Festschriften offer a timely opportunity to honor a distinguished recipient with a collection of research papers in their scholarly area, thus further broadening and deepening the topic. The one under review here, English Medieval Government and Administration, dedicated to Oxford medievalist Prof. J. R. Maddicott, admirably achieves that but is different to most on three accounts: its articles have a strict focus on newly-edited documents with accompanying commentary; much of the volume is then taken up by publishing these documents or extracts from them, often for the first time, in chapter appendices, ranging from the late eleventh century to the early fifteenth century—a great boon to researchers; and, finally, the sheer scale of the work. This last point alone renders the book of great importance: the twenty-two contributors read like a “Who’s Who” of modern scholarship on English government and administration in the Middle Ages. The result is a superbly presented volume and a monumental achievement.

Given the scale of the project, it is necessary, if inequitable, to afford most focus here on a few articles to represent different eras. Nicholas Karn opens proceedings with a diplomatic analysis of Robert fitz Hamo’s extant eleven charters. Fitz Hamo, a leading second-generation Norman “colonist,” died as result of wounds incurred at the battle of Tinchebrai in 1106. Hugh Doherty devotes thirty fascinating pages to a London riot circa 1128 based on seven lines from the pipe roll of 1130, “one of the most remarkable original documents to survive from early twelfth-century Europe” (30). At its complex heart, the riot was the consequence of continental politics and events in Flanders (starting with the death of Charles the Good in Bruges in 1127), leading to trade blockades and carefully targeted attacks in London on the ships and houses of men from Louvain and Lorraine. John Gillingham takes us to the late twelfth century, returning to a familiar acquaintance—the chronicler Roger of Howden—to examine taxation. In a volume on administrative affairs this is perfectly justified, as “there was no chronicler who stuffed his chronicle with more administrative documents cited in extenso than Roger” (65). Gillingham reminds the reader that Howden was not an admirably neutral civil servant as has often been thought.

Daniel Power leads us into the thirteenth century with an in-depth look at inheritance in Capetian Normandy. An important and lengthy piece by Nicholas Vincent offers new evidence for the Magna Carta civil war and rebellion of 1215-17, based on his discovery in Lambeth Palace’s archives in 2013: “Lambeth had long proved a significant source of Magna Carta ‘finds’” (121). The letters he unearths further explicate the process by which the charter was disseminated throughout England, revealing a “full-scale system of dual control in which the twenty-five barons [the rebel committee] took direct responsibility, alongside the King, for administration within the counties. For a brief period after Runnymede, in late June 1215, government was truly revolutionised” (131), something that was previously thought to have first occurred in 1258. Further delving confirms that Archbishop Stephen Langton was, as some of us have long believed, not the neutral arbiter as so often portrayed, but decidedly on board with the rebel barons’ program of reform.

Nine following pieces remain in the thirteenth century, which dominates proceedings: Jörg Peltzer on Richard of Cornwall and Arthur’s legacy at Tintagel castle and Arthurian legacies; Huw Ridgeway on a cartulary of Peter of Savoy, a favorite of King Henry III; Adrian Jobson on a micro-case study of loyalties during the baronial revolution of 1258- 65; David Carpenter on Londoner’s disputes with Westminster Abbey; Sophie Ambler on the surrender of Gloucester Castle in June 1265; Peter Coss on political friendship (amicitia) in turbulent times; Kathleen Neal on accounts relating to Edward I’s daughter, Elizabeth, Countess of Holland; Paul Brand who offers a fascinating take on the 1294 report into the alleged crimes of Katherine, widow of Simon Constable, involving a number of poisonings; and Louise Wilkinson looking into a unique transfer of an earldom to a woman: that of Lincoln to Hawise of Chester, sister of Ranulf III, Earl of Chester, spoilt as an earl twice over. (Readers will see what I mean about a “Who’s Who” in this volume.)

Of the remaining eight contributions, all but one—by Alice Taylor on early fifteenth-century Scotland—are rooted in the fourteenth century, where themes of land, titles and constitutional crises continue to permeate this collection. In his examination of Thomas of Lancaster and the enforcement of the 1311 Ordinances restricting royal power from 1314 to 1317, Scott Waugh shows that both Lancaster and the beleaguered Edward II were, despite “systematic and diligent” (332) efforts, left unsatisfied and were driven further apart as a result. Waugh lambasts these two most powerful men in the kingdom for being “utterly incompetent, incapable of devising a way out of their common crisis” (348); however, a greater degree of opprobrium is reserved for Lancaster. The hapless Lancaster as Earl Ferrers is also the focus of the piece by Anthony Gross, which offers an interesting, multi-dimensional take on his seal. Here, amidst a plethora of bureaucratic records in this volume, is a welcome nod of humor: Gross says of Lancaster’s failure to join the Scottish campaign in 1306 that the earl blamed the humble vicar of Dodford for supplying him “with a lame horse. The excuse was lamer than the horse” (371).

A sparkling contribution from John Blair breaks with the book’s main themes. Blair takes a close look at the de la Beche inventory of 1347 to open “a window into a court-centred, nouveau-riche household, and its opulent material culture, just before the Black Death” (431), encompassing an interesting study of Aldworth church in Berkshire. Drama is added by the association with “the most sensational bride-abduction of the time” (431), that of Margery de Beche by Sir John de Dalton, with Margery likely “a willing victim” (438). The lengthy appendix of the inventory offers material historians a wealth of fascinating insights into an affluent household of the time including, of all things, the contents of the buttery (apparently the storing place for mazers—a new word for this reviewer). Blair provides copious guiding support. Nigel Saul analyzes a newly identified list of oath-takers, swearing to uphold the acts of the 1388 Merciless Parliament, from Leicestershire: an attempt at insurance against later royal revenge. In common with an impressive number of other chapters, the appendix publishes the associated document for the first time. The fourteenth century is completed with Paul Dryburgh on Queen Isabella’s interim administration at the end of 1326, Anthony Verdyn on a petitioning case of 1336, and David Crook on building work at Clipstone Manor, 1348-50.

This magnificent festschrift is a worthy tribute to John Maddicott’s career and a genuinely indispensable work on government and administration in medieval England.