ABSTRACT
When Ela, countess of Salisbury (1189-1261), paid the English king, Henry III, the substantial sum of 500 marks (a mark was two-thirds of a pound) in 1226 for the privilege of holding the powerful, lucrative and highly political public office of sheriff of Wiltshire, she became one of only two women ever to perform the duties of sheriff in all of medieval England. For although Ela's ancestors had performed as the sheriffs of Wiltshire, first as castellans of Sarum and later as the earls of Salisbury, since the reign of William the Conqueror, Ela had not been granted the position of sheriff upon her father's death in 1196. Rather, her husband, William Longespee, received the office upon their marriage in 1198. It was not until William's death in 1226 that Ela, in her widowhood, was able to claim, at some expense, the position of sheriff for her own. Thus, despite the fact that she was heiress to the Salisbury earldom, religious attitudes and the legal realities of medieval life conspired to keep Ela of Salisbury—and noblewomen like her— distanced from nearly all forms of public activity.
