Kingship, Nobility and Gentry: The Uses and Abuses of Wardship from Edward III to Henry IV (1350-1413)

这是第一篇全面分析十四世纪后期典狱权的发展、使用和影响的论文。“监护”是一个法律术语，用于定义对继承人(即“受监护人”)的土地和身体安排监护权的做法，该继承人在未成年时继承财产。当国王利用皇室和地主阶层操纵土地市场，而地主则试图限制对他们的庄园和继承权的破坏时，军阀使皇室和地主阶层密切联系，有时甚至发生冲突。研究军舰制度为了解中世纪晚期英格兰社会、经济和政治生活的许多关键领域打开了一扇重要的窗口。我的论文涉及三个主要方面：1.研究国王如何利用典狱权作为一种机制来塑造土地社会，以服务于王室利益。国王可以利用军衔作为奖励忠诚仆人的一种方式。因此，它们是赞助分配的一个关键方面。但授予第三方监护权剥夺了王室宝贵的收入。我的研究将调查三位中世纪的英国国王如何平衡这些竞争的优先顺序。它从那些从王室获得赠款的人的角度来考虑典狱权。我调查了谁是托管人，以及为什么选择他们。我还考虑了他们是如何管理自己保管的土地的：他们是负责任地履行自己的义务，还是滥用职权，为了自己的利益而剥削土地？3.探索继承人成为监护人的家庭的经历。军舰对那些土地转让给国王或第三方保管的土地拥有者家庭产生了深远的影响。这条线有一个关键的社会层面，因为病房--有时只有6个月大--通常由保管人的家庭照顾。虽然这有时可能具有极大的破坏性，但它同样可能导致互惠互利的社会和政治网络。

This thesis is the first comprehensive analysis of the development, use and impact of wardships during the late fourteenth-century. 'Wardship' is a legal term used to define the practice of arranging custodianship for the land and body of an heir (i.e. the 'ward') who inherited while still underage. Wardships brought the crown and landholding-classes into close contact and sometimes even conflict as the king used them to manipulate the land market while landholders attempted to limit the disruption to their estates and their line of succession. Studying wardships opens an important window onto a number of key areas of social, economic and politic life in late medieval England. My thesis addresses three principal strands:1. It investigates how wardships were used by the king as a mechanism to shape landed society to serve royal interests. The king could use wardships as a way of rewarding loyal servants. They were therefore a crucial aspect of the distribution of patronage. But granting wardships to third parties denied the crown valuable income. My study will investigate how three medieval English kings balanced these competingpriorities.2. It considers wardships from the perspective of those who received them as grants from the crown. I investigate who the custodians were and why they were chosen. I also consider how they managed the lands in their custody: did they discharge their obligations responsibly or did they abuse their position and exploit the lands for their own benefit? 3. It explores the experiences of families whose heirs became wards. Wardships had a profound impact on those landowning families whose lands transferred into the custody of the crown or third parties. There is a crucial social dimension to this strand since wards - sometimes as young as 6 months - were usually placed into the care of the family of the custodian. While this could sometimes be highly disruptive, it could equally result in mutually advantageous social and political networking.