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1. Magna Carta 1253: new light on the negotiations and the ambitions of the church

Following on from his discussion of Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, and the 1215 Magna Carta, here David Carpenter discusses the role of Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, and the church more widely, in the 1253 confirmation of Magna Carta.

⁋1Occasionally in this series a Fine of the Month has been devoted to a new discovery not directly derived from the fine rolls, although the fine rolls have usually provided some evidence related to it. Such is the case with this month’s contribution. It lays for the first time before the public a letter of King Henry III which supplies a missing link in the negotiations leading to the 1253 confirmation of Magna Carta. The letter also puts that confirmation into a sharper perspective, and confirms (as Christopher Cheney suspected but could not prove) that the church achieved far less in 1253 than it had hoped. ¹ As a coda, the fine rolls themselves come into play with some evidence related to Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, and the schedule he drew up setting out the grievances of the church.

⁋2The charter which Henry agreed in May 1253 was, of course, the final and definitive version of Magna Carta, which he had issued back in 1225, and confirmed in 1237. Both the 1225 Charter and its 1237 confirmation had been supported by sentences of excommunication pronounced against anyone who contravened their terms. The same was true in 1253. Indeed it was the solemnity of the sentences and the efforts made to publicise and enforce them which made the 1253 confirmation seem so special. The ceremony took place on 13 May 1253 in the great hall of Westminster in the presence of the king, five earls and a great many other nobles. The sentence was pronounced by the archbishop of Canterbury and thirteen other bishops. As the candles were thrown down, the king (this according to Matthew Paris who was probably present), held his right hand to his breast and cried out ‘As God helps me, I will keep all these things faithfully, as I am a knight and as I am a crowned and anointed king’. ²

⁋3The record of the excommunication made by the church was widely distributed and preserved. ³ The sentence itself, by order of the bishops, was published in parish churches on Sundays and festival days, accompanied by the burning of candles and the ringing of bells. In his Lincoln diocese, Grosseteste was particularly active in the cause and had clergy fulminate the sentence with crosses and handbells in secular courts. ⁴ Next year, the pope, at the request of the English bishops, confirmed the sentence, and it was distributed again, with orders that it being proclaimed both in English and in French. ⁵ This, of course, foreshadowed the proclamations in English and French of the secular reforms of 1258.

⁋4The clergy, therefore, made gigantic efforts to publicise and enforce the 1253 confirmation of Magna Carta. Behind their activity lay something which historians have never really appreciated, or at least never really stressed. This is that the church, although certainly with lay support, was the driving force behind the 1253 confirmation in the first place. So much emerges quite clearly from Matthew Paris’s account of the negotiations across several assemblies. ⁶ It is completely understandable. The church had both a motive and a lever which the laity simply lacked. The secular tax which Henry obtained in 1253 was pretty insignificant. It came in the form of a ‘feudal aid’ of 3 marks on each knight’s fee for the knighting of his eldest son. Since such an aid was one of those permitted the king in the 1215 Magna Carta, Henry could, in law, simply have demanded it without any negotiations, all the more so since the yield was likely to be comparatively small; in the event it hardly reached £6000. ⁷ This was not something for which Henry would make major concessions. The tax Henry was demanding from the church was totally different. It took the form of a tenth of ecclesiastical revenues for three years to support his crusade. Although sanctioned by the pope, Henry accepted that the levy needed the consent of the English church. He also knew, like everyone else, that it would produce money on a vastly different scale from the feudal aid. In the event it probably did produce over £40,000. ⁸

⁋5At the parliaments and other assemblies of 1252 and 1253, the prelates resisted the tax and complained about Henry’s government in general and his treatment of the church in particular. They pressed for the confirmation of the Charter and they also ventilated a whole series of other grievances, as our newly discovered letter helps to show. In January 1253 a council of the Canterbury province met in London. Its first task was to settle the violent dispute which had erupted between the queen’s uncle, Boniface of Savoy, archbishop of Canterbury, and the king’s half brother, Aymer de Lusignan, bishop elect of Winchester. Henry, staying at Windsor, declared that the prelates were not to leave London, and he would not come there, until this had been achieved. In fact, a settlement was soon arranged and the prelates then turned to the question of the tax. After much debate, they agreed that if the king ceased to oppress the church, they would give their consent to it. Henry’s reply, as it had not been at earlier gatherings, was conciliatory. He asked them ‘to write down secretly the articles of offence’ so that he could emend them; and he appointed a day when he could reform everything ‘by common counsel’.

⁋6All of this is from Matthew Paris and the chronicle of his fellow Saint Albans monk, John of Wallingford. ⁹ Cheney, on the basis of their testimony, observed that ‘if, as was intended in January, the clergy presented articles of complaint to the king and asked for redress of specific grievances, the result [in the confirmation of Magna Carta] fell far short of their hopes’. ¹⁰ What the new letter shows is that present articles to the king, the clergy most certainly did. The letter, addressed to the barons of the exchequer, was sent by Henry III from Merton (he was evidently staying at the priory) on 10 February 1253. It was not placed onto the close rolls, and is known because the exchequer copied it onto their memoranda rolls. ¹¹ These, of course, have never been printed, hence the way letter has remained unknown. The letter shows that the king took the complaints very seriously. He sent the ‘rolls’ containing them to the exchequer and asked its advice on what to do. He also fixed the quindene of Easter as the day on which he would consider the issues raised with his magnates.

⁋7In translation the letter runs as follows:

⁋8Writ of the lord king on behalf of the king. [In the margin].

⁋9King to the barons [of the exchequer.]

⁋10We are sending you the rolls which the venerable father B[oniface] archbishop of Canterbury and his suffragans lately delivered to us inscribed. Although to several of the things there, we could have replied by ourselves, and have expedited several of their contents without injury to anyone, however, wishing to have discussion on these things with our beloved brother, Richard earl of Cornwall, and certain other of our magnates, and with you, and to enjoy in this matter their and your counsel, we have fixed for the foresaid archbishop and his suffragans a day on the quindene of Easter next coming at Westminster to reply to them on the foresaid things and do what will be just and reasonable by means of your counsel and that of the foresaid magnates.

⁋11Wherefore, we order you that, since there are many things contained in them [the rolls] which specially touch our state and that of our kingdom and our subjects, having diligently inspected and understood these things, you should meanwhile give us careful counsel as to what to do on these matters. ¹²

⁋12Witness myself at Merton, on the tenth day of February, in the year of our reign thirty seven.

⁋13The rolls which Archbishop Boniface gave to the king do not survive, but their contents are fairly clear from contemporary schedules of grievance. Cheney thought that what was sent might have been coterminous with a surviving list of complaints drawn up by Bishop Grosseteste, and we may be fairly sure that Grosseteste had a major input into what was delivered. ¹³ Since, however, his list only takes up three pages of fairly large modern type, it would have hardly needed to be conveyed in ‘rolls’. More probably, what was produced was akin to an amalgam of Grossetete’s list and the lengthy schedule of complaints which the Burton annalist preserves under the year 1257, and which takes up over nine pages of the same type. ¹⁴ In the thinking found in this material, Henry’s rule was attacked as breaking Magna Carta generally to everyone’s detriment. As Grosseteste put it, the king hardly observed a single article of the charters ‘conceded for the peace and tranquillity of the realm’, although governing his subjects with clemency and lenity was integral to the royal dignity. ¹⁵ Henry was also, in a general way, accused breaking the clause promising freedom of the church in Magna Carta’s chapter 1. ¹⁶ Beyond that, however, the detailed clauses in Magna Carta were only referred to twice, namely with reference to Henry’s treatment of vacant sees and wills. ¹⁷ When it came to the way he was challenging ecclesiastical liberties through quo warranto inquiries, and rules about ‘express mention’ and ‘long usage’, it was necessary to fall back on the general defence of the church’s freedom in the Charter’s chapter one. ¹⁸ When it came to the way he was thought to be encroaching on the powers of ordination, it was necessary to conjure up John’s charter of 1214, promising freedom of elections, although this had never been subsequently confirmed. ¹⁹ For the rest, the Charter offered no specific protections. Indeed, it was only referred to in six of 67 clauses of the combined schedules. ²⁰

⁋14In 1253, therefore, the church saw the Charter as a symbol of good rule benefiting the whole realm. In a way too, all its own particular grievances could be seen as embraced within the promise of ecclesiastical freedom in chapter one. Yet clearly it was unsatisfactory merely to rely on that. The church had a whole series of complaints which were not covered by the Charter, and which it now wished to see addressed. Some of the issues were personal to the king – his appointment of unworthy people to ecclesiastical office and the way he was extracting hospitality from religious houses. ²¹ Others raised thorny and fundamental questions about the divide between ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction and, by extension, about the whole relationship between church and state. Thus the clergy complained about the way the government forced ecclesiastics to appear in the king’s courts in personal actions, obstructed the processes of excommunication, mistreated criminous clerks, and through a series of prohibitions inhibited the work of ecclesiastical courts. No wonder Henry said the demands ‘specially touch our state and that of our kingdom and our subjects’, and wanted the exchequer’s advice about them.

⁋15Henry had fixed the quindene of Easter (4 May) as the day when his magnates would gather to consider the church’s claims, and that was indeed when the great parliament at Westminster opened. ²² It concluded as we have seen on 13 May with the conformation of Magna Carta and the pronouncing of the sentences of excommunication. The church had achieved some advance on the confirmation of 1237 since, as we shall see, some detail was offered as to the processes of excommunication. It could be pleased at the general protection vouchsafed the realm in the Charter, and the specific protection given by chapter one on the freedom of the church. Yet the fact remains that it had totally failed to secure any redress of the detailed grievance set out in the ‘rolls’ prepared by Boniface and his suffragans. It was precisely to offset the disappointment that it made so much of the sentences of excommunication. Indeed it made considerably more of them than did the king, which also reflects the tensions in the lengthy negotiations leading up to the confirmation of the Charter.

⁋16Two versions were made of the sentence of excommunication. The first, already referred to, was that of the church and was issued in the name of the bishops. Significantly, this was never copied onto the chancery rolls. ²³ The second version, the king’s, was issued as a letter patent and engrossed on the patent roll. ²⁴ The differences between the two are quite striking and have never, as far as I know, been appreciated. ²⁵ The church’s version omitted entirely the statement in Henry’s letter that ‘with his own mouth’, he had reserved, during the sentence of excommunication, ‘the customs and dignities of the kingdom, ancient and used, and the rights of his crown’. The church’s version also spelled out (as had not happened in 1237) the ecclesiastical role in the process of excommunication. ²⁶ Thus anyone was to incur the sentence who, having been warned, failed to give full satisfaction within fifteen days ‘at the decision (arbitrium) of the ordinary’. Henry’s version, by contrast, made no mention of the ordinary and reserved to the king the duty of correcting the transgression ‘by consideration of his court’.

⁋17There was also a considerable divergence in the respective lists of delinquencies for which the sentence would be incurred. The clergy’s version began with threatening all those who deprived churches of their rights, and contravened ecclesiastical liberties and the customs of the kingdom, ‘especially’ the liberties in the Charters. It then included as liable to excommunication ‘all’ who against these liberties ‘draft [ediderint’] statutes..., introduce customs..., writers of statutes, as well as counsellors and executors who presume to judge in accordance with them’. This was an attack both on legislation, which sought to restrict ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the judges (the most likely drafters of such legislation), who gave judgements in accordance with it, as well as introducing other legal rules detrimental to the church. ²⁷ The king’s version, of course, had nothing like this, and sandwiched reference to those who specifically violated the liberties of the church between the contravenors of the Charters in general, and those who infringed the rights and liberties of the king and kingdom. The king’s letter also included an extraordinary statement which made it very clear that his version was the official one, not the version of the church.

⁋18‘It is to be known that if in writings on this same sentence, made by anybody, or to be made, anything is placed, or any other articles are found [than those above], the king and all the aforesaid magnates and the community of the people, protest publicly in the presence of Boniface archbishop of Canterbury and all the bishops in the same colloquium, that they never consented to those things, but plainly contradicted them’.

⁋19Why then had the grievances contained in the church’s ‘rolls’ not been addressed? Alas we do not have the reply which the barons of the exchequer gave to Henry’s request for counsel, but one can well imagine its tone. The king’s judges were probably even more dismissive and derisive. The whole official establishment would have been behind Henry in resisting concessions. As for the lay element in parliament, one can well imagine that it too had limited enthusiasm for giving way to the jurisdictional demands of the church. ²⁸ This was why nothing was done about them subsequently during the period of reform and rebellion, despite further ecclesiastical councils drawing up long schedules of grievance. It was by taking part in the general politics of the realm that the Montfortian bishops made their contribution, not by working for the sectional interests of the church. Occasionally the grievances in the schedules – for example on prizes, the common summons, and suit of court – were shared with sections of the laity, but for the most part the church was on its own. ²⁹ The issue of suit of court itself had a mixed message since, as the complaint made clear, the grievance was as much against the magnates as the king. To some of the demands in the rolls, laymen were surely downright hostile. They can hardly have welcomed being made to swear oaths so that prelates could inquire into their moral failings. Indeed, when Henry prohibited Grosseteste for exacting such oaths, he declared that he was acting on the ‘complaints of magnates and others of your diocese’. ³⁰

⁋20Why then did the church in the end give way and settle for far less than it must have hoped for when it handed the rolls in to the king? Essentially, the bishops must have realised that they had taken things as far as they could, and would get no further. The tax had been sanctioned by the pope. It was also for a cause which everyone had to respect. As Matthew Paris put it, explaining the capitulation, the bishops did not wish wholly to frustrate the king’s desire, ‘so pious’, to go on crusade. ³¹ Although it was often said that Henry had taken the cross simply to get money from his subjects, this could not exactly be the case when he was to receive nothing until he actually set out. The diversion of the tax to support the Sicilian venture was still in the future. No one who had contact with Henry in these years can have doubted his sincerity as a crusader.

⁋21It is natural to wonder whether Henry did anything during the period of negotiation with the clergy to conciliate the church. ³² One initiative which may be seen in that light is the provision Henry promulgated about the Jews on 30 January 1253, just at the moment the bishops were putting together their ‘rolls’. Unlike previous royal measures, which had been largely concerned with Jewish financial dealings, this one was deeply spiritual in its intent. The aim was essentially to preserve Christians from dangers to their faith through contact with the Jews. The measure was very personal to Henry. It was described as ‘a provision made by the king’ and was authorised by him and his council. In other words it had not been promulgated by the common counsel of the realm. Indeed, no bishops were at court when it was pronounced, although, as we shall see, they had been there a few days earlier. ³³ The wider background to the measure probably lies in Henry’s heightened sensitivity to the Jews given his status as a crusader. But the precise timing may have been due to his desire, during crucial negotiations, to remind the church of his credentials as a ‘most Christian king’.

⁋22Henry also did something to conciliate one individual bishop, and this is where the evidence of the fine rolls comes in. The individual in question was none other than Robert Grosseteste himself. Grossesteste was a man with a grievance. Some years before, he had guaranteed the appearance of Master John de La Lade before the justices in eyre in Buckinghamshire. When Lade failed to show up before the eyre of 1247, Grosseteste was amerced £100, which he still owed in 1253. £100 seems a large and punitive amount, but penalties of that size were actually fairly routine for lay and ecclesiastical barons for offences which came under the general heading of contempt of court. Quite often they were never paid and were eventually pardoned by the king. Grosseteste himself, as the fine rolls show, had been pardoned two earlier amercements of £100 for failing to produce clerks before the justices. ³⁴ That the procedure nonetheless rankled with Grosseteste is shown by his schedule of ecclesiastical grievances to which we have already referred. There he complained that clerks taken for suspicion of crime were only transferred to the church for judgement after they had appeared before the justices in eyre. If they were handed over to the bishop before that, it was only so that he could produce them before the justices ‘on pain of £100’. The bishop, therefore, had to go to all the trouble of keeping such people in custody or else ‘for every one handed to him, he will be in danger of losing £100’. John de La Lade had indeed been accused of a ‘crime’, one which involved robbery with violence against the peace of the king, as the eyre roll shows. ³⁵ Clearly his case, and the earlier ones, inspired Grosseteste’s complaint.

⁋23Grosseteste’s debt in the Lade case was still outstanding in 1253, as we have said. The moment was ideal to secure its pardon. The bishops opened their synod in London on 13 January. Henry himself arrived at Westminster on or soon after 23 January and on the twenty-sixth Archbishop Boniface, Grosseteste, and the bishops of London, Salisbury and Chichester were all at court. ³⁶ Probably it was now that Henry suggested they put their grievances in writing, and in the next few days they must have been very busy at it. By 6 February when Henry passed their rolls to the exchequer the task was completed. This then was a time when Henry needed to conciliate the church both to prepare the way for the tax and soften the demand for concessions in return for it. In particular, it was a time to conciliate Grosseteste who was a leader of the opposition, and was doubtless to play a major part in drawing up the rolls of complaint. Grosseteste likewise realised his hour had come. On or shortly before 26 January he complained to Henry about the £100 amercement, and lo and behold, having consulted his council, Henry freed him from it.

⁋24We know this from a writ to the exchequer, witnessed by Henry on 26 January, and placed on the fine rolls. Here, the king declared that he had learnt ‘from the complaint, ex querela’ of Robert bishop of Lincoln about the penalty, and had now decided that the £100 should be paid not by the bishop but by John de La Lade instead. This order was almost immediately cancelled in favour of another, bearing the same date, which provided more explanation. The king had learnt ‘from others’ (so not just from Grosseteste though doubtless he had lined ‘the others’ up) that the bishop had not been responsible for John’s failure to appear, it was down simply to John himself. John, therefore, should pay the £100 not Grosseteste. The writ containing this longer account was stated to be authorised by the king and the council. ³⁷ Two days later, on 28 January, when Grosseteste, was again at court in the company of the bishops of London, Worcester, Salisbury, Chichester and Rochester, Henry pardoned him another amercement, one of 20 marks imposed for failing to appear before the justices in eyre when they were last in Oxford. Grosseteste, it was now said, was with the king himself by his order at the time. ³⁸

⁋25Henry’s concessions hardly amounted to the whopping bribe by which his father tried to compromise Archbishop Langton in the run up to Magna Carta, the subject of the November 2010 Fine of the Month. ³⁹ But then Henry did few things on his father’s scale. It does show, however, that Henry had a sure eye for the bishop he most needed to pick off. No other English prelate received such treatment at this time. ⁴⁰ It equally shows Grosseteste had a sure eye for the best moment to wring a concession from the king. Whether his success did anything to draw the sting from his critique of royal rule we cannot know. Perhaps not, for Grosseteste was not as other men. In the end, however, for all the rolls of complaint that Grosseteste helped compile, Henry was able to secure the tax without making any detailed concessions to the church. Grosseteste, in reaction, busied himself proclaiming the excommunication in his diocese, but it was a second best. Henry could feel happy with the settlement. In resisting the jurisdictional claims of the church, he had been at one with his ‘magnates and the community of the people’. If only he could have achieved such unity more often.

⁋1Text from TNA/PRO E 368, m.8. ⁴¹

⁋2In margin: breve domini Regis pro Rege.

⁋3 Rex Baronibus. Mittimus vobis rotulos quos venerabilis pater B. Cantuariensis Archiepiscopus et sufffragenei sui nobis inscriptis nuper perexerunt et licet ad plures eorum per nos potuissemus respondisse, et plura in eis contenta sine alicuius iniuria expedivisse, volentes tamen cum dilecto fratre et fidele nostro R. comite Cornubie et quibusdam aliis magnatibus nostris et vobiscum tractatum super hiis habere et suo et vestro in hac parte deliberato frui consilio, prefato Archiepiscopo et suffrageniis suis diem prefiximus in xv pasche proximo futura apud Westmonasterium ad respondendum eis super premissis, prefatorum magnatum et vestre consilio mediante, et ad faciendum quod justum fuerit et rationabile. Quo circa, vobis mandamus quatinus cum multa in eis contineantur que statum nostrum, regni nostri et subditorum nostrorum specialiter tangunt, eisdem diligenter inspectis et intelectis, provideatis interim attente quid nobis super hiis consulendum duxeritis et faciendum. Teste me ipso apud Mertun’ x die Februarii anno regni nostri xxxv[ii].