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A fascinating late-medieval case involving Eleanor Moleyns, wife of Robert Hungerford, 3rd Baron Hungerford. Eleanor was the daughter of Sir William Moleyns, landowner, MP, Justice of the Peace (pictured: a group of young, fashionable late-medievals much like Eleanor and Robert) 
and the owner of 17 manors. Robert was the grandson of Walter Hungerford, KG, the first Speaker of the House of Commons, later ennobled as 1st Baron Hungerford. Robert and Eleanor married young, when he was 12 and she (pictured: a respectable late-medieval 'belted' knight)
15. It was a good match, except that Robert was an exceptionally feckless and stupid boy. In 1452, he went with the Earl of Shrewsbury to Aquitaine (at the very tail end of the Hundred Years War). He was taken prisoner during the siege of Chastillon, and his ransom was fixed at
£7,966, an eye-watering sum given the annual income for a knight would usually be around £40+, and having £1,000+ income would put you in the top 30 landowners in the country. If you'll forgive a digression, ransoms were the way to get rich in the Hundred Years War. If you could
capture a French count or baron or even a knight, your fortune was made. The ransomee was often bailed to go and raise the money to pay the ransom, and they were honour-bound not to return to the fighting while doing so. This was all taken very seriously and the Court of Chivalry
would enforce ransoms and give judgments against individuals who returned to the fighting without paying their ransom. Some were ruined by ransoms, others were made fabulously wealthy. At this time, you see lots of lovely little manor houses popping up around the countryside.
Sir Edward Dalyngrigge (Daling-ridge) built Bodiam Castle using the proceeds of ransoms that he had taken fighting in the Hundred Years War. Earlier in the war, at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356, King John II of France was captured by the English. If you get £7,966 for a minor
baron like Hungerford, imagine how much you get for a king? John spent years in England while the 4 million ecu ransom was raised (rough calculations, I think that's about a million pounds, or 20-30 times England's peacetime government budget). A treaty was signed in which
John ceded a large portion of western France to England, and agreed to exchange himself for 83 high-value hostages including his son, Prince Louis. John went back to France but after hearing that Prince Louis had escaped, he honourably returned himself to English custody and
died a year later at the Savoy Palace in London. One final digression on ransoms, and architecture... while Bodiam is quite impressive, I rather prefer the moated manor houses of this era, like the delightful Baddesley Clinton (pictured). Anyway, Robert's mother
mortgaged her estates and sold her plate. Eleanor's estates were also mortgaged (the issue which gives rise to the case). Robert was released in 1459 and immediately threw himself into the Wars of the Roses, fighting at Towton and fleeing to
Scotland with the Lancastrian royal family. He continued fighting to place Henry VI back on the throne and was captured at the Battle of Hexham in 1464, and executed. This left Eleanor with two young children and a mountain of debt, for the ransom of 1453 was still being paid off
The debt had been raised in two tranches, and was owned by a syndicate of Agnes Forster, a wealthy widow of London, Simone Nori, a Medici factor (business agent) and John Plomer, a grocer (wholesale food merchant). The first tranche of £3,000 was raised against the Hungerford
estates and Robert's mother's estates, a second tranche of £3,000 was raised by mortgaging Eleanor's Moleyns estates. Eleanor's estates were conveyed to trustees (or 'feoffees'; she was the 'feoffor' and made a 'feoffment', same etymology as 'fiefdom', 'fee', 'feudal', etc) who
would hold it to the "use" (a 'use' is a medieval trust) of Mrs Forster, Mr Nori and Mr Plomer, while the debt was repaid. It seems that sometime around 1465, the £3,000 of the tranche for which Eleanor's properties had been mortgaged had been repaid. However, the other £3,000
tranche had not been repaid. Eleanor's position was that she was only responsible for the £3,000 that was charged to her mortgaged estates, not the other £3,000. The mortgagees argued that the property should remain with them until all debts were repaid. And we're not talking
about a modest amount of property, the estate encompassed over a dozen manors, at least 100 houses, thousands upon thousands of acres of meadow, pasture and toft, the 'advowson' (or right to nominate a priest to a church benefice) of ten churches. Eleanor took her case to
the Court of Chancery (pictured). The decision-maker was the Lord Chancellor; "To the right reverend fader in god and ful goode and gracious lorde the bisshop of Excestre, chaunceller of Englonde. Beseecheth meekly Alianore wyf of Robert late lorde hungerford
and of molyns, knight. [Robert and Alianore] beynge thereof so seased for the surety and contentation [bargain] of £3,000 in the which the seid Robert was endetted to Agnes Forster of London, widowe, John Plomer, citezon and grocer of London and Symond Nory, merchaunt".
The chancery bill proceeds to set out the basis of the bargain, how the £3,000 for which Eleanor's estates were mortgaged has now been repaid and she has, "often tymes requyred the forseid [feoffees] to make estate ... of the seid manors londes and tenementes" to her but they
have refused to her "grete hert and bitter undoyng". She even says that the estates were yielding far more than the repayments required, "whiche been of yearly value of c xx li [£120] above all charges". She therefore requests, "your good lordship" (Bishop of Exeter pictured)
"the premises tenderly to consider and thereupon to graunte several writtes of sub pena to be directe unto the seid [feoffees]... to appere afore the kynge in his chauncery in the synk semayntes [fifth week] of Easter next there to do in this behalfe what right and good
conscience shall require". According to the Oxford Dictionary of Biography, Eleanor "ultimately repudiated any obligation for [Hungerford's] debts". In 1469 she married Sir Oliver Maningham and died in 1476, survived by three of her four children.
