Simpson,Grant G.

2013-06-26T12:42:19Z

2013-06-26T12:42:19Z

1966

The present study originated in an attempt to portray the Scottish baronage of. the thirteenth century on a wide canvas, to view them territoriality and politically and to discover what part they played in society in the Scotland of their day. Several years of research led to the conclusion that the available, evidence, although reasonably abundant, was too thinly spread to permit a'satisfactory survey on a large scale. In other, words, there are too many barons about whom too little is known. But, this preliminary work did reveal that more information was available about one man - Roger de Quincy, Earl of Winchester and constable of Scotland - than about anyone else. It was clearly possible to paint a portrait of an individual sitter instead of depicting a group. It', was therefore decided to undertake a detailed study of this one major baron and to set him against the background of his times. One advantage of this approach is that a single baron's surroundings, activities and relationships with other men can be viewed from the inside. Historians have sometimes neglected to look at affairs from the viewpoint of the barons themselves. Although in English history there have been some notable studies which correct this mistaken attitude in Scotland medieval, barons can, still be cast in the role of villains: a turbulent'and disruptive element in society. The Scottish barons of the late thirteenth century have only recently been rescued from 'one of the hardest-dying half-truths of Scottish history', the fable that. they failed. to fight for Scotland against Edward I because they were afraid of, losing their English estates. Roger de Quincy belonged to this very class of society - the Anglo- Scottish baronage - in an earlier generation; and it is therefore an added advantage that in him we can study, a member of this class at a point before the Wars of Independence strained and eventually broke their complex social nexus. These Anglo-Scots, have suffered particularly from the habit of looking at barons from outside the baronial milieu, since national historians are prone to ignore or summarily dismiss those of a baron's activities which lie beyond the historian's own national frontiers. When discussing an-English baronial family, it is easy to forget about the Scottish estates they may have held. It is the aim of this . study to examine one great Anglo-Scottish magnate by the use of evidence from both sides of the border. We must cross and re-cross the border line as frequently as did Earl Roger himself on his peregrinations around his demesne estates, which stretched from Perthshire to Oxfordshire. It is fortunate that source-material is' so abundant about the background of a man whom Sir Maurice Powicke described as 'one of the most widespread landholders in England and Scotland'. It must be made clear that the present work, is not a biography' of Earl Roger, although it includes an outline of hib career. The material does not exist for anything which could be called a biography. We'know almost nothing about his personality, But there are compensations; for previous study of thirteenth-century barons, in England at leasto has concentrated largely on the political field and particularly on producing biographies of important political figures. There has been no study in depth of any of the less', prominent magnates and this is therefore attempted in what follows. The result is intended to be a study in social history, in the widest sense of that term. An edition of the collected written, acts of the earl forms part of the work and. this not only'permits conclusions about contemporary diplomatic practice but also provides information about his household, his retainers, and his estates. Further knowledge. of his estates can be gained from extensive official records. Unlike William Farrer's Honors and Knights' Fees, which surveyed a number of large estates over the period from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, the effort here is to sink a mine at one point only through the tangled strata of contemporary landholding* After examining these various facets of one man, we can turn finally to a wider view of the baronial society in which he lived, especially as it existed in Scotland. It has been a deliberate intention to approach the subject from the viewpoint of Scottish history. It seemed worthwhile to emphasise the Scottish aspect of Earl Roger, even at times in face of a considerable paucity of evidence; for it is all the more necessary to analyse baronial society in t hir te enth -century Scotland simply because our knowledge of it has so far been sketchy. More attention has been paid to the origins of Anglo-Scottish baronial society, whichlie in the period of Anglo-Norman penetration into Scotland in the twelfth century, than to the continuing and developing contacts of the thirteenth century. To permit concentration on Scotland, therefore some features of Roger's English activities are merely touched upon in passing. In particular, it would have been possible to look more closely at the earl's English estates and the tenants upon them; but this topic could probably be illustrated more effectively on other great estates. For similar reasons,, the jurisdictions exercised within his estates and the lawsuits which he pursued have not been examined in detail. The corpus of the earl's written acts forms the core of the present study. In England thirteenth-century episcopal acts have been collected and scrutinised; but no collection of baronial charters from this period has been published. Indeed, a Scottish student may be allowed to reflect that English historians appear to lose interest. in charters when the twelfth century ends, presumably because they can at that point turn their attention to the series of published records which then commence. Experience of handling the contemporary Scottish material, in the midst of which an original. baronial charter stands-out like a nugget of gold, encourages greater respect for these rather neglected English deeds. It is likely that for other English magnates a larger-body of charter texts could be assembled, but the seventy-nine full texts collected for Earl Roger seemed to be a sufficiently solid base on which to rest conclusions. Seventy-eight notitiae, or records of acts which have not survived in full, have been included also in order to Present a more complete picture. The writer hopes that this edition of texts may provide a starting-point for any future investigations of the diplomatic of Scottish documents, and of Scottish law, in the thirteenth century.

504226

http://hdl.handle.net/1842/6820

eng

University of Edinburgh

History

Anglo-Scottish baron of the thirteenth century: the acts of Roger de Quincy, Earl of Winchester and Constable of Scotland

An Anglo-Scottish baron of the thirteenth century: the acts of Roger de Quincy, Earl of Winchester and Constable of Scotland

PhD Doctor of Philosophy