Unanimity, Anonymity, and Immunity: Thomas Haxey and the Form of the Common Petition in 14th-Century England

Abstract This chapter explores how power was negotiated between subjects and their rulers in the Middle Ages. Petitions were not necessarily acts of subservience from supplicants. In 14th-century England a new form of ‘political’ petition – the common petition – emerged. This provided the political community with the means of exerting pressure on the king, who was not always able to resist, especially when the petition’s successful outcome was directly linked to the granting of taxation. Moreover, common petitions made a claim to speak for the whole community of the realm. This fiction was maintained by the unanimity that was implied by ‘common/Commons’, the anonymity that the sponsors of such petitions enjoyed, and the consequent immunity from reprisals that this afforded them. In this context, the processes governing the presentation of petitions became almost as important as the content of the petitions in determining outcomes. These themes are explored through the case study of the Haxey incident in 1397, when Richard II tried to curtail dissident petitioning, and in a wider context by a consideration of the development of the form of common petitions across the period. The discussion highlights the complex political landscape that shaped the petitionary culture of late medieval England.