complete our view of the comparative influence exercised by
the several powerful elements of society, and their powers of
attraction and repulsion as affecting the mass of the nation, may

be briefly treated in this place.

However highly we may be inclined to estimate the extent
of royal and ecclesiastical property, it is difficult to overrate
the quantity of land which during the middle ages remained in
the hands of the great nobles. Encumbered and impoverished,
in many instances, it undoubtedly was by the burdens of debt,
heavy settlements and the necessities of a splendid expenditure;
but these drawbacks only slightly affected the personal influence
of the several lords over their tenants and neighbours. Al-
though their estates were unequally distributed, and it would
be hazardous to infer from the mere title of earldom or baron-
age any very definite proportion of property, it may be generally
held to be true that there was a wide gap between the poorest
of the barons and the wealthiest of the class next below them ;
and between the earls and the barons, as a rule, there was
a very marked difference. The higher ranks in the peerage
did not necessarily imply a great superiority in wealth. The
history of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries furnishes many
instances in which a pecuniary estimate was set upon the
difference of degrees. Thus in 1379, in raising contributions
for the maintenance of the garrisons in France, a duke paid
a poll tax of £6 13s. 4¢7. ; an earl £4; barons, bannerets and
wealthy knights £2 ¹. In 1454 the fine imposed on a duke or
archbishop for non-attendance in parliament was fixed at £100,
that of an earl or bishop at 100 marks, and that of a baron or
abbot at £40². The creation money, as we have seen, varied
in regular proportion ; the duke had an allowance of £40, the
marquess £35, the earl £20, and the viscount 20 marks³. The

¹ ltut. ParI. iii. 57.                                          ² Ibid. v. 248.

^s See above, j>∣∣. 449-451. Proofs will be found in the Acts of Creation
given in the Lords’ Fifth Iteport : the duke of Clarence in 1411 has A40,
p. 169; of. pp. 182, 242, 243 sq. ; the marquess of Dorset in 1397 has
35 marks, p. 117 ; in 1443, £.35, p∙ ²4° 5 the marquess of Montague in
1473 has £40, p. 378 ; the earl of Cornwall in 1330 has £20, p. 21 ; the
viscount of Beaumont 20 marks, p. 235, cf. p. 276 ; Thomas Percy, baron
of Egremont, £10, p. 273.

XXi.]                 The Saronage.                  545

substantial endowment secured to the king’s sons, and to friends
who were suddenly promoted from an inferior rank, affords
a better clue to the distinctions made. In 1386 a pension of
£1000 per annum was secured to each of the two new dukes
of York and Gloucester, until lands of the same annual value
couldbe found for them¹. In 1322 Sir Andrew Harclay had
a similar annuity of 1000 marks on his creation as earl of
Carlisle. William Clinton had 1000 marks when he was
made earl of Huntingdon in 1336; and there are many other
instances².

But perhaps the most curious illustration of the point will be illustration
found in the document known as the Black Book of Edward IV, Black Book
in which the arrangements for the households suitable to the ɪv. ‘
several ranks are drawn out in a tabular form. There the Proportion-
_     .         -.-     ^,∣ητ∙      ∙      _ ate θɪpθɪɪdɪ`

annual outlay of the king on his household is estimated at t∏re of peers.
£13,000, that of a duke at £4000, that of a marquess at
£3000, that of an earl at £2000, that of a viscount at £1000,
that of a baron at £500, that of a banneret at £200, that of a
knight bachelor at £100, that of a squire at £50³. In the
time of Elizabeth, Sir Thomas Smith estimated the becoming
provision for a barony at 1000 pounds or marks a year and the
higher grades in proportionⁱ.

These sums however bear very little relation to the real dif- Territorial
ferences in the amount of property and accompanying political of the great
interest which existed among the great lords. The duchy of
Lancaster grew, by the accumulation of royal grants and the
marriage of heiresses, to an extent rivalling the official demesne
of the crown ; and the duchy of Norfolk grew in the same way.

¹ Lords’ Fifth Report, pp. 64, 65 : see also the case of the duke of
Exeter in 1416, ib. p. 182 ; cf. Madox, Bar. Angl. p. 146.

² Lords’ Fifth Report, pp. 18, 28. The earl of Stafford has an annuity
of 600 marks, ρ. 146 ; Guichard d’Angle, earl of Huntingdon, 1000 marks,
p. 61 ; John Holland, earl of Huntingdon, the king’s half-brother, 2000
marks, p. 83 ; the earl of Rutland 800 marks, p. 84 ; Ralph Boteler, baron
of Sudeley, 200 marks, p. 239.

³ Published by the Society of Antiquaries among the Ordinances of the
Royal Household, pp. 15-35.

⁴ Commonwealth, book i. c. 17 : ‘In England no man is created a
baron except he may dispend of yearly revenue one thousand pounds or
one thousand marks at the least ; viscounts, earls, marquesses, and dukes,
more according to the proportion of the degree and honour.’

VOL. XII.

<<   <   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   >   >>