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Early Paces in England

 

By Roy Johnson

royjATwebster.edu

Pace Network main page|Pace Society home page

On a search of the site below, two very early Pace entries were found.  I decided to try to flesh out these two Paces by researching the history of the times and the other information in the chart to try to bring them to life as living people and perhaps determine how they lived and what historical events they may have been engaged in. Here is their story as best as I could work it out.

 

http://www.icmacentre.ac.uk/soldier/database/search_musterdb.php

 

Paces in early England.jpg

 

General historical background: In 1066 William Duke of Normandy in France conquered England and became King. He and his descendents remained powerful nobles in France while they were ruling England, a rival of France. The kings of France didn't care for that arrangement too much and they kept trying to push the English kings out of their holdings in France. This eventually resulted in a period  of off and on conflict from 1337 to 1453 which is lumped together as the "hundred years war." These two Paces were undoubtedly involved in some of the events  of this war.

 

John Pace

 

Researching John Pace's captain and commander I found that they were Devonshire men (the county, or shire, is just called Devon in England). It is on the southern coast of England; the chief town is Plymouth. I found his captain, Benedict Botteshale, as a rich merchant who was designated as a collector of the 1377 Dartmouth poll tax, a tax implemented by Parliament to help  pay for the war against France. Dartmouth is a town in County Devon. I did not find his commander, Philip de Courtenay, but the Courtenay family, of French origin, became Earls of Devon,  a title that remains to this day. Therefore it is most likely that John Pace was a Devon man.

 

John Pace was a man-at-arms. The free dictionary  http://www.thefreedictionary.com/man-at-arms defines a man at arms as "(Military) a soldier, esp a heavily armed mounted soldier in medieval times". To be mounted at that time meant a higher status than that of a normal  foot soldier. The chart indicates that he was involved in a naval expedition in 1374. What was a mounted horseman doing in a naval expedition? Perhaps just en route to France to fight there. In Wikipedia I read that in 1374 John of Gaunt reached Bordeaux, France. That is the only event I can find for that year, but it was not a naval expedition. John of Gaunt's exhausted army reached Bordeaux after marching through France, and they were beaten back and had to return to England. John Pace was a mounted horseman; was he at Bordeaux? I don't know how this squares with "Exped Naval." Maybe John Pace was one of the contingent that brought John of Gaunt back to England.  We can only speculate.

 

William Pace

 

There is even less to go on for William Pace, but from general knowledge and other reading, I know that not just anyone could be an archer. The English longbow required a lot of strength and much skill. It was a better weapon than the muskets that colonists brought to Jamestown and remained so for some time after. Among other things, a group of archers could shoot a shower of arrows high in the air to rain down behind enemy lines, terrorizing the fighters there. The musket was only popular because it did not require strength or much training or skill.  Almost anyone could fire a musket; not so a powerful English longbow.  William  may have been involved in any of the altercations of the years 1369-72. In 1372 England was losing badly in France; perhaps he was killed there and that is why this year terminates his service. The following events that may have involved William came from Wikipedia:

http://www.answers.com/topic/treaty-of-br-tigny

 The Treaty of Bretigny in 1360 ceded huge areas of northern and western France to English sovereignty. Hostilities arose again in 1369 as English armies under the king's third son, John of Gaunt, invaded France. English military strength, weakened considerably after the plague, gradually lost so much ground that by 1375, Edward agreed to the Treaty of Bruges, leaving only the coastal towns of Calais, Bordeaux, and Bayonne in English hands.

http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon32.html

Mercenary troops replaced feudal obligations as the means of gathering armies. So William Pace was probably paid for his services.

 Events http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1360s_in_England

·  1369

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1370s_in_England

 

·  1370

·  1371

·  1372

 

Devon and Southampton. The graphic below is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devon Devon is shown in red.

 

         Devon                   Southampton. John Pace was probably from Devon. William Pace was attached to the garrison at Southampton.

 

Additional references:

 

http://www.dartmouth-history.org.uk/content_images/upload/1377_Poll_Tax.htm

 

The 1377 Dartmouth poll tax shedding light on Benedict Botteshale

 

In 1377 Parliament granted the first poll tax in order to help finance the country's war against the French. Unlike previous grants of taxation at the national level, the poll tax was assessed at a flat rate of one groat (4d.) a head, rather than on the basis of property or wealth. All lay persons fourteen years of age or older were liable, with the exception of the truly poor and those in the exempt jurisdictions of Chester and Durham. A separate tax was exacted from the clergy; beneficed clergy paid Is. and the unbeneficed 4d., but mendicant clergy were exempt. Other boll taxes were granted in 1379 and 1381 although assessment and collection were on a slightly different basis and evasion was probably more widespread than for the 1377 tax.1

 

Besides John Hauley, three other men, Benedict Botteshale, William Clerk and Thomas Assheidene, also acted as collectors of the poll tax. Clerk and Assheidene both served as mayors of Dartmouth and, like Hauley and Botteshale, were wealthy merchants. Hauley, Assheidene and Botteshale were also major shipowners and on at least one occasion combined forces to fight the King's enemies at sea.14 Clerk and Assheidene lived in Clifton and Hauley apparently resided in Hardness. But Botteshale's name does not appear on the list of taxpayers even though he owned property in Dartmouth.15 The absence of his name is puzzling, especially since he was one of the collectors of the tax. It is possible that his residence was in Southtown or Norton, both of which were taxed separately from Clifton and Hardness.

 

The Dartmouth poll tax of 1377, is written in both Latin and French. The heading, totals, and some names are in Latin but most of the household listings are in French.

 

Origin of Courtenay, John Pace's commander

 

http://martinrealm.org/genealogy/courtenay.htm

 

Renaud (living in 1161), who came to England with Henry II and was made lord of Sutton in Berkshire (now called Sutton Courtenay, in Oxfordshire). Henry's mother the Empress Matilda was born in Sutton.

The eldest son, Sir William Courtenay of Powderham Castle (died 1557) is the ancestor of the later Earls of Devon, Marquesses of Exeter, etc, down to the present Hugh Rupert Courtenay, 18th Earl of Devon.

In England, the name is pronounced "Courtney."