William Beauchamp became the first of his family to hold the title of earl of Warwick in 1268. From this time, up to the middle of the fifteenth century, his family were the most powerful lay landholders in Worcestershire and Warwickshire, and influenced the course of British and European history both on and off the battlefield. Whilst their historical importance has been acknowledged by historians through the centuries, they have usually been cast in a supporting role to the figures whom the historian has regarded as the protagonist; Guy Beauchamp is usually seen by political historians of Edward II's reign as an assistant of the earl of Lancaster, Earl Thomas II, the appellant, is likewise seen as less of a figure in Richard II's opposition than the other appellants. Earl William and the first Earl Thomas are remembered by military historians for their deeds on the battlefield but for little else. When historians choose to examine the Beauchamp family, they are invariably attracted to the later, better documented period of the family's history. Sinclair, whose thesis The Beauchamp Earls of Warwick in the later middle ages skims through the century of the first three Beauchamp earls in the first chapter, devotes a whole chapter to the thirty-six year career of Richard Beauchamp, whilst using the rest of the thesis to trace the administration and affinity of that earl and his father. C. D. Ross has done some work on the estates of Richard Beauchamp, whilst there has also been some examination of Earl Thomas II's control over the Warwickshire shrievelty in the later fourteenth century. Furthermore, Richard Beauchamp's thirty-six year hegemony of Warwickshire has been subject to the labours of Dr Christine Carpenter, whose seminal work on Beauchamp's affinity and midlands society in the first quarter of the fifteenth century, combined with the efforts of other scholars, have practically made the need for any subsequent research into this period redundant. The reason for this concentration upon the later Beauchamp earls appears to be due to the wealth of documents, described by McFarlane as ‘particularly rich and varied’, which are only full from the 1390s onward. These documents include accounts of the earl's receiver-general, two valors, and household day books as well as many other important manuscripts. Using these sources, scholars, such as Ross and Sinclair, have been able to study the day-to-day administration of the Beauchamp household and estates at the beginning of the fifteenth century in considerable detail. Whilst the documents that would allow us to do the same for the beginning of the fourteenth century have been lost, this is not a reason for the serious historian to write off the first century of the Beauchamp family's tenure of the earldom of Warwick. Although we may not have the vivid, detailed sources with which historians of the later history of the family are spoiled, there are still a number of important sources for the period 1268 to 1369, not least of which are a private cartulary and a set of ‘unusually detailed wills’. The Beauchamp cartulary, ‘one of the most important of surviving English secular cartularies’ is itself worthy of individual study; containing 1,237 individual charters, it covers the period from the beginning of the twelfth century until the year 1392. The 384 charters from the period 1100-1268 have been transcribed and published, but the majority of the cartulary remains untranscribed. For the study of the first three Beauchamp earls it is an invaluable source, as over 700 of the charters cover the period 1268 to 1369. Despite being compiled in 1395-6, the number of charters concerning the acquisitions of Thomas II is minimal, with the result that well over half of the cartulary is relevant to our period of study. Combined with the wills, patent, close and fine rolls, as well as the odd chance surviving manuscript, we have a large amount of source material at our disposal.

For the purposes of this study, I have examined the history of the Beauchamp family from three separate angles. Chapter One takes a general, biographical approach describing the exploits of the three earls and their descendants, their impact upon the politics of the day, and their various marriage alliances. This is the approach which most students of the Beauchamp family have chosen to take for the period 1268 to 1369, as McFarlane does in his chapter ‘The Beauchamps and the Staffords’. The second chapter examines the fortunes of the family's estates in this period. The first century of Beauchamp rule was one of considerable importance for the future of the family, as it saw a great increase in the size of the Warwick estates. Whilst historians such as Holmes have examined the estates of the Clare inheritance in our period, the development and growth of the Beauchamp lands at this time was of profound importance for future generations, given that it saw their patrimony and status rise to elevate them from the bottom rung of the higher nobility in the later thirteenth century, to the middle of the pack by 1369. A survey and examination of the family's acquisitions has never been accurately compiled, and the second chapter attempts to remedy this. It also seeks to look at the successes and failures of the Beauchamps land policy at this time. The third, and most extensive, chapter is an examination of the west midlands political community as it stood under the first three Beauchamp earls and the ways in which the family achieved control over it. I have used a considerable amount of data contained in the Beauchamp cartulary to reconstruct the Beauchamp's affinity in an attempt to investigate their local authority, what methods they used to achieve it, and how it developed over the course of the century. In this respect I am following on from some of Hilton's ideas from A Medieval Society where he examines the whole spectrum of midlands society at the end of the thirteenth century, although I have restricted myself to the upper levels of this society. The chapter also connects to Carpenter's work on the affinity of Richard Beauchamp at the beginning of the fifteenth century, as many of the practices which she observes at that time developed during the period of the first three Beauchamp earls.

The period between 1268 and 1369 was a crucial one in the history of the family, and in many respects deserves more historical scrutiny than the family's later history. It was a century of expansion and consolidation in which the family saw a considerable increase in the size of their patrimony, and a period in which they established a hold on national politics. It saw a gradual shift in the interests of the earls from their traditional base in Worcestershire to their main caput around Warwick. Furthermore it saw the consolidation of their influence over midlands society, as they eventually established a hold over the offices of local administration and maintained their control through a network of ‘bastard feudal’ connections. All of these were relevant to the successes and failures of the family after 1369.

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