MEDIEVAL BREADTH Study 2: Finances

Question 1

What were the two types of expenditure and what did they involve?

Answer 1

Routine expenditure- Maintenance of the king, his family, and the household (retainers, servants and advisers). Also spent on lavish clothes and food as it was important to live opulent lifestyle in order to gain respect from foreign countries and maintain authority at home.

Exceptional expenditure- Ceremonies, and exceptional defence costs such as repelling attacks on English territories in France, Henry VI did this a lot during the Hundred Years War,and had financial problems as a result.

Question 2

What was the background to land as a source of income?

Answer 2

All land was owned by the king, however he could give this to whoever he wanted to reward/ wanted to be loyal to him. King’s did not always have land to give out, and this was one of the key attractions of king’s such as Henry V and successes in the Hundreds Year War, because the lands he gained he could reward his followers with.

Question 3

How did forfeiture allow the king to gain land? Give an example.

What was a slight downside to this?

Answer 3

When a lord was guilty of treason, not only were they executed but their lands were also taken away, and could be given to different recipients.

(i.e.) the death of Warwick in 1471 provided Edward IV’s brothers with lots of land, as did Clarence’s death for Gloucester in 1478.
During the Wars of the Roses, the crown was gaining many estates through forfeiture when leading nobles were killed/ fought for the losing side.

However these lands were often given to supporters and so did not help the crown in the long run.

Question 4

Why was royal demesne given out and how could his be seen as a problem?

Answer 4

Was given to supporters as a reward when forfeited land was not available. Since part of the king’s income came from these crown lands, giving them away was controversial, and the unstable Henry VI exploited by greedy opportunists as he couldn’t make wise decisions.

Question 5

What was royal demesne?

Answer 5

Crown lands held by monarch directly rather than from another noble.

Question 6

How did Act of Attainders gain the king land, but what was the also draw back of this?

Answer 6

Passed in extreme circumstances. Henry VII backdated his reign to the day before the battle of Bosworth, and used acts of Attainder on Richard III’s troops. However, acts of attainders were not always positive as it meant the disinherited heirs had nothing left to lose and this could lead to rebellion.

Question 7

Why did Henry VI keep his duchy of Lancaster.

Answer 7

Maybe he felt vulnerable and insecure on the throne after his usurpation, and so kept it as something to fall back on. It gave him a source of private income, and retinues who he came to rely on.

Question 8

How much does an historian estimate the duchy of Lancaster gave Henry IV?

Answer 8

Helen Castor states that the Duchy contributed £1,120 per annum to government finances.

Question 9

How did the duchy of Lancaster change in Henry V’s reign, but how did it also remain the same?

Answer 9

In Henry V’s reign, he also kept these lands seperate to crown lands, but made them much more closely linked to royal finances by placing the Duchy’s administrative council under the supervision of crown officials and subsequently, average of £4,400 being contributed to government finances per annum.

Question 10

How did the duchy of Lancaster change in Henry VI’s reign?

Answer 10

Henry VI’s reign saw the downfall of the estate, just over £2,000 contributing to government finances. This was due to Henry’s pet projects and the £20,000 crowns to be given to Catherine of Valois per annum as a part of the Treaty of Troyes.

Question 11

What was the Act of Resumption and when was it normally used?

Answer 11

Removed land from a lord and took it back into crown ownership.

Often been done when the king had unwisely given away land and therefore lost a source of royal income.

Question 12

Give me an example of when the Act of Resumption was used.

Answer 12

When Edward IV came to the throne he passed an Act of Resumption which gained him many lands Henry VI had lost.

ANOTHER ONE??

Question 13

Custom duties became the most lucrative source of income in the 15th and 16th century. What decision in parliament shows this?

Answer 13

1360, they decided the wool subsidy would automatically be given to the king rather than just granted in emergencies.

Question 14

Why did the wool trade (custom duties) go downhill and what is evidence for this?

Answer 14

Wool centres increased the less heavily taxed woollen cloth as opposed to raw product.

During the Hundreds Year War, increased piracy disrupted the wool trade.

Total annual revenue of the crown fell from £90,000 (Henry IV) to £24,000 (Henry VI) proves the financial crisis of his reign.

Question 15

What was the background for feudal rights?

Answer 15

Lord owned land, and had vassals to perform agricultural work on their lord’s land.
Income came from the king’s feudal rights over his tenants living on crown lands (i.e.) the king gained a fee when his tenants children got married. King could request feudal aid for knighting of king’s eldest son or marriage of eldest daughter.

Question 16

How did the income from feudal rights decrease overtime?

Answer 16

Landowners did not like having vassals as they were hereditary and so they did not have control over who their vassals were.
So lords moved more towards cash payments for services instead (retainers).
As a result, it was a less significant source of income (i.e.) in 1433 it was 7% of income.

Question 17

What figure proves feudal rights were less significant overtime?

Answer 17

In 1433, it was approx 7% of income.

Question 18

What does a historian say about feudal rights?

Answer 18

Ralph Griffiths argues that Henry’s minority government were careless with feudal dues, money went more towards factionalism than it did strengthening the crown.

Question 19

How were profits of justice an income to the crown?

Answer 19

Court of Exchequer dealt with cases regarding crown revenues.
Important as it meant those who financially broke the law were pursued through legal channels and this ensured royal financial solvency.

Also, many people who were found guilty of crimes were fined, and this money was given to the king.

Question 20

How did Edward IV and Henry VII create a ‘new monarchy’

Answer 20

Edward IV- Chamber over the Exchequer. Exchequer was a very slow moving system where audits could take years to complete. Flexibility of the chamber helped to speed things up.

Henry VII- management of finances (i.e.) bonds (payments to crown in return for privilege OR fine if promise not met) were used way more in Henry’s reign.

Question 21

What were ‘fifteens and tenths’ and why was it bad?

Answer 21

Taxation on moveable goods.
Bad thing is that it was a fixed levy, and so was inflexible. When the population dropped due to outbreaks of the black Death, the burden on individuals were a lot great and towns petitioned to complain as it was too much pressure.

Question 22

What was the downside about taxes in general?

Answer 22

When war was going badly, taxes were more resented and therefore harder to collect, whereas in Henry V’s reign, he had little difficulty in obtaining taxation from a grateful parliament. When taxes lacked, this then hindered war, and it’s a downward spiral.

Question 23

What was Edward IV’s response to the fifteenth and tenth tax?

Answer 23

Since tenths and fifteenths was shit, Edward VI experimented with subsidy (income tax) instead to raise money for invasions of France.

But he only raised half of the £60,000 needed.

Question 24

How was the Chamber introduced?

Answer 24

Edward IV created Chamber over the Exchequer, because the latter was a very slow moving system where audits could take years to complete, so the flexibility of the chamber helped to speed things up.

In 1487 he declared the chamber to be the most important institution of financial administration

Question 25

What was the duty of the Chamber?

Answer 25

The chamber dealt with nearly all aspects of royal finances apart from custom dues.

Question 26

What was the Treasurer of the Chamber and who held this position?

Answer 26

Head of the Chamber, and the most important financial figure for Henry VII.

Was held by Sir Thomas Lovell and Sir John Heron.

Question 27

What was evidence that Henry VII was a very cautious king when it came to finances?

Answer 27

He would check over the accounts they had already gone over in the Chamber, even though they were run by most trusted men (i.e.) Sir Thomas Lovell and Sir John Heron.