Edward III: February 1338

Parliament Rolls of Medieval England. Originally published by Boydell, Woodbridge, 2005.

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'Edward III: February 1338', in Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, (Woodbridge, 2005) pp. . British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/parliament-rolls-medieval/february-1338 [accessed 20 April 2024]

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1338 February

Introduction February 1338

Westminster

3 - 14 February

Writs were issued on 20 December 1337 for a parliament to be held at Westminster on 3 February 1338: the assembly seems to have continued until 14 February, the date of issue of the writs de expensis for the knights of the shires and burgesses. (fn. f1338aint-1) No roll of proceedings of this assembly survives.

Some of its activities may, however, be reconstructed from references in other documents among the Public Records. A confidential memorandum to the king's representatives in the Low Countries reveals that the reason for the summons of the assembly (not specified in the writs of summons) lay in a recent proposal made by the pope's envoys for an Anglo-French concord: the cardinals who headed this delegation were informed that, since the French war had been determined as a matter of policy in full parliament (for which, see parliament of September-October 1337), the king could not change his plans and confirm a tentative truce without summoning a fresh assembly and consulting with the lords and commons. (fn. f1338aint-2) Furthermore, the king himself outlined his version of the subsequent discussions in a memorandum written some time after the assembly, in July 1338, describing how the parliament re-affirmed both the will of the king's subjects that he should continue the war and their commitment that they would aid him as necessary in this enterprise. (fn. f1338aint-3)

This was not necessarily the whole story. The fiscal arrangements made in this assembly reveal the hard bargaining to which the crown had to resort at a time of deep financial difficulty. The king persuaded the assembly to sanction the revision of his earlier plan for the compulsory purchase of 30,000 sacks of wool into a forced loan of 20,000 sacks, but in return had to forego the rights he had recently asserted to the collection of communal fines and scutage. (fn. f1338aint-4) As Professor Fryde has pointed out, the instructions for the abandonment of the latter levies specifically referred to petitions on these matters having been made to the king in parliament, which indicates not only (apparently) that the common petitions were submitted in this assembly but also something of the mood of the occasion. (fn. f1338aint-5) Without a roll of proceedings, however, we are at a loss to know more either of how the parliament responded in detail to the current diplomatic, military and fiscal situation, or indeed the degree to which the crown chose to represent this in its official record of the occasion.

Footnotes

  • f1338aint-1. RDP , IV.488-91; CCR 1337-9 , 388-9; J.H. Denton and J.P. Dooley, Representatives of the Lower Clergy in Parliament 1295-1340 (Woodbridge, 1987), 120. The warrant for the issue of the writs of summons was in fact dated 22 December: G.O. Sayles, The Functions of the Medieval Parliament of England (London, 1988), 423.
  • f1338aint-2. E.B. Fryde, 'Parliament and the French war, 1336-1340', in Historical Studies of the English Parliament , ed. E.B. Fryde and E. Miller, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1970), I.245-6.
  • f1338aint-3. E. Déprez, Les préliminaires de la Guerre de Cent Ans (Paris, 1902), 418.
  • f1338aint-4. E.B. Fryde, William de la Pole (London, 1988), 82-3; G. L. Harriss, King, Parliament and Public Finance in Medieval England to 1369 (Oxford, 1975), 236.
  • f1338aint-5. Fryde, 'Parliament and the French war', 252-3.
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