwall Record Society, 1972]), 2:349–51. Lacy also had royal connections that may have persuaded him he would succeed in the royal courts with his case: during Henry V's reign, he was dean of the Chapel Royal and was in attendance on the king until elected (at Henry's instance) bishop of Hereford in 1417. In 1435, he began to excuse himself from convocations, parliaments, and council meetings on the grounds that he was prevented from riding a horse by a longstanding disease of the shin bones; see CPR, 1429–36, p. 453. For biographical details, see Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 2:1081–83Google Scholar; and Dunstan, ed.. 5:viii–x.

24 DCA, no. 2977, piece 18. The total for these February 1447 activities came to £10 15s. 6d. ob.

25 Moore, ed., pp. 2, 133–35. The April date of the writ is determined by the cathedral's selection of nine proxies to represent its case: Dunstan, ed., 2:381–82 (April 17, 14471. The proxies were renewed on May 18; see Dunstan, ed., 2:387–88.

26 The clause in the Magna Carta that the officials seem to have in mind is capitulum 39 of the 1215 version assuring justice by a man's peers or by the law of the land before execution. The Parliament convened in May 1368 (42 Edward III) confirmed a number of the Magna Carta's clauses and reaffirmed a subject's right to justice at the common law before being required to answer before the king or his council; see Strachey, John, ed., Rotuli Parliamentorum, 6 vols. (London: n.p., 1767–1777), 2:295Google Scholar. Carpenter (n. 3 above), has noted the frequent citation of the Magna Carta by those adverse to submitting to equitable resorts and how such an intrusion of unwanted royal authority into the shires could remind men of the days of King John; see pp. 229, 235.

27 Raine, ed. (n. 2 above), 2:155–58, 163, 165–66, 169–70, 173, 180–81; Palliser (n. 2 above), p. 45.

28 Concerning the bishop's claim that his fee was older than the city of Exeter, Shillingford wrote, “if hit so be, hit is harde to answere. Hit asketh meny grete encerchis,” and he proceeded to list the places at home and at Westminster that would bear searching for pertinent documents; see Moore, ed. (n. 1 above), p. 58. For the financial records, see DCA (n. 13 above), no. 2977, piece 18. The variety of royal servants pressed for advice and assistance indicates that the plaintiffs were neither unskilled nor unprepared to pursue this case.

29 DCA, no. 2334; Moore, ed., p. 135. The parties also bound themselves on pain of £500.

30 Powell, , “Arbitration and the Law” (n. 7 above), pp. 54–55, 65Google Scholar. Arbitration was formally encouraged in canon law, and Bishop Lacy's registers reveal him to have advocated that alternative on several occasions; see Dunstan, ed., 1:144–47, 167–75, 195–96; 2:134–39; 3:245–55, 271–72, 290–96, 311–15.

31 Moore, ed., pp. 6–7, 9. The mayor possessed excellent timing: overhearing that the chancellor and one of the chief justices planned to dine together that day, Shillingford took the liberty of sending them fish for their main course, a meal he later discovered was attended also by such powerful magnates as the marquis of Suffolk and the duke of Buckingham. No record survives indicating that the noblemen took any interest in the case, but Shillingford was pleased to have called their attention to its existence. Much of the fish he distributed came from Exeter, and delays in delivery later in the year annoyed Shillingford and risked losing opportunities to ensure favor; see Moore, ed., p. 23.

32 Ibid., p. 10.

33 Ibid., pp. 12–14.

34 Ibid., pp. 16–19. The quote is found on p. 16. These actions may have been mere gestures, since Stafford was known by his contemporaries for his “almost boundless hospitality"; see the Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Stephen, Leslie and Lee, Sidney, 22 vols. (1917; reprint, London: Oxford University Press, 1921–1922), 18:863Google Scholar.

35 Moore, ed., pp. 20–23. The quote is found on p. 21. Shillingford's doubts were expressed on November 11; although undated, the Candlemas deadline seems to have been imposed shortly thereafter.

36 The first article edited by Moore, pp. 75–78, must be supplemented by the document discovered by Curtis, , Some Disputes (n. 1 above), pp. 84–85Google Scholar, regarding cathedral servant John Wolston's criminous activities. The city also made the point that the ten-ants' criminous behavior was aided and abetted within the cathedral fee and included largely anecdotal evidence about clergy and their tenants obstructing public highways, preventing the mayor and officers from reaching and repairing city walls, trying to burn down the city, and entertaining noisy guests of low morals; see Moore, ed., pp. 83–92.

37 Norfolk and Norwich Record Office (NNRO), Norwich, 9–e (documents regarding jurisdiction case); 17–a (Liber Albus), fol. 124.

38 Moore, ed., pp. 80–82. In York, the suburb of Bootham was separated from Saint Mary's Abbey in 1350 and given to the city, yet its tenants paid their share of royal taxation not to civic officials but to the king's collectors of Yorkshire's North Riding; see Percy, Joyce W., ed., York Memorandum Book, Volume III, Surtees Society, vol. 186 (Gateshead: Northumberland Press, 1973), p. 185Google Scholar; Miller, Edward, “Medieval York.” in The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of Yorkshire, the Citv of York, ed. Tillott, P. M. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 39, 68Google Scholar. During the 1440s and 1450s, when Norwich claimed control over the suburb of Trous, its officers argued that the proof lay in the fact that Trous paid 60 percent of its share of the lay subsidy to city collectors; see NNRO, 7–d, Treasurer's Roll 8–9 Henry VI, view of account 1429–30; 17–d, apprentice indentures, fols. 23, 25, 31v–32. However, none of the cities found that this argument—that the king was hurt legally and fiscally by independent suburbs—more than temporarily gained the royal government's attention.

39 Moore, ed. (n. 1 above), pp. 103–4. The bishop had insinuated that the mayor was acquainted with such women and that they congregated at the city walls for him, a charge to which Shillingford responded that he who is without guilt should cast the first stone; see Moore, ed., p. 114. See also pp. 55, 57–58, for the mayor's impatience when the cathedral party failed to produce its articles.

40 DCA (n. 13 above), no. 2977, piece 19.

41 DCA, no. 2977, piece 17. A clerk named Brown gained 6s. 8d. on October 20 for making the changes. A charter of exemplification of Domesday Book cost 20s. 4d. In 1423, Norwich officials were not above giving the county sheriff 16s. 8d. “pro imbesillacione unius brevis versus cives et communitatem sibi directi“; see NNRO, 7-d, Treasurers' Rolls, 2–3 Henry VI. Such records are very frank about the cost of suppression or defacement of writs harmful to Norwich's claim to the suburbs.

42 DCA, no. 2337. The extracts were dated November 6, 1448, hence the mayor's response to that argument must have been written mid- to late November.

43 Moore, ed., pp. 126–27. Royal seizures usually occurred because the city had trouble either keeping the king's peace or making payments to the crown: see Miller, p. 35.

44 Moore, ed., pp. 127–32. Shillingford's sharp remarks sometimes backfired on him. In February 1448, the mayor and an unnamed chief justice agreed that all the mischief of the case originated when the bishop obtained the king's privy seal. In taking his leave, Shillingford quoted, “Jesus vidit civitatem et flevit super earn.” The full passage (Luke 19:41–44) is less a prediction that a town's enemies will eventually be vanquished (as Shillingford hoped) than a description of divine vengeance brought down on a proud city (i.e., Jerusalem).

45 Curtis, , Some Disputes, p. 29Google Scholar.

46 Moore, ed., pp. 40–42. The quote is found on p. 68. See n. 9 above for the medieval distinction between love and law.

47 Printed in Hoker, John, alias Vowell, , The Description of the Citie ofExcester, ed. Harte, W. J., Schopp, J. W., and Soper, H. Tapley, Devon, and Cornwall Record Society, 3 vols. (Exeter, 1919, 1947), 2:190–205Google Scholar. The arrests involved the cathedral chancellor's servant John Vouslegh, clerks John Nott and Thomas Kene, and Vincent Way, all taken by city bailiffs cum vi et armis while in the churchyard. Included also was a charge that, in 1430, civic officials illegally seized a pair of knives belonging to a tenant of the bishop's fee. See Moore, ed., pp. 45–46, for delays and postponements in March 1448, pp. 59–63 for April delays, and p. 65 for the bishop's complaint to King Henry that he was ready to settle and had met with Shillingford personally but that arbitration was broken off. Shillingford often played for time and refused to consider suggestions for settlement he found awkward because (as he wrote) of his “sympelnesse and poverte” (Moore, ed., p. 65). However, the mayor did not always procrastinate. When presented with a settlement more favorable to the cathedral than to the city, he could cast aside his simplicity and refuse outright to agree; see Moore, ed., pp. 65–67. For a comparative case of frequent delays and obfuscation early in the fifteenth century between the abbey of Saint Edmund and the bishop of Ely, see Arnold, Thomas, ed., Memorials of Saint Edmund's Abbey, Rolls Series no. 96, 3 vols. (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1890–1896), 3:188–211Google Scholar.

48 Attreed, ed., York House Books (n. 2 above), pp. 8–10, 77–78, 116, 128–30, 255, 261–62, 307, 318–19, 694–703. While duke of Gloucester, Richard spent much of his time in Middleham Castle, about 45 miles northwest of York.

49 Ibid., p. 340: “the kynges said highnesse thynketh that … ye shuld have shewed your matier and gref [to the mayor and his brethren, or] unto my lorde of Lyncolne or unto my lorde of Northumbreland, where and of whome if ye couth [not] have founde lawfull redresse then the kyng thynkes ye shuld have shewed your said grevez and wrongez unto his said highnesse.” See Raine, ed. (n. 2 above), 2:115–16, for references to the earl of Surrey.

50 Ralph, A. Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), p. 689Google Scholar; Tanner'(n. 2 above), p. 152. NNRO (n. 37 above), 7–d, Chamberlains' Roll 37–38 Henry VI, contains the record of a gift to the duchess of York while her husband was in exile. See NNRO, 9–e; 18–a, Chamberlains' Account Book 1479–88, fols. 50v–51r; and 21–F 9–58, sub 1466, 1469, and 1482, notes of antiquary John Kirkpatrick, for records of Anthony Woodville's intervention in Norwich affairs and gifts given him as the city's patron.

51 DCA, no. 3498. The letter is dated October 8, but bears no year. John Holand, who served on the privy council of Henry VI and was Admiral of England and Constable of the Tower as well, died August 5, 1447, having been in ill health for a year. His son Henry, married to the duke of York's daughter, was a minor of seventeen at the time, and became York's ward: CPR, 1446–52 (London, 1909), p. 86; Griffiths, p. 675; Dictionary of National Biography, 9:1042–44; Cokayne, G. E. C., The Complete Peerage, new ed., rev. Gibbs, V.et al., 12 vols. (London: St. Catherine, 1926), 6:653–54Google Scholar. Lacy's letter could date to 1446, when John was still alive, but the dispute was not urgent enough then for noble intervention, and the duke was in poor health. It is more likely that the bishop chose to establish relations with the newly inherited teenaged duke in 1447 or in 1448, by which date the bishop knew his case would come to trial at Barnstaple, and the help of an influential noble could be valuable. 1 have found no evidence that the duke replied to the bishop's appeal.

52 DRO, Receivers' Roll 26–27 Henry VI. Lord Bonville received wine November 1445 and 1448; see Receivers' Rolls 24–25 and 27–28 Henry VI. The dona and foreign expenses sections of the Receivers' Rolls contain records of outlay for gifts, rewards, and traveling expenses pertinent to the dispute. In 1447–48, expenses in those two categories exceeded £39, constituting 28 percent of total receipts for the year and 44 percent of total expenditures. For the 1440s and 1450s in general, the figures were closer to 12 and 20 percent, respectively.

53 DCA no. 2977, piece 1 (May 27–July 25, 1448). The total cost came to £18 9s. 11d. See also no. 2977, pieces 3 (January 1448) and 5 (March 12–15, 1448), for other rewards given to Recorder Radford as well as to cathedral counselors John Copleston, William Hengston, and John Moore.

54 Attreed, . ed., York House Books, pp. 524–25Google Scholar.

55 Hoker 3:647–52; Rose-Troup, Frances, “The Lady of the Isle: Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Albemarle and Devon,” Transactions of the Devonshire Association 37 (1905): 217, 227Google Scholar; Jackson, A. M., “Medieval Exeter, the Exe, and the Earldom of Devon,” Transactions of the Devonshire Association 104 (1972): 57–72Google Scholar. For examples of Exeter citizens retained by Edward, earl of Devon, in the late fourteenth century, see Cherry, Martin, “The Liveried Personnel of Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, 1384–5,” Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries 35 (1984–1985): 189–90 (s.v. “Clopton”), 224 (s.v. “Grey”), 308 (s.v. “Wilford”)Google Scholar.

56 Cherry, Martin, “The Courtenay Earls of Devon and the Formation and Disintegration of a Late Medieval Aristocratic Affinity,” Southern History 1 (1979): 71–72, 75Google Scholar; Cherry, , “The Crown and the Political Community in Devonshire, 1377–1461” (Ph.D. diss., University College of Swansea, University of Wales, 1981), pp. 126–28Google Scholar. In 1392, the king and council condemned the third earl to imprisonment and fine for threatening the royal justices and harboring an indicted criminal, but his fellow nobles pleaded successfully for a pardon; see Leadam, I. S. and Baldwin, J. F., eds., Select Cases before the King's Council, 1423–1482, Selden Society, vol. 35 (Cambridge, Mass.: Selden Society, 1918), pp. 77–81Google Scholar.

57 Henry VI failed to note this fact when he made the earl of Devon steward of the duchy a few years later, and this careless oversight fueled a rivalry that no amount of arbitration or royal commands could quell; see Cherry, “Courtenay Earls,” p. 95; Storey (n. 7 above), pp. 87–88; Nicolas, ed. (n. 8 above), 5:158, 161, 165, 173–75.

58 PRO (n. 15 above), Ancient Indictments, KB9/275, membrane 137; Radford, Emma Louise, “The Fight at Clyst in 1455,” Transactions of the Devonshire Association 44 (1912): 255–62Google Scholar, “Nicholas Radford,” Transactions of the Devonshire Association 35 (1903): 252–53, 256, 264, 270Google Scholar; Bellamy, J. G., Crime and Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973), pp. 55–57Google Scholar. Courtenay's actions gained national importance in 1455, when they attracted the attention of the commons in Parliament, who moved to raise the duke of York as protector of the realm, a nobleman willing and eager to suppress the “full unsitting governaunce and mysreule" of men like Courtenay; see Nicolas, ed., 6:267–68; Strachey, ed. (n. 26 above), 5:285–86. York imprisoned the earl, who was released when the protectorate ended. Courtenay returned to his violent ways in 1456 for two years before his death. William Bonville was raised to the peerage in 1449 and died in 1461.

59 Cherry, Martin, “The Struggle for Power in Mid-Fifteenth-Century Devonshire,” in Patronage, the Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England, ed. Griffiths, Ralph A. (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1981), pp. 129–30Google Scholar. William Boeff acted as the earl's steward, and Thomas Dourish was a retainer returned by the earl as an M.P. Radford was a man of great eminence and respect: he not only served in Bonville's council, but was also godfather to the earl's son Henry. That Courtenay could not totally dominate Devon society and gain unobstructed access to royal patronage forced him to turn to civil war in the 1450s, not least to rid himself of his Bonville rival. Cherry's article provides a detailed analysis of Bonville's alliance with Henry VI and the court party and Courtenay's relationship with the duke of York during the 1450s, a subject too complex to be treated here.

60 Dunstan, ed. (n. 23 above), 2:71, 166, 248, 313. This activity continued during the 1450s, when Bonville could also be found acting with Bishop Lacy to swear in the sheriff of Devonshire and acting with his ally Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham to keep the peace in the area; see Dunstan, ed., 3:54–55, 137, 160–161. Sir Philip is also frequently mentioned in the register for presentations of clergy; see Dunstan, ed., 2:7, 39, 79, 125–26. In a letter probably dating from September–October 1448, the city alerted Sir Philip, as well as Earl Thomas, Sir William, and counselors from both sides, that the evidence was ready and the case could proceed; see Moore, ed. (n. 1 above), pp. 70–72. Civic officials had rewarded Sir Philip earlier that summer for his participation in the dispute (DRO, Receivers' Roll, 26–27 Henry VI), but he did not maintain an active involvement and was not called upon to arbitrate.

61 Higham, R. A., “A Knight to Remember: The Building Enterprises of Hugh Courtenay (1276–1340),” Transactions of the Devonshire Association 121 (1989): 155Google Scholar; DCA, nos. 2883 and 2884.

62 DCA, no. 2291.

63 Dunstan, ed., 4:169, 194, 247.

64 DCA, no. 3498; Dunstan, ed., 1:281–82, 292; 2:24, 107–8, 169–70, 193–94, 291–92, 354–55.

65 Moore, ed., pp. 136–41. Copies of the composition continued to be made throughout the spring of 1449, as well as rewards for the clerks who made the records: DCA, no. 2977, piece 16, part 4.

66 Hoker (n. 47 above), 2:205.

67 DCA, no. 2977, piece 21. The greatest sum, of £5 1s., went to Nicholas Ashton and household, whose costs for coals and wax candles were also covered by the bishop. Counselor William Hengston received £5. Jurors received rewards between £3 and £6. City recorder Nicholas Radford earned 13s. 4d. for supervising two patents and correcting indentures. See also DCA, no. 2849/2, expenses of the cathedral's receiver of rents John Luffincote, which include the sum of 11s. 11d. spent for riding to London to negotiate on behalf of the bishop and the modest sum of 8d. spent for wine given to Justice Ashton in December.

68 DCA, no. 2977, piece 2a, indicates that the new patents were sealed on February 10 at the cost of 40s., and the old document was canceled February 20 for 6s. 8d. The new charter is examined in Curtis, Muriel E., “A Note on the Dating of an Exeter Charter,” English Historical Review 45 (1930): 290–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The bishop's motives here are suspect: did he believe the new charter would be adopted without question if it bore the 1445 date?

69 DRO, Receivers' Roll 16–17 Edward IV.

70 CPR, 1461–67 (London, 1897), p. 275; DCA, no. 2361.

71 DRO, City charters, no. 32. The cathedral party's rights were not expressly protected. See Youings, Joyce, Early Tudor Exeter: The Founders of the County of the City (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1974), pp. 12–18, for analysis of the disturbances surrounding Protestant sermons which sparked Henry VIII's government to grant the city expanded judicial powers to keep the peaceGoogle Scholar.

72 DRO, City charters, no. 33.

73 DCA, no. 2899 (1538 petition to Henry VIII); Record Office, House of Lords, London, 2 and 3 Edward VI, no. 49, “An act for the enlarging of the liberties of the city of Exeter.” The act defined the city and suburbs of Exeter as part of the county of the city of Exeter, with its own officers who were permitted to serve writs and initiate judicial processes, excepting those which were prejudicial to the rights of the bishop and his successors. The act was passed in 1548, during the stage of the Edwardian Reformation that saw the first act of uniformity and the first prayer book of the Church of England. Exeter's loss of diocesan income, from £1,500 per year to £500, is examined in MacCaffrey, Wallace T., Exeter, 1540–1640 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 185–87, 200–201Google Scholar.

74 See Curtis, Some Disputes (n. 1 above), pp. 43–54, for a review of the dispute between 1535 and 1826. Lehmberg, Stanford E., The Reformation of Cathedrals: Cathedrals in English Society, 1485–1603 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), discusses the strained cathedral finances of the sixteenth century, esp. in chap. 7Google Scholar.

75 Hudson and Tingey, eds. (n. 2 above), 1:cx–cxii. Both parties agreed to continue to abide by the arbitration of Cardinal Wolsey, whose 1524 composition ordered the citizens to resign all claim to jurisdiction within cathedral priory walls and the prior to refrain from claiming jurisdiction in the rest of the city. In addition, many of the disputed suburbs were acknowledged to belong to the church, and citizens agreed to pay for the animals they let graze there. The city, however, received as recompense eighty valuable acres of land; see Blomefield, Francis, A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, 2d ed., 11 vols. (London: William Miller, 1805–1810), 3:195–96Google Scholar.

76 Palliser (n. 2 above), pp. 88–91.

77 Pegues (n. 6 above), pp. 553, 555–58. As Pegues notes, “The unique value of the twenty-one provisions [of the record] lies in their disarmingly candid description of a powerful abbey's attitude and approach to litigation … and the pursuit of benevolentia” (p. 561). See McFarlane, K. B., The Nobility ofLater Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 116–17, for the comment on juriesGoogle Scholar; and Sayles, G. O., “Medieval Judges as Legal Consultants,” Law Quarterly Review 56 (1940): 247–54, for information on privately employed judgesGoogle Scholar.

78 Raine (n. 2 above), 2:173 (in 1502, York officials rejected the settlement proposed by an assize justice in order to request the intervention of the king himself and his ten-year-old son Henry); NNRO, 17-a, Liber Albus, fols. 104–24 (two justices' compromise that the city allow the prior to buy jurisdiction in the precinct rejected by officials), and 21-F 9–58, Notes of John Kirkpatrick, sub 1493 (Norwich officials reject the settlement of royal councillor Sir John Heydon and attorney general James Hobart, although they liked the latter well enough to make him city recorder).

79 Moore, ed. (n. 1 above), pp. 46, 68–70. In March 1448, the cathedral party agreed to a day of entreaty if they could have at least one of their three counselors with them. Two appeared on the chosen day, but the dean called off proceedings until the third could be found. On that unfortunate day, even the city's recorder, paid a regular retainer by the civic officials, did not show up. If Shillingford initially favored the common law because of its opportunities for procrastination, he lost little by agreeing to arbitration. See also Ives, E. W., The Common Lawyers of Pre-Reformation England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 145CrossRefGoogle Scholar.