Reform and rebellion in the reign of Henry III

Summary

History Extra Podcast: Reform and Rebellion in the Reign of Henry III Release Date: March 12, 2025

The History Extra podcast, hosted by Emily Briffet and featuring historian Luke Foddy, delves deep into the tumultuous period of Henry III's reign, exploring the intricate dynamics of reform and rebellion that shaped medieval England. This detailed summary captures the essence of their engaging conversation, highlighting key discussions, insights, and conclusions drawn from the episode.

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Setting the Scene: Henry III’s Reign

Timestamp: [02:54] – [05:32]

Historian Luke Foddy begins by contextualizing the reign of Henry III, often remembered as the "Pacific King" for his prolonged periods of relative peace. However, Foddy emphasizes that beneath this veneer of stability lay significant underlying issues. He states:

“Henry is perpetually out of money and he's always looking for more ways to raise revenues.”—[04:15]

The king’s incessant financial strains led to increased taxation and financial pressure on institutions like the Church. Additionally, Henry's ambitious but unrealistic foreign policies, such as his failed attempt to invade Sicily, exacerbated tensions with his barons. Richard of Cornwall, Henry's brother, encapsulates this frustration by likening the Pope’s Sicilian ambitions to “offering the moon”—an unattainable goal.

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The Catalyst: Oxford Parliament Coup of 1258

Timestamp: [05:32] – [10:30]

Foddy outlines the critical events of 1258, where discontented barons orchestrated a palace coup during the Oxford Parliament. Their grievances against Henry III—ranging from favoritism and poor spending to unrealistic international plans—culminated in forcing the king to adopt a new governing framework. This unprecedented move required Henry to rule in partnership with a council, effectively sharing his power. Foddy notes:

“This is radical. This has never been done before.”—[05:39]

Initially perceived as a temporary measure to curb Henry’s excesses, the coup swiftly transformed into a comprehensive reform movement aiming to overhaul medieval governance.

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Emergence of the Reform Agenda

Timestamp: [08:25] – [15:13]

The discussion transitions to the broader reform agenda birthed from the Oxford Parliament. Foddy explains that barons presented the "Petition of the Barons," outlining their grievances and proposed reforms, later known as the Provisions of Oxford. These provisions sought reforms in justice, administration, and finance, intending to create a more equitable society.

Foddy poses a critical question about the motivations behind the reformers:

“Were these reforms for everybody? It certainly...” —[29:17]

He suggests that while some reforms were ideologically driven, aiming for social justice and fairness, others were strategic, designed to consolidate support and mitigate potential backlash from conservative factions.

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Key Themes of the Reform Movement

1. Law and Order

Timestamp: [16:58] – [24:28]

One of the primary focuses was overhauling the justice system. The introduction of the office of the Justiciar, reoccupied by Hugh Bigard, marked a significant step toward restoring fair access to justice. Foddy highlights:

“...the reformers introduce this basically plea by querulae, which means oral complaint, basically.”—[24:36]

This innovation allowed individuals to present their cases orally without the cumbersome process of obtaining writs, democratizing access to justice. The reformers also tackled rampant corruption among sheriffs, who, incentivized by their revenue-sharing model, often abused their power. Reforms mandated that sheriffs serve only one-year terms and be local landowners, aiming to reduce corruption and ensure accountability.

2. Abuses of Sheriffs

Timestamp: [21:35] – [24:28]

Foddy delves deeper into the corrupt practices of sheriffs, explaining how their lack of oversight and personal financial incentives led to widespread abuses. The reformers sought to rectify this by restructuring the office of the sheriff, ensuring they were accountable and had a vested interest in the local community.

“The sheriff can only serve for one year at a time, which is a new innovation.”—[21:48]

3. Impact on Customs

Timestamp: [24:28] – [27:06]

The reform movement also addressed outdated and unjust customs, such as the "Murderum Fine," which unjustly penalized communities for unidentified corpses, exacerbated by the 1258 famine. The reformers amended this law to apply only to felonious slayings, alleviating undue burdens on innocent populations during times of crisis.

4. Trade and Commerce

Timestamp: [27:06] – [29:17]

Merchants faced significant challenges due to Henry's mismanagement of royal demands for goods without timely payment, leading to financial instability. The reformers implemented measures to protect merchants from unfair practices and profiteering, such as punishing those who manipulated grain prices during the famine.

“...merchants would have been quite grateful for these reforms, as would have been people from the wider shires.”—[28:25]

---

Social Impact: Bridging Classes

Timestamp: [29:17] – [33:16]

Foddy emphasizes that the reforms transcended class boundaries, benefiting not only the nobility but also free and unfree peasants. While unfree peasants faced systemic barriers to accessing justice, the reforms provided avenues for redress in cases of severe injustice, although limitations remained.

“...the reformers weren’t trying to throw down these structures of society.”—[29:20]

This inclusive approach garnered widespread support among the general populace, creating a sense of collective empowerment and hope for a more just society.

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Short-Term Success and Long-Term Challenges

Timestamp: [33:16] – [38:51]

Initially, the reforms were successful in restoring justice and reducing corruption. Hugh Bigard’s active role in implementing the reforms ensured tangible improvements in local governance and societal fairness. However, the longevity of these reforms was threatened when Henry III reneged on his commitments in 1261, seeking an annulment of the provisions. This betrayal led to fractures within the reform movement and ignited a brutal civil war.

“...by 1261, a lot of this agenda is up in the air.”—[33:23]

The ensuing conflict, culminating in the Battle of Evesham in 1265, effectively dismantled the reform movement, restoring Henry’s autocratic control and suppressing the aspirations for a more balanced governance structure.

---

Legacy of the Reforms

Timestamp: [36:25] – [38:42]

Despite the suppression of the movement, its legacy endured in the evolution of the English Parliament. Foddy points out that the reforms laid the groundwork for a more representative parliamentary system, influencing future monarchs like Edward I to incorporate broader representation in governance.

“One of the things that the Provisions of Oxford tried to do, it set out that a regular parliament should happen.”—[36:25]

Additionally, reforms such as the Murderum Fine were eventually codified, ensuring more humane and just legal practices.

---

Reflections on Medieval Society

Timestamp: [38:42] – [42:05]

Foddy concludes by challenging modern misconceptions about medieval society, highlighting its complexity and the contemporary drive for social justice. He underscores that the period was marked by sophisticated political maneuvering and progressive ideas operating within the existing medieval framework.

“...medieval people were a lot more complicated and sophisticated than many people think.”—[38:51]

This episode serves as a poignant reminder of the cyclical nature of reform and rebellion, illustrating how moments of hope and change are often met with resistance and conflict.

---

Conclusion

Final Thoughts

Emily Briffet wraps up the episode by acknowledging Luke Foddy’s profound insights into the Earl of Derby's role in the rebellion against Henry III. Foddy’s ongoing research and forthcoming book promise to further illuminate this critical juncture in English history.

“Luke's research on the Earl of Derby’s role in the rebellion against Henry III was published in Midland History earlier this year.”—[41:46]

Listeners are encouraged to explore more about this fascinating period and its enduring impact on the evolution of English governance.

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Notable Quotes:

• “Henry is perpetually out of money and he's always looking for more ways to raise revenues.”—Luke Foddy, [04:15]
• “This is radical. This has never been done before.”—Luke Foddy, [05:39]
• “The sheriff can only serve for one year at a time, which is a new innovation.”—Luke Foddy, [21:48]
• “...merchants would have been quite grateful for these reforms, as would have been people from the wider shires.”—Luke Foddy, [28:25]
• “...medieval people were a lot more complicated and sophisticated than many people think.”—Luke Foddy, [38:51]

---

This comprehensive exploration by the History Extra podcast sheds light on a pivotal era in English history, illustrating the delicate balance between reformist zeal and the entrenched powers resisting change. For those intrigued by the intricate dance of power, rebellion, and governance in medieval times, this episode offers a compelling narrative enriched with scholarly expertise.

Transcript

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[Emily Briffet]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History History magazine. With accusations of favouritism, poor spending and unrealistic international plans, resentment against Henry III simmered among his barons throughout the 1250s. All of this frustration came to a head in a coup at the Oxford Parliament of 1258, where some rebel barons saw the opportunity not just to get what they wanted from their king, but also to completely transform medieval society. Speaking to Emily Briffet in today's episode, Luke Foddy explores what this reform movement meant for the average person living in England during those turbulent years.

[Luke Foddy]

Hi Luke, thank you so much for joining me on the History Extra podcast.

[Snoop Dogg]

Thanks Emily. It's great to be with you today.

[Luke Foddy]

Right now, set the scene for us. We're in the reign of Henry iii. Is this a calm and stable time?

[Snoop Dogg]

I mean, Henry III has this reputation, like today, he's remembered as a king who ruled over a long period of peace. In medieval terms, he's often referred to as the Pacific King. And it's certainly true that for long parts of his reign, there was relative peace in England. But that's up to a point, and that's up to a point in 1258 where there's this huge political revolution which then bleeds into a really nasty civil war. But before that period, I think it's fair to say that Henry's reign, yeah, it was a time of relative calm, but under the surface, I think there's lots of problems happening in the localities, lots of grievances that aren't being addressed, and this perception that Henry isn't really paying enough attention to these issues. And then there's a much bigger problem, which is money. So Henry is perpetually out of money and he's always looking for more ways to raise revenues. I mean, the Church is one of the institutions that gets pretty hammered under Henry's reign, certainly in the 1250s, where he's putting lots of financial pressures on the Church. And also, this drives a shift in the world of justice because one of the main revenue streams for the king was, of course, fines and penalties from the courts. So there's this drive to be a lot more thorough in extracting money from the localities to fund Henry's need for resources. And I think if Henry was spending this money wisely, if the country was seeing results from this extraction and spending of money, there probably wouldn't have been a problem. But the problem was that Henry did not spend this money particularly well. He's lavishing gifts on some of his favourites at court, foreign relations of his, which kind of irked some of his English magnates. But also he's got these kind of crazy foreign policy ambitions. So the big one is that he wants to go and invade the kingdom of Sicily in partnership with the Pope. And this obviously requires a lot of money and effort. And the magnates, they're not dim. They recognize this is never going to happen. There's even a quote attributed to Henry's brother, Richard of Cornwall, who said, it's almost like the Pope offering, I give you the moon. Go up and take it. It's never going to happen. Henry is not famed for his martial prowess. He failed spectacularly in France when he tried to reclaim the lands that his father John lost and he can't even keep the Welsh in check. They're always kind of raiding over the border and causing all sorts of trouble. So it's true to say that Henry's reign was, you know, for many years, life in England was quite peaceful. There's clearly lots of problems under the surface and they all bubble up to a real crescendo, if you like, in 1258, where things get really, really quite wild.

[Luke Foddy]

There's this growing sense that people aren't happy. How did a reform movement arise?

[Snoop Dogg]

Yeah, so given all the issues that was going on in Henry's reign, the wasteful spending, the high taxations, the aggressive approach to justice to raise revenue, all of these things were building up. And in 1257, 1258, the crops fail in England and there's a terrible famine. And that's something that it's often overlooked. But we need to remember that this is the backstory to this, because I think it drives a lot of the. Why now? Because these issues have been going on throughout the 1250s. But it's in 1258 where the magnates decide they need to have an intervention. So I think the background is Henry's misrule. In April 1258, a group of magnates, including several earls, decide, enough is enough. This guy's tanking the country. We need to act. And they confront Henry at Westminster palace and they basically compel him to subscribe to a new form of government. So now, rather than just ruling himself and being the sole decision maker, Henry is going to rule in partnership with a council, kind of an executive committee, if you like. This is radical. This has never been done before. Even in John's reign, when his barons rebelled against him. And we all know the story of Magna Carta, they never attempted to sort of share kingship with the king. I mean, they might have tried. Some of them tried to replace him with another person to be king. But the idea of the king not being the sole ruler is quite unprecedented, but through threat of force, because there were several earls involved in this coup. And it was a coup, it was a palace coup. He couldn't really say no, so he went along with it. So they agreed that they would meet again at Parliament in Oxford in a few weeks time. And that's where they'll hammer out the details of how this kind of rule by committee is going to work. But what's really interesting is there's no indication in April 1258 that this is going to turn into a much bigger reform program than it does. Suddenly it's gone from, okay, we're going to have a bit more control over how the Crown makes decisions, we're going to keep Henry on a tighter reign, we're going to have a bit more of a say on taxation in Parliament when Parliament meets. And we're going to have this council and crucially, the foreign favourites, the relations of Henry that the English barons really didn't like, they had to leave the country. But the point is, these are all very like, narrow magnate politics at court kind of issues. By the time the Oxford Parliament ends, it's exploded into, we're going to reform the whole country, we're going to do reforms to justice, we're going to look at the sheriffs, local administration, and these are reforms that are really going to have an impact on people from all walks of life. So it's quite remarkable that just in the space of a few weeks, this thing went from a palace coup to national reform.

[Luke Foddy]

So how did this wider reform agenda.

[Snoop Dogg]

Arise, emerge at the Parliament at Oxford? Some of the magnates bring forward a document that's now known as the Petition of the Barons, where they set out a few of the grievances around the rule of Henry. And I think what's happening is that they're realising, like, wow, this is actually a once in a lifetime opportunity. We can actually make some quite big changes here while we have the opportunity to do so. And so they list out various grievances which then the Parliament presumably would have discussed and we end up with this remarkable collection of aims. It's not really a legal document in itself, but it's known as the Provisions of Oxford. And it's essentially almost like some of the key issues that the reformer barons want to address and kind of set out the reform plan, the agenda for the period ahead. And a really interesting question is, how does this happen? Because why are the magnates suddenly taking an interest in wider issues? And I think one of the answers there is the nature of that Parliament at Oxford, because Henry had planned to launch a campaign against the Welsh later in the year. So this Parliament at Oxford was a bit of a preamble to that. So the barons were coming with all their retinues and knights, and this, of course, included members of the local gentry, a much wider constitution of this Parliament than you would normally think. And I like to think of this Parliament as these people thinking, hold on, what's going on? So that now we have an opportunity to do something a bit different. We have an opportunity to meet the King, have a look at these things that are happening in our part of the world. And that's reflected in the provisions of Oxford. And the provisions of Oxford, while not a legal document, they do become the political football, if you like, for the rest of this decade, because all of the trouble that arises afterwards, and indeed the civil war that emerges, whilst there's obviously many different complicated reasons for that, ultimately it's a squabble over the provisions. Is Henry going to rule by the provisions of Oxford, eg, the reform program, or is he going to throw them away and go back to how he was before? And that's what leads to the chaos that followed.

[Luke Foddy]

What were the motivations of these reformers then? What drove them? You've spoken about this idea of being in the moment.

[Snoop Dogg]

That's a really interesting question. And I think the answer depends on how cynical you are as a person, because some people could look at this and think, this is an amazing ideologically driven moment. These magnates are going out to the shires and they're bringing in reforms to improve the condition of people from all walks of life, right down to the peasantry. And often these are reforms that are against their own interests because they are magnates. And a lot of the issues that arise from this reform agenda do conflict with their own interests. So you could say, yeah, this is genuine, ideologically driven radical politics. And we also know that a lot of the leaders of this reform movement, including Simon de Montfort, were very close to some of the leading churchmen of the time. And I think there is an element of kind of the Christian approach, certainly in the aspects of doing right by the poor and justice. So I think that just colors some of it. However, as the reform movement moves on and into 1259, when the reformers decide that they're going to roll out reforms which directly affect the magnates and the behavior of their own bailiffs, then you start to see some frictions in the Reformer party. I mean, the Earl of Gloucester, Richard Clare, for example, he starts to think, hold on a minute, maybe this is going a bit too far, because some of his own interests are going to be impacted. So clearly some of the magnates kind of believed in the reform moment to a point. But interestingly, others, including Montfort, wanted to push ahead. So it shows that some of them really did really believe that this was essential and that we do need to kind of reflect on our own practices and make sure that we're doing right by our tenants and subjects as well. But if you're being more cynical, you would think, okay, You've basically executed a palace coup, which is extremely controversial. You've effectively reduced the king to a cipher. He's no longer the king. Other kings in Europe are going to be looking at this. Some of the more conservative institutions are going to be looking at this, thinking, this is crazy, this is so radical. And so as a protection mechanism or as a politically wise thing to do, would be to get as much support as you can behind you. So if push came to shove and the worst would happen and we end up in a war, civil war, at least you'd have as much of the country behind you as you can. And a lot of these reforms, of course, were extremely popular with local people. This is the knightly class, this is the freeman, and of course some of the peasantry as well, who are getting access to things that they hadn't had before. So it's quite clever to really appeal to that huge part of the population. If you're thinking we need this backing to kind of help get this through, knowing that the course that you've taken is a very precarious one, an unprecedented one. So I think that's happening as well.

[Luke Foddy]

Before we drill down into the nitty gritty, could you give us the broad strokes what actually was on the agenda?

[Snoop Dogg]

So I think there's several key themes to this movement. One is addressing grievances in the localities. So there's clearly a problem in the localities with justice, people's access to justice. And there's also an issue with the conduct of some of the royal agents, so the sheriffs mainly, and what they've been up to in the localities. And so that's a big area that the reformers look at. Another aspect is some of the customs or the ways that local society works, including some of the laws, which are perhaps, given what's going on in the country in 1258, are not really fit for purpose anymore. And there's also issues around finance as well. So they need to reform the king's finances because country's a bit of a mess when it comes to finance. And then this also extends to areas around trade as well in the towns. So it's a really wide ranging kind of root and branch reform program. But it's important to remember that alongside all of this is this ongoing rule by executive committee. So keeping Henry on a leash, if you like, trying to ensure that the reformer position can endure long enough to carry out these changes. Because don't forget, while all of this is happening, there's still major kind of foreign policy issues as well. I mean, in theory, the proposed Sicilian business, as it's known, Henry's ambition to conquer the kingdom of Sicily is still ongoing. There's negotiations with the papacy around this and obviously there's the ongoing negotiations with France, which would become the Treaty of Paris in 1259. And so, of course, the magnates on the Reformer council, they're also dealing with this as well. So there's lots going on, but those are some of the key themes that they were looking at.

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[Luke Foddy]

I'm ready for my life to change.

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[Luke Foddy]

Let's focus in on some of those key themes then, and let's also look at how the reforms impacted different groups in society. So first, could we talk a bit about the law and order side of things? How was that affected?

[Snoop Dogg]

Absolutely. So one of the first things that the reformers did was that they reintroduced the office of the Justicia, which was an office which had previously been a constant, but it had fallen into vacancy during Henry III's reign and Henry had never bothered to fill it. And they appointed Hugh Bigard, who was the brother of the Earl of Norfolk and he's One of my historical heroes. He is a great man and a just man, and I'm not surprised that they appointed him to be the justiciar. And so what their reformers decided to do was to go out to the counties, to the shires, and invite people to come and share their grievances. And they appointed four knights from each county to kind of gather these complaints. And then Hugh himself would go around the country and hear the pleas and do justice. And it's quite clear that this proved very popular. We don't have a full record of all of the court rolls. Lots have been lost. But the ones that do survive have an amazing wealth of information about what was going on in the counties. And it allows us to really understand why this reform movement was necessary. I can give some examples. I mean, some of the cases are actually quite heartbreaking. There's an example of a lady called Sarah, Sarah D. Islip in Oxfordshire, who was pregnant and was accused of stealing some clothes. Before she could prove that she had not stolen the clothes, the local bailiff had her hanged. This was despite her telling him that she was with child. And there's this really tragic entry in the role about her saying that she asked if the baby could be cut from her before they hanged her. So even in her last moment, she's thinking about her unborn child, and this guy, he hangs her anyway. And the jury who heard this case, they're outraged. So these things that are happening in the shires, they're not kind of just petty larcenies or unfair fines and things. Some of them are really egregious abuses of the law and injustice. And we also see in Northamptonshire, there's a very celebrated case, lots of historians have highlighted, about a thief who has been caught. Obviously not a very good thief, but he had led it to a church. Because in medieval England, if you could get to a church and claim sanctuary, you could avoid some of the legal repercussions if you agree to leave the country. And so he had done this, and he is on his way to the coast on his cart, going down the road in Northamptonshire, and he was set upon by a gang of thugs who beat the living daylights out of him. The test arena goes into quite vivid detail. In fact, he was brought into court on a litter. He was literally in a bad way, this guy. And it turns out that the men who had done this were the sheriff's posse, you know, men belonging to the sheriff's authority, and they were doing it on his orders. So clearly, some of the returns from the air that bigot had paint a really quite vivid picture of local agents and sheriffs and bailiffs being pretty out of control in the counties. And this is alongside lots of other examples of unfair fines. We hear of sheriffs calling a torn a court session on one day, changing the date, not telling anyone, people don't come, then they're all fined for not attending the court. So all things like this are happening. So it's no surprise to me that number one item on the reform agenda was sorting out what's going on with the sheriffs in the localities. And there's also lots of other issues around injustice not being done. What's really interesting is that a lot of the cases that come before Hugh Bigard we can trace in older court records. So people who have bought cases in earlier years where perhaps there's been a ruling, but there's not been any resolution, they've not received justice compensation or restitution. They come back in 1258, they seize this opportunity to come back, and this time they do get justice, whether it's military or other. So clearly this is making a big difference for people in the Shai'is who are finally getting fair access to justice. And the reformers go a bit further because they also bring in some really cool innovations. So normally to bring a case to court, you need to go and find the chancery, get a writ. There's lots of logistics involved, there's cost involved. What the reformers do is introduce this basically plea by querulae, which means oral complaint, basically. So rather than going to the expense of going and get writ, you can just turn up and just make your case orally. And there's lots of evidence from the rolls that this was extremely popular. People took the opportunity to do that. So there's a chronicler that wrote very good things about Hugh Biggood and about his commitment to justice and doing right by people in the shires. And I think he absolutely deserves that reputation.

[Luke Foddy]

So good to shine a spotlight on him there.

[Snoop Dogg]

Absolutely.

[Luke Foddy]

Something you mentioned there was about the abuses of the sheriffs. Could you delve into this some more? What did the reform movement hope to do to fix this?

[Snoop Dogg]

Yeah, it's quite clear that one of the main grievances in the country in 1258, if not before, is the conduct of the sheriffs. And in a way, if you were being kind to the sheriffs, you could say that the system was almost set up to encourage these abuses, or certainly corruption. I'm massively oversimplifying here, but essentially the sheriff, rather like a reeve on a manor, would be accountable for the revenues of the manor. The sheriff is the same thing, it's the shire reeve, it's the root of the etymology of the word. So their job is to essentially bring in the revenues from the shire and account for them at the exchequer. And the way it worked was that the sheriff didn't have a salary. He took his cut once the value of the shire, which is known as the farm, was met. And so this kind of encouraged Sheresh to find misdemeanors or felonies where there may not have been any. And so it drove this rampant corruption. And that comes out clearly in Hugh Biggids and the Andreal returns. So this is definitely a big issue. The system itself is kind of encouraging corruption. Then you have the problem that the sheriffs were essentially appointed by the king, so he could make anybody a sheriff of anywhere. He could go to his friend and say, oh, you want to be the Sheriff of Derby? You know, there you go. And again, this means that you've got people who are essentially administrating the county who don't really know what's going on in the county. They don't know, they don't have an interest. And so this is also a problem. And so the reformers do some really interesting things. They essentially reform the office. So the sheriff no longer doesn't have a salary. He kind of has his expenses paid for and he's instructed that he's not to take food or drink or other financial burdens on the people in the county, which clearly would have been a very popular move for people living under those sheriffs. They make it clear that the sheriff can only serve for one year at a time, which is a new innovation. Now, in reality, we know that in some places that didn't happen. Certain sheriffs did go for more than a year, but in other places they did serve the year. But at least the ambition is there. The aim is there to kind of keep these limits short, hopefully kind of reduce corruption or embedded wrongdoing. And another really important innovation they make is that they insist that the sheriff has to be a landowner in that county, so he's somebody with a real stake in the area rather than just people being dropped in from elsewhere. So obviously they have an interest, they know what's going on, and the aim is to kind of really, yeah, just improve the conduct of the sheriffs in the counties. So it's quite clear that there was a real problem with the sheriffs and they act to address that through the reform program.

[Luke Foddy]

Another important issue I'd like to talk about is the impact on customs. Could you tell us about that?

[Snoop Dogg]

Yeah. So a lot of the customs that were in place at this time weren't really fit for purpose. And again, they come through in some of the complaints. There's issues around unfair processes, around attending the sheriff's court, the sheriff's tornado, or the manor courts, people having to go too often or being fined when they don't. When the date's been given is the wrong date. All these kind of tricks that's going on, which. And this is real money that's costing people. Okay, so there's definitely grievances there, but then there's more like profound issues. So there's this customer called the Murderum Fine. So the Murderum Fine is really interesting. It was enforced by William the First after the Conquest, although there's some evidence that it was around before then, particularly in the Dane law. And essentially, it meant that if a body was found, the people of the local area, typically four villages, had to prove or convince the coroner that this person was English. So they had to know the person, had to identify him. And the rationale is it was to stop the English just bumping off the Normans every time their back is turned. So they have to show that they know who the person was and that they were English. And if they couldn't, the whole area was immersed. They were all fined. And so obviously initially it was only meant for kind of felonious killings, so people who've been clearly murdered. But during Henry's reign and his drive to get more revenue, it kind of bled into being any kind of corpse that was found. Now, what happened in 1258? We have a famine in England. And what happens when there's a famine? Two things always happen. People move, they leave their places. They're looking for work, they're looking for food, and people die. And the chroniclers are very clear about this. I think Matthew Paris paints a very vivid picture of people corpses in the streets and in the pigsties, like, all over the countryside. And so you can imagine that there's people that coming from other communities that villagers don't know. They can't prove Englishry here. And you would have thought Henry III would have made account for this, given what's going on in the country, but he doesn't. It's the reformers who step in and say, okay, from now on, murder him. They don't abolish it completely, but they make it clear that it's Only in the case of felonious slayings. And they make the point that this is because of what's happening in the country with the famine. So this is a really kind of positive step for certainly the poorer people in the country who are getting hammered by these really unjust customs. So that's something which I think is one of the highlights of the reformer programme in terms of what's happening in the localities.

[Luke Foddy]

Finally, I just want to take a look at trade and commerce. What did the reformers implement here?

[Snoop Dogg]

So, again, this was a big area and again, it's Hugh Bigod and his heirs, the legal courts that he held around the country as part of the reform programme. He did go to the towns and he did a lot of work hearing the grievances of merchants and trade. And I think there's two things which really emerge here. One is around grievances with the king and his spending. So in the medieval world, certainly in medieval England, if the king needed victuals or items, he could claim them and he didn't have to pay at the time, as known as the price. Again, I'm oversimplifying, but this placed tremendous pressure on merchants because often they never got paid. And Henry iii, he's not the only king to do this, by the way, but he wasn't very good at honoring these debts. And so the reformers look at that. They try to reform that process and make it a bit fairer for the merchants, but they also hear a lot of the complaints in the towns and some of them are really interesting. So Hubert goes to Grimsby and there's a really interesting case in Grimsby where one of the merchants had learned that there were two ships off Grimsby full of grain. And this guy took a boat out to the ships and he boarded one of them and he said, oh, we've just had a load of grain delivered here, so the price is really low. If I was you, I'd go elsewhere. So they did. But of course, that wasn't the case in Grimsby. There was a huge famine in Grimsby. This is in 1258. There's a shortage of corn, shortage of grain. This guy had some grain, so he's basically protecting his interests. It's outrageous example of profiteering in a crisis. And Hugh Bigger hears this case and he finds with the town, the guy's punished accordingly. And there's other instances of merchants who are being subject to unfair trade practices being prevented from accessing stock, or certain merchants monopolizing the trade in the towns. And again, Hugh Bigger goes there and he rules against a lot of this stuff and provides compensation to those who have been wronged. So I think certainly the merchants would have been quite grateful for these reforms, as would have been people from the wider shires who are finally having justice delivered.

[Luke Foddy]

Were these reforms for everybody, it certainly.

[Snoop Dogg]

Went further than anything in the past. So with Magna Carta, for example, it was quite clear that these terms are only going to apply for free people. But the reformers do go further. They don't make that distinction. They do talk about the whole community, if we take the example of the peasantry here, because certainly for everybody generally, but I think when you get to the peasantry, it gets a bit more complicated, because essentially, with peasants, you have unfree peasants and then you have free peasants. And technically, in the eyes of the law, the unfree peasants could not have access to the King's courts. Much of their life was governed by the whims of their lord, whose land they were tied to. Free tenants could they had the same amount of land or they had different rights before the law. But the unfree, it was a lot more restrictive for them. And yet we do see unfree peasants coming to the bigot's heirs and going to the hundred, to the knights of the counties with their complaints, trying to access justice. And some of them are dismissed because they are unfree. And this includes, like, cases of the reformer barons. So I think there's a case with Simon de Montfort where he says, I don't have a case to answer because this person's a villain, an unfree peasant, and that's it. But in some areas, there were ways that they could get around this, because first of all, when it came to violent conduct. So if an unfree peasant had been subject to violence or anything that was contrary to the King's peace, that would then be a matter for the King's court. So that's one area and then the other issue. So if they could prove that the land that they're tied to had once in the past been royal demesne, so the King's own states, again, technically, they could then have access to the court. So there are different ways to get around this. And it's quite interesting to see unfree peasants trying to do this during the period, because clearly they thought there was a way that they too could have access to justice. But generally speaking, yeah, I mean, the reformers weren't trying to kind of throw down these structures of society. And the unfree peasants were still considered that their rights before the law was still the same as they were before the reform program.

[Luke Foddy]

Just how significant were these reforms in the day to day lives of everyday people?

[Snoop Dogg]

I think they were really, really significant. I mean, we've seen how people weren't getting sufficient access to justice even when court cases had progressed, that the restitution wasn't there. That does happen in 1258. There's a real attempt to kind of do right by people. And then we have away from the courts, we have these reforms brought into the everyday life in the shire. So attending the sheriff's torn or the manor courts, some of the kind of fines which are really unpopular and unfair, they are being looked at and that would make a difference to these people. I mean, especially the poorer people. Some of the cases that we hear in the rolls, they might seem quite trivial, like, you know, an ox or a cow being taken or something. But to these people that's a huge, it's a huge deal. So I think that's certainly the case, that it would have made a difference there. And certainly in the towns, I think the reforms of some of the practices there would really have made life better for the merchants. But I think to answer that question, you really need to take a step back and look at how it was received. Because there was clearly widespread support for this reform program amongst normal people, everyday people. And you see this in what happens later when the civil war does come. And there's lots of evidence that the peasants and certainly the knights, the knightly class in the shires are really on board with the Reformer program led by this point in Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and then in some of the literature from the time, the Song of Lewis, for example, which was written in the afterglow of this great victory at Lewis that Simon won for the Reformer party. Clearly there's huge enthusiasm that the provisions and what these guys were trying to do was for the good of the whole realm. So I think the fact that it got so much support in the localities reflects that it probably did make a big difference for people living there.

[Luke Foddy]

So the reforms seem really popular. But were they successful in the long run?

[Snoop Dogg]

I think in the immediate term you'd have to say they were successful because we see throughout 1258, 1259, that Hubig is active in the counties. He's doing justice, he's restoring people. We see the reforms going through which do seem to have held in the main and some of these ideas, like the reform of the murder and fine do endure and Edward I Reign makes this a permanent thing. One thing I should mention is that the council themselves knew that some of these reforms weren't progressing as quickly as they should. And, for example, in the Ordinance of Sheriffs in 1259, we see this wonderful line where they're saying to the people of the shires, look, we know things aren't happening as quickly as they should, but rest assured, justice will come to you. We're working on it. And I think that just reflects some of the logistical challenges involved in this reform agenda. But the problem is, as with all revolutions and radical moments, it's a roller coaster. So in 1261, Henry III, who had been outwardly, you know, proclaiming his support for the provisions of Oxford and all of this stuff, at the same time, he's got his envoys in Rome trying to get people annulment. In 1261, he feels strong enough to do this and he basically reneges on everything and declares it all null and void. So, obviously the momentum is impacted by that. And this creates a bit of a crisis because the reformer barons now have to really make a decision, and some of them don't want to stand against the king. Even Hugh, be good, eventually sides with the King. And then we also have this issue of, like I mentioned earlier, some of the reform movement's focus moves towards the magnates and their own bailiffs. This is after 12:59, and that also causes a bit of fractures in the reform, which, again, takes a bit of the wind out of the sails of the enterprise, which Henry exploits very well. So by kind of 1261, a lot of this agenda is. Is up in the air. 1263, Simon de Montfort, who had left England pretty much in disgust about the way things were going, comes back, and then we have this terrible civil war fought ostentatiously over this whole issue of how Henry is going to rule the kingdom, whether he's going to adhere to the provisions or if he's going to go back to how he was before. And so by this time, you know, the reform program's kind of. It's on the back burner. Everything's now about this war, winning this war. So I think if you were a tenant of the Earl of Derby or any of the magnates in sort of the summer of 1264, when the Civil war was really raging, you might be excused for thinking, yeah, those reforms are really, really great. But I'm a lot worse off now than I was in 1258. And I think there's probably a lesson there for anybody who is pursuing a radical path, because you never really know.

[Luke Foddy]

Where it's going to lead beyond 1264. Was there a long term legacy to these reforms?

[Snoop Dogg]

I think some aspects, absolutely. I mean, to be clear, the whole reform movement kind of came to a very violent end in August 1265, where Simon de Montfort and a lot of the former barons who were with him to the bitter end were killed at the Battle of Evesham. And then the civil war kind of drags on a little bit because of Henry's ill advised policy of disinheritance of the rebels, which just ensured the war continued a bit longer than it should have. But that essentially ended this whole period of reform and rebellion. But I think its legacy is that it showed that the Crown does need to take more of an interest in the rights of the magnates in terms of decision making. I think it showed that certainly when it comes to taxation, there needs to be a lot more agreement based on the community of the realm. And I think you see this in the evolution of Parliament. So one of the things that the provisions of Oxford tried to do, it set out a regular parliament should happen, similar to what Magna Carta did. But over the reform movement period, we start to see a bit more wider engagement in Parliament. And indeed, in 1265, Simon de Montfort invites knights from each shire and representatives from the key towns to come to his Parliament. This had happened before in different ways, never all together, the towns and the knights together, but it had happened in some parliaments before. But going forward, and certainly into the reign of Edward I, Henry's son, Parliament does become a lot more representative, if you like, eventually. And I think that's Edward learning from this period and some of the reforms that they brought in, like the murdering fines, that again, in Edward's reign he enshrined that it would only be relating to felonious slaying. So I think the big legacy is the evolution of Parliament really during this period. That's what a lot of people remember Simon de Montfort for and this reform period for. But the reality is that a lot of the reforms, certainly around the sheriffs, they kind of do go back to being fully under Henry's control after 1265. And we know in the 14th century, for example, there's similar things going on in the counties, injustices in the counties, very similar to what's happening in the 13th century. So I think it was a bit of a process to get to a more just society.

[Luke Foddy]

This is a glimmer of hope that just seems to get snuffed out. What do you think this can tell us about medieval society.

[Snoop Dogg]

Well, it's a really interesting period, I think, because it. It kind of questions or challenges a lot of the ideas or cliches or misconceptions that we have around medieval society. You know, the idea that the church is kind of fundamentally conservative when we know that during this period, a lot of the great churchmen were behind Simon de Montfort's reform program, which was very radical. The idea that the magnates didn't really care much about wider society or the peasants, or held them in contempt or any solely concerned with their own narrow interests. The idea that even peasants, you know, a lot of people, when they think of a peasant, they think of someone in a field with a fly buzzing around their head, with no interest in the wider political situation in the country. And we know that's just not true when you explore these records in this period. So I think it's a really interesting snapshot of England at this time. And what I find really interesting is that some of the ideas, some of the things being written down and promulgated at this time, they're quite striking in their modernity. I think some of these ideas about social justice and fairness and executive rule of the country, because it's quite bizarre, because there's no attempt to change fundamentally societal structure. I mean, they're very clear. This is all happening within the framework of medieval society. And there's no attempt to kind of free all the peasants and, you know, overthrow the king and have some kind of democratic rule. Yet operating within this very medieval framework are these really quite radical and progressive ideas. So I think it's just a really interesting reminder that medieval people were a lot more complicated and sophisticated than many people think. And in terms of it being a moment of hope that was snuffed out. Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt that in 1265, when Henry returns to full power, a lot of this agenda is pushed back and forgotten. Henry goes back to having control over the sheriffs and all of this kind of thing. But there's certainly a legacy that does endure around, certainly in the context of Parliament and being a bit more representative and listening to the concerns of the. Of the wider country, particularly when it comes to taxation and things like that. But the one thing to add is that it wasn't universally welcomed, this reform program. Some of the chroniclers were quite outraged by what was going on because it was so radical, this idea of the authority of the king being overthrown and the peasants kind of having more of a say over the king. I think one chronicler talks about the body trying to rule over the head or something, and so it's not universally adored by everybody. And it was certainly very controversial in some aspects. But there's no question in my mind that certainly in the localities and among kind of everyday people, this reform agenda was very popular. I'm sure a lot of people would have been disappointed when it was indeed snuffed out after the Battle of Evesham in 1265.

[Emily Briffet]

That was writer and historian Luke Foddy. Luke's research on the Earl of Derby's role in the rebellion against Henry III was published in Midland History earlier this year. He's also currently published writing a book on the reform movement and the civil war that followed. You can find out more at lukefoddy.

[Snoop Dogg]

Com.

[Emily Briffet]

Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Daniel Kramer Arden.