Administrative efficiency in fourteenth-century England: the delivery of writs based on evidence from the register of Bishop Martival

Abstract

During his episcopate of Salisbury (from 1315 until 1330), Robert Martival kept a careful note of all the royal writs he received. In most cases he noted the date on which a writ arrived and where he received it. He also registered the date on which the writ had been authorized and where the authorization was agreed. Both the bishop and the royal court were itinerant, so an analysis of the speed of the delivery of writs casts light not only on fourteenth-century English bureaucracy but also on journey times.The workings of the English bureaucracy in the middle ages, and in particular the process of obtaining royal writs, their physical condition and numbers, have been examined by scholars including T. F. Tout, Michael Clanchy and Andrew Hershey. 1 However, a study of the way in which writs were transmitted can also throw some light on the efficiency of medieval English royal government. When reading an entry in a chancery roll of the English royal court, we note the date and place of attestation but the question arises as to how and when the writ issued reached its intended destination in a world without modern roads, motorized transport, railways or even the canals built during the Industrial Revolution; a world which also had fewer facilities for the feeding and resting of travellers and horses.This article considers how, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the system of authorization and the transmission of writs might have worked in practice and whether there was any disparity between the effectiveness of varying arms of government. Were there, for example, differences between the ways in which routine business was conducted as compared with the need for expedition in times of crisis? It also investigates whether there is evidence that the period of bad weather and famine in 1315-16 had any impact on government business.In the diplomatic field, as early as 1200, there were a number of messengers attached to the royal household whose duties included the delivering of royal correspondence. They were known as nuncii and cursores. By 1250 a new category was set up, which led to a differentiation between mounted and foot messengers.