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, where he 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. 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.

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.

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.

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. The county remained under Norman control until 1069 when the county revolted and reverted to Hugh V of Maine. Orderic Vitalis said of him "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, he 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 departure of Sweyn and his fleet in 1070, allowing him to return to the continent to deal with his troubles in Maine, where the town of Le Mans had revolted in 1069. 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.

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.

Hugh of Avranches
Hugh of Avranches was given a Palatine county with the power to make and break any law save treason in return for 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. 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.

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. 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.

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[6] 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.

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.

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;