Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England (35 page)

11
  

That the countess possessed her own, distinctive seal serves as a reminder of the independent legal authority that she now enjoyed in widowhood. The witnesses of Eleanor’s bond were: the Earl of Norfolk, Ralph fitz Nicholas, Walter Marshal (Eleanor’s younger brother-in-law, who also witnessed Gilbert’s deeds), Geoffrey of Langley, William Bluet (previously identified as one of the countess’s knights) and Walter de Hide: ibid., p. 126.

12
  

Ibid. (where Marjorie is confused with her sister, Margaret).

13
  

Eleanor was pardoned from paying a further 200 marks that she owed to the king as a prest:
CR, 1234–7
, pp. 150–1.

14
  

CPR, 1232–47
, p. 65.

15
  

Eleanor’s vow of perpetual widowhood presumably explains why Eleanor did not appear among those noble widows who felt compelled to fine with the crown to stay single, even in the years after Magna Carta’s provisions on the issue were first published. See, for example, D. A. Carpenter (March 2008), ‘Hubert de Burgh, Matilda de Mowbray, and Magna Carta’s Protection of Widows’, Fine of the Month (March 2008), available online at
http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/content/month/fm-03-2008.html
, accessed on 13 December 2010.

16
  

See Figure 3. TNA, PRO: C 47/9/20, mm. 3–5. The roll details the partition of Eleanor’s Marshal dower properties between the Marshal co-heirs (see pp. 78–9). Strictly speaking, some of Eleanor’s manors had formed part of the grant made to William junior and her in 1229. See p. 28. For further discussion, see also Maddicott,
Simon de Montfort
, p. 50.

17
  

For aristocratic widows as estate managers, see, for example, Archer, ‘“How Ladies … Who Live on their Manors” ’, pp. 149–81; E. Cavell (2007), ‘Aristocratic Widows and the Medieval Welsh Frontier: The Shropshire Evidence’,
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
, 17, 57–82, at p. 69.

18
  

For the officials who staffed the estate and household administrations of thirteenth-century English nobles, see N. Denholm-Young (1937),
Seignorial Administration in England
. Oxford: Oxford University Press, esp. chs 1 and 2; L. J. Wilkinson (2003), ‘The
Rules
of Robert Grosseteste Reconsidered: The Lady as Estate and Household Manager’, in C. Beattie, A. Maslakovic and S. Rees Jones (eds),
The Medieval Household in Christian Europe, c. 850–c. 1550: Managing Power, Wealth and the Body
. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, pp. 293–306.

19
  

Wilkinson, ‘The
Rules
of Robert Grosseteste Reconsidered’, pp. 293–306.

20
  

See, for example, J. C. Ward (1992),
English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages
. Harlow: Longman, chs 3 and 6.

21
  

CR, 1227–31
, p. 555. See also
CR, 1231–4
, p. 3 for an example of Eleanor soliciting her brother’s help to recover rights of estover.

22
  

CR, 1231–4
, p. 174.

23
  

Ibid., pp. 256, 264.

24
  

Ibid., p. 275.

25
  

Ibid., p. 509.

26
  

CRR, 1233–7
, no. 1145.

27
  

CR, 1231–4
, p. 466. The countess’s enjoyment of her brother’s favour was demonstrated when the king accompanied this pardon with a personal gift of venison to his sister: ibid.

28
  

CR, 1234–7
, p. 257.

29
  

CR, 1231–4
, p. 527.

30
  

Vincent,
Peter des Roches
, pp. 396–8. This is, however, at odds with Wendover’s description of Richard’s friendly reception by the Marshal tenants in Ireland and Wales:
Wendover
, iii, p. 14.

31
  

Labarge,
Mistress, Maids and Men
, p. 49.

32
  

William Bluet also witnessed Eleanor’s bond:
CPR, 1232–47
, pp. 125–6. In July 1237, the same knights witnessed Gilbert Marshal’s confirmation of a gift of land made by Eleanor to Andrew de la Brech:
CChR, 1226–57
, p. 230.

33
  

Monasticon anglicanum
, v, pp. 267–9.

34
  

Crouch,
William Marshal
, pp. 149–50, 220–21;
Book of Fees
, ii (1242–3), p. 724;
The Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey, Gloucestershire, Volume III
, ed. C. D. Ross and M. Devine (1977). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 760; C. S. Taylor (1889),
An Analysis of the Domesday Survey of Gloucestershire
. Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeology Society, pp. 167–9; E. Brooks (1950),
Knights’ Fees in Counties Wexford, Carlow and Kilkenny
. Ireland: Manuscripts Commission, p. 26. The Bluet family patronised Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire. See, for example,
Lacock Abbey Charters
, ed. K. H. Rogers (1979). Devizes: Wiltshire Record Society, vol. 34, p. 25 nos 49–51, p. 44 no. 157, p. 47 no. 169.

35
  

The countess secured, for example, royal grants of protection for men like Bartholomew de Crek:
CPR, 1232–47
, p. 2.

36
  

CR, 1234–7
, p. 425.

37
  

CR, 1231–4
, p. 152.

38
  

CRR, 1233–7
, no. 498.

39
  

Ibid., no. 669.

40
  

In order to placate Eleanor and, perhaps, in recognition of her forceful personality, Henry ordered the sheriffs to compensate Eleanor with other lands in their place:
CR, 1231–4
, pp. 231–2.

41
  

See pp. 39, 40.

42
  

CR, 1231–4
, p. 210.

43
  

Ibid., p. 243.

44
  

Ibid., p. 23.

45
  

For the way in which a later noblewoman pursued similar strategies in Stuart England, see J. L. Malay (2009), ‘Anne Clifford: Appropriating the Rhetoric of Queens to Become the Lady of the North’, in Oakley-Brown and Wilkinson (eds),
The Rituals and Rhetoric of Queenship
, pp. 157–70, at pp. 160–2.

46
  

CR, 1234–7,
p. 131.

47
  

See Figure 3 above. As part of the process whereby Eleanor took possession of Odiham, the king’s oxen on the manor were valued and purchased from the crown, together with the last year’s corn and hay, so that she might acquire and maintain her new property with a minimum of disruption:
CPR, 1232–47
, pp. 161, 166. Just a few days after this gift, the king also assigned Eleanor the park there, together with the vert and the venison:
CR, 1234–7
, p. 387.

48
  

P. MacGregor (1983),
Odiham Castle, 1200–1500
. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, ch. 2.

49
  

Ibid., pp. 48–9.

50
  

Ibid., pp. 49–50.

51
  

Green,
Lives
, ii, p. 63;
CFR, 1243–4
, no. 64 (a later entry on the fine rolls whereby Henry pardoned this debt), available online at http://frh3.org.uk/content/calendar/roll_041.html, accessed on 1 January 2011.

52
  

In common with other noble households in the first half of the thirteenth century, that over which Eleanor presided was a peripatetic institution: C. M. Woolgar (1999),
The Great Household in Late Medieval England
. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 46–7; Wilkinson, ‘The
Rules
of Robert Grosseteste Reconsidered’, pp. 293–306.

53
  

CR, 1234–7
, p. 96.

54
  

See ‘The
Rules
of Robert Grosseteste’ (1971), in D. Oschinsky (ed.),
Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Estate Management and Accounting
. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 390–3, 396–9, esp. nos iv, x, xii.

55
  

Birrell, ‘Procuring, Preparing and Serving Venison’, p. 180.

56
  

Eleanor received ten bucks (
damos
) on 14 April from Rockingham:
CR, 1231–4
, p. 207. On 10 May 1233, she was given three roe-bucks (
capreolos
) from Chute and five bucks (
damos
) from Savernake (ibid., p. 217), followed by five bucks (
damos
) from Chute on 29 May 1233 (ibid., p. 224), five bucks (
damos
) from Savernake on 6 June (
ibid
., p. 226), ten bucks (
damos
) from Rockingham on 25 August 1233 (ibid., p. 253), and two stags (
cervos
) from Chute on 20 September 1233 (ibid., p. 269).