Voices from the Margins? The Politics of Petitioning in the Plantagenet World
- EPOCH
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Josh Coulthard | Edge Hill University
In the year 1341, petitions from across England and the wider Plantagenet Empire (comprised of England, Wales, and eastern Ireland with dominion over parts of Scotland and France fluctuating throughout the period) brought personal grievances, political disputes, and financial struggles to the attention of Edward III, his council, and Parliament. John de Denton sought intervention in a contested mayoral election in Newcastle. Amice de Houwe of Sussex lamented that her enemy Thomas Agneys had taken her cow fourteen years prior and that the ensuing legal battle had left her destitute. Meanwhile, John Fauconer petitioned for relief from his father’s debts, arguing that he had inherited too little to repay them. These cases offer a glimpse into the everyday concerns that shaped medieval justice and are what make The National Archives (TNA) Ancient Petitions (SC 8) collection so fascinating. Petitions, therefore, by the nature of their contents, allow us to recuperate a different kind of medieval politics than traditional political history by focusing on a more ordinary kind of politics focused less on rebellions than on bridge building – both literally and figuratively.
You may, however, be wondering why so few historians have sought to make use of them if they are so fascinating. Petitions are by no means glamorous documents, a sizeable number are damaged, faded or covered in ink gall blotches which make them illegible. Even in their English calendared form they can sometimes be almost impenetrable thanks to the amount of medieval legalese which they contain; the amount of detail can be inconsistent and they range in size from a few sentences scribbled on a scrappy piece of parchment to long multiclause documents. Indeed, until a TNA digitisation project (2003-2007), they were not documents to be approached by the faint of heart. The main hurdle which discouraged historians was the lack of dating clauses which was made worse by the fact that Ancient Petitions is an artificial collection drawn from petitionary documents across TNA’s medieval governmental collections during the nineteenth century. During this process, the petitions were also separated from the warrants which, (A) date them and (B) provide information on what happened next.
Nonetheless, petitions are now slowly becoming a more recognised resource for historians of Plantagenet politics in Britain, Ireland, and Gascony. Especially as they allow us to recreate the political engagement of those otherwise not represented in Parliament (Women, the Welsh and Irish, some Scots, and the Gascons). Petitions could be presented either by individuals (private petitions) or by a larger group such as the ‘poor men of Cadney and Howsham’ or ‘the goldsmiths of London’ (common petitions). Petitions to the King and Parliament therefore presented a viable way for those with the requisite social, economic, and political capital to seek redress or royal favour outside their local communities. Perhaps most interestingly for historians, they capture a view of the legal system from the middle of events rather than most legal documents, which can often only provide outcomes with no information as to how these outcomes were reached.
While in the majority of cases we will never know whether or not petitioners chose to make the trip from their homes to Westminster or wherever else Parliament may have been sitting that year, we do know that petitioning before Parliament made up a sizeable portion of Parliamentary time (even beyond the mid-fourteenth century, something which historians had previously dismissed). Indeed, several petitioners stated explicitly that the trip to Parliament had inconvenienced them. Some, such as Richard Eyr, even complained that their enemies had attacked his brother William while in London.
Perhaps the best way to understand how petitions fit into the wider sphere of political engagement in the Plantagenet World is to examine a single event in detail. One such incident occurred in 1381 in Cornwall as the Peasants' Revolt raged across England. To hear one side tell it:
...knowing that the community of Essex and Kent, traitors to the King, had armed themselves and rebelled against the King, burned various houses and other goods and beheaded and killed the King's chancellor and treasurer and many others [Sir William de Botreaux] gathered together eighty traitors to the King in support of this community and other traitors and rose up against the King's law.
During this riot they ‘came with force and arms against the peace to [Ralph Carmynou’s] manor and broke and destroyed a door, a stone wall and his park there, released twenty of his animals which they killed and took away to Botreaux's manor of Botelet, and killed [Carmynou’s] servants in his manor of Boconnoc’.
For this, Botreaux had been indicted of treason. There was just one problem with all this – Botreaux was in Portugal with the King’s army. As the petition of his wife Elizabeth makes clear, ‘by the procurement of Ralph Carmynou, knight, John Trevarthian, John Penros, and others of his enemies the said Sir William has been maliciously and falsely indicted in Cornwall during his absence, by an indictment which is suspiciously framed’. The Botreaux family held extensive lands in the south west, and under William had risen to baronial status in the mid-fourteenth century. During their rise to prominence in Cornish society, however, the Botreaux’s had found themselves tangled up in a long-running dispute over the ownership of Trembethow manor, which Botreaux had recovered from John Trevarthian and John Penros in the previous year.
The Revolt was not the cause of this event. Still, it provided cover for manipulating the legal process as part of the wider Sergeaux-Carmynou-Trevarthian feud, which the Botreaux’s had found themselves involved in due to their tenant William Eyr being one of Richard Sergeaux’s retainers.
This was not the first time the Trevarthians had targeted the Eyrs. After William Eyr had made an accusation of treason against John Trevarthian in 1378, Trevarthian plotted to have William killed by hiring men to wait ‘in ambush near the door of the palace of Westminster’, ultimately striking him on the head but not killing him. The Carmynou’s involvement is tied to a feud between the families of Sergeaux, on the one hand, and Carmynou and Trevarthian, on the other, stemming from the division of the Champernoun inheritance between John Sergeaux and Sir Ralph Carmynou in the 1350s. The dispute flared into open violence between the Sergeaux’s and their rivals, the Carmynous and Trevarthians, in the 1370s, as each side tried to drive the other out of Cornish politics, ultimately reaching this point due to the targeting of Eyr, one of Sir Richard Sergeaux’s dependents. A petition from 1377 meanwhile makes the claim that Richard Sergeaux, during his tenure as sheriff, had attempted to seize Trevarthian’s land by killing John and his father.
Richard Eyr, William Botreaux’s brother and a co-defendant in the treason case, also submitted a petition at this time to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who is styled in the petition as King of Castile and León, requesting the overturning of the indictment. His petition makes the same argument as Elizabeth’s. This petition underscores how Eyr, through his connections with figures such as the Earl of Cambridge and John of Gaunt, was able to seek redress in a way that others without similar political capital could not have. By drawing on his influential network, Eyr was able to challenge a more powerful local enemy. Alongside this, Elizabeth Botreaux’s role in the process was equally significant. While William was abroad, she demonstrated her capacity to manage his affairs effectively, drawing on her own network of connections to ensure that the petition was heard in Parliament. Because of her petition, the false treason charges against William and his associates were rapidly overturned. Elizabeth’s petition is particularly notable not only for its legal success but also because petitions by women were relatively rare at the time. Furthermore, Elizabeth’s petition is set apart by her refusal to adopt the conventional portrayal of the helpless wife, a narrative frequently employed by female petitioners and reflective of the broader tendency among petitioners of the period to present themselves as helpless victims. Instead, she presented herself as William Botreaux’s wife, asserting her position with authority. Her focus was on exposing the disloyalty of the Trevarthians, Carmynous, and their allies, framing the inquisition as highly suspicious. Together with Richard Eyr, she presented a unified and coherent case that condemned the actions of the Trevarthian-Carmynou affinity, thereby strengthening their collective argument and demonstrating her political acumen.
In conclusion, petitions offer a valuable insight into the political landscape of the Plantagenet Empire. While these petitions were once overlooked due to their complex language and lack of clear dating, they are now increasingly recognised as a vital resource for historians. They provide not only a detailed view of medieval justice but also a more nuanced understanding of how politics operated beyond rebellions and royal court dramas.
For a practical guide on working with petitions, read the EPOCH tutorial feature.
Further Reading:
Anthony Musson and W.M. Ormrod, The Evolution of English Justice, Law, Politics and Society in the Fourteenth Century (Macmillan Press, 1999).
Gwilym Dodd, Justice and Grace, Private Petitioning and the English Parliament in the Late Middle Ages (Oxford University Press, 2007).
Gwilym Dodd and Alison K. McHardy eds., Petitions from Lincolnshire 1200-1500 (Lincoln Record Society/Boydell and Brewer, 2020).
S.J. Drake, Cornwall, Connectivity and Identity in the Fourteenth Century (Boydell and Brewer, 2019).
W. Mark Ormrod, Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson eds., Medieval Petitions, Grace and Grievance (York Medieval Press, 2009).
W. Mark Ormrod, Helen Killick and Phil Bradford eds. Early Common Petitions in the English Parliament, c.1290–c.1420, Camden Fifth Series, Series Vol. 52 (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
W. Mark Ormrod, Women in Parliament in Later Medieval England (Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2020).
Josh Coulthard is a doctoral candidate at Edge Hill University. His research focuses on the political culture of the insular Plantagenet World between 1200 and 1400; he is especially interested in the intersection between political legitimacy and identity. He is also the co-convenor of the North West Medieval Studies Postgrad Reading Group.
