I. TERRITORIAL STUDIES (part 2 of 2)
The comparison of these two lists suggests some interesting conclusions. Roger de Laci, forfeited early in the reign for treason, had been succeeded by his brother Hugh. 'Punher' supplies us with the transitional form from the 'Ponther' of Domesday to the 'Puher' of the reign of Henry I. The identity of the names is thus established. Walter fitz Roger has already assumed his family surname as Walter de Gloucester, and his uncle Durand has now been succeeded by a son Roger, whose existence was unknown to genealogists. The pedigree of the family in the Norman period has been well traced by Mr A. S. Ellis in his paper on the Gloucestershire Domesday tenants, but he was of opinion that Walter de Gloucester was the immediate successor in the shrievalty of his uncle, Durand, who died without issue. This list, on the contrary, suggests that the immediate successor of Durand was his son Roger, and that if, like his father, he held the shrievalty, this might account for the interlineation remitting, in his case, the sum due. In this Roger we, surely, have that 'Roger de Gloucester' who was slain in Normandy in 1106, and whom, without the evidence afforded by this list, it was not possible to identify.[282]
The chief difficulty that this list presents is its omission of the principal tenant of the see, Urse d'Abetot. One can only assign it to the fact of his official position as sheriff enabling him to secure exemption for himself, and perhaps even for his brother, Robert 'Dispensator'. Their exemption, however accounted for, involved an arbitrary assessment of all the remaining tenants, irrespective of the character or of the extent of their tenure. With these remarks I must leave a document, which is free from anachronism or inconsistency, and as trustworthy, I think, as it is useful.
It is my hope that this paper may increase the interest in the forthcoming edition of the Liber Rubeus under the care of Mr Hubert Hall, and that it may lead to a reconsideration of the problems presented by the feudal system as it meets us in England. Nor can I close without reminding the reader that if my researches have compelled me to differ from an authority so supreme as Dr Stubbs, this in no way impugns the soundness of his judgment on the data hitherto known. The original sources have remained so strangely neglected, that it was not in the power of any writer covering so wide a field to master the facts and figures which I have now endeavoured to set forth, and on which alone it is possible to form a conclusion beyond dispute.
[Footnote 1: Reprinted, with additions, from the English Historical Review.]
[Footnote 2: 'The belief which has come down to us from Selden, and the antiquarian school, a belief which was hitherto universally received, that William I divided the English landed property into military fees, is erroneous, and results from the dating back of an earlier [? later] condition of things.'--GNEIST, Const. Hist., i. 129.]
[Footnote 3: 'There can be no doubt that the military tenure, the most prominent feature of historical feudalism, was itself introduced by the same gradual process which we have assumed in the case of the feudal usages in general.'--STUBBS, Const. Hist., i. 261.]
[Footnote 4: Stubbs, C.H., i. 260-1. So too Freeman.]
[Footnote 5: Stubbs, C.H., i. 261.]
[Footnote 6: Ibid., i. 298.]
[Footnote 7: Ibid., i. 298, 301.]
[Footnote 8: Ibid., i. 300.]
[Footnote 9: Select Charters, p. 96.]
[Footnote 10: Norm. Conq., v. 380.]
[Footnote 11: C.H., i. 581.]
[Footnote 12: N.C., v. 377; cf. History of William II, pp. 335, 337, 'The whole system, a system which logically hangs together in the most perfect way, was the device of the same subtle and malignant brain.']
[Footnote 13: Ibid., p. 374.]
[Footnote 14: 'Si quis baronum meorum, comitum sive aliorum qui de me tenent, mortuus fuerit, heres suus non redimet terram suam sicut faciebat tempore fratris mei, sed justa et legitima relevatione relevabit eam.']
[Footnote 15: 'In that charter the military tenures are taken for granted. What is provided against is their being perverted, as they had been in the days of Rufus, into engines of oppression.'--N.C., v. 373.]
[Footnote 16: N.C., v. 372; C.H., i. 261.]
[Footnote 17: N.C., v. 373.]
[Footnote 18: Palgrave, as Mr Freeman observes, 'strongly and clearly brought out the absence of any distinct mention of military tenures in Domesday'. Dr Stubbs more cautiously wrote: 'The wording of the Domesday Survey does not imply that in this respect the new military service differed from the old.' (C.H., i. 262.) Mr Freeman confidently asserts: 'Nothing is more certain than that from one end of Domesday to the other, there is not a trace of military tenures as they were afterwards understood.... We hear of nothing in Domesday which can be called knight-service or military tenure in the later sense.' (N.C., v. 370, 371.) Mr Hunt (Norman Britain) follows the same line, and Gneist, vouching Palgrave, Stubbs, and Freeman, repeats the argument. (C.H., i. 130.)]
[Footnote 19: 'I spoke to Mr Falconberge to look whether he could out of Domesday Book give me anything concerning the sea and the dominion thereof' (1661).]
[Footnote 20: N.C., v. 465.]
[Footnote 21: N.C., v. 4.]
[Footnote 22: Ibid., p. 42.]
[Footnote 23: As so much stress has been laid on the argument from Domesday, it is desirable further to demonstrate its worthlessness by referring to the Lindsey Survey (vide supra, p. 149). This survey can only be a few years previous to 1120, and was therefore made at a time when, ex hypothesi, feudal tenures had been established for some time. Yet here, also, page after page may be searched in vain for any mention of 'knights' or 'fees'.]
[Footnote 24: Gneist, C.H., i. 132.]
[Footnote 25: Gneist, C.H., i. 118.]
[Footnote 26: Ibid., i. 156, 133, 124.]
[Footnote 27: Ibid., i. 130.]
[Footnote 28: Ibid., i. 156.]
[Footnote 29: Ibid., i. 133.]
[Footnote 30: Stubbs, C.H., i. 192. I do not quite understand the passage that 'it is probable that the complete following out of the Frank idea [exact proportion of service to hides] was reserved for Henry II, unless his military reforms are to be understood, as so many of his other measures are, as the revival and strengthening of anti-feudal and pre-feudal custom'. (Ibid.) The allusion is, clearly, to the assize of arms; but was that assize based on fixed quantities of land? Mr Little has discussed the five-hide question in the English Historical Review, xvi. pp. 726-9 (vide supra, p. 65).]
[Footnote 31: Ibid., i. 262.]
[Footnote 32: Ibid., i. 262.]
[Footnote 33: C.H., i. 386.]
[Footnote 34: Ibid., i. 581.]
[Footnote 35: Ibid., i. 264-5.]
[Footnote 36: Ibid., i. 432.]
[Footnote 37: 'The growth of the system of knights' fees out of the older system of hides is traced by Stubbs. The old service of a man from each five hides of land would go on, only it would take a new name and a new spirit' (N.C., v. 866).]
[Footnote 38: This argument, of course, applies, mutatis mutandis, to a five-hide unit as well.]
[Footnote 39: C.H., i. 265.]
[Footnote 40: Henry of Huntingdon (p. 207) speaks of the Domesday returns by the same name (cartae).]
[Footnote 41: Domesday Book occupies a medial position, being arranged under counties, but within each county, under fiefs.]
[Footnote 42: Compare the carta of the bishop of Exeter, Præcepistis mihi quod mandarem vobis non quod servitia militum vobis debeam, etc. Dr Stubbs writes: 'The king issued a writ to all the tenants-in-chief of the crown, lay and clerical, directing each of them to send in a cartel or report of the number of knights' fees for the service of which he was legally liable.'--Const. Hist., i. 584.]
[Footnote 43: The bishop of 'Coventry' expresses it: 'numerum ... eorum si quos in dominio tenemus, et eorum nomina' (p. 263).]
[Footnote 44: These references are to the pages of the forthcoming edition of the Liber Rubeus. It will be observed that the second three returns are too closely alike for accidental coincidence; the three Shropshire 'barons' who made them must have been in some communication. Note here the remarkable use of the term 'compares'.]
[Footnote 45: Audivi praeceptum vestrum in consulatu Herefordiae.]
[Footnote 46: Audito praecepto vestro.]
[Footnote 47: Praeceptum vestrum, per totam Angliam divulgatum, per vicecomitem vestrum Northumberlande ad me, sicut ad alios, pervenit.]
[Footnote 48: Mandavit nobis ... Vicecomes Stephanus, ex parte vestra quatinus, etc.]
[Footnote 49: Praecepit dignitas vestra omnibus fidelibus vestris, clericis et laicis, qui de vobis tenent in capite in Eboracsira ut mandent, etc.... Quorum ego unus, etc.]
[Footnote 50: It should be scarcely necessary to warn the reader against confusing the dominium, or non-infeudated portion of the entire fief, with the dominium, or demesne portion, of each Manor upon that fief.]
[Footnote 51: An instance in point is afforded by the Bardolf barony (i.e. fief) temp. John: 'Heres Dodon' Bardulf tenet feoda xxv. militum per totum. Inde xv. milites sunt feoffati et x. feoda sunt super dominium' (Testa de Nevill, p. 19).]
[Footnote 52: (1) Old feoffment, (2) new feoffment, (3) demesne.]
[Footnote 53: He and his successors are consequently found paying, time after time, on thirty-five fees.]
[Footnote 54: William de Beauchamp, of Worcestershire, is virtually a solitary exception. He inserts, cavendi causa, this significant clause: 'De hiis praenominatis non debeo Regi nisi servitium vii. militum, nec antecessores mei unquam plus fecerunt, sed quia dominus Rex praecepit michi mandare quot milites habeo et eorum nomina, ideo mando quod istos [i.e. 16] habeo fefatos de veteri feffamento; sed non debeo Regi nisi servitium vii. militum.' But William was a sheriff at the time, and may have had special information which put him on his guard.]
[Footnote 55: Compare the case of the Irish bishops six years later (1172), who sent the king 'litteras suas in modum cartae extra sigillum pendentes' (Howden). Note also that the addition of the seal made the return essentially a carta. In Normandy, the tenants by knight-service were only required (1172) to seal the return (breve) of their servitium debitum.]
[Footnote 56: The point is of some importance in its bearing on the right of the individual to assess himself, which is held in this case to have been exercised. 'The assessment,' writes Dr Stubbs, 'of the individual depended very much on his own report, which the exchequer had little means of checking.'--C.H., i. 585.]
[Footnote 57: By one of those slips so marvellously rare in his writings Dr Stubbs writes that 'the Bishop of Durham's service for his demesne land was that of ten knights, but it was not cut up into fees' (i. 263). What the bishop said was that he owed no service for his demesne, because there were already over seventy fees created on his fief, though he only owed ten.]
[Footnote 58: This is one of the points on which Madox is completely at sea. He quotes the case of the Bishop of Durham (1168) as an instance of 'Doubts about the number of knights' fees' (Baronia Anglica, p. 122); and he writes, of the above uniform formula: 'This uncertainty about the number of the fees frequently happened in the case of ecclesiastical persons, Bishops, and Abbots.'--Exchequer, i. 647.]
[Footnote 59: C.H., i. 264.]
[Footnote 60: See my papers on 'The House of Lords; the Transition from Tenure to Writ' (Antiquary, October and December 1884, April 1885).]
[Footnote 61: See, for instance, the language used in the carta of Ralf de Worcester (p. 441): 'Teneo de vobis in capite de veteri fefamento feodum i. militis, unde debeo vobis facere servitium i. militis. Et de eodem feodo Jordanus Hairum debet mihi facere iiii.^{am.} partem servitii,' etc. In Normandy (1172), the phrase ran: 'quot milites unusquisque baronum deberet ad servicium regis, et quot haberet ad suum proprium servicium'.]
[Footnote 62: Sometimes Exeter pays on 15-1/2 (14, 33, Hen. II), but 17-1/2 (2, 5, 7, 18 Hen. II) is the normal amount. The explanation of this odd number is found in the Testa de Nevill (p. 226) where ('Veredictum militum de Rapo de Arundel') we read: 'Episcopus Exoniensis tenet de Domino Rege de Capellaria de Boseham vii. feoda militum et dimidium.' The Bosham estate (as belonging to Osbern) had formed part of the episcopal fief in Domesday, but (the bishops having founded a church there) we find it assessed and paying separately as 7-1/2 fees.]
[Footnote 63: I have found a case bearing upon this point and reported at great length (Thorpe's Registrum Roffense, pp. 70 et seq.). It arose from an attempt of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1253, to distrain the Bishop of Rochester for the 'auxilium ad filium regis primogenitum militem faciendum'. The bishop 'posuit se super recordum rotulorum de Scaccario, per quos rotulos poterit et illa quam rex contra episcopum et etiam illa quam archiepiscopus contra episcopum movit questio diffiniri. Didicerat enim episcopus per unum fidelem amicum quem in scaccario tunc habebat quod nunquam tempore alicujus regis pro aliquo feodo episcopatus aliquod fuit regi factum servicium vel datum scutagium.... Unde consulebat quod audaciter poneret se episcopus super recordum rotulorum de Scaccario, nichil enim tenet episcopus per baroniam de rege, sed per puram elemosinam, quod non est dicendum de aliquo episcopatu Anglie, nec de Archiepiscopatu, nisi dumtaxat de Karleolen. Cumque cum audacia institisset episcopus, quod decideretur per rotulos de Scaccario quibus creditur in omnibus illis sicut sancto evangelio', etc., etc. The barons of the exchequer examined the rolls, 'a tempore primi conquestus' (?) and reported: 'nusquam invenerunt episcopum Roffensem solvisse aut dedisse aliquod servicium regibus temporale'. But the dispute was not finally decided till 1259. The clue to the matter is found in the Canterbury 'Domesday Monachorum' (8th Report Hist. MSS. i. 316), where a list of the archbishop's knights, perhaps coeval with Domesday (vide infra, p. 236), is headed by 'Episcopus Roffensis' with a servitium of ten knights to the Primate.]
[Footnote 64: Cerne had to provide 'ten' knights ad wardam at Corfe Castle, or 'two' ad exercitum (vide cartam).]
[Footnote 65: This indeed is proved by an extract quoted by Madox (Exchequer) from the Roll of 22 Hen. II (rot. 10_a_).]
[Footnote 66: The effect of all the changes of assessment we have traced under Henry II would only be the reduction of this total to 774.]
[Footnote 67: Roll of 11 Hen. II. (This was, of course, the son of Henry I by Edith.)]
[Footnote 68 The custos of his fief paid scutage for eighty knights in 1159, but he speaks 'de meis lx. militibus' in his carta.]
[Footnote 69: The undoubted assessment in 1162. Afterwards it is found paying on sixty and a fraction.]
[Footnote 70: 'Lx. milites ... habere solebat pater meus' (Carta).]
[Footnote 71: This figure is given in the Liber Niger, but is really derived from his recorded payments.]
[Footnote 72: Tot habuit milites feodatos ... scilicet lx. de antiquo feodo (Carta).]
[Footnote 73: In Yorkshire alone. In all England, many more.]
[Footnote 74: This figure is taken from the payments in 1161 and 1172.]
[Footnote 75: Roll of 11 Hen. II.]
[Footnote 76: Ibid. It is impossible, within the compass of a note, to discuss the two consecutive and most important entries on the Roll (pp. 37-8), which represent a payment by the Earl of Chester on 20 fees, 'pro feodo Turoldi vicecomitis', and by Richard de Camville on 40 fees, 'pro feodo Willelmi de Romara'. I called attention to the former entry in the Academy (April 21, 1888), but did not at that time explain it. Mr R. E. G. Kirk undertook to explain 'its real meaning' (Genealogist, v. 141), which, however, he completely mistook (ibid., July 1891). The two entries, I think, should be read together as relating to the estates of the famous Lucy, the common ancestress of the earl and of William. If so, they may refer to a fief with an original servitium of 60 knights, of which one-third was in the hands of the Earl of Chester, and two-thirds in that of his cousin. Independently of the light they throw on the obscure history of this divided and contested fief, they are of value for the unique reference (in this Roll) to 'noviter feffati' (vide infra). The total (including these) for the two fiefs is 66-31/80. There is no return for the earl's Lindsey fief in 1166, but William de Roumare's return acknowledges 57 fees. If to these we add the 9-1/2 fees which, it says, had formerly existed in addition, we obtain 66-1/2. This suggests that the one fief of 1166 represents the two of 1165. It should be added that the Hampshire fief of William de Roumare is paid for as 20 fees in 1159 and 1162, and was similarly accounted for by Richard de Camville in both these years.]
[Footnote 77: Roll of 11 Hen. II.]
[Footnote 78: He omitted to send in a carta in 1166; but, both before and after, he paid on 30 fees.]
[Footnote 79: He twice pays on 30 fees before 1166, in which year his fief was held by Gerbert de Percy. Subsequently, as the honour of Poerstoke (Poorstock), it always pays on 30.]
[Footnote 80: This is a very difficult case. Walter's carta might easily be read as implying a servitium debitum of 20 fees, and his fief paid on 29 de veteri and 1-1/2 de novo. But careful scrutiny reveals that the words 'hos iiij^{or.} milites qui has predictas terras tenent' are preceded by six names. If they refer, either to the four names immediately preceding, or (which is more probable) to the four knights who held his lands but rendered him no service, the total of his servitium debitum would, in either case, be 30.]
[Footnote 81: Roll of 11 Hen. II.]
[Footnote 82: He paid on 25 fees in 1162.]
[Footnote 83: 'Feodum xx. militum de rege de veteri feffamento quod pater suus tenuit' (carta).]
[Footnote 84: He paid on 20 fees in 1161, but the subsequent assessment of the fief varies considerably.]
[Footnote 85: He paid on 20 fees in 1162 and 1165, and returned his fees in 1166 as 20 de veteri and 3/4 de novo.]
[Footnote 86: The scutages record him as paying always on 15 knights quos recognoscit--the formula for servitium debitum.]
[Footnote 87: His payment on 15 fees in 1161 probably represents his servitium debitum. His total enfeoffments were 23.]
[Footnote 88: Hugh and Stephen de Scalers are the names given in the cartae, but Henry and William de Scalers held the fiefs at the time.]
[Footnote 89: He paid 10 marcs in 1168, though his carta only records 9-5/6 fees.]
[Footnote 90: A difficult fief to deal with, but almost certainly the half of an original Reimes fief owing 20 knights (vide supra).]
[Footnote 91: Apparently 15 at first, and 10 later.]
[Footnote 92: i.e. the Peverel Honour of Bourne, Cambridgeshire (held in Domesday by Picot, the Sheriff), not Bourne, Lincolnshire, held by the Wakes.]
[Footnote 93: He only pays on 5 fees in 1162, and the excess de novo in his carta is accounted for, he says, by the necessities of his position.]
[Footnote 94: This is not proved for the latter fief.]
[Footnote 95: Compare with these allusions to a traditional servitium debitum the significant words of Wace (_Roman de Rou_):
'Ne ke jamez d'ore en avant, Ço lor a miz en covenant, N'ierent de servise requis, Forz tel ke solt estre al paiz, E tel come lor ancessor Soleient fere a lor Seignor,'--
which are the reply to the fears of the barons (Norm. Conq., iii. 298):
'Li servise ki est doblez Creiment k'il seit en feu tornez, Et en costume seit tenu Et par costume seit rendu (lines 11272 et seq.).']
[Footnote 96: It can be shown that the 'service' in Normandy was based on precisely the same five-knight unit.]
[Footnote 97: 'The estates of the twenty greatest feodaries in Domesday Book contain, according to the ordinary computation, 793, 439, 442, 298, 280, 222, 171, 164, 132, 130, 123, 119, 118, 107, 81, 47, 46 and 33 knights' fees.'--Gneist (_Const. Hist._, i. 334).]
[Footnote 98: C.H., i. 289.]
[Footnote 99: For instance, the Abbot of St Edmund's 'quinquaginta milites' are spoken of as 'milites de quatuor constabiliis' with 'decem miles de quinta constabilia' (Memorials of St Edmunds, Ed. Arnold, i. 269, 271).]
[Footnote 100: Robert fitz Stephen lands with 30 knights, Maurice de Prendergast with 10, Maurice fitz Gerald with 10, Strongbow with 200, Raymond the Fat with 10, Henry himself with either 400 or 500, etc.]
[Footnote 101: See my Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 103.]
[Footnote 102: Lines 11253 et seq. The figures, however, are far too large, and savour of poetic licence.]
[Footnote 103: N.C., v. 368.]
[Footnote 104: Meath with a servitium debitum of 100, Limerick of 60, Cork with two servitia of 30 each.]
[Footnote 105: N.C., v. 378.]
[Footnote 106: Gneist, C.H., i. 129, 156.]
[Footnote 107: Freeman, N.C., v. 372, 371.]
[Footnote 108: Stubbs, C.H., i. 261.]
[Footnote 109: Mr Hall informs me that is the name of the official referred to.]
[Footnote 110: 'Prout rumor ex rotulis ad me devenit.']
[Footnote 111: See p. 221 infra.]
[Footnote 112: 'Et nota quod quandocumque assidentur scutagia, licet eodem anno solvantur, annotantur tamen in annali anni sequentis' (Red Book, ed. Hall, p. 8).]
[Footnote 113: It is just possible that the source of his error is to be found in a solitary entry on the roll of 1163: 'Advocatus de Betuna reddit compotum de vi. li. xiii. s. iiii. d. de auxilio exercitus de Tolusa' (p. 9)--which refers to the levy of 1161.]
[Footnote 114: 'Temporibus enim regis Henrici primi ... nec inspexi vel audivi fuisse scutagia assisa' (p. 5).]
[Footnote 115: Vide supra, p. 118 note.]
[Footnote 116: 'Illud commune verbum in ore singulorum tunc temporis divulgatum.']
[Footnote 117: See Red Book of the Exchequer, pp. 5, 8.]
[Footnote 118: See list of church fiefs.]
[Footnote 119: His carta is corrupt.]
[Footnote 120: 'Abbas Gloucestrie tenet omnes terras in libera elemosina.'--Testa, p. 77.]
[Footnote 121: 'A new impost specially levied (1156) upon some of the ecclesiastical estates, under the name of scutage' (Norgate's Angevin Kings, i. 433). 'The famous scutage, the acceptance of a money composition for military service, alike for the old English service of the fyrd' [this, of course, is a misconception], 'and for the newer military tenures, dates from this (1159) time' (Freeman's Norman Conquest, v. 674). 'The term scutage now (1156) first employed.... As early as his second year (1156) we find him collecting a scutage, a new form of taxation' (Stubbs' Const. Hist., i. 454, 458, 581, 590).]
[Footnote 122: The phrase 'debet scutagium quando currit' is of course, a normal one.]
[Footnote 123: 'Teste Gaufrido Cancellario et Willelmo de Albineio Pincerna et Gaufrido de Clintona et Pagano fil Johannis. Apud Sanctum Petrum desuper Divam.']
[Footnote 124: Cott. MS. Julius A., i. 6, fo. 74_a_.]
[Footnote 125: These charters have an independent value for the light they throw, in conjunction with the roll, on the movements of the king. The roll itself alludes to the occasion on which the king crossed from Eling--'ex q[uo] rex mare transivit de Eilling[es]'--and as it is assigned to Michaelmas, 1130, the entry cannot refer to his departure at that very date, especially as these charters are not paid for among the nova proceedings of the year. They must therefore have been granted at his previous departure (August 1127), when he must have crossed from Eling and have gone to S. Pierre sur Dive (and Argentan) in Normandy. Pleas were heard before him at Eling on this occasion (Rot. Pip., pp. 17, 38), and are referred to in a charter of Stephen to Shaftesbury Abbey.]
[Footnote 126: Printed in Athenæum, December 2, 1893.]
[Footnote 127: Cf. Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 105.]
[Footnote 128: 'Abbas locum sibi commissum munita manu militum secure protegebat; et primo quidem stipendiariis in hoc utebatur' (Cart. Abingdon, ii. 3). 'Unde abbas tristis recedens conduxit milites', etc. (Historia Eliensis, p. 275). So too Bishop Wulfstan is found 'pompam militum secum ducens qui stipendiis annuis', etc. (W. Malmesb.)]
[Footnote 129: It is singular that in his admirable work, The English Village Community, pp. 38-9, Mr Seebohm connects 'the normal acreage of the hide of 120 a., and of the virgate of 30 a., with the scutage of 40s per knight's fee', and argues that 'in choosing the acreage of the standard hide and virgate, a number of acres was probably assumed corresponding with the monetary system, so that the number of pence in the scutum should correspond with the number of acres assessed to its payment'. It need hardly be observed that the institution of scutage was, on the contrary, long posterior to that of a hide of 120 acres.]
[Footnote 130: Walton was at the mouth of the Orwell and the Stour, and was thus an exposed port towards Flanders as Dover was towards France. It is noteworthy that when the Earl of Leicester did invade England from Flanders a few years later, it was at 'Walton' that he landed.]
[Footnote 131: Compare Will. Pict.: 'Custodes in castellis strenuos viros collocavit ex Gallis traductos, quorum fidei pariter ac virtuti credebat, cum multitudine peditum et equitum, ipsis opulenta beneficia distribuit,' etc.]
[Footnote 132: Should not this rather be 'from ecclesiastical tenants-in-chief holding by military service'? For it was neither collected from knights' fees, nor with reference to their existing number.]
[Footnote 133: Preface to Gesta Henrici Regis, II. xciv. So too Const. Hist., i. 454: 'The practice was, as we learn from John of Salisbury, opposed by Archbishop Theobald'; and (i. 577) 'Archbishop Theobald had denounced the scutage of 1156'; and (Early Plant., p. 54) 'he made the bishops, notwithstanding strong objections from Archbishop Theobald, pay scutage'.]
[Footnote 134: Preface to Gesta Henrici Regis, II. xcviii.]
[Footnote 135: 'Honori et utilitati ecclesiae tota mentis intentione studiosius invigilabit. Verum interim', etc. John of Salisbury (Ep. cxxviii). Note that 'ecclesiae' is the church at large, not the See of Canterbury.]
[Footnote 136: Angevin Kings, i. 443.]
[Footnote 137: Red Book, p. 6.]
[Footnote 138: Preface to Gesta Henrici Regis, II. xcv.]
[Footnote 139: Const. Hist., i. 454.]
[Footnote 140: Ibid., i. 164.]
[Footnote 141: Angevin Kings, i. 458. Both writers quote the passage from John of Salisbury (Ep. xcxviii), on which this explanation is based.]
[Footnote 142: His servitium debitum was one knight.]
[Footnote 143: The force for the Welsh campaign was raised, as we learn from Robert de Monte (alias de Torigni), 'by demanding that every three knights should, instead of serving in person, equip one of their number', as Dr Stubbs rightly puts it (Const. Hist., i. 589), and not, as he elsewhere writes (preface to Gesta Henrici Regis, II. xciv.), by requiring every two to add to themselves a third, 'by which means, if we are to understand it literally, 90,000 knights would appear from 60,000 knights' fees'. The real number would probably be under 2,000.]
[Footnote 144: 'This impost, which afterwards came to be known in English history as the "Great Scutage"' (Angevin Kings, i. 459).]
[Footnote 145: Liber Rubeus, p. 6.]
[Footnote 146: Angevin Kings, i. 461.]
[Footnote 147: The abbots of Shrewsbury, Thorney, and Croyland; the abbesses of Barking, Winchester, and Romsey. The total of their dona amounted to £51 13s 4d.]
[Footnote 148: Not, however, by Dr Stubbs (Preface to Gesta Henrici Regis, II. xciv-xcvi).]
[Footnote 149: Dr Stubbs, independently, reckons the total payments of the church at £3,700 (Gesta Henrici Regis), which does not differ greatly from the above calculation (£3,167 6s 8d). ]
[Footnote 150: 'Ille quidem gladius quem in sancte matris ecclesiae viscera vestra paulo ante manus immerserat cum ad trajiciendum in Tolosam exercitum tot ipsam marcarum millibus aporiastis.' Gilbert Foliot (Ep. cxciv).]
[Footnote 151: 'Nec permisit ut ecclesiae saltem proceribus coaequarentur in hac contributione vel magis exactione tam indebita quam injusta.' John of Salisbury (Ep. cxlv). Swereford, though confused in his account of the tax, points out that levy was made 'non solum super praelatos, verum tam super ipsos, quam super milites suos' (L.R., p. 6).]
[Footnote 152: Gneist, for instance, writes: 'The first general imposition took place in 5 Henry II for the campaign against Toulouse, with two marcs per fee from all crown vassals' (C.H., i. 212).]
[Footnote 153: Entered as 'Dona militum comitatus', not to be confused with the 'dona comitatus', a special levy of the following year (6 Hen. II), raised, it will be found, from the western counties, from Stafford in the north to Devonshire in the south.]
[Footnote 154: 'Rex ... nolens vexare agrarios milites ... sumptis lx. solidis Andegavensium in Normannia de feudo uniuscujusque loricae et de reliquis omnibus tam in Normannia quam in Anglia, sive etiam aliis terris suis, secundum hoc quod ei visum fuit, capitales barones suos cum paucis secum duxit, solidarios vero milites innumeros' (p. 202, ed. Howlett).]
[Footnote 155: This was certainly the case with the fiefs of Simon de Beauchamp and the Earl Ferrers, two of the most considerable.]
[Footnote 156: Angevin Kings, i. 462.]
[Footnote 157: 'A second scutage was raised in the seventh year, probably for payment of debts incurred for the same war, the assessment being in this, as in the former case, two marcs to the knight's fee.' (Preface to Gesta Henrici Regis, p. xcv.)]
[Footnote 158: If it was raised for this purpose, it must have been levied either (1) from all tenants-in-chief, which it certainly was not; or (2) from the same contributors as in 1159, which a comparison of the two rolls will at once show it was not; or (3) from a new set of contributors, which was also not the case, for the prelates, the Ferrers fief, etc., are found contributing as before.]
[Footnote 159: Const. Hist., i. 582.]
[Footnote 160: Instead of a fief paying en bloc, it seems to have paid through the sheriffs of the counties in which it was situate.]
[Footnote 161: "Episcopus de Heref' reddit compotum de lxxvi. libris et v. solidis de promiss[ione] c. Servientium de Wal'" (p. 84).]
[Footnote 162: 'Abbas de Abendona reddit compotum de lxxvi. libris et v. solidis de promise sione servientium in Waliam' (rot. 11 Hen. II, p. 74).]
[Footnote 163: 'Abbas de Sancto Albano reddit compotum de lxxvi. libris et v. solidis de Exercitu' (ibid., p. 19).]
[Footnote 164: 'Episcopus Lond' reddit compotum de xiii. libris et vi. sol. et viii. den. de Servicio militum.... Idem reddit compotum de cxiiii. marcis et v. sol. de promissione servientium Walie' (ibid., p. 19).]
[Footnote 165: 'Willelmus de Siffrewast reddit compotum de lxxvi. sol. et iii. den.... Hugo de Bochelanda reddit compotum de. v. servientibus' (ibid., p. 75). Compare the love of variety in Domesday, supra, pp. 41, 42, 77.]
[Footnote 166: 'Scutagium de ii. exercitibus' in next roll (rot. 12 Hen. II).]
[Footnote 167: Itinerary of Henry II, p. 79 et seq. Compare also the payment from the Giffard fief 'de secundo exercitu' (p. 25).]
[Footnote 168: Angevin Kings, ii. 180, note.]
[Footnote 169: Liber Rubeus, p. 193.]
[Footnote 170: This was the point on which Abbot Sampson insisted, against his knights, at St Edmund's. In the case of Canterbury, the inquest of 1163 would have ascertained the actual number of the archbishop's knights and their fees.]
[Footnote 171: Ignorasse quidem haec [debita] servitia militaria Regis ... successores subsequentium argumento non immerito potuit dubitare: quia cum Rex Henricus ... traderet, a quolibet sui regni milite marcam unam ... exegit, publico praecipiens edicto quod quilibet praelatus et baro quot milites de eo tenerent in capite publicis suis instrumentis significarent' (Liber Rubeus, p. 4).]
[Footnote 172: 'Teneo de vobis ... feodum i. militis, unde debeo vobis facere servitium i. militis' (carta).]
[Footnote 173: 'De hoc predicto feodo debet Regi v. milites' (Carta).]
[Footnote 174: It must always be remembered that, as explained above, in cases where the requisite number of knights had not been enfeoffed by 1166, the balance de dominio was added to those actually created, as de veteri together.]
[Footnote 175: Thus Daniel de Crevec[oe]ur pays on one fee (de veteri) more than his carta records, William de Tracy on half a fee (de veteri), Adam de Port on one, the Earl of Gloucester on two, the Earl of Warwick on two and a half, Maurice de Craon on one, the Abbot of Hulme on a quarter of a fee, William de Albini (Pincerna) on one, Henry de Lacy on one and a half, William de Vescy on one, Bertram de Bulemer on a half, and William Paynell on one (these figures are all subject to correction). The case of William de Vescy is specially conspicuous, because the nineteen fees enumerated are distinctly spoken of as twenty.]
[Footnote 176: This brings it into relation with the Constabularia of which it thus formed just a third.]
[Footnote 177: The same formula is found in Domesday applied to hidation in East Anglia, where the assessment of Manors is expressed not in terms of the hide, but in fractions of the pound. (Vide supra, p. 89.)]
[Footnote 178: Vide supra, p. 205.]
[Footnote 179: 'Willelmus Malet tenet Cari de Domino Rege et alias terras suas per servicium viginti militum' (p. 163).]
[Footnote 180: Ducange (1887), ii. 581.]
[Footnote 181: Ibid., viii. 255. Ducange indeed asserts that five knights was the qualification in Normandy for barony, but the statement is based on a mistaken rendering and is elsewhere disproved.]
[Footnote 182: Liber Rubeus, p. 4.]
[Footnote 183: 'Illud commune verbum in ore singulorum, tunc temporis divulgatum, fatuum reputans et mirabile, quod in regni conquisitione Dux Normannorum, Rex Willelmus, servitia xxxii. militum infeodavit' (ibid.).]
[Footnote 184: Swereford, it is clear, failed to grasp the great change of assessment in 1166.]
[Footnote 185: Const. Hist., i. 432.]
[Footnote 186; Ibid., i. 157. Dr Stubbs rightly rejects Mr Pearson's conjecture that the number of 32,000 applied to the hides, and that 'the number of knights' fees, calculated at five hides each, would be 6,400'.]
[Footnote 187: 'His temporibus militiam Anglici regni Rex Willelmus conscribi fecit et lx. millia militum invenit, quos omnes, dum necesse esset, paratos esse praecepit.']
[Footnote 188: 'A whole army was by this means encamped upon the soil, and the king's summons could at any moment gather 60,000 knights to the royal standard.']
[Footnote 189: Const. Hist., i. 264. Compare pp. 16, 17.]
[Footnote 190: Freeman (Norm. Conq., iv. 694).]
[Footnote 191: Ibid., iv. 562.]
[Footnote 192: Ibid., iii. 387. In Social England (i. 373) we read that 'William is believed to have landed in England with at least 60,000 men, 50,000 horse and 10,000 foot'. But on turning to p. 306 of that great effort of co-operative genius, we learn that only 'some of William's ships carried horses to the number of from three to eight--as well as men'. So the number of his ships (396, according to Wace) is as great a difficulty as the proportions of Noah's Ark.]
[Footnote 193: William Rufus, i. 17.]
[Footnote 194: Ibid., i. 313.]
[Footnote 195: 'Annui fiscales redditus ... ad sexaginta millia marcarum summam implebant.']
[Footnote 196: 'Sexaginta millia peditum' (p. 4).]
[Footnote 197: 'Sexaginta millia silinas de frumento, sexaginta millia de hordeo, sexaginta millia de vino' (Richard of Devizes, ed. Howlett, p. 396).]
[Footnote 198: 'Sexaginta accipitur indefinite de magno numero. Sexcenti saepe usurpatur pro numero ingenti et indefinito' (Forcellini, Totius Latinitatis Lexicon).]
[Footnote 199: 'Bis sex sibi millia centum' (Carmen de bello Hastingensi).]
[Footnote 200: It must be clearly understood that these figures cannot be absolutely accurate. Some honours are omitted, it seems, in the returns from which we have to work, and for these allowance must be made.]
[Footnote 201: '[1235] Sicut Stephanus Segrave ... asserebat et affirmabat vetus scutagium ad xxxii. millia scuta assumabatur et irrotulabatur; et ad tantundem plene et plane potuit novum scutagium de novis terris assumari' (Ann. Monast., i. 364).]
[Footnote 202: 'Nine thousand for all England would be a large estimate at any time of the twelfth century' (Early and Middle Ages, i. 375).]
[Footnote 203: The italics represent Anglo-Saxon characters.]
[Footnote 204: Lib. Rub., pp. 188, 214, 237, 238, 292.]
[Footnote 205: Ibid., pp. 211, 214.]
[Footnote 206: Ibid., pp. 214, 292.]
[Footnote 207: Lib. Rub., p. 292.]
[Footnote 208: Ibid., pp. 200, 210.]
[Footnote 209: Ibid., p. 210.]
[Footnote 210: Ibid., pp. 390, 444.]
[Footnote 211: Ibid., p. 429.]
[Footnote 212: Ibid., pp. 431-2.]
[Footnote 213: M. Paris, Additamenta, p. 436. This list, which seems scarcely known, is very valuable for its early date, being, I think, about contemporaneous with the cartae of 1166.]
[Footnote 214: L.R., pp. 229, 245, 356.]
[Footnote 215: 'Et predictus Willelmus dedit predictas tres carucatas terre Osberto vicecomiti pro servicio unius militis.']
[Footnote 216: Together with castle-guard of thirty knights at Newcastle.]
[Footnote 217: 'Post tempus domini Regis Willelmi Ruffi, qui eos feoffavit.']
[Footnote 218: Testa, p. 69.]
[Footnote 219: 'Post Conquestum Angliae' (Liber Rubeus, p. 332).]
[Footnote 220: Const. Hist., i. 263.]
[Footnote 221: 'Et deinceps tres (milites) mihi habeat sicut antecessores sui faciebant in septentrionali parte fluminis Tamesie' (1091-1100).--Ramsey Cartulary, i. 234.]
[Footnote 222: Compare the Ely entry (supra p. 213) for 'superplus'.]
[Footnote 223: Could this have been Richard fitz Nigel himself?]
[Footnote 224: Ramsey Cartulary, i. 255. Compare with this expression 'in rotulo scripti', the Conqueror's command (infra), that the number of knights 'in annalibus annotarentur'.]
[Footnote 225: Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, p. 50.]
[Footnote 226: It enables us to correct such an entry in the Black Book as 'Radulfus Maindeherst', by identifying him with Ralph Mowyn, the tenant at Hurst. It supplies an entry as to Henry de 'Wichetone' (Whiston) which is omitted in L.R., and entered in L.N., with wrong name and wrong holding; and, better still, it shows that Silvester of Holwell held only 2 hides, not 12, as given in error, both in L.N., and L.R. The existence of this error in both bears, of course, on their relation (cf. p. 287, supra).]
[Footnote 227: Const. Hist., i. 357. Gneist writes that Matthew's statement 'is for good reasons called in question by Stubbs' (C.H., i. 255, note).]
[Footnote 228: Cartulary of Abingdon, ii. 3.]
[Footnote 229: Historia Eliensis (ed. 1848), p. 276.]
[Footnote 230: Ibid., p. 274.]
[Footnote 231: 'Praecepit illi (i.e. abbati) ex nutu regis custodiam xl. militum habere in insulam.' Ibid., p. 275. This is the very servitium debitum that appears under Henry II.]
[Footnote 232: Compare for the initiative of the crown, the Domesday phrase, 'miles jussu regis', and the statement that Lanfranc replaced the drengs of his See by knights at the royal command ('Rex praecepit.')]
[Footnote 233: Madox writes (Baronia Anglica, p. 114) bitterly and unjustly: 'In process of time, several of the religious found out another piece of art. They insisted that they held all their land and tenements in frankalmoigne, and not by knight-service.' In the cases he quotes, 'this allegation' was perfectly correct, and was recognized as such by the judges.]
[Footnote 234: Turoldus vero sexaginta et duo hidas terrae de terra ecclesiae Burgi dedit stipendiariis militibus' (John of Peterborough, ed. Giles).]
[Footnote 235: Cart. Abingdon, ii. 3.]
[Footnote 236: Liber Eliensis, p. 275.]
[Footnote 237: 'De militibus Archiepiscopis.' 8th Report on Historical MSS., i. 316.]
[Footnote 238: Ibid.]
[Footnote 239: A charter of Henry I (Mon. Ang., vi. 496) addressed 'Willelmo Episcopo Exoniensi et Ricardo filio Baldwini vicecomiti' (see p. 256) contains the clause: 'Prohibeo ne aliquis præter monachos ipsas terras amplius teneat vel alias aliquas quæ de dominio ecclesie fuerunt, exceptis illis quas Gaufridus abbas dedit ad servicium militare.' Abbot Geoffrey is said to have died in 1088. A curious difficulty has been raised about the words in italics. It is argued in Alford's Abbots of Tavistock (p. 68) that as, according to Mr Freeman, military tenures did not exist in Abbot Geoffrey's day, there was perhaps a second abbot of that name to whom that charter refers. But he is only introduced by Mr Alford under protest; and we see now that there is no need for him. Henry's charter being witnessed by Ralph, Archbishop of Canterbury, William, the King's son, and the Count of Meulan, at Odiham, belongs, I may observe to 1114-16.]
[Footnote 240: 'Quis stipendii annuis quotidianisque cibis immane quantum populabantur' (Will. Malmesb., Gesta Pontificum).]
[Footnote 241: Liber Eliensis, p. 275.]
[Footnote 242: Cart. Abingdon, ii. 3.]
[Footnote 243: Ibid., p. 2331: 'misit ... in Normanniam pro cognatis suis, quibus multas possessiones ecclesiae dedit et feoffavit, ita ut in anno lxx. de possessionibus ecclesiae eis conferret.']
[Footnote 244: Cott. MS. Vesp. B. xxiv. f. 8, 'Randulfus frater abbatis Walterii habet in Withelega iii. hidas de dominio, etc., etc. ... dono Walterii Abbatis contradicente capitulo'. This was the 'Rannulfum [sic] fratrem ejusdem Walteri abbatis ... qui cum fratre suo tenebat illud placitum' (temp. Will. I), whom the Bishop of Worcester's knights challenged to trial by battle (Heming's Chart. Wig., ed. Hearne, p. 82). His holding was represented in 1166 by the fees of Randulf de Kinwarton and Randulf de Coughton. Other cases of contested enfeoffment by Abbots Walter and Robert are those of Hugh Travers and Hugh de Bretfertun.]
[Footnote 245: See the carta of 1166, which explains how this holding became half a fee.]
[Footnote 246: 'Miles quidam, Odo nomine, dono praedecessoris mei Sifridi abbatis, ob graciam cusjusdam consobrinae suae, quam idem Odo conjugem duxerat ... tria maneria de dominio sibi astrinxerat ... invitis fratribus. Alius quidam ... dono abbatis ... tamen absque fratrum consensu manerium possidebat' (Domerham, p. 306).]
[Footnote 247: 'De his terris quas, ut diximus, suo tempore acquisivit, quibusdam bonis hominibus pro magna necessitate et honore ecclesiae dedit, et inde Deo et sibi fideliter quamdiu vixit serviebant' (Chronicon Evesh., p. 96). His successor, Walter (1077-86), incited by his own young relatives, 'noluit homagium a pluribus bonis hominibus quos praedecessor suus habuerat suscipere eo quod terras omnium, si posset, decrevit auferre' (ibid., p. 98). In the result, 'dicitur quod fere omnes milites hujus abbatiae haereditavit' (ibid., p. 91).]
[Footnote 248: He begged Anselm that 'terras ecclesiae quas ipse rex, defuncto Lanfranco, suis dederat pro statuto servicio, illis ipsis haereditario jure tenendas, causa sui amoris, condonaret' (Eadmer).]
[Footnote 249: Foundation charter of Alcester Priory.]
[Footnote 250: Three other documents are found on the same folio. Of these the first is addressed to Lanfranc, Odo of Bayeux, Bishop Wulfstan, and Urse d'Abetot, and witnessed by Bishop Geoffrey (of Coutances) and (like our writ) by Eudo Dapifer, being also witnessed, like it, at Winchester. It is noteworthy that it grants Æthelwig the Hundred of Fishborough 'in potestate et justitia sua'.]
[Footnote 251: Cott. MS. Vesp. B. xxvi. f. 15[18].]
[Footnote 252: 'Rex commisit ei curam istarum partium terrae ... ita ut omnium hujus patriae consilia atque judicia fere in eo penderent' (Hist. Evesham).]
[Footnote 253: Florence of Worcester.]
[Footnote 254: 'Cernens itaque rex grande sibi periculum imminere, debitum servitium ... exigit' (Liber Eliensis, p. 276).]
[Footnote 255: 'Rex Henricus contra fratrem suum Robertum, Normanniae comitem, super se in Anglia cum exercitu venientem, totius regni sui expeditionem dirigit' (Cart. Abingdon, ii. 121).]
[Footnote 256: In the former case, between the crown and its tenant; in the latter, between the tenant and his under-tenant.]
[Footnote 257: 'Idem [Godcelinus de Riveria] dicebat se non debere facere servitium, nisi duorum militum, pro feudo quem tenebat de ecclesia, et abbas et sui dicebant eum debere servitium trium militum' (Cart. Abingdon, ii. 129). 'Cum a quodam duos milites ad servicium regis exigerem (tantum enim inde deberi ab olim a commilitonibus didiceram) ipse toto conatu obstitit, unius dumtaxat se militis servicio obnoxium obtestans.'--Henry, Abbot of Glastonbury (Domerham, p. 318).]
[Footnote 258: Thus undermining Mr Freeman's argument: 'We hear of nothing in Domesday which can be called knight-service or military tenure in the later sense; the old obligations would remain; the primeval duty of military service, due, not to a lord as lord, but to the state and to the king as its head, went on,' etc. (Norm. Conq., v. 371).]
[Footnote 259: Norm. Conq., v. 865.]
[Footnote 260: Cartulary of Abingdon, ii. 3-7.]
[Footnote 261: 'In Winteham tenet Hubertus de Abbate v. hidas de terra villanorum' (i. 58_b_).]
[Footnote 262: 'Hubertus i. militem pro v. hidis in Witham' (p. 4).]
[Footnote 263: 'In Wichtham de terra villanorum curiae Cumenore obsequi solitorum, illo ab abbate cuidam militi nomine Huberto v. hidarum portio distributa est' (p. 7).]
[Footnote 264: See Cart. Ab., ii. 138. Cf. Domesday, i. 58_b_: 'Willelmus tenet de abbate Leie.']
[Footnote 265: See p. 231.]
[Footnote 266: This distinction, it will be found, is preserved in Henry's Charter of Liberties (1101): 'nec ... aliquid accipiam [1] de dominico ecclesiae vel [2] de hominibus ejus'.]
[Footnote 267: See my paper on 'The Knights of Peterborough', supra, p. 131.]
[Footnote 268: In the transcript of the original return it is: 'habet hugo de bolebech ... de waltero giffard'.]
[Footnote 269: Inquisitio Eliensis (O. 2. 1), f. 210, et seq. (see below, page 349).]
[Footnote 270: See p. 166.]
[Footnote 271: Hemingi Chartularium (ed. Hearne), 1723.]
[Footnote 272: Norman Conquest, vol. v.]
[Footnote 273: Interlineation.]
[Footnote 274: Dapifer to Bishop Wulfstan.]
[Footnote 275: He witnessed, as 'Ordric Niger', the conventio between Bishop Wulfstan and Abbot Walter of Evesham, and was perhaps Bishop Wulfstan's reeve (Heming, p. 420).]
[Footnote 276: Probably Bishop Wulfstan's chancellor.]
[Footnote 277: Although, from his ignorance of this document, Dr Stubbs was not aware of Ranulf's modus operandi, its evidence affords a fresh illustration of his unfailing insight, and of his perfect grasp of the problem even in the absence of proof. 'The analogy', he writes, 'of lay fiefs was applied to the churches with as much minuteness as possible.... Ranulf Flambard saw no other difference between an ecclesiastical and a lay fief than the superior facilities which the first gave for extortion.... The church was open to these claims because she furnished no opportunity for reliefs, wardships, marriage, escheats, or forfeiture' (Const. Hist., pp. 298-300).]
[Footnote 278: It has been urged to me that relief on mutatio domini was a recognized practice, but I cannot find proof of it in English feudalism.]
[Footnote 279: 'Nec mortuo archiepiscopo, sive episcopo, sive abbate, aliquid accipiam de dominico ecclesiae vel de hominibus ejus donec successor in eam ingrediatur.']
[Footnote 280: There is a very important allusion to it, as introduced under Rufus, in the Abingdon Cartulary, ii. 42: 'Eo tempore [1097] infanda usurpata est in Anglia consuetudo, ut si qua prelatorum persona ecclesiarum vita decederet mox honor ecclesiasticus fisco deputaretur regis.']
[Footnote 281: Compare the words of the chronicle on the king claiming to be heir of each man, lay or clerk, with the expression 'honor in manum meam rediit'.]
[Footnote 282: 'Rogerium de Glocestra, probatum militem, in obsessione Falesiae arcubalistae jactu in capite percussum' (William of Malmesbury, ii. 475).]