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.

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 2½,²⁰⁸ 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 6⅔ hides each), the figures being 5½, 7, 8½, 6, 5½, 7½.²¹³ 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

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. 338a) 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., 338b), 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. 392a), had been held by the service of five knights²¹⁶ 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. 392b), 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 clericus²²³ 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 Peterborough²³⁴ 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. 258b-9b), 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. 221b, 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)

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 and Franca c. solidos. Angotus xx. solidos. Beraldus xx. solidos. Willelmus de Wic xx. solidos. Rodbertus filius nigelli c. solidos. Alricus archidiaconus c. solidos. Ordricus dapifer²⁷⁴ xl. libras. Ordricus blaca²⁷⁵ c. solidos. Colemannus²⁷⁶ 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

It would be easy to assume that this was the abuse renounced by Henry I.²⁷⁹ But distinguo. The above abuse was quite distinct from the practice of annexing to the revenues of the crown, during a vacancy, the temporalities. This, which was undoubtedly renounced by Henry, and as undoubtedly resorted to by himself and by his successors afterwards, was, however distasteful to the church,²⁸⁰ a logical deduction from feudal principles, and did not actually wrong any individual. It could thus be retained when the crown abandoned such unjust exactions as the Worcester relief, and it afforded an excellent substitute for wardship, though practically mischievous in the impulse it gave to the prolongation of vacancies.

There are many other points suggested by the record I am discussing, but they can only be touched on briefly. It gives us a singularly early use of the remarkable term 'honour', here employed in its simplest and strictly accurate sense; the same term was similarly employed, we have seen, in the case of Abingdon (1097), where we also find the fief described as reverting to the crown vacante sede.²⁸¹ It further alludes to a special assessment by 'barons' deputed for the purpose; it affords a noteworthy formula for distraint in case of non-payment; and it gives us, within barely nine years of the great survey itself, a list of the tenants of the fee, which should prove of peculiar value.

If the sums entered be added up, their total will amount to exactly £250. It is tempting to connect this figure with a servitium debitum (teste episcopo) of fifty fees at the 'ancient relief' of £5 a fee; but we are only justified in treating it as one of those round sums that we find exacted for relief under Henry II, especially as its items cannot be connected with the actual knights' fees. The appended analysis will show the relation (where ascertainable) of sums paid to hides held.

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.

¹ Reprinted, with additions, from the English Historical Review.

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.

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.

⁴ Stubbs, servitia, i. 260-1. So too Freeman.

⁵ Stubbs, servitia, i. 261.

⁶ Ibid., i. 298.

⁷ Ibid., i. 298, 301.

⁸ Ibid., i. 300.

⁹ Select Charters, p. 96.

¹⁰ Norm. Conq., v. 380.

¹¹ servitia, i. 581.

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.'

¹³ Ibid., p. 374.

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.'

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.

¹⁶ N.C., v. 372; servitia, i. 261.

¹⁷ N.C., v. 373.

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.' (servitia, 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. (servitia, i. 130.)

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).

²⁰ N.C., v. 465.

²¹ N.C., v. 4.

²² Ibid., p. 42.

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'.

²⁴ Gneist, servitia, i. 132.

²⁵ Gneist, servitia, i. 118.

²⁶ Ibid., i. 156, 133, 124.

²⁷ Ibid., i. 130.

²⁸ Ibid., i. 156.

²⁹ Ibid., i. 133.

³⁰ Stubbs, servitia, 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).

³¹ Ibid., i. 262.

³² Ibid., i. 262.

³³ servitia, i. 386.

³⁴ Ibid., i. 581.

³⁵ Ibid., i. 264-5.

³⁶ Ibid., i. 432.

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).

³⁸ This argument, of course, applies, mutatis mutandis, to a five-hide unit as well.

³⁹ servitia, i. 265.

⁴⁰ Henry of Huntingdon (p. 207) speaks of the Domesday returns by the same name (cartae).

⁴¹ Domesday Book occupies a medial position, being arranged under counties, but within each county, under fiefs.

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.

⁴³ The bishop of 'Coventry' expresses it: 'numerum ... eorum si quos in dominio tenemus, et eorum nomina' (p. 263).

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'.

⁴⁵ Audivi praeceptum vestrum in consulatu Herefordiae.

⁴⁶ Audito praecepto vestro.

⁴⁷ Praeceptum vestrum, per totam Angliam divulgatum, per vicecomitem vestrum Northumberlande ad me, sicut ad alios, pervenit.

⁴⁸ Mandavit nobis ... Vicecomes Stephanus, ex parte vestra quatinus, etc.

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.

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.

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).

⁵² (1) Old feoffment, (2) new feoffment, (3) demesne.

⁵³ He and his successors are consequently found paying, time after time, on thirty-five fees.

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.

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.

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.'—servitia, i. 585.

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.

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.

⁵⁹ servitia, i. 264.

⁶⁰ See my papers on 'The House of Lords; the Transition from Tenure to Writ' (Antiquary, October and December 1884, April 1885).

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'.

⁶² Sometimes Exeter pays on 15½ (14, 33, Hen. II), but 17½ (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 7½ fees.

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.