ABSTRACT
Roger of Wendover, the chronicler-monk from St Albans, wrote under 1208: ‘[The king] went against all the magnates of the realm and brought back to obedience those whom he particularly distrusted, by demanding hostages from them’ (exigens obsides ab eis).1 Later, his continuator, Matthew Paris, paraphrased Roger, noting that the king ‘made all whom he distrusted swear allegiance to him by taking special hostages from them’ (accipiens ab eisdem obsides speciales).2 The two chroniclers have long been known to offer more rhetoric and personal bias than historical fact, but in this they are likely to have stumbled upon one of King John of England’s main regnal signatures: a special approach to the institution of hostageship.3
