History of England 1-6

The clarification and standardization of the law meant also that society itself took on a more defined shape. One of the new procedures was known as mort d’ancestor, allowing freemen to claim by right their inheritance. Free tenants, in particular, could not be ejected from their land by their lord. But some men were not allowed to plead in the royal courts. The men who were not free, the villeins who held land in exchange for labour services to their lord, were excluded. They had to rely on the smaller local courts for their rights. They were, in other words, still at the mercy of their masters.

It was stated that ‘earls, barons and free tenants may lawfully … sell their serfs [rusticos] like oxen or cows’. Unfree men were defined as those who ‘do not know in the evening what service they will do in the morning. The lords may put them in fetters and in the stocks, may imprison, beat, and chastise them at will, saving their life and limbs.’ This is a presentation of the extreme case and, in practice, traditional custom would have preserved many of the rights of these rusticos. The lord also had to prove that his man was unfree; as a legal writer said at the time, ‘you must catch the deer before you can skin it’.

The contrast between the free man and the villein had become the single most important social division in the country, underlying the elaborate and intricate hierarchy of roles and functions that already existed. It became the theme of the chivalric romances, with the distinction between vilain and courtois. The status of the knight was also changed, with the emphasis now on ownership of property rather than military skill or availability for service. In the process the knights adopted a different role. They took up a position in local rather than national society. They became in time the ‘gentry’, a word first used by the Wife of Bath in the Canterbury Tales. ‘Gentlewoman’ had appeared by 1230. ‘Gentleman’ emerged forty-five years later. So we have John Ball’s rhyme:

When Adam delved and Eve span,

Who was then a gentleman?

By slow degrees the class system of England, based on property, was being erected.

Those who lived in towns were by definition free, and so the difference between free town life and unfree country life became ever more marked. The myth of the uncultivated rustic as opposed to the urbane townsman, so much a feature of Elizabethan pamphleteers and Restoration dramatists, can fairly be said to have begun at this time.

Thomas Becket and Henry II were in conflict for six years, with the pope and various other interested parties acting as intermediaries. The antagonists met in France on two occasions, but their meetings became futile confrontations. The dignity and honour of both men seemed to be too great, too sensitive, for any compromise. But in the late spring of 1170 Henry watched the coronation of his son, Henry the Younger, at the hands of the archbishop of York in Westminster Abbey. He was crowned as ‘joint king’ in his father’s lifetime as a token of dynastic security.

This was a serious blow against Becket. The two sees of England, York and Canterbury, had always been at odds over their respective powers and dominions. It was the established right of Canterbury to crown monarchs and princes, but that privilege had been snatched from Becket by the king. In this age the importance of status, and of precedent, cannot be overrated; they were the pattern of the world. Henry insinuated that the prince might be recrowned by Canterbury, if and when the archbishop returned to England. Becket was so concerned to defend the pre-eminence of his see that the offer was persuasive. A third meeting took place on French soil between Henry and Becket where the terms of a settlement were agreed. On 1 December 1170 the archbishop returned to England.

It was said that he received a hostile reception when he landed at Sandwich. It was also reported that he was soon riding across England at the head of a body of knights. Neither story can be substantiated. One event, however, is certain. On the eve of crossing the Channel he excommunicated the archbishop of York and other bishops who had been present at the coronation in Westminster Abbey eight months before.

There was a Latin proverb, ‘ira principis mors est’, to the effect that the anger of the king means death. Becket was to prove the truth of this. When the news of the excommunications reached Henry, he was told that there would be neither peace nor quiet in England while the archbishop lived. The dramatic and vindictive way in which he had dealt with the archbishop of York seemed to be proof of that. Becket was a man who bristled with pride and self-righteousness.