Perceptions of Corruption and the Evolution of English Crown Institutions, c. 1258-1353

The thesis conceived of corruption, an inherently amorphous term, as complaint directed against officials entrusted by the crown. This encompassed an investigation of surviving complaints in the records of itinerant royal courts and political poetry from the first half of the fourteenth century. The thesis set to answer the following questions: In what ways did the political context of the period under study influence the development of widespread anticorruption investigations? How did fears of corruption drive change in the collection of lay taxation in the early fourteenth century? What was the impact of corrupt behaviours on the collapse of various collaborative schemes designed to profit from the wool trade? Lastly, what was the attitude towards royal officials and government within contemporary literary records? The resulting work comprised three case studies which explored various aspects of royal revenue raising and justice.

Chapter one showed that the crown turned towards widespread investigations of royal officials at times of low prestige and financial difficulties. Across the fourteenth century these trials moved away from initiatives intended to oversee officials toward more straightforward financial or scapegoating procedures. The following chapter demonstrated that the collection of tax declined away from the ideals promulgated by the crown in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and that the crown was unable, or unwilling, to impose its demands on local collectors and communities. Chapter three outlined the various breaches of trust, akin to corruption, between the crown, the national community, and wool merchants, contributed towards a breakdown of royal finances and trust. The final chapter explored critiques of royal officials within the political literature contained primarily within BL MS Harley 2253. This allows new and interesting readings which illuminate both the poems and the socio-political milieu in which they were created. The analysis of the poems link some of these texts closely to political debates and parliamentary meetings which were likely catalytic in the production and dissemination of political poetry.

As a whole the thesis showed how the royal mania for funds to support warfare drove a move away from thirteenth century modes of governance which privileged fairness and oversight. It therefore builds on the ideas advanced by James Jacobs, via William Chester Jordan, which suggested that anticorruption is a balance between efficiency and oversight. In the fourteenth century, incessant warfare created an urgency that overrode the need to maintain older accepted systems which sought to portray an incorrupt veneer. This differs from Jordan's suggestions in that it was the crown, rather than subjects, who bypassed thirteenth-century practices. Likewise, the thesis argues that the shape of royal administration in the shires was defined by local context and practice alongside crown priorities. As such it supports the arguments of Dodd and Sabapathy in particular who stressed the importance of this kind of 'vernacular' evolution or administration.