ABSTRACT
James I of Scotland was not a hostage but a prisoner and therefore his inclusion in this volume requires justification.1 Adam Kosto noted the distinction between prisoners and hostages, stating that a hostage was the ‘guarantor of an agreement, and thus distinct from the captive, prisoner, or prisoner of war.’2 The distinction is clear: hostages were those given as collateral to ensure the fulfilment of an agreement such as payment of ransom, while prisoners of war were those captured as part of the chivalric warrior ethos of the medieval nobility that attempted to mitigate the excesses of warfare and limit the number of deaths on the battlefield.3 Kosto’s distinction between a hostage and captive, however, is unclear because hostages were in captivity. Kosto himself notes that during the Middle Ages ‘the physical control over people remained crucial.’4 Despite differences in the way in which they became captives, it is difficult to imagine that the experiences of hostages and prisoners differed to any significant extent. Rémy Ambühl has noted that contemporary conventions and ideals ‘expected [captors] to secure an appropriate place and conditions of detention.’5 What really mattered was not a person’s legal status but their social status. This is evident in the case of James I of Scotland who was a high status prisoner and had to be treated according to his status. James was only twelve years old when he was captured by pirates off the Norfolk coast. The capture occurred during a period of truce between Scotland and England. Therefore, James was not an active participant in warfare and was not technically a prisoner of war. Thereafter he was held captive by successive English kings for eighteen years until his release in 1424. The records of the English government permit an analysis of his time in English captivity which sheds light upon the experience of many medieval captives, both hostages and prisoners. It is for this reason that a discussion of his time as a prisoner in England is pertinent to this volume.
