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The Barons' Letter of 1301 was written by seven English earls and 96 English barons to Pope Boniface VIII as a repudiation of his claim of feudal overlordship of Scotland. It was, however, never sent. The letter survives in two copies, known as A and B, both held in the National Archives at Kew under the reference E 26. Historically they were held amongst the documents in the Exchequer, Treasury of the Receipt department. The seals of the signatories to the letter survive in excellent condition. Although they are now detached from the document, they form the earliest contemporary group of true coats of arms, the rules of heraldry having only been established at around the start of the 13th century, and were stated for that reason by Lord Howard de Walden to be of very great value to students of heraldry.〔Howard de Walden, p.xi: "The Barons seals, forming as they do the earliest contemporary series of veritable coats of arms, are of the greatest importance from the heraldic standpoint, and as such are worthy of careful reproduction"〕 Many of the armorials also appear in the near contemporary Falkirk Roll of Arms made before the Battle of Falkirk in 1298 and in the near contemporaneous stained glass shields in Dorchester Abbey, Oxfordshire.〔https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ePn2jTGPhVkJ:ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-787-1/dissemination/pdf/BAJ046_PDFs/BAJ046_A13_lamborn.pdf+armorial+roger+bigod+lion&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiRQvJUZTfpHxg4jp3k1b3tKSxWXcoNhdFZexPtO2Q_ehSDiv5KWcueqgMymj5XC6X4TDUuO-XMn8V_cr86wc88BMEKnrvOwi7VJKGfq_eM9ucN6C9enR5WV8X-BieNVweorEVX&sig=AHIEtbTxniahcGP2bTzhsxXx-DQWaIUMjA〕 ==Purpose== The letter was written by English barons (mainly feudal barons and a few barons by writ) as a repudiation to the pope of his claim to feudal overlordship of Scotland, which he had expressed in a papal bull dated 27 June 1299 at Agnani. The bull was addressed to King Edward I and it was delivered by Robert Winchelsey, Archbishop of Canterbury at Sweetheart Abbey in Galloway, Scotland, on 26th or 27 August 1300. The bull is preserved in the National Archives at Kew under reference SC 7/6/10. The king sought the advice of William of Sardinia, a former Dean of Arches to the Archbishop, as to what his response should be, and was presented with various options set out in a letter preserved in the National Archives (C/47/31/15). The bull had been delivered to the king at a sensitive moment, just after the hard-won English victory at the Siege of Caerlaverock Castle over the Scots. Following their defeat at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298 the Scots had appealed to the pope for his protection, yet the English had fought to subject their northern neighbour and were not about to release it from under their control, perhaps only to rise up again against them. The French were the real movers of the pope's claim, having suggested the move to him as a means to effect protection of the Scots, then their allies under the Auld Alliance,〔Howard de Walden, Introduction, p.ix: "...claiming, on the suggestion of France, the feudal superiority, not for the Scottish but for Pope Boniface himself"〕 and were themselves allied with the Scots against the English. An English attack on a kingdom the feudal overlord of which was the pope would be virtually unthinkable in political and religious terms. There was thus no question of the English even considering the pope's claim, and the tone of the barons' reply to him is one of anger and open defiance, devoid of almost any of the diplomatic niceties with which the papal bull was replete. In the event, the Barons' Letter was never sent to the pope, as events changed rapidly to such an extent that it appeared superfluous.〔Howard de Walden, Introduction, p.x: "...Owing to the offence given by the French king at this juncture, the Pope's attention was diverted from Scotland, the position ceased to be acute and the bull together with the BL were conveniently shelved by the king"〕 A letter to the same effect from the king had however been sent to the pope; it is now held in the Vatican Archives with a copy in the National Archives at Kew under reference C 54/118. It was stored away within the archives of the Exchequer, where the two copies of it remained for several centuries until transferred to Public Record Office under the custody of the Master of the Rolls before 1903〔H de W, p.xi, writing in 1903/4 stated that they were at that time in the custody of the Master of the Rolls, the precursor in function of the Public Record Office which later became the present National Archives at Kew, where the letters are now kept under ref E26, see sources〕 and more recently transferred to the National Archives at Kew. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Barons' Letter of 1301」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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