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

本文首次全面分析了14世纪晚期监护制度的发展、使用和影响。“监护”是一个法律术语，用来定义为未成年继承人（即“被监护人”）的土地和身体安排监护的做法。监地制度使国王和地主阶级密切接触，有时甚至发生冲突，因为国王利用监地制度来操纵土地市场，而地主则试图限制对其财产和继承顺序的破坏。研究监护制度为了解中世纪晚期英格兰社会、经济和政治生活的一些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。它调查了国王如何利用监护制度作为一种机制来塑造土地社会，以服务于王室利益。国王可以用监护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。但将监护权授予第三方会剥夺王室宝贵的收入。我的研究将调查三个中世纪的英国国王如何平衡这些竞争的优先事项。它从那些从国王那里得到恩赐的人的角度来考虑监护。我调查谁是保管人，为什么选择他们。我还考虑他们是如何管理他们所保管的土地的：他们是否负责任地履行了自己的义务，还是滥用职权，为自己的利益剥削土地？3. 它探讨了继承人成为监护人的家庭的经历。监护制度对那些土地被移交给国王或第三方保管的地主家庭有着深远的影响。这其中有一个至关重要的社会层面，因为被监护者——有时只有6个月大——通常由监护人的家人照顾。虽然这有时可能是高度破坏性的，但它同样可能导致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.