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1. Adam de St. Martin and the king’s tenants of Mansfield 1217–1222

⁋1During the minority of Henry III, the men of the important royal demesne manor and soke of Mansfield, in central Nottinghamshire and at the centre of Sherwood Forest, acted in a self-confident and assertive way to defend their own interests, and used the practice of offering a monetary fine to the king for being allowed to have what they wanted. In doing so they continued in a tradition among the men of sokes in the county going back to at least 1182, when the men of Dunham, further east on the banks of the Trent, paid Henry II a substantial fine of £40 to have confirmation of the liberties they had held in the reign of Henry I. That information is known only from the pipe roll, there being no fine roll. ¹ The men of Mansfield themselves had offered 15 marks to King John in 1200 to be allowed to have their common of pasture in Clipstone park as they had before the park was enclosed by Henry II in the late 1170s. This was recorded in the earliest of the surviving fine rolls as well as the pipe roll. ²

⁋2During the minority in particular, traditionally royal manors like Mansfield and its soke were temporarily granted out to supporters of the king to provide them with an income that would enable them to continue in his service. The men of the king’s demesne were coming to set great store by their privileged relationship with the crown, which was before the end of the reign to develop into the concept of ‘ancient demesne’. ³ They were inherently conservative, and the intrusion of a new lord, even a temporary one, threatened to place them in the same position as manorial tenants outside the demesne, open to seigneurial innovations against which they had no obvious redress. Some of them offered fines in an attempt to impose restrictions on these new lords, especially those who they supposed had breached what the tenants alleged was established custom. The men of Mansfield came into conflict with a Flemish household knight, Adam de St. Martin, who had under King John been sustained mainly by a money fief of £25 per annum, but was then granted the manor and soke by the Minority government on 6 January 1217 to maintain him in the king’s service until further notice. ⁴ This was at a time when the crown still needed military support from aliens like St.Martin against the rebel barons and their French ally Louis. The sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, Philip Marc, was a very similar man but of greater importance, one of the aliens specifically referred to in Magna Carta 1215 as to be removed from the realm, and the chief sustainer of the king’s cause in the east midlands during the civil war, in effect a military governor there. ⁵ It was probably expected that St Martin’s presence in Marc’s bailiwick would help to underpin the latter’s military and political power in the region, especially if, like Marc himself, he had subordinates to do his bidding.

⁋3Adam de St. Martin had been in John’s household as king since at least 1200, and earlier in his household as count of Mortain. ⁶ He may have acted in the same imperious fashion as his late royal master in the context of his relationship with his new tenants. About 18 January 1219, over a year after the end of the conflict, the men of the town and soke made a fine of 20 marks to be allowed to hold their lands in the same way as they had in the time of King John and in the time of Henry III until the grant to St, Martin; and not to be made to perform services and customs other than those to which they had been accustomed. As a consequence, the sheriff was ordered to let the men of the manor and soke hold their lands on those terms, and St. Martin was to be prevented from vexing them in any way. ⁷ What precisely these services and customs were is not revealed by the surviving documentation, but it is clear that the tenants of Mansfield considered them to be greater or harsher than those they had been used to in the previous twenty years. It looks as if St. Martin initially refused to comply, for on 20 June 1219 the government ordered Philip Marc to take Mansfield into his own hands as sheriff. ⁸ Later, on about 5 August, Marc was ordered to give St. Martin the issues of the manor and the corn of the previous year, in such a way as its men were not troubled, and then on 22 August to return the manor and soke to him; St. Martin was only to take his rightful rents and issues without destruction or waste of the men or woods of the manor. ⁹ Marc himself indulged in similar acts; in 1223 he was himself ordered to treat justly the men of Bulwell, another Nottinghamshire demesne manor which he held, and not to levy uncustomary aids, tallages and exactions upon them. ¹⁰

⁋4In making their fine, the men of Mansfield were making use of some of the provisions of the version of Magna Carta published in 1217, which some of them may have heard being read in the county court. Chapter 10 stated that all cities, boroughs and vills were to have their own liberties and free customs, while chapter 11 said that no man should be compelled to perform more service from a free tenement than was due from it. ¹¹ They were asserting that liberties granted to the realm in general should be enforced in their particular interest. It must be assumed that they attained their objective, since thereafter St. Martin held Mansfield for nearly a further three years without further complaint. His tenure lasted until the general resumption of many royal demesne manors in June 1222, which included the manor and soke. ¹² St Martin was retained in royal service by being given an alternative holding in Waltham, Lincolnshire, to support him ¹³ , while the men of Mansfield were freed from seigneurial innovation in their customs – until the next time.

1.1. C 60/11, Fine Roll 3 Henry III (28 October 1218–27 October 1219), membrane 9.

1.1.1. 106

⁋1 Nottinghamshire. Order to the sheriff of Nottinghamshire that since the men of the vill and soke of Mansfield, whom the king assigned to Adam de St. Martin for his maintenance in the king’s service for as long as it pleases the king, have made fine with him by 20 m. that they might hold their lands in the same manner as they held them in the time of King John, father of King Henry, and in his time before that assignment was made to Adam, and so that they are not distrained to perform other services or customs than they used to perform in the aforesaid times, and, having accepted security from them for rendering the aforesaid fine to the king, he is to cause the said men to hold their lands in peace, as aforesaid, not permitting Adam to vex them to perform other services and customs for him, or to aggrieve them in any manner. Witness the earl [William Marshal] as above [Westminster, 18 January 1219].

1.2. C 60/11, Fine Roll 3 Henry III (28 October 1218–27 October 1219), membrane 5.

1.2.1. 305

⁋1 Nottinghamshire. Order to the sheriff of Nottinghamshire to take into the king’s hand the manor of Mansfield with its soke and all its appurtenances, so that nothing be removed from the chattels in the same, or any rent taken, until he has another command from the king. Witness [Hubert de Burgh, justiciar] as above [Westminster, 20 June 1219].