Title: Purveyance for War and the Community of the Realm in Late Medieval England
Abstract: A new topic of controversy was interjected into relations between the English crown and the community of the realm during the late thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries as a result of large scale purveyancing of victuals, military supplies, and transport to provision a nation at war. The old right of purveyance or prise-taking, which permitted the king, members of his family, royal officials, and the greater nobility to preempt foodstuffs and requisition carriage for their personal use, was transformed into an elaborate mechanism for supplying English armies fighting in Scotland and France. The conflict provoked by this institutional change dominated crown-community relations in England from the latter part of Edward I's reign forward through the reign of Edward II and much of Edward III's. In order to defend private property against royal purveyance, representatives of the community experimented—especially during the period 1297 to 1362—with several methods for restricting the practice. But efforts to regulate purveyance were hindered by the ambiguous nature of the king's right, which could be viewed both as a royal prerogative and as a simple act of buying necessities for the king and his court. Further, depending on its scope and extent, purveyance by the crown could be seen either as a means of provisioning the household alone or as a form of national taxation applicable to the country at large. Occasionally during this period the community equated purveyance with regular taxation and tried to subject it to parliamentary control. Eventually, however, the nation was compelled to accept the view of purveyance as a commercial arrangement between English kings and their subjects based on the more or less legitimate right of the crown to take goods and services by forced loan or under promise of future payment. Accordingly, attempts to regulate it assumed the form of legislation designed to assure the prompt compensation of sellers, the accountability of the king's agents, and the punishment of corruption.
Publication Year: 1975
Publication Date: 1975-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 11
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