The Commune of London, and other studies

[1] Speech in the House of Commons (Times, 6th June, 1899).

[2] It is important to observe that the Pope’s letter of 20th September, 1172, contains an unmistakable reference to the (forged) Donation of Constantine in the words “Romana ecclesia aliud jus habet in Insula quam in terra magna te continua” (see p. 197 below). Dr. Zinkeisen, in his paper on “the Donation of Constantine as applied by the Roman Church,” speaks of this letter as “a genuine bull of Alexander III.” (‘English Historical Review,’ ix. 629), but strangely overlooks the allusion, and asserts that he could find no use made by the Popes of the forged Donation at this period.

[3] See Mr. Scargill-Bird’s ‘Guide to the Public Records.’

[4] ‘Feudal Aids’ (Calendars of State Papers, etc.), vol. i., pp. ix.-xi.

[5] Director of the Royal Historical Society; Lecturer on Palæography and Diplomatic at the London School of Economics, etc., etc.

[6] See pp. 131, 135, 283, etc., and Index.

[7] “The surrender of the Isle of Wight” (in ‘Genealogical Magazine,’ vol. i., p. 1) and “The Red Book of the Exchequer” (in ‘Genealogist,’ July, 1897).

[8] January, 1899 (xiv. 150–151). The first paper in my treatise deals with “the antiquity of scutage,” and contains further evidence for my contention that, contrary to the accepted view, this important tax was levied before the days of Henry II. Mr. Hall replied that it was “curious to find” me seriously citing “forgeries,” the evidence of which he ridiculed, without deigning to discuss them.

The “most conclusive document” (as I termed it) which I cited in my favour is a charter of the time of Stephen, which I printed in full in my treatise (pp. 8–9). Of this I need scarcely say more than that the authorities of the British Museum have now selected it for special exhibition among the most interesting of their charters, and have drawn particular attention to its important mention of scutage (see the official guide to the MSS., p. 40).

The value of Mr. Hall’s assertions, and the futility of his attempted reply, could hardly be more effectively exposed. I may add that I have still a few copies of my treatise available for presentation to libraries used by scholars.

[9] See Index.

[10] Archæological Review, iv. 235.

[11] Prefixed to the Domesday volume published by the Sussex Archæological Society.

[12] A generation later than Domesday we find lands at Broadhurst (in Horsted Keynes) given to Lewes Priory, which “usque ad modernum tempus silve fuerunt” (Cott. MS. Nero c. iii. fo. 217).

[13] Anglo-Saxon Britain, p. 30.

[14] Ibid. Dr. Guest suggested of Ælle, at the battle of Mercred’s Burn (485), that “on this occasion he may have met Ambrosius and a national army; for Huntingdon tells us that the ‘reges et tyranni Brittanum’ were his opponents.” But if the Saxon advance was eastwards, it could not well have brought them face to face with the main force of the Britons.

[15] English Village Community, pp. 126, 127, etc.

[16] Social England, i. 122 et seq.

[17] 2nd ed. p. 178.

[18] English Village Community, pp. 169, 170.

[19] He writes, of ing, that “Mr. Kemble had overlooked no less than 47 names in Kent, 38 in Sussex, and 34 in Essex” (ed. 1888, p. 82).

[20] The Lewes Priory Charters afford instances in point.

[21] Archæological Review, iv. 233 et seq.

[22] One would like to know on what ground the suffix “-well,” familiar in Essex (Broadwell, Chadwell, Hawkwell, Netteswell, Prittlewell, Ridgwell, Roxwell, Runwell), but curiously absent in Sussex, is derived from the Roman ‘villa.’ It is found in Domesday precisely the same as at the present day. Yet Professor Earle writes of “Wilburgewella” that it is “an interesting name as showing the naturalized form of the Latin villa, of which the ordinary Saxon equivalent was haga” (Land Charters, p. 130). This latter equation seems to be most surprising. It is traceable apparently to a charter of 855, in which we read of “unam villam quod nos Saxonice ‘an hagan’ dicimus” (Ib. p. 336), an obviously suspicious phrase. There is no ground for terming the ‘Ceolmundinge haga’ of a starred document (Ib. p. 315) a villa, while the ‘haga’ of another (Ib. p. 364) is clearly a haw, as in ‘Bassishaw.’ Yet another charter (Ib. p. 447) is not in point.

[23] But the more closely one investigates the subject the more difficult one finds it to speak with absolute confidence as to the original existence, in any given instance, of an ing in the modern suffixes -ingham and -ington.

[24] “It is probable that all the primitive villages in whose name the patronymic ing occurs were originally colonized by communities united either really by blood or by the belief in a common descent (see Kemble)”—Stubbs (Const. Hist). “Harling abode by Harling and Billing by Billing, and each ‘wick’ and ‘ham’ and ‘stead’ and ‘tun’ took its name from the kinsmen who dwelt together in it. In this way the house or ham of the Billings was Billingham, and the township of the Harlings was Harlington”—Green (‘Making of England,’ p. 188). “Many family names appear in different parts of England.... Thus we find the Bassingas at Bassingbourn.... The Billings have left their stamp at Billing, in Northampton; Billingford, in Norfolk; Billingham, in Durham; Billingley, in Yorkshire; Billinghurst, in Sussex; and five other places in various other counties. Birmingham, Nottingham, Wellington, Faringdon, Warrington, and Wallingford are well-known names formed on the same analogy.... Speaking generally these clan names are thickest along the original English coast, etc.”—Grant Allen (Anglo-Saxon Britain,’ p. 43).

[25] “The German theory, formerly generally accepted, that free village communities were the rule among the English, seems to have little direct evidence to support it” (Social England, i. 125).

[26] Ibid. i. 130; cf. Canon Taylor: “The Saxon immigration was doubtless an immigration of clans.... In the Saxon districts of the island we find the names not of individuals, but of clans.”

[27] The exceptions that he admits are too slight to affect this general statement.

[28] Stubbs, ut supra.

[29] Canon Taylor relies on the passage, “Ida was Eopping, Eoppa was Esing,” etc.

[30] Saxons in England, i. 449–456, where he treats such names as “Brytfordingas” as “patronymical.”

[31] Ed. 1888, p. 79.

[32] I do not overlook the possibility of ‘hall’ (hala) being a subsequent addition (as in post-Domesday times), but in these cases it was part of the name at least as early as the Conquest, and the presumption must be all in favour of the name being derived from an individual not from a clan.

[33] Saxons in England, i. 56.

[34] Ibid. i. 58 et seq.

[35] “Hence we perceive the value of this word [ing] as an instrument of historical research. For a great number of cases it enables us to assign to each of the great Germanic clans its precise share in the colonization of the several portions of our island.”

[36] Anglo-Saxon Britain, pp. 81–2.

[37] Heming or Haming was a personal name which occurs in Domesday, and which has originated a modern surname.

[38] Even by Kemble, as in ‘Saxons in England,’ i. 60–79; but he terms it a “slight” cause of inaccuracy.

[39] ‘Wihtmund minister’ is found in 938 (Earle’s ‘Land Charters,’ p. 326), and ‘Widmundesfelt’ in the earliest extant Essex charter (Ib. p. 13). It is, therefore, amazing that Professor Earle, dealing with the phrase “æt Hwætmundes stane” (Ib. p. 317), should have gone out of his way to adopt a theory started by Mr. Kerslake in the ‘Antiquary,’ connecting it with the “sculptured stone in Panier Alley,” writing: “If now the mund of ‘Wheatmund’ might be this mand [basket], then hwætmundes stane would be the stone of the wheatmaund, and the ‘antiquum petrosum ædificium’ may have been the block of masonry that was once the platform or basis of a market cross which had become the usual pitching-place of cereal produce” (Ib. p. 318). This is an admirable instance of that perverse Folk-etymology which has worked such havoc with our place-names. Morant’s derivation in the last century of ‘Widemondefort,’ from ‘a wide mound,’ is comparatively harmless in its simplicity.

[40] Calendar of Bodleian Charters, p. 80.

[41] ‘Ac’ was the Domesday equivalent of ‘oak.’

[42] Dorset Domesday, p. 57.

[43] So Kemble derived it from the “Færingas.”

[44] Saxons in England, i. 63.

[45] Saxons in England, i. 475.

[46] I have shown (‘Feudal England,’ 103–106) that the solanda of other counties is not (as Seebohm thought, following Hale) in any way the same as the sulung.

[47] See Earle’s ‘Land Charters,’ pp. 18, 24, 33, 49, 51, 54, 58, 60, 75, 78, 80, 82, 87, 95, 96, 100, 105, 124, 126, 133, 142, 152, 209.

[48] Ibid. pp. 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 20–24, 26, 29, 31, 40, 45, etc.

[49] Feudal England, pp. 421 et seq.

[50] English Historical Review, xi. 740, 741.

[51] Norm. Conq., iv. 56–7.

[52] According to the Peterborough Chronicle, he gave 40 marcs for this reconciliation.

[53] Norman Conquest, vol. iv., App. C.

[54] The italics are mine.

[55] English Historical Review, xii. 109, 110.

[56] Ibid.

[57] 5th Report Hist. MSS., i. 452.

[58] The italics are mine.

[59] Compare Dr. Sheppard’s remarks in 5th Report Hist. MSS., i. 452 a. It would take us too far afield to undertake the distinct task of reconciling the clause in A.I (Ibid.) with Lanfranc’s letter to the pope, which implies, as Mr. Freeman observes, that there was but one hearing, namely, that at Winchester (Norm. Conq., iv. 358). The clause in A.I asserts an adjournment of the hearing at Easter (Winchester), and a decision of the case at Whitsuntide (Windsor).

[60] I need not print the list, as it will be found in the ‘Monasticon,’ and in Kempe’s ‘Historical Notices of St. Martin’s le Grand,’ as well as in Mr. Stevenson’s paper.

[61] E. H. R., xii. 109 note.

[62] Norm. Conq., vol. iv., App. C.

[63] See ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville,’ p. 435. I do not guarantee the derivation.

[64] Mon. Ang., ii. 302.

[65] He is also clearly the “Eustachius de Huntedune” mentioned under Stamford (D. B. 336 b).

[66] Norman Conquest, vol. ii.

[67] Const. Hist., i. 243.

[68] pp. viii., 299.

[69] See for the above quotations my ‘Feudal England,’ pp. 346, 354–6.

[70] William was familiar with this formation, for he makes, Mr. Freeman wrote, Henry I. bid his English stand firm “in the array of the ancient shield wall.”

[71] Feudal England, p. 354.

[72] Norman Conquest (2nd ed., iii. 764).

[73] Miss Norgate recognises this as “the English shield wall” (‘England under the Angevin Kings,’ i. 292).

[74] Art of War, p. 26; History of the Art of War, p. 163.

[75] See, for these quotations, Freeman’s ‘Norman Conquest,’ iii. (2nd ed.), 491 (where he quotes parallels from Dion Cassius and Ammianus), and compare my ‘Feudal England,’ p. 358.

[76] History of the Art of War, p. 61.

[77] Ibid. p. 58.

[78] Ibid. p. 36.

[79] See above, p. 40.

[80] The italics are mine.

[81] The spissa testudo of Florence is “of course” conveniently ignored.

[82] “When the compact shield wall was broken, William thrust his horsemen into the gaps” (p. 300). Just so.

[83] ‘Athenæum,’ 6th Aug., 1898. Mr. Oman had previously tried to escape from his own words by pleading that “silence does not mean a change of opinion” (‘Academy,’ 9th June, 1894). But I had been careful to explain that I did not rely on his ‘silence,’ but on his actually substituting ‘shield wall’ for ‘palisades’ in the above reproduced sentence (‘Academy,’ 19th May, 1894). Similarly, Mr. Oman, as Col. Lloyd has observed (‘English Historical Review,’ x. 538), “takes a different view” of the English formation at Crecy in the latter of these two works from that which he had taken in the earlier, substituting a wholly different arrangement of the archers.

[84] Mr. Freeman wrote of a “fortress of timber” with “wooden walls,” composed of “firm barricades of ash and other timber” (see ‘Feudal England,’ p. 340). Mr. George emphatically rejected this conception (‘Battles of English History’).

[85] ‘Norman Conquest,’ iii. (2nd ed.), 476, faithfully reproducing Henry of Huntingdon’s “dudum antequam coirent bellatores.”

[86] Guy of Amiens describes him as “Agmina præcedens innumerosa ducis.”

[87] Art of War, p. 25.

[88] Social England, p. 299.

[89] Academy, 9th June, 1894.

[90] History of the Art of War, p. 154.

[91] Mr. Oman, in his latest work, makes “brushwood” the material. I had pointed out “the difficulty of hauling timber” under the circumstances (‘Feudal England,’ p. 342).

[92] English Historical Review, ix. 18; cf. ix. 10.

[93] Ibid. ix. 232, 237–8.

[94] History of the Art of War, p. vi.

[95] English Historical Review, ix. 239.

[96] Ibid. p. 14.

[97] See Feudal England, pp. 354–8, 392.

[98] Die Schlacht von Hastings (Berlin), 1896.

[99] Athenæum, July 30, 1898.

[100] Mr. Oman, for instance, writes of the English “ditch and the mound made of the earth cast up from it and crowned by the breastworks” (p. 154), although Mr. Freeman treated “the English fosse” as quite distinct from “the palisades, and at a distance from them” (‘English Historical Review,’ ix. 213). Mr. Archer has had to admit this.

[101] This is also the conclusion of Sir J. Ramsay.

[102] Feudal England, p. 361.

[103] Feudal England, pp. 354–358, 363, 367–8.

[104] Ibid. p. 358.

[105] Ibid. pp. 356–358.

[106] For further details on this subject, and a bibliography of the whole controversy, see ‘Sussex Archæological Collections,’ vol. xlii.

[107] “Lincoln Castle, as regards its earthworks, belongs to that type of English fortress in which the mound has its proper ditch, and is placed on one side of an appended area, also with its bank and ditch.... In general, these fortresses are much alike, and all belong to that class of burhs known to have been thrown up by the English in the ninth and tenth centuries” (Clark’s ‘Mediæval Military Architecture,’ ii. 192).

[108] 9th July, 1898.

[109] Mediæval Military Architecture, i. 24, 25.

[110] Athenæum, July, 1898.

[111] History of the Art of War, p. 525. The italics are mine.

[112] Athenæum, 30th July, 1898.

[113] Ibid., 6th August, 1898.

[114] Ibid., 13th August, 1898.

[115] The acting editor of the ‘Athenæum’ refused to insert my final reply explaining this.

[116] Appendix to ‘Ypodigma Neustriæ,’ p. 518.

[117] Flores Historiarum (Rolls), ii. 490.

[118] Ibid. p. 491.

[119] “Ipsi, obsidione turris fortissimæ, quam bellicis insultibus et machinarum ictibus viisque subterraneis expugnatam, fuissent in proximo adepturi, protinus dimissa, Londonias repetierunt” (‘Flores Historiarum,’ ii. 491). Compare ‘Ypodigma Neustriæ,’ p. 518.

[120] Archæological Journal, xx. 205–223 (1863).

[121] First in the ‘English Historical Review’ and then in my ‘Feudal England.’

[122] This was clearly the rule, though there may have been a few exceptions. Compare p. 155 below.

[123] Feudal England, p. 234.

[124] History of the Art of War, p. 359.

[125] Ibid.

[126] Domesday Book and Beyond, pp. 450, 451.

[127] History of the Art of War.

[128] Feudal England, p. 234.

[129] History of the Art of War, p. 360.

[130] History of the Art of War, p. 362.

[131] I use the term, for convenience, in 1168.

[132] “Habeo ij milites et dimidium feffatos de veteri feffamento” (‘Liber Rubeus,’ p. 292).

[133] I may add that Mr. Oman misquotes this carta in his endeavour to extract from it support for his error about the ‘five hides’ (p. 57 above). I place his rendering by the side of the text.

The words I have italicised are, it will be seen, interpolated.

[134] See also Eyton’s ‘History of Shropshire,’ i. 232, and the ‘Cartæ baronum’ (1166) passim.

[135] This allusion has perhaps been somewhat overlooked by legal historians.

[136] Curiosities and Antiquities of the Exchequer.

[137] “Videtur autem eis obviare qui dicunt album firmæ a temporibus Anglicorum cœpisse, quod in libro judiciario in quo totius regni descriptio diligens continetur, et tam de tempore regis Edwardi quam de tempore regis Willelmi sub quo factus est, singulorum fundorum valentia exprimitur, nulla prorsus de albo firmæ fit mentio” (‘Dialogus,’ I. vi.).

[138] Rot. magni Scacc. Norm., I. xv.

[139] The Foundations of England, i. 524; ii. 324.

[140] “Ubi cum per aliquos annos persedisset, comperit hoc solutionis genere non plene fisco satisfieri: licet enim in numero et pondere videretur satisfactum, non tamen in materia ... Ut igitur regiæ simul et publicæ provideretur utilitati, habito super hoc ipso regis consilio, constitutum est ut fieret ordine prædicto firmæ combustio vel examinatio” (‘Dialogus,’ I. vii.).

[141] “Libræ arsæ et pensatæ,” “Libræ ad arsuram et pensum,” “Libræ ad pensum et arsuram,” “Libræ ad pondus et arsuram,” “Libræ ad ignem et ad pensum,” etc.

[142] Even Sir James Ramsay, though rightly sceptical as to the attribution of certain innovations, by the writer of the ‘Dialogus,’ to Bishop Roger, holds that “the revenues of the Anglo-Saxon kings were to a considerable extent paid in kind; and so they were down to the time of Henry I., who abolished the practice, establishing money payments in all cases” (i. 525).

[143] Cf. p. 205.

[144] “Hiis vero solutis secundum constitutum modum cujusque rei, regii officiales computabant vicecomiti redigentes in summam denariorum: pro mensura scilicet tritici ad panem c hominum, solidum unum,” etc., etc.

[145] Compare my remarks on the quick growth, in those days of erroneous tradition, in ‘Studies on the Red Book of the Exchequer,’ p. 77.

[146] pp. 109–115. Professor Maitland has subsequently spoken of it in two or three passages of ‘Domesday Book and Beyond.’

[147] “The Conqueror at Exeter” (‘Feudal England’).

[148] D. B., i. 108.

[149] D. B., i. 108.

[150] Barnstaple rendered forty shillings ‘ad pensum’ to the king, and twenty ‘ad numerum’ to the bishop of Coutances; Lidford sixty ‘ad pensum’; Totnes “olim reddebat iii lib. ad pensum et arsuram,” but, after passing into private hands, its render was raised to “viii lib. ad numerum.” Exeter itself ‘rendered’ £6 “ad pensum et arsuram” to the king, and £12 ‘ad numerum’ for Queen Edith.