CLR: Calendar of Liberate Rolls (Rolls Series, 1916-64)
Note: The CLR entries for 1260-67 are listed by page number, while those for 1267-72 are listed by individual document number.
In 1266, the largest siege to ever occur in England began in earnest at Kenilworth in May. Inside the castle were over a thousand supporters of the baronial movement that had seen its leader, Simon de Montfort, killed at the battle of Evesham in early August of 1265. Outside was the feudal host of England as summoned by Henry III, along with his elder son, the Lord Edward, and Edmund, who had been attempting to contain the garrison since the autumn before. By December 14th, the leaders of the garrison such as Henry de Hastings, out of supplies and suffering from sickness, accepted the Dictum of Kenilworth and received safe conduct from the king1.
To understand the siege, a number of issues have to be addressed. The castle itself has to be looked at, to understand why it was so difficult for the besiegers to take it by assault or bombardment. The siege itself has to be considered, and the reasons for both sides to continue the struggle for half a year in a conflict that had seen the motivating force decisively slain the year before. From there, the means for maintaining the siege have to be looked at, and some sense of the economic impact gained.
While not a true concentric castle, Kenilworth did at the time have an enclosed outer bailey with three towers at the northeast, southeast, and northwest angles. No tower faced the southwest, due to the water defenses. The outer bailey itself was quite large, containing the wall enclosing the inner bailey and the castle’s keep. This building is rather unusual, both in its sheer mass and in the manner it was constructed. Eighty by sixty feet in dimensions, the keep had regular square towers and massive walls, up to seventeen feet in thickness. The towers are unusual in being mostly solid, while the base is reinforced with massive plinths well beyond the size of any contemporary tower. The entrance to the keep was on the second floor, while the ground floor was a solid mass of earth, possible a previous motte.
While the keep had been in royal hands since 1179, there are no expenditures for such a building recorded during the crown’s possession of it. This is unusual, as D.J. Cathcart King wrote, because the ‘features of its defences – which suggest a date later than that of Dover – and… its recorded history appears to indicate a time for its building much earlier…’ 3. For its sheer size and advanced features to have been built by the original owner, Geoffrey de Clinton, is a difficult proposition to believe in. A date of about the second half of the twelfth century seems most likely.
The feudal summons for the siege was pushed back from December of 1265, finally occurring on May 24th of the next year. From that point on, the siege occurred in earnest. The castle’s garrison was large, usually estimated at twelve hundred men, and active in defending themselves: Blaauw takes special note of the gates being left open in defiance and their use of mangonels and other siege engines to resist the attempts at assault. 6 The term ‘mangonel’ is suspect, due to the imprecise nature of recording the type of stone or missile thrower involved. By this time, counterweight trebuchets are certainly in use in England7, and the supplies for the engines used by the crown’s forces as described later certainly would indicate trebuchets as being the intended stone-throwing device. 8
The royal forces, for their part, tried all manners of devices. Numerous stone throwing devices, presumably trebuchets, were brought to the siege, as well as ‘turres ligneas’, or wooden towers. An ‘ursus’ or ‘bear’ was built, with separate compartments for archers. 9 Barges were even sent from Chester to attempt an attack via the lake, though this was unsuccessful. 10 Time, however, was the only weapon at their disposal that in the end worked: the garrison, running out of food and suffering from disease, finally surrendered on December 13, 126611.
Before any examination is taken of the supplies used in the siege, two questions have to be asked. First, why was the garrison at Kenilworth so willing to continue resistance, despite being faced with overwhelming force on the part of the king’s feudal summons? At first glance, it would seem that Evesham had decided the issue of the baronial cause with the death of Simon de Montfort. Second, as the inverse side of the coin, why was the crown so intent upon taking Kenilworth at any cost? The siege from the time of the king’s arrival at Kenilworth took six months, and was beyond the scale of any siege Britain had yet seen. The last major siege, that of Bedford in mid-1224, had taken a total of 8 weeks, costing £1,311 18s. 2d.12.
For the garrison of Kenilworth, there were definite reasons for continuing defiance. The young Simon de Montfort, whose father had died at Evesham, had successfully fled abroad to France after coming to terms with Edward at Bycarr’s Dyke13. Rumours of his leading an invasion from France were rife in the first part of 1266, to the point of writs being issued to port cities to prevent any landings ‘lest by their landing danger should threaten the realm’14. Other centres of resistance, such as those at the island of Ely, provided encouragement by their mere existence. The last major reason for the resistance of the garrison was the terms set forth for the redeeming of their lands under the Dictum of Kenilworth. The rates were seen as exorbitant and impossible to accept. 15 It took the elimination of the possibility of relief and lack of supplies to convince the garrison to surrender.
For the crown, Kenilworth needed to be taken for both practical and psychological concerns. On the practical side, Kenilworth’s massive fortifications, large garrison, and central location in the Midlands made it a danger to numerous counties as long as it was held by opponents of the crown. This had been proved all too well by the raids and depredations in several counties by the garrison before the full force of the siege was applied. Psychologically, as long as Kenilworth continued to provide resistance, it would also provide encouragement to others such as those at the Isle of Ely to continue their struggle against the crown. It had been Simon de Montfort’s major castle and base, and as such was a symbol for his cause. Though Kenilworth was taken, the danger of this did take form in Earl Gilbert of Gloucester taking the side of John d’Eyville, still holding out at the Isle of Ely, and marching on London in support of the baronial cause16. While the costs of the siege proved to be astronomical, concerns for the effects of not dealing with the problem gave Henry and Edward little choice, much as Bedford had for Henry forty years before.
In taking a close look at what we know of the supply situation, a few difficulties in the process must be acknowledged. Records of writs sent from the chancery to the exchequer were recorded in the Liberate Rolls, and provide the most detailed information on the expenditures of the siege. However, while these Rolls provide our best source of information, they do have serious shortcomings. First, they record liberates, contrabreves, and allocations to sheriffs or other royal officials. They do not, however, include the equivalent writs for the households of either Edward or Edmund.
This leads to the second difficulty: the limited timespan covered by the Liberate Rolls. The first writs directly relating to the siege are issued on June 28, 1266, despite the feudal summons set for Northampton in May. This excludes not only a significant portion of the siege itself, late May through June, but also leaves dark the efforts of Edmund, who had charge of containing Kenilworth before this time.
Unfortunately, the Liberate Rolls do not appear to cover all details. Grain is the most notable victim, with only 5 entries directly listing grain or general victuals in which grain could be included. In those entries, 668.5 quarters of grain are mentioned specifically in two entries, with another 255 quarters being lumped in with various carcasses19. The amounts paid vary by a significant amount, from 4s. 6d. (54d.) to 3s. 4d. (40d.) per quarters of wheat to 1s. 8d. (20d.) per quarters of malt. Without further data on the amounts taken and paid for from the exchequer, there is not enough certainty in the value of each quarter of grain to accurately guess at values that are combined with other products such as beef or generic victuals.
Further evidence that the Liberate Rolls do not hold all the information on grain used in the siege comes from other official documents, such as the Patent Rolls and the Hundred Rolls. One example of this is the Prior of Kenilworth. On January 15, 1268, the prior receives payment for 220 quarters of grain from the exchequer; an amount apparently referred to the year before in an exemption from further purveyance issued by the king on October 22nd. However, in September of 1266 the same prior had received an earlier exemption for 300 quarters taken at the time, an amount not mentioned in the Liberate Rolls20.
The inquiry that resulted in the Hundred Rolls also covered prises for both grain and other foodstuffs that do not appear in the Liberate Rolls. Several prises credited to the sheriffs of Suffolk, Norfolk, and Oxfordshire are reported as not having been paid by the time of the inquiry, eight years after the time of the siege. These include wheat, malt, oats, oxen, porkers, salt, herrings, and wine. 21 Unfortunately, the size and complexity of the Hundred Rolls makes including their data in this analysis impractical. The Patent Rolls do provide an example illustrative of this trend of non-payment worth examining. Nicholas Syfrewast, sheriff of Oxford and Berks, received on July 12, 1268 protection from legal action being taken against him since ‘compelled by the malice of that time, inflicted divers grievances upon many, and has not made satisfaction to some for prises taken (for which the king is still indebted to him)’ 22. Seven days later, the exchequer received orders to pay the said Nicholas £101 7s. 9d. so that he could in turn pay off his creditors23.
One area in which the surviving writs are much more comprehensive is the activities of the huntsmen serving the royal household. From June 29th until November 19th, a total of eighteen separate writs was issued to sheriffs and bailiffs for the salting of various bucks, hinds, swine, and does taken by the king's huntsmen. Six separate men are repeatedly mentioned in these writs. Richard Candover and William Candover are normally operating together in the southern region of England, with five writs listing both men sent to sheriffs in Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Hampshire24. Henry Candover and John Lovel are another team, appearing in Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, and Dorset in four writs25. Two other men, John Somerset and John Naper, also serve the household, either singly, in tandem with each other, or with the Henry Candover/John Lovel team26.
The writs issued for hunting follow a general pattern of being issued roughly twice monthly. However, there are apparent wide gaps in the surviving writs, enough so that determining an average use by the household per week is an exercise in speculation only. Still, every writ available is issued either at the beginning of the month, from the 29th through the 3rd, or in the middle of the month between the 10th and the 19th. The number of carcasses per period is not fixed, ranging from a low of 10 from Savernak and Cette forests at the beginning of August to 146 in mid-November from five separate forests27.
Even with these varying numbers, there does appear to be a conscious attempt to spread out the activity of the huntsmen so as to avoid the rapid depletion of any one of the king’s woods. The largest number requested from any single forest at one time is forty from the forest of Cette in Wiltshire28. Beginning in mid-August these efforts appear to come increasingly under fire, as larger amounts of meat are requested – 56 carcasses in mid-August, 60 at the beginning of September, and 146 by mid-November.
Other meat is purchased or taken through purveyance. Writs of allocation for a total of 87 oxen and 344 wethers are issued on October 10th and November 30th of 1266 and February 20th of the next year29. Lampreys and other fish came from the chamberlain of London, while from London was also shipped the oddity of a whale for the king30. £20 worth of unspecified victuals were taken from John Belebuch. Part of the allocation of £75 13s. 9d. the sheriff of Warwick and Leicester received for victuals were for ’62 beeves and 173 mutton’31. In total, £143 2d. was spent on these purveyances, though caution should be taken due to the 255 quarters of wheat included in the sheriff of Warwick and Leicester’s allocation and the unknown nature of the victuals delivered by John Belebuch.
The last category of comestibles that we have records for from the royal accounts is drinks, specifically wine. Thanks to the king's right of prise from any ships carrying wine into England, there are plenty of recorded instances of the collection of wine by the king’s steward. While ale was certainly drunk in the household, there is only a single entry from January of 1270 allocating 13s. 4d. to one of the king’s clerks mentioning it, as opposed to the constant references to wine taken in prise throughout the siege and the much higher costs associated with it.
I have identified sixteen separate entries dealing solely with the taking of wine by prise from July 10 1266 until September 26th of the next year in the Liberate Rolls. These entries either are during the king's time at the siege of Kenilworth, or are noted as being for wine used during the siege. Other entries may refer to wine that was actually used at the siege, but cannot be positively identified as doing so due to lack of reference to Kenilworth and the calendar date of the payments. In total, 146 tuns of wine are taken by the king's steward or deputized takers of wine with 2 entries referring to unspecified amounts not included in this total32. By far the greatest total is taken at Southampton, with 123 tuns specifically listed and a writ on August 21, 1266 for the sheriff of Hants to receive unspecified numbers33.
Transport of such large amounts of wine required special arrangements. The best example of this is the writ issued to the sheriff of Oxford and Berks on August 30, 1266 allocating 36s. 8d. for 14 carts to carry the wine to Kenilworth. Either the carts or their drovers must have been acting on a contract basis, as each cart is specifically rated at 14d. a day per cart for 2 days34.
In support of the chronicle accounts of siege engines and works surrounding Kenilworth are the prosaic accounting of the costs of the works and the materials necessary for them. Again, looking at the Liberate Rolls, numerous entries relate to the making of supplies for the siege and their movement to Kenilworth. These fall into three general categories: carriage of engines, materials for engines, and materials and munitions for general use in the siege, such as hurdles and quarrels.
The siege works and machines brought to Kenilworth came from various areas, as opposed to a single mass depot. Windsor, Worcester, London and Gloucestershire all have entries to pay for the bringing of engines. Three ‘keels’ (cavillis) for ballistas and a ‘movable tower’ are paid from Gloucester37, where seven additional engines were built in the Forest of Dean and also sent on to the siege38. Various engines were moved by the keeper of London39, while two engines were moved by the sheriff of Somerset and Dorset to Worcester, at which time the keepers of the bishopric of Worcester absorbed the costs of Peter de Nevill moving these to the siege. 40 The keeper of Windsor was responsible for the carriage of ‘the gear (attilli) of one of the king’s great engines’ from Windsor. . 41 Overall, the costs of transporting and/or manufacturing these items except for the movable tower came to £37 14s. 4d.
The term ‘engines’ as is being used here is a broad one, including not only the usual siege items such as trebuchets and towers but also watercraft such as boats and ships. With Kenilworth’s large lake on the southwest side, it was of the utmost importance for the besiegers to control the lake both to prevent it being used to relieve or resupply the besiegers and to allow for another avenue of attack. The importance of this is reflected in multiple payments made for carriage of watercraft to Kenilworth. The sheriff of Worcester paid out 6.5 marks (£4 6s. 8d.) for a barge. 42, while the sheriff of Gloucester 10 marks (£6 13s. 4d.) for a ship from the Abbot of Gloucester. 43 and a total of 34 marks (£22 13s. 4d.) for 2 ships and two boats. 44.
In order for these engines to be properly set up and used, carpenters and engineers were required for their emplacement and construction. An allocation in the Liberate Rolls to the sheriff of London on September 20th places at least 24 carpenters from London at the siege. . 45 While this is the only entry on carpenters at the siege, it is reasonable to suppose that numerous others from counties closer to the siege were employed as needed. These carpenters, along with assembling the premade machines, would have been employed in building new engines and repairing the old ones with the raw materials shipped to Kenilworth for those purposes.
The raw materials purchased for the engines were items such as timber, beams, planks, cables and iron. Timber is brought in from the Forest of Dean and Worcester for the transport cost of £3 2s. 9d., while the chamberlain of Sandwich received £7 13s. 6d. for planks (tabulis) sent to the siege. . 46 From the Worcester timber entry, at least one tower (berefridium) was constructed from scratch at the siege itself. Large numbers of cables or ropes were obtained: the bailiffs of Bridport, the sheriff of Oxford and Berks, and the sheriff of Gloucester paid out over twelve pounds for their purchase and carriage to Kenilworth, while engines such as those built by the sheriff of Gloucester had cables for them purchased at the time of their construction. . 47 Ten marks of iron were purchased by the sheriff of Gloucester, after an urgent writ was sent in early September of 1266. However, no entries survive for the purchase or carriage of lead to Kenilworth, though both Westminster and Windsor receive supplies at this time. 48.
While the siege engines attempted to overcome the fortifications of Kenilworth, the besiegers needed the appropriate materials and munitions to play out their role – keeping the defenders of the keep from breaking out or any possible relief from breaking in. The two best examples of this are hurdles, wooden constructions meant to provide cover for the besiegers from missile fire by the garrison, and quarrels for crossbows. Both of these items are heavily requested and used. However, similar munitions such as arrows are little mentioned or receive no notice at all. Only three hundred sheaves of arrows are requested in the entirety of the Liberate Roll entries, from the sheriff of Surrey and Sussex. 49. Similarly, only one allocation for stones for the siege engines survives, crediting the sheriff of Warwick and Leicester a single mark (13s. 4d.) . 50.
The requests for hurdles come in two separate flurries. The first series were sent to the sheriffs of Oxford, Worcester, and Northampton on July 28th, demanding 1500, 500, and 500 hurdles from each respectively. The dimensions are roughly similar, either eight feet long by seven feet wide or ten feet by eight51. On September 15th, a second series of writs were issued to the sheriffs of Buckingham and Bedford, Gloucester, Worcester, and Warwick and Leicester for the deliver of all hurdles on hand to Kenilworth52. No numbers are given in the second series for size or number, but the need to call upon five previously untouched counties for hurdles indicates the heavy use and costs of maintaining the siege.
Quarrels are the most requested missile weapon, and are used in the siege by the thousands. Beginning in late June, several writs are issued either for the carriage of quarrels to the siege, or for their manufacture. The sheriff of Gloucester is to carry four thousand already made quarrels and six thousand new quarrels to Kenilworth from St. Briavel’s as of writs in late June and July; July 24th sees the bailiffs of Lincoln being required to send thirty thousand quarrels, with the next year having £8 5s. 4d. being allocated for having manufactured a further 13,200; and another thirty thousand for either one-foot or two-foot crossbows were being demanded of London on August 9th53.
Once again looking at the Liberate Rolls, a major expense is the replacement of horses. As was common, the king was responsible for replacing the loss of mounts while their riders were in the king's service. Over a dozen writs were issued authorizing payment for horse replacement from Sussex, Oxford, Lincoln, Buckinghamshire, Norwich and Ipswich, Lancaster, Yorkshire, Somerset, London, and Shropshire54. Much like the wine prises addressed earlier, it is difficult to assign the loss of mounts directly to the siege, as most entries merely list them as lost ‘in the king's service', as opposed to specifically at Kenilworth. Most of the figures are recorded in marks, averaging roughly 20 marks per horse and totalling £263 6s. 8d.
Similarly, a number of men or their widows received money for ‘damages’ suffered during the
siege, as did residents of the area. Four examples illustrate the basic types of these payments issued.
The simplest example of these was one-time payments, such as the £10 allocated to the bailiffs of
Yarmouth for Charles son of William Charles in recompense. 55 Others
received an income from the crown, such as the widow of John Pykard receiving 4d. a day in London
and Hugh de Bradele receiving 100s. a year after being maimed at Kenilworth. 56 The last example is the transfer of properties, such as this entry from the
Patent Rolls:
In more general terms, the difficulty in taking Kenilworth was a push towards the issuing of the Dictum of Kenilworth. This became the main vehicle for returning the political situation to normal and to return the rebellions barons to their lands and the more normal flow of politics in the aftermath of the wars. For the future, it also provided the Lord Edward experience in siege warfare that would serve him in good stead in his turn of the century-campaigns in Scotland, such as the siege of Stirling in 1304.
ccandy@chs.cusd.claremont.edu * Last updated: 5/6/99