Problematics of Military Power by Drake Michael S.;Hirst Paul;

Author:Drake, Michael S.;Hirst, Paul;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1486729
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Indenture and authority

Over the course of the Hundred Years’ War, the use of indenture as a means of raising and governing men displaced political obligation to military service. In 1304, the majority of English knights had still refused to accept pay, even for extensive campaigns, since it implied an entire package, with incorporation into the king’s personal household, an extra-political indebtedness, loss of personal jurisdiction over their retinue and unconditional subjection to the king’s will, but by 1322 pay had become acceptable to all statuses. Under Edward III there is little evidence of unpaid military service on any significant scale.17

Indenture was a common medieval form of retaining all manner of services, under which men were guaranteed the income from specified estates or a specific annual sum of cash, on condition of maintaining themselves, and often additional numbers and categories of men and equipment, for immediate service to the indenting party, which could be cross-indented to others. Indenture in this form did not require royal authority, did not involve fealty, and hence did not establish any feudal obligation. As a conditional grant only for life or a fixed period, it did not conjugate any juridical authority, but only connected men as retinue and retainer. It was thus a widespread and relatively stable legal form which did not change significantly in England until the reign of the Tudors.

The fourteenth-century kings of England used indenture as a substitute for summonses of assize and levy, offering monetary indentures to supply armed retinues for service abroad for a fixed duration in the king’s pay to men of known reputation, who were given advances and a commission to recruit in a given area and were held responsible for maintaining the men who sub-indented to them out of the money they received. Through the recruiting captain, the retinues were thus maintained at the king’s cost and under his household prerogative for a limited period. Captain’s indentures specified the numbers, the equipment and the abilities of the men to be supplied, thus realizing the Vegetian principles of selection (which had failed to operate through the commissions of array and the statutory Westminster levy) through an institution of law, producing a calculable capacity of force at predetermined cost for a limited campaign.18

Indenture also enabled flexibiity, as the specific terms could be varied for each campaign. Military indenture included the indemnity against legal action at home while in the king’s service which had been a condition of feudal service, but also offered a new package of terms, including letters of protection, charters of pardon, bonuses (‘regard’), guaranteed rates of pay to the captains for the men supplied, a division of the spoils of war and a time limit: originally 40 days with the option of extension, later a quarter- or half-year, and finally for service under the king for ‘as long as he desires’.19 The time of service in war, hitherto limited by political and customary constraints, thus became subject to the will of the king, as the personal deployment of his virtual household under terms of indenture.

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