Peter de Rivallis

Peter de Rivallis (also Peter de Rivaux ) († between July and November 2, 1262 ) was an English courtier and civil servant who served during the reign of King Henry III. played an important role.

origin

Peter de Rivallis was a nephew of Peter des Roches , the bishop of Winchester from Poitou , France . His exact origin and his parents are unknown, after his last name he could come from Orival , Airvault or Airvau in Poitou or from Orival in Normandy . The English form of his name, Rivaux , may have been formed after Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire. Medieval chroniclers such as Roger von Wendover claimed that he was even an illegitimate son of Peter des Roches. There is no evidence for this, but this theory is still believed possible.

Early career

Peter de Rivallis came to England after the conquest of Poitou and other parts of the Angevin Empire in the Franco-English War . He was first mentioned in 1204, when King John Ohneland gave him offices in several churches in the Diocese of Lincoln . At that time, however, he was probably still a minor, so that he could not exercise his offices. It was not until a few years later that he received a benefice at Lincoln Cathedral, and after 1208, through the influence of his uncle, he was given an office at Alton Church in Hampshire . Around 1211 he lived in Oxford , where he possibly studied. Until 1225 he received several other benefices.

After Peter des Roches was educator of the underage King Henry III. Rivallis became Chamberlain of the king's wardrobe in 1218 . He was responsible for paying the royal household's expenses, but had little political influence. When his uncle lost the power struggle with the Justiciar Hubert de Burgh and withdrew from the government, Rivallis also lost his office in the royal financial administration at the end of 1223. Presumably for the next few years he lived in the household of his uncle, who remained Bishop of Winchester. When des Roches set out on the crusade to the Holy Land in 1227 , Rivallis withdrew to Poitou. In February 1230 he received permission from Henry III to return to England. It is not known whether Rivallis actually returned to England or stayed further in Poitou, where he served as deputy treasurer of an unknown collegiate church before 1232 . It was only when des Roches returned to England from his crusade in 1232 and Hubert de Burgh was able to oust the king's favor that Rivallis was definitely in England. In May 1232 he became administrator of the royal forests in Shropshire , before he was transferred to several court offices on June 11th through the influence of his uncle, including that of the treasurer of the king's household .

Head of royal finance and further advancement

By this time the royal finances were in complete disarray. Although Rivallis already had experience in the royal financial administration, he received his office not because he was considered a proven financial expert, but because des Roches expected that he would follow his instructions. Rivallis received his office on very generous terms. Not only did he get it for life, but should be allowed to keep it if he gave up his status as a clergyman. This was intended to protect him against attacks by supporters of the deposed Hubert de Burgh, and the king granted him that Rivallis could bequeath the lands he acquired to possible children. On June 15, 1232, Rivallis became the lifelong steward of the royal seal, and on June 25, he was forgiven all debts that he would owe to the king the following year. He was also a lifelong sheriff of Surrey and Sussex and a candidate for the Honor of L'Aigle in Sussex, which was later actually transferred to him as a hereditary fief. In addition, other offices were assigned to him, including the administration of a number of royal estates, the administration of the royal guardianship and the Jews under the protection of the king.

This concentration of power was unprecedented, both in the speed at which Rivallis acquired it and the extent of his possessions and offices. Hubert de Burgh, who was still officially justiciar, resented this preference given by Rivallis to the king and was able to persuade him to swear on July 2, 1232 that he would preserve the privileges and rights he had granted him and other officials would. These officials were mainly the Chancellor Ralph de Neville , the Lord Treasurer Walter Mauclerk and the Stewards of the Royal Household . Nevertheless, Rivallis was able to expand his position apparently unchallenged. In July 1232 the king gave him the management of all royal forests, and he was allowed to appoint sheriffs in 19 counties . Rivallis was appointed guardian of William VI de Briouze , the underage heir of John de Briouze and administrator of his estates. He was obviously planning to marry off the young heir to his niece Alice. In view of this preference from Rivallis, de Burgh allowed himself to be carried away on July 28, 1232 in Woodstock apparently into violence against the king, whereupon he had to flee from the court. Peter des Roches and Rivallis now became the king's chief counselors and ministers. In November 1232 they brought de Burgh to trial, who was convicted and imprisoned at Devizes Castle . The extensive holdings of de Burgh were given to Rivallis, who secured various parts of them, including the port of Dover , as lifelong possession. In addition, he received several offices and lands in Ireland.

Growing resistance to des Roches and Rivallis

Released from the tutelage of the overpowering Hubert de Burgh, the king now redistributed numerous court offices, dismissing numerous officials who had previously been appointed for eternity. On January 3, 1233 Rivallis was appointed Treasurer of the Exchequer , replacing Bishop Walter Mauclerk. When the king revoked a document he had issued in February 1233, in which he had awarded the Upavon estate in Wiltshire to Gilbert Basset , the latter began an open rebellion. Basset was able to win his liege lord Richard Marshal, 3rd Earl of Pembroke , and the result was open civil war in the Welsh Marches and Ireland. This expanded to the Anglo-Welsh War when the rebels allied themselves with the Welsh prince Llywelyn from Iorwerth .

Meanwhile, the royal finances under the administration of Rivallis were on the verge of insolvency, despite the barons having agreed to direct taxation in the fall of 1232. Rivallis was obviously overwhelmed by his large number of offices and was unable to carry out his duties. He had tried to divide his work among a number of provincial officials, and instead of the financial administration in Westminster he used the royal treasury that followed the king and his court. From the individual counties, the sheriffs made only small payments to the king, with Rivallis leading by example as sheriff of Sussex, Surrey and Staffordshire . In return, spending increased sharply. To the King's allies in Brittany and Poitou, with whose help Henry III. Still wanted to recapture the possessions in France lost by his father in 1204, large support figures were given, so that the costs of the war in the Welsh Marches and Ireland quickly led to the king's insolvency. To counter this, Rivallis increased the taxes that the Jews were supposed to pay extremely strongly. These then increased the claims on their Christian debtors, which led to further tensions.

Rivallis himself was accused of being overly enriched in his office and in the exercise of his guardianship and administration. In fact, he seemed more incapable than corrupt. Even before the summer of 1233 there had been open demands for his release, especially from Richard Marshal and the English bishops. He was accused of preferring French in filling offices, and numerous chroniclers complained that the kingdom was being exploited by disgusting Poitevins. The fact that Rivallis first named his title as Chèvecier de Poitiers as the sender in his letters contributed to this . On November 12, 1233, the king suffered a shameful defeat when his encamping army was unexpectedly attacked by the rebels and Welsh outside the walls of Grosmont Castle , a castle of Rivallis in south-east Wales. The king barely escaped into the castle, but his entire baggage train fell into the hands of the Welsh.

Discharge

Although he was still officially Treasurer of the Exchequer, Rivallis was no longer mentioned as a witness to royal deeds as early as October 1233. Faced with the civil war and the war in Wales, but without the financial means to continue these wars, the king decided in the spring of 1234 to dismiss Des Roches and Rivallis from all their offices. To this end, the investigation into the administration of Rivallis began, with particular attention to the allegations of exploitation of the Jews and his administration of the possessions transferred to him. Rivallis did not follow the king's order of June 19, 1234 to answer to him and probably wanted to flee abroad. He refused to hand over a number of his possessions to the king and eventually holed up with des Roches in Winchester . From there they negotiated with the king and demanded an assurance of safe conduct before they wanted to return to court. Under the protection of the bishops, Rivallis finally appeared before the king on July 14th in Westminster. He came bareheaded, so his tonsure identified him as a clergyman, but with a dagger on his belt. In an angry indictment, the king first threatened him with execution and had him imprisoned in the Tower of London . After three days, however, Rivallis was released and was allowed to retreat to church asylum in Winchester Cathedral . With the assurance of safe conduct by the king, he was called back to court on October 18. At the last moment the king revoked his safe conduct, and Rivallis was not allowed to appear before the king until October 31st. Again he tried to negotiate. He offered 1000 marks if he got his goods back in Sussex and the administration of the Briouze inheritance, but even after further meetings in November 1234 and January 1235 no result was achieved. In January 1235, in contrast to des Roches, he was refused permission to leave England.

Rivallis remained free, but lived in forced seclusion in southern England for the next two years. In the meantime he tried to win back the favor of the king with expensive gifts, and in fact he was pardoned in May 1236. From April 1237 he received smaller but steady gifts from the king, especially wood and game from the royal forests. He also owed the king at least £ 500, which he did not have to pay until his death. After the death of Peter des Roches in 1238, he served as an executor for his uncle, and for the next decade attempted to reform the chapter of the collegiate church in Bridgnorth .

Recovery in old age

In 1250 the king allowed him to return to the royal court. In the next few years, he was twice assigned the temporary custody of the state seal. Until 1252 he attested to numerous royal letters and served as royal administrator during the vacancy of St Denys Priory in Southampton. In June 1253 the king gave him a house on Newgate in London. In the same month, shortly before the king's departure for Gascony , Rivallis was reappointed Baron of the Exchequer . Between September 1257 and June 1258 he served as treasurer of the royal wardrobe. In January 1257 he traveled with Bishop Aymer de Lusignan as a royal envoy to France, and in May 1258 as a courtier he testified to the consent of the king to reform the government in accordance with the wishes of the aristocratic opposition. Now an old man, the king gave him real estate near Winchester as a fief, and after 1260 he received a benefice at St Paul's Cathedral in London. In April 1261 he was allowed to accompany Beatrix of England , a daughter of the king, to her husband in Brittany.

On November 2, 1262, his benefice in London was newly occupied, so that Rivallis must have died before. Rivallis had given land in Shoelands near Guildford in Surrey to the canons of Selborne Priory in Hampshire, which had been founded by his uncle . Mottisfont Priory in Hampshire is said to have left jewels and money. A relationship between Rivallis and the royal official William Brewer , who had also promoted this priory, is unlikely, rather the connection came through the rectorate of the parish church of Mottisfont, which Rivallis held for many years.

Web links

• Nicholas Vincent: Rivallis, Peter de (d. 1262). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nicholas Vincent: Peter des Roches. An alien in English politics, 1205 - 1238 . Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 2002. ISBN 0-521-52215-3 , p. 27
2. ^ David Carpenter: The minority of Henry III . University of California Press, Berkeley 1990. ISBN 0-520-07239-1 , p. 139
3. ^ David Carpenter: The minority of Henry III . University of California Press, Berkeley 1990. ISBN 0-520-07239-1 , p. 259
4. ^ David A. Carpenter: The reign of Henry III. Hambledon, London 1996. ISBN 1-85285-137-6 , p. 52
5. ^ David A. Carpenter: The reign of Henry III. Hambledon, London 1996. ISBN 1-85285-137-6 , p. 164
6. ↑ Nicholas Vincent: Peter des Roches. An alien in English politics, 1205 - 1238 . Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge 2002. ISBN 0-521-52215-3 , p. 452

predecessor	Office	successor
Walter Mauclerk	Lord High Treasurer 1233-1234	Hugh of Pattishall