Part 2
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1. This article was first presented as a paper at the second annual conference of the German Historical Institute which was held in Berlin on 25–28 October 2002. I would like to thank the participants at the conference, particularly Professors Patrick Geary, Caroline Bynum, Michael Borgolte, Johannes Fried, and Dr. Benjamin Scheller, for their helpful comments and suggestions. Additional research for this article was made possible by the generous support of the Center for the Humanities and the Office of the Dean at the University of New Hampshire, USA. The dates in this paper refer to the reign of Henry III, King Edward I’s father and predecessor.
It is commonly believed that King Edward I of England (1272–1307) revolutionized the military organization of England. A typical example of this view is Michael Powicke’s argument that “Edward I effected what amounted to a revolution in the English army and laid the foundation for Creçy and Poitiers”.2 Despite this general consensus, however, it is the burden of this paper to suggest that Edward’s reputation as a “revolutionary” is a considerable exaggeration. It will be shown here that in regard to military administration, Edward’s government had available the expertise of at least two generations of a previously well-developed military bureaucracy. Because the overall military administration was so large, detailed, and all-encompassing, this study examines only a small part to make the point that in this area Edward did not carry out a revolution. The particular focus of this study is on the military administration that made possible the production, storage, and transportation of the royal artillery during the half-century before Edward’s accession.3
2. Michael Powicke, Military Obligation in Medieval England: A Study in Liberty and Duty (Oxford, 1962, repr. 1996), 96. The military organization utilized by the royal government under Edward is regularly treated by specialists as the beginning of a new era in military affairs rather than as a continuation of the system that had been in place for many decades. Typical in this regard are Michael Prestwich, The Three Edwards: War and State in England 1272 –1377 (London, 1980, repr. 1996); and Andrew Ayton, “Sir Thomas Ughtred and the Edwardian Military Revolution”, in The Age of Edward III, ed. J. S. Bothwell (Woodbridge, 2001), 107–132. The focus on the military innovations and achievements of Edward I as compared with his father Henry III is also evident in the wide spectrum of scholarly attention that the former has received. See, for example, John Edward Morris, The Welsh Wars of Edward I: A Contribution to Medieval History Based on Original Documents (1901, repr. New York, 1969); Michael Prestwich, War, Politics and Finance under Edward I (Totowa, NJ, 1972); A. Z. Freeman, “Wall-Breakers and River-Bridgers: Military Engineers in the Scottish Wars of Edward I”, Journal of British Studies 10 (1971); 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.
3. The royal artillery provides a valuable point of focus for this study because of its role in the conduct of sieges which dominated medieval warfare not only during the thirteenth century but also the whole of the Middle Ages. See, in this regard, Michael Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience (New Haven, CT, 1996), 281, “sieges dominated medieval warfare in a way that battles never did”. The basic works on medieval siege warfare are Jim Bradbury, The Medieval Siege (Woodbridge, 1992); R. Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1992); Bernard. S. Bachrach, “Medieval Siege Warfare: A Reconnaissance”, Journal of Military History 58 (1994), 119–133, repr. with the same pagination in Bernard. S. Bachrach, Warfare and Military Organization in Pre-Crusade Europe (Bury St Edmunds, 2002); Peter Purton, A History of the Early Medieval Siege: c. 450–1220 (Woodbridge, 2009); and idem, A History of the Late Medieval Siege, 1200–1500 (Woodbridge, 2010).
The overwhelming majority of the evidence for the royal military administration of the thirteenth century is to be found in surviving government records produced by two of the offices of the central or royal government, the Chancery and the Exchequer, whose major duties included, respectively, serving as a royal writing office and as a center for the collection of taxes and disbursement of cash.4 Numerous chronicles survive from the thirteenth century, and many of these provide valuable information concerning a variety of military topics.5 However, aside from the many difficulties inherent in narrative sources, including the parti pris and level of expertise of the author, these chronicles do not provide the type of information required for a study of military administration. In particular, chronicle writers do not discuss the detailed procedures utilized by royal servants to transfer information by parchment concerning the actions of other agents of the royal government, who were engaged in activities such as cutting down timber, moving timber, purchasing lead, building storage sheds, and paying the wages of carpenters engaged in the construction of siege artillery.6
4. The collections of documents used in this article are listed here: Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri Londonensi Asservati 1204–1227, ed. Thomas D. Hardy, 2 vols (1833–1834), hereafter CR I and CR II; The Close Rolls 1227–1272 (London, 1892–1938), hereafter CR with specific dates; The Calendar of Liberate Rolls 1226–1272 (London, 1916–1964), hereafter, CLR; and The Calendar of Patent Rolls 1216–1272 (London, 1891–1913), hereafter CPR. The Pipe Rolls for the reigns of Henry II, Richard I, and John have all been edited by the Pipe Roll Society individually. Each roll will be cited individually in this chapter.
5. Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England c. 550–c. 1307 (Ithaca, NY, 1974), provides an easily accessible discussion of all of the surviving narrative sources from this period.
6. In the context of using narrative sources for writing military administrative history, see Emilie Amt, “Besieging Bedford: Military Logistics in 1224”, Journal of Medieval Military History 1 (2002), 101–124, who makes clear (102–107) that narrative and epistolary sources are invaluable for establishing both the political context of the siege of Bedford and the general course of the military action. However, in order to recreate the logistics of the campaign, Amt was forced to rely entirely on administrative records (108–116), principally documents from the close rolls and Pipe Rolls.
Administrative procedures for the construction of siege engines
Once it was decided by the king and his advisors that artillery was needed in a particular place at a particular time to sustain England’s military needs, orders were issued to a master carpenter or carpenters (magister carpentarius) who specialized in the construction of artillery. These men, who were specialists in the construction of siege engines, were in charge of building artillery.7 In the period before 1240, these master carpenters generally worked with teams of assistants (socii) to aid them in their efforts.8 Frequently, these master carpenters were resident within the royal household, and it is not clear whether they always received written orders detailing the task at hand to which they had been assigned. As we shall see in this chapter, when master carpenters were not resident in the king’s household, it was necessary to issue written orders to them making clear what kinds of artillery they were to build and in what quantity, and where the work was to be done.
7. Specialists in medieval military history use the term artillery to describe a wide range of mechanical devices that were used to hurl stones, missiles such as spears, and lead balls. These engines were constructed from a variety of materials including wood, hide, rope, and iron fittings, and used either torsion or counterweight action for their power. The projectiles thrown by these engines were generally larger than those shot by handheld missile weapons such as self-bows and crossbows. Artillery was used both in an anti-personnel function and to destroy hard-point fortifications such as city and castle walls. For a useful introduction to artillery, see Kelly DeVries, Medieval Military Technology (Peterborough, 1992, now available in a second edition, Toronto, 2012), 127–142. For the artillery used in medieval England during the thirteenth century, now also see David S. Bachrach, “English Artillery 1189–1307: The Implications of Terminology”, The English Historical Review 121.494 (2006), 1408–1430, and in this volume.
8. The practice of sending master carpenters to build siege engines accompanied by a team of socii went back at least to John’s reign. In a letter to the royal military officer Philip Mark, issued on 24 August 1212, King John stated, “we are sending the master carpenters Ralph and Nicholas to build two Turkish petraria without delay. We order that you provide them and their assistants what they need” (“mittimus ad vos magistrum Radulfum et magistrum Nicholas carpentarios et vobis mandamus quod ab eis fieri faciatis duas petrarias turkesias sine dilacione et eis et sociis suis necessaria inveniatis”), CR I, 122. Similar orders stress the presence of these socii operating with master carpenters during Henry III’s reign. See CLR 1226–1240, 47–48; and CR II, 198. At some point around 1240, however, Henry III’s administration altered this policy of sending master craftsmen to worksites accompanied by teams of assistants. Instead, a single master carpenter was given oversight responsibilities for all building operations and local royal officials were given the task of finding suitable carpenters to build the king’s engines. See, for example, CLR 1240–1245, 67.
In order to transport the carpenters, their assistants, and especially their tools to a chosen work site, it was necessary to have transportation assets made available, usually a wagon or wagons as well as horses and drivers, although sometimes riverine assets were assigned as well. These transportation resources were not provided directly by the royal household. Rather, the responsible officials of the central government required local royal officers, e.g., sheriffs, constables, and bailiffs, to provide the necessary vehicles and drivers.9 It was generally the case that these transportation resources were drawn from the locality in which the master carpenters and their assistants were resident. Thus, for example, when they were at London, it was usually the constable of the Tower of London or the sheriffs of the city who were issued written orders by the officers of the central government to provide transportation.
9. This system was very common, with the result that local officials regularly received orders requiring them to provide transportation for the king’s servants. See, for example, CR I, 198; CR 1251–1253, 431; CLR 1240–1245, 258. Local officials had also been required to provide transportation to the king’s servants during John’s reign. See CR I, 4, 102, 205, 450. It is important to distinguish between officials of the central government, who worked in the presence of the king, or of his designated representative, at the royal court, and local royal officials who worked far from the presence of the king. Local officials such as sheriffs, constables, and bailiffs, either were appointed by the king or the king’s designated representative, but had a great deal of autonomy in carrying out certain of their duties, including the collection of taxes and rents as well as the administration of justice. It should be emphasized, however, that they did not have autonomy in carrying out orders pertaining to the royal military administration, as we shall see in this chapter.
These local officials either had to provide wagons and drivers from their own resources such as a team normally assigned to the Tower of London, or the responsible official had to obtain these assets from other local sources in a timely manner. The most common recipient of such requests for transportation from sheriffs and constables, as well as the royal bailiffs of towns to supply this equipment were ecclesiastical officials such as abbots, priors, and cathedral deans.10 Indeed, church officials would appear to have been the largest non-governmental source for providing the equipment for the transportation of military personnel and supplies in both peace and wartime.11
10. In a typical order issued on 20 July 1244, the sheriff of Westminster was commanded to secure transportation resources from the abbots and priors of his county. See CR 1242–1247, 257–258.
11. This topic is addressed in more detail in David S. Bachrach, “Military Logistics during the Reign of Edward I of England, 1272–1307”, War in History 13 (2006), 423–440, and in this volume.
The costs involved in providing the vehicles and personnel for transporting the royal carpenters and their tools, including paying the wages of the drivers, feeding the horses, or paying the fees charged by church officials, were not part of the normal financial obligations of the sheriffs, castle constables, or bailiffs. Thus, the Chancery can be seen to have issued writs of computabitur (literally, it will be accounted) which stated that the local official was permitted to obtain credit at the Exchequer during his twice-yearly audit there for the expenses he had incurred in regard to the cost of providing transportation for artillery construction crews and their tools. These local officers, including sheriffs and constables, therefore kept a detailed account of all of the costs involved in such operations.12 In order to obtain this credit, the constable, sheriff, or bailiff was required to submit his writ of computabitur to the clerks of the Exchequer along with a detailed written list of his expenses, including the number of vehicles and drivers employed, and how much each individual item had cost.13 In order to avoid fraud, the central government required that this account had to be confirmed as accurate by a group of local men.14 The standard phrase used in government documents to describe this vetting process is “per testimonium legalium hominum”.15
12. See, for example, CR I, 551, where the sheriffs of London are promised that “the costs that you incur, which have been vetted by the testimony of honest men, will be credited to your account at the exchequer” (“custum quod ad hoc posueris per visum et testimonium legalium hominum comutabitur vobis ad scaccarum”). This document is a standard writ of computabitur.
13. The royal office of the Exchequer had a number of tasks during most of the thirteenth century, including collecting and counting taxes that had been gathered by the sheriffs from their shires, keeping records of monies collected and owed, and paying out sums to individuals who had a proper writ sealed by the Chancery. The titular heads of the Exchequer were the so-called barons, although most of the work was done by lower-ranking clerks (clerici).
14. CR I, 100, where the barons of the Exchequer received the order, “credit the costs incurred by the keepers of the bishopric of Lincoln that have been vetted by the testimony of honest men” (“computate custodibus episcopatus Lincolnensis custum quod possunt per visum et testimonium legalium hominum”).
15. See the previous two notes.
However, if a local official did not receive a writ of computabitur from the Chancery, but rather was sent a direct royal order to carry out a particular task (frequently called a brevis in the administrative documents), he could petition the central government for repayment or credit. In this case too, the local official was required to keep a detailed record of his expenses that was to be validated by the oaths of local witnesses, who were then listed by name in the document. This account was then submitted to the Chancery. Once this written account had been received and accepted as valid by the king’s officials, a written order was then issued by the Chancery to the barons of the Exchequer informing them of the expenses incurred by the local officer and requiring them to credit his account for this amount.16
16. These orders of “liberate” are ubiquitous in the surviving Chancery rolls. See, for example, CR I, 641; CLR 1240–1245, 259; CLR 1267–1272, 40.
Before the master carpenters and their assistants set out for the building site, they frequently were given a sum of money at royal command to pay their personal expenses, usually food and lodging, for the duration of their journey. Here too, written orders were required. The normal disbursing agent in this situation was the Exchequer. However, before the officials of the Exchequer could release any cash, they required an order of “liberate” from the Chancery. Thus, before the carpenters set out to build siege engines, a Chancery official had to issue a document, validated by the Chancery seal, authorizing the Exchequer to disburse a money payment to the master carpenter. For example, the master carpenter Jordan, a specialist in the construction of counterweight artillery called trebuchets, was supposed to receive 5 marks for his expenses while at the royal fortress of Dover.17 It is likely that this document originally was given directly to the master carpenter, who was in charge of the construction crew, so that he could then take it to the Exchequer.
17. See, for example, CR II, 44, where an order was issued to the barons of the Exchequer “liberate de thesaurio nostro Jordano carpentario facienti trubechetum nostrum apud Dover v. m. ad expensas suas”.
In summary, the process of moving the required personnel to the appropriate site in order to build the king’s artillery relied on the production of a matrix of documents and a complex bureaucratic organization. A written order was required to obtain transportation assets from local royal officials such as the king’s constable at the Tower of London, or the sheriffs of a particular shire. This local official was required to keep a detailed account of his expenditures, to have this account verified by local witnesses, and then to submit it in writing to the king’s Chancery officials. These officers had in turn to accept the claim from the local official and issue their own written order to the barons of the Exchequer to credit the local official’s account. In addition, a further written document was required so that the master carpenter and his team could obtain cash to purchase food and lodging during their journey.
The entire process, however, was somewhat more complicated when the carpenters resided away from the royal household. In these instances, it was necessary to send a written order to the local official with jurisdiction in the area where the craftsmen were then resident, e.g. castle constables, sheriffs, and town bailiffs. This written order stated where the carpenters were to go and what types of engines they were to build once they arrived there.18 The process for securing transportation for the carpenters and their tools was the same as that noted previously. So too was the process employed by the local official to obtain credit for the costs he had incurred in providing this transportation. However, providing a cash advance to the carpenters for the expenses of their journey required a different procedure, because it was not expected that these craftsmen would or could go to the officers of the Exchequer. Rather, the central government issued orders to the local royal official in charge, whether sheriff, constable, or bailiff, requiring him to provide the carpenters with money and/or supplies for their journey.19 Once again, in order to obtain credit at the Exchequer, the local official was required to submit a written account that detailed his expenses and which was vetted by local witnesses. Once this request for payment with its supporting documents was received by the central government, written orders were then issued by the Chancery to the barons of the Exchequer that informed them of the local official’s expenses and required them to credit his account.20
18. On 18 July 1231, for example, orders were issued to the constable of Windsor Castle to send all of the royal carpenters resident there, with the exception of Nicholas, to County Salop. Nicholas was to remain and continue to oversee the royal operations at Windsor. See CR 1227–1231, 531.
19. See CR I, 450.
20. Ibid.
As these preparations were underway to send the artillery construction crew to the building site with transportation and satisfactory supplies, a second administrative process was in train to ensure that the craftsmen would be received in the proper manner at their destination and that the required building materials would be provided to them once they had arrived. The first step here was the issue of an order to the local officer in charge of the building site, which was usually one of the royal castles or royal forests. The officers in question were constables, sheriffs, or the keepers of the royal forest lands. This order informed the relevant local official that one or two named master carpenters along with a specified number of assistants would soon be arriving to build a particular number of siege engines of a particular type or types, e.g. trubecheta, mangonelli, balistae, or petrariae. A representative example of this type of order was issued by the Chancery on 18 August 1227 to Hugh de Kilpec, overseer of the royal forest at Trivel. He was informed that two master carpenters named Thomas and Nicholas as well as four assistants were be sent to Trivel to build five pieces of siege artillery there called petraria (2) and mangonelli (3).21 The local official was required to find lodgings for these men and to pay them as well. Consequently, his orders also included information regarding the regular daily wages of the carpenters and their assistants.22 The local official in charge of the building site was permitted to obtain credit for all the expenses incurred in housing and paying the carpenters. In order to do so, he submitted a detailed written account to the central government that had been approved by local witnesses.23 The process for obtaining credit at the Exchequer was the same as that already explained with regard to obtaining payment for providing transportation resources to move royal artillery construction crews as well as their tools to their building sites.
21. A representative example is the order issued on 18 August 1227 to Hugh de Kilpec, the overseer of the royal forest at Trivel announcing, “mittimus carpentarios nostros magistros Thomas et Nicholas et quatuor eorum socios ad forestam nostram de Trivel ad duas petrarias et tres mangonellos in ea faciendo”. See CR II, 198. There is, at present, no agreement among specialists about the meaning of the terms trebuchet, mangonel, and petrary. Furthermore, there is not yet a systematic study of the terms used by royal clerks to discuss artillery produced in England during the thirteenth century. I hope to write such a study in the near future. For an introduction to the state of the question on the terms used for artillery, see Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare, 254–273, and Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, 287–292. However, now see, Bachrach, “English Artillery 1189–1307: The Implications of Terminology”, passim, where the meaning of these terms are treated in detail.
22. On 19 February 1221, for example, the sheriff of Nottingham was ordered to pay master carpenters Thomas, Burnellus, and Robert, “the same wages that they were accustomed to receive during the reign of our father King John” (“liberationes suas sicut eas habere consueverunt in tempore domini J. rex patris nostri”). See CR I, 449.
23. Ibid., the sheriff was promised that these expenses “would be credited to him at the exchequer”. (“computabitur tibi ad scaccarum”).
In addition to assuring that the carpenters were housed and paid, the order to the relevant local official from the central government also required him to provide the supplies necessary for the artillery construction crew to carry out the task of building siege engines. The most common supplies noted in various of these royal orders included timber, ropes, cables, iron fittings, lead for counterweights, ox hides for slings, and nails. It was frequently the case that artillery construction crews were sent to build engines at a particular royal fortress or royal forest, such as Windsor or the Forest of Dean, because these sites served as depots for the storage of military supplies, particularly the types of supplies required for the construction of artillery. The local sheriff, constable, or forest keeper, therefore, had the responsibility to acquire and store all or most of the materials required by the builders to carry out their assigned duties.24
24. Detailed orders of this type were issued to the sheriff of Northampton informing him that Master Robert de Hotot was arriving to build engines at Brikestock, which was under the sheriff’s jurisdiction. The sheriff was required to pay Robert’s wages and it was further required that “you transport to an appropriate place the wood that has been cut in those regions for the purpose of building mangonels, just as Master Robert will tell you. The costs that you entail, which are [confirmed by the testimony of honest men] will be credited to you at the exchequer” (“maeremium quod perstaverit in partibus illis ad ipsos petrarias et mangonellos faciendos cariari facias ad locum competentem sicut idem magister Robertus tibi dicet et custum quod ad hoc posueris per visum etc. computabitur tibi ad scaccarum”). See CR I, 621.
The actual provision of the necessary supplies to the carpenters was simply a matter of moving the required timber, iron fitting, ropes, and other materials from their storage areas to the building site. This movement of supplies, however, also required a substantial commitment of information to parchment. Each magazine commander was required to keep track through a detailed written procedure of exactly how much materiél, of what types, and in what condition, was maintained in his storage areas.25 When these supplies were used in the construction of siege engines, the local officer was required to emend his accounts by subtracting the appropriate number of logs and other raw materials from the inventory list. Once the building project had been completed, the officer was further required to submit a new written inventory of the supplies kept in the depot in which he detailed exactly what had been used by the carpenters. This written account had to be verified by the carpenters themselves before it was submitted to the central government.26 Obviously, in order to keep track of his own supplies, the local commander kept a copy of the inventory list for himself, but it is not clear from the surviving records whether this document was in the form of a chirograph.27
25. For examples of inventory lists, see CR 1231–1234, 181, 212, 268, CR 1234–1237, 282; CR 1237–1242, 82–83, 183–84; CR 1242–1247, 440; CR 1254–1256, 112; and CLR 1226–1240, 219, and 205. There are also numerous examples of unpublished inventory accounts for castles surviving in Chancery and Exchequer accounts. See, for example, National Archives C47/10/13/2, which describes the supplies at Dublin Castle in 1224, including duo mangonelli, C47/2/1/3 which notes the purchase of six bases (fundae) for mangonels at Corfe Castle by its constable Elyas de Rabban in 1252, and E101/3/3 in which the constable Roger de Leyburn notes the purchase of three cordas ad mangonellum at Rochester Castle in 1264.
26. There was a clear expectation among officers of the central government not only that local depot commanders would have detailed records of what supplies were on hand, but also from where these supplies had come. See, for example, CR I, 123, “We order that all of the ropes used for petraries and mangonels, which were transported from Bristol and are now in Winchester, be carried back to Bristol. Keep all of the ropes used for ships” (“Rex Stephano de Turneha’ [Turnham] etc. Mandamus vobis quod omnes cordas ad petrarias et mongonellas quod sunt apud Wint’ quod venerunt a Bristol faciatis presencium latori deferendum usque Bristol, et cablas ad mare penes vos retineatis”).
27. When English clerks used the term chirograph to describe a document, they meant that a report was written in duplicate or triplicate on a single piece of parchment. This parchment was then divided into two or three parts each of which contained a copy of the written report. The distinctive edge dividing the two or three pieces of the parchment could be matched against one another to confirm at a later date that these were the original copies of the written report.
Matters became more complicated when the depot at the building site had an insufficient quantity of one or another type of raw material needed to build the siege engines required by the government. In these cases, it became necessary to bring the required supplies from elsewhere. There were two basic methods for obtaining additional materials: either through purchasing them on the private market, or having them transported from another royal supply depot. When purchasing materials for use in the construction of siege engines from private sources, local officials were required in the initial phase of the process to use money drawn from their own revenues.28 These costs included obtaining vehicles for transportation and paying drivers and guards, as well as the actual purchase price of the goods. As was true of all other aspects of the building process, these costs were to be redeemed by the local official at the Exchequer, provided he submitted a written account to the Chancery detailing his expenses and had this account vetted by local witnesses. If the claim for expenses was accepted by the central government, an order was issued by the Chancery to the barons of the Exchequer ordering them to credit the account of the local official.29
28. See, for example, CR I, 641; and CLR 1240–1245, 245. In the latter case, the sheriff of Lincoln was ordered to purchase twenty wagon loads of lead for use in the construction of siege engines at Newcastle on Tyne.
29. These expenses of the local officials can be traced through orders of “liberate” issued by the Chancery to the Exchequer.
The shipping of materials from one royal depot to another imposed yet another level of complexity on the administrative system which, in turn, required the production of a further matrix of written documents. The decision to move supplies was made either in response to a request from the local official where the engines were being built, or because officers from the central government knew from their own records that an insufficient supply of materials was available at a site to complete the job.30 In the first case, the local officer sent a letter to the central government asking for materials, either because he could not obtain them locally, or did not wish to expend his own resources in purchasing them. It should be emphasized here, that without a prior writ of computabitur from the central government to purchase supplies with a concomitant assurance that the costs would be credited to his account at the Exchequer, a local constable or sheriff had no guarantee that he would be reimbursed.
30. As we shall see in this chapter, the officers of the central government were regularly informed about the state of supplies at royal depots throughout England.
To ensure that the proper supplies were available, the central government normally either issued a writ of computabitur to the sheriff, constable, or other local official to purchase the supplies locally, thereby providing him with a guarantee that he would be credited for the cost at the Exchequer, or put in motion the procedures to have the materials delivered from another royal supply depot. In the latter case, the central government set in train two complementary bureaucratic procedures. For the sake of clarity, we will call the local official in charge of site where the engines were being built constable A and the official in command of the site from which additional supplies were being transported constable B. In the first step of the process, the central government sent a written order to constable B requiring him to transport a specified quantity of supplies to the site where the siege engines were being built, the site which was under the command of constable A.31 At the same time, a second written order was issued to constable A. This second order listed the materials that were being shipped to him. It also required constable A to inventory the materials once they had arrived, and then to prepare a chirograph in which he recorded the findings of this inventory.32 He was to keep one portion of this chirograph for his own records and to send a second portion on to the central government. A third copy might also be produced and provided to constable B who had shipped the supplies.
31. See CR I, 62, for the orders issued to Adam de Bendenges to ship logs from the forest of Odiham, where he served as royal keeper, to Windsor Castle for the use of Jordan who was building a trebuchet there.
32. See CLR 1240–1245, 265.
Once constable B had shipped the required supplies to the building site, he was permitted to claim a credit at the Exchequer for the expenses he had undertaken in their transportation. As we have seen, in order to obtain this credit, it was necessary for constable B to submit a written account in which he listed his expenses.33 This account had then to be vetted “per testimonium legalium hominum”. After this account was accepted as valid by the officers of the central government, an order was issued by the Chancery to the Exchequer ordering the barons to credit the local officer’s account.
33. See, for example, National Archives C47/10/13/2, C47/2/1/3, and E101/3/3. It is also possible to detect much of their original content in the orders of “liberate” issued to the Exchequer by the Chancery. These instructions to credit the accounts of royal officials frequently included detailed accounts of the supplies that they had shipped and the costs involved in their transportation. In order for the Chancery to provide this information to the Exchequer, the information first had to have been provided to the Chancery officers. The latter, of course, were not in the field with local royal officials and relied on written reports to obtain their information. For a representative example of an order of “liberate” in which Chancery officers had included detailed information regarding the transportation of military supplies, see CLR 1245–1251, 245–246.
As is clear from this description, the royal government imposed bureaucratic redundancy at both the local and central level whenever supplies were shipped from one depot to another. At the local level, constable B’s account of the quantity of materiél transported and the costs involved in its transportation were audited by local witnesses. This process was duplicated, on the receiving end when constable A inventoried the materials that were shipped to him and also issued a written report in the form of a chirograph in which he noted his findings. Constable A was able to check these findings against the orders sent to him by the central government in which the constable was informed about the types and quantities of supplies he was to expect.
The officers at the central level similarly had access to redundant accounts that detailed the types and quantities of supplies that had been shipped from one depot to another. In the first case, the officers of the central government received a detailed written report from constable B in which he listed what materials had been transported and how much this had cost. This report had, of course, been vetted by local witnesses. Constable B’s account could then be matched against the copy of the chirograph sent to the central government by constable A. As a consequence, the officers of the central government were in a position not only to know whether fraud had been committed, but also to keep very close track of where and in what quantities supplies were located in the various royal depots at any particular time. Because these redundant systems were employed whenever any military supplies were shipped between any of the royal depots in England, the officers of the central government had available to them in the aggregate a precise account of the total quantity of materials under direct royal control that were available in the kingdom at any time. This information was, of course, crucial to those responsible for making decisions about how to allocate royal resources for military purposes.
The organization of artillery production dealt with thus far was the norm under peacetime conditions within England. This system was altered, however, in order to accommodate the special conditions imposed by military campaigns when artillery was built in situ at sieges. In these circumstances, massive quantities of materiél, including huge stores of ropes, timber, iron fittings, and lead were transported from all over England to a single location. As a consequence, the normal bureaucratic redundancies that had been instituted to avoid fraud and establish precise accounts of where and in what quantities royal military supplies were located were not operative. In place of a single local official awaiting shipment of a specified load of materiél, timber and other supplies were being transported into a very large but temporary army camp that had been established on the site of the siege. In order to keep control over the logistical situation, the central government maintained the normal system to the extent that this was possible. Thus, writs of computabitur were issued by the central government to local officers all over England, which specified the precise quantities of materiél that were required from them.34 In order to obtain credit for the costs involved in transporting these supplies, local officials were still required to submit vetted accounts of their expenditures to the royal government.35
34. On 2 February 1221, for example, Sheriff Philip Mark of Nottingham was ordered to join the royal siege at Bytham in Lincolnshire with a large quantity of supplies, including ropes and slings for use in siege engines. See CR I, 448.
35. See ibid., where the barons of the Exchequer were ordered to credit the account of Philip Mark for “the costs that he entailed, which were validated by the testimony of honest men” (“custum quod posuit per visum et testimonium legalium hominum”).
A major development in administrative practice took place on the receiving end at the royal army camp. In order to alleviate the immense record-keeping burden placed on royal clerks accompanying the army, each local official charged with transporting supplies to a siege encampment also was required to send along a clerk to help in the process of maintaining a precise written account of the supplies that had been shipped and received.36 Once a convoy arrived in camp and had been met by one of the king’s supply officers, the clerk of the local official and the royal supply officer were required to inventory the materials that had been shipped. After this inventory was written up and witnessed by the royal supply officer, this document served both as a confirmation that the local officer, e.g. the sheriff, constable, or bailiff, had shipped the required ox hides, ropes, and other materials, and as a basis for ascertaining the overall quantities of supplies that were in camp. This document also provided the local official with a written receipt that proved he had fulfilled his orders.37
36. Thus, for example, the sheriffs of London were required to send, “one of your clerks” (“unum de clericis vestris”) to the siege of Bedford in the summer of 1224. See CR I, 605.
37. CR I, 605, the king’s order notes specifically that the clerk from London was present so that “we will be able to send our orders to you about the allocation of the costs entailed in this effort” (“vobis mittere possimus litteras nostras de allocatione custi ad hoc opponiti”).
Like the beginning of a military campaign, the end of a siege brought with it enormous logistical challenges. It was then necessary to ascertain what materials had not been expended and thus were still available for use. These supplies then had to be transported to appropriate storage areas. The first step in this process was to conduct an exhaustive inventory of what supplies were left and then to compare this result with the stack of written documents produced when supplies had been brought into camp. It is possible that the various reports detailing the delivery of supplies into camp were rationalized into one document.38 At this point, if there appeared to be significant discrepancies between the quantity of supplies that had been used in the construction of siege artillery, and the remaining stocks, it was possible to conduct an investigation into the possibility of theft.39 Following the completion of this initial audit, decisions had to be made about where the remaining stocks of material were to be sent. It would appear to have been the normal practice to send supplies back to their place of origin in so far as this was possible. Once again, the costs involved in transporting supplies from the siege site back to storage depots fell on the local official who had brought them in the first place. This was also the case regarding the costs for paying the carters, drivers, and guards who had transported and guarded these supplies on the road and in the siege camp.40 These costs could be redeemed in the form of credit at the Exchequer provided that the local officials submitted a written account of their expenses with the appropriately vetted supporting documentation.
38. We can see this process of rationalization at work in other military contexts. For example, at the conclusion of the barons war in 1265, the clerks of the Exchequer created a summary document listing dozens of expense reports submitted by Roger de Leyburn, then serving as constable of Rochester Castle and as one of King Henry’s chief military officers in the field. See National Archives E101/3/6.
39. Concerning the provision of guards for the materiél stored in camp, see CR I, 452, 605, and 641; and Rolls of Divers Accounts for the Early Years of the Reign of Henry III: Accounts of the Escheats for the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Years of the Reign of Henry III, Wardrobe Receipt Rolls, and Fragments of the Household Roll 10 Henry III, ed. Frederick A. Cazel (London, 1982), 52.
40. See The Great Roll of the Pipe for the Fourth Year of the Reign of Henry III, Michaelmas 1220 (London, 1987), 74 and 99–100.
As we have seen, the building of siege engines in England required close cooperation between the central government and local officials which was sustained by a very complex bureaucratic organization and which, in turn, generated an extensive parchment trail. Although the bureaucratic procedures differed to a certain extent in peacetime and in war, sheriffs, constables, bailiffs, and the keepers of the royal forest played a crucial role in assuring that the artillery construction crews were provided with all of the materials they needed to carry out their duties. In Gascony during the mid-thirteenth century, however, the English government instituted a fundamentally different administrative regime. In the absence of local royal officials, such as sheriffs and constables, the central government chose not to rely on Gascon officers or to work through his seneschal in Bordeaux to obtain building materials for royal carpenters engaged in the construction of artillery. Instead, the king or his designated agent was accompanied by a cadre of clerks who were responsible for purchasing supplies of iron, lead, steel, timber, and other goods directly from Gascon and Iberian merchants.41 Obviously, these men had to be familiar with the specialized requirements of the royal artillery construction crew in order to purchase the correct types of ropes, iron fittings, and other supplies necessary for the construction of siege engines. It is not surprising, therefore, that the same clerks appear regularly in the surviving royal documents as the agents responsible for the purchase of these military supplies.42
41. CPR 1247–1258, 358; and CLR 1251–1260, 217.
42. See, for example, CLR 1251–1260, 217, 225, 288, and 398.
Rather than providing these clerks with chests of money for their purchasing expeditions, the royal agents instead were authorized to issue letters patent to local merchants that could later be redeemed for cash.43 When he issued a letter patent to a local merchant, the king’s clerk recorded the types and quantities of supplies purchased, and the price that had been agreed on between him and the merchant. The clerk also kept a separate written account in which he recorded this information. This record of purchases, which initially may have been kept on a wax tablet rather than on parchment, ultimately included all of the purchase agreements that the clerk made with local merchants. It is not clear from the surviving records whether the king’s clerk or the merchant was responsible for actually transporting the supplies to the building site. However, we do know that in order to be paid, the local merchants had to travel to Bordeaux and there present their letters patent to the Gascon financial officers.44
43. Letters patent were unsealed letters issued by the Chancery or Chancery officials traveling with the king. They were all sealed with the Chancery seal.
44. An example of this practice is dealt with in CLR 1251–1260, 225.
After the king’s clerk returned from his purchasing expedition, he was required to make a full written report detailing the types, quantities, and costs of the supplies that he had acquired. This information was then recorded in the king’s Wardrobe account.45 The Wardrobe frequently was the royal office responsible for authorizing the expenditure of cash while the king was traveling outside of England. Once the Wardrobe officials had recorded all of the information provided to them by the clerk who had purchased the supplies, they in turn issued written orders to the Gascon financial bureau at Bordeaux called the office of the receiver. These orders authorized the Gascon financial officers to disburse cash to the merchants with whom the king’s clerk had done business. Thus, when the local merchant appeared at Bordeaux with his letter patent, the information contained there could be checked by the local fiscal office against the orders issued to him by the king’s Wardrobe officials.46 In Gascony, therefore, as in England, the royal government insisted on bureaucratic redundancy in all matters relating to the purchase and shipment of military supplies. Two documents were required for the foreign merchants to be paid at Bordeaux. Furthermore, a record of the quantity and cost of supplies that had been purchased was kept in two places, namely in the royal Wardrobe and by the receivers at Bordeaux. Because the building of siege engines in Gascony was essentially an ad hoc endeavor, however, it seems that supplies were not stockpiled over the long term there and it was, therefore, not necessary to keep detailed records of where supplies were located.
45. CLR 1251–1260, 398. The Wardrobe account originally was intended to record the expenses of the king’s personal household. Over time, however, this account developed into an all-purpose record for the king while he traveled. However, despite the argument by Prestwich, War, Politics and Finance, 120, that the Wardrobe took on a markedly new function during the reign of Edward I, it is clear that the Wardrobe accounts were being used to record military expenses many decades before.
46. CLR 1251–1260, 225.
Administrative procedures for the storage and transportation of artillery
Once siege engines had been built, it was necessary not only to provide secure locations for keeping the artillery until it was needed, but the central government also had to be provided with a detailed record of how many pieces of artillery, of what type, and in what condition were in the government’s possession. It was also necessary to know their location. As might be expected, siege engines were normally stored at royal castles. Major depots were located at Dover, Windsor, Corfe, and the Tower of London. At these locations, access to the artillery was limited to those individuals whose duties justified their being granted a royal license (licencia regis).47
47. An order issued to the constable of St Briavels Castle and to the keepers of the Forest of Dean insisted that they “guard the engines and wood in the same place that they are now located and not permit them to be moved by anybody or be taken anywhere without a special license from the king” (“machinas et maeremium … custodiri faciant in eodem loco in quo nunc sunt, non permittentes ea per quoscumque alicubi amoveri seu aliquid inde distrahi sine licencia regis speciali”). See CR 1259–1261, 258.
Thus, for example, when a specialist was sent to repair siege artillery at a depot such as Corfe, he was given a written document in which he was identified as the king’s agent. The written document noted the engines that the specialist was ordered to repair, and also included a list of the supplies that would be required for him to carry out his duties.48 A second written order was sent directly to the local official in charge of the depot informing him of the artillery engineer’s arrival.49 This order noted what particular engines were to be examined and repaired—information that was obtained from the lists maintained by the central government which detailed not only the number and types of siege engines situated in royal depots, but their condition as well.50 The documents issued to the local depot commanders also required them to provide the visiting specialists with accommodations and supplies, and occasionally to pay his wages as well.51 In order to obtain credit for these expenses at the Exchequer, local officials were required to submit detailed written reports to the central government in which they noted the costs that they had incurred. As was true of virtually all such accounting documents, these expenses had to be vetted by proverbial probes homines legales. Once an account had been received and accepted by the central government, an order was issued by the Chancery to the Exchequer requiring the barons to credit the local official’s account there.
48. See, for example CR 1251–1253, 431.
49. One of the royal carpenters most frequently entrusted with this task during the 1240s and 1250s was a master carpenter named Gerard. See, for example, CR 1247–1251, 324, “the king is sending his engineer Master Gerard to Alan la Zusch, the justiciar of Chester, to inspect and to set in order the king’s works at the royal castles of Gannoc and Dissard just as Gerard had discussed with the king. We order that he be admitted and that he and his requirements be attended to diligently” (“Rex mittit magistrum Gerardum ingeniatorum suum ad Alanum la Zusch, justiciarum Cestrie, ad ordinandum et videndum opera regis in castris regis de Gannoc et Dissard secundum quod inter regem et ipsum prelocutum fuit. Mandans quod ipsum admittat, et ad negocia illa expendienda una cum ipso diligenter intendat”). In the previous year, a large quantity of supplies had been shipped to both Dissard and Gannoc to build siege engines there. See CLR 1245–1251, 245-6.
50. As we shall see, each commander of a royal storage depot was required to submit a written report detailing the number, type, and condition of engines that were transported to him from other depots.
51. Again regarding Gerard at Gannoc and Dissard, the order issued to Alan la Zusch noted, “and because he is not able to delay there or return to the king without incurring costs, the justiciar is ordered to provide Master Gerard with two marks that the king allocated for his use” (“et quia ibidem morari et inde ad regem sine sumptibus reverti non poterit, mandatum est eidem justiciario eidem magistro G. duas marcas habere faciat, quas rex ei faciat allocari”). See CR 1247–1251, 324.
In addition to requiring that even royal officials obtain written authorization to gain access to siege engines, the king’s artillery was further protected through the construction of warehouses that were specially designed to hold these weapons. Orders for the construction of these warehouses came from the central government, but the immediate costs were assumed initially by the relevant local officials, e.g. the constables, sheriffs, bailiffs, and forest keepers where the engines were being stored.52 These officers were required to obtain the necessary supplies and builders to construct these storage facilities. Once again, the costs for these building efforts could be redeemed in the form of credit at the Exchequer once the local officials had gone through the standard accounting process.53 The central government kept copies of both the original orders requiring the construction of these warehouses, and the subsequent financial accounts issued by the local officials. As a result, it was possible for the king’s officers of the central government to maintain a close account of which royal castles and other sites administered by royal officers were equipped with these buildings, and not only how many siege engines each structure could accommodate, but also how many actually were stored at each facility.
52. See CLR 1240–1245, 258; and CLR 1260–1267, 175.
53. Ibid.
As was true with regard to the transportation of supplies used in the construction of artillery, noted earlier, moving siege engines required close cooperation between officers of the central government and local officials which resulted in the production of a wide range of documents. In the simplest case, the process was begun when the central government issued an order to the commander of a royal depot, such as the constable of Dover Castle, requiring him to transport artillery to another facility. This order listed which engines were to be moved; how they were to be moved, e.g. by land transport or by water; and by which date they were to arrive at their destination.54 When the entire transportation effort was conducted by only a single local official and his staff, the costs that he incurred were redeemable at the Exchequer provided he followed standard auditing procedure. As we have seen, he was obliged to submit a written account detailing his expenses that had been vetted by local witnesses.55
54. In one case, the sheriff of Kent was ordered to have the royal engines located in the castle at Rochester carried by water, probably along the Medway River, to Sandwich. From there, the engines were to be taken by ship to Portsmouth where they were to be kept pending the king’s crossing of the channel. See CLR 1226–1240, 41.
55. See, for example, Great Roll of the Pipe for the Fourth Year of the Reign of King Henry III, 14.
When two or more officials at separate localities, e.g. the sheriff of Northampton and the sheriff of Bedford, were involved in the transportation of one or more engines, each of these men received a set of written orders from the central government. These documents recorded the transportation duties that were incumbent on each of these local officers.56 Each official thereby was informed when he could expect the engines to be delivered to him and to whom they were to be delivered on the next stage of their journey. All of these orders were accompanied by a timetable. At the same time that the officials on the delivery end were receiving their orders, the ultimate recipient of the siege engines also received a document from the central government. These documents listed the particulars of the shipment he would be receiving and an order to inventory the weapons when they arrived. The responsible official then was required to produce a chirograph that detailed his findings.57 This officer was to keep one copy of the chirograph for his own records and to send a second copy on to the central government. This document not only indicated how many engines had been transported and of what type they were, but also described their condition upon arrival.
56. See, for example, CR I, 617, where the order to the sheriff of Northampton to transport engines from Bedford to his county survives as a fragmentum in an order to the sheriff of Bedford to transport these same mangonelli.
57. For a representative example of this type of order, see CLR 1240–1245, 265.
This system of redundant documents assured the central government of an accurate account of how many engines, of what type, and in what condition had been moved from place to place. The account submitted by the sending officer or officers could be checked against the chirograph issued by the receiving officer. As noted already with regard to supplies, because these documents were issued every time an engine was moved from one site to another, the central government was able to keep track of the total number of artillery pieces in England, where they were located, and their state of readiness.58 When this information was added to the data concerning the building of new engines, discussed earlier, officials of the central government had a very clear picture of the artillery available for military campaign, information that was crucial to any military planning efforts. Although far fewer records survive which detail the transportation of siege engines within Gascony, it would appear that the same system applied there as did in England.59
58. This attention to the movement of engines extended even to the transportation of privately owned artillery. See, for example, CR I, 545.
59. See CR 1242–1247, 69.
The redundant bureaucratic procedures put into place to assure a careful count of the siege engines available for use in military campaigns were crucial to combating fraud, mismanagement, and loss once the artillery was safely stored in warehouses. However, in order to protect the artillery in transit, the royal government routinely required local officials to provide armed guards to accompany the engines. Like all other expenses incurred in the course of transporting the engines, the wages for these armed guards could be claimed by local officials when they submitted their accounts to the central government.60
60. References to the payment of these guards can be seen, for example, in CR I, 450, 605, 641.
Of no little importance in our evaluation of this system is the fact that all of these local officials operated on very tight schedules. These officers were given specific dates by which artillery had to be moved from point A to point B so that the engines could be deployed in the king’s military operations. The seriousness with which military planners of the central government regarded these transportation schedules is indicated by a letter issued to the sheriff of Westminster in 1244.61 The sheriff was ordered to ask the local abbots and priors to provide wagons and carts for the transportation of the king’s engines to Newcastle on Tyne. If they were unwilling to do so, the sheriff was to show them the king’s letter and ask again. If, however, the local church officials were still unwilling to provide transportation resources, the sheriff was ordered to find the necessary vehicles anywhere he could in his county and send them to Newcastle no later than the feast of St. Peter in Chains so that the king’s plans would not be disturbed “pro defectu sui”.62 To demonstrate the serious consequences that the sheriff faced should he fail in his task, the king’s order emphasized that these vehicles were to be sent “in so far as the sheriff loved his own body” (“idem vicecomes sicut corpus suum diligit”).63
61. CR1242–1247, 257–258.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
Conclusion
However innovative and revolutionary Edward I was in many aspects of military affairs, it is clear that his government had at least two generations of sophisticated military administration upon which to draw when going about the business of producing, storing, and transporting the artillery that was so important for the conduct of siege operations. During the long half-century preceding Edward’s reign, royal officers routinely produced, transferred, and stored the huge quantities of documents necessary to ensure the continued allocation of men, money, and resources that made it possible to purchase nails, iron fittings, lead, and hides; to cut down and finish trees; to transport tools and workers; to pay carpenters, bargemen, carters, waggoneers, sailors, and guards; and to build storage sheds. In short, for more than five decades before Edward became king, the English government had in place the administrative resources that made the deployment of the royal artillery possible.