10 - A self-confident age: the Abbey in the thirteenth century

Summary

After the high drama of the previous century, the period from 1208 until 1296 was a time of comparative tranquillity and institutional consolidation. During these years the Abbey was ruled over by just four abbots. The first of these, Walter Loring (1208–22), responded astutely to the political crisis that played out during the final years of King John’s reign and greatly increased the Abbey's resources without resort to external patronage. Loring was opportunistic and skilfully exploited the weakness of John's position during the baronial rebellion of 1215–16. On 18 July 1215 the king was in Oxford. He had agreed to Magna Carta just one month earlier, but this had not brought an end to his troubles. When John reached Oxford, he was preparing for war and needed money and supporters. Shortly after arriving the king agreed to sell the castle and borough of Malmesbury, together with control of the three local hundred courts, to Loring. In return for these assets, the abbot made an immediate payment of 60 marks, pledging an annual contribution of £20 to the Crown as a so-called ‘fee farm’.

This was an extremely good deal for the Abbey which obtained, for the first time, ownership of most of the houses in the town, profits from local justice, control of the castle and the right to levy a range of additional fees on townsfolk – such as ‘landgable’ and ‘churchscot’ – that were previously due to the Crown. The clauses relating to the castle were explicitly advantageous to the Abbey: the king, not the abbot, was responsible for the cost of garrisoning the place ‘should there be war in England’. Arguably, the property rights in Malmesbury were not John's to sell because ever since his accession he had been involved in a bitter dispute with the dowager queen, Berengaria, widow of his brother, Richard the Lionheart. Berengaria claimed the profits from Crown holdings in Malmesbury and much else besides, as part of her dower income: in effect, her widow's pension. To compound this problem further, John had also granted the income from Malmesbury to his wife, Isabella of Angoulême, following their marriage in 1200. It seems that John sold the borough of Malmesbury while ignoring the claims of his sister-in-law and without seeking the agreement of his wife.

The destruction of Malmesbury Castle

Things went badly for John in the year that followed the grant of 1215.