Prize-winning research on Robert de Ferrers III published in Midland History
I am delighted to share that my article, ‘Rebel without a Cause? Robert de Ferrers III and the Barons’ War in the Midlands’, has been published in Midland History, Vol 49, Issue 2. The article is based on my entry to the Midland History Essay Prize, in which it placed second.
The research builds on my MA thesis, and highlights how Ferrers’ activities during 1264 were much more aligned with the baronial faction’s strategic interests than is generally understood, and his behaviour far from unorthodox.
This is my first ‘academic’ article to be published, and I am pleased that my research will be able to shape aspects of the discussion on this important period in English history.
A feudal anarchist?
Robert de Ferrers was, in Dr Peter Golob’s words, ‘a difficult man’ – a summary I would agree with. Yet the extent to which he was more ‘difficult’ than his peers has been wildly overstated. The 'established view' - if such a phrase can be allowed - is best captured by R.F. Treharne, who wrote that, 'apart from a few throwbacks like Robert Ferrers, earl of Derby, the thirteenth century earls were not feudal anarchists seeking to tear England into a confusion of shreds and patches.'
This was certainly my view of Robert when I began my research, which originally aimed to explore the function of violence in the legal acquisition of lands and castles during the civil war. However, as I delved into the rebellion and began placing Robert’s actions within their wider context, the established narrative of Ferrers being a lawless freebooter, acting independently of the baronial faction, quickly fell apart.
The sack of Worcester
For example, when historians of the period of baronial reform and rebellion discuss Ferrers, they invariably mention his sack of Worcester in 1264 as an example of his perfidy, noting particularly his violence upon Worcester’s Jewish community and the seizure of the city's chest containing the records of debts owed to Jewish moneylenders. Robert had the chest taken to his castle at Tutbury; what clearer evidence can there be that he was a lawless plunderer serving his own narrow interests?
But take a look at what was happening elsewhere. In April, after Robert took Worcester, the earl of Gloucester, Gilbert de Clare, oversaw an assault on the Jewish community at Canterbury, in which the rebels 'carried away the King’s chirograph-chest against the King's peace.' In the same month, Simon de Montfort himself, the champion of the opposition to Henry III, was implicated in a horrific, premeditated murder and robbery of London’s Jewish community, with the city’s mayor orchestrating the atrocity 'in sections' over several nights. In Winchester, earl Simon’s son, Simon the Younger, plundered the city's Jewish neighbourhood in a similar fashion.
Clearly, this treatment of Jewish communities and the removal of chests containing loan records was baronial policy at this time. The nature of the violence at Worcester, while clearly outrageous and pitiful for the people of that city, were not unique to Robert de Ferrers.
Furthermore, Robert was not alone at Worcester. One chronicler names him capturing the city with prominent members of the baronial faction, including Simon de Montfort's son, and Peter de Montfort (no relation), while another chronicle corroborates this, saying that shortly after, when the Montfortians were under pressure at Gloucester, they 'sent for the earl Ferrers and others who were near, and they came with haste.'
Supporting the suppression of the Marchers
Later in the rebellion, the Dunstable annals note, Robert marched on Chester with a huge force, compelling the royalist justiciar of Chester and other Marcher barons, such as James de Audley, to flee before him. One historian described this advance as ‘in something less than the spirit of Montfort's attempts to come to terms with the Marchers.’
But take a wider look, and again the picture changes. This episode falls into November in the Dunstable narrative - exactly the time that Montfort was seeking to crush – not come to terms with - the Marchers. Indeed, one of the men who Robert put to flight, James de Audley, is explicitly named in other sources as being among the insurgent Marchers at this time. Ferrers seems to have been acting in support of the Montfortian regime.
Context is everything!
The lesson here is that we often rely on secondary materials to form our opinions. This is of course how history works – historiography drives understanding and debate. But occasionally a prevailing view can be repeated and embellished until it reaches a state where the surviving evidence, on which all historical conclusions must rest, no longer supports it. This seems to have been the case with Robert de Ferrers' rebellion.
Want to know more about Robert de Ferrers III? Feel free to contact me.