Abstract

In the autumn of 1232, Ranulf (1170-1232), earl of Chester and Lincoln, looked to the future of his lands, taking steps to finalize his affairs before he died. During the last two months of his life, he was in regular attendance upon King Henry III, witnessing royal charters at Lambeth on 3 September, at Faversham on 7 September, then at Lambeth again on 20 September and, finally, at Lambeth and Westminster on 23 September, after which he withdrew from court. It was probably at some point during this period that he made an exceptional and unprecedented pre-mortem gift to his fourth and youngest sister, Hawise, the widow of Robert de Quincy. When Ranulf III put his business in order in September and October 1232, he arranged for the transfer to his youngest sister, Hawise, of his second earldom, that of Lincoln, which he had acquired after helping to secure the royalist victory at the battle of Lincoln on 20 May 1217. If the transfer of an earldom by one of the King’s own subjects was a remarkable piece of business, its transfer to a woman was even more extraordinary. Amongst the comital families in England during the thirteenth century, no other earl transferred his title to another sibling during his lifetime, let alone to a sister. Many of the documents relating to this transaction, the later transfer of the earldom to Hawise's son-in-law, John de Lacy, and Hawise’s tenure of the honour, castle and manor of Bolingbroke in widowhood, are preserved in the archive of the Duchy of Lancaster and elsewhere. This chapter brings these documents together for the first time and also publishes as a Latin edition, with critical, scholarly apparatus, all the extant charters known to have been issued by Hawise, held by the British Library, Lincolnshire Archives, National Archives and National Trust. Research for this chapter was aided by a grant from the Society of Antiquaries of London into the Duchy of Lancaster's Lincolnshire records, for which the author is grateful.