William Fitz Osbert

William Fitz Osbert (* in London ; † April 6, 1196 in Tyburn or on Smithfield) - also called Longbeard ( English for long beard ) or William cum barba ( Latin for with a beard ) - was an English legal scholar and because of his striking full beard Revolutionary who led one of the few bourgeois uprisings in the Kingdom of England in the Middle Ages .

He was born into a wealthy civil servant family. Around 1185 he inherited his father's land, some of which he leased back to his older brother Richard. With the rent he received, he financed a pilgrimage to the Holy Land . He was then one of the main organizers and coordinators of the London group of participants in the third crusade and participated in the course of it, among other things, in 1190 in Portugal in the fight against the Moors . Osbert is described by chroniclers as "well versed in laws"; his charisma and good contacts brought him a job either with the London judiciary or in the city administration.

Sources

Main sources regarding Osbert's life are the records of the four contemporary London chroniclers Wilhelm von Newburgh (* 1136; † 1198), Gervasius of Canterbury (* 1141; † 1210), Roger von Hoveden ( bl. 1174-1201) and Radulfus de Diceto († 1202).

William of Newburgh was a member of the Augustinian Canons Priory of Coxwold , North Yorkshire , and mentions the uprisings in his main work, Historia rerum Anglicarum (also Historia de rebus anglicis , translated: History of English Affairs ), which he wrote at the request of Abbot Ernald the Rievaulx Abbey and in which he sketched the history of England between 1066 and 1198. His reports of riots are the most extensive and detailed, based on testimony of an eyewitness who heard Osbert speak. While Newburgh mentioned the problem of tax equality and popular resentment, he believed that Osbert had used this argument as a pretext to achieve selfish goals. Radulfus de Diceto was of the same opinion. A comparatively large amount of reliable biographical information is known about this chronicler, who reported on Osbert in his Ymagines Historiarum . He probably studied in Paris , was appointed archdeacon of Middlesex in 1152 and was dean of St Paul's Cathedral from around 1180 . As early as 1166, the English bishops elected him as envoy, who was supposed to protest on their behalf against several, in their opinion, unjustified excommunications that the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket had pronounced. In London he became a prominent figure in society with good contacts to the royal court.

Roger von Hoveden, about whom little is known nowadays, showed a great deal of understanding for the worries of the poor people of London and the resulting discontent. It was first mentioned in 1174, when it was sent from France by King Henry II on a secret mission to the lords of the Galloway region in southern Scotland . In the following year he acted as a mediator in disputes between the king and several clerical houses. By 1189 he was forest manager in Yorkshire , Cumberland and Northumberland . It is also recorded that Hoveden took part in the third crusade and joined Richard I's troops in August 1190 in Marseille . Almost exactly a year later he went home to Europe in the wake of the French King Philip II . There he began his Chronica in 1192 , a general history of England from 732. Completely contrary to Roger's opinion, Gervasius wrote in his work, also entitled Chronica , which he wrote from 1188 and which covers the years from 1100 to 1199. So he did not mention the tax problem and made Osbert and the gullible mass of the population responsible for the unrest. He was believed to have come from a Kent family and was ordained as a monk at Canterbury Cathedral on February 16, 1163 by Thomas Becket . On June 18, 1178, he noted the statements of five monks who had observed extraordinary flashes of light and fiery expectoration on the narrow crescent moon . Today, it is believed that it thereby possibly by the impact of that meteorite could have acted that the now as Giordano Bruno known blasting crater has formed. Gervasius was significantly involved in the disputes with Archbishop Baldwin of Exeter and, among other things, was a member of a delegation in 1189 that was supposed to explain the differences to Richard I. From 1193 he held the office of sexton for about seven years .

The "Osbert Crisis"

Starting position

At the end of the 12th century, the English capital London was self-sufficient in collecting the taxes demanded by the king . The politically responsible were thus able to decide independently about the distribution of the tax burden - as long as the required sum was collected at the end. For this purpose, the city was divided into two tax districts, each of which was headed by an Alderman . At meetings held, they announced the amount of the expected payments, agreed on the distribution with others present and began to organize the collection. Both the deliberation process and the eventual collection of the dues was a communal activity in which neighborhood groups had to work together. With each new tax, the division of the citizen's property had to be decided anew in this way. More than any other aspect of civil policy, taxation caused conflicts among neighbors as a result of this system and heightened existing tensions, especially between the poor and the rich groups of the population.

In the poorer classes, resentment about the taxes that had to be levied had been simmering for a long time. They were felt to be unfairly distributed and were disadvantaged compared to the bourgeois elite. In addition, the levies were increased regularly. In the late 1180s and the first half of the 1190s, the monarchs also demanded the payment of various newly introduced taxes. In February 1188, for example, the English King Henry II raised a tithe on rent and travel expenses . The money brought in was intended to finance a reconquest of Jerusalem , which had fallen to the Ayyubids five months earlier . Since the English were rather pessimistic and suspicious of this maneuver, the pejorative term “ Saladin Tenth” was also popular. Heinrich's son Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) placed further burdens on the population, as he needed funds for military armament in view of the third crusade . In 1193 the inhabitants of the empire were called upon to contribute to the ransom for the Heinrich VI. Richard who was appointed to the Reichsburg Trifels . This levy was probably asked in two high installments. In April the following year, the carucage was levied for the first time, a tax of two shillings per carucata possession - one carucate roughly equaling one hide . In addition, there were the taxes that had to be paid regularly anyway. In connection with the extraordinary demands of the crown, tax policy moved to the fore of the social discourse.

revolt

At the beginning of 1196, Osbert rose to be the spokesman for a group of dissatisfied citizens from the poorer classes of the population. The main points of criticism of his speeches given at public meetings were what he saw as the unbalanced distribution of the tax burden, the outdated and impenetrable network structures of the London authorities and the Carucage demanded two years earlier, some of which had flowed into the ransom for Richard. The chroniclers all describe Fitz Osbert as a "moderately educated, but unusually eloquent " man with an "alert mind". He is also said to have had very good rhetoric . Among other things, it was due to these circumstances that he was able to gather more and more like-minded people around him within a few weeks. Over time, there were more and more large-scale demonstrations through the streets of London. With emotional incendiary speeches in St Paul's Cathedral , he managed to mobilize the masses and also to convince numerous members of the middle class of his ideas. He made the demonstrators subject to his orders by oath and soon had almost 52,000 followers.

The riots became increasingly violent. For example, weapons depots were broken into throughout the city. The revolutionaries equipped in this way looted houses of the upper class, erected barricades and, among other things, devastated the nave of St Paul's Cathedral. Gervase of Canterbury and Roger of Howden wrote that Osbert had more influence in London in the spring of 1196 than the official Mayor Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonestone . Osbert, however, was by no means interested in overthrowing the monarchy. On the contrary, as the situation became more and more tense, he even undertook a longer trip to an audience with Richard I. The meeting probably came about because of the good contacts that still existed from the time of the crusade. The king was staying in Normandy at the time and Osbert explained the situation to him, whereupon he and his followers were assured of impunity. At the same time, however, the king had communicated his blessing and ideal support to administrative representatives of the city - presumably in the hope of an amicable settlement.

"With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. ( Isa 12,3  EU ) I am the savior of the poor. Do ye, oh, poor! Who have experienced the heaviness of rich men's hands, drink from my wells the waters of the doctrine of salvation, and ye may do this joyfully; for the time of your visitation is at hand. For I will divide the waters from the waters. The people are the waters. I will divide the humble from the haughty and treacherous. I will separate the elect from the reprobate, as light from darkness "

- Fragment of one of William Fitz Osbert's numerous incendiary speeches from the spring of 1196

Archbishop Hubert Walter - here his statue at Canterbury Cathedral - led the suppression of Osbert's uprising after the bloodless solution he favored failed.

Members of the magistrate turned to the Archbishop of Canterbury Hubert Walter , who was also the English chief justiziar and who was responsible for guaranteeing law and order in the kingdom during the king's absence. His plan was initially to break the solidarity of the merchant groups with Osbert. For this reason he issued orders to arrest London traders who were serving markets outside the city in other parishes. This measure was intended to put pressure on the market sellers who Osbert covered and supported. In fact, some traders were arrested at Stamford Hill, for example. However, the initiative did not have the desired effect, which is why Walter resorted to more rigorous methods. For his part, he called meetings and demanded that ordinary citizens release hostages. These would be punished by the judiciary if the population were not loyal to the king. Osbert was not impressed by Walter's actions and continued to organize protest meetings and demonstrations. From time to time these were staged more pompously and the revolutionary also changed his own demeanor and habitus , who was increasingly celebrated by his followers as a sublime leader. At the beginning of April the archbishop decided to end the unrest with violence if necessary. He dispatched two messengers to arrest Osbert in an unobserved moment. However, both were driven away by the demonstrators. The mood became increasingly irritable and when armed men - supported by wealthy members of the upper class - marched into the city center to arrest Osbert, a street battle developed . In the course of this, Osbert's comrades-in-arms succeeded in weakening the attackers seriously, killing one of the leaders himself.

Then he barricaded himself with some followers in the tower of the church of St Mary-le-Bow . The group had sufficient weapons and food for several days. But soon fighters loyal to the magistrate set the building on fire and burned out the insurgents. They were forced to flee the church tower and were immediately overwhelmed on the street. In the turmoil, Osbert was attacked with a knife and wounded in the stomach area. At the same time, more and more soldiers took up positions in the city so as not to give the citizens the opportunity to protest again. Osbert was imprisoned in the Tower of London and subjected to an embarrassing questioning there . After a few days he was quickly sentenced, dragged through town behind a horse and finally hanged in chains at the execution site in the village of Tyburn , along with nine demonstrators who refused to break away from him . Osbert was thus probably the first convict to die at this official City of London execution site, which was used until 1783 . Some sources also speak of the elms on Smithfield in the city center as the place of execution or state that it was quartered before being hung .

Motifs

Questioning the social problems as the superficial causes of the protests, the chroniclers also speculated about possible family motives for Osbert to fight against the establishment . A conflict with his older brother Richard, in particular, is mentioned frequently. Although William came from a well-off family, as a younger son he was financially very well secured, but not particularly wealthy. According to Newburgh - who characterizes William as ungrateful to his brother - this fact, combined with some narcissism, may result in anger over the fact that he should let richer people rule his life and that he could not reach their socio-cultural level. He reported that William had accused Richard of betraying the king. Diceto took up the same argument when he wrote that the protester leader had repeatedly called for the death of his brother and two other respected citizens at public mass gatherings because they had allegedly betrayed the king.

At first, these assumptions on the part of the chroniclers seem like constructed accusations against William Fitz Osbert with the aim of reducing the complex subject of the political crisis to the quarrel of a couple of brothers in favor of simplifying the story. However, these claims are confirmed by independent sources. These are documents from the collection of writings of the Curia Regis . Accordingly, in November 1194, a case was heard in court in which Osbert accused his brother Richard and the two Londoners Robert Brand and Jordan Tanner of having held meetings in the house of the former during which treasonous conversations had been held. William accused Richard of being angry about the mandatory royal tax levy. Tanner is said to have expressed the wish that the king would best never return to England from a stay abroad, while Brand - according to William Osbert - believed that London would never have a king other than the mayor. In the microcosm of medieval London politics, it could well happen that family disputes and social conflicts were intertwined.

Effect and afterlife

The riots and demonstrations led by William Fitz Osbert had great aftermath on various sides in London at the end of the 12th century. One party was the monks of St Mary-le-Bow, who were deeply disappointed that the sanctity of their building had not been respected. In the flames of the arson they saw a serious sacrilege , which they accused the city administration. Osbert had died a martyr in the eyes of many of his followers and was posthumously venerated almost more passionately than during his lifetime. As with saints , the population tried to collect as many relics as possible. Items that could be linked to the execution enjoyed great popularity. Newburgh mentions that even Osbert's gallows were stolen and that the earth was collected in bits and pieces by spectators at his location. The city council tried to violently counteract this wave of sympathy that had arisen in memory of Osbert . Among other things, an ambush was installed, to which his followers made pilgrimages at night to pray. Anyone who showed their support for the executed person was punished with lashes . A priest who wanted to promote the veneration of saints learned of the excommunication . After his death, Osbert's property in London became the property of the English crown, while his material possessions fell to a certain Richard Fitz John according to a so-called Chancellor's Roll issued in the same year.

Not even 100 years later, the official opinion of Osbert had changed. For example, Matthew Paris, in his 1259 work Matthaei Parisiensis, Chronica Majora, no longer described him as a criminal but as a hero. With their notes, the chroniclers grant an important and rare look at the London leadership of that time and the mechanisms that led to group decisions and group dynamics in medieval society . It turned out that the poor and middle-class members of the city population would no longer bow to the authorities as they had before without questioning their decisions. Although the lobbyists in the city's bodies were still not directly elected, they understood that they could not easily impose their policies on the people.

literature

• Fitz Osbert, William . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 10 : Evangelical Church - Francis Joseph I . London 1910, p. 447 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
• GA Williams: Medieval London - From Commune to Capital . The Athlone Press, London 1963, ISBN 978-0-485-12011-0 .
• GWS Barrow : The Bearded Revolutionary . In: History Today , Volume 19, 1969, pp. 679-687.
• S. Reynolds: The Rulers of London in the Twelfth Century . In: History. The Journal of the Historical Society. , Volume 57, 1972, p. 350.
• CNL Brooke, G. Keir: London 800-1216: The Shaping of a City . Secker & Warburg, London 1975, ISBN 978-0-436-06920-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Charles Dickens : A Child's History of England , Volume I: England from the Ancient Times, to the Death of King John . Bradbury and Evans, London 1852, Chapter 13 ( Wikisource )
2. ^ William of Newburgh: History of English Affairs . Book 5, Chapter 20, Section 6. From fordham.edu ( Fordham University ), accessed Aug. 10, 2011
3. ↑ "Being hanged at Tyburn" on capitalpunishmentuk.org , accessed on August 10, 2011 (English)
4. ^ Outline of Church History of St Mary-le-Bow on ourpasthistory.com , accessed August 9, 2011; The Beauties of England and Wales: or Delineations - topographical historical and descriptive . Volume III: Joseph Nightingale: London and Middlesex; or, an historical, commercial, & descriptive Survey of the metropolis of Great-Britain . London, 1815, p. 367.
5. ^ William of Newburgh: History of English Affairs , Book 5, Chapter 20, Section 7. On fordham.edu ( Fordham University ), accessed August 10, 2011.
6. ^ John McEwan: William Fitz Osbert and the Crisis of 1196 in London . In: MW Labarg, B. Rowland, DJ Wurtele: Florilegium . Volume 21, Canadian Society of Medievalists, 2004, p. 18, ISSN  0709-5201 ; from journals.hil.unb.ca , accessed on August 9, 2011 (English)