The Black Prince

by David Green

  31. D’A.J.D. Boulton, ‘Insignia of Power: The Use of Heraldic and Paraheraldic Devices by Italian Princes, c.1350 –c.1500’, Art and Politics in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Italy, 1250–1500, ed. Charles M. Rosenburg, Indiana, 1990, 113.

  32. See Pierre Tucoo-Chala, Gaston Fébus: un grand prince d’Occident au XIVe siècle, Pau, 1976, 164–93.

  33. BPR, iv, 484; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. Brian Stone, 2nd ed., Harmondsworth, 1975, 64–5, 71–2, 74–6, 79–81, 92; See Orme, Childhood to Chivalry, 191–8.

  34. 1 Sept. 1362, BPR, iv, 467; Labarge, Gascony, 149.

  35. Emerson, Black Prince, 171. For the nature of garments worn and other related comments see Stella M. Newton, Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince. A Study of the Years 1340–1365, Woodbridge, 1988; Sherborne, ‘Aspects of English Court Culture in the Later Fourteenth Century’, English Court Culture, ed. Scattergood and Sherborne, 14–16. See for comparison Baker, Chronicon, 122.

  36. His mother’s violist, Richard Merlin, visited the prince in 1338–9. In the following year he was entertained by a minstrel with a portative organ and by John ‘the fool’ of Eltham, Barber, Edward, 22, 30, 37. There were musicians with Queen Philippa and the prince at Waltham in 1358, BPR, iv, 251.

  37. BPR, iv, 73. Instruments were also made for the prince. A pipe was made by Jakelyn costing the exorbitant sum of £6 13s. 4d., and a ‘hakeney’ was made by Zeulyn the piper at a cost of 66s. 8d., ibid., 251.

  38. At the Garter feast of 1358 the prince paid £100 to heralds and minstrels: Barber, Edward, 154–5. Other gifts included a destrier to a minstrel at a tournament in Bury St Edmunds, a drum for John ‘the prince’s minstrel’, 40s. to minstrels of Bartholomew Burghersh, the younger, 40s. to two of the prince’s minstrels, Ulyn the piper received £13 6s. 8d., and 7 of the prince’s minstrels were given £9 6s. 8d., BPR, iv, 67, 72, 87, 167, 283, 388–9. Money was also paid to minstrels to settle debts, presumably these were in the prince’s employ, Jakelyn received £16 13s. 4d. and 72s. 10d., and Tolle of Almain, 56s., ibid., 89, 388. John Cokard received 20s. towards the costs of his stay in London, ibid., 304; Nigel Wilkins, ‘Music and Poetry at Court: England and France in the Late Middle Ages’, English Court Culture, ed. Scattergood and Sherborne, 195. Hanz and Soz were provided with 3 quarters of a rayed cloth for making robes for themselves and two habergeons, BPR, iv, 71.

  39. John Southworth, The English Medieval Minstrel, Woodbridge, 1980, 106–7. Gilbert Stakford, a trumpeter, was one of the minstrels left behind who may have been wounded on the Poitiers campaign, an alternative living was found for him in the household of the prior of St Michael’s Mount. Stakford recovered from his injuries and later served Richard II who gave him with a pension of 6d. a day ‘for service to the king’s father and to the king’.

  40. Froissart, Chronicles, ed. Berners, 91.

  41. Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Lettenhove, vi, 393–4; CPR, 1364–7, 180.

  42. Froissart, Chroniques, ed. Luce, vi, 93, 285; ‘A Fourteenth Century Chronicle of the Grey Friars of Lynn’, ed. Antonia Gransden, EHR, lxxii (1957), 271.

  43. The chevauchées of 1355–6 established taxation as a regular feature of southern French life. There had been opposition to the demands of the count of Armagnac and later Jean, count of Poitiers, acting as Jean II’s lieutenants in Languedoc, John Bell Henneman, Royal Taxation in Fourteenth Century France, Princeton, 1971, 272–82.

  44. Wood, Age of Chivalry, 141. For further details on the Free Companies see Norman Housley, ‘The Mercenary Companies, the Papacy and the Crusades, 1356–1378’, Traditio, xxxvii (1982), 253–80; Kenneth Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries. Volume I The Great Companies, Oxford, 2001.

  45. Housley, ‘Mercenary Companies’, 254; Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, 51, 75; Delachenal, Charles V, ii, 319–20; P.S. Lewis, Later Medieval France: The Polity, London, 1968, 51; Keen, ‘Chivalry, Nobility and the Man-at-Arms’, 38.

  46. Russell, Intervention, 62.

  47. Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Lettenhove, vii, 96–9.

  48. Knighton’s Chronicle, ed. Martin, 194, 195; A. Mackay, Spain in the Middle Age: From Frontier to Empire, 1000–1500, London, 1977, 134–5.

  49. E30/191. The alliance required any English military assistance to be paid by the Castilian treasury, Russell, Intervention, 59.

  50. Clara Elstow, Pedro the Cruel of Castile, 1350–1369, Leiden, New York and Köln, 1995, 223–4.

  51. Mackay, Spain in the Middle Ages, 125.

  52. Elstow, Pedro the Cruel, 236.

  53. Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Lettenhove, vii, 98.

  54. Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, 192–3.

  55. Rymer, iii, 805–6; Russell, Intervention, 65–6.

  56. Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, 194; Rymer, III, ii, 800 (23 Sept. 1366).

  57. C61/79/13–15; Russell, Intervention, 75–7; Sumption, Hundred Years War, ii, 544.

  58. 10 Feb. 1367, CCR, 1364–8, 371; Robert Boutruche, La crise d’une société: seigneurs et paysans du Bordelais pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans, new ed., Paris, 1963, 169–70, Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, 200.

  59. Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, 197–8; Prince, ‘Strength of English Armies’, 369; J.J.N. Palmer, ‘Froissart et le héraut Chandos’, Le Moyen Age, 88 (1982), 271ff.; Diana B. Tyson, ‘Authors, Patrons and Soldiers – Some Thoughts on Four Old French Soldiers’ Lives’, NMS, xlii (1998), 110.

  60. BL Cotton, Caligula D III, f.141; Delachenal, Charles V, iii, 554 and Russell, Intervention, 93–4.

  61. Barber, Edward, 198. According to Chandos Herald, 160 lancers and 300 archers made up the party.

  62. Russell, Intervention, 87, 91 and n. 3; Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, 206–7.

  63. Fernao Lopes, The English in Portugal, 1367–87, ed. and trans. Derek W. Lomax and R.J. Oakley, Warminster, 1988, 9. This advice may have been given just prior to the battle or somewhat earlier, Russell, Intervention, 89.

  64. Chandos Herald, Life of the Black Prince, ed. Pope and Lodge, ll. 2572–4.

  65. Russell, Intervention, 94–6 and nn. 1–2. On the exchange of letters see Lopes, English in Portugal, 12–17; Delachenal, Charles V, iii, 398 and n. 1, 399 and nn. 1–2.

  66. Delachenal, Charles V, iii, 402, 404; Russell, Intervention, 97–8, estimated 4,000–5,000 troops plus a number of jinetes on Trastamara’s side.

  67. Russell, Intervention, 101.

  68. Chandos Herald, Life of the Black Prince, ed. Pope and Lodge, 163, ll. 3258, 3277–8.

  69. E. Déprez, ‘La bataille de Nájera: le communiqué du prince noir’ Revue Historique, cxxxvi (1921), 37–59; A.E. Prince, ‘A Letter of Edward the Black Prince describing the Battle of Nájera in 1367’, EHR, xli (1926), 415–18; Life and Campaigns ed. Barber, 83.

  70. For further discussion see Michael Jones, ‘Edward III’s Captains in Brittany’, England in the Fourteenth Century. Proceedings of 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. W.M. Ormrod, Woodbridge, 1986, 104; Rogers, ‘Dialectics of Strategy’, 83–102; Bennett, ‘Development of Battle Tactics’, 2, 5.

  71. Case taken from Keen, Laws of War, 50–6.

  72. Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, 218–23.

  73. P.E. Russell, ‘The War in Spain and Portugal’, Froissart: Historian, ed. J.J.N. Palmer, Woodbridge, 1981, 91.

  Chapter 7

  1. For further comments see Green, ‘Household and Military Retinue’, esp. 279–95; ‘The Later Retinue of Edward the Black Prince’, NMS, xliv (2000), 141–51; ‘The Military Personnel of Edward the Black Prince’, Medieval Prosopography, 21 (2000), 133–52; ‘Politics and Service with Edward the Black Prince’, 53–68; The Age of Edward III, ed. J. Bothwell, York, 2001.

  2. Rising and the Lynn tollbooth were valued at only £116 13s. 4d. in 1376, C47/9/57. After his marriage to Joan, the prince acquired additional property in Norfolk, such as Ormsby manor. Members of the retinue with Norfolk connections included Thomas Felton, William Elmham, William Kerdeston, Stephen Hales, Thomas Gissing, Nicholas Dagworth, Robert Ufford and Robert Knolles
.

  3. Hewitt, Black Prince’s Expedition, 80–1.

  4. Hewitt, Black Prince’s Expedition, 52.

  5. Letter of the prince to the bishop of Winchester, Life and Campaigns ed. Barber, 54.

  6. Barber, Edward, 146.

  7. £2,000 was advanced by Arundel on the security of a crown and a jewelled star taken from the king of France at Poitiers, 24 July 1359, BPR, iv, 302, 333. The chamberlain of Chester was ordered to levy funds on 20 May 1360 to repay FitzAlan, ibid., iii, 381. On 21 May, John Delves, lieutenant of the justices of north Wales and Cheshire, was notified that he was to receive £1,000 and then deliver it to the prince. Delves was also to inform the chamberlains of Chester (John Brunham) and north Wales that they also to bring/send all available funds to London, ibid., 354. See also 27 July, ibid., 355. Delves received £3 expenses in connection with this transaction at Holt castle and the transportation costs, ibid., 364.

  8. Antony ‘Maubaille’, merchant of Ast and Hugh Provane, merchant of Carignano, loaned 1,000 marks, BPR, iii, 319.

  9. 500 marks were provided by Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford and Essex, 30 July 1359, BPR, iv, 304. Ralph Nevill and the bishop of Lincoln each loaned 500 marks and the bishop of Winchester, 1,000 marks, ibid., 319, 327.

  10. John Peche borrowed £1,000 from various London merchants on the prince’s behalf and repaid 250 marks to William de la Pole for him. Peche was appointed the prince’s attorney for the transfer of certain jewels from the sire de Lesparre and Sir Petiton de Curton, and also received the crown which had been pledged as security for Arundel’s loan, BPR, iv, 321, 327, 333. £100 was borrowed from both Henry Pickard and Adam Franceys, ibid., 327.

  11. BPR, iv, 326. Wingfield, another East Anglian in the retinue, held this office until his death in 1360 in addition to being the prince’s attorney, steward of his lands and chief of the council. He received wages of 10s. a day. Delves replaced him until his own death in 1369: Sharpe, ‘Administrative Chancery of the Black Prince’, 331.

  12. For comparison, 14 of the MPs sitting for Westmoreland between 1386 and 1421 were associated with the Clifford family, and 14 members of Richard, earl of Worcester’s affinity represented that county between 1404 and 1421, Linda Clark:‘Magnates and their Affinities in the Parliaments of 1386–1421’ The McFarlane Legacy. Studies in Late Medieval Politics and Society, ed. R.H. Britnell and A.J. Pollard, Stroud, 1995, 139; W.M. Ormrod, The Reign of Edward III: Crown and Political Society in England, 1327–1377, New Haven, 1990, 129–30.

  13. Green, ‘Politics and Service’, 67.

  14. Sumption, Hundred Years War, ii, 540–2. See also Delpit, Documents français, 136–7 9 (no. 48), 175 (nos. 19, 22), 134–68 (nos. 4, 9, 12, 14, 19, etc), 176 (nos. 53, 55, 56).

  15. E101/38/15, 17–18; Delpit, Documents Français, 176; Green, ‘Household and Military Retinue’, 143–4, 160–1; Bériac, ‘Une principauté sans chambre de comptes ni échiquier’, 120–1; Barber, Edward, 209.

  16. C. de Vic et J. Vaisette, ed., Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pieces justicatives, re-ed. A. Molinier, 16 vols, Toulouse, 1872–1904, x, 1211–55, 1264–73, 1273–8. In 1364, the fouage was levied at 1 guyennois d’or; in 1365 at a half guyennois d’or; in 1366 at a minimum of 4 sous, Boutruche, La crise d’une société, 202; Delachenal, Charles V, iv, 56–7, 66. For French taxation policy in the Languedoc in the years before Brétigny see John Bell Henneman, Royal Taxation in Fourteenth Century France. The Captivity and Ransom of John II, 1356–1370, Philadelphia, 1976, 123–47.

  17. The tax was not to be levied again for 5 years, grievances of clergy were addressed and certain trade concessions were made. Complaints were also heard about the encroachment of seneschals and other officials on siegneurial rights including violations of ancient privileges, Delachenal, Charles V, iv, 58–9.

  18. He was constable of Bordeaux from 11 Nov. 1362 until his appointment as chancellor in Michaelmas 1364. As bishop of Bath and Wells he was an executor of the prince’s will, Pierre Chaplais, ‘The Chancery of Guienne, 1289–1453’, Studies Presented to Sir Hillary Jenkinson, ed. J.Conway Davies, London, 1957, 85–6 and n. 7.

  19. Malcolm Vale, The Angevin Legacy and the Hundred Years War, 1250–1340, Oxford, 1990, 82–4, 124–39; Delachenal, Charles V, iv, 65; Maurice Rey, Les finances royales sous Charles VI. Les causes du déficit, 1388–1413, Paris, 1965, 447.

  20. Histoire générale de Languedoc, x, 1347–8 ; Delachenal, Charles V, iv, 67–9; Henneman, Royal Taxation, 250.

  21. See Anonimalle Chronicle, 55–6; also Cuvelier, Chronique de Bertrand du Guesclin, I, 236–9, 325, 348, 368, 435, 459; II, 15, 245, 249; Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Lettenhove, vi, 82; vii, 92.

  22. Totesham had succeeded Bernard de Montferrand as governor of La Rochelle in Dec. 1360 and in Oct. 1361 he received the captaincy of the castle of St-Jean-d’Angély with annual wages of 100 livres. He had been a French prisoner and fought a duel during his captivity, Chronique Normande du xive siècle, ed. E. et A. Molinier (SHF), Paris, 1882, 104–5; Robert Favreau, ‘Comptes de la sénéchausée de Saintonge, 1360–2’, BEC, 117 (1959), 74–5.

  23. For example in Périgord, see Arlette Higounet-Nadal, Perigeux au xive et xve siècles, Bordeaux, 1978, 148.

  24. Favreau, ‘Comptes’, 76. Seris was a royal counsellor receiving wages of 500 écus yearly. However, the 2 seals with which he was to authorize his actions were never used as in 1367 he returned them, no case of ressort having been brought before him. Rymer, III, i, 548; Pierre Chaplais, ‘Some Documents Regarding the Fulfilment and Interpretation of the Treaty of Brétigny’, Camden 3rd ser., xix (1952), 52–3 and nn. 1, 2.

  25. For further examples including William Boulard and Renoul Bouchard (procureurs) of the king in Saintonge, Boulard was also mayor of La Rochelle, 1361–2; Macé d’Aiguechaude (royal advocate in Saintonge); Pierre Bernard (receiver of Saintonge); Pierre de Vergny (receiver of a number of prévôtés and other revenues later including La Rochelle 1374–6 and of Saintonge and Angoumois in 1376 as well as Andilly, the ‘baillie’ of Chagnolet, the customs on wine passing through the port of Périgny, revenues of the royal seal of La Rochelle and of the great fief of Aunis), see Favreau, ‘Comptes’, 78.

  26. Davies, Lordship and Society, 203, 207.

  27. A.D. Carr, ‘Rhys ap Roppert’, Transactions of the Denbighshire Historical Society, 25 (1976), 155–70.

  28. Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries, 69ff, 98–100 and n. 33, 149, 151, 153–4; Delachenal, Charles V, iv, 16, 20 and n. 1.

  29. Emerson, Black Prince, 215.

  30. Corvisier et Contamine, Histoire militaire, 145–9; Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, 153–6; Sumption. Hundred Years War, ii, 579. For the prince’s letter to the lord of Séverac who had refused to allow levying of the fouage and regarding the appeal of Castelbon see Histoire générale de Languedoc, x, 1337–8, 1420–1. See also Documents sur la ville de Millau, nos., 316, 318, 319, 322–5.

  31. CCR, 1364–8, 371; Sumption, Hundred Years War, ii, 579. See CPR, 1367–70, 56, 58 (11, 13, 20 Nov. 1367); 22 Nov. 1367, Rymer, III, ii, 837.

  32. Histoire générale de Languedoc, x, 1404–6.

  33. Froissart, Chroniques, ed. Luce, vii, 95–9; Chandos Herald, Vie du Prince Noir, ed. Tyson, ll. 3889–96; Barber, Edward, 219–20; James Sherborne, ‘John of Gaunt, Edward III’s Retinue and the French Campaign of 1369’, Kings and Nobles in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Ralph A. Griffiths and James Sherborne, Gloucester, 1986, 41. For the payments for reinforcements made to Peter Lacy see E403/436 mm. 25–6; 438 m. 24.

  34. BL Harleian MS. 2074 f. 230v. For further discussion of this document and some of the inherent problems see Green, ‘Later Retinue of the Black Prince’, 142, 144–5.

  35. E101/29/24. Wetenhale was paid £54 for men-at-arms and archers, SC6/772/5 m. 2d.; P.J. Morgan, ‘Cheshire and the Defence of the Principality of Aquitaine’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 128 (1978), 147–9, 158 n. 41.

  36. C61/81/4; CPR, 13
67–70, 228.

  37. For a description of the castle see Kelly DeVries, Medieval Military Technology, Ontario, 1992, 240–1.

  38. Archives Nationales, Trésor des Chartes, JJ 100, no. 778 and J?655 n. 18.

  39. Sumption, Hundred Years War, ii, 581–2.

  40. Emerson, Black Prince, 232. Thanks to Jonathan Burr for this reference.

  41. Froissart, Chroniques, ed. Luce, vii, 199–204; Barber, Edward, 222–3; Corvisier et Contamine, Histoire militaire, 142–3.

  42. Charles Higounet ed., Histoire de l’Aquitaine,, Toulouse, 1971, 214; Louis Pérouas, Histoire de Limoges, Toulouse, 1989, 106; Stéphane Baumont ed., Histoire d’Agen, Toulouse, 1991, 80; Packe, Edward III, 277.

  43. Porter, ‘Chaucer’s Knight’, 65, 68–9; Barber, Edward, 225–6. On the severity of siege warfare see Keen, Laws of War, 121–2; Barber, Knight and Chivalry, rev. ed., 239–40; Barnie, War in Medieval Society, 77.

  44. Bradbury, Medieval Siege, 161; Froissart, Oeuvres, ed. Lettenhove, xvii, 501–2.

  45. Chronique de quartre premiers Valois, 210; Wars of Edward III, ed. Rogers, 193; Barber, Edward, 224–6 and n. 23; Paul Ducourtieux, Histoire de Limoges, Limoges, 1925, repr. Marseille, 1975, 53–7, 59.

  46. S.H. Cuttler, The Law of Treason and Treason Trials in Later Medieval France, Cambridge, 1981, 117.

  47. Eulogium Historiarum, iii, 219–20; Baker, Chronicon, 141; Ayton, ‘English Armies’, 36.

  48. 3 Dec. 1355, BPR, iii, 220–1.

  49. BPR, iii, 375–9; 16 Feb. 1360, CCR, 1360–4, 6.

  50. BPR, ii, 14, 24, 66, 166, 169.

  51. 20 Mar. 1360, BPR, iv, 345–6.

  52. 14 Feb. and 26 Mar. 1360, BPR, iv, 344, 346.

  53. CCR, 1354–60, 214, 215; 1364–8, 371; D. Pratt, ‘Wrexham Militia in the Fourteenth Century’, Transactions of the Denbighshire Historical Society, (1963), 38–9.

  54. Vale, ‘Seigneurial Fortification’, 74–5.

  55. Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, 293; T.F. Tout, ‘Firearms in England in the Fourteenth Century’, EHR, xxvi (1911), 670–4, 676.