The Crusade of Henry Despenser (1383)

Abstract

This chapter reassesses Bishop Henry Despenser’s crusading expedition against schismatic Christians in Flanders in 1383 by placing the campaign in its European context and by drawing upon fresh material from Flemish and English archives. Rather than approach the campaign as an unusual event in the Hundred Years War, this chapter situates Despenser’s expedition more closely against the political and diplomatic context of the time, underlining how the recourse to crusade represented a plausible and understandable initiative for the pursuit of national aims in later fourteenth-century Christendom in an era of papal schism and Anglo-French animosity. The chapter then proceeds to offer a fresh assessment of the make-up of Despenser’s force, its behaviour while on campaign in Flanders, and the crusade’s reception in contemporary and near-contemporary chronicles, correspondence, and churchwarden accounts, before considering what the expedition can tell us more broadly about popular enthusiasm for the crusade and its associated conventions and motifs in the later medieval period.

Keywords

The archival materials in this article I gathered while undertaking research for the project “Bees in the Medieval World: Economic, Environmental and Cultural Perspectives,” led by Dr Alexandra Sapoznik at King’s College London (Leverhulme Trust RPG–2018–080). I am grateful for her permission to use the materials here. My thanks to Bart Lambert (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) for his help navigating the archives of Bruges, to Céline Decottignies (Bisschoppelijk Archief Brugge) for permitting access to archival materials, and to Norman Housley (Leicester) for allowing me to read an unpublished paper of his on English proposals to crusade against the Irish in the later medieval period.

Introduction and Historiography

In spring 1383, Henry Despenser, bishop of Norwich, gathered a crusading army in south-eastern England amidst a wave of popular enthusiasm. One chronicler noted the great sums of cash the bishop had secured from rich and poor to support his campaign, while another noted how the clear skies on the day the prelate took the cross in St Paul’s Cathedral augured well for the expedition.¹ Despenser and his crusading force did not travel far upon departure from Sandwich in mid-May, for their campaign was aimed at fellow Christians in Flanders and in particular supporters of the French-backed pope, Clement VII, the rival to England’s favoured pope, Urban VI, with the papacy then in schism between contenders in Avignon and Rome. After initial success, the campaign suffered an internal disintegration while besieging Ypres, and by October Despenser had returned to London to face a bitter parliament that impeached him for incompetence and imprisoned five of his captains for treason. Given the controversies surrounding the expedition, its rich base of source materials, and its importance as an event in the Hundred Years War in its own right, Despenser’s crusade has not lacked scholarly attention. Drawing upon research in Flemish archives as well as material from “The Soldier in Later Medieval England” (SLME) project, this chapter offers a fresh interpretation of the campaign, examining the state of scholarly debate before assessing its political and diplomatic background, its recruitment and financing, and its course and aftermath.² Rather than approach the campaign as an unusual event in the Hundred Years War, this chapter will situate Despenser’s expedition within the crusading context of the time, allowing a clearer understanding of the crusade’s significance to contemporaries and its historical importance (Map 13.1).

Map 13.1

The crusade of Henry Despenser, May–September 1383 [after Jonathan Sumption, Hundred Years War, Vol. 3: Divided Houses [London, 2009], pp. 498–99]

In contrast to some of the other crusades covered in this volume, Despenser’s efforts have attracted attention since the 1800s and regularly feature in textbook histories of the fourteenth century as well as in general works on later medieval crusading.³ The popularity of the Hundred Years War ensures that most topics related to the conflict have been studied, but the bishop’s expedition attracts special attention both for its perceived significance as a unique event in the conflict and on account of several issues that excite debate. Perhaps most importantly, Despenser’s aim to aid a Flemish revolt against the French crown in an era of Anglo-French warfare has led scholars to interpret the expedition as a “national crusade,” where the English crown appropriated the resources of the Church and the machinery associated with crusading to support their secular war-making.⁴ Christopher Tyerman, for example, has characterised the affair as “the Hundred Years War thinly disguised,” while Richard Vaughan concluded that the religious aspects of Despenser’s expedition were merely “a veneer” to conceal other motives.⁵ The prelate’s supposedly blatant combination of national interest with papally sanctioned crusade endows it with a special status among the so-called national crusades, with Housley marking the expedition out as the “first true ‘national’ crusade.”⁶ The bishop’s efforts, then, garner significant interest for they exemplify broader developments in the crusading movement in later medieval Christendom, including the co-opting of crusading institutions and rhetoric by secular powers to sacralise and support their own warfare and the associated proliferation of crusades to regions where they had not been undertaken before.⁷

Despenser’s campaign is seen by several scholars as a particularly controversial and even suspect case of crusading, with many writing of Despenser’s “crusade” in inverted commas, implying that the expedition was not rightfully a crusade but rather a secular war disguised in religious clothing.⁸ There are good reasons for doing so. Above all, the fact that a crusade aimed at “schismatic” supporters of Clement VII ended up attacking supporters of their own pope, Urban VI, provoked criticism from contemporaries and appears ridiculous to modern eyes. The chronicler Froissart, writing soon after the event, criticised Despenser for his hypocrisy, and the theologian John Wycliffe condemned the sale of indulgences in support of the expedition as “an abomination.”⁹ The controversies surrounding the crusade are probably taken more seriously by modern scholars than they were at the time, and an analysis of Despenser’s fundraising and recruitment highlights the popularity of the initiative. Deciding whether Despenser’s campaign was a valid crusade or a “crusade” is complicated by the lack of a clear division between “secular” and “religious” warfare in the prelate’s time. In battle against a mixed force of French and Flemish troops in late May 1383, Despenser bore one banner with the papal keys alongside another with his family arms, and the prelate was variously described by contemporaries as fighting for the Church, the pope, the realm, the king, and himself.¹⁰ A recent publication begins with Despenser’s “crusade” in inverted commas, but halfway through begins referring to it without diacritics.¹¹ Whether a deliberate or subconscious choice by the authors, such ambivalence reflects the ambiguity in status that continues to characterise the expedition.

Despenser’s enigmatic character and eventful expedition perplexed contemporaries as much as they intrigue modern historians, fuelling further discussion. It was said at the time that his hot temper stemmed from eating green ginger by the jar, and the motives and organisational acumen driving his energetic advertisement of the crusade, the effective sale of indulgences, and his haphazard management of military affairs continue to invite comment.¹² Housley and Nigel Saul, for example, singled out Despenser’s administration of the crusade for its attention to financial detail, setting it apart from much crusade planning at the time.¹³ That this well-planned crusade ended in disarray has invited conjecture as to the causes behind its failure. Scholars have justified the expedition’s collapse on various grounds, including French numerical superiority, Despenser’s poor leadership, English misunderstanding of the political environment in Flanders, and treason among the crusade’s commanders.¹⁴ Given that Despenser wished to attack the supporters of Pope Clement, just how and why the prelate ended up laying siege to Ypres, a city that supported the Urbanist cause, continues to intrigue historians.¹⁵ Upon returning to England there was, therefore, much to discuss in the parliamentary tribunal. The arguments Despenser made in his defence were recorded in the parliament rolls, offering the opportunity to study the motivations and justifications of a late-medieval crusader in something approaching his own words.¹⁶ In short, Despenser’s campaign plays host to a range of puzzling events which stimulate no less debate for being unresolvable.

Lastly, the absurdity in modern eyes of a cleric commanding armies and shedding blood continues to attract interest and make for exciting book and chapter titles. The title of Richard Allington-Smith’s study is a case in point.¹⁷ There was, in fact, nothing extraordinary about Despenser’s martial activities, for clerical command of armies and involvement in combat was commonplace in Latin Christendom.¹⁸ The crusade in 1383 was not even Despenser’s first, as he had taken part in Urban V’s crusade against Bernabó Visconti in Lombardy in 1362.¹⁹ Prelates such as Despenser preached war and saw no issue in putting it into practice. The idea that the bishop was “almost wholly unsuited to the cloth,” as claimed by Saul, speaks more to modern than to contemporary expectations of the tasks with which a cleric should busy himself.²⁰ Rather than approach Despenser’s military career as an aberration in the Hundred Years War, where command of armies by kings and secular magnates are used as the yardstick, the bishop’s crusading can be better understood when situated amongst the efforts of his clerical peers, who likewise led papally sanctioned expeditions against Christians in the 1380s and 1390s.²¹ Even in an English context, Despenser was not extraordinary in leading armies against Christians: Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, for example, led English soldiers in the crusade against the Hussites in Bohemia in the 1420s, and Christopher Bainbridge, archbishop of York, commanded the pontiff’s armies in campaigns in northern Italy in the 1510s.²²

Although viewing Despenser’s crusade in a European context normalises his martial activities, his expedition remains unique in the range of sources it generated. Scholars interested in the minutiae of the issues mentioned above overlook how the detailed and heterogeneous nature of the materials documenting the campaign set it apart from other crusades of the period, allowing questions to be posed of the expedition that cannot be asked of others, especially its finance and recruitment. Leaving aside chronicles which describe the campaign and chains of correspondence and papal bulls—including an eyewitness account of the campaign’s opening phases written in the English camp—of most significance is the administrative material preserved by the bureaucracy of the English crown.²³ The SLME project extracted some 250,000 records of service from the muster rolls and other materials compiled by the crown’s officials between 1369 and 1453 into a database, discovering almost 600 individuals who served overseas with Despenser in 1383.²⁴ Although this number represents a fraction of the prelate’s force, it forms a prosopographical resource available for no other later medieval crusade.²⁵ In addition to the database—to which we will return—the financial agreements between Despenser and the English crown also survive.²⁶ The latter provided financial backing for Despenser’s campaign, with the exchequer disbursing no less than £37,475 7s. 6d to the prelate, offering historians of the crusade the rare opportunity to work with precise sums.²⁷

The failure of the expedition sent shockwaves throughout England and beyond, leaving imprints in a diverse array of theological and literary materials, from the aforementioned parliament rolls and chronicles to the theological works of Wycliffe.²⁸ Despenser also patronised the production of a lavish manuscript in the 1390s that contained, among other items, letters between Emperor Frederick and the Sultan Saladin and much prophetic material concerning world conquest, the subjugation of barbarian nations, battling the heretics and infidels, the freeing of the Holy Land, and ascension as one of the blessed to heaven.²⁹ As Coote demonstrated, interpreting Despenser’s crusade in light of his manuscript is a fruitful—if speculative—exercise, suggesting that the prelate saw in the crusade an opportunity to forward England’s conquests and bring his king’s prophetic destiny as saviour of the Holy Land to fruition.³⁰ A forensic analysis of the sources in all their variety lies beyond this chapter’s remit, but the description above underlines how scholars enjoy the means to approach Despenser’s crusade from many perspectives. It is for this reason that the (often messy) intersections between political, religious, and economic developments and episodes occurring within the framework of the crusade are thrown into such sharp relief by the events of the 1380s, and why debate surrounding Despenser’s crusade remains so lively. The rich source base and thematic intersections also underline why Despenser’s career as a crusader bears continuing significance for the study of the later medieval crusades and crusading against Christians.

Background to the Crusade

The political and diplomatic background to Despenser’s crusade can best be understood from the confluence of three developments in fourteenth-century Christendom alluded to by contemporary and near-contemporary chroniclers: the Anglo-French conflict, the papal schism, and unrest in Flanders. Adam of Usk, a Welsh cleric writing in the 1420s, wrote that Despenser went on crusade to Flanders “on account of the papal schism” to attack “supporters of the French schismatics.”³¹ Writing closer to Despenser’s time, the Westminster Chronicle stated that Pope Urban VI empowered the bishop to “rise in arms against the French as schismatics,” going on to note the fractious political situation in Flanders and English fears for the security of Calais.³² The three developments highlighted above will now be tackled in turn.

The resumption of the Anglo-French conflict beginning in 1337 and continuing in fits for the next century or so meant that war between the two kingdoms rarely left the horizons of their political communities.³³ By the 1370s the war entered a phase of stalemate. While the French had stripped the English of most of their French territory, they could not prise them out of their fortified ports, such as Bordeaux, Calais, and Cherbourg. The English lacked the means to break out of these bases, and what resources the crown could muster were needed to counter French raids along the southern coast. By the 1380s both kingdoms were exposed to greater political instability and factionalism by virtue of having minors on their thrones—King Richard II of England was 10 upon his accession in 1377, and Charles VI of France was 12 in 1380—complicating further the marshalling of military resources and agreement of strategy in leadership circles.³⁴

The 1370s witnessed important developments for the papacy.³⁵ Resident in Avignon since the early 1300s, ongoing conflicts in the Papal States meant that the popes were unable to return to Rome until Gregory XI did so in 1377. After Gregory’s death the following year, papal authority was shattered by the election in Rome of the Neapolitan Urban VI (1378–1389) in April and then the subsequent election by dissident cardinals in Fondi of the southern-French Clement VII (1378–1394) in September, bringing about a papal schism (the “Great Schism”) lasting until 1417. After the defeat of his Breton mercenaries in April 1379 at the battle of Marino, Clement withdrew to Avignon establishing a rival papal court to Urban’s in Rome. Foreshadowing the destructive rhetoric and conflict that would define the struggles between these rival popes and their supporters in the coming decades, Urban, after victory at Marino, rewarded his commander with a banner inscribed “Italy free from the barbarians.”³⁶ Secular leaders across Christendom picked sides in line with their political interests: France opted for Clement, as did Scotland, Aragon, and Castile, while England supported Urban, along with Flanders, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and Hungary. These divisions exacerbated existing tensions, with Froissart claiming that the French in the early 1380s referred to Urban’s supporters in England and Flanders simply as “dogs.”³⁷ The national animosity engendered by the Anglo-French war was now fused with the belief on both sides that their natural enemies were also schismatics.³⁸

Political and social unrest swept Flanders in the later 1370s and early 1380s, provoking military confrontations between the city of Ghent, led in its rebellion by Philip van Artevelde, in receipt of an English pension since 1362, and Louis of Male, the count of Flanders.³⁹ Before meeting his demise in November 1382, when an army led by the French king crushed Flemish forces at Rosebeke, van Artevelde had appealed to England for aid.⁴⁰ The appeal met a mixed reception in England, for the political community was split between sending an expedition to Iberia or Flanders. John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster and uncle to Richard II, hoped to press his claim to the throne of Castile by leading an expedition in Spain.⁴¹ The region of Flanders, however, was of vital economic importance to England, for the textile trades there consumed significant quantities of English wool and the English crown depended for much of its tax revenue on the wool excise. After Rosebeke Charles VI occupied Bruges, executing at least four Englishmen and seizing their assets while forbidding trade between Flanders and England. He also forced Bruges to recognise Clement VII while granting the rest of Flanders until Easter to declare themselves for his favoured pope.⁴² This strategic reverse spread consternation among the mercantile and political elites in England and ensured that a campaign in Flanders enjoyed greater support than one in Spain. Urban VI had already issued papal bulls in March and May 1382 to Despenser to grant indulgences to anyone who would participate in or support an expedition against the supporters of Clement VII, and the target of this crusade was now confirmed as Flanders.⁴³ Negotiations through winter 1382/1383 secured crown backing, including the allocation of a parliamentary grant and an order to arrest shipping to transport the army, which by May 1383 was ready to depart. The three developments described above combined, therefore, to make possible a crusade, backed by Urban VI and sponsored by the English crown, directed in aid of Urbanist communities fighting French Clementist forces.

It is important, however, to situate Despenser’s campaign of 1383 against its European background. Traditional accounts of Despenser’s expedition sandwich it in between other events of the Hundred Years War, leaving little room to place the prelate’s crusade in its context. This in turn has the effect of presenting Despenser’s expedition as an aberration in an Anglo-French conflict usually dominated by armies engaged in “secular” warfare led by lay commanders. This perspective, moreover, has contributed to scepticism regarding the status of Despenser’s expedition, encouraging scholars across the board to qualify the noun with inverted commas. A broader focus, however, reveals that Despenser was one of many who led crusades against Christians in the 1380s and 1390s and that the use of the crusade points to an English political elite engaging in a practice common to Christendom at the time. The first crusade in the schism was called by Clement VII in 1382, who granted indulgences to any who supported Louis of Anjou, nephew of the French king, in his expedition to Naples aimed at ousting the Urbanist Charles of Durazzo.⁴⁴ Clement would similarly grant indulgences to the French force fighting Despenser’s in 1383. In 1385, after turning against Charles of Durazzo, Urban VI led a small army on an ill-fated crusade into southern Italy.⁴⁵ Following in Despenser’s footsteps in 1386, John of Gaunt took a crusading army to fight Clementists in Iberia. Just like Despenser’s, none of these crusades—sometimes labelled “internal crusades”—achieved their objectives.⁴⁶ Other crusading proposals of the 1380s and 1390s never materialised, such as Urban VI’s suggestion to William, duke of Guelders and Jülich, that he take the cross against the French in 1388, or the plan of Urban’s successor to bring English crusaders to Italy under the earl of Huntingdon.⁴⁷ Even after the schism’s close in 1417, the crusade against Christians continued to appear as a reasonable tool to leaders in English political circles. A petition presented by the parliament of the English lordship in Ireland to King Henry V in 1421, for example, called for a crusade against the native Irish, and the bishop of Winchester would later lead the crusade against the Hussites, taking a force of English archers to fight the heretics in summer 1428.⁴⁸ When situated in its European context, Despenser’s crusade and its dismal end appears less remarkable, and simply as one of the many outcrops of crusading against Christians encouraged by the schism.

Recruitment and Financing

The arrangements made for recruitment and financing of Despenser’s campaign can be followed in relative detail and indicate significant enthusiasm for the venture.⁴⁹ Fundraising probably began in summer 1382, with Despenser receiving bulls from Urban VI empowering him to preach the crusade in March and August.⁵⁰ As the bulls and contemporary chronicles make clear, any who aided the crusade would earn the same indulgence as those who proceeded to the defence of the Holy Land.⁵¹ Although the bulls entitled the prelate only to preach and grant indulgences for a crusade against Clementists, Despenser aroused political opposition by acting as if they also commissioned him to lead the crusade. The bishop’s prospective command concerned some contemporaries, but not because he was a cleric.⁵² In parliament at Westminster in spring 1383, the lords feared that if the bishop conquered French territory while on crusade then the king’s rights could be extinguished, as one could argue that territory was acquired for the pope.⁵³ After much negotiation and political manoeuvring throughout 1382 and spring 1383, by March Despenser was confirmed as commander of the expedition and he in turn offered to lead an army of 2500 men-at-arms and 2500 archers to Flanders that summer for a full year.⁵⁴

While engaging in drawn-out political negotiations, Despenser’s fundraising and recruitment proceeded with remarkable results. Royal commands in March 1383 to seek out and arrest imposters purporting to be proctors of Despenser and pretending to collect money for the crusade point to the generous atmosphere among donators.⁵⁵ The Westminster Chronicle believed that Despenser had drawn in “untold sums” through his sale of indulgences, while Froissart noted that the coin collected in Lincolnshire alone filled a Gascon tun.⁵⁶ Henry Knighton specified how rich and poor alike flocked to purchase indulgences with others providing men-at-arms at their own cost or volunteering to fight in person.⁵⁷ He also emphasised the wealthy women who donated jewels and plate and the case of one lady who gave the extraordinary sum of £100. Froissart estimated that 25,000 francs (roughly £4500) were raised overall, meaning that most of Despenser’s war chest still derived from the parliamentary grant of roughly £40,000.⁵⁸ There is no reason to doubt the general impression of popularity and support rendered to Despenser’s expedition in these chronicles, given the clear willingness of Englishmen and women to contribute money to crusades throughout the later medieval period.⁵⁹

Despenser’s fundraising was said by a St Alban’s chronicler to have touched “many parts of the kingdom.”⁶⁰ The data assembled by the SLME project reveals that his enlistment of men went even further, touching practically every part of the English realm. The evidence assembled by the SLME project helps shine a light on Despenser’s force unlike any other later medieval crusade. The 600 or so men who served with Despenser in 1383 included in the database demonstrate that his force was composed of men recruited from across England and across English society. Men from every English county took out letters of protection to serve on the campaign, with Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and the Bishopric of Durham proving the exceptions.⁶¹ The lack of participation from the northern counties does not reflect unpopularity regarding the crusade in the region, but rather the impending Scottish war that meant armed men needed to be kept in the locale.⁶² Anecdotal evidence, however, proves that counties for which letters of protection have not survived also provided recruits, such as William Sheppey, a monk of St Albans (Hertfordshire), one of many to leave the abbey to take part in the crusade according to one chronicler.⁶³ The SLME database not only reveals the broad geographic base upon which Despenser’s recruitment was founded, but grants insight into the social make-up of the prelate’s crusading force that can roughly be split into two: a core of professional soldiers and knights, and a broader and more diffuse band of enthusiasts, composed of skilled workers, craftsmen, and clergy.⁶⁴ To these two broad categories must be added the (often ill-equipped) volunteers who also joined on the campaign.

In terms of knights and professional soldiers, Despenser was joined by his nephew, Hugh Despenser, and at least a dozen other experienced captains such as William Elmham, who recruited many of the companies that served in 1383.⁶⁵ Many of the knights and men-at-arms had served the crown in previous campaigns and would go on to serve it again in the future. John de Lynford of Buckinghamshire, for example, had served in Brittany in 1374 and in another overseas campaign in 1375 before embarking with Despenser in 1383.⁶⁶ He would go on to serve in Portugal in 1385 with the master of the Order of Santiago and then in John of Gaunt’s crusade in Castile the following year, ending his career in the garrison of Roxburgh castle in the late 1380s.⁶⁷ From that perspective, Despenser’s army did not differ fundamentally from the contract armies usually raised by the English crown for service in France or in Scotland.⁶⁸ On the other hand, contemporaries were well aware that Despenser’s force was more heterogeneous than usual. The St Alban’s chronicler, Walsingham, would comment with pride, for example, on how the numerous monks, priests, and friars in Despenser’s crusading force killed the most enemies in a battle outside Dunkirk in late May.⁶⁹ The broader base of recruitment, stretching to civilians and clergymen, is evident in the letters of protection taken out by individuals across England. Participants included (among many examples) an armourer from Exeter, a chandler from London, a mason from Ware, a mercer from York, a draper from Coventry, a cordwainer from Southwark, and a prison-keeper from Fleet. As for the clergy who, according to Walsingham, distinguished themselves in their bloodletting before Dunkirk, perhaps he had in mind a certain Hugh Stormy, rector of a London parish church, or John Wayte, rector of a church in Suffolk, or Raymond, a parson in Lincolnshire, just three of the many men of the cloth who took out letters of protection before serving in Flanders. If the religious elements of Despenser’s campaign were but a “veneer” to hide its true economic motives, as Vaughan argued, then it was a thick one and one taken seriously by contemporaries across the English realm that encouraged individuals not usually accustomed to martial pursuits to take up arms.⁷⁰

Despenser’s force was also reinforced with bands of “volunteers.” The prelate’s military ordinances forbade anyone not on the bishop’s register from serving on the campaign, in a bid to ensure that only those with appropriate experience joined the fighting, but in practice these rules were relaxed.⁷¹ Upon hearing of the crusade’s initial success in May, for example, a group of apprentices in London downed tools and rushed to Flanders in a uniform of white hats, red scabbards, and red crosses.⁷² But these and other similar volunteers arrived without horses or weapons hoping for easy loot, contributed to indiscipline in the camp, and exhausted the army’s supplies, so Despenser was forced in the end to dismiss them.⁷³ The tension between recruiting a force as large as possible while ensuring it was sufficiently skilled to operate effectively taxed planners of the crusades throughout the period, appearing with force, for example, in fifteenth-century Hungary.⁷⁴ The case of the London apprentices highlights how the crusade could capture imaginations and encourage outpourings of support, but channelling this enthusiasm into constructive military activity posed problems, and Despenser’s campaign proved there were no easy answers to this issue.

The Course of the Crusade and Its Consequences

It would be otiose to describe the course of Despenser’s crusade in detail, for detailed narratives are accessible in print.⁷⁵ Instead, the focus here will be thematic, first assessing the expedition in light of its status as a crusade before focusing on the temperament of the fighting. In brief, Despenser’s force departed Calais on 19 May and, meeting little resistance, seized Gravelines, Bourbourg, and Dunkirk within a week. A Franco-Flemish force mustered in response was defeated before Dunkirk on 25 May. Fortified towns throughout the region submitted to the English, forcing Charles VI in Paris to assemble a fresh army, recruitment for which was spurred by the offer of indulgences from Clement VII. The clashing of two armies, each armed with indulgences from their respective papal overlord, was in the offing. Despenser could now march north-east to Bruges or south-east to Ypres and restore an important Flemish city to the Urbanist cause, or march south to attack French territory directly. Despenser chose Ypres, probably because of its strategic importance and the influence of his advisors from Ghent, which also sent a force to assist in its capture.⁷⁶ After attempts to storm the city on 9–10 June failed, the prelate and his Flemish allies settled down for a siege, constructing siege towers and installing artillery, including a large bombard called the “Canterbury Gun.”⁷⁷ The marshy land spread dysentery through the allied ranks and the substantial fortifications and spirited defenders wore the besiegers down. Despenser was not helped by the bands of undisciplined volunteers from the south of England turning up with neither food nor weapons. As the French host approached, Despenser and his Flemish allies suffered heavy casualties in a failed attempt to take the city in early August. With Despenser and his captains divided on strategy—Despenser wished to take the remaining force south to meet the French host, while most of his captains favoured a withdrawal towards Bourbourg—the army split acrimoniously on 10 August. The French army easily mopped up isolated bands of Englishmen as they advanced north, but there was no decisive confrontation. Dunkirk fell to the French without a fight, while Bourbourg and Gravelines surrendered after negotiation. At Bourbourg, three of Despenser’s captains who had abandoned him on 10 August were in command, and they surrendered on the 17th in return for 28,000 gold francs (roughly £4700).⁷⁸ Despenser held Gravelines and wanted to defend it, possibly hoping for reinforcements from England, but his captains surrendered on 23 September in return for 10,000 gold francs (roughly £1700), and the disgraced prelate returned to a bitter reception in England.⁷⁹

If the composition of Despenser’s force—combining a contract army with the crusading elements of a volunteer force—exhibited an ambivalence in status between a secular campaign of the Hundred Years War and a crusade, then Despenser’s management of the campaign displayed similar ambiguity. In terms of presentation, Despenser eagerly exploited crusading ritual and imagery (not to mention funding mechanisms such as the sale of indulgences) to significant effect, but his management of the fighting did not differ in its fundamentals from any other campaign of the Hundred Years War. His army, once on campaign, was given free rein to slaughter and pillage as if Flanders was enemy territory, even though his campaign was supposed to support the county in its efforts to fight the French.

Crusading ritual was central to Despenser’s presentation of the campaign, at least in its early phases. On 21 December, the prelate made his crusade vow public, setting up a cross in the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral. The bishop of London oversaw the ritual, with Despenser having to go to significant lengths to make it possible. The Westminster Chronicle claimed that the formal ceremony for taking the cross was basically unknown in England and that the prelate had scoured a number of cathedrals for the form of service with no success, only stumbling across what he needed in the church of Westminster.⁸⁰ The author of the Westminster Chronicle probably attended these ceremonies himself or perhaps drew upon the recollections of his fellow monks, one of whom accompanied Despenser on crusade, so the story is probably accurate.⁸¹ Despenser visited the church of Westminster on April 17 where he took the standard of the cross into his possession (it had presumably been moved from St Paul’s since December), and before a great crowd carried it part of the way in procession back to the cathedral. After hearing mass, the prelate travelled to Sandwich where his army and transports had been mustered.⁸² Once in Flanders, the Westminster Chronicle imbued his account of the campaign with miracles and spectacular events appropriate to its status as a crusade, but the account authored by Walsingham took the interpretation even further.⁸³ In describing the attack on Gravelines, Walsingham noted how Despenser’s army of “crusaders” (crucesignati) bore the banner of the Holy Cross before them, capturing the town and exterminating “the enemies of the cross so that not one of them remained alive.”⁸⁴

Not all writers in England took the same tone.⁸⁵ The inhabitants of Gravelines had been, after all, supporters of Urban, and the crusade was supposed to support the Flemish in their efforts against the French. Despenser’s military ordinances made no allowance for the fact that they would be campaigning in allied territory. One of his rules banned soldiers from taking food from each other or anyone else, until, that is, they reached enemy territory, which they clearly interpreted as Flanders, where they could take what they wanted according to the laws of war.⁸⁶ When assessing the nature of the fighting in Despenser’s campaign, historians have generally relied on the tales in chronicles written often years after the events in question, but the unpublished financial accounts of St Donaas, the principal church in Bruges, grant a rare and contemporary insight into the traumatic experience of the English invasion. In the church’s financial accounts of 1384, the section noting the receipt of arrears in 1383 records the following:

From either the chaplaincies of the Lord of Artois in the territory around Zoute nothing [was received], because the English this year killed almost all of the people in the land around Zoute and the majority of the people who remained have relied on charity, and those who have remained are paupers from whom nothing can be raised, and therefore it will not be possible to improve this land.⁸⁷

The English raid was ruinous, with an entry later in the record series recording how no income could be raised from either of the estates until 1387, and even then only 17 lb was received—a far cry from the 108 lb earmarked for collection in 1380–1381.⁸⁸ St Donaas had declared for the Roman pope in the aftermath of 1378 and was only forced to declare for Clement in 1382 under duress, but this did not concern Despenser’s crusaders. In its indiscriminate killing and raiding, the prelate’s force resembled any other campaign of the Hundred Years War. The only exception setting it apart from the routine fighting of the Anglo-French conflict occurred before the battle of Dunkirk on 25 May when the English sent a herald to the Franco-Flemish force in the hope of convincing them to change sides.⁸⁹ By convention heralds were protected from violence in wartime, but the Franco-Flemish host killed him, provoking an immediate English attack.⁹⁰

After Despenser’s withdrawal, warfare in Flanders continued. Illustrating the lengths French planners felt they needed to go to counter Despenser’s crusade, the campaign in 1383 was one of the most expensive ever waged by the French crown, costing around two million livres (roughly £400,000) and recruiting fighters from as far afield as the duchy of Austria.⁹¹ This significant outlay strained the treasury, the deals struck with the English for Bourbourg and Gravelines spread considerable dissatisfaction throughout the army for it removed any chance of gaining valuable captives for ransom, and the French crown still suffered military reverses. While the French host held English forces in check in September, Flemish rebels seized Ooudenaarde, a strategically important town on the river Scheldt, in a night attack, massacring every Frenchman within the walls.⁹² It would take another two years of campaigning to crush the Flemish revolt and occupy Ghent, and in the meantime Flemish leaders continued to ask for (and receive) military aid from the English crown.⁹³ By 1385 the tables had turned, and a Franco-Burgundian army was poised to invade England, but illness among the French leadership and adverse weather meant that the fleet never left Sluis.⁹⁴

In England the crusade’s failure led to a bitter parliamentary tribunal where the chancellor, Michael de la Pole, impeached Despenser and imprisoned his treasurer and five of his captains for treason.⁹⁵ Despenser enjoyed ecclesiastical immunity so Richard contented himself with seizing the bishop’s temporalities (the estates and lands he held from the crown). Despite the crusade’s dire end, Richard II soon brought Despenser back from the political wilderness, restoring his temporalities in autumn 1385 and dispatching the prelate the next year to Flanders as part of a naval campaign.⁹⁶ It is important to note, as Tyerman has, that criticism of Despenser’s crusade revolved more around issues of leadership and failure rather than any of the hypocrisies or contradictions involved in the enterprise that, at any rate, are probably clearer to moderns than they were to contemporaries.⁹⁷ Much has been made of Wycliffe’s denunciations of Despenser’s sale of indulgences, probably too much.⁹⁸ The sale in England of indulgences in the later 1390s to support Constantinople, in 1409–1414 to support the Hospitallers, and in 1428 to support the bishop of Winchester’s campaign against the Hussites raised significant sums of money and attests to the continuing ability of causes attached to the crusade to generate enthusiasm and donations.⁹⁹ At the very least, the debacle of 1383 did not deaden the appetite for crusading against Christians in English political circles and in 1386 John of Gaunt succeeded in raising an imposing force in England to crusade in Castile.¹⁰⁰ Even after, the spectre of crusade would remain on the political agenda, as demonstrated by the request mentioned above in 1421 of the English lordship of Ireland that Henry V petition the pope to authorise a crusade (une croysorie) against the native, Gaelic Irish.¹⁰¹ Although there is no evidence that Henry V acted upon this request, it attests to the persistence of the crusade as a policy option in English political circles and the opportunities that contemporaries perceived it could offer in bringing the crown’s enemies to heel.¹⁰²

Conclusions

Although the bitter recriminations surrounding Despenser’s impeachment made for an unedifying spectacle, the expedition’s dismal failure should not colour the analysis of the entire episode. Despenser’s crusade only attracted significant opprobrium after its failure, before which it enjoyed popular support and political backing. If anything, the bitterness awaiting the prelate in autumn 1383 from a disheartened public struggling to make sense of the expedition’s collapse simply reflects the significant political, financial, and spiritual investment made by individuals and communities across England to support the crusade. Even then, criticism revolved more around Despenser’s misuse of funds and military decisions than the crusade itself. While the bishop had to face derogatory jeers calling him the “King of Ypres” for the rest of his life, the institutions and imagery associated with the crusade fared much better, and the appetite for indulgences and willingness to donate in support of crusading causes remained healthy in England.¹⁰³ In the final analysis, the events of 1382–1383 reflect the malleability of crusading ideals in incorporating diverse and shifting aims as well as their continuing ability to mobilise enthusiasm, people, and resources on an impressive scale.