Edward III: April 1357

1357 April

Introduction 1357

Westminster

17 April - 16 May

SR , I.349-56

Writs were issued on 15 February 1357 for a parliament to meet at Westminster on 17 April. (fn. f1357int-1) No roll survives for this parliament, or for the three that succeeded it in 1358, 1360 and 1361; nor has any explanation ever been given as to why, and when, the rolls that were presumably made for these assemblies were lost. The close of the assembly is therefore dateable solely by the writs de expensis issued to the knights and burgesses, which in turn offer an interesting ambiguity: the urban representatives received their writs on 8 May, whereas the knights received theirs on 16 May. (fn. f1357int-2) Assuming that the assembly remained formally in session until the departure of the knights, it is conventional to give its terminal date as 16 May. (fn. f1357int-3)

A reasonable amount of the business undertaken in this assembly can be reconstructed and construed from references in the Public Records. The parliament took place in the aftermath of the Black Prince's triumphant return to England from the victory of Poitiers with his prisoner, King John II; an Anglo-French truce had already been confirmed on 23 March 1357, pending detailed discussions about the terms of John's release. (fn. f1357int-4) The assembly authorised the payment of a single fifteenth and tenth: it was unusual for the crown to request (or expect to receive) grants of direct taxation at a time when there was no likelihood of imminent renewal of war, and it would seem likely that the tax was requested and/or granted as a thanksgiving for the prince's good services: certainly, a significant proportion of it was assigned in relief of the debts of the Black Prince and his fellow commanders (although, if the commons did make any specifications about the reservation of the tax revenues for such payments, they were clearly not observed, since large sums were also directed into the royal household). (fn. f1357int-5) Whether the commons made it a condition of the grant, or whether it was 'freely' conceded by the crown is also uncertain, but the tax was accompanied by an agreement whereby the outstanding communal fines for the escapes and chattels of fugitives and felons, which were anciently associated with the eyre, were allocated in subvention of the tax, and the liability for such fines in future was pardoned. These concessions were embodied in a statute. (fn. f1357int-6) The commissions ordering the collection of the subsidy, and the writs ordering proclamation of the statute, were not issued until 1 August 1357, although the tax itself (and the concessions associated with it) must have been granted before 5 May, when it was referred to in a writ to the justices of the peace concerning the assessment of the communal fines to be allocated in relief of the tax, and when the crown issued letters patent confirming the pardon of communal fines. (fn. f1357int-7)

The statute roll for 1357 contains a longer series of legislative acts that evidently arose from the common petitions presented in the parliament of 1357. Regulations were made concerning the weighing of wool and the standardisation of the unit of assessment for wine (the tun); an important concession was allowed to lords of franchises, who were allowed to claim the fines and amercements levied within their areas of jurisdiction under the terms of the Ordinance and Statute of Labourers; and official sanction was given to the release from the alien monopoly over wool exports established in 1353, with denizens now being permitted to export (in the first instance) until Michaelmas 1357. (fn. f1357int-8) (Writs to the collectors of customs authorising this new agreement were issued on 5 May, indicating that this legislation too must have been agreed by that date, even though it was not issued in statutory form until 1 August.) (fn. f1357int-9) Detailed legislation was also issued to regulate the fish trade as it was observed at Yarmouth and Blakeney in Norfolk: the significance and impact of these regulations was to make itself felt in parliament in the years that followed. (fn. f1357int-10)