14
INTRODUCTION
It is widely accepted by scholars that the Hundred Years’ War, in general, and the reign of King Edward III of England (1327–1377), in particular, witnessed a crucial stage in the development of state sponsored propaganda efforts to mobilize the nation for war.1 Edward III’s government made particularly skillful use of the church to disseminate the justifications for the king’s wars in France and against the Scots. The royal government also required bishops and priests to organize a spectrum of religious rites and ceremonies encompassing the largest possible sections of the English population, including both the laity and clergy, to seek divine intervention on behalf of English troops serving in the field. These religious rites included prayers, penitential and thanksgiving processions, intercessory masses, vigils, almsgiving, and fasting.2
1. See, in this regard, H. J. Hewitt, The Organization of War under Edward III (Manchester, 1966), 160–165; W. R. Jones, “The English Church and Royal Propaganda during the Hundred Years’ War”, Journal of British Studies 19 (1979), 18–30; A. K. McHardy, “Liturgy and Propaganda in the Diocese of Lincoln during the Hundred Years’ War”, Studies in Church History 18 (1982), 215–227; and idem, “Religious Ritual and Political Persuasion: The Case of England in the Hundred Years’ War”, International Journal of Moral and Social Studies 3 (1988), 41–52; James A. Doig, “Propaganda, Public Opinion and the Siege of Calais in 1436”, in Crown, Government and People in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Rowena E. Archer (New York, 1995), 79–107, here 83–85, and a recent summary of the topic by A. K. McHardy, “Some Reflections on Edward III’s use of Propaganda”, in The Age of Edward III, ed. J. S. Bothwell (Woodbridge, 2001), 171–192. For a list of requests for prayers by the English government in the period 1305–1334, see J. Robert Wright, The Church and the English Crown 1305–1334: A Study Based on the Register of Archbishop Walter Reynolds (Toronto, 1980), 348–360.
2. Regarding these rites, see the previous note, and especially McHardy, “Some Reflections”, 176–183.
The administrative structure that made possible both the dissemination of royal propaganda and the organization of this wide spectrum of religious observances was the hierarchical church itself.3 Edward III’s government regularly issued writs to English bishops, especially the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and abbots, as well as the heads of the Dominican and Franciscan orders in England, which provided these church leaders with royally approved accounts of important current events. This information was then passed down the ecclesiastical chain of authority through cathedral deans and archdeacons and from there to the parish priests who were responsible for passing on this information to the English people in the form of sermons and other communications. Royal orders for public religious celebrations, including, on occasion, instructions for specific types of liturgies, prayers, processions, and other rites, traversed the same path from archbishops, to bishops and abbots, on to archdeacons, and then to the most local level of parish priests and vicars. The evidence for the royal government’s systematic employment of the English church is to be found in numerous surviving copies of royal writs as well as archiepiscopal orders recorded in bishops’ registers throughout Edward III’s reign.4
3. McHardy, “Some Reflections”, 174, aptly describes the bishops of England as “those obliging, all-purpose workhorses of the realm, who had such a crucial role as the links between the crown and the localities”.
4. Hewitt, Organization of War, 160–165; and McHardy, “Some Reflections”, passim.
Edward III clearly benefited from a well-organized and sophisticated military-religious administration. But was this a fourteenth-century creation? This study argues that, in fact, the origins of Edward III’s church based propaganda efforts and his mobilization of religious rites on behalf of the army go back half a century to the reign of his grandfather Edward I (1272–1307).5 It will be shown here that it was the reign of Edward I and not the reign of Edward III that saw the first fully developed military-religious administration for the mobilization of the English church on behalf of royal government’s efforts to wage war.6
5. Scholars investigating the reign of Edward III tend either to ignore or deal only superficially with earlier government efforts. This is certainly the case with Hewitt, Organization of War. Jones, “English Church”, 24; and McHardy, “Some Reflections”, 173, note that Edward I’s reign served as a model for his successors in the mobilization of religious rites on behalf of soldiers, if not in the active dissemination of propaganda. Neither, however, discusses these practices during Edward I’s reign in any depth. Moreover, both Jones and McHardy treat the Hundred Years’ War as a period of new intensity in these royal efforts, without, however, quantifying this new intensity. Finally, none of the studies, discussed here, which consider the dissemination of royal propaganda and the organization of public prayers by the English government, focuses on the administrative system required to assure the implementation of royal policy in the period before Edward III’s reign.
6. It does not appear that Henry III, Edward I’s father, had such a system in place. In an exhaustive reading of all of the surviving administrative documents from Henry III’s reign, including the Pipe Rolls, close rolls, patent rolls, and liberate rolls, and the reams of unpublished documents stored in the Public Record Office, I have found only a few references to public prayers of any sort, and none for the army. This is not surprising, however, given the different military histories of the two reigns. Whereas Edward I undertook major campaigns in which tens of thousands of men were mobilized over several years for service in Wales, Scotland, Gascony, and Flanders, most of Henry III’s campaigns were small affairs lasting a few months. As a consequence, it is easy to see that Henry III’s government did not see the need to undertake the same type of religious and popular mobilization that seemed so important to Edward I and his advisors.
English church at war under Edward I
King Edward I of England was honored in his own day and by subsequent generations as one of the leading military commanders of Europe for his conquest of Wales and Scotland, and for his defense of Gascony against the French onslaught under King Philip IV (1285–1314).7 Underpinning these successes was Edward’s intelligent mobilization and utilization of the resources of his kingdom for carefully considered and planned campaigns. The purely military side of Edward’s wars has been examined in detail by numerous scholars.8 As indicated, however, the religious elements of Edward’s military policy largely have been ignored.9
7. Concerning Edward’s Welsh campaigns, see John Edward Morris, The Welsh Wars of Edward I: A Contribution to Medieval Military History Based on Original Documents (1901, repr. New York, 1969), and Michael Prestwich, War, Politics and Finance under Edward I (Totowa, NJ, 1972). For an overview of Edward I’s Scottish campaigns, see Prestwich, Edward I (London, 1988, repr. New Haven, CT, 1996), 469–511, and 381–386 for Edward’s defense of Gascony. Prestwich has refined his views in Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience (New Haven, CT, 1996).
8. Numerous studies shed light on individual aspects of Edward’s military organization, including Alvin Z. Freeman, “Wall-Breakers and River-Bridgers: Military Engineers in the Scottish Wars of Edward I”, Journal of British Studies 10 (1971), 1–16; Joseph Strayer, “The Costs and Profits of War: The Anglo-French Conflict of 1294–1303”, in The Medieval City, ed. Harry A. Miskimin, David Herlihy, and A. L. Udovitch (New Haven, CT, 1977), 269–291; and Thomas Avril, “Interconnections between the Lands of Edward I: A Welsh-English Mercenary Force in Ireland 1285–1304”, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 40 (1993), 135–147.
9. D. W. Burton, “Requests for Prayers and Royal Propaganda under Edward I”, in Thirteenth Century England 3 (1989), 25–35, provides a useful introduction to the problem, but does not deal with the spectrum of administrative questions arising from King Edward’s efforts to disseminate royal propaganda and mobilize public prayers, as well as other religious rites, which are the focus of this investigation. One other aspect of Edward I’s military-religious policy that has attracted some attention is the continuing effort by the royal government to provide pastoral care to the various elements of the royal army, including the king’s household, garrison troops, the military households of royal retainers, and the shire levies. See David S. Bachrach, “The Organisation of Military Religion in the Armies of King Edward I of England (1272–1307)”, Journal of Medieval History 29 (2003), 265–286, and also in this volume.
As is true of the mid-to-late fourteenth century and the reign of Edward III, the most important sources for identifying the administrative system that made possible the dissemination of royal propaganda and the organization of religious rites are surviving royal writs and the letters of English archbishops and bishops that were recorded in episcopal registers, and in other ecclesiastical documentary collections such as collegiate chapter books.10 Additional administrative evidence can be gleaned from the internal memoranda of the government writing office, that is the Chancery.11 Finally, some corroborative evidence for the effectiveness of the administrative efforts of the crown and church to disseminate information and organize religious rites is provided by contemporary chroniclers.
10. The entries from episcopal registers and collegiate chapter books are cited individually in this chapter.
11. Calendar of Chancery Warrants AD 1244–1326 (London, 1927).
During Edward I’s reign, the royal government regularly sought to make use of the sophisticated administrative apparatus of the church reaching from the archbishops of York and Canterbury down to the parish level, not excluding either the great monastic houses of England or the Dominican and Franciscan orders, to explain and justify royal military policy to the realm as a whole. The government used two methods to mobilize the administrative resources of the church, both of which relied heavily on the English episcopate. The first and more common method was to order the Chancery to issue a writ to the archbishops of Canterbury and York requiring these two leading prelates of England to issue orders to all of the bishops, monasteries, and other ecclesiastical jurisdictions within their archdioceses to carry out the royal will regarding the dissemination of information, that is royal propaganda, and the organization of religious rites on behalf of soldiers in the field. The second method was to issue this same information and orders to all of the leading ecclesiastical officers of the kingdom in the form of a circular writ, thereby bypassing the archbishops. This study will deal with both of these administrative procedures in turn.
In considering the first and more common method, there is a paradigmatic example in the royal writ issued to Archbishop Robert Winchelsey of Canterbury (1294–1313) in August 1297. This text informed the archbishop that King Philip of France had broken a truce negotiated between the English and French forces in Gascony by the bishops of Albano Laziale and Prenestini, then acting as papal legates.12 Edward I emphasized that despite his own desire for peace he had been compelled with sadness (cum dolore) to take up the fight against one who had “attacked and hostilely assaulted our friends and allies”.13 In order to support this military effort, the king required that, “you pour out devoted prayers to the Highest in your own cathedral and that you have this done in all of the churches that are under your jurisdiction and subject to you”.14 As is typical of these documents, the writ coupled the demand for prayers to be organized throughout the archdiocese with a brief synopsis of the royal position regarding the renewal of hostilities, namely that the war was entirely the fault of the French. As a consequence, the request for prayers, which ultimately had to be organized at the parish level, brought with it an explicit defense of King Edward’s military policy.
12. Thomas Rymer, Foedera, conventiones, literae, et cujuscunque generis acta publica, 20 vols (London, 1726–1735), II: 781–782.
13. Ibid., “amicosque ac confeoderatos nostros invadit hostiliter impugnat”.
14. Ibid., “Paternitatem vestram affectuose requirimus et rogamus, quatenus preces devotas apud Altissimum efundatis et in vestra cathedrali, ac omnibus aliis eclesiis vestrae jurisdictione subjectis illud idem fieri faciatis”.
Once the archbishops received writs instructing them to disseminate royal propaganda and to mobilize religious rites to invoke divine aid on behalf of English troops, they relied on the traditional ecclesiastical administrative structures to pass these orders down through the hierarchy. A typical example of how these orders were transmitted can be seen in a surviving document issued by the writing office of Bishop Richard de Gravesend of London (1280–1303) to the dean and chapter of St. Paul’s Cathedral in July 1298.15 This order contains a long fragmentum, that is a portion of a text imbedded within another, of a letter issued by Archbishop Robert Winchelsey to Bishop Richard on the fifteenth of the same month.16 This fragmentum of the archbishop’s letter makes clear that the king had issued a writ to Robert Winchelsey requiring him to organize prayers and other rites (suffragia) on behalf of royal troops then fighting against the Scots.17 The archbishop in turn ordered that processions and prayers be organized in all of the dioceses within the archdiocese of Canterbury in order to assure the peace of the kingdom and of the English church (ecclesia Anglicana). These prayers were to be devoted specially to seeking divine aid on behalf of the king and his supporters. Archbishop Robert added that his subordinate bishops were to see to it that these instructions were observed by their own subordinates.18
15. Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, 4 vols, ed. David Wilkins (London, 1737, repr. Brussels, 1964), II: 240–242.
16. The nature of the fragmentum is evident from Bishop Robert’s comment that he was quoting from a letter sent by the archbishop (“litteras reverendi patri domini R. Dei gratia Cantuar’ quae sequitur continents”). See Concilia Magnae Britanniae, I: 241.
17. Ibid., 241, “Thus, during the aforementioned assembly, the king requested through his messengers that prayers and other rites be celebrated for him and his men as they engage in their current expedition which they recently began against the enemies of the king and kingdom” (“ac etiam dominus rex nuper in ultima congregatione praedicta per nuncios suos rogavit, ut pro eo et suis in expeditione praesenti, quam contra hostes ipsius et regni nuper assumpsit, orationes et suffragia hujusmodi fieri”).
18. Ibid., 242, “Thus, we order and command that you undertake the aforementioned processions, prayers, and rites on behalf of the Holy Land, for the peace of the kingdom, for the English church, and especially for the king and his supporters engaged in the present campaign. Furthermore, you are to see that these rites are carried out throughout your entire diocese every day and in every place, and that information about the excommunication is passed on as well” (“vobis ut supra mandamus et injungimus quatenus dictas processiones, et orationum suffragia, tam pro statu terrae sanctae et pace regni et ecclesiae Anglicanae, quam etiam pro domino rege et sibi adhaerantibus in sua expeditione praesenti specialiter; necnon denunciationes excommunicationum praedictas per totam vestram diocesim singulis diebus et locis quibis id expediri videritis”).
In addition to demanding that his subordinate bishops organize religious rites on behalf of the king and the royal army, the archbishop’s letter also contains a detailed discussion of the royal case for war. The Scots and their supporters are characterized as having violently invaded the churches and other ecclesiastical sites in England, stealing church property in their “sacrilegious audacity”, and presuming to violate the peace of the kingdom and of the church.19 The surviving fragmentum also emphasizes that the archbishop had publicly excommunicated the Scots, information which could hardly have been unknown to either to Bishop Robert or to the cathedral clergy, and that this excommunication was to be promulgated throughout the dioceses subordinate to Canterbury.20
19. Ibid., “Both the Scots and their supporters who presumed and still presume to attack violently the churches of England and other church properties, and to burn and despoil with sacrilegious audacity the property of the church and to infringe upon and disturb the peace of the kingdom and the church” (“necnon Scotos, et eorum complices, qui ecclesias regni Angliae et loca ecclesiastica violenter invadere, comburere, ac bonis ecclesiasticis ausu sacrilegio spoliare, pacemque regni et ecclesiae patenter infringere ac perturbare praesumpserunt et praesumunt”).
20. Ibid.,241–242, “We order that these excommunicated men be denounced throughout our province” (“ut dicitur excommunicantes publice per nostram denunciare provinciam facaeremus”).
The surviving letter from Bishop Richard of London to the dean and chapter of St. Paul’s Cathedral is therefore clear evidence that Archbishop Robert’s orders, and ultimately the orders of the king regarding the dissemination of royal propaganda and the organization of religious rites, were carried out. In this context it should be emphasized that Bishop Richard’s letter specified that the dean and cathedral canons also were obligated either to organize the requested religious rites personally, or to pass on these orders to their subordinates who actually oversaw the parish churches where these efforts were to be undertaken.21 Thus, just as the archbishop had done with his bishops, the bishops too used the established ecclesiastical administrative hierarchy to disseminate orders downward.22
21. Ibid., “[we order that these matters] be publicized by you and by your subordinates in the prebends and churches subject to your jurisdiction” (“in praebendis et ecclesiis vestrae jurisdictione subjectis … per vos quam per vestros subditos publicari”).
22. It is likely, even if the lack of direct evidence requires that we be circumspect, that the bishops used the archidiaconal structure to inform their parish priests about what sermons and religious rites were required. Concerning the organization of the English dioceses into effective archidiaconal districts, see Jean Scammel, “The Rural Chapter in England from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth Century”, English Historical Review 91 (1971), 1–21.
Moreover, in addition to having carried out his duty to transmit information and orders to his subordinates in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, it should be emphasized that Bishop Robert chose to include a substantial portion of Archbishop Richard’s letter within his own text. On a practical, bureaucratic level, this was sound administrative procedure because the repetition of information obtained from the archbishop obviated the need for the busy bishop to compose an entirely new document. Furthermore, by including the original text in his own letter, the bishop provided all of the themes that those lower down the hierarchy would need for their own sermons to the laity, including the justness of the royal cause, the atrocities committed by the Scots, and the fact that the latter had been excommunicated by the archbishop.23 This method of providing the content for sermons was well known by this time, as it had been standard practice for the papal government to use bulls, the administrative equivalent of royal writs or archiepiscopal orders, to provide thematic material for mendicant preachers and other ecclesiastical officials since the mid-thirteenth century.24
23. It does not seem unreasonable to suggest that the archbishop’s own letter may have included a fragmentum of the original royal writ, now lost, in which the king demanded that religious rites, including sermons, be organized on behalf of the troops. The writ sent by the king in August of 1297 to Archbishop Robert Winchelsey, noted earlier, certainly contained many of the same themes that we see in the fragmentum of the archbishop’s letter, as it survives in the letter sent by Bishop Richard of London to the chapter and dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
24. Christoph T. Maier, Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1994, repr. 1998), 117.
As a postscript to this episode, in September 1298, Archbishop Robert Winchelsey sent another circular letter to his “venerable fellow bishops and all of the suffragens of our province of Canterbury”, again beginning the process of organizing wide-scale public prayers and other religious rites, including processions, fasting, and almsgiving, in order to support King Edward’s forces in Scotland.25 The archbishop reported that Edward had recently returned from Flanders in order to take personal command of the military operations being conducted in Scotland. Prince Edward, the king’s son, had passed on letters sent by his father which instructed the archbishop to institute, “laudes et gratias” to God on behalf of the king at the beginning of his expedition against his opponents. Thus, in turn, Robert Winchelsey ordered his subordinate bishops to pour out prayers and carry out other appropriate rites and to have these religious celebrations carried out diligently throughout, “all of your cities and dioceses”.26
25. Concilia Magnae Britanniae, II: 242–243.
26. Ibid., 243, “illud per omnes civitates vestras et diocesas diligentius fieri facientes”.
A very similar pattern of diffusion of information and orders was in effect at York, the other archdiocese of England. On 6 June 1301, Archbishop Thomas Corbridge of York (1299–1304) sent out a circular letter to all of his bishops as well as to the other subordinate ecclesiastical jurisdictions within the archdiocese, many of which enjoyed immunities from the local bishops. Once again, the context of the king’s original writ and the archbishop’s concomitant circular letter was Edward I’s continuing effort to establish English control over Scotland. The archbishop therefore set out the royal case for war and ordered that a spectrum of religious ceremonies be put into motion in order to invoke divine aid on behalf of English troops.27 Although many scores of letters must originally have been sent in order to fulfill the king’s desire and the archbishop’s obligation to have prayers organized throughout the archdiocese, I have found only one surviving copy, the letter issued to cathedral chapter at York.28
27. Historical Papers and Letters from the Northern Registers, ed. James Raine Rolls Series 61 (London, 1873), 149–150. See also The Register of Thomas Corbridge 1300–1304, part I (London, 1925), 6. The question of immune ecclesiastical jurisdictions is discussed below.
28. Historical Papers and Letters, 149–150.
Thomas Corbridge began his circular letter by stressing that the king’s campaign in Scotland was a just war. He emphasized, just as Archbishop Robert Winchelsey of Canterbury had done in his own letters, that the king was fighting for the peace and safety of his kingdom and in order to hold in check the unjustified attacks made against the English by the Scots.29 As would appear to have become routine, the Scots were characterized as oath breakers who burned holy places, stole property from the church, and were now under the ban of excommunication.30 The archbishop then stressed his own view that the king’s efforts in Scotland would be aided if they were supported by the devoted prayers of the faithful.31 Thus, “placing our firm hope in God’s aid”, Thomas ordered that “a special remembrance for the lord king, for all of his men, and for his illustrious son Lord Edward, be held in our cathedral and in all of the churches of our city, dioceses, and province, including both the exempt and non-exempt churches, whether collegial or parish, every day when masses are celebrated either for the living or for the dead”.32 This was an explicit command for regular intercessory prayers during the celebration of mass throughout the province that set aside the traditional administrative prerogatives of the “exempt” churches. Furthermore, these intercessory prayers said during mass were to be supplemented every Wednesday and Friday by processions of both clerics and lay people during which the participants were to sing litanies on behalf of the king and his army.33 The archbishop of York emphasized that the purpose of these religious demonstrations was to convince God through the piety of the people to protect the king and his army from harm.34
29. Ibid. The king acted, “with his army for the peace and security of the kingdom of England to suppress the attacks and rabid presumption of the Scots” (“cum suo exercitu pro tranquilitate et securitate regni Angliae, ad compescendum impetum ac praesumptsuosam rabiem Scottorum”). Once again, it seems likely that the themes enunciated by the archbishop were either a paraphrase or a direct quotation from the original royal writ issued to him.
30. Historical Papers and Letters, 149–150, “who, unmindful of their own salvation, after their oath of loyalty to our lord king, given as to their prince and lord, cruelly attacked the churches and sacred places of the kingdom of England and not without considerable killing. They burned and stole church property and carried it off, setting aside their fear of God. As a result, they have incurred a sentence of excommunication” (“qui, post fidelitatis juramentum eidem domino nostro regi, ut principi suo et domino … salutis suae immemores, ecclesias et loca sacra regni Angliae non sine multiplici homicidio crudeliter invaserunt, combusserunt et bona ecclesiastica rapiendo, Dei timore postposito, asportarunt, propter quod in excommunicationis sententiam inciderunt”).
31. Historical Papers and Letters, 149–150, “so that the vigorous prince might direct his path to Scotland, and since we believe that his actions will greatly prosper if they are supported by the devoted prayers of the faithful” (“ut princeps strenuus ad partes Scotiae jam dirigat gressus suos, cujus actus et opera magis credimus prosperari, si orationibus devotis fidelium infulciatur, nos in Dei adjutorio”).
32. Ibid, 149–150, “spem firmam ponentes, vobis mandamus quatenus in nostra cathedrali et omnibus aliis ecclesiis nostrae civitatis et dioecesis et provinciae, exemptis et non exemptis, tam collegiatis quam parochialibus, omni die in missis presbyterorum, sive pro defunctis sive pro vivis celebrantium, ipsius domini regis, et omnium ipsum et illustrem filium suum dominum Edwardum comitantium, memoriam fieri specialem”.
33. Ibid., 150.
34. Ibid., “so that our Lord, who rules everything, might guide and direct his steps and acts through his own piety and thus protect and defend the king and his army from their enemies” (“ut Dominus noster, rerum omnium dispositer providus, pro sua pietate gressus suos et actus dirigat et disponat, ipsumque regem cum exercitu ab adversis protegat et defendat”).
In 1303, Archbishop Thomas Corbridge again set in motion a massive effort to mobilize prayers on behalf of the English king and his soldiers fighting in Scotland. One of the series of letters issued by the archiepiscopal Chancery in April of this year has been preserved in the chapter book of the canons of St. John of Beverley.35 Using a formula similar to that employed two years earlier, the archbishop emphasized his expectation that the cause of the English king in maintaining peace and security in both England and Scotland would be furthered through the prayers of the faithful. Thomas added that he “placed his faith firmly in God who wishes to be sought out by the tearful prayers of the devout”.36 Therefore, just as he had done in 1301, the archbishop issued orders that prayers be said on behalf of the king, his son, and their companions, that is soldiers, at the church of St. John of Beverley and in other parish and collegiate churches throughout his archdiocese irrespective of their exempt status. Moreover, these prayers were to be said both during mass and during processions.37 These intercessory masses, processions, and prayers were to be celebrated on the approaching Easter Sunday, every other Sunday, as well as on feast days. In addition to these obligations, the archbishop repeated verbatim from the letter of 1301, noted here, his call for bi-weekly processions by lay people on Wednesdays and Fridays.38 The archbishop concluded this list of obligations by stressing that these rites and ceremonies would cause God to defend the royal army in battle, bring honor and salvation to the kingdom, and bring benefit to the English church (ecclesia Anglicana).39
35. Memorials of Beverley Minster: The Chapter Act Book of the Collegiate Church of St. John of Beverley AD 1286–1347, 2 vols, ed. Arthur Francis Leach (Durham, 1898–1303), I: 10–11.
36. Ibid., “Nos in Deo [necnon eo], qui lacrimosis devotorum precibus vult pulsari, spem firmam ponentes”.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., 11, “May he protect and defend the king and his army from their enemies, restore the tranquility of desired peace, and grant victory over his enemies, for his own honor, for the salvation of the kingdom, and for the sake of the English church” (“ipsumque Regem cum exercitu ab adversis protegat et defendat, necnon pacis optatae tranquilitatem et de inimicis triumphum habere concedet, ad ipsius honorem, regni salvationem, et totius utilitatem Ecclesiae Anglicanae”).
This first method of disseminating royal propaganda and orders for the mobilization of religious rites on behalf of the English army, namely the issuing of royal writs to the archbishops of Canterbury and York would appear, on the basis of surviving evidence in episcopal registers, to have been the primary mode used by the royal government.40 This system had the advantage of using already existing ecclesiastical administrative structures and also the not inconsiderable benefit of transferring the costs of writing and sending countless letters away from the royal Chancery and onto the writing offices of archbishops, bishops, and other ecclesiastical office holders. Despite these advantages, however, the royal government did occasionally bypass the archbishops when seeking to spread propaganda and seek prayers. For example, at the outbreak of war in 1294 against King Philip of France for control of Gascony, the royal government issued a circular writ to the leaders of the English church, namely the bishops, abbots, and heads of the Dominican and Franciscan orders.41
40. This method of transmitting royal orders to the church as a whole remained the primary mode during the reign of Edward III. On this point, see McHardy, “Religious Rituals”, 48.
41. Rymer, Foedera, II: 639.
Here, King Edward set out the reasons why he had gone to war and sought prayers on behalf of his forces in Gascony. In this context, the king emphasized his belief that man was inherently weak and therefore required the hand of God to sustain him.42 Edward insisted that if the proper religious rites were performed on behalf of his army, he would then be able to pursue his rights and expose his body in combat without fear. In this case, God would give glory, honor, and praise not only to the king but to the church and the kingdom as well.43 Thus, just as was noted previously with regard to the royal writs issued directly to the archbishops of Canterbury and York, this circular writ provided the themes that were to be covered in the intercessory prayers for the king and his army. One particularly noteworthy aspect of the writ issued by the royal Chancery is 1294 was the fact that it was commented on by the author of the Annals of Worcester who reiterated the basic themes enunciated by King Edward.44 Indeed, the annalist would appear to have quoted directly from the circular writ that had been sent to the leading ecclesiastical officials of England, presumably copying from the text issued to the abbot of Worcester, which likely was still extant in the monastic archives when the annalist wrote. The annalist was therefore able to observe that King Edward sent letters throughout the kingdom asking for prayers because he knew that victory derived from heaven.45
42. Ibid., “There is no aid in man, but rather weakness and defects. Because of this, it is fitting that the hand of the divine support our weakness with its strength, so we ask and affectionately command your pious affection so that your hearts rise up to the Lord and you pray devotedly to Him” (“Cumque in homine not sit auxilium sed infirmitas et defectus, et propter hoc oporteat imbecillitatem nostram Divinae manus sustentari praesidiis, pias affectiones vestras a affectuose requirimus et rogamus, quatenus corda vestra sursum habentes ad Dominum devotis apud Eum supplicantibus insistatis”).
43. Rymer, Foedera, II: 639, “In this manner, we will be able to take up this business and defend our just cause without fearing for our body since God has granted glorious triumph and praise to us and to you” (“ita possumus assumptum negotium prosequi, et justitiam nostram defendere pro qua corpus nostrum exponere non timemus quod Deo cedat ad gloriam nobis et vobis ad triumphum et laudem”).
44. Annales Prioratus de Wigornia, ed. Henry R. Luard, Annales Monastici IV, Rolls Series 36.4 (London, 1869), 516. For a discussion of the Worcester chronicle and the corpus of “monastic chronicles” in general, see Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307 (Ithaca, 1974), 318–320, and 333.
45. Wigornia, 516, “The king of England, knowing that victory is derived from heaven, sought through letters to have everyone pray so that the King of kings would take up this business and God would grant glory and fitting honor to the kingdom of England” (“Rex Angliae sciens quod victoria de caelo est, per literas petiit quatinus ab ommibus sic oretur, ut Regis regum dextera assumptum negotium sic disponat, quatinus Deo cedat ad gloriam, et ad regni Angliae commodum et honorem”).
In 1296, the royal government again issued a circular writ, this time in preparation for a campaign that was intended to recover lands lost in Gascony to the French in the previous two years. The writ, issued to all of the English bishops, the provincial prior of the Dominicans, the minister general of the Franciscans, as well as seventeen abbots, is preserved in a copy included in the register of Bishop John de Halton of Carlisle (1292–1324). As was true in 1294, the royal government again used this document to make the case for the just and defensive nature of the war now underway, stressing that the war was intended to seek the recovery (recuperatio) and defense (defensio) of royal lands in Gascony.46
46. Historical Papers and Letters, 120.
The final example discussed here offers a glimpse of the royal administration from a different angle. In this case, rather than a surviving writ, there is a calendared entry that records the original royal order, issued on 7 June 1301, that authorized the Chancery to compose and issue writs to all of the bishops and other ecclesiastical leaders in England, instructing them to organize wide-scale public prayers on behalf of the royal army then operating in Scotland.47 Aside from the fact that this is an example of the mechanics of royal administration at work, this writ would not be of great importance except for the curious fact that it would seem to have been redundant. As noted, a royal writ intended to disseminate royal views on the war in Scotland and to organize public religious rites on behalf of the troops had already been issued to and acted upon by the archbishop of York prior to 7 June 1301. In fact, Thomas Corbridge’s letter to his subordinates in which he set out the royal case for war in Scotland and demanded the mobilization of public prayers was issued on 6 June 1301, one day before the issue of the order for the drafting of the circular writ, and thus even longer before these writs actually were written out and reached their destinations. In this case, therefore, it would appear that the circular from the king was intended to reinforce Archbishop Corbridge’s orders to his subordinate church officials. At present, however, it must remain an open question why this bureaucratic redundancy took place.
47. Calendar of Chancery Warrants, 127. No copies of this writ have yet been identified, and so the exact words used by the royal clerks must at present remain unknown.
Lay participation in military-religious rites
The surviving royal writs and archiepiscopal/episcopal orders, discussed already, indicate that at least at the administrative level, the royal government was able to disseminate throughout the ecclesiastical hierarchy both propaganda and demands for religious rites on behalf of soldiers in the field. This view would seem to be supported by the fact that writers, such as the author of the Annals of Worcester, were able not only to comment on the content of these royal commands, but even to quote from them. But letting clerics know what was required of them was one matter; actually getting the desired information to the laity and then having lay people participate in the desired religious observances was quite another. The remainder of this study will consider these two problems.
The first question that must be addressed concerns the means that church officials, but particularly parish priests and mendicant preachers who had the most direct contact with the English laity, had available to persuade people to listen to royal propaganda and to participate in the desired religious observances on behalf of English troops in the field. In the first instance, parish priests had natural audiences at Sunday mass, as well as regular daily and intercessory masses, while mendicants drew crowds on their preaching tours. Thus, if the themes of royal propaganda used to justify war were disseminated to them, there can be little doubt that they were in position to include such themes in their sermons. But does this mean that they did? William de Rishanger (born c. 1250) certainly wanted his audience to believe that this was the case.48 In discussing the preparations for the royal campaign to Scotland in 1298, William emphasized not only that royal writs defending the war were disseminated throughout the churches of England, but that as a result, “the entire population willingly and with great joy prayed for the king”.49
48. William de Rishanger, Chronica et Annales, ed. Henry Thomas Riley, Rolls Series 28.2 (London, 1865), 193–194. William, who wrote at the monastery of St Albans, would appear to have been something of a specialist in military history. One of his major works was an account of the mid-thirteenth century Barons’ War, or baronial revolt against King Henry III. William was therefore likely to have been even more sensitive than the average educated observer to the important role that religion played in the mobilization of public support for war. Indeed, it is not unlikely that his interest in military history led him to discuss matters such as the organization of public prayers by the king, a topic that largely was ignored by his fellow writers. Concerning William’s career, see Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England II c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century (Ithaca, NY, 1982), 4–5.
49. William de Rishanger, Chronica et Annales, 194, “omnis populus sponte et cum gaudio pro Rege fecit orationes”.
The archbishops of England, however, were not content to rely simply on the joyful good will of the laity to assure their attendance at sermons and participation in religious rites, particularly those that required more than simply saying prayers in church. Instead, the archbishops of Canterbury and York turned to an incentive long used by the papacy to mobilize prayers, processions, fasts, and almsgiving on behalf of crusading armies, that is to indulgences.50 For example, in order to give his subordinates aid in mobilizing the lay population to participate in religious rites on behalf of English troops in Scotland in 1301, Thomas Corbridge authorized the promulgation of an indulgence in the same circular letter in which he set out the royal case for war and demanded the celebration of intercessory rites. The archbishop offered to relax forty days of previously imposed and accumulated penances for any person who prayed devotedly for the army in the manner detailed earlier in his letter, noted here.51 Thomas then instructed his priests to publicize this promised indulgence widely, but also solemnly, in order to excite the people about the prospect of praying for the king and his troops.52 Similarly, in 1303, Archbishop Corbridge again ordered his subordinates to offer an indulgence of forty days from penance due for sins committed by lay people who had confessed their sins with a contrite heart and then prayed devotedly for the army. The archbishop once more instructed, “we desire that news of this indulgence be publicized openly and solemnly in order to inspire the devotion of the faithful”.53
50. The basic work on the use of indulgences by the papacy remains James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison, 1969).
51. Historical Letters and Papers, 149, “And so that they might pray devotedly for the army, as is noted above, we mercifully rescind 40 days of penances assigned to them to propitiate God” (“et suo exercitu devote oraverint, ut superius est expressum, xl. dies de injuncta sibi penitentia Deo propitio misericorditer relaxamus”).
52. Ibid., “quam indulgentiam aperte et sollemniter ad excitandam devotionem fidelium per vos volumus publicari”.
53. Memorials of Beverley Minster, 11.
Indulgences of this type were also offered in the archdiocese of Canterbury. Thus, for example, in 1295 Robert Winchelsey authorized the bishop of Bangor to offer indulgences ranging from ten to forty days to the lay people of his diocese. Those who marched in intercessory processions were to receive the greatest spiritual benefits, while those who only recited penitential psalms or offered up prayers were to obtain lesser indulgences. As his fellow archbishop was do some years later, Robert Winchelsey emphasized that the purpose of these indulgences was “to excite favorably the devotion of the faithful”, on behalf of the king.54 Given the paucity of surviving sources dealing with lay religious activity in this period, it is difficult to know whether these indulgences had the desired effect. Nevertheless, the continued utilization of this technique, up through the end of Edward I’s reign, to mobilize public participation in prayers would seem to indicate that the archbishops of Canterbury and York, at the very least, had some confidence in them.
54. Concilia Magnae Britanniae, II: 213, “ad devotionem fidelium excitandum favorabiliter”.
Conclusion
There can be little doubt that King Edward III made skillful use of the church to disseminate royal propaganda and to organize public religious as well as political support for military action abroad, particularly in France and against the Scots. What is at issue is the origin of the administrative practices that were crucial to gaining public support for these military operations. This study makes clear that it is to the thirteenth rather than the fourteenth century, to the wars of Edward I rather than the wars of Edward III, that historians should turn their attention when considering the first full development of the religio-military administration that facilitated the conduct of overseas wars by the kings of England. Edward I’s government made repeated and extensive use of the ecclesiastical administrative system to make his case for war to the English people. Furthermore, Edward I’s government made regular use of this same system when mobilizing large-scale public religious rites that were intended to invoke divine aid on behalf of English armies in the field. Thus, at least in this area, the Hundred Years’ War must be understood as a continuation of long-standing administrative policies and procedures, rather than as the dawn of a new administrative age or a military revolution.