The Song of Simon de Montfort by Sophie Thérèse Ambler

Author:Sophie Thérèse Ambler [Ambler, Sophie Thérèse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780190946258
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2019-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

* This was probably how Magna Carta and the Forest Charter had been published throughout the kingdom since 1218 (S. T. Ambler, ‘Magna Carta: its confirmation at Simon de Montfort’s parliament of 1265’, English Historical Review, 130 (2015), 801–30, at 811–12), although it seems that some written translations were produced at least of the first issue of Magna Carta in 1215 (J. C. Holt, ‘A vernacular-French text of Magna Carta, 1215’, English Historical Review, 89 (1974), 346–56).

* The making of a will in this period remained an essentially oral act, to be upheld by its witnesses, although a sealed written record, with a legal authority of its own, was increasingly desirable (M. Sheehan, The Will in Medieval England: From the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to the End of the Thirteenth Century (Toronto, 1963), 186–90).

* The only text we now have of the Ordinance is in French. Although it is possible that the Ordinance was drawn up in Latin (as was standard for official documents), it does seem that, unusually, it was published throughout the kingdom only in French, for only the French was enrolled and sent to the sheriffs, and this is the only version to be mentioned in the instructions for publication. This was probably a continuation of the council’s experiments in communicating effectively with a broader audience. The term ‘chartre’ was certainly available – it was used, for instance, in a French translation of Magna Carta in 1215 that was perhaps prepared for publication (see: Holt, ‘A vernacular-French’, 357; for ‘chartre’, see: Anglo-Norman Dictionary, online edition, available at: www.anglo-norman.net/D/chartre[1], accessed 6 Aug. 2018). I have altered the translation here from that given in R. F. Treharne and I. J. Sanders (eds.), Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion, 1258–1267 (Oxford, 1973) (hereafter DBM), 130–7, in accordance with the translation into French from the Latin of the 1215 Magna Carta.

* At least twenty-seven nobles and prelates were party to the Ordinance, for the document notes the involvement of not only the council but also the committee of twelve appointed under the Provisions of Oxford to act as a conduit between the greater body gathered at parliament and the council (DBM, 104–5). Although the text of the Ordinance stated that ‘we [i.e. the council and twelve] have set our seals to this document’, it would have been impossible for the seals of all to be appended to the parchment, and so four men were chosen, two from the committee of twelve and two from the council, whose seals would represent themselves and their fellows. We know of their identity because, in the seventeenth century, a transcript was made of a note in a now-lost government roll, recording (in French, in the first person plural) how the four had put their seals to an escrit on their own behalf and that of their colleagues, on 22 February 1259 – the day that the Ordinance was issued. The two from the council were Simon de Montfort and Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester (H.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.