Chapter XIII: Part I: Territorial Studies (10)

I am obliged to quote the passage _in extenso_, because, in this case, the accomplished writer betrays a singular confusion of ideas, and misrepresents not only the levy, but also the point at issue. The whole passage is conceived in error, error the more strange because Miss Norgate enjoyed over her predecessors the advantage of writing with the printed roll before her. The lay estates were not, as implied ('all lands held in chief of the crown'), in any way exceptionally assessed: in no case was the basis of assessment the unit alleged by the writer; and as to the 'church lands', a reference to the roll will show that all over England there were only eight cases in which those not owing 'services of the shield' contributed (and that in no way as an assessment on imaginary knights' fees) to this levy, while in six out of the eight their contributions were so insignificant that their collective amount barely exceeded £50.[147]

The true explanation is probably to be found in the fact that only a portion of the tax was raised by way of scutage. As this great levy has been wrongly supposed to have consisted of a scutage alone,[148] and as it played an important part in the development of direct taxation, I propose to set forth, for the first time, the various methods by which the money was raised. These were eight in number:

I. (FIXED) A _donum_ of two marcs on the fee from the
under-tenants of the church, raised _by fiefs_ on the old
assessment (_servitium debitum_).

II. (FIXED ?) A _donum_ of (it is said) two marcs on the fee
from the under-tenants of the lay barons, raised partly _by
counties_ and partly _by fiefs_.

III. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the church tenants-in-chief
themselves, irrespective of their fees.

IV. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from some of the non-feudal
religious houses (tenants _in elemosina_, and not by military
service).

V. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the towns.

VI. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the sheriffs.

VII. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the Jewries.

VIII. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the moneyers.

Of these, the _first_ was strictly regular, being merely a repetition of the scutage of 1156, at the rate of two marcs instead of twenty shillings. The _second_ presents some difficulty. Subject to correction, there are some fifteen cases in which the payment is made separately by fiefs, and in which the rate is clearly two marcs, while there are twenty-two in which the _milites_ of the county pay as a group through the sheriff, and in which, therefore, we cannot actually test the rate of the levy or the manner of raising it. Swereford's _ipse dixit_ as to the rate in these latter cases was probably based on analogy, here our only guide.

With the _third_ and _fourth_ divisions we return to sure ground. To them I invite particular attention, because it is to them (and especially to the third) that apply the complaints of the church chroniclers, and not (as has always, but erroneously, been supposed) to the perfectly legitimate levy of two marcs on the fee. It is necessary to emphasize the fact that the matter has been wholly misunderstood. The bitter complaint of John of Salisbury that Henry, on this occasion, 'omnibus (contra antiquum morem et debitam libertatem) indixit ecclesiis ut _pro arbitrio_ ejus satraparum suorum conferrunt in censum', would have been without meaning had it referred (as alleged) to the latter levy (or even to the insignificant sums contributed _ut supra_ by eight foundations); but when we learn that, over and above this legitimate levy, a far larger sum was arbitrarily wrung from the church, the truth and justice of the protest are at once made evident. I here give two tables illustrative of this exaction. Each is divided into three columns. In the first column I give the number of the knights due from each bishopric and each religious house. In the second column I give the marcs due, and paid on this occasion, on the old assessment (_servitium debitum_). In the third will be found the exaction complained of, namely, the _dona_ extorted from the spiritual 'barons' themselves.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
| | |_Donum_ of Knights|_Donum_ of Tenant|
|Sees |Knights due | (in marcs) |(in marcs) |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|Winchester | 60 | 120 | 500 |
|Lincoln | 60 | 120 | 500 |
|Worcester | 60 | 120 | 200 |
|Norwich | 40 | 80 | 200 |
|Bath | 20 | 40 | 500 |
|London | 20 | 40 | 200 |
|Exeter | 17-1/2 | 35 | 150 |
|Chester | 15 | 30 | 100 |
|Durham | 10 | 20 | 500 |
|York | 7 | 14 | 500 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|Total | -- | 619 | 3,350 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------
| | |_Donum_ of Knights|_Donum_ of Tenant|
|Religious Houses |Knights due | (in marcs) | (in marcs) |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|Peterborough | 60 | 120 | 100 |
|St Edmund's | 40 | 80 | 200 |
|Glastonbury | 40 | 80 | -- |
|Abingdon | 30 | 60 | 60 |
|Hyde | 20 | 40 | 150 |
|St Augustine's | 15 | 30 | 220 |
|St Alban's | 6 | 12 | 100 |
|Evesham | 5 | 10 | 60 |
|Wilton | 5 | 10 | 20 |
|Ramsey | 4 | 8 | 60 |
|St Benet of Hulme | 3 | 6 | 30 |
|Pershore | 3 | -- | 7-1/2 |
|Chertsey | 3 | 6 | 60 |
|Cerne | 3 | 6 | -- |
|Winchcombe | 2 | 4 | 7-1/2 |
|Middleton | 2 | 4 | -- |
|Sherburne | 2 | -- | 10 |
|Abbotsbury | 1 | 2 | 7-1/2 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|Total | -- | 482 | 1,092-1/2 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------

We thus obtain a grand total of 1,101 marcs raised from the church by legitimate scutage, and 4,442-1/2 (or, adding the _dona_ from non-feudal houses, 4,700) marcs by special imposition.[149] This distinction at once explains the real extortion of which churchmen complained;[150] and shows that it had nothing to do with scutage, but was a special imposition on the church fees from which the lay ones were exempt.[151] The idea of the impost was not improbably the adjustment of inequalities in cases where the knight-service was a quite inadequate assessment; the precedent created was not forgotten, and it proved in later days a welcome source of revenue.

The discovery of this exaction identifies, it will be seen, in spite of Swereford's error, the levy accounted for on the roll with the famous 'scutage of Toulouse'. And if even further proof were needed, it is found in an incidental allusion which clinches the argument. Giraldus Cambrensis (iii. 357) refers to Bishop Henry of Winchester assembling all the priests of his diocese 'tanquam ad auxilium postulandum (dederat enim paulo ante quingentas marcas regi Henrico _ad expeditionem Tholosanam_)'. The sum here named is that which he paid in 1159, as my table shows. Its destination is thus established, as also, it may be noted, the means by which he was expected to recoup himself.

As to the scutage on the lay fiefs, the general impression, broadly speaking, is that Henry replaced his English feudal host by an army of mercenaries paid from the proceeds of a scutage of two marcs per fee on all lands held by military service.[152] But is that impression confirmed by the evidence of the rolls? Without setting forth the evidence in detail, I may sum it up as amounting to this: that the grouped payments found under twenty-two counties[153] present, I think, a total of 1,895 marcs, while those of the fiefs which paid separately amounted to 666. This gives us a grand total of 2,561 marcs, representing, of course, 1,280 knights. Now although the amount of knight service due to the crown from its English realm has been, as we shall see, absurdly exaggerated, the above number, I need scarcely say, must represent a minority of the knights due from the lay fiefs. This sets the matter in quite another aspect. In spite of the passage in Robert de Monte, on which the accepted view is based,[154] the roll presents proof to the contrary, and indeed the words of Robert show that he knew so little of the levy in England as to believe that it was wholly arbitrary. There are, perhaps, indications that the fiefs which, on this occasion, paid scutage, were largely those in the king's hands,[155] and if we add to these the escheated honours, of which the scutage would be paid through the sheriffs, we must conclude that the great bulk of the tenants who had a choice in the matter served abroad with their contingents and did not pay scutage.

Before taking leave of 'the great scutage', another point demands notice. Gervase of Canterbury sets forth its proceeds in terms of great precision:

_Hoc anno_ rex Henricus scotagium sive scutagium _de Anglia_
accepit, cujus summa fuit centum millia et quater viginti
millia librarum argenti (i. 167).

Quite desperate attempts have been made to reconcile this statement with the actual sums raised. In his preface to the _Gesta Henrici Regis_, Dr Stubbs suggests that Gervase included in his total the scutage of two years later (1161), but adds that, if so, the rolls are very incomplete. In his _Constitutional History_ he speaks of 'this [scutage] and a very large accumulation of treasure from other sources, amounting, according to the contemporary writers, to £180,000' (i. 457), but admits, in a footnote, that 'the sum is impossible', and throws out as probable a different explanation. Miss Norgate writes that 'the proceeds, with those of a similar tax levied upon Henry's other dominions, amounted to some £180,000'.[156] But Gervase distinctly states that this sum was raised _from England_. Now the actual sum raised, _by scutage_, in England (1159) was £2,440 in all, as I reckon it, while the special clerical impost produced some £3,130 in addition. Consequently, no ingenuity can save the credit of Gervase. He was not, after all, worse than his fellows. We shall find that when mediæval chroniclers endeavour to foist on us these absurd sums they require much bolder handling than they have ever yet received.

Pass we now to the _third_ levy, that of 1161. For this the rate was again _two marcs_ on the fee according to Swereford (followed, of course, by subsequent writers), though the study of the roll (7 Henry II) reveals that in many cases, on the lay fiefs at least, the rate was _one_ marc. Both this and the levy of the following year are most difficult to deal with in every way. We have seen that an entry on the roll of 1163 led Swereford to believe that the levy of 1161 was made for the Toulouse campaign, and Dr Stubbs has made the suggestion that it might have been raised to defray 'debts' incurred on that occasion;[157] but the difficulties in the way of accepting this view seem insuperable.[158]

The _fourth_ levy, which is that of 1162 (8 Henry II), was at the rate of _one_ marc, and is recorded by Swereford, but not by Dr Stubbs.[159] Though richer in names than that of 1161, it is even less useful for our purpose, as the sums entered are most irregular, perhaps owing to the adoption of a new method of collection.[160] Neither of these levies affords, in the absence of corroboration, trustworthy evidence on the _servitium_ of any lay fief.

The _fifth_ levy, on the other hand, in 1165 (11 Henry II), affords most valuable evidence, although it is ignored by Swereford and by those who have followed him. It is, however, of a singular character. The money was raised, we gather from the roll, on two different systems:

(I) By a _fixed_ payment at the rate of one marc on the fee (old assessment).

(II) By an _arbitrary_ payment of certain mysterious sums, which prove to be multiples of the unit 15s 3d. But there is no fixed proportion to be traced between the amount paid and the number of _servitia_ due. Numerous instances are found of a single knight's fee being charged with a sum equivalent to five of these mysterious units. Magnates, again, are found paying apparently strange sums, which prove on dissection to represent 50, 100, 200 and even 300 of these units. The clue to the mystery is found in an entry on the Pipe-Roll of the following year (12 Henry II), which proves that this unit was the pecuniary equivalent of a _serviens_, and that the various payers had 'promised' the king so many _servientes_ for the war in Wales.[161] Such 'promises' were evidently offers, made independently of the actual service due from the 'promising' party. Following up this clue, we see that the Abbot of Abingdon must, like the Bishop of Hereford, have promised 100 'serjeants',[162] that the Abbot of St Alban's must have done likewise,[163] while the Bishop of London must have promised 150, _in addition_, be it noted, to paying a scutage of a marc on each knight's fee (20) of his _servitium debitum_.[164] For the rolls of 1162 and 1163 prove that he had duly paid the scutage of the former year, and that this was a further payment. The varying form of these entries should be observed, for it was evidently quite immaterial to the clerks whether they wrote '5 serjeants' or their equivalent--76 shillings and 3 pence.[165] Taking the pay of the _serviens_ at 1d a day, the unit in question would represent six months' pay (for a year of 366 days).

But, for our present purpose, we must confine ourselves to the scutage proper. The passage on which I would specially dwell is the entry on the roll in which the _custos_ of the archbishopric of Canterbury 'reddit compotum de cxiii. li. de Militibus de Archiepiscopatu de ii. Exercitibus' (p. 109).[166] In the first place, we have here, surely, witness to the _two_ Welsh campaigns of this year, which Mr Eyton adopts, following Mr Bridgeman,[167] but which Miss Norgate rejects.[168] Secondly, this sum resolves itself, on analysis, into two constituents of 84-3/4 marcs each. Now the return for the archbishopric the following year is: 'Archiepiscopus habet iiij^{xx.} et iiij^{or.} et dimidium et quartam partem feffatos.'[169] Having set forth this exact corroboration, I will briefly trace the _servitium_ of the See. In 1156 and 1159 it pays no scutage when the other church fiefs do, but within six months of Theobald's death it pays to the scutage of 1161 on a _servitium_ of sixty knights, being then in the hands of the crown. Under Becket, in 1162, it is once more omitted; but in 1165 it again pays, as we have seen, and now not on sixty knights but on 84-3/4. In 1168 it contributes, on the same amount, to the _auxilium_, and in 1172, but the latter year is the first in which the _recognoscit_ formula is employed, enabling us to determine that, as in 1161, the _servitium debitum_ was sixty knights.

The typical difference between these sixty knights and the 84-3/4 actually enfeoffed will serve to illustrate the point on which I insist throughout. Had the fee been held by its tenant, he would have raised 84-3/4 marcs, paid sixty to the crown, and kept 24-3/4 for himself.[170] But when a _custos_ held the fief, he could keep nothing back, and therefore paid over the whole. We have, I think, an illustration of the same kind in the payment (p. 202, note 76) by the _custos_ of the Romare fief, 'de noviter feffatis' (_noviter_, be it observed not yet _de novo_).

Having brought the levies down to 1165, I hope it has now been made clear that the officials of the exchequer were well aware of the amount of _servitium debitum_ from every fief, the levies being always based on the said amount. Swereford, therefore, was quite mistaken in the inference he drew from the inquest of 1166:[171] indeed, his words prove that he completely misunderstood the problem.

This was the last levy raised previous to the making of the returns (_cartae_) in 1166. These returns were followed in 1168 by the first levy on the new assessment. I have already dealt with the changes which this new assessment involved, but I would here again insist upon the fact that the church and the lay fiefs were not dealt with alike, the latter being assessed wholly _de novo_, while the former retained their old assessments, while accounting separately, and under protest, for the fees in excess of their _servitium debitum_. So far as the lay fiefs were concerned, their _servitia_, congenital with Norman rule, were now swept away. Here, from the single county of Northumberland, are three cases in point:

1162 1168

De scutagio Walteri de Bolebec. Walterus de Bolebec redd. comp.
In thesauro v. marcae.[172] de iiii. marcis et dim. de eodem
auxilio.

Idem debet xlviii. s. et v. d. pro
tribus Militibus et ii^{abus.}
terciis partibus
Mil. de Novo feffamento.

De scutagio Stephani de Bulemer. Stephanus de Bulemer redd.
In thesauro v. marcae. comp. de iiii. marcis de eodem
auxilio.

Idem debet xxiii. s. et iiii. d.
de i. milite et dim. et quarta
parte Mil. de Novo feffamento.

De scutagio Radulfi de Wircestria. Radulfus de Wigornio redd. comp.
In thesauro i. marca.[173] de i. marca de eodem auxilio pro
i. milite.

Idem debet xiii. s. de dim. Mil.
et de i. tercia et de i. septima
parte Mil. de Novo feffamento.

The change thus made by the restless king was permanent in its effect, and thenceforth the only assessment recognized was that based upon the fees, which, by 1166, had been created de veteri and de novo.[174]

Before leaving the subject of this levy, there is one point on which I would touch. When we find, as we often do, that the sum paid in 1168 in respect of a fief does not tally with the number of fees recorded in the _cartae_, we must remember that in the _Liber Niger_ and _Liber Rubeus_ we have not the original _cartae_, but only transcripts liable to clerical error. Checking the _cartae_ by these payments, we constantly find cases in which the number of fees should be slightly greater than is recorded in the _carta_.[175] I suspect that the transcriber, in these cases, has omitted entries in the original _carta_, and this suspicion is strongly confirmed by the fact that where the original return enables us to test the transcript, we find in the great _carta_ for the honour of Clare that the original transcriber has omitted half a fee of William de Hastinges, has left out altogether the entry 'Reginaldus de Cruce, _dimidium militem_', and has changed the quarter fee of Geoffrey fitz Piers into half a fee; while in that of the Bishop of Chichester, Robert de Denton's half fee is converted into a whole one. The later (Red Book) transcriber has made a further omission.

Another source of discrepancy may be found in the dangerous resemblance of formulae. Thus the _carta_ of Ranulf fitz Walter records three and three-quarter fees duly accounted for. Yet his payment in 1168 is not £2 10s but £2 4s 5d. The explanation is that the holding was really three and one-third fees,[176] but the transcriber read 'iij[^{a.}] pars' (one-third) as 'iij. partes' (three-quarters).

How easily such errors arose may be seen in the elaborate entries on Simon de Beauchamp's fief. Here the formula 'decem denarios quando Rex accipit marcam de milite', correctly reproduced in the Black Book, becomes 'x. denarius', etc., in the Red Book. The former expression means '_tenpence_ in the marc' (_i.e._ one-sixteenth of a fee); whereas the latter is equivalent to '_the tenth penny_ in the marc' (_i.e._ one-tenth of a fee), and upsets the whole reckoning. The correct formula is a not uncommon one and should be compared with the 'de xx. solidis viii. denarios' (eightpence in the pound) which is given as the holding of two knights of the honour of Clare, and represents the thirtieth of a fee.[177]

Lastly, I think that, on further examination, there are three fiefs of which the _servitia debita_, though at first sight irregular,[178] may fairly be brought into line as multiples of the _constabularia_. That of Bohun, though implied by the _carta_ to be thirty and a half knights, paid in the fifth and eighth years on exactly thirty; that of Malet, though similarly given as twenty and one-sixth in the _carta_, is returned in the _Testa de Nevill_ as exactly twenty;[179] that of Beauchamp of Hacche, though distinctly given as seventeen in the _carta_, will be found, on careful collation of the rolls for 7 and 8 Hen. II, to be claimed by the exchequer as 17 + 3, _i.e._ 20.

Here also, perhaps, it may be allowable to glance at the foreign parallels to fiefs of sixty fees and smaller multiples of five. There is a charter of Charles the Fair (1322-28) 'qua Alphonsum de Hispania "Baronem et Ricum Hominem" Navarræ creat; et, ut Baronis et Rici Hominis statum manu tenere possit, eidem de gratia speciali 60 militias [knight's fees] in regno sua Navarræ concedit modo consueto tenendos et possidendos',[180] while an edict of earlier date proclaims: 'De Vasvassore [_i.e._ baron] qui _quinque milites_ habet, per mortem [? pro morte] ejus, emendetur 60 unciæ auri cocti, et per plagam [? pro plaga] 30, et si plures habuerit milites, crescat compositio sicut numerus militum.'[181]

IV. THE TOTAL NUMBER OF KNIGHTS DUE

'Ad hoc solicitius animum direxi ut per regna Angliæ debita Regi servitia militaria quatinus potui plenissime percunctarer.'[182] So writes Swereford, who proceeds to explain that neither the famous Bishop Nigel himself, nor his successor, Bishop Richard, nor William of Ely (_ut supra_) had left any certain information on the subject; while he (Swereford) could not accept the common belief that the Conqueror had created _servitia_ of knights to the amount of 32,000.[183] The cause of his failure is found in the fact that he confused two different things: (1) the _debita Regi servitia_, which formed the only assessment of fiefs down to 1166; (2) the assessment based on the _cartae_ of 1166, which superseded the _debita servitia_, and is not evidence of their amount.[184] But then, as I have already explained above, the exchequer official was concerned only with the actual claims of the crown; for him the original 'service due' had a merely academic interest.

There are two estimates for the total of which we are in search. One is 32,000 knights; the other 60,000.

'Stephen Segrave,' Dr Stubbs reminds us, 'the minister of Henry III, reckoned 32,000 as the number' (which confirms Swereford's statement); but he himself wisely declines to hazard 'a conjectural estimate',[185] adding that 'the official computation, on which the scutage was levied, reckoned in the middle of the thirteenth century 32,000 knights' fees, but the amount of money actually raised by Henry II on this account, in any single year, was very far from commensurate'. Gneist repeats this figure, but holds that 'as far as we may conjecture by reference to later statements, the number of shields may be fixed at about 30,000'.[186]

On the wondrous estimate of 60,000 I have more to say. Started by Ordericus,[187] this venerable fable has been handed down by Higden and others, till in the _Short History of the English People_ it has attained a world-wide circulation.[188] Dr Stubbs has rightly dismissed the statement 'as one of the many numerical exaggerations of the early historians';[189] but neither he nor any other writer has detected, so far as I know, the peculiar interest of the sum. What that interest is will be seen at once when I say that Ordericus, who asserts that the Conqueror had so apportioned the knight-service 'ut Angliæ regnum lx. millia militum indesinenter haberet' (iv. 7), also alleges that the number present at the famous Salisbury assembly (1086) was 60,000. It is very instructive to compare this 'body whose numbers were handed down by tradition as no less than sixty thousand',[190] with the 'sixty thousand horsemen'[191]--'ut ferunt sexaginta millia equitum'--of thirteen years earlier, and with the number of the Norman invaders, 'commonly given at sixty thousand',[192] of seven years earlier still. It is Ordericus, too, who states that the treasure in Normandy at the death of Henry I was £60,000. His father seems to have left behind him the same sum at Winchester, for, though the chronicle left the amount in doubt, 'Henry of Huntingdon,' Mr Freeman observed, with a touch of just sarcasm, 'knew the exact amount of the silver, sixty thousand pounds, one doubtless for each knight's fee'.[193] He also reminds us, as to the crusade of William of Aquitaine, that 'Orderic allows only thirty thousand. In William of Malmesbury they have grown into sixty thousand. Figures of this kind, whether greater or smaller, are always multiples of one another'.[194]

Pursuing the subject, we learn from Giraldus that the Conqueror's annual income was 60,000 marcs.[195] Fantosme speaks of marshalled knights as

_Meins de_ seisante mile, _e plus de seisante treis,_

and the author of the Anglo-Norman poem on the conquest of Ireland gives the strength of the Irish host, in 1171, as 60,000 men. Even 'Sir Bevis', if I remember right, slew in the streets of London 60,000 men; and Fitz Stephen asserts that, in Stephen's reign, London was able to turn out 60,000 foot.[196] It may, also, not be without significance that 60,000 Moors are said to have been slain at Navas de Tolosa, and that William of Sicily was said to have bequeathed to Henry II three distinct sums of 60,000 each.[197]

The fact is that 'sixty thousand' was a favourite phrase for a great number, and that 'sixty' was used in this sense just as the Romans[198] had used it in classical times and just as Russian peasants (I think I have read) use it to this day. The 'twice six hundred thousand men', who were burning to fight for England,[199] and the £180,000 (60,000 × 3) of Gervase (1159), are traceable, doubtless, to the same source.

How strangely different from these wild figures are the sober facts of the case! The whole of the church fiefs, as we have seen, were only liable to find 784 knights, a number which, small as it was, just exceeded the entire knight service of Normandy as returned in 1171. As to the lay fiefs it is not possible to speak with equal confidence. I have ventured to fix the approximate _quota_ of 104 (more or less), of which ninety-two are in favour of my theory: forty-eight fiefs, of five knights and upwards, remain undetermined.[200] If the average of knights to a fief were the same in the latter as in the former class, the total contingents of the lay barons would amount, apparently, to 3,534 knights; but, as the latter one includes such enormous fiefs as those of Gloucester and of Clare, with such important honours as those of Peverel and Eye, we must increase our estimate accordingly, and must also make allowance for fiefs omitted and for those owing less than five knights (which are comparatively unimportant).

Making, therefore, every allowance, we shall probably be safe in saying that the whole _servitium debitum_, clerical and lay, of England can scarcely have exceeded, if indeed it reached, 5,000 knights.

Indefinite though such a result may seem, it is worth obtaining for the startling contrast which it presents to the 60,000 of Ordericus, to the 32,000 of Segrave,[201] and to the 30,000 of Gneist. The only writer, so far as I know, who has approximated, by investigating for himself, the true facts of the case, is Mr Pearson;[202] but his calculations, I fear, are vitiated by the unfortunate guess that the alleged 32,000 fees were really 6,400 of five hides each. It is a hopeless undertaking to reconcile the facts with the wild figures of mediæval historians by resorting to the ingenious devices of apocalyptic interpretation.

V. THE NORMAL KNIGHT'S FEE

Much labour has been vainly spent on attempts to determine the true area of a knight's fee. The general impression appears to be that it contained five hides. Mr Pearson, we have seen, based on that assumption his estimate of 6,400 fees, and other writers have treated the fee as the recognized equivalent of five hides. The point is of importance, because if we found that the recognized area of a knight's fee was five hides, it would give us a link between the under-tenant (_miles_) and the Anglo-Saxon thegn. But, as Dr Stubbs has recognized, the assumption cannot be maintained; no fixed number of hides constituted a knight's fee.

The circumstance of a fee, in many cases consisting of five hides, is merely, I think, due to the existence of five-hide estates, survivals from the previous _régime_. We have an excellent instance of such fees in a very remarkable document, which has hitherto, it would seem, remained unnoticed. This is a transcript, in Heming's Cartulary, of a hidated survey of the Gloucestershire Manors belonging to the See of Worcester. I believe it to be earlier than Domesday itself, in which case, of course, it would possess a unique interest. Here are the entries, side by side, relating to the great episcopal Manor of Westbury (on Trym), Gloucestershire.

CARTULARY DOMESDAY

Ad _uuestbiriam_[203] pertinent Huesberie. Ibi fuerunt et sunt l.
l. hide. xxxv. hidas in dominio hidae.... De hac terra hujus
habe_t_[203] Manerii tenet Turstinus filius Rolf
episcopus, et milites sui habent v. hidas in Austrecliue et
xv. hidas. In icena_t_une v. Gislebertus filius Turold iii.
hidas, In com_t_una v. hidas, hidas et dimidiam jn Contone, et
In b_i_scopes s_t_oke v. hidas. Constantinus v. hidas jn
Icetune.... De eadem terra hujus
Manerii tenet Osbernus Gifard v.
hidae et nullum servitium facit....
Quod homines tenent (valet) ix.
libras.

The three five-hide holdings, we find, figure in both alike, but Gilbert fitz Thorold's holding of three hides and a half appears in addition in Domesday. The inference, surely would seem to be that Gilbert was enfeoffed between the date of the survey recorded in the Cartulary and the date of the Domesday Survey. If so, the former survey is, as I have suggested, the earlier; and in that survey we have the three tenants of five-hide holdings described _eo nomine_ as the bishop's _milites_.

In the _cartae_ of 1166 we have fees of 5 hides,[204] of 4,[205] of 6,[206] of 10,[207] of 2-1/2,[208] and even of 2;[209] also of 5 carucates,[210] of 11,[211] and of 14.[212] Cartularies, however, are richer in evidence of this discrepancy. Thus the six fees of St Albans contained 40 hides (an average of 6-2/3 hides each), the figures being 5-1/2, 7, 8-1/2, 6, 5-1/2, 7-1/2.[213] So too in the Abingdon Cartulary (ii. 3) we find four fees containing 19 hides, three containing 14, a half-fee 4, a fee and a half 13, one fee, 10, 5, 9. On the other hand, if we take 20 _librates_ as the amount of the fee--which it was already, as Dr Stubbs observes, in the days of the Conqueror--the _cartae_ confirm that conclusion.[214] We must therefore conclude that the knight's fee, held by an under-tenant, consisted normally of an estate, worth £20 a year, and was not based on the 'five hides' of the Anglo-Saxon system.

VI. THE EARLY EVIDENCE

We will now work upwards from the _cartae_ to the Conquest.

Allusions to early enfeoffment are scattered through the _cartae_ themselves. Henry fitz Gerold begins his return: 'Isti sunt milites Eudonis Dapiferi', and Eudo, we know, 'came in with the Conqueror'. We learn from another return (_Lib. Rub._, p. 397) that Henry I had given William de Albini, 'Pincerna, de feodo quod fuit Corbuchun xv. milites feffatos'. Now this refers to 'Robertus filius Corbution', a Domesday tenant in Norfolk. The _Testa_, again, comes to our help. Thus we learn from Domesday that Osbern the priest _alias_ Osbern the sheriff (of Lincolnshire) was William de Perci's tenant at Wickenby, co. Lincoln, but the _Testa_ entry (p. 338_a_) proves that William had enfeoffed him in that holding by the service of one knight.[215] So too Count Alan (of Brittany) had enfeoffed his tenant Landri at Welton in the same county for the service of half a knight (_ibid._, 338_b_), and we find his son, Alan fitz Landri, tenant there to Count Stephen, a generation later than Domesday, in the Lindsey Survey. The barony of Bywell in Northumberland, we read in the _Testa_(p. 392_a_), had been held by the service of five knights[216] since the days of William Rufus, who had granted it on that tenure.[217] After this we are not surprised to learn that the barony of Morpeth had been held 'from the Conquest' by the service of four knights, and that of Mitford as long by the service of five (_ibid._, p. 392_b_), or that those of Calverdon, Morewic, and Diveleston had all been similarly held by military service 'from the Conquest'. In Herefordshire, again, John de Monmouth is returned as holding 'feoda xv. militum a conquestu Anglie'.[218] So too Robert Foliot claims in his _carta_ (1166) that his predecessors had been enfeoffed 'since the conquest of England';[219] and William de Colecherche, that his little fief was 'de antiquo tenemento a Conquestu Angliae' (_L.R._, p. 400); Humphrey de Bohun enumerates the fees 'quibus avus suus feffatus fuit in primo feffamento quod in Anglia habuit' (_ibid._, p. 242), and refers to his grandfather's subsequent enfeoffments in the days of William Rufus (p. 244), while Alexander de Alno similarly speaks of sub-infeudation 'tempore Willelmi Regis' (p. 230). To take one more instance from the _cartae_, an abbot sets forth his _servicium_ due to Henry, 'sicuti debuit antiquitus regibus predecessoribus ejus' (p. 224). This brings us to the instructive case of Ramsey Abbey.

Dr Stubbs refers to a document of the reign of William Rufus as 'proof that the lands of the house had not yet been divided into knights' fees'.[220] But he does not mention the striking fact that the special knight service for which the abbot was to be liable is distinctly stated to have been that for which his 'predecessors' had been liable.[221] As this charter is assigned to 1091-1100, the mention of 'predecessors' would seem to carry back this knight service very far indeed. And we have happily another connecting link which carries downwards the history of this knight service, as the above-named charter carries it upwards. This is the entry in the Pipe-Roll of 1129-30:

Abbas de Ramesia reddit compotum de xlviij. li. xj. s. et
vj. d. pro superplus militum qui requirebantur de Abbatia (p.
47).[222]

Further, we have a notable communication to the abbot from Bishop Nigel of Ely, which must refer to the scutage of 1156 or to that of 1159 (probably the former):

Sciatis quod ubi Ricardus clericus[223] reddidit compotum de
scutagio militum vestrorum ad Scaccarium ego testificatus sum
vos non debere regi plusquam quatuor milites, et per tantum
quieti estis et in rotulo scripti.[224]

Lastly, we have the return in the Black Book (1166):

Homines faciunt iiii. milites in communi in servitium domini
regis, ita quod tota terra abbatiae communicata est cum eis
per hidas ad prædictum servitium faciendum.

Prof Maitland, writing on the Court of the Abbey of Ramsey, in the thirteenth century, observes that:

The Abbot is bound to provide four knights, and (contrary to
what is thought to have been the common practice) he has not
split up his land into knights' fees so that on every occasion
the same four tenants shall go to the war ... the process by
which the country was carved out into knights' fees seems in
this case to have been arrested at an early stage.[225]

The case of Ramsey was undoubtedly peculiar, but in the third volume of the Cartulary, now published, we have (pp. 48, 218) fuller versions of the Abbot's return in 1166. The second of these is specially noteworthy, and reads like a transcript of the original return.[226] Here we see separate knights' fees duly entered, with the customary formula 'debet unum militem'. But the service was certainly provided in 1166 and afterwards 'per hidas'. Further inquiry, therefore, is needed; but we have in any case, for Ramsey, a chain of evidence which should prove of considerable value for the study of this difficult problem.

The phenomenon, however, for which we have to account is the appearance from the earliest period to which our information extends of certain quotas of knight-service, clearly arbitrary in amount, as due from those bishops and abbots who held by military service. When and how were these _quotas_ fixed? The answer is given by Matthew Paris--one of the last quarters in which one would think of looking--where we read that, in 1070, the Conqueror

episcopatus quoque et abbatias omnes quae baronias tenebant,
et eatenus ab omni servitute seculari libertatem habuerant,
sub servitute statuit militari, inrotulans episcopatus
et abbatias _pro voluntate sua_ quot milites sibi et
successoribus suis hostilitatis tempore voluit a singulis
exhiberi (_Historia Anglorum_, i. 13).

This passage (which perhaps represents the St Albans tradition) is dismissed by Dr Stubbs as being probably 'a mistaken account of the effects of the Domesday Survey'.[227]

But the Abingdon Chronicle, quite independently, gives the same explanation, and traces the _quota_ of knights to the action taken by the Crown:

Quum jam regis edicto in annalibus annotarentur quot de
episcopiis quotve de abbatiis ad publicam rem tuendam
milites (si forte hinc quid causae propellendae contingeret)
exigerentur, etc.[228]

Moreover, the Ely Chronicle bears the same witness, telling us that William Rufus, at the commencement of his reign,

_debitum servitium quod pater suus imposuerat_ ab ecclesiis
violenter exigit.[229]

It also tells us that, when undertaking his campaign against Malcolm (1072), the Conqueror

jusserat tam abbatibus quam episcopis totius Angliae _debita
militiae obsequia_ transmitti;[230]

and it also describes how he fixed the _quota_ of knights due by an arbitrary act of will.[231] The chronicler, like Matthew Paris, lays stress upon the facts that (1) the burden was a wholly new one; (2) its incidence was determined by the royal will alone.[232]

Here, perhaps, we have the clue to the (rare) clerical exemptions from the burden of military tenure, such as the abbeys of Gloucester and of Battle.[233]

The beginnings of sub-infeudation consequent on the Conqueror's action are distinctly described in the cases of Abingdon and Ely, and alluded to in those of Peterborough[234] and Evesham. At the first of these, Athelelm

primo quidem stipendariis in hoc utebatur. At his sopitis
incursibus ... abbas mansiones possessionum ecclesiae
pertinentibus inde delegavit, edicto cuique tenore parendi de
suae portionis mansione.[235]

At Ely, the abbot

habuit ex consuetudine, secundum jussum regis, prætaxatum
militiae numerum infra aulam ecclesiae, victum cotidie de manu
celerarii capientem atque stipendia, quod intollerabiliter et
supra modum potuit vexare locum.... Ex hoc compulsus quasdam
terras sanctæ Ædeldredae invasoribus in feudum permisit tenere
... ut in omni expeditione regi observarent, [et] ecclesia
perpetim infatigata permaneret.[236]

For Canterbury we have remarkable evidence, not, it would seem, generally known. In Domesday, of course, Lanfranc's _milites_ figure prominently; but the absence of a detailed return in 1166 leaves their names and services obscure. Now in the Christ Church Domesday there is a list of the Archbishop's knights,[237] in which are names corresponding with those of his tenants in 1086. It can, therefore, be little, if at all, later than the Conqueror's reign. It is drawn up exactly like a _carta_ of 1166, giving the names of the knights and the service due from each. Its editor, instead of printing this important document in full, has, unfortunately, given us six names only, and--mistaking the familiar 'd[imidium]' and 'q[uarterium]' of the list for 'd[enarios]' and 'q[uadrans]'--asserts that the contributions of the knights are 'evidently ... expressed in terms of the shilling and its fractions',[238] thus missing the essential point, namely, that they are expressed in terms of knight service.

As Lanfranc had done at Canterbury, as Symeon at Ely, as Walter at Evesham, as Athelelm at Abingdon, so also did Geoffrey at Tavistock,[239] and so we cannot doubt, did Wulfstan at Worcester. The _carta_ of his successor (1166) distinctly implies that before his death he had carved some thirty-seven fees out of the episcopal fief. Precisely as at Ely, he found this plan less intolerable than the standing entertainment of a roistering troop of knights.[240]

The influence of nepotism on sub-infeudation, in the case of ecclesiastical fiefs, is too important to be passed over. On every side we find the efforts of prelates and abbots thus to provide for their relatives opposed and denounced by the bodies over which they ruled. The Archbishop of York in his _carta_ explains the excessive number of his knights: 'Antecessores enim nostri, non pro necessitate servitii, quod debent, sed quia cognatis et servientibus suis providere volebant, plures quam debebant Regi feodaverunt.' The Abbot of Ely, we are told by his panegyrist, enfeoffed knights by compulsion, 'non ex industria aut favore divitum vel propinquorum affectu'.[241] Abbot Athelelm of Abingdon, says his champion, enfeoffed knights of necessity;[242] but a less friendly chronicler asserts that, like Thorold of Peterborough, he brought over from Normandy his kinsmen, and quartered them on the abbey lands.[243] The Tavistock charter of Henry I restored to that abbey the lands which Guimund, its simoniacal abbot (1088-1102), had bestowed on his brother William. Abbot Walter of Evesham and his successor persisted in enfeoffing knights 'contradicente capitulo'.[244]

So, during a vacancy at Abbotsbury under Henry I, 'cum Rogerus Episcopus habuit custodiam Abbatiæ, duas hidas, ad maritandam quandam neptem suam, dedit N. de M., contradicente conventu Ecclesiæ'.[245] Henry of Winchester has left us a similar record of the action of his predecessors at Glastonbury.[246] His narrative is specially valuable for the light it throws on the power of subsequent revocation, perhaps in cases where the corporate body had protested at the time against the grant. Of this we have a striking instance in the grants of Abbot Æthelwig of Evesham, almost all of which, we read, were revoked by his successor.[247] Parallel rather to the cases of Middleton and Abbotsbury (_vide cartas_) would be the action of William Rufus during the Canterbury vacancy.[248]

It was to guard against the nepotism of the heads of monastic houses that such a clause as this was occasionally inserted:

Terras censuales non in feudum donet: nec faciat milites nisi
in sacra veste Christi.[249]

And by their conduct in this matter, abbots, in the Norman period, were largely judged. But this has been a slight digression.

Now that I have shown that in monastic chronicles we have the complement and corroboration of the words of Matthew Paris, I propose to quote as a climax to my argument the writ printed below. Startling as it may read, for its early date, to the holders of the accepted view, the vigour of its language convinced me, when I found it, that in it King William speaks; nor was there anything to be gained by forging a document which admits, by placing on record, the abbey's full liability.[250]

W. Rex. Anglor[um] Athew' abbati de Euesh[am] sal[u]tem.
Precipio tibi quod submoneas omnes illos qui sub ballia et
i[us]titia s[un]t quatin[us] omnes milites quo mihi debent
p[ar]atos h[abe]ant ante me ad octavas pentecostes ap[ud]
clarendun[am]. Tu etiam illo die ad me venias et illos quinque
milites quos de abb[at]ia tua mihi debes tec[um] paratos
adducas. Teste Eudone dapif[er]o Ap[ud] Wintoniam.[251]

Being addressed to Æthelwig, the writ, of course, must be previous to his death in 1077, but I think that we can date it, perhaps, with precision, and that it belongs to the year 1072. In that year, says the Ely chronicler, the Conqueror, projecting his invasion to Scotland, 'jusserat tam abbatibus quam episcopis totius Angliae debita militiae obsequia transmitti', a phrase which applies exactly to the writ before us. In that year, moreover, the movements of William fit in fairly with the date for which the feudal levy was here summoned. We know that he visited Normandy in the spring, and invaded Scotland in the summer, and he might well summon his baronage to meet him on June 3rd, on his way from Normandy to Scotland, at so convenient a point as Clarendon. The writ, again, being witnessed at Winchester, may well have been issued by the king on his way out or back.

The direction to the abbot to summon similarly all those beneath his sway who owed military service is probably explained by the special position he occupied as 'chief ruler of several counties at the time'.[252] We find him again, two years later (1074), acting as a military commander. On that occasion the line of the Severn was guarded against the rebel advance by Bishop Wulfstan, 'cum magna militari manu, et Ægelwius Eoveshamnensis abbas cum suis, ascitis sibi in adjutorium Ursone vicecomite Wigorniae et Waltero de Laceio cum copiis suis, et cetera multitudine plebis'.[253] The number of knights which constituted the _servitium debitum_ of Evesham was five then as it was afterwards, and this number, as we now know, had been fixed _pro voluntate sua_, in 1070, by the Conqueror.

We find allusions to two occasions on which the feudal host was summoned, as above, by the Conqueror, and by his sons and successors. William Rufus exacted the full _servitium debitum_ to repress the revolt at the commencement of his reign.[254] Henry I called out the host to meet the invasion of his brother Robert.[255] In both these instances reference is made to the questions of 'service due' that would naturally arise,[256] and that would keep the _quotas_ of knight service well to the front. That these _quotas_, however, as I said (_supra_, p. 205), were matter of memory rather than of record, is shown by a pair of early disputes.[257]

Let us pass, at this point, to the great survey. I urged in the earlier portion of this paper that the argument from the silence of Domesday is of no value. Even independently of direct allusions, whether to the case of individual holders, or to whole groups such as the _milites_ of Lanfranc, it can be shown conclusively that the normal _formulae_ cover unquestionable military tenure, tenure by knight service.[258]

An excellent instance is afforded in the case of Abingdon Abbey (fol. 258_b_-9_b_), because the _formulae_ are quite normal and make 'no record of any new duties or services of any kind'.[259] Yet we are able to identify the tenants named in Domesday, right and left, with the foreign knights enfeoffed by Athelelm to hold by military tenure,[260] owing service for their fees 'to Lord as Lord'. There are some specially convincing cases, such as those of Hubert, who held five hides in a hamlet of Cumnor,[261] and whose fee is not only entered in the list of knights:[262] but is recorded to have been given before Domesday for military service.[263] Another case is that of William _camerarius_, who held Lea by the service of one knight;[264] so too with the Bishop of Worcester's Manor of Westbury-on-Trym, where the _homines_ of Domesday appear as _milites_ in a rather earlier survey.[265]

Again, take the case of Peterborough. The Northamptonshire possessions of that house are divided by Domesday (fol. 221) into two sections, of which the latter is headed 'Terra hominum ejusdem ecclesiae', and represents the sub-infeudated portion, just as the preceding section contains the _dominium_ of the fief.[266] Here 'Terra hominum ejusdem' corresponds with the heading 'Terra militum ejus' prefixed to the knights of the Archbishop of Canterbury (fol. 4). The Peterborough _homines_ are frequently spoken of as _milites_ (fol. 221_b_, _passim_), and even where we only find such _formulae_ as 'Anschitillus tenet de abbate' we are able to identify the tenant as Anschetil de St Medard, one of the foreign knights enfeoffed by Abbot Turold.[267]

But it is not only on church fiefs that the Domesday under-tenant proves to be a feudal _miles_. At Swaffham (Cambridgeshire) we read in Domesday (fol. 196) 'tenet Hugo de Walterio [Gifard]'.[268] Yet in the earlier record of a _placitum_ on the rights of Ely, we find this tenant occurring as '_Hugo de bolebec_ miles _Walteri Giffard_', while in 1166 his descendant and namesake is returned as the chief tenant on the Giffard fief. The same _placitum_ supplies other illustrations of the fact.[269] The cases taken from the Percy fief and from the honour of Britanny afford further confirmation, if needed, of the conclusions I draw.[270]

It will startle the reader, doubtless, to learn that there is in existence so curious a document as a list of knights' fees drawn up in Old English. Headed 'these beth thare Knystene londes', etc., and terming a knight's fee a 'knystesmetehom', it has been placed by the Editors of the new _Monasticon_ (ii. 477) among documents of the Anglo-Saxon era, but belongs, I think (from internal evidence), to about the same period as the _cartae_ (1166). The original is extant in a Cartulary now in the British Museum.

VII. THE WORCESTER RELIEF (1095)

It was urged in the earlier part of this paper that Ranulf Flambard had been assigned a quite unwarrantable share in the development of feudalism in England. But so little is actually known of what his measures were that they have hitherto largely remained matter of inference and conjecture. It may be well, therefore, to call attention to a record which shows him actually at work, and which illustrates the character of his exactions by a singularly perfect example.

The remarkable document that I am about to discuss is printed in Heming's 'Cartulary' (i. 79-80).[271] It is therefore most singular that it should be unknown to Mr Freeman--to whom it would have been invaluable for his account of Ranulf's doings--as it occurs in the midst of a group of documents which he had specially studied for his _excursus_ on 'the condition of Worcestershire under William'.[272] It is a writ of William Rufus, addressed to the tenants of the See of Worcester on the death of Bishop Wulfstan, directing them to pay a 'relief' in consequence of that death, and specifying the quota due from each of the tenants named. The date is fortunately beyond question; for the writ must have been issued very shortly after the death of Wulfstan (January 18, 1095), and in any case before the death of Bishop Robert of Hereford (June 26, 1095), who is one of the tenants addressed in it. As the record is not long, and practically, as we have seen, unknown, one need not hesitate to reprint it.

W. Rex Anglorum omnibus Francis et Anglis qui francas terras
tenent de episcopatu de Wireceastra, Salutem. Sciatis quia,
mortuo episcopo, honor in manum meam rediit. Nunc volo, ut de
terris vestris tale relevamen mihi detis, sicut per barones
meos disposui. Hugo de Laci xx. libras. Walterus Punher xx.
libras. Gislebertus filius turoldi c. solidos. Rodbertus
episcopus x. libras. Abbas de euesham xxx. libras. Walterus
de Gloecestra xx. libras. Roger filius durandi [quietus per
breve regis][273] x. libras. Winebald de balaon x. libras.
Drogo filius Pontii x. libras. Rodbert filius Sckilin c.
solidos. Rodbert stirmannus lx. solidos. Willelmus de
begebiri xl. solidos. Ricardus & Franca c. solidos. Angotus
xx. solidos. Beraldus xx. solidos. Willelmus de Wic xx.
solidos. Rodbertus filius nigelli c. solidos. Alricus
archidiaconus c. solidos. Ordricus dapifer[274] xl. libras.
Ordricus blaca[275] c. solidos. Colemannus[276] xl. solidos.
Warinus xxx. solidos. Balduuinus xl. solidos. Suegen filius
Azor xx. solidos. Aluredus xxx. solidos. Siuuardus xl.
solidos. Saulfus xv. libras. Algarus xl. solidos. Chippingus
xx. solidos.

Testibus Ranulfo capellano & Eudone dapifero & Ursone de
abetot. Et qui hoc facere noluerit, Urso & bernardus sasiant
et terras et pecunias in manu mea.

The points on which this document throws fresh light are these. First, and above all, the exaction of reliefs by William Rufus and his minister, which formed so bitter a grievance at the time, and to which, consequently, Dr Stubbs and Mr Freeman had devoted special attention. On this we have here evidence which is at present unique. It must therefore be studied in some detail.

Broadly speaking, we now learn how 'the analogy of lay fiefs was applied to the churches with as much minuteness as possible'.[277] One of the respects in which the church fiefs differed from those of the lay barons was, that on the one hand they escaped such claims as reliefs, wardships and 'marriage', while, on the other, their tenants, of course also escaped payment of such 'aids' as those 'ad filium militem faciendum' or 'ad filiam maritandam'. In this there was a fair 'give and take'. But Ranulf must have argued that bishops and abbots who took reliefs from their tenants ought, in like manner, to pay reliefs to the crown. This they obviously would not do; and, indeed, even had they been willing, it would have savoured too strongly of simony. And so he adopted, as our record shows, the unwarrantable device of extorting the relief from the under-tenants direct. This was not an enforcement, but a breach, of feudal principles; for an under-tenant was, obviously, only liable to relief on his succession to his own fee.[278]