SOCIETY, FUNCTIONING OF ANGLO-NORMAN
century, they were systematically extended to Ireland.
By the turn of the fourteenth century, almost all the
principal English institutions had a miniature colonial
counterpart. With royal power came assumptions about
feudal customs, the use of the common law, and
English inheritance practice. Despite all this, Anglo-
Norman lords were frequently left to fend for them-
selves, and the social reality was that independent
aristocratic forces remained powerful. For those oper-
ating on the frontier with the native Irish, survival
sometimes depended on departing from the central
government’s legalistic ideal of how society should
function. It was, perhaps, the principal lesson of the
fourteenth century that royal power was better served
by working with the nobles of Ireland rather than by
reacting against them.
Royal Government
It is dangerous to press the distinction between royal
and aristocratic interests too hard. Their intentions
were fundamentally identical: Both saw Ireland as a
source of land; both hoped to make that land profitable
by colonizing and cultivating it on the model of the
English manor. Nonetheless, the imposition of royal
authority was of the greatest importance. Pointing to
Scotland’s experience, R.R. Davies has reminded Irish
historians that Anglo-Norman colonization could have
progressed without Ireland becoming an English col-
ony. Henry II’s intervention removed that possiblity
by ending the entrepreneurial nature of the conquest.
The Anglo-Norman adventurers now held their land of
the king of England by feudal tenure, with all the
obligations that entailed. Any new projects they
engaged in—for instance the de Burgh conquest of
Connacht in the 1230s—were initiated at the nod, or
rather by charter, of the king.
The feudal relationship was central to the function-
ing of colonial society. In return for grants of land, the
nobles owed the lord of Ireland—who, for most of the
period, was king of England—military service, which
in practice was frequently commuted to a cash pay-
ment called “scutage” (royal service [see Feudalism]).
This relationship was replicated at each level of society
so that theoretically everyone was engaged in a bond
with some social superior, ultimately leading to the
king. The king, in return, was obliged to protect his
subjects, to lead them in war, and to provide justice.
In fact, the king was usually absent from Ireland, but
his obligations of lordship were exercised by proxy
through his chief governor. Just as royal authority in
England was bolstered by its precocious administrative
institutions—for instance the chancery, the exchequer,
and the court system—so all these organs of royal
power were provided for the lordship of Ireland.
Dependence on England carried with it the assumption
that the colony would be governed by English law.
This assumption was sometimes made explicit, as in
the famous case of Magna Carta, which was sent to
Ireland as the Magna Carta Hiberniae (Great Charter
of Ireland) in 1217. To the end of the medieval period,
many other English statutes were transmitted to Ireland
and there promulgated by the central government or
later ratified in the Irish parliament. Royal authority
was also strong in local government because of the
shire system. By the turn of the fourteenth century,
royal sheriffs executed the king’s writs across most of
Ireland.
In a society in which land was the source of wealth
and power, the most far-reaching effects of English
law were in connection with property. The king as
feudal overlord exercised considerable rights in this
respect. By the late twelfth century, primogeniture—
the descent of lands to the eldest son—had become
the normal practice for dealing with inheritance in
England. Its application in Ireland was in stark contrast
to the Gaelic system of partible inheritance. In the
colony, all land theoretically reverted to the lord of
Ireland at the death of one of his tenants. The heir then
had to pay a large sum of money—known as a relief—
to gain possession of his inheritance. If the heir to a
great estate was a minor (usually meaning under 18-
years-old), the king took him into his custody as a
ward of the crown, and all his property was placed
under royal protection. This practice was of consider-
able profit to the king, both because of the revenues
he received from the lands during the minority of the
heir, and because it was source of patronage. The ward-
ship did not have to be held by the crown personally,
but could be granted out to another great noble. A grant
of wardship was much sought after, but could have
disastrous consequences for the ward’s lands. In 1344,
the earldom of Ormond was granted in wardship to the
first earl of Desmond (d. 1356) during the minority of
James Butler (d. 1382). Rather than protecting the
lands, the earl of Desmond ravaged them.
The king also reserved the right to consent to the
marriages of his vassals’ daughters. Marriage, in this
period, cannot be divorced from politics. A good mar-
riage was intended to secure inheritance, forge alli-
ances, and patch up former disputes. One of the more
spectacular marriage networks in Ireland was devised
by Richard de Burgh, the “Red Earl” of Ulster (d.
1326). Among the husbands of his female progeny
numbered some of the most exalted nobles in Ireland,
England, and Scotland, including Robert Bruce, king of
Scotland (d. 1329); Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester
(d. 1314); the second earl of Kildare (d. 1328); the first
earl of Desmond (d. 1356); and John de Bermingham,