Black Death in England

The Black Death ravaged England between 1348 and 1349. The disease raged across the south in the summer of 1348, mutated to the far more horrendous pneumonic form by the winter months, and arrived in London by the end of September 1348. From London the disease spread east, through East Anglia and along the coast. By the spring of 1349, the midlands and Wales were in the grip of the epidemic, and by the late summer, the plague had reached the north of England and spanned the Irish Sea into Ireland. In 1349, Scotland took advantages of England’s weakness as a result of the disease raging throughout, and was rewarded by 1350 with the disease spreading like wildfire and causing havoc in Scotland.

The plague caused massive panic throughout England. A testimony at St. Marys, Ashwell, Hertfordshire carved in 1349 accounts for the plague causing a ‘wretched, terrible, destructive year, the remnants of the people alone remain’.

In terms of how the plague spread so quickly, it has been said that ‘sometimes it came by road... sometimes by river... or by ship... or from other infected areas’ (J. Bolton, ed. Ormrod and Lindley, (1996)). J. Bolton also wrote that the death rates ‘ranged between 19 per cent of manorial tenants at Hartlebury and Hanbury to no less than 80 per cent at Aston.’ There are no accounts of entire villages being wiped out by the disease, but it is unlikely that any family was not affected by loss attributed to the disease.

Bristol was the first major town to be stuck by the onset of the plague in England. As the second largest town and a major international trading port for the country with links to Europe, where it was said that the plague was already flourishing, it did seem inevitable that Bristol would suffer majorly, and early. Henry Knighton chronicled at the time that ‘the dreadful pestilence made its way along the coast by Southampton and reached Bristol where almost the whole strength of the town perished.’ Bristol, with its 10,000 inhabitants and cramped, unsanitary living conditions almost certainly conformed to Holt and Rosser’s description of a medieval settlement as set out in ‘The English Medieval Town’ (1990) ‘filth running in open ditches in the streets, fly-blown meat and stinking fish, contaminated... ale, polluted well water, unspeakable privies, epidemic disease’.

As well as the apocalyptic accounts of the spread and consequences of the plague, contemporaries tell of mass graves, such as the one uncovered at Spitalfields in London, and of the Bishop of London having to hastily open a new cemetery next to Smithfields. London was in a far less sanitary condition than Bristol. As the largest city, cess pits punctuated the narrow, filth ridden streets, Thames was flowing with the polluted waste of an over populated city, and waste was flung from windows and stayed where it fell. Attempts to improve sanitation were hindered by the disease itself. All of London’s street cleaners had died of the illness they were trying to prevent by cleaning the streets. The poor and impoverished were not the exclusive victims of the plague. Two ex-chancellors and three Archbishops of Canterbury all died within very quick succession. The Black Death was a huge problem in London until 1350, and it thought to have killed between one third and one half of the population.

1350 did not herald the complete end of the plague. It ravaged again through England in 1361-64, 1368, 1371, 1373-75, 1390, and from 1405 into the fifteenth century. Henry Knighton and other contemporary chroniclers, including Thomas Walsingham noted that ‘in 1361 there was a second pestilence within England, which was called the mortality of children’ and that ‘in 1390 a great plague ravaged the country. It especially attacked adolescents and boys, who died in incredible numbers in towns and villages everywhere’. The plague decimated the population of its youth, the future of the country. It is thought that by 1360, it could have been highly possible that the disease could have become age and gender specific.

King John and Magna Carter

John was the youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was born in 1167, and quickly gained a reputation for misconduct. He was sent back from Ireland in the 1180s for such actions. While his elder brother, King Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned in Austria, John tried to seize the crown. On his deathbed, not only did Richard pardon John’s actions, but he also named him as successor to the throne.

John faced much opposition, particularly in his French areas of occupation. He fought a series of long drawn out wars in France. In Brittany, of Brittany was captured and never seen again, thought to have been murdered on John’s orders. By 1205, John had lost territory in Normandy, Brittany, Anjou and Maine through his battles with Barons and Lords that refused to accept John’s authority. These lengthy wars were costly, and John introduced new taxes in England to fund the battles. These taxes were not popular.

Having long since lost the respect and support of his people, John then lost the support of Pope Innocent III, when John refused to appoint Stephen Langton as the next Archbishop of Canterbury. John was forced to back down due to lack of support, and he accepted the Pope as his overlord.

In 1215, John tried to regain his lost territories in France. Being defeated, again, John was forced to pay £40,000 for a truce. Being unable to pay the ransom, John tried to introduce another tax to solve his problem. This anger the English Barons greatly, and many decided to rebel violently against the King. John was left with very few loyal Barons, and was forced to concede to the rebels. On 15^th June 1215, at Runnymede in Surry, John was forced to sign a charter that outlined the peace terms of his opponents. This charter was known as Magna Carta, and outlined some very important feudal and taxation changes, some of which still exist today.

The main clauses of Magna Carta stated that

·         No new taxes could be introduced without the support of the Barons.

·         There was to be a reduction in the power held by the King’s sheriffs.

·         All men had the right to be held a fair and just trial.

Other clauses outlined the procedure for how inheritance was to be passed down to heirs, and how the estate of heirs who were not of age were to be handled, as well as how widows were to live, and how widows could avoid remarrying if they so wished.

Henry II and Thomas Beckett

Henry II was the eldest son of Matilda, who was the Daughter of Henry I. When Henry I was king of England, he had two legitimate children -William and Matilda. Unfortunately, William drowned in the Whit Ship Disaster in 1120, and Henry I sought permission for his Daughter, Matilda, to take the throne instead of the next male heir. When Henry died in 1135, Matilda was married to Geoffrey of Anjou. According to the law at the time, as the male, Geoffrey would become the king above Matilda, however the Normans saw the people of Anjou as barbarians. To avoid naming a ‘barbarian as King, Steven, the son of one of William the Conquerors Daughters was crowned King instead. Matilda was not happy, and protested this. Eventually she gave up her claim to the throne on the condition that when Steven died, her son Henry would be the next King.

Henry was very well prepared for the throne from an early age, thanks to the education that Matilda made sure he had. Thanks to the battles that he helped his parents fight, and his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, when Henry was crowned Henry II, he lead an empire that included territories greater than those ruled by the King of France.

Henry II had a good relationship with Theobald, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and it was upon advice from the latter that Henry II appointed Thomas Beckett as Chancellor. This was a very important role that included the responsibility of distributing royal charters, writs and letters. Henry and Beckett became very close friends, with Beckett being assigned very important tasks for the King, such as leading armies in to battle.

When Theobald dies in 1162, Henry then appointed Beckett as the Archbishop of Canterbury. This decision angered the church, who claimed that having never been a priest, owning a reputation as a violent and cruel military leader and being a materialistic lover of food, wine and clothes Beckett was most ill-suited to the role. In addition, the church claimed that as Beckett was a close personal friend of the King, he could not be an impartial and independent leader of the church.

As soon as Beckett took up the position of Archbishop of Canterbury, he showed a great concern for the poor. Every day, 13 poor people were invited to Beckett’s home, washed, fed a meal, and given 4 silver coins. Beckett gave up his lavish clothes in favour of a simplistic monk’s habit, slept on a cold stone floor and was whipped every day by monks.

In 1162, Henry II came back from France, he heard that the number of people convicted of serious crimes had risen, but the number suitable punished had fallen. This was due to the fact that any both with an association to the church could ask for a church trial. The church could not give out violent punishments, and so those convicted were banished from the church and stripped of their positions. Henry wanted to change this, and said that those clergy men accused of serious crimes should be handed over to the Kings court. Beckett, despite originally supporting this change, told the king that the Church should be responsible for their own men, and opposed the Kings reform.

The King was not happy and sought revenge. He thought that Beckett had betrayed him, and so in1164, when Beckett was involved in a dispute over land, the King summoned him to court. When Beckett refused to attend, the King took all of Beckett’s land from him, and accused him of stealing £300 during his time as chancellor. This was not true, but Beckett offered to pay the £300 back to resolve the situation. The king refused this offer, and so Beckett fled England for France to save himself from the wrath of the King, who was now accusing Beckett of treason.

Under the protection of Henry II’s enemy, King Louis VII of France, Beckett organised a propaganda campaign against Henry with the support of the pope. Under fear of excommunication, Henry tried to resolve the issue a better way, and asked Beckett to come back to England. As soon as Beckett arrived back, he excommunicated the Archbishop of York, and other Church leaders who had supported Henry II while Beckett was away. This greatly angered the King. In an attempt to avenge the plight of their King, four knights - Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, Reginald Fitz Urse, and Richard Ie Bret – set off for England to confront Beckett.

When they arrived at Canterbury Cathedral, Beckett refused to pardon the excommunicated leaders of the church. The four knights hacked Beckett to death with their swords. The pope canonised Beckett, and revered him as a symbol of resistance to the monarchy. His shrine in Canterbury Cathedral has long since been a draw for pilgrims.

Henry II admitted that it was his anger that motivated the knights to kill Beckett, be Henry refused to be held accountable for the murder. The pope accepted this, and acquitted Henry of any guilt. Henry dropped his attempts to transfer clergy men accused of serious crimes to the Royal Court.

Domesday Book

The Domesday Book was commissioned by William in December 1085. The first complete draft was finished in August 1086, but the final finished and complete edition of the survey was not completed until after William’s death in 1087. It recorded information about 13,418 settlements south of the Rivers Ribble and Tees, which marked the border with Scotland. There were 413 pages in the final complete edition. The name ‘The Domesday Book’ was not officially taken up until the twelfth century. It came about as people made comparisons between William’s survey and the ‘Book of Life’ in the Bible, which was presented to God for judgement.

The purpose of the survey was to assess the extent of the land and the resources of the country that William had conquered, and to see where William could be getting more taxes from. The Normans took the idea of taxing the land from the Anglo-Saxon system of Danegeld. These taxes were desperately needed to fund William’s costly Battles in back in France, and to pay for the installation of protection in case of invasion from Scandinavian armies.

The information in the book was collected by Royal Commissioners, who were sent around England with a set of questions. In order to lessen the scale of the task, the country was divided into seven circuits, and 3 to 4 commissioners were sent to each circuit. The information collected by the commissioners was then presented to a jury of Barons and Villagers from the local county, before being sent to London and added into the one main book.

In the Domesday Book, there are records of

·         Land Owners

·         Their tenants

·         The amount of land owned

·         How many men occupied the land (villagers, small holders, free men, slaves etc)

·         Amount of woodland, meadow, animals, fish and ploughs on the land (if any)

·         Any buildings on the land (churches castles, mills, salt houses, etc)

·         The value of the land and its assets before conquest, after conquest, and at the time of Domesday

·         Some entries chronicled ownership disputes, and customary dues. Town entries include traders and number of houses.

The Domesday Book is now held in a special box in the National Archives in London.

Normanisation of England

After 1070, William eliminated the last of the old Anglo-Saxon land owning elite, by stripping the Lords of their lands and estates. Amy estates that were left without heirs were handed directly to Normans. The transition from a largely Saxon land owning class to a Norman land owning class took place within a generation. The same happened with the Church. Stigand was disposed and replaced with Lanfranc, a scholar and abbot of continental origins. Lanfranc appointed clerics with a similar continental ancestry. The language of government, politics and the church was Latin, and Norman French. To this day, upper class and ‘posh’ language has Norman French origins (e.g. Amorous, Judicial) and common and lower class language has English origins (e.g. Love, Law).

William and his Normans set about with the Normanisation of the English landscape from when they arrived in 1066. The first Norman Castle was built at Hastings in 1066. Early Norman castles and forts were little more than earthen mounds and stockades. Later, these castles and forts were built as stone keeps that still make up the English landscape today. The Norman castles were an insurance against the surly populace that rejected the new Norman regime, a centre of power and control over a localised area, and a series of rallying points from which to organise a defence against any attacks from Scandinavia.

When building an effective and functional castle, the Normans looked for sites with a strong natural defence, such as a steep hill or an expanse of water. It was also very important to have a good look out over the surrounding countryside. When the perfect site was found, the most common structure for the forts and castles was ‘Motte-and-Bailey’. Richard Fitz Gerald, who owned land and built protective castles in Kent, liked this method

The castle he commissioned in Tonbridge, by the River Medway, is a perfect example of the average Norman Castle fortification.  Peasants were forced to dig a large circular ditch, and all of the displaced earth was mounded in the middle of the ditch to create a high mound, known as the ‘motte’. At Tonbridge, the motte was about 60ft high. A wooden tower was built on top of the motte for residential rooms and look out vantages. Next to the motte, a courtyard – the Bailey – was built. This was connected to the motte by a drawbridge that could be withdrawn in an attack to prevent the invaders from gaining entry to the castle. The motte and bailey were then enclosed by a large fence, called a palisade, within the confines of which, houses and stables could be built.

Hundreds of these castles built across England ensured the security of Norman rule over England from the threat of internal revolt and external invasion. Through conquering the governing elite, the church, the population, and in Normanising the country of England, William had indefinitely secured his position as King of England.

Resistance to the Norman Conquest

In the years following 1066 and William’s conquest of England, there was surprisingly little resistance from the Anglo-Saxons. This is probably due to the fact that most of the noble classes who would have opposed the Norman Regime had been killed in the battles at Stamford Bridge and Senlac Hill. Another reason may be that some of the remaining nobles welcomed the Normans, and embraced the new ruling classes of England. One such noble is Wigod, the Saxon lord of Wallingford, who quickly aligned himself with the Normans through marriage. Another reason for the strange lack of resistance could be that some Anglo-Saxon leaders may have thought that the Normans would have little effect on the English, and that they would just get diluted into English society. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand, seems to have been of such an opinion.

The resistance that did surface from Anglo-Saxon England against the Normans came from the margins of the land. Harold’s family, the Godwinsons, rebelled in Cornwall, and there was also trouble in the Welsh Marshes, the Isle of Ely, Peterborough and East Anglia.

The most serious threat to the new Norman Kingdom came from the North of England and Scotland. In 1068 and 1069, Northern revolts resulted in the massacre of Norman garrisons at York and Durham. These revolts were well supported by Scottish and Danish expeditions, who were well equipped. In the winter of 1069-1070, William was forced to react to the northern revolts, and the northern counties of Northumbria and Cumbria were scorched and decimated, creating a wasted void between the Scottish border and the richer shires of the south of England.

Malcolm III of Scotland was not slow in realising the potential expansion that could come with sheltering and sponsoring the displaced Anglo-Saxon exiles in their attempts to re-conquer the lost North. Malcolm also led successful expeditionary troops into Northumbria and Cumbria. Malcolm actively antagonised the Normans by marrying the Daughter of an English pretender and naming all of their children with provocatively deliberate English names, such as Edgar, Edmund, Edward, and Ethelred.  In 1072, William marched his troops to Abernathy near Perth to assess the threat of the Scots, and to display this authority of England. Malcolm acknowledged Williams claim to some of the lands previously belonging to Northumbria, and William noted that the Scots were a dangerous foe, strengthened by Flemish and Norman allies of their own. This encounter became known as the ‘Abernathy Standoff’, as the two sides did nothing more that stand opposite each other and acknowledge the threat.