Feudal England - free ebook by John Horace Round

FEUDAL ENGLAND

HISTORICAL STUDIES ON THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES BY J. H. ROUND FIRST PUBLISHED 1895 Second impression 1909 Third impression 1909...

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PREFACE

The present work is the outcome of a wish expressed to me from more than one quarter that I would reprint in a collected form, for the convenience of historical students, some more results of my researches in the history of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But to these I have added, especially on Domesday, so much which has not yet seen the light, that the greater portion of the work is new, while the rest has been in part re-written. The object I have set before myself throughout is either t

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DOMESDAY BOOK

The true key to the Domesday Survey, and to the system of land assessment it records, is found in the Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis . Although the document so styled is one of cardinal importance, it has, from accident, been known to few, and has consequently never succeeded in obtaining the attention and scientific treatment it deserved. The merit of its identification belongs to Mr Philip Carteret Webb, who published in 1756 a paper originally read before the Society of Antiquaries, ent

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THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE GELD-ROLL

This remarkable document was printed by Sir Henry Ellis (1833) in his General Introduction to Domesday (i. 184-7) from the fine Peterborough Cartulary belonging to the Society of Antiquaries (MS. 60). I shall not, therefore, reprint it here, but will give the opening entry as a specimen of its style: This is unto Suttunes (Sutton) hundred, that is an hundred hides. So it was in King Edward's day. And thereof is 'gewered' one and twenty hides and two-thirds of a hide, and [there are] forty hides

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THE KNIGHTS OF PETERBOROUGH

( Temp. Henry I) The interesting 'Descriptio militum de Abbatia de Burgo' is found in the same MS. as the Northamptonshire Geld-roll. 1 It was printed by Stapleton in the appendix to his Chronicon Petroburgense (pp. 168-75), 2 but no attempt was made to date it. The name of Eudo Dapifer proves that it cannot have been compiled later than 1120. On the other hand, it cannot well be earlier than 1100, for some of the Domesday tenants had been succeeded by their sons—Robert (?) Marmion, for instance

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THE WORCESTERSHIRE SURVEY

( Temp. Henry I) We have, in the case of the see of Worcester, the means of testing some of the changes which took place among its tenants within a generation of Domesday. This is a survey of that portion of its lands which lay within the county of Worcester. Although printed by Hearne in his edition of Heming's Cartulary (fos. 141, 141 d ), it escaped notice, I believe, till I identified it myself in Domesday Studies (p. 546). As it follows immediately on the transcript of the Domesday Survey o

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THE LINDSEY SURVEY

(1115-18) This 'invaluable Survey', as Mr Stevenson has termed it, 1 might be described as a miniature Domesday for each of the Wapentakes in the three trithings into which Lindsey was divided. For although drawn up, Wapentake by Wapentake, as is the Leicestershire Survey, Hundred by Hundred, the lands within each Wapentake described are grouped under the names of the holders of fiefs, instead of being entered Vill by Vill. It was doubtless compiled, like other surveys, in connection with the as

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THE LEICESTERSHIRE SURVEY

(1124-29). Asserting the importance of the Lindsey Survey, Mr Chester Waters observed that 'this is the sole record of its kind which deals with the interval between the completion of Domesday in 1086, and the compilation of the Pipe-Roll of 1129-30, and that no similar return of the landowners of any other county is known to exist' (p. 2). And, indeed, it would seem that the survey to which I now address myself has hitherto remained unknown. It is found in the form of a late transcript on an un

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THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE SURVEY

( Hen. i-Hen. ii ) This 'Hydarium' of Northamptonshire is found in a Peterborough Cartulary (Cott. MS. Vesp. E. 22, fo. 94 et seq. ). It is drawn up Hundred by Hundred, like the surveys of Leicestershire and of Lindsey, and is, therefore, probably connected with the assessment of Danegeld. Although it is of special value for reconstituting the Domesday Vills, the assessment it records so often varies from that which is found in Domesday that we cannot institute a close comparison. The introducti

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THE INTRODUCTION OF KNIGHT SERVICE INTO ENGLAND1

'The growth of knighthood is a subject on which the greatest obscurity prevails; and the most probable explanation of its existence in England, the theory that it is a translation into Norman forms of the thegnage of the Anglo-Saxon law, can only be stated as probable.'— Stubbs , Const. Hist. , i. 260. In approaching the consideration of the institutional changes and modifications of polity resulting from the Norman Conquest, the most conspicuous phenomenon to attract attention is undoubtedly th

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NORMANS UNDER EDWARD THE CONFESSOR

It is probable that in spite of all the efforts of that school which found in Mr Freeman its ablest and most ardent leader, the 'fatal habit', as he termed it at the outset of his magnum opus 'of beginning the study of English history with the Norman Conquest itself', will continue, in practice, to prevail among those who have a choice in the matter. It was characteristic of the late Professor to assign the tendency he deplored to 'a confused and unhappy nomenclature', for to him names, as I hav

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MR FREEMAN AND THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS

Ὅταν ὁ ἰσχυρὸς καθωπλισμένος φυλάσσῃ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ αὐλήν, ἐν εἰρἑνῃ ἐστὶν τὰ ὑπάρχοντα αὐτοῦ. ἐπὰν δε ἰσχυρότερος αὐτοῦ ἐπελθὼν νικήσῃ αὐτόν, τὴν πανοπλίαν αὐτοῦ αἴρει ἐφ᾽ ᾗ ἐπεποίθει. It might well be thought the height of rashness to attempt criticism, even in detail, of Mr Freeman's narrative of the Battle of Hastings. For its story, as his champion has well observed, is 'the centre and the very heart of Mr Freeman's work; if he could blunder here in the most carefully elaborated passage of hi

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MASTER WACE

In discussing Mr Freeman's treatment of the great battle, we saw that the only passage he vouched for the existence of a palisade 1 consisted of certain lines from Wace's Roman de Rou , which he ultimately declared to be, on the contrary, a description of 'the array of the shield-wall'. 2 The question, therefore, as to their meaning—on which my critics have throughout endeavoured to represent the controversy as turning—did not even arise so far as Mr Freeman was concerned. Still less had I occas

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NOTE ON THE PSEUDO-INGULF

I owe to my friend Mr Hubert Hall the suggestion that the great battle described by the Pseudo-Ingulf as taking place between the English and the Danes in 870—and all accepted as sober fact by Turner in his History of the Anglo-Saxons —may be a concoction based on the facts of the battle of Hastings. This is also the theory Mr Freeman advanced as to Snorro's story of the battle of Stamford Bridge. The coincidence is very striking. In both narratives the defending force is formed with 'the dense

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REGENBALD, PRIEST AND CHANCELLOR

No better illustration could be given of the fact that valuable historical evidence may lurk, even in print, unknown, than the charters printed, from the Cirencester Cartulary, by Sir Thomas Phillips in Archæologia (1836). 1 One can imagine how highly prized they would have been by Mr Freeman, had he only known of their existence. Regenbald, of whom Sir Thomas would seem never to have heard, was the first Chancellor of England. 2 Mr Freeman called him, I know not on what authority, 'the Norman c

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THE CONQUEROR AT EXETER

'And y seide nay, and proved hit by Domesday.' 1 For a companion study to the Battle of Hastings, one could not select a better subject than the Siege of Exeter by William in 1068. It is so, because, in the tale of the Conquest, 'No city of England', in Mr Freeman's words, 'comes so distinctly to the front as Exeter': 2 and because, as editor of 'Historic Towns', he chose Exeter, out of all others, as the town to be reserved for himself. 3 'Its siege by William', we are told, 'is one of the most

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THE ALLEGED DESTRUCTION OF LEICESTER

(1068) This question was raised and discussed by Mr Freeman in his History of the Norman Conquest (iv. 196-7). We there read as follows: Is it possible that in the case of Leicester, at least, no power was left either to follow or to resist? While we have no evidence either way on which we can rely with confidence, one of those secondary and local records, which sometimes contain fragments of authentic tradition, suggests, in a perfectly casual way, that a doom fell upon Leicester, which might,

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ELY AND HER DESPOILERS

(1072-5) The elaborate record of this trial is only found, I believe, in the Trinity College (Cambridge) MS., O. 2, 1 (fos. 210 b -213 b ) from which it has been printed by Mr Hamilton in his Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis (pp. 192-5). This 'placitum', therefore, would seem to have remained unknown till the publication of that work (1876). The date of this important document can be fixed within a few years. It mentions Earl Waltheof among those before whom the plea was held, so that it can

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THE LORDS OF ARDRES

In the History of the Norman Conquest (2nd ed.) we read of Eustace of Boulogne: An incidental notice of one of his followers throws some light on the class of men who flocked to William's banners, and on the rewards which they received. One Geoffrey, an officer of the Abbey of Saint Bertin at Saint Omer, who had the charge of its possessions in the County of Guines, sent his sons, Arnold and Geoffrey, to the war ... and in the end they received a grant of lands both in Essex and in the border sh

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EARLY IRISH TRADE WITH CHESTER AND ROUEN1

The eighth report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts speaks of the records of the city of Chester as 'beginning with Henry the Second's writ of licence to the citizens of Chester to trade in Durham [ sic ] as they were wont to do in the time of Henry the First' (p. xv). The records themselves are similarly described in the actual report on them (pp. 355-403) as 'beginning with a curious writ, addressed by Henry the Second to his bailiffs of the city of Durham' [ sic ]. This, which

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WALTER TIREL AND HIS WIFE

In his detailed examination of all the evidence bearing on the death of William Rufus, the late Mr Freeman carefully collected the few facts that are known relative to Walter Tirel. They are, however, so few that he could add nothing to what Lappenberg had set forth (ii. 207) in 1834. He was, however, less confident than his predecessor as to the identity of Walter Tirel with the Essex tenant of that name in Domesday. I hope now to establish the facts beyond dispute, to restore the identity of W

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WALDRIC, WARRIOR AND CHANCELLOR

The importance of fixing the sequence of chancellors, for chronological purposes and especially the dating of charters, is very great. Waldric, who preceded Ranulf as chancellor to Henry I, was, as a warrior and then a bishop, a man of mark. It has hitherto been supposed, as by Mr Archer (who wrote his life for the Dictionary of National Biography ), that his latest appearance as chancellor was early in 1106, before the King's departure for Normandy. His feat in taking Duke Robert prisoner at Ti

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A CHARTER OF HENRY I (1123)

A good illustration of the value of charters for chronological and biographical purposes is afforded by one which Henry I granted to the church of Exeter. It is printed in the Monasticon under Plimpton, to the foundation of which priory it is asserted to have been preliminary. That foundation is assigned to 1121. The charter, however, is also found among those confirmed by Henry VIII (Confirmation Roll, i Henry VIII, p. 5, No. 13), with a list of witnesses arranged in correct order; whereas the

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THE ORIGIN OF THE NEVILLES

It is difficult to believe that so interesting a genealogical question as the origin of this famous house should have remained as yet undetermined. I have shown above (p. 137) that we can identify in Domesday Gilbert and Ralph de Neville, the earliest bearers of the name in England, as knightly tenants of the Abbot of Peterborough; but the existing house, as is well known, descends from them only through a female. It is at its origin in the male line that I here glance. The innumerable quarters

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THE ALLEGED INVASION OF ENGLAND IN 1147

When Mr Richard Howlett, in the preface to his edition of the Gesta Stephani for the Rolls series, announced that we were indebted to its 'careful author' for the knowledge of an invasion of England by Henry FitzEmpress in 1147, 'unrecorded by any other chronicler', and endeavoured at considerable length to establish this proposition, 1 it was received, from all that I can learn, with general incredulity. As, however, in the volume which he has since edited, he reiterates his belief in this alle

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THE ALLEGED DEBATE ON DANEGELD (1163)

The great importance attached by historians to the financial dispute at the council of Woodstock in 1163 renders it desirable that the point at issue should be clearly stated and understood. As I venture to believe that the accepted view on the matter in dispute is erroneous, I here submit the reasons which have led me to that conclusion. 'Two most important points,' writes Dr Stubbs, 'stand out' on this occasion: (1) 'this is the first case of any express opposition being made to the king's fin

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A GLIMPSE OF THE YOUNG KING'S COURT (1170)

The charter given below is cited by Madox as evidence that in the days of Henry II the exchequer was still 'sometimes holden in other places' than Westminster. Contrary to his usual practice, he does not print the charter; so, wishing to ascertain what light it might throw on the private transaction it records, I referred to its original enrolment. 1 Finding that its evidence would prove of some historical value, I decided to edit it for the use of students. 2 The purpose of the charter is soon

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THE FIRST KNOWN FINE (1175)

In his masterly introduction to Select Pleas of the Crown , 1 Professor Maitland, with his usual skill, discusses the evolution of the Curia Regis and the relation of the central to the itinerant courts. An appendix to this introduction is devoted to 'early fines'; and the conclusion arrived at, as to the date when regular fines began, is that 'the evidence seems to point to the year 1178 or thereabouts, just, that is, to the time when King Henry was remodelling the Curia Regis; thenceforward we

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THE MONTMORENCY IMPOSTURE

Many a jest has been levelled at the Irish family of Morres for seeking and obtaining permission from the Crown, some eighty years ago, to assume the glorious name of 'De Montmorency', in lieu of their own, as having been originally that of their family. 1 They have since borne, as is well known, not merely the name, but even the arms and the proud device of that illustrious house. Moreover, the introduction of the name Bouchard, borne by the present Lord Mountmorres, proves the determination of

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THE OXFORD DEBATE ON FOREIGN SERVICE (1197)

Great importance is rightly assigned to the first instances of 'a constitutional opposition to a royal demand for money', 1 of which the two alleged earliest cases are 'the opposition of St Thomas to the king's manipulation of the danegeld [1163], and the refusal by St Hugh of Lincoln to furnish money for Richard's war in France [1197]'. 2 These two precedents are always classed together: Dr Stubbs writes of St Hugh's action: The only formal resistance to the king in the national council proceed

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RICHARD THE FIRST'S CHANGE OF SEAL (1198)

With the superficial student and the empiric politician, it is too common to relegate the investigation of such changes to the domain of archæology. I shall not attempt to rebut the imputation; only, if such things are archæology, then archæology is history.— Stubbs , Preface to R. Hoveden , IV, lxxx. Historical research is about to pass, if indeed it is not already passing, into a new sphere—the sphere of Archæology. The central idea of that great advance which the present generation has witnes

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COMMUNAL HOUSE DEMOLITION

There was a strange custom peculiar to the ancient community of the Cinque Ports, which has not, so far as I know, been found elsewhere in England. If a member of any one of these towns was elected to serve as Mayor or 'Jurat' (the governing bodies consisting of a Mayor and twelve 'Jurats'), and refused to accept the office, his house was publicly demolished by the community. An extract from the Custumal of Sandwich, headed 'Pena maioris electi recusantis officium suum', will make the custom cle

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THE CINQUE PORTS CHARTERS

I have allowed the preceding paper to stand as it was written, in spite of the rejoinder by Professor Burrows, entitled, 'The Antiquity of the Cinque Ports Charters'. 1 So far as regards my French analogies, Professor Burrows adopts the argument that I have not proved a parallel sufficiently close and complete. But this does not meet my contention: (1) that in the Cinque Ports organization we find peculiar words and things; (2) that these peculiarities are not found elsewhere in England; (3) tha

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ADDENDA

Pages 20 , 107 . In case I should not have made sufficiently clear my views as to the filiation of the Domesday MSS., it may be well to explain that what I deny on p. 21 is that the Inq. Com. Cant. and the Inq. El. can both have been copied from a third document intermediate between them and the original returns. But, as I state on pp. 20 , 123 , it cannot be proved that the Inq. Com. Cant. was itself transcribed direct from the original returns, as it might, possibly, be only a copy of an earli

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