13thcenturyhistory

'Rebellion Against Henry III- The Disinherited Montfortians 1265-1274'- David Pilling On 4th August 1265 the Second Barons War is said to have ended, with  Simon de Montfort and his eldest son Henry , along with  some 34  rebel noblemen ,were killed at the Battle of  Evesham ( The contemporary ideal of chivalry seemed to be largely overlooked), A rebel army had been caught, trapped and soundly defeated by Lord Edward and the Royalists. Henry III was released from rebel captivity.  Mr Pilling's book presents a strong case to argue that Evesham did not end a wider rebellion  against the Crown.And very convincing he is too. For a start  there were still diehard supporters of Simon de Montfort who were not going to surrender quietly, most notably under the command of Simon de Montfort the Younger at Kenilworth Castle. Furthermore de Montfort's widow Eleanor, held on to Dover Castle, had support in the Cinque Port Towns . The book demonstrates tha...

       A Hostel for Jewish converts to Christianity -founded 1232 The original intention of this  piece was to write a blogpost about the talk 'Dependence Intolerance and Expulsion; the Story of England's Medieval Jewish Community 1066-1290' by Sean Cunningham held at the National Archives on January 24th 2020. Unfortunately due to   problems on the rail network,I did not manage to attend. So have  had to resort to posting about my own research instead, starting with   the death of Little Sir Hugh of Lincoln in 1255   here     Another subject that I have been looking at is the Domus Conversorum -'House of converts'  and happy to concede that this post is very much 'work in progress' and does not represent my conclusive views of the subject.                                       Marginal Illustration from ...

                                                                                                                                Coronation of Henry III  Cotton Vitellius A. XIII  courtesy of                                                             Wikipedia, in public domain.  In this year, there was a failure of crops; upon which failure a famine ensued,to such a degree that people from the villages resorted to the city for food; and there upon the famine waxing still greater, many thousand perso...