Medieval Chester

Definitions of the extent of the "Medieval Period" vary. According to some definitions the medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the Post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. In this article the period is taken as starting with the Norman Conquest (1066) and ending with the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485). This corresponds roughly to the High Middle Ages, ending around 1250, which is also the time of the Norman Earls of Chester, and the Late Middle Ages

High Middle Ages
The later Dark Ages had seen a Carolingian Renaissance which stimulated scientific and philosophical activity in Northern Europe. The Vikings settled in the British Isles, France and elsewhere, and Norse Christian "kingdoms" started developing in their Scandinavian homelands, and, notably, in Normandy where a hybrid of the Viking and Carolingian/Frankish heritage emerged. Chester emerged from the Dark Ages as a place of some importance. Exactly how it did this is a matter of some conjecture, and events at Chester in 900 are discussed in another article. In brief the Vikings raided it, Æthelflæd restored it, Edward the Elder died at Farndon. The Battle of Brunanburh was most likely fought nearby. Edgar the Pacific used it as an important naval base and for his ceremonial boat trip from Edgar's Field. The family of Leofric and his son Ælfgar had an important power-base here.

By 1066 Chester was a prosperous town with a population of perhaps 2,500-3,000. Rendering a farm of £45 and three timber of marten pelts (i.e. 120 skins), together with an additional payment from the moneyers operating the mint, it was assessed as a half hundred including the adjacent townships of Handbridge, Newton by Chester, 'Lee' (Overleigh and Netherleigh), and 'Redcliff', expressly said to be 'outside the city' but taxed with it. The city had its own laws and customs, administered by its hundredal court, over which presided 12 judges or doomsmen (iudices civitatis) drawn from the men of king, earl, and bishop, and liable to fines payable to the king and earl for failure to attend. The judges have been regarded as evidence of Scandinavian influence on the city's institutions and equated with the 'lawmen' (lagemen or iudices) of certain boroughs in the Danelaw. There is, however, no indication that they enjoyed the same status as the lawmen, who had extensive properties and judicial privileges. Indeed the laws of Chester, which were recorded in Domesday Book in exceptional detail, suggest that, as in other western towns dominated by a great local magnate, the status of its citizens was comparatively low. They were obliged to pay 10s. on taking up land in the city, and were also liable to heavy fines for failure to pay gavel or rent and for other misdemeanours.

Harold Godwinson traditionally has an association with Chester through the probable myth that he was the initial hermit who inhabited the Hermitage. Another important link to Chester is that the lands which became associated with the Earldom of Chester were to a significant extent - about 30% - those which had previously belonged to Harold. The historical reality is, if anything, more interesting. By the time of the reign of Edward the Confessor a huge rivalty had developed between Harold's family and that of Ælfgar. The wars in Wales during the middle years of Edward the Confessor can almost be seen as a "proxy war" between the Godwins and the House of Leofric which Edwin and Harold seem to have largely resolved. In the process Harold married Edith (or Ealdgyth), daughter of Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia, and widow of the Welsh prince Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. Edith had one son, named Harold, probably born posthumously. Another of Harold's sons, Ulf, may have been a twin of the younger Harold, though most historians consider him a son of Edyth Swannesha. Both these sons survived into adulthood and probably lived out their lives in exile. After her husband's death, Ealdgyth fled for refuge to her brothers, Edwin, Earl of Mercia and Morcar of Northumbria, but both men made their peace with King William initially before rebelling. Traditionally she is said to have given birth to Harold's postumous son, another Harold, in Chester.

By the spring of 1070, having secured the submission of Waltheof and Gospatric in Northumbria, and driven Edgar the Outlaw and his remaining supporters back to Scotland, William the Conqueror returned to Mercia. At times William's own troops were close to revolt as when William set out across the Pennines, in "rain and hail", to deal with "the Welsh and the men of Chester". For more on this see: Devastation of Cheshire. The extent to which Cheshire was "devastated" has been the subject of specific debate. To a large part the story of the devastation arises from the writings of Edward Augustus Freeman who was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, in 1884. Rather like Charles Kingsley, who had held a similar position at Cambridge after 1860, Freeman subscribed to an "Anglo-Saxonist" view of history, with the English being an essentially germanic people who had suffered incidental inconvenience at the hands of the French, but had overcome the odds to (in his view rightfully) rule the world. It was this perspective which coloured much of the then view of the characters involved in the events leading up to and surrounding the Norman Conquest, making Earl Godwin (who had been involved in the blinding and death of at least one heir) a defender of democracy, and creating the fiction that the "witan" was some form of parliament akin to the Victorian one, and that the Victorian parliament was above any corruption.

William based himself at Chester and crushed all remaining resistance in the area before returning to the south which had been raided by a Danish fleet. The new Chester Castle enhanced Chester's role as a military and administrative centre, and it quickly became the base for expeditions against both the Welsh and, in the 12th century, the Irish.

The Norman dynasty ruled England from the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, until 1154. They were followed by the House of Plantagenet (House of Anjou, or Angevin dynasty) originally a noble family from France, which had ruled Anjou and ruled England from 1154 to 1485. During this period the Earls of Chester wielded considerable political power, and at time opposed the crown, but afterwards their line died out the Earldom was held by the heir to the throne. The Victorian stained glass windows above the staircase in Chester Town Hall depict Gherbod the Fleming, who was (according to some accounts) given the Earldom of Chester by William the Conqueror, and the seven Norman Earls of Chester; Hugh of Avranches (c.1077-1101); Richard of Avranches (1101-20); Ranulf de Meschines (1120-28); Ranulph De Gernon (1128-53); Hugh de Kevelioc (1153-81); Ranulf de Blondeville (1181-1232); and John Canmore (1232-37). Some of the Earls had an enormous impact on British politics, but we know comparatively little about their activities at Chester, or other events in the city.

The primary local source for the early medieval is the "Annals of Chester" which covers the period from AD 1 until AD 1297, i.e. from well before it was actually compiled until a fairly short time after the last of the Norman Earls. An e-book version cann be found here.

Gherbod the Fleming
At some point Gherbod the Fleming was in control of Chester for the Normans but it is not clear whether he was a full earl or not. A footnote in Gerald of Wales tells it thus:


 * "The first earl of Chester after the Norman conquest, was Gherbod, a Fleming, who, having obtained leave from king William to go into Flanders for the purpose of arranging some family concerns, was taken and detained a prisoner by his enemies; upon which the conqueror bestowed the earldom of Chester on Hugh de Abrincis or of Avranches, "to hold as freely by the sword, as the king himself did England by the crown."

By 1071, the value of recoverable taxes had reduced to £30 and Chester was described as 'greatly wasted'. Of 487 houses standing in 1066, 205 had been lost and were perhaps not rebuilt before 1086. One can again question whether this is a consequence of "devastation" or simply the large numbers of agricultural workers who had been killed in the recent conflicts, such as the slaughter of Edwin and Morcar's levies at Fulford. Just because a manor was classed as "waste" (unexploited or unprofitable) after the Norman Conquest does not mean that it became "waste" as a consequence of that conquest - it could equally well be that the defence against the Norse invasion prior to Stamford Bridge had taken a massive toll on the farmers of Cheshire. The eventual increase in the taxation of the city under Earl Hugh of Avranches to £70 and a mark of gold (about its pre-conquest level) may (according to some historians) indicate more burdensome exactions rather than returning prosperity, although the resources were clearly available in Chester to build a castle and start work on a new cathedral at St Johns. It is unlikely that when Peter de Leia moved his See to Chester in 1075 that he would have done so if the region was a ravaged wasteland. It is also worth remembering that desolating land which one intends to settle with one's own supporters as a "reward" hardly makes sense.

The office of the Sheriff of Chester seems to have existed since around 1070, far longer than the office of mayor, and is the first mention of such a role in any English borough. The duties of the sheriff included policing and the collection of tolls and taxes. The sheriff probably presided over the courts.

It appears that Gherbod dissapeared from the scene about 1071 and it is worth looking at what else was happening at the time. William and his wife Matilda had at least nine children, with the youngest Robert being born between 1051 and 1054. In 1063, his father made him the Count of Maine in view of his engagement to Margaret the heiress, and Robert may have had independent rule in Maine despite his youth. Norman control of Maine secured the southern border of Normandy against Anjou and is one factor which enabled William to launch his successful invasion of England in 1066. Maine remained under Norman control until 1069 when the town of Le Mans revolted and reverted to Hugh V of Maine. Orderic Vitalis said of Hugh V: "he was, indeed, an imbecile, a coward, and an idler, and totally unfit to hold the reins of government in so high a station".

Meanwhile, in England William faced problems with a revolt by Edwin and Morcar followed by Edgar the Ætheling rising in revolt and joining forces with the Danes. Although Edgar fled and Sweyn II promised to leave England after being paid off, Sweyn returned in spring 1070, raiding along the Humber and East Anglia toward the Isle of Ely, where he joined up with Hereward the Wake, a local thegn. Hereward's forces attacked Peterborough Abbey, which they captured and looted. William was able to secure the second departure of Sweyn and his fleet in 1070, allowing him to return to the continent to deal with his troubles in Maine. Yet another concern was the death of Count Baldwin VI of Flanders in July 1070, which led to a succession crisis as his widow, Richilde, was ruling for their two young sons, Arnulf and Baldwin. Her rule, however, was contested by Robert, Baldwin's brother. Richilde proposed marriage to William fitzOsbern, who was in Normandy, and fitzOsbern accepted. But after he was killed in February 1071 at the Battle of Cassel, Robert became count. He was opposed to King William's power on the continent, thus the Battle of Cassel upset the balance of power in northern France in addition to costing William an important supporter. Cassel also seems to have been where Gherbod was captured.

William's position was precarious, but it had been so before and while many a lesser man might have been overstretched that was not the case with William. His creation of a Palatinate at Chester gave him a powerful ally and removed the possibility of a further revolt there as well as providing a strong defence against invasion from Wales. The palatine status of Cheshire would persist for centuries. It gave the Earl almost king-like power, and, save for treason, placed it outside of the jurisdiction of the English courts and taxation systems. It had its own independent baronies, and "parliament", and save for the fact that the earl was a vassal of the king, was in many ways a semi-independent state. The earldom of Chester was both powerful and lucrative. It was also independent of William's family, so if his sons turned-out to be less than competent rulers, or William died before they were mature, there would be a large and hopefully stable ally to bolster his realm.

Hugh of Avranches
Hugh of Avranches was given a Palatine county with the power to make and break any law save treason partly in return for his father bankrolling Duke William's Invasion in 1066, Hugh built castles in England and made a poor job of invading Wales. He managed to arrange the marriage of his son into the monarchs family, but this was to end in tragedy. The Grosvenors claimed to be descended from him. There are several versions of this story. The one the Grosvenors themselves first put forward (in 1389) is that their ancestor was Gilbert (Gros) Venour, who they claimed was a cousin of Hugh. There is very little evidence that Gilbert actually existed. The Welsh called him Hugh Flaidd (Hugh the Wolf or Hugh Lupus) and a wolf's head appears on his arms. In an 1086 engraving of the coat of arms the artist has gave the head of the wolf a wide grin, which might be mistaken for that of a cat - this has been suggested as the origin of the Cheshire Cat. As regards Hugh, Hemingway quotes the following:


 * He was, "saith Ordericus, not only liberal, but profuse; he did not carry a family with him, but an army. He kept no account of receipts or disbursements. He was perpetually wasting his estates; and was much fonder of falconers and huntsmen, than of cultivators of land, and holy men, and by his gluttony he grew so excessively fat, that he could hardly crawl about.



Hugh had some misadventures in Wales with the half-Viking Gruffydd ap Cynan - who, despite having been imprisoned for some years at Chester Castle - outlived Hugh (who died in 1101) and lasted until 1137. Gruffydd was captured in 1081 when he was enticed to a meeting with Hugh and the Earl of Shrewsbury (probably Roger) at Rug, near Corwen. According to his biographer this was by the treachery of one of his own men, Meirion Goch. Gruffydd was imprisoned at Chester Castle for many years (some say ten, others 12, others 16). In his effort to consolidate control over Gwynedd, Earl Hugh of Chester forced the election of Hervé the Breton upon the Bangor diocese in 1092, with Hervé's consecration as Bishop of Bangor performed by Thomas of Bayeux, then Archbishop of York. Also in 1092, at Hugh of Avranches's third invitation Anselm of Bec came from France to England to found the Benedictine Abbey at Chester. Alselm had spent some time in Avranches in 1060 before entering the abbey of Bec as a novice - and it is possible that he met Hugh then. The new abbey was not the only Norman church-building being progressed in Chester at the time. In 1075 Peter de Leia, bishop of Lichfield (consecrated in 1067) had removed his episcopal see to St Johns Church at Chester and planned a huge new church. One theory as to why this was done is that the bishop saw some scope for extending his bishopric into North Wales, which was then being conquered by Hugh. Another reason is given by Henry de Knyghton - a council was held in London, under the presidency of archbishop Lanfranc, at which it was deemed expedient to transfer the sees of the Bishops from villages and small towns to more significant towns. William of Malmesbury gives the same explanation. Thus, while Hugh was largely independent from the the state, the church had planted a new bishop at his doorstep and he may have promoted the local cult of Werburgh (by bringing in the Benedictines) as a reaction to this.

Hugh lost Anglesey and much of the rest of Gwynedd in the Welsh revolt of 1094, led by Gruffydd ap Cynan, who had escaped from captivity at Chester. By late 1095 the uprising had spread to many parts of Wales. This induced the then king William II of England (William Rufus) to intervene, invading northern Wales in 1095. However his army was unable to bring the Welsh to battle and returned to Chester without having achieved very much. In 1098, the next Norman attempt to conquer north Wales suffered a severe setback. Florence of Worcester records that, in 1098, Hugh of Chester and Hugh de Montgommery Earl of Shrewsbury led troops into Anglesey and their furious 'victory celebrations' which followed were exceptionally violent, with rape and carnage committed by the Norman army left unchecked. The earl of Shrewsbury had an elderly priest mutilated, and "made the church of Llandyfrydog a kennel for his dogs". Gruffydd ap Cynan had retreated to Anglesey, but then was forced to flee to Ireland when a fleet he had hired from the Danish settlement in Ireland changed sides. Then, a Norwegian fleet under the command of King Magnus III of Norway, also known as "Magnus Barefoot", attacked the Norman forces near the eastern end of the Menai Straits. Hugh of Shrewsbury was killed by an arrow. The Normans were thus obliged to evacuate Anglesey, and the following year (1099) Gruffydd ap Cynan returned from Ireland to take possession again. Hugh apparently made an agreement with Gruffydd and did not again try to recover these lands.

Robert, William Rufus and Henry
William was probably right to be concerned about his sons. In 1077, the twenty-something Robert instigated his first insurrection against his father as the result of a prank played by his younger brothers William Rufus and Henry, who had dumped a full chamber-pot over his head. Robert was enraged and, urged on by his companions, started a brawl with his brothers that was only interrupted by the intercession of their father. Feeling that his dignity was wounded, Robert was further angered when King William failed to punish his brothers. The next day Robert and his followers attempted to seize the castle of Rouen. The siege failed, but, when King William ordered their arrest, Robert and his companions took refuge with Hugh of Chateauneuf-en-Thymerais. They were forced to flee again when King William attacked their base at Rémalard. Robert fled to Flanders to the court of his uncle Robert I, Count of Flanders, before plundering the county of the Vexin and causing such mayhem that his father King William allied himself with King Philip I of France to stop his rebellious son. In 1087, William died of wounds suffered from a riding accident during a siege of Mantes - he had been thrown against the pommel of his saddle such that "his intestines burst" and died a lingering death while reportedly wanted to disinherit his eldest son, but was persuaded to divide the Norman dominions between his two eldest sons. To Robert he granted the Duchy of Normandy and to William Rufus he granted the Kingdom of England. The youngest son Henry was given money to buy land. Of the two elder sons Robert was considered to be much the weaker and was generally preferred by the nobles who held lands on both sides of the English Channel since they could more easily circumvent his authority. Robert was also useless when it came to money. He quickly exhausted his inherited wealth and at one point he was so poor that he had to remain in bed due to a lack of clothes. William Rufus was the more capable. Henry was almost completely sidelined.

The peace did not last: the barons in England joined with Robert to displace Rufus in the Rebellion of 1088. It was not a success, in part because Robert never showed up to support the English rebels. Robert's son Richard seems to have spent much of his life at the royal court of his uncle William Rufus. This Richard was killed in a hunting "accident" in the New Forest in 1100 as was his uncle, King William Rufus, the same year. Following William's "accidental" death William's third son (who was in the same area when the accident happened) seized the conveniently close royal treasure, arranged a speedy coronation and became Henry I. In 1101 Robert led an invasion to oust his younger brother Henry. He landed at Portsmouth with his army, but the lack of popular support among the English (Anselm, the archbishop of Canterbury, was decidedly against him and the Charter of Liberties issued at Henry's coronation was well liked) as well as Robert's own mishandling of the invasion tactics enabled Henry to resist the invasion. Robert was forced by diplomacy to renounce his claim to the English throne in the Treaty of Alton. In 1105, however, Robert's continual stirring of discord with his brother in England as well as civil disorder in Normandy itself prompted Henry to invade Normandy. In 1106, Henry defeated Robert's army decisively at the Battle of Tinchebray and claimed Normandy as a possession of the English crown, a situation that endured for almost a century. Captured after the battle, Robert was imprisoned in Devizes Castle in Wiltshire for twenty years before being moved to Cardiff. In 1134, Robert died in Cardiff Castle in his early eighties.

Hugh and Henry
Focussing on the role of Chester, Earl Hugh of Chester remained loyal to William II during the rebellion of 1088. The rebels were led by William the Conqueror's half-brothers Odo of Bayeux and Robert, Count of Mortain, with Odo the stronger of the two and the leader. Among King William's initial supporters were all the bishops of England, a few major magnates including Alan Rufus (in the east of England north of London up to Yorkshire), William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey (from Sussex to Yorkshire) and Hugh of Avranches and lesser tenants-in-chief such as Robert Fitzhamon and Walter D'Aincourt. However, the rebels' ranks were made up many of the most powerful barons in England: of the ten largest baronial landholders in the Domesday Book, six were counted amongst the rebels. In a stroke of luck for the king, the troops Robert was sending from Normandy were driven back by bad weather on the seas. Meanwhile, the king, together with some of his allies took Rochester Castle in Kent, and with Robert's failure to arrive, the rebels were forced to surrender and the rebellion was over. Hugh also sided with Wiliam Rufus in 1091 when William and Robert plotted to deprive their younger brother Henry of his lands. Henry had appealed to Hugh for help, but weighing up the relative strengths of the forces involved, sided with Rufus. However Hugh also had some advice for young Henry and suggested that he take up a defensive position at Mont Saint-Michel. Henry hung-on while his brothers quarrelled and finally reached a surrender deal which saved his life but drove him into impverished exile. At times during the next years Henry drops out of the records completely although he was probably assisted by Earl Hugh. He resurfaces in Domfront and soon became one of William Rufus' most capable commanders.

The circumstances of the death of William Rufus are suspicious, especially given the death of Robert's son Richard in similar circumstances just a few months before. William of Malmesbury gave a version of what happened:


 * "The day before the king died he dreamt that he went to hell and the Devil said to him "I can't wait for tomorrow because we can finally meet in person!". He suddenly awoke. He commanded a light to be brought, and forbade his attendants to leave him. The next day he went into the forest... He was attended by a few persons... Walter Thurold remained with him, while the others, were on the chase. The sun was now declining, when the king, drawing his bow and letting fly an arrow, slightly wounded a stag which passed before him... The stag was still running... The king, followed it a long time with his eyes, holding up his hand to keep off the power of the sun's rays. At this instant Walter decided to kill another stag. Oh, gracious God! the arrow pierced the king's breast."

With Robert away on crusade, and both Robert's son Richard and William Rufus dead by a "hunting accident" (both by the same means in the same forest) the later Henry I turned up in Winchester just in time to claim the royal treasury. Tirel fled to France. It was left to a local charcoal-burner named Purkis to take the king's body to Winchester Cathedral on his cart. William Rufus was buried in the crossing under the spire, which promptly collapsed on his grave. In November 1100 King Henry married Matilda, the daughter of Edgar the Ætheling’s sister by the former King Malcolm of Scotland. It was one way of cementing his claim to his deceased brother's throne: she was the great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside and henceforth descended from Alfred the Great. The chroniclers soon went to work on the dead William Rufus: Orderic Vitalis stated:


 * "He never had a lawful wife, but gave himself up insatiably to obscene fornications and repeated adulteries. Stained with sins, he set a culpable example of shameful debauchery to his subjects."

By this time Earl Hugh of Chester was approaching the end of his life and was probably quite ill. His son and heir was a minor and so did not have to choose sides in the contest between Robert and Henry. His support of Henry I had placed the Conqueror's youngest and probably most capable son on the throne. He had established the Dee Mills, started on Chester Castle and founded an Abbey which would eventually become the Cathedral.

Richard of Avranches
Born in 1094, he was seven when he inherited his father's vast estates (1101). In 1120, aged 26 he was drowned on the wreck of the White Ship.

Richard was as good as familly to Henry I. He was brought up at his court almost as an adopted son or nephew. The young Richard's Earldom comprised the most powerful block of land in private hands in England, with estates in thirty counties besides his core holdings in Cheshire. At the age of twenty, in 1114, Richard was on military campaign and was styled the Earl of Chester. Together with King Alexander of Scotland, he led an Anglo-Norman army into Gwynedd as part of a three-pronged campaign organised by Henry I of England against Gwynedd, and Gruffudd ap Cynan. Gruffudd, rather than risk battle (and now approaching 60), satisfied the King with an oath of homage and a suitable fine. The campaign soon fizzled out, and Richard returned to Chester. Orderic Vitalis described him as "a young man of great valor and notable kindness". Henry of Huntingdon wrote how Richard had been


 * "brought up in the greatest of splendour in the full expectation of being his father's distinguished heir [while] still a beardless youth"

King Henry I had at least a dozen children, but only two were with his wife Matilda of Scotland, a daughter also named Matilda and a son named William Adelin (born 1103). The rest of his children were born to his mistresses, although Henry treated his illegitimate sons and daughters very well and gave them important positions in his government. William, as his only legitimate son, stood to inherit his kingdom. With the recent agreement between Henry and the French king, and the marriage of William with the eldest daughter of Count Fulk V of Anjou a year earlier, it now seemed that his son would face no obstacles in inheriting the Anglo-Norman empire. Thus Henry's hopes for his succession rested upon William, who was, according to Henry of Huntingdon, "a prince so pampered" that he seemed "destined to be food for the fire."

William died in the White Ship tragedy of 25 November 1120. The teen-age William and his companions had been crossing the English Channel from Barfleur in the Blanche-Nef, the swiftest and most modern ship in the royal fleet. William and his party had remained drinking on the shore until after dark, confident that in a fast ship and on the still sea the delay would have no real effect. Consequently, it was the middle of the night when the drunken helmsman rammed the ship into a rock in the bay. It was the Titanic of the Medieval period - a much praised vessel at the forefront of technology and on its maiden voyage (after a refit). It was wrecked against a foreseeable natural hazard in the reckless pursuit of speed suggested by an influential passenger, while sailing in the moonless dark. The passengers constituted the cream of high society, thrown into the chilly waters with insufficient lifeboats.

The crew and passengers could not lever the ship off the rock, or prevent the ship from filling with water. William and several of his friends managed to launch a life-dinghy. At the last minute, William dashed back to rescue his illegitimate half-sister, Matilda FitzRoy, Countess of Perche. When they and several others threw themselves into the small dinghy, William of Malmesbury would write:


 * "overcharged by the multitude that leapt into her, capsized and sank and buried all indiscriminately in the deep."

Henry of Huntingdon, speaking of the disaster, wrote that William,


 * "instead of wearing embroidered robes…floated naked in the waves, and instead of ascending a lofty throne…found his grave at the bottom of the sea."

Richard’s death presented the Welsh with an opportunity to abolish the Norman’s entrance into northern Wales and secure it for themselves, and in 1121 the Welsh marched on Chester and took advantage of the earl’s death. The Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera et Collectarea reads:


 * "The sons of the Welsh king heard about the drowning of Richard Earl of Chester and set fire to two castles, killing many. Some places of the county were heavily plundered".

The attack was led by Maredudd ap Bleddyn with three of Cadwgan ap Bleddyn’s sons. Although rebellions by the Welsh were not uncommon, they were usually dealt with swiftly by the respective earls but as Richard’s death was the catalyst, Henry may have felt the need to make an example of this rebellion. Henry led a substantial army into north Wales in June 1121, and although the king’s army was attacked by a group of archers with Henry himself being hit, Henry arranged a meeting with Maredudd. The negotiations ended with Henry leaving Wales with gifts and hostages paid by the Welsh prince. When Henry I died in 1135 the Welsh saw that there was a succession crisis looming and revolted again.

The White ship disaster was a catalyst for many devastating events which would shape the twelfth century and beyond. The succession crisis led directly to the period of history known as "The Anarchy". As William of Malmesbury wrote:


 * "no ship that ever sailed brought England such disaster, none was so well known the wide world over"

It is possible that King Henry I saw Richard Earl of Chester as a role model for his son, but we know little of the relationship between the two. On the eve of the wreck Richard was 26 and Prince William was 17. Henry's court was initially too scared to report William's death to the King. When he was finally told, he collapsed with grief. Henry's alliance with Anjou – which had been based on his son William marrying Fulk's daughter Matilda – began to disintegrate.

Ranulf de Meschines
With the Earldom of Chester vacant and no sons of Richard, king Henry needed to replace the earl but there was an obvious successor, Ranulf de Meschines (1070−1129) the son of the sister of Hugh of Avranche, who was by this time aged 51. Ranulf had served the English king as a kind of semi-independent governor in the border counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, though he lacked the formal status of being called such. One historian has suggested that Ranulf's father Ranulf de Briquessart was one of the early close companions of Prince Henry, the future Henry I and that a young Ranulf de Meschines may have helped negotiate Henry's freedom in 1089.

Merely four days before the disaster, Ranulf and cousin Richard had witnessed a charter together at Cerisy. One writer has suggested that Ranulf arranged the wreck of the White Ship to further his own prospects by bringing about the death of Richard of Avranches. It is a good plot but unlikely to be true. Ranulf was not simply given the earldom, but had to surrender the bulk of the lands of his wife, Lucy and his own lands at Carlisle.

De Meschines was keen on hunting. He created Alan Sylvester chief forester of the forest of Wirral and granted to him the manors of Hooton, Storeton and Puddington to hold, upon condition that he performed the duties of forester and in addition that he blew or caused to be blown a horn at the Gloverstone in Chester on the morning of every fair day. The succession of the forester's was complex, but eventually gave rise to the Stanley's who would play an important role at the end of the Medieval period. Around 1125 Wiliam of Malmesbury noted the trade between Ireland and Chester and commented that it was the "toil of merchants" which supplied the corn which could not be grown locally. The industries which supported this commerce were brewing, milling and fishing as well as tanning, leather working and potting. Chester was also noted for the export of salt and possibly cheese.

Ranulf de Meschines died in 1129, just short of his 60th birthday. Gruffudd ap Cynan was old and probably going blind, but would live on until 1137 when he would die in bed aged 81-82.

Ranulph De Gernon
Ranulph was born in 1099 and became Earl of Chester in 1128 in his late twenties. He lived until 1153 and managed to fill his time with a good deal of fighting.

Henry I died, aged about 73, on 1 December 1135 of food poisoning from eating "a surfeit of lampreys" (of which he was excessively fond) at Saint-Denis-en-Lyons (now Lyons-la-Forêt) in Normandy. His remains (after the extraction of the brains and intestines) were sewn into the hide of a bull to preserve them on the journey, and then taken back to England. A later writer recorded:


 * "the man, indeed, who had been hired, at great expense, to extract the brain, became infected, as it is said, from the intolerable stench and died."

An unfavourable thumbnail sketch of Stephen is given by Walter Map (who wrote during the reign of Matilda's son Henry II):


 * "A man of a certain age, remarkably hard-working but otherwise a nonentity [idiota] or perhaps rather inclined to evil."

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Peterborough Chronicle, second continuation) provides a more favourable picture of Stephen, but depicts a turbulent reign:-


 * "In the days of this King there was nothing but strife, evil, and robbery, for quickly the great men who were traitors rose against him. When the traitors saw that Stephen was a good-humoured, kindly, and easy-going man who inflicted no punishment, then they committed all manner of horrible crimes . . . And so it lasted for nineteen years while Stephen was King, till the land was all undone and darkened with such deeds, and men said openly that Christ and his angels slept".

In 1153 Henry — by then Stephen's accepted heir — granted Staffordshire to Ranulf. That year, whilst Ranulf was a guest at the house of William Peverel the Younger, his host attempted to kill him with poisoned wine. Three of his men who had drunk the wine died, while Ranulf suffered agonizing pain. A few months later Henry became king and exiled Peverel from England as punishment. Ranulf succumbed to the poison on 16 December 1153

Hugh de Kevelioc
Hugh of Kevelioc (born 1147), was also known as Hugh le Meschin. He succeeded to the titles of Vicomte d'Avranches and Earl of Chester on 16 December 1153 (aged 6). He joined the revolt against King Henry II in 1173, was captured and deprived of his Earldom, but was then restored in January 1177. He died in 1181 in his late 30's, leaving a young heir (Ranulf de Blondeville) aged 9. The cause of his relatively early death is not recorded.

Late Middle Ages
A convenient local boundary between the High Medieval and the Late Medieval is the aquisition of the Earldom of Chester by the crown. Some histories suggest that the Earldom reverted to the Crown in 1237 on the death of John the Scot (aged 30). However, the reversion was not as simple as most histories describe. William de Forz (Latinised as de Fortibus, sometimes spelt Deforce), 4th Earl of Albemarle, (died 1260) claimed that, as a Palatinate, it could not be divided, and his wife should get it as the oldest coheir. William got the title, but the court decided that the lands should be divided. However, he and his wife (Christina (d. 1246), daughter and co-heiress of Alan, Lord of Galloway) quitclaimed the earldom to Henry III in 1241 in exchange for modest lands elsewhere. So the last Earl of Chester may be described as William de Forz, and he held the title for four years, only a little less than John the Scot. William de Forz played a conspicuous part in the reign of Henry III of England, notably in the "Mad Parliament" of 1258. William's father died in 1241 on a ship on the Mediterranean, was described as "a feudal adventurer of the worst type" and was excommunicated end 1215 and also 1221!

The Earldom was formally annexed to the Crown in 1246 when the rest of the honour of Chester (the land) was bought from the rest of Ranulph's sisters by Henry III. King Henry III passed the Lordship of Chester, but not the title of Earl, to his son the Lord Edward in 1254, and as King Edward I he conferred the title and the lands of the Earldom first on son, Edward, the first English Prince of Wales. By that time the Earldom of Chester consisted of two counties: Cheshire and Flintshire.

The Wars of the Roses
In 1403, Sir Henry Percy ('Hotspur'), lately justice of Chester, stayed in the city and raised the standard of revolt there, where former kings men and veterans of the Cheshire Guard, the household guard of the the deceased & dethroned ‘Good King Richard’, King Richard II, still resided by the hundreds.. Percy formed an alliance with the Welsh rebel, Owain Glyndŵr. Before they could join forces, Hotspur was defeated and killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury as he raised his visor to get some air (he was wearing full plate) and was hit in the mouth with an arrow. Legislation of 1403, vigorously supported by the mayor of Chester, denied any arms to the Welsh - except a knife to eat with. It is from this time that the Shoot the Welsh story comes from In the weeks following the Battle of Shrewsbury the insecurity of both the new dynasty and some of the city authorities (i.e. those who had been on the King's side at the battle) was demonstrated in the instructions issued by Prince Henry in response to further defections in north Wales. On September 4, 1403, he wrote to the Mayor, Sheriffs and Aldermen of the City of Chester, who were required to impose a curfew upon all Welshmen visiting Chester, and to ensure that they left their arms at the city gates and did not gather in groups of more than three; all Welsh residents were expelled and any who stayed overnight were threatened with execution. Apparently, the actual wording was that: "all manner of Welsh persons or Welsh sympathies should be expelled from the city; that no Welshman should enter the city before sunrise or tarry in it after sunset, under pain of decapitation.". A local story is that it is still legal to "shoot the Welsh" (it isn't!).

In 1455 Queen Margret may have visited Chester to gather support for the Royalist cause. It appears that Thomas Stanley, Constable & Justice of Chester, mobilized a large force from Cheshire to help the Lancastrian cause (but arrived too late for the Battle of St Albans to be of help). Richard, Duke of York became Earl of Chester in 1460 despite the fact that Edward of Westminster was still alive: "Also it was ordeyned by the sayde parlement, that the sayde Rychard duk of York shold be called Prince of Wales, duke of Cornewayle, and erle of Chestre; and [he] was made also by the sayde parlement protectoure of Englond.". Shortly thereafter Richard was killed at the Battle of Wakefield.



Although relations with the crown cooled and (not least from the election of a Welsh mayor) there seems to have been much sympathy with Wales in Chester. Prior to his return, the Stanleys had been communicating with the exiled Henry Tudor for some time and Tudor's strategy of landing in Wales and heading east into central England depended on the acquiescence of Sir William Stanley, as Chamberlain of Chester and north Wales, and by extension on that of Lord Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby himself. On hearing of the invasion, Richard III ordered the two Stanley's to raise the men of the region in readiness to oppose the invader. However, once it was clear that Tudor was marching unopposed through Wales, Richard ordered Lord Stanley to join him without delay. According to the Crowland Chronicle, Lord Stanley then excused himself on the grounds of illness, the 'sweating sickness'. The Stanley's did turn up for the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485), but stood by waiting to see who was likely to win before pitching in - which was unfortunate for Richard III. The Stanley's are remembered in Chester by Stanley Palace.

In Summary: Medieval Chester
Medieval Chester housed no industry of national importance and, as a west-facing port, was unable to participate in Continental trade to any significant extent. The city's economy was broadly based but its activities were small in scale and none, with the possible exception of Tanning dominated. Although Chester did not share the spectacular success enjoyed by towns more closely associated with the wool and cloth trades, it was spared the consequences of the dramatic slumps in those industries. Even so, for much of the period the city was far from prosperous, and occasionally, as in the 1450s, in considerable decay. The period was marked by much feuding between city factions. Chester's ships were small and the port was unfavorably located for trading with England's main markets overseas (except Ireland). Silting of the Dee continued, and the increasingly bigger ships could not make it upriver to Chester and so the port continued it's long decline. In 1484 the citizens claimed that Chester had no merchant ship of its own and that the port was "wholly destroyed" because no merchant ship had been able to approach within 12 miles for 60 years. Only two years later (1486) the citizens claimed that the city was "thoroughly ruined .. nearly one quarter destroyed because access for shipping had been impossible for 200 years".

The end of the Middle Ages co-incides with several major social and economic events which were to have far-reaching consequences. The Americas were discovered and the use of gunpowder became wide-spread, changing the nature of war. Ships increased in size, draft and range. Vastly different cultures came into direct contact, enabling the rapid growth of empires and contributing to the re-emergence of significant slave economies. Movable type enabled the rapid production of books, pamphlets and other printed works which were eventually to contribute to the undermining of the power of the church and the Reformation.

Exploring Medieval Chester
The best preserved relics of the period are found as parts of Chester Castle, the Cathedral and St Johns. The Rows are medieval in origin but much altered.

Related Pages

 * Earls of Chester: William I created the "Honor of Chester" from the landed estates of dozens of pre-Conquest owners. This concentration of ownership within a single county was unique in Domesday's time and the only other lords which came close were Roger of Montgomery (Shropshire) and Williams half-brother Robert of Mortain (Cornwall);


 * Suspension Bridge: The 1923 bridge is adorned with the arms of the Earls, one slight problem being that there is a disagreement between the arms allocated on the bridge and those given elsewhere with two coats being interchanged and one wrong as well;


 * Chester Castle: one of the few castles in England or Wales that has been in constant use since first erected;


 * Cheshire Castles: Norman castles were built on dry ground which generally lay on the English side of the border partly defined by the River Dee;


 * Courts: one peculiar characteristic of Chester was its largely independent courts system;


 * St Johns: contains the best and most coherent Norman architecture in Chester;


 * Cathedral: also has some Norman work;


 * Royal Treasure: Richard II kept much of his wealth near Chester;

Online

 * General History Index;
 * Medieval Chester;

Chester in Other Historical Periods



 * Before The Romans;
 * Roman Chester;
 * Dark Ages;
 * Medieval Chester;
 * Tudor Chester;
 * Stuart Chester and Civil War;
 * Georgian Chester;
 * Victorian Chester;