Lambrick, Gabrielle, 'The impeachment of the Abbot of Abingdon in 1368', The English Historical Review 82 (1967), 250-276

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Quick Summary

The impeachment of the abbot of Abingdon in 1368 demonstrates that the impeachment proceedings in the Good Parliament of 1376 were nothing new

  • Historians should take a broader view of legal procedure known as impeachment
  • Legal dispute between the abbot of Abingdon and his tenants of the town of Abingdon
  • The process of impeachment was simply a legal remedy for various kinds of difficult case
Key Conclusion

Lambrick explores the legal procedure known as ‘impeachment’ by focusing on a legal case from 1368 involving the abbot of Abingdon. By exploring how impeachment was used before and after 1376, Lambrick argues that the ‘State Trials’ which took place in the Good Parliament were ‘nothing really new or revolutionary’. Lambrick concludes that historians should take a ‘very much broader view’ of impeachment, which was a legal procedure that ‘could embrace many different permutations and combinations’ (p. 276).

Content Overview

The article begins by introducing the case of a legal dispute between the abbot of Abingdon, and his tenants of the little town of Abingdon. In 1368, the abbot was impeached before ‘justices of oyer and terminer’ (royal judges) for imposing charges on his tenants by means of extortion. The tenants claimed that the abbot’s levying of these dues “usurped” royal privileges (undermined the rights of the king). The dispute was resolved in the abbot’s favour in 1372 when the abbot was ‘restored to full possession of the town’ after petitioning the king (p. 250).

Further Findings

Despite variations in ‘character and meaning’, the procedure of impeachment essentially rested on an underlying legal principle: ‘to fulfil a need for a legal yet efficient method of dealing with various kinds of difficult case… where the interests of king and community were equally at stake and for which satisfactory remedies could not usually be provided at common law’ (p. 276). Common law here basically means the “ordinary course of justice”.

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