aspect of the gubernatorial office was the most significant and, in keeping 
with current practice, the obligations with respect to a governor's military 
establishment were reduced to terms of formal agreement. To incorporate 
other and nonmilitary matter was but a step. Two pairs of documents suggest 
the nexus between the use of indentures for military needs and their use for 
the specification of governmental powers. Robert de Herle, in June, 1351, 
entered into an indenture with the King with respect to the garrisoning of 
Calais, and ten days later was commissioned Captain of Calais. 21 A few years 
later, in 1355, the Black Prince and the King settled by indenture the details of 
the military establishment for Gascony as well as the particulars of governmental 
authority; e.g., ordinance power, capacity to make grants, jurisdiction 
over rebels to be exercised by the Prince as lieutenant in Gascony. The commission 
of the same day embodies the recital of such powers. 22 
In 1376, when the Earl of Ormond was commissioned justiciar of Ireland, 
the familiar terse form is used, but this is accompanied by a royal declaration 
respecting the powers of the office. 23 Similarly, in 1378 John Neville was given 
a short form commission as lieutenant of Gascony and received an explanatory 
document issued with consent of the Council. 24 It seems plausible that these 
declarations in each case embodied the purport of underlying indentures, for 
no English King was likely at this stage to confer broad authority ex mero 
motu. These declarations, moreover, appear to be an intermediate step to the 
ultimate absorption of their contents into the patent of appointment. This was 
probably first done by resorting to an incorporation by reference. Thus, John 
Stanley was appointed Lieutenant of Ireland on December 10, 1399, by King 
and Council, with a specification of authority recited to be according to the 
form of a certain indenture, and his reappointment in 1413 was in similar 
terms. 25 The virtue of this expedient was this, that the commission formula 
itself was left virtually intact, but the fact of reference lent to a private contract 
the vigor of a public instrument. 
This is not the place for an exhaustive inquiry into the role of the indenture, 
nor are the resources presently at our disposal sufficient thereto. Enough has 
been sketched, perhaps, to suggest the part which bargain played in securing 
a definition of office. In the shifting subject matter of such contracts it is 
Indenture System under Edward 111, in Historical 
Essays in Honour of James Tait (1933) 283. 
21 The indenture is in 3 Rymer, Foedera (Rolls 
ed.), pt. i, 222; the commission in ibid., 226. Cf. 
the combination in the appointment of John 
Beauchamp {ibid. 316, 324 [1356]). 
22 The indenture is in Register of the Blac\ 
Prince (1933), Part iv, 143-45; the commission 
is in 3 Rymer Foedera (Rolls ed.), pt. i, 3°7- 
23 The commission is in 3 Rymer, Foedera 
(Rolls ed.), 1058; the declaration in ibid., 1060. 
24 Notification of the commission is in 4 ibid., 
43; the declaration in ibid., 44. 
25 Cf. Calendar of Patent Rolls 1309-1401, 92; 
Calendar of Patent Rolls 1413-16, 53.