Loyalty, Disloyalty, and Changing Allegiance in Late-Medieval Gascony, 1337–1476

Gascony was central to the Anglo-French conflict known as the Hundred Years War (1337–1453). Caught between two rival sovereignties, the political allegiances of Gascon lords were subject to sustained contestation, especially as seigneurial allegiance was integral to bolstering the authority of each king in the duchy. This thesis examines thirteen case studies of Gascon lords who changed allegiance after 1337, a year which marked a turning-point in top-down expectations of allegiance, as a window into the dynamics underlying these fundamental political relationships, with particular reference to the English crown. Most of these case studies have received limited attention, especially in Anglophone scholarship, and this thesis draws on substantial archival research in order to flesh them out. While paying attention to the particularities of each example, focusing on changes rather than choices of allegiance also opens up an under-explored collective perspective. This thesis pinpoints a definition of changing allegiance, an imprecise (but rarely explicitly defined) concept which encompassed a range of actions, including but not limited to acts like homages, oaths, and treaties. In fact, allegiance was rarely straightforwardly ‘made’; it was a concept as well as a practice, bound up with ideas of legitimacy, and sovereign, ‘natural’ authority. Breaking allegiance, meanwhile, was a predominantly administrative phenomenon, closely bound up with territory, and handled with more consistent lenience by the English crown than has sometimes been suggested. Finally, this thesis argues that loyalty was a fundamental concept when it came to justifying and debating the legitimacy of acts of changing allegiance. Changeability of allegiance posed serious concerns about loyalty, rebellion, treason, sovereignty, and legitimacy, threatening many of the bonds holding political society together. This thesis begins to unpick how fourteenth and fifteenth century people grappled with and debated these problems in a context where these questions were especially fraught.