The temperate climate created by the medieval warm period of circa 900–1300 resulted in ample grain harvests and an expanding population. By the early thirteenth century, England contained just under three million inhabitants, while Scotland and Wales, whose people relied on animal husbandry instead of agriculture, each had a population of under half a million. The high infant mortality rate contributed to low average life expectancies.
King John hunting a stag with hounds. During John’s reign, only the king had the right to hunt deer in England’s forests.
Throughout the medieval period, the average life expectancy was around forty. Those who survived to adulthood could expect to live into their sixties if they did not fall victim to war, childbirth, or infectious disease. Nearly one-third of English land in 1215 consisted of forest where the king enjoyed a monopoly over all management and distribution of resources. Some of this land was forest in the modern sense of the word, including Sherwood Forest, associated with the legends of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and the New Forest, which remains one of the largest tracts of woodland in England. Other thirteenth-century forests, however, consisted of inhabited countryside with villages and farmland. The rapidly expanding population resulted in demand for new villages and farmland in these regions, conditions that contributed to the reform of forest law in Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest.
The regulations governing the use of forest land were extensive and arbitrary because the forest was both a hunting ground and a lucrative source of revenue for the king. William I and his descendants enforced a royal monopoly over hunting large animals in the forest. Members of the nobility could petition for a licence to hunt foxes, otters, badgers, and rabbits, but only the king, members of his hunting parties, or his foresters were entitled to hunt deer or wild boar. Penalties for poaching the king’s game were severe. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King William I “made many deer-parks; and he established laws therewith; so that whosoever slew a hart, or a hind, should be deprived of his eyesight. As he forbade men to kill the harts, so also the boars . . . His rich men bemoaned it, and the poor men shuddered at it.” By the reign of Richard I, the punishment for killing a deer was blinding and mutilation.
The restrictions imposed by forest law went beyond hunting privileges. Permission from the king’s chief forester was required before forest land could be cleared and cultivated, and the king received rent in perpetuity for these newly developed tracts. The right to pasture animals in the forest was strictly controlled and could be revoked at the king’s discretion. Farmers could only chop down trees for their own use if the removal of a tree did not create waste, which was defined in the reign of Henry II as “If a man standing on the stump of an oak or other tree can see five other trees cut down around him.” If an individual offender could not be identified in the forest courts, the chief forester had the power to impose a fine on the entire community.
“The law of the forest” was unpopular with the nobility, clergy, and peasantry alike because it prevented land development, impeded agriculture, and imposed fines on people of all social backgrounds. In 1209, the knight Roger de Crammaville of Kent was fined twenty marks for owning dogs that did not meet forest regulations, which dictated that three claws of their forepaws be removed to ensure that they were unable to hunt game. That same year, John ordered the destruction of unauthorized ditches and hedges on forest land. This decree resulted in wild animals — including deer, which had little fear of humans because of the harsh poaching laws — destroying crops in fields unprotected by hedges or ditches. In addition to collecting fines and other payments, John also used his forest prerogatives to settle personal scores. In 1200, he expressed his displeasure with the Cistercian Order by forbidding the monks from pasturing their livestock in the forest until twelve abbots begged his forgiveness on their knees.
A genealogical chart depicting Henry II and his eight children. John is in the bottom right corner.
John’s conflict with the Cistercians reflected both his determination to assert the king’s authority over the church and the expansion of religious orders over the course of the twelfth century. The expanding population resulted in more lay brothers available to work on monastery estates. As development of monastic lands increased, the activities of the religious orders came into conflict with forest law.
Everyone in John’s England knew their place in the strict social hierarchy of the time. That included members of the royal household all the way down to the serfs bound to the manors of the landed nobility. The unique political circumstances of John’s reign, including the expanding population and the conflicts between the king and his barons, would disrupt this social structure, culminating in the nobility imposing formal limits on the power of their king through Magna Carta. At the centre of this challenge to the social order was John, who remains one of the most controversial figures in English history.
The Making of King John
There have been recent attempts by historians to present John as an “underrated king.”5 These new interpretations of John’s reign emphasize his attention to detail and energetic devotion to his royal duties. The decision by a group of powerful barons to first limit John’s powers, then attempt to overthrow him when he repudiated Magna Carta, however, demonstrates his failure to fulfill the requirements of medieval kingship, including effective military leadership and consistent enforcement of the traditional laws and customs of his realm. King John’s formative years were defined by the conflicts within his family. As the youngest of the eight children of King Henry II of England and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, John did not grow up expecting to be king. He was born on December 24, 1166, and likely named in honour of the feast day of St. John the Evangelist, which fell three days after his birth. At the time of John’s birth, Eleanor was over forty and his arrival was probably a surprise to his parents, who already had plans to divide their vast Anglo-French Angevin domains between their three elder surviving sons, Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey. The young Henry would receive his father’s inheritance of England, Normandy, and Anjou; Richard would receive his mother’s lands in Aquitaine; and Geoffrey would marry Constance, heiress to Brittany, and gain her lands. From a young age, John was therefore known as Jean sans terre or John Lackland. John and his sister, Joan, spent their early childhood at Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou, and Henry and Eleanor may have initially intended for their landless youngest son to enter the church. After leaving the abbey at age six, John continued his education with tutors in the household of his eldest brother, young Henry. As a result of his education, John was better educated than most laymen of his time; as king it was common for him to travel with a personal library.
Plantagenet family tree.